FRAGMENT
II|
Theosophy Home Our Facebook Group |
1947
THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING HOUSE
First Edition, 1926 Second Edition, 1930 Third Edition, 1947
FOREWORD
CONTENTS
Foreword
Fragment I: The Voice of the Silence
1. The Preface
2. The Higher and the Lower Powers
3. The Slayer of the Real
4. The Real and the Unreal
5. The Warning Voice
6. Self and All-Self
7. The Three Halls
8. The World’s Mother
9. The Seven Sounds
10. Become the Path
11. The
12. The Last Steps
13. The Goal
Fragment II: The Two Paths
1. The Open Gate
2. Head-Learning and Soul-Wisdom
3. The Life of Action
4. The Secret Path
5. The Wheel of Life
6. The Way of the Arhat
Fragment III: The Seven Portals
1. The
2. Tuning the Heart
3. The First Three Gates
4. The Fourth Gate
5. The Fifth and Sixth Gates
6. The Seventh Gate
7. The Arya Path
8. The Three Vestures
FRAGMENT I
THE VOICE OF THE SILENCE
CHAPTER 1
THE PREFACE
1.
C.W.L. – Even from
the superficial and wholly physical point of view, The Voice of the Silence
is one of the most remarkable books in our Theosophical literature, whether
we consider its contents, its style, or the manner of its production; and when
we look a little deeper and call to our aid the power of clairvoyant
investigation, our admiration is by no means diminished. Not that we should make
the mistake of regarding it as a sacred scripture, every word of which must be
accepted without question. It is by no means that, for, as we shall presently
see, various minor errors and misunderstandings have crept into it; but anyone
who on that account regards it as unreliable or carelessly put together will be
making an even less excusable mistake in the opposite direction.
2.
Madame Blavatsky was always very ready to admit, and even to
emphasize, the fact that inaccuracies were to be found in all her works; and in
the early days, when we came across some especially improbable statement of hers
we not unnaturally laid it reverently aside as perhaps one of those
inaccuracies. It was surprising in what a number of such cases further study
showed us that Madame Blavatsky was after all correct, so that presently, taught
by experience, we grew much more wary in this matter, and learnt to trust her
extraordinarily wide and minute knowledge upon all sorts of out-of-the-way
subjects. Still there is no reason to suspect a hidden meaning in an obvious
misprint, as some too credulous students have done; and we need not hesitate to
admit that our great Founder’s profound knowledge in occult matters did not
prevent her from sometimes misspelling a Tibetan word, or even misusing an
English one.
3.
She gives us in her preface some information as to the origin
of the book – information which at first seemed to involve some serious
difficulties, but in the light of recent investigations becomes much more
comprehensible. Much of what she wrote has been commonly understood in a wider
sense than she intended it, and in that way it has been made to appear that she
put forward extravagant claims; but when the facts of the case are stated it
will be seen that there is no foundation for such a charge.
4.
She says: “The following pages are derived from The Book of
the Golden Precepts, one of the works put into the hands of mystic students
in the East. The knowledge of them is obligatory in that school the teachings of
which are accepted by many Theosophists. Therefore, as I know many of these
Precepts by heart, the work of translating has been relatively an easy task for
me.” And, further on: “The work from which I here translate forms part of the
same series as that from which the stanzas of The Book of Dzyan were
taken, on which The Secret Doctrine is based.” She also says: “The
Book of the Golden Precepts ... contains about ninety distinct little
treatises.”
5.
In early days we read into this more than she meant, and we
supposed that this work was put into the hands of all mystic students in
the East, and that “the school in which the knowledge of them is obligatory”
meant the school of the Great White Brotherhood itself. Hence when we met with
advanced occultists who had never heard of The Book of the Golden Precepts
we were much surprised and a little inclined to look askance at them and
doubt gravely whether they could have come altogether along the right lines, but
since then we have learnt many things, and among them somewhat more of
perspective than we had at first.
6.
In due course, too, we acquired further information about the
Stanzas of Dzyan, and the more we learnt about them and their unique position
the clearer it became to us that neither The Voice of the Silence nor any
other book could possibly have in any real sense the same origin as they.
7.
The original of The Book of Dzyan is in the hands of the
august Head of the Occult Hierarchy, and has been seen by none. None knows how
old it is, but it is rumoured that the earlier part of it (consisting of the
first six stanzas), has an origin altogether anterior to this world, and even
that it is not a history, but a series of directions – rather a formula for
creation than an account of it. A copy of it is kept in the museum of the
Brotherhood, and it is that copy (itself probably the oldest book produced on
this planet) which Madame Blavatsky and several of her pupils have seen – which
she describes so graphically in The Secret Doctrine. The book has,
however, several peculiarities which she does not there mention. It appears to
be very highly magnetized, for as soon as a man takes a page into his hand he
sees passing before his eyes a vision of the events which it is intended to
portray, while at the same time he seems to hear a sort of rhythmic description
of them in his own language, so far as that language will convey the ideas
involved. Its pages contain no words whatever – nothing but symbols.
8.
When we came to know this fully, it was somewhat startling to
find another book claiming the same origin as the sacred Stanzas, and our first
impulse was to suppose that some strange mistake must have arisen. Indeed, it
was this extraordinary discrepancy that first led to our investigating the
question of the real authorship of The Book of the Golden Precepts; and
when this was done, the explanation proved to be exceedingly simple.
9.
We read in the various biographies of Madame Blavatsky that she
once spent a period of some three years in
10.
This monastery is of great age. It was founded in the early
centuries of the Christian era by the great preacher and reformer of Buddhism
who is commonly known as Aryasanga. I think a claim is made that the building
had already existed for two or three centuries before His time; but, however
that may be, its history as far as we are concerned begins with His temporary
occupancy of it. He was a man of great power and learning, already far advanced
along the Path of Holiness; He had in a previous birth as Dharmajyoti been one
of the immediate followers of the Lord Buddha, and after that, under the name of
Kleinias, one of the leading disciples of our Master Kuthumi in His birth as
Pythagoras. After the death of Pythagoras, Kleinias founded a school for the
study of His philosophy at
11.
He was a voluminous writer: the principal work of His of which
we hear is the Yogacharya Bhumishastra. He was the founder of the
Yogacharya
12.
In the course of one of His great missionary journeys in His
life as Aryasanga He came to this Himalayan monastery and took up His abode
there. He stayed there for nearly a year, teaching the monks, organizing the
religion generally over a very large section of the country, and making this
monastery a kind of headquarters for the reformed faith, and He left upon the
place an impression and a tradition which last until the present time. Among
other relics of His is preserved a book, which is regarded with the greatest
reverence; and this is the scripture to which Madame Blavatsky refers as The
Book of the Golden Precepts. Aryasanga seems to have commenced it as a sort
of commonplace book, or a book of extracts, in which He wrote down anything that
He thought would be useful to His pupils, and he began with the Stanzas of
Dzyan – not in symbol, as in the original, but in written words. Many other
extracts He made – some from the works of Nagarjuna, as Madame Blavatsky
mentions. After His departure His pupils added to the book a number of reports
(or perhaps rather abstracts) of His lectures or sermons to them, and these are
the “little treatises” to which Madame Blavatsky refers.
13.
It was Alcyone, in His last life, who prepared and added to
The Book of the Golden Precepts the reports of the discourses of Aryasanga,
three of which form our present subject of study. So we owe this priceless
little volume to His care in reporting, just as in this life we owe to Him our
possession of the exquisite companion volume At the Feet of the Master.
That life of Alcyone began in A.D. 624, and was spent in
14.
It will be noticed that Madame Blavatsky speaks of translating the
precepts – a remark which raises some interesting questions, since we know that
she was unacquainted with any Oriental tongue except Arabic. The book is written
in a script with which I am unfamiliar, nor do I know what language is used. The
latter may be Sanskrit, Pali, or some Prakrit dialect, or possibly Nepalese or
Tibetan; but the script is not any of those now commonly employed to write those
languages. It is at any rate reasonably certain, that on the physical plane
neither script nor language can have been known to Madame Blavatsky.
15.
For one who can function freely in the mental body there are
methods of getting at the meaning of a book, quite apart from the ordinary
process of reading it. The simplest is to read from the mind of one who has
studied it; but this is open to the objection that one gets not the real meaning
of the work, but that student’s conception of the meaning, which may be by no
means the same thing. A second plan is to examine the aura of the book – a
phrase which needs a little explanation for those not practically acquainted
with the hidden side of things. An ancient manuscript stands in this respect in
a somewhat different position from a modern book. If it is not the original work
of the author himself, it has at any rate been copied word by word by some
person of a certain education and understanding, who knew the subject of the
book, and had his own opinions about it. It must be remembered that copying,
done usually with a stylus, is almost as slow and emphatic as engraving; so that
the writer inevitably impresses his thought strongly on his handiwork.
16.
Any manuscript, therefore, even a new one, has always some sort
of thought-aura about it which conveys its general meaning, or rather, one man’s
idea of its meaning and his estimate of its value. Every time the book is read
by any one an addition is made to that thought-aura, and if it be carefully
studied the addition is naturally large and valuable. A book which has passed
through many hands has an aura which is usually better balanced, rounded off and
completed by the divergent views brought to it by its many readers; consequently
the psychometrization of such a book generally yields a fairly full
comprehension of its contents, though with a considerable fringe of opinions
not expressed in the book, but held by its various readers.
17.
With a printed book the case is much the same, except that
there is no original copyist, so that at the beginning of its career it usually
carries nothing but disjointed fragments of the thoughts of the binder and the
bookseller. Also few readers at the present day seem to study so thoughtfully
and thoroughly as did the men of old, and for that reason the thought-forms
connected with a modern book are rarely so precise and clear-cut as those which
surround the manuscripts of the past.
18.
A third plan, requiring somewhat higher powers, is to go behind
the book or manuscript altogether and get at the mind of the author. If the book
is in some foreign language, its subject entirely unknown, and there is no aura
round it to give any helpful suggestion, the only way is to follow back its
history, to see from what it was copied (or set up in type, as the case may be)
and so to trace out the line of its descent until one reaches its author. If the
subject of the work is known, a less tedious method is to psychometrize that
subject, get into the general current of thought about it, and so find the
particular writer required, and see what he thinks. There is a sense in which
all the ideas connected with a given subject may be said to be local – to be
concentrated round a certain point in space, so that by mentally visiting that
point one can come into touch with all the converging streams of thought about
that subject, though of course these are linked by millions of lines with all
sorts of other subjects.
19.
Supposing her clairvoyant powers to have been at that time
sufficient, Madame Blavatsky may have adopted any of these methods of getting at
the meaning of the treatises from The Book of the Golden Precepts, though
it would be a little misleading to describe any of them as translations without
qualifying the statement. The only other possibilities are somewhat remote.
There is at present no one in that Himalayan monastery who speaks any European
language, but since it is probably at least forty years since Madame Blavatsky
was there, there must have been many changes. It is recorded that Indian
students have occasionally, though very rarely, come to drink from that fount of
archaic learning, and if we may assume that the visit of some such student
coincided with hers, it might also be that he happened to know both English and
the language of the manuscript, or at least the language of other inmates of the
monastery who could read the manuscript for themselves, and so could translate
for her.
20.
Strangely enough, there is also just a possibility that she may
have been taught in her own native tongue. In European Russia, on the banks of
the Volga, there is a fairly large settlement of Buddhist tribes, probably
Tartar in their origin; and it appears that these people, though so far removed
on the physical plane from
21.
In any case it is obvious that we must not expect an exact
verbal reproduction of what Aryasanga originally said to His disciples. Even in
the archaic book itself we have not His words, but His pupils’ recollection of
them, and of that recollection we have now before us either a translation of a
translation, or the recording of a general mental impression of the meaning. It
would of course be quite easy for one of our Masters or for the author himself
to make a direct and accurate translation into English; but as Madame Blavatsky
distinctly claims the work of translation as her own, this evidently was not the
plan adopted.
22.
At the same time, the account which we have from an eye-witness
of the speed with which it was written down, does certainly seem to suggest the
idea that some assistance was given to her, even though it may have been
unconsciously to herself. Dr. Besant writes on this subject:
·
She wrote it at
23.
Another possibility is that she may have done the translation
into English beforehand while at the monastery, and that at
24.
The six schools of Hindu philosophy to which she refers on the
first page of the preface are the Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Sankhya, Yoga, Mimansa and
Vedanta. She states that every Indian teacher has his own system of training,
which he usually keeps very secret. It is natural that he should keep it secret,
for he does not desire the responsibility of the results that would follow if it
were tried (as, if known, it certainly would be), by all sorts of unsuitable,
ill-regulated people. No real teacher in
25.
Our author tells us that if the systems of instruction differ
on this side of the
26.
The next paragraph in the Preface happens to contain two of the
trifling inaccuracies to which I have referred. Our author mentions “the great
mystic work called Paramartha, supposed to have been delivered to
Nagarjuna by the Nagas”. Nagarjuna’s great book was not called Paramartha, but
Prajna Paramita – the wisdom which brings to the further shore; bat it is
very true that the subject treated in that book is the paramartha satya, that
consciousness of the sage which vanquishes illusion. Nagarjuna, as already
mentioned, was one of the three great Buddhist teachers of the earlier centuries
of the Christian era; he is supposed to have died A.D. 180. He is now known to
Theosophists under the name of the Master Kuthumi. Exoteric writers sometimes
describe Aryasanga as his rival, but, knowing as we do their intimate relation
in an earlier birth in Greece, and now again in this present life, we see at
once that this cannot have been so. It is quite possible that, after their
death, their pupils may have tried to set up the teaching of one against that of
the other, as pupils in their undiscriminating zeal so often do: but that they
themselves were in perfect accord is shown by the fact that Aryasanga treasured
much of Nagarjuna’s work and copied it into his book of extracts for the use of
his disciples.
27.
It is not, however, certain that the Prajna Paramita was
the work of Nagarjuna, for the legend seems to be to the effect that the book
was delivered to him by the Nagas or serpents. Madame Blavatsky interprets this
as a name given to the ancient Initiates, and that may well be so, though there
is another very interesting possibility. I have found that the name of Nagas or
serpents was given by the Aryans to one of the great tribes or clans of the
Toltec sub-race of the Atlanteans, because they carried before them as a
standard when going into battle a golden snake coiled round a staff. This may
well have been some totem or tribal symbol, or perhaps merely the crest of a
great family. This tribe or family must have taken a prominent part in the
original Atlantean colonization of
28.
The Gnyaneshwari (transliterated Dhyaneshwart in
the first edition) is not a Sanskrit work, but was written in Mahrathi in the
thirteenth century of our era.
29.
On the next page we find a reference to the Yogacharya (or more
accurately Yogachara) school of the Mahayana. I have already mentioned the
attempt made by Aryasanga, but a few words should perhaps be said as to the
vexed question of the Yanas. The
30.
That it refers simply to the language in which the Law is
written, the Greater Vehicle being by this hypothesis Sanskrit, and the Lesser
Vehicle Pali – a theory which seems to me untenable.
31.
Hina may apparently be taken as signifying mean or easy, as
well as small. One interpretation therefore considers the Hinayana as the meaner
or easier road to liberation – the irreducible minimum of knowledge and conduct
required to attain it – while the Mahayana is the fuller and more philosophical
doctrine which includes much additional knowledge about higher realms of nature.
Needless to say, this interpretation comes from a Mahayana source.
32.
That Buddhism, in its unfailing courtesy towards other
religions, accepts them all as ways of liberation, though it regards the method
taught by its Founder as offering the shortest and surest route. According to
this view, Buddhism is the Mahayana, and the Hinayana includes Brahmanism,
Zoroastrianism, Jainism and any other religions which were existing at the time
when the definition was formulated.
33.
That the two doctrines are simply two stages of one doctrine –
the Hinayana for the Shravakas or hearers, and the Mahayana for more advanced
students.
34.
That the word Yana is to be understood not exactly in its
primary sense of “vehicle”, but rather in a secondary sense nearly equivalent to
the English word “career”. According to this interpretation the Mahayana puts
before a man the “grand career” of becoming a Bodhisattva and devoting himself
to the welfare of the world, while the Hinayana shows him only the “smaller
career” of so living as to attain Nirvana for himself.
35.
The Northern and Southern Buddhist Churches are related
somewhat as are the Catholics and Protestants among the Christians. The Northern
resembles the Catholic Church. It has added to the teachings of the Lord Buddha.
For instance, it adopted much of the aboriginal worship which it found in the
country – such ceremonies as those in honour of nature-spirits or deified forces
of nature. When Christian missionaries went among the Northern Buddhists, they
found ceremonies so similar to their own that they said it was plagiarism due to
the Work of the devil, and when it was conclusively proved that these ceremonies
antedated the Christian era, they said it was “plagiarism by anticipation “!
36.
In the Buddhist, as in all other scriptures, there are
contradictory statements; so the Southern Church has founded itself on certain
texts; anxious to avoid excrescences, it ignores the others, or calls them
interpolations. This has made it narrower in its scope than the
37.
Still, while the Southern Buddhists teach that only the karma
survives, they speak at the same time of the attainment of Nirvana; so that if
you ask a monk why he wears the yellow robe, he will answer you: “To attain
Nirvana,” and if you say: “In this life?” he will reply at once: “Oh, no, it
will need many lives.” So also, after every sermon that a monk preaches he
blesses his congregation with the words: “May you attain Nirvana”; and again, if
you asked him whether they could attain it in this life, he would say, “No, they
will need many lives.” So a practical belief in the continued existence of an
individual persists, in spite of the formal teaching to the contrary.
38.
Madame Blavatsky devotes a couple of pages to the question of
the various forms of writing adopted in the Himalayan monasteries. In Europe and
39.
If I take up a palm-leaf book in
40.
I remember an interesting illustration of her statement as to
one of the Chinese modes of writing. When I was in
CHAPTER 2
THE HIGHER AND THE LOWER POWERS
·
These instructions are for those ignorant
of the dangers of the lower Iddhi.
41.
C.W.L. – To this
opening sentence of the First Fragment there is a note by Madame Blavatsky as
fellows:
·
The Pali word Iddhi is the equivalent of
the Sanskrit Siddhis, or psychic faculties, the abnormal powers in man. There
are two kinds of Siddhis – one group which embraces the lower, coarse, psychic
and mental energies, while the other exacts the highest training of spiritual
powers. Says
·
“He who is engaged in the performance of
Yoga, who has subdued his senses and who has concentrated his mind in me [
42.
There is a vast amount of misunderstanding on this subject of
psychic powers, and it will save the student a great deal of trouble if he will
try to get a reasonable conception of it to begin with. First, let him not
attach a wrong interpretation to the word “abnormal”. These powers are abnormal
only in the sense that they are at present uncommon – not in the least in the
sense that they are in any way unnatural. They are perfectly natural to every
man – indeed they are latent in every man here and now; a few people have
developed them from latency into activity, but the majority have as yet made no
effort in that direction, and so the powers still remain dormant.
43.
The simplest way to grasp the general idea is to remember that
man is a soul, and that he manifests himself on various planes through bodies
appropriate to those planes. If he wishes to act, to see or to hear in this
physical world, he can do so only through a body made of physical matter.
Similarly if he wishes to manifest in the astral world, he must have an astral
vehicle, for the physical body is useless there and even invisible, just as the
astral body is invisible to our physical sight. In the same way a man who wishes
to live upon the mental plane must use his mental body.
44.
To develop psychic faculty means to learn to use the senses of
these different bodies. If a man can use only his physical senses, he can see
and hear only things of this physical world; if he learns to use the senses of
his astral body, he can see and hear the things of the astral world as well. It
is merely a matter of learning to respond to additional vibrations. If you will
look at the table of vibrations in any book of physics, you will see that a
large number of them evoke no response from us. A certain number appeal to our
ears, and we hear them as waves of sound; another set impress themselves upon
our eyes, and we call them rays of light. But in between these two sets, and
above and below them both, are thousands of other sets of oscillations that make
no impression at all upon our physical senses. It is possible for a man so to
develop himself as to become sensitive to all these undulations of the ether,
and of matter even finer than the ether; we call a man who has done that
clairvoyant or clairaudient, because he can see and hear more than the
undeveloped man can.
45.
The advantages of such an unfolding of the inner sight are
considerable. The man who possesses it finds himself free of another and far
wider world; or to speak more accurately, he finds that the world in which he
has always lived has extensions and possibilities of all kinds of which he has
previously known nothing. His studies may already have informed him of the
presence all round him of a vast and complicated non-physical life – of kingdoms
of devas and nature-spirits, of the enormous army of his fellow-men who have
laid aside their dense bodies in sleep or ‘in death, of forces and influences of
many sorts which can be evoked and used by those who understand them; but to see
all these things for himself instead of merely believing in them, to be able to
contact them at firsthand and experiment with them – all this makes life far
fuller and more interesting. He who can thus follow on higher planes the results
of his thought and action, becomes thereby a more efficient and more useful
person. The gain of such an unfoldment of consciousness is obvious; but what of
the other side of the story? Madame Blavatsky writes of the dangers of this
development, and of two kinds of it, a lower and a higher. Let us take this
latter point first.
46.
All information which reaches man from without comes to him by
means of vibrations. Vibrations of the air convey sounds to the ears, while
those of light bring sights to his eyes. If he sees things and creatures of the
astral and mental worlds, it can only be through the impingement of vibrations
of astral and mental matter upon the bodies respectively capable of responding
to them. For man can see the astral world only through the senses of his astral
body, and the mental world through those of his mental body.
47.
In each of these worlds, as in this, there are coarser and
finer types of matter, and, roughly speaking, the radiations of the finer types
are desirable, while those of the coarser kinds are distinctly undesirable. A
man has both kinds of matter in his astral body, and he is therefore capable of
responding to both the higher and the lower vibrations; and it is for him to
choose to which of them he will turn his attention. If he resolutely shuts out
all the lower influences, and accepts only the higher, he may be greatly helped
by them even at astral and mental levels. But Madame Blavatsky will have none of
these – not even as temporary aids; she groups them all together as “lower,
coarse, psychic and mental energies “ and urges us to sweep onward to far higher
planes which are beyond the illusions of the personality. She evidently regards
the dangers of ordinary psychic development as outweighing its advantages; but
as a certain amount of this development is sure to come, in the course of the
evolution of the disciple, she warns us of some points as to which extreme care
is necessary.
48.
In our own experience during the forty years that have elapsed
since Madame Blavatsky wrote this, we have seen something of these dangers in
cases of various students. Pride is the first of them, and it bulks very
largely. The possession of a faculty which, though it is the heritage of the
whole human race, is as yet manifested only very occasionally, often causes the
ignorant clairvoyant to feel himself (or still more frequently herself) exalted
above his fellows, chosen by the Almighty for some mission of world-wide
importance, dowered with a discernment that can never err, selected under
angelic guidance to be the founder of a new dispensation, and so on. It should
be remembered that there are always plenty of sportive and mischievous entities
on the other side of the veil who are ready and even anxious to foster all such
delusions, to reflect and embody all such thoughts, and to fill whatever role
of archangel or spirit-guide may happen to be suggested to them.
Unfortunately it is so fatally easy to persuade the average man that he really
is a very fine fellow at bottom, and quite worthy to be the recipient of a
special revelation, even though his friends have through blindness or prejudice
somehow failed hitherto to appreciate him.
49.
Another danger, perhaps the greatest of all, because it is the
mother of all others, is ignorance. If the clairvoyant knows anything of the
history of his subject, if he at all understands the conditions of those other
planes into which his vision is penetrating, he cannot of course suppose himself
the only person who was ever so highly favoured, nor can he feel with
self-complacent certainty that it is impossible for him to mistake. But when he
is, as so many are, in the densest ignorance as to history, conditions and
everything else, he is liable in the first place to make all kinds of mistakes
as to what he sees, and secondly to be the easy prey of all sorts of designing
and deceptive entities from the astral plane. He has no criterion by which to
judge what he sees, or thinks he sees, no test to apply to his visions or
communications, and so he has no sense of relative proportion or the fitness of
things, and he magnifies a copy-book maxim into a fragment of divine wisdom, a
platitude of the most ordinary type into an angelic message. Then again, for
want of common knowledge on scientific subjects he will often utterly
misunderstand what his faculties enable him to perceive, and he will in
consequence gravely promulgate the grossest absurdities.
50.
The third danger is that of impurity. The man who is pure in
thought and life, pure in intention and free from the taint of selfishness, is
by that very fact guarded from the influence of undesirable entities from other
planes. There is in him nothing upon which they can play; he is no fit medium
for them. On the other hand all good influences naturally surround such a man,
and hasten to use him as a channel through which they may act, and thus a still
further barrier is erected about him against all which is mean and low and evil.
The man of impure life or motive, on the contrary, inevitably attracts to
himself all that is worst in the invisible world which so closely surrounds us;
he responds readily to it, while it will be hardly possible for the forces of
good to make any impression upon him.
51.
But a clairvoyant who will bear in mind all these dangers, and
strive to avoid them, who will take the trouble to study the history and the
rationale of clairvoyance, who will see to it that his heart is humble and his
motives are pure – such a man may assuredly learn very much from these powers of
which he finds himself in possession, and may make them of the greatest use to
him in the work which he has to do.
52.
The siddhis are enumerated at considerable length in the third
chapter of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. He speaks of them as being
attained in five ways – by birth, by drugs, by mantras, by tapas, and by
samadhi.
53.
We have come to birth in a particular kind of body as the
result of our actions in previous incarnations, and if we find ourselves by
nature in the possession of psychic powers we may take it for granted that we
have worked for them in some way in previous lives. Many clairvoyants of the
present day, in whom the faculty has been easily awakened, but perhaps reaches
no great heights of spirituality, have been in such positions as those of the
vestal virgins of Greece and Rome, the minor yogis of India, or even the
medicine-men of various half-savage tribes or the “wise women” of the middle
ages; there has always been a very wide range in these matters.
54.
What will happen to such people, how their spiritual lives will
be shaped, depends largely upon those with whom it is their karma to come into
contact. If that karma is good enough to lead them to Theosophy, they will have
the opportunity of learning something about these dawning faculties, and of
being trained in its Esoteric School in the preliminary qualities of character
and purity of physical and magnetic life that are prescribed by all true
occultists, so that a little later on they may develop their psychic powers in
safety, and become of great service to mankind.
55.
If on the other hand they come into touch with the
spiritualistic school of thought, they are quite likely to find themselves
following a line which frequently results in passive mediumship, the very
opposite of what we are trying to attain.
56.
There are those who turn to pseudo-occultism for the attainment
of magical powers in order to gratify personal ambition. That path is full of
the most serious dangers. Sometimes such people sit in a passive condition and
invite unknown entities of the astral world to work upon their auras and
organisms and to adapt them to their purposes; sometimes they practise various
forms of Hatha-Yoga, consisting mainly of peculiar kinds of breathing, which
have unfortunately been widely taught in the Western world during the last
thirty years or so. As a result of such proceedings mental and bodily disorders
of a serious character often arise, while at best the contact which is gained
with the inner worlds seldom extends beyond the lower astral levels, from which
nothing can come that is uplifting to mankind.
57.
As to the second method – the use of drugs – there is a note by
Vyasa, in his commentary upon the Yoga Sutras, to the effect that these
are used “in the houses of the asuras” for the purpose of awakening the siddhis.
The asuras are the opposite of the suras, and the word may roughly be translated
as “the ungodly”; the suras are the beings on God’s side, those who work for His
plan of upward-evolving life.
58.
Patanjali does not recommend this method; he is merely
enumerating the ways in which the siddhis can be acquired. A study of the
Sutras shows very clearly that he favours only the last of his list of five
methods – that by means of samadhi or contemplation.
59.
We can understand to some extent the action of drugs on the
body, when they are used as a means of awakening psychic powers, if we remember
that in the fourth root race clairvoyance through the sympathetic nervous system
was quite common. Then the astral sheath, not yet properly organized into a body
or vehicle of consciousness, responded in a general way to the impressions made
upon it by the objects of the astral plane. Those impressions were then
reflected in the sympathetic centres in the physical body, so that consciousness
in that body received astral and physical impressions together, and often
scarcely distinguished between them. Indeed, in the earlier days of that race,
and in the Lemurian race, the activity of the sympathetic system was far greater
than that of the cerebro-spinal system, so that the astral experiences were more
prominent than the physical. But since then the cerebro-spinal system has become
the dominant mechanism of consciousness in the physical body, and man in
consequence has paid more and more attention to the physical-plane experiences,
as they have grown stronger and more insistent. Therefore the sympathetic system
as a purveyor of impressions has gradually lapsed, its business now being to
carry on in an involuntary manner many bodily functions to which the man need
not attend, because his life is mental, emotional and spiritual rather than
physical.
60.
The objection to the use of drugs, therefore, is not only that
they upset the healthy working of the body and bring the sympathetic system once
more into a prominence which it ought not to have, but even from the point of
view of the psychic powers attained they merely re-awaken that system and bring
again into the physical consciousness indiscriminate impressions from the astral
world. These come generally from the lower part of the plane, in which are
aggregated all the astral matter and all the elemental essence concerned with
exciting the lower passions and impulses. Sometimes they come from slightly
higher regions of sensuous delight, such as are described in the visions of the
Count of Monte Cristo in Dumas’ famous novel, or in De Quincy’s Confessions
of an Opium Eater; but these are scarcely better than the others.
61.
All that is entirely contrary to the plan of evolution laid
down for humanity. We are all intended to unfold clairvoyance and other cognate
powers, but not in that way. First there should be a development of the astral
and mental bodies, so that they may be definite vehicles of consciousness on
their own planes; then may come the awakening of the chakras in the etheric
double by means of which the valuable knowledge gained through those higher
bodies may be brought down to the physical plane consciousness. But all this
should be done only when and as the Master advises; remember, in At the Feet
of the Master the Teacher said: “Have no desire for psychic powers.”
62.
The third method mentioned is by the use of mantras. The term
mantra is applied to certain words of power which are used in meditation or in
ceremonial rites, and are often repeated over and over again. These are to be
found in Christian rituals as well as in the East, as has been explained in
The Science of the Sacraments. In many religions sounds are thus used, and
are associated with pictures, symbols, signs and gestures, and sometimes dances.
63.
The term tapas, used to describe the fourth method, is
often associated with ideas of extreme austerity and even self-torture, such as
the method of holding the arm extended until it withers, or lying on a bed of
spikes. These practices certainly develop the will, but there are other and
better ways of doing that. These Hatha Yoga schemes have the great demerit of
making the physical body useless for that service of humanity which is above all
other things important for the Master’s work. The will may be just as
effectively developed in dealing with the difficulties of life that come to us
by nature and through karma; there is no necessity to make trouble.
64.
In the Gita Shri Krishna speaks strongly against this
superstition. He says, “The men who perform severe austerities, which are not
prescribed by the Scriptures, wedded to vanity and egoism, impelled by the force
of their desires and passions, unintelligent, tormenting the aggregated elements
forming the body, and Me also, seated in the inner body – know these as
asuric in their resolves.”1
(1 Op. cit., xvii,
5-6.) Such antics cannot be the real tapas. The word means literally “heat”, and
perhaps the nearest English equivalent to that when it is applied to human
conduct is “effort”. The real meaning of the teaching with regard to it seems to
be: “Do for the body what you know to be good for it, disregarding mere comfort.
Do not let laziness, selfishness, or indifference stand in the way of your doing
what you can to make your personality healthy and efficient in the work that it
ought to be doing in the world.”2
(2 See Raja Yoga,
by Ernest Wood, p. 18.) Shri Krishna says in the Gita: “Reverence to the
Gods, the elders, the teachers and the wise, purity, straightforwardness,
continence and harmlessness are the tapas of the body; speech truthful,
pleasant and beneficial, and study of the sacred words are the tapas of
speech; cheerfulness, balance, silence, self-control, and being true to oneself
are the tapas of mind.”3
(3 Op. cit., xvii,
14-16.) These descriptions, given by one whom most of the Hindus regard as the
greatest incarnation of Deity, certainly do not indicate any of the dreadful
developments of which we sometimes see such sad examples.
65.
It is the fifth means, that of samadhi, that the Book of the
Golden Precepts advocates, and, as in the Yoga Sutras and other
standard works of the kind, this is preceded by dharana and dhyana, which are
commonly translated as concentration and meditation, while samadhi is
interpreted as contemplation. These one-word translations from the Sanskrit are,
however, often rather unsatisfactory; the Sanskrit words, coming down to us
through the ages, have acquired a marvellous complexity, have added to
themselves many fine shades of meaning which are not to be found in any modern
English expression. The only way really to understand them is to study the terms
in their context in the ancient books.
66.
The siddhis may be divided into two classes, not only as higher
and lower, but also as faculties and powers. The world acts upon us through the
senses, through our faculties of sight, hearing and the rest; but we also act
upon the world. This duality applies also with regard to super-physical
accomplishments. We receive impressions through the newly unfolded powers of our
astral and mental vehicles; but we can also act through them. It is usual in
Hindu books to speak of eight siddhis: (l) anima, the power to put
oneself in the position of an atom, to become so small as to be able to deal
with that tiny thing; (2) mahima, the power to be as if of monstrous
size, so as to deal with huge things at no disadvantage; (3) laghima, the
power to become as light as cotton borne on the wind; (4) garima, the
power to become as dense and heavy as anything can be; (5) prapti, the
power of reaching out, even as far as the moon; (6) prakamya, the will
power with which to realize all wishes and desires; (7) Ishatwa, the
power to control and create; and (8) vashitwa, the power of command over
all objects. These are called “the great powers”, but others are mentioned, such
as steadiness and effulgence in the body, control of the senses and appetites,
beauty and gracefulness, and so on.
67.
We students of these later days approach all these problems
from a point of view so totally different from that of the Hindu writers of
thousands of years ago, that it is sometimes difficult for us to understand
them. We are the product of our age, and the quasi-scientific training through
which we all pass makes it a mental necessity for us to try to classify our
knowledge. Each man endeavours to build for himself some kind of scheme of
things, however crude it may be, and when any new fact is presented to him he
tries to find a niche in his scheme for it. If it fits in comfortably he accepts
the fact; if he cannot make it fit in, he is quite likely to reject it, even
though it may come to him with the weightiest evidence. Though some people seem
capable of holding, quite happily, beliefs which are mutually contradictory,
there are others who cannot do this, and it is often a painful process for them
to reconstruct their thought-edifice to admit a new fact – so painful that they
not infrequently avoid it by conveniently forgetting or denying the fact. Our
ancient Indian brethren seem to me to have catalogued their observations and
left them there – to have made no special attempt to relate them to one another
or to classify them by the planes on which they occurred or the kind of faculty
which they required.
68.
We have no difficulty in recognizing the first and second
powers on this list of siddhis; they are instances of the alteration of the
focus of the conciousness; we sometimes call them powers of magnification and
reduction. They mean the adaptation of the consciousness to the objects with
which it has to deal – a feat which presents no difficulty to the trained
occultist, though it is not easy on the physical plane to explain exactly how it
is done. The third and fourth mention the possibility of becoming light or heavy
at will; this is achieved by the comprehension and use of the repulsive force
which is the opposite of gravity. I am not so sure about the fifth; it may
refer merely to the power of travelling in the astral body, since the limit
of astral migration is indicated by the mention of the moon; but I rather
suspect that it means the power of producing a definite result at a distance by
an effort of will. The sixth and eighth are only developments of will-power,
though very remarkable developments; the seventh is the same, with the addition
of the special knowledge required for the dematerialization and
rematerialization of objects. In this list there seems to be no direct reference
to clairvoyance at all, either in space or in time.
69.
It is to be noted that The Voice of the Silence does not
say that the lower iddhis, those belonging to the astral and mental
bodies, are to be neglected altogether; it merely points out that there are
serious dangers connected with them. We shall have to deal with them a little
further on, for he who would climb the ladder must step on every rung.
·
He who would hear the voice of Nada, the
“Sound-less sound,” and comprehend it, he has to learn the nature of Dharana.
70.
To this there are two footnotes, as follows:
·
The “Soundless Voice,” or the “Voice of
the Silence.” Literally perhaps this would read “Voice in the Spiritual Sound”,
as Nada is the equivalent word in Sanskrit for the Senzar term.
·
Dharana is the intense and perfect
concentration of the mind upon some one interior object, accompanied by complete
abstraction from everything pertaining to the external universe, or the world of
the senses.
71.
The word that is here translated concentration comes from the
root dhri, to hold. The word dharana, with a short final vowel, means
holding or supporting in general, but here we have a special feminine
substantive, with the long terminal vowel, as a technical term signifying
concentration or holding of the mind.
72.
It is described in some places as a kind of pondering or
dwelling upon a given thought or object, and it is said in the Hindu books that
meditation and contemplation will not be successful unless this is practised
first. It is obvious that while the mind is responding to the appeals of the
physical, astral and lower mental planes, it is not likely to hear the message
that the ego is trying to transmit to the personality from his own higher
planes.
73.
Concentration is requisite, that attention may be given to the
chosen object, not to the restless activity of the lower vehicles. It is usual
to begin the practice of concentration with simple things. On a certain occasion
some people came to Madame Blavatsky, and asked her upon what they should
meditate; she threw a matchbox down on the table, and said: “Meditate on that!”
It startled them somewhat, because they had expected her to tell them to
meditate upon Parabrahman or the Absolute. It is very important that this
concentration should be done without strain to the body. Dr. Besant has told us
that, when Madame Blavatsky first instructed her to try it, she began with great
intensity; but her teacher interrupted her, saying: “My dear, you do not
meditate with your blood-vessels! “
74.
What is required is to hold the mind quiet, so that one looks
at the object of thought with perfect calmness, just as one would look at one’s
watch to see the time, except that one keeps on looking for the length of time
prescribed or decided upon for the period of concentration. People often
complain of headaches and other pains as a result of meditation; there should
never be any such result; if they will take care to keep the physical body calm
and free from tension of any kind, even in the eyes, they will probably find
their concentration much easier and more successful, and free from physical
trouble and danger. Various books have been written on this subject, and some of
them offer exceedingly dangerous suggestions. Anyone wishing further information
on this should read Professor Wood’s book, Concentration – a Practical
Course, of which Dr. Besant wrote: “There is nothing in it which, when
practised, can do the striver after concentration the least physical, mental or
moral harm.”
75.
In her footnote, H.P.B. associates dharana with the higher
mental plane, for she says the mind must be fixed upon an interior object and
abstracted from the world of the senses; that is, from the physical, astral and
lower mental worlds. That is a prescription for the candidate who is already on
the Path, and is aiming at the samadhi of the nirvanic or atmic plane. But the
three terms concentration, meditation and contemplation are also used in a
general way. To fix one’s thought on a verse of scripture – that is
concentration. To look at it in every possible light and try to penetrate its
meaning, to reach a new and deep thought or receive some intuitional light upon
it – that is meditation. To fix one’s attention steadily for a time on the light
received – that is contemplation. Contemplation has been defined as
concentration at the top end of your line of thought or meditation. It is usual
for the Oriental student to begin his practice on some simple external object,
and from that to carry his thought inward or upward to higher things.
CHAPTER 3
THE SLAYER OF THE REAL
76.
Having become indifferent to objects of perception, the pupil
must seek out the Raja of the senses, the Thought-Producer, he who awakes
illusion.
·
The Mind is the great Slayer of the Real.
Let the Disciple slay the slayer.
77.
This refers to what has to be done during the practice of
concentration. In the Hindu books on the subject it is explained that prior to
the actual concentration the student who sits for the practice must withdraw his
attention from the objects of sensation; he must learn to take no notice of any
sights or sounds that may come within his range; he must not be attracted by
anyone or anything that comes within his view, or affects his sense of touch. He
will then be ready to observe what thoughts and feelings rise in the mind
itself, and to deal with them.
78.
As I have already explained, in most persons the mental and
astral bodies are in a constant state of activity, full of vortices, which must
be removed before real progress can be made. It is these that create the mass of
illusions which beset the average man, and render it exceedingly difficult for
him to get a true view of anything at all. It is an axiom of Shri
Shankaracharya’s teaching that just as the physical eye can see things well when
it is steady, but not when it is roaming about, so the mind can understand
things clearly when it is still. But if it is full of vortices they are sure to
distort the vision and so create illusion.
79.
The mind is called the raja or king of the senses. Sometimes it
is spoken of as one of them, as in the Gita:
·
A portion of Mine own Self transformed in the world of life
into an immortal Spirit, draweth round itself the senses, of which the mind is
the sixth, veiled in matter. (1
Op. cit., v, 7.)
80.
That the mind does act as a kind of sense is obvious, since it
corrects the evidence of the five senses and also indicates the presence of
objects beyond their reach; for example, when a shadow falls across your
threshold, you may infer that somebody is there.
81.
What is the mind, that has to be dealt with so severely
by the aspirant? Patanjali speaks of it when he defines yoga practice as
chitta-vritti-nirodha, which means restraint (nirodha) of the
whirlpools (vritti) of the mind (chitta). Among the Vedantins, or
in Shri Shankaracharya’s school, the term antahkarana is not used as we
generally employ it, but indicates the mind in its fullest sense. It means with
them literally the entire internal organ or instrument between the innermost
Self and the outer world, and is always described as of four parts: the
“I-maker” (ahamkara); insight, intuition or pure reason (buddhi); thought
(maims) and discrimination of objects (chitta). It is these last two that the
Western man usually calls his mind, with its powers of abstract and concrete
thought; when he thinks of the other processes he imagines them to be something
above the mind.
82.
The Theosophist ought to recognize in these four Vedantic
divisions his own familiar atma, buddhi, manas and the lower mind. Madame
Blavatsky called the last kama-manas, because it is the part of manas that works
with desire and is therefore interested in material objects.
83.
The three parts of the higher self are considered as three
aspects of a great consciousness or mind; they are all modes of cognition. Atma
is not the Self, but is this consciousness knowing the Self; buddhi is this
consciousness knowing the life in the forms by its own direct perception; manas
is the same consciousness looking out upon the world of objects, and kama-manas
is a portion of the last immersed in that world and affected by it. The true
self is the Monad, whose life is something greater than consciousness, which is
the life of this complete mind, the Higher Self. Therefore Patanjali and
Shankara are quite in agreement; it is the chitta, the kama-manas, the lower
mind, which is the slayer of the real, and has to be slain.
84.
Much that is now called the astral body by Theosophists must be
included in the Indian idea of kama-manas or chitta. Madame Blavatsky also
speaks of four divisions of the mind. First there is manas-taijasi, the
resplendent or illuminated manas, which is really buddhi, or at least that state
of man when his manas has become merged in buddhi, having no separate will of
its own. Then there is manas proper, the higher manas, the abstract thinking
mind. Then there is the antahkarana, a term used by Madame Blavatsky merely to
indicate the link or channel or bridge between higher manas and kama-manas
during incarnation. Finally there is kama-manas, which is on this theory the
personality.
85.
Sometimes she calls manas the deva-ego, or the divine as
distinguished from the personal self. Higher manas is divine because it has
positive thought, which is hriya-shahti, the power of doing things.
Really all our work is done by thought-power; the sculptor’s hand does not do
the work, but thought-power directing that hand does it. The higher manas is
divine because it is a positive thinker, using the quality of its own life,
which shines from within it; that is what is meant by the word divine, from
div, to shine. But the lower mind is only a reflector; like all other
material things, it has no light of its own; it is something through which the
light comes, or through which the sound comes – merely persona, a mask.
86.
The antahkarana is usually considered in the Theosophical works
as the link between the higher self or the divine ego, and the lower self or
personal ego. The chitta in that lower self puts it at the mercy of
things, so that our life down here may be compared to the experience of a man
struggling to swim in a maelstrom. But this will be followed sooner or later
after death by a period in the heaven-world. The man has been whirled about; he
has seen many things; he has not dwelt upon them, however, with a calm, steady
mind, but with kama-manas; therefore he has not understood their significance
for the soul. But in the heaven-world the ego can widen out the antahkarana,
because all is now calm; no new experiences are to be gathered. The old ones can
be quietly turned over and dwelt upon, and their essence taken up, as it were,
into the deva ego, as being of interest to him. So, very often, the ego
really begins his personal life-cycle with the entry into the heaven-world, and
pays a minimum of attention to the personality during its period of collecting
materials.
87.
In that case the aspect of mind that is antahkarana (in Madame
Blavatsky’s classification) functions but little before the period of the
heaven-life. But if a man is to become expert on the astral and mental planes
during the life of the physical body, he must bring the positive powers of the
higher self down through that channel, by the practice of dharana or
concentration, and so make himself entire master of his personality. In other
words he must clear out the astral and mental whirlpools. A man who is genius on
some line may find it easy to apply tremendous concentration to his particular
kind of work, but when he relaxes from that, his ordinary life may quite
possibly be still full of these whirlpools. That is not what we want; we are
aiming at nothing less than the complete destruction of the whirlpools, so as to
comb out the lower mind and make it the calm and obedient servant of the higher
self at all times.
88.
These whirlpools may and do constantly crystallize into
permanent prejudices, and make actual congestions of matter closely resembling
warts upon the mental body. Then if the man tries to look out through that
particular part of that body he cannot see clearly; everything is distorted, for
at that point the mental matter is no longer living and flowing, but stagnant
and rotten. The way to cure it is to acquire more knowledge, to get the matter
into motion again, and then one by one the prejudices will be washed away and
dissolved.
89.
It is in this way that the mind is the great slayer of the
real, for through it we do not see any object as it really is. We see only the
images which we are able to make of it, and everything is necessarily coloured
for us by these thought-forms of our own creation. Notice how two persons with
preconceived ideas, seeing the same set of circumstances, and agreeing as to the
actual happenings, will yet make two totally different stories from them.
Exactly this sort of thing is going on all the time with every ordinary man, and
we do not realize how absurdly we distort things. The disciple must
conquer this; he must “slay the slayer”. He must not of course destroy his mind,
for he cannot get along without it, but he must dominate it; it is
his, but it is not he, though it tries to make him think so. The best
way to overcome its wandering is to use the will; its efforts are just like
those of the astral body, which is always trying to persuade you that its
desires are yours; you must deal with them both in a precisely similar manner.
90.
Even when the whirlpools that fill the mind with prejudice and
error are gone, much illusion still remains. The translation of the Sanskrit
word avidya as ignorance is perhaps not very fortunate, though it is
universally accepted. So often in Sanskrit there are delicate shades of meaning
which it is difficult to convey in English. In this case perhaps what is
intended is not so much ignorance as unwisdom. A man may have vast stores of
knowledge, and yet be unwise, for knowledge is concerned with objects and their
relations in space and time, whereas wisdom is concerned with the soul or
consciousness embodied in those things. The wise politician understands the
people’s minds; the wise mother understands her children’s minds. However much
one may know about material things, if one has only the matter-sight and not the
life-sight, one has in reality only unwisdom or avidya. It is at the expense of
wisdom that intellect generally lives,” said Madame Blavatsky. Then, out of that
unwisdom or ignorance spring four other great obstacles to spiritual progress,
making five altogether, which are called the kleshas.
91.
If avidya be the first obstacle the second is asmita,
the notion that “I am this” or what a Master once called “self-personality”. The
personality is developed through life into quite a definite thing, with decided
physical, astral and mental form, occupation and habits; and there is no
objection to that if it be a good specimen. But if the indwelling life can be
persuaded to think that he is that personality, he will begin to serve
its interests, instead of using it merely as a tool for his spiritual purposes.
92.
In consequence of this second error men seek inordinate wealth
and power and fame. When a man looks over his country houses and his town
houses, his yachts and cars, his farms and factories, he swells with pride,
thinking himself great because he is called the owner of these things; or he
hears his name on everybody’s lips, and feels that thousands of people are
thinking of him with praise (or even with condemnation, for notoriety is often
pleasing to men who cannot attain fame) and he thinks himself a very great
person indeed. That is “self-personality”, one of the greatest superstitions in
the world, and a great source of trouble for one and all. The spiritual man, on
the other hand, counts himself fortunate if he can be the master of his own hand
and brain, and he wishes to hold the images of thousands of others in his own
mind that he may help them, rather than to rejoice in the thought that his image
is multiplied and magnified in their minds. Hence self-personality is the
greatest obstacle to the use of the personality by the higher self, and so to
spiritual progress.
93.
The third and fourth obstacles may be taken together. They are
raga and dwesha, liking and disliking, or attraction and
repulsion. These too spring from this same self-personality. That it should show
its likes is inappropriate; it is as though a motor-car should have a voice of
its own, and should raise it in great discontent when its master drives over a
broken road, or in a purr of delight when he goes over a good road. The road may
be a bad one for the car, but from the point of view of the driver it is a good
thing that there is a road at all, because he wants to get somewhere, which
would be a difficult matter without a road. It is nice to have our armchairs and
fires and electric light and steam heat, but he who would make progress has to
go over new country, sometimes materially, and always in thought and feeling.
People like the things that consort with their settled conveniences and habits;
anything that disturbs those is “bad”; anything that fits in with them and
enhances them is “good”. Such an outlook upon life does not harmonize with
spiritual progress; we do not refuse comfort when it comes, but we must learn to
be indifferent to it, and to take things as they come; this emphasis upon liking
and disliking must go, and the calm judgment of the higher self as to what is
good and what is bad must take its place.
94.
The fifth obstacle is abhinivesha, the outcome of the
last, the state of being fixed, settled in, attached to a form or mode of life,
or to the personality. From this arises fear of old age and of death – events
which can never exist for the man himself, but must come in due course to the
personality. A veritable death in life may arise but this fifth trouble; people
waste their youth in preparation for comfort and safety in age, and then waste
their age in seeking for their lost youth, or are afraid to use their bodies,
lest they should wear out. They are like a man who buys a beautiful motor-car,
and sits in his garage, enjoying his new possession, but unable to bring himself
to run it out on the road, lest it should be spoiled. Our business is to do what
the higher self wants, and to be utterly willing to die in his service if need
be.
95.
All the whirlpools arise from these five obstacles.
Concentration and meditation are the means to dispel them completely. When the
kama-manas no longer gravitates downwards, the manas can turn upwards, to become
manas-taijasi.
96.
Another Sanskrit word connected with this self-personality is
ntana, sometimes translated pride, but perhaps better rendered by
conceit. This root appears in the word nirmanakaya, which means a being
who is beyond this illusion – nirmana. Madame Blavatsky said that there
were three kinds or modes of incarnation; first, that of the avataras,
those who descend from higher spheres, having reached them in a cycle of
evolution prior to ours; secondly, those of an ordinary kind, when a person
passes through the astral and mental worlds and then takes up a new body; and
thirdly, that of nirmanakayas, who incarnate again without interlude,
sometimes perhaps after only a few days. In The Secret Doctrine she cites
the Cardinal de Cusa as an instance of this, he having been born again quickly,
as Copernicus; and she says that such rapid rebirth is not an uncommon thing.
She speaks of such people as adepts, not using the word quite as we employ it
now, but meaning that they are adept or expert on the astral and lower mental
planes; she says that they sometimes act as spirits at seances, and that they
are particularly opposed by the Brothers of the Shadow, presumably because of
the progress that they are making for themselves and also for mankind in
general.
97.
She explains that there are two kinds of nirnianakayas:
those who have renounced the heaven-world, as above explained, and those who at
a later and higher stage renounce what she calls absolute Nirvana, in order to
remain to help the progress of the world. Modern Theosophical literature
confines the term to this latter class, but here we are concerned with the lower
class. The man who has slain the slayer has largely destroyed the five
obstacles, and has become the servant of the higher self, with nothing in him
but what is favourable to its purposes. He has his antahkarana widened
out so that during his bodily life he is in full touch with the higher self, and
all the time that self is taking what it needs; the bee can visit the flower
when he will, for there is no storm raging; and when the physical body is dead,
the subtle part of the personality can be used again in the next incarnation,
because it is not full of whirlpools which represent fixed desires and rigid
opinions, and selfish habits of feeling and thought.
CHAPTER 4
THE REAL AND THE UNREAL
·
For when to himself his form appears
unreal, as do on waking all the forms he sees in dreams; when he has ceased to
hear the many, he may discern the One – the inner sound which kills the outer.
98.
C.W.L. – The simile
of dreaming and waking is frequently used in Oriental philosophy. It has its
use, but we must take care that it does not lead us into a misapprehension. When
we wake from an ordinary dream we realize that our senses have been deceived,
that what we thought at the time to be a real experience was in truth nothing of
the kind. But this is not exactly what happens when we wake to a perception of
spiritual reality. We awaken to a higher and broader life; we perceive for the
first time the crushing yet entirely unsuspected limitations under which we have
hitherto been living. But that does not mean that our life before that time was
nothing but a useless deception. The awakening to higher things causes our
previous state of mind to appear irrational, but, after all, it was only
relatively so. We were acting then according to our lights, upon such
information as we had; now we have so much more that all our lines of thought
and action are completely changed.
99.
Even the Vedantist does not deny that this physical plane dream
of ours has its value for the production of enlightenment. A man may dream that
a snake is threatening him, and be much alarmed thereby; at last in his dream
the snake strikes him, and with that shock he wakes, and is much relieved ‘to
find that the whole experience was an illusion. Yet it was the blow of the
illusory snake that awoke him to a more real life. Similarly, in the Gita,
Shri Krishna tells his pupil that wisdom is better than worldly goods,
because, he says, “All actions in their entirety culminate in wisdom.”1
(1 Op, cit., iv,
33.) That great Teacher did not deprecate a life of activity, but encouraged it
to the utmost; yet he said that one should not be attached to the activities and
the things with which they deal, but should seek only the wisdom that can be
obtained from them. It is in the wisdom that man has his own true being, as he
is a part of the Logos. If he listens to the voice of wisdom he will become
increasingly the master of himself and his life; the inner sound will thus put a
stop to the outer clamour which directs the feverish activities of ordinary men.
100.
It is very true that a man should cease to give his attention
to the many things which surround and play upon him, and should turn it inwards
to the one witness of all these things; but he is not entirely free to do this
until he has fully performed his dharma in the outer world. Any man at any time,
whatever his duties may be, may set his affection upon things above, and not
upon things of the earth. But he may not be at liberty to devote his whole life
to higher work until he has satisfied the demands of the karma which he has made
in past lives, or in the earlier part of his present life. He may certainly
feel vairagya, but while any physical duties still remain to him, he must
retain sufficient interest in them to do them as perfectly as they can be done.
101.
If his desire for liberation is strong enough, and unless his
karma places some insuperable obstacle in his way, he will probably find that
the path to freedom will soon open before him. I myself had an experience of
that kind; I received a message from my Master offering me certain opportunities
which I most thankfully accepted. But if that gracious offer had been made a
little earlier, I should have been unable to accept it, because I should not
have been free; there lay upon me a clear duty which I could not possibly have
neglected.
102.
Vairagya has two parts; there is the apara or lower
vairagya, and the para or higher vairagya.
103.
There are three stages in the abandonment of attachment to
external things. First, the man becomes tired of the things which used to give
him pleasure, yet he is sorry that he is tired of them; he desires still to
enjoy them, but he cannot. Then, because of that satiety, he seeks elsewhere for
satisfaction. Finally, when he has caught a clear glimpse of the higher things
bis spiritual desires awaken, and they prove so attractive to him that he thinks
of the others no more. Or else, having learnt of the existence of the higher
things and decided to follow them, he in the second stage either sets himself to
observe the defects of the lower things, so as to create a sort of artificial
disgust for them, or he fixes his will in rigid determination to reject their
attractiveness and starve out desire for them. Finally, as in the former case,
perhaps only after many fluctuations, the man sees the higher; he hears the
inner sound which kills the outer. Then he has the higher vairagya.
104.
In the middle stage of struggle, it often happens that the man
conceives a positive repugnance for the things of his erst-while pleasure; that
is usually a sign that he has only recently escaped from bondage to them and he
still fears their attractiveness; he feels that he is liable to be tainted by
their proximity, so he shudders and avoids them, or he attacks and tries to
destroy them with unreasoning vehemence. All these different aspects of the
second stage are forms of the lower vairagya.
·
Then only, not till then, shall he
forsake the region of Asat, the false, to come unto the realm of Sat, the true.
105.
Let us be careful here not to misunderstand. Many have supposed
that this passage implies that the lower planes are mere illusion, but that is
by no means what is intended. I have already Written on the real and the unreal
and have explained that each plane is real to the consciousness which functions
upon it.1 (1
“The occult Path and the interests of the World” in the first Volume of Talks
on the Path of Occultism.) What is true is that until a man is able to hear
the inner voice and to look upon life from the standpoint of the higher planes
he has no real grasp of the truth which lies behind all this complexity of
manifestation that surrounds us.
·
Before the Soul
can see, the harmony within must be
attained, and fleshly eyes be rendered blind to all illusion.
·
Before the Soul can
hear, the image (man) has to become as deaf to roarings as to whispers, to cries
of bellowing elephants as to the silvery buzzing of the golden fire-fly.
·
Before the Soul can
comprehend and may remember, she must unto the Silent Speaker be united, just as
the form to which the clay is modelled is first united with the potter’s mind.
106.
The harmony within is that between the ego and his vehicles,
and also, of course, between those vehicles themselves. In the average man there
is a perpetual strain going on between the astral body and the mental body,
between the desires and the mind; and neither of these bodies is in the least in
tune with the ego, or prepared to act as his vehicle. The personality must be
purified, and the channel between it and the ego must be opened and widened.
Until this is done the personality sees everything and everybody from its own
very limited point of view. The ego cannot see what is really going on; he
perceives only the distorted picture in the personality, which is like a camera
with a defective lens that distorts the light rays, and a faulty plate or film
which makes the result all blurred, indistinct and unequal.
107.
That is why in most people the ego cannot derive any
satisfaction from the personality until it is in the heaven-world. The ego knows
the true from the false, he recognizes the true when he sees it, and rejects the
false; but generally when he casts an eye downwards into the personality he
finds so crazy a confusion of inconsequent thought-forms that he can distinguish
nothing definite; he turns away in despair, and decides to wait for the quietude
of the heaven-world before attempting to pick the fragments of truth out of this
unseemly chaos. Under those more peaceful conditions, as the emotions and
thoughts of the recent physical life come up one by one and envisage themselves
in the vivid light of that world, they are examined with clear vision, the dross
is thrown away and the treasure is kept. The disciple must try to bring about
this condition while still in the physical body, by purifying the personality
and harmonizing it with the soul.
108.
The possibilities of personal error are almost infinite.
Suppose that a worm, a bird, a monkey, and a traveller simultaneously look at a
tree. The first will think of it as food, the second as a house, the third as a
gymnasium, the fourth as a kind of umbrella; the pictures will all be different
from one another, and different again from the tree’s conception of himself.
109.
While seeing has reference to looking outward, hearing refers
to what comes from within. The man must become quiet if he is to hear the still
small voice. Dharana or concentration will produce this quietness. If the soul
is to hear the inner voice with certainty and accuracy, the outer man must be
unshaken by all external things – by the clamour of the big breakers of life
that dash against him, as well as by the delicate murmur of the softer ripples.
He must learn to be very still, to have no desires and aversions.
110.
Intuition can scarcely ever be invoked except when the man is
utterly willing to receive its behests as the best and most acceptable guide,
without intruding his personal desires. It would be of little use to ask from
the intuition any solution of a problem of conduct, if at the same time the man
wished that the answer should be this or that. Except on rare occasions when it
is unusually strong, it is only when personal desires and aversions have ceased
to exist when the voice of the outer world can no longer command him, that a man
can hear the inner voice which should be his unfailing guide.
111.
Before the soul can fully comprehend the drift of all the
tuition which comes to him from without, and the intuition that comes from
within, another harmonizing process must take place, in which the manas
gradually becomes attuned to the will, which gives direction to his life.
112.
There are three stages in the development of consciousness. On
the probationary path the man’s highest consciousness works upon the higher
mental plane; after the First Initiation and until the Fourth, it is climbing
steadily through the buddhic plane; at the end of that stage it enters on the
atmic or spiritual plane. He has then become united with the will, the directing
agent, controller of his destiny. While in the middle stage he might have said:
“Thy Will, not mine, be done,” but now he says: “Thy Will and mine are one.”
Just as the design of the pot that is to be made is first in the potter’s mind,
and just as the model for a race of men is in the Manu’s mind, He having
received it from above, so is the goal of achievement for every one of us
already marked out by the Monad, and then brought down into the evolving life of
the conscious man by the spiritual principle within him.
113.
There is thus a reason for the use of the word soul in these
three verses. It is the soul that treads the path of progress, not the
personality. On the first half of the path it unites itself more and more
completely with the buddhi, forming the spiritual soul, manas-taijasi. But all
the work is done under the direction of the atma, the voice of the silence.
CHAPTER 5
THE WARNING VOICE
For then the Soul will hear, and will
remember. And then to the inner ear will speak
The Voice of the Silence,
and say:
114.
If thy Soul
smiles while bathing in the sunlight of thy life; if thy Soul sings within her
chrysalis of flesh and matter; if thy Soul weeps inside her castle of illusion;
if thy Soul
struggles to break the silver thread that
binds her to the Master; know, O disciple, thy Soul is of the earth.
115.
C.W.L. – In occult
books we have frequent reference to the voice of the silence, and we often find
that what is said in one place does not agree with what appears in others. In
the early days of the Society we used to puzzle over its exact significance,
trying to make it always mean the same thing. Only after much study did we
discover that the term is general. The voice of the silence for anyone is that
which comes from the part of him which is higher than his consciousness can
reach, and naturally that changes as his evolution progresses. For those working
with the personality the voice of the ego is the voice of the silence, but when
one has dominated the personality entirely and has made it one with the ego so
that the ego may work perfectly through it, it is the voice of the atma – the
triple spirit on the nirvanic plane. When this is reached there will still be a
voice of the silence – that of the Monad on the plane above. When the man
identifies the ego and the Monad and attains Adeptship, he will still find a
voice of the silence coming down to him from above, but then it will be the
voice, perhaps, of one of the Ministers of the Deity, one of the Planetary
Logoi, as They are called. Perhaps for Him in turn it will be the voice of the
Solar Logos Himself; and if even for Him there is such a thing as that, it must
be the voice of a higher Logos. But who can say?
116.
“The sunlight of thy life” refers to those periods in our
personal existence when fortune smiles upon us, and everything seems bright and
fair. The ego who basks in that pleasure, and mistakes it for the true happiness
of the higher self, has not yet the higher vairagya which kills the outer
sounds. In The Ancient Wisdom our President has explained how the man who
feels that nothing on earth can satisfy him, not even those things that give the
greatest delight to ordinary mortals, may through a strong but calm effort of
the will rise to and unite himself with the higher consciousness and find
himself free of the body; but that is only for those who obey the first
condition, who cannot be satisfied with anything less than that union.
117.
The three bodies, physical, astral and mental, which with their
habits constitute the personality, are in truth a chrysalis, in which a
butterfly is gradually being formed. In our present caterpillar state the soul
must be in the body and the world; yet it must not be of them; it must
not accept that life as its own, but must realize that it is independent of its
vehicles. Here again we must be careful not to misunderstand. It is indeed well,
it is even necessary that the soul should rejoice on its upward path, that it
should smile, that it should sing within its chrysalis; there is no harm in that
– there is even much good in it. What it must not do is to sing
because of the chrysalis, or of anything that happens to that outer shell.
It would be wrong, terribly wrong, that the soul should weep within its castle
of illusion, because depression and sadness are always wrong. But that, true as
it is, is not what is meant here. What Aryasanga is trying to tell us in His
graceful poetical language is that the soul must neither rejoice nor sorrow
because of anything whatever that is connected with the chrysalis or the castle,
or any outer form; it must be indifferent to that form, unaffected by what
happens to it. If it is not indifferent, it is still of the earth, still
entangled with this lower world, and so not yet ready for perfect freedom.
118.
All around us eternal change is taking place; but the soul must
press forward on its way resistless, undeterred by change, for to be influenced
by these outer things shows weakness. Remember how Shakespeare writes in his
Sonnets:
i.
When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defaced
ii.
The rich proud cost of outworn buried age
iii.
When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed,
iv.
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
v.
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
vi.
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
vii.
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
viii.
Increasing store with loss and loss with store;
ix.
When I have seen such interchange of state,
x.
Or state itself confounded to decay;
xi.
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate,
xii.
That Time will come and take my love away,
xiii.
This thought is as a death, which cannot choose
xiv.
But weep to have that which it fears to lose.
xv.
Since brass, nor stone nor earth, nor boundless sea.
xvi.
But sad mortality o’er-sways their power,
xvii.
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
xviii.
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
xix.
O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out
xx.
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
xxi.
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
xxii.
Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?1
· 1 Sonnets, xliv, xlv.
119.
But time is really the friend of the aspirant, for it is
precisely the finer, the higher, the inner things which are least subject to its
ravages. This truth the occultist learns as a matter of certain experience and
knowledge, so the changes in outside things at last come to trouble him not at
all.
120.
Silver is the thread – as befits an emblem of purity – that
binds the soul to the higher self; every traffic that the soul has with impurity
of body, emotions or thought, is a struggle to break that silver thread, a
temptation to ignore the still, small voice.
121.
Madame Blavatsky adds the following footnotes:
·
The
“great Master” is the term used by chelas to indicate the Higher Self. It is the
equivalent of Avalokiteshvara, and the same as Adi-Buddha with the Buddhist
occultists, Atma with the Brahmanas, and Christos with the ancient Gnostics.
·
Soul is used here for
the human Ego or Manas, that which is referred to in our occult septenary
division as the human Soul in contradistinction to the spiritual and animal
Souls.
122.
Madame Blavatsky here employs the word Master in an unusual
sense, saying that it is so used by the chelas or pupils. In later Theosophical
literature this title has been reserved for that limited number of members of
the Great White Brotherhood who accept pupils from among those who are still
living in the world. That number is small; it would seem that one Adept on each
of the rays is appointed to attend to that work, and all those who are coming
along His particular ray of evolution pass through His hands. No one below the
rank of Adept is permitted to assume full responsibility for a pupil, though
those who have held the position of pupil for a number of years are often
employed as deputies, and receive the privilege of helping and advising
promising young aspirants. These older pupils are gradually being trained for
their future work when they in turn shall become Adepts, and they are learning
to take more and more of the routine work off the hands of their Masters, so
that the latter may be set free for higher labours which only They can
undertake. The preliminary selection of candidates for chelaship is now left to
a large extent in the hands of these older pupils, and the candidates are
temporarily linked with such pupils rather than directly with the great Adepts.
But the pupils and the Master are so wonderfully one that perhaps this is almost
“a distinction without a difference”.
123.
The terms which Madame Blavatsky uses in these footnotes will
be better understood if we study a little the various trinities in the universe
and in man. It is in the experience of everybody that there is a duality of the
knower and the known, of the one who sees and the things that are seen, of the
subject and the object. This is the old division of the world of experience into
two parts, spirit and matter, using those words in a general or common sense.
Spirit or consciousness and matter are a pair of opposites – the spirit is an
active principle, the matter a passive one; the spirit has a centre but no
circumference, the matter has a circumference but no centre; the spirit is
self-moving, the matter is moved from outside. In these two we have also the
division of reality into the divine and the material; the free and the bound;
that which shines with its own light and that which has only reflected light.
124.
When one looks closer still, one sees that those two are
playing, as it were, on the stage in one’s presence, that they are not No. 1 and
No. 2 principles, as many people think, but they are No. 2 and No. 3; for the
one that now witnesses their interplay is No. 1. No. 2 is the God who is
seen, but No. 1 is the God who is the real Self, who is the cause of all the
interplay between No. 2 and No. 3.
125.
In Christian terminology, Christ is the God who is seen. “No
man hath seen God at any time.”1
(1 I John, 4, 12.) Yet
said Christ: “I and my Father are One.”2
2
126.
That brings us to the term Avalokiteshvara. This word is a
compound of avalokita (seen), and Ishvara (God, the Ruler). It thus means
the Higher Self in the duality of spirit and matter in the universe. “There are
three that bear record in heaven,” said S. John, “the Father, the Word and the
Holy Ghost.”3 (3
I John, 5, 7.) The Word, the Logos, Avalokiteshvara, is the Second. He is
the Christos, the God that is seen. This is the universal spirit, or purusha, as
distinguished from the matter, or prakriti. Man is consciousness looking at
matter, and this God is glorified or universal Man, the supreme subject. Analyze
yourself, and you will find the reflection of this – the inner God in yourself.
Still, that God that is seen only bears witness to the real Godwin man to the
Self, the “I” which embraces both the subject and the object.
127.
This “I” is not a new subject, witnessing the old subject and
object, put together and now made into one new compound object. It is “I” – that
is all there is to say. Every thinking man can look at his own body, and in some
cases his astral and mental bodies as well, and Call it “it”, that is, he can
look upon it as an object. He can also have a conception of the consciousness or
subject in his neighbour, and infer that it is of the same nature as that
consciousness (containing will, feeling and thought) which he finds in himself.
But on this point he now makes a great mistake, by giving two different
names to one thing – he calls the same thing “you” when he sees it in his
neighbour, but “I” when he looks at it in himself! Let him look upon the
consciousness or subject within himself (all of it) as he does upon that in
others, and call it “you”, regarding it as just one of the great sea of “yous”
that make up the Logos, as drops of water make up the ocean, and he will be
ready to transcend consciousness and reach the real “I”, the Self or God that is
not seen.1 (1
This argument is expounded in The Seven Rays, by Ernest Wood, Ch. xxi.)
The consciousness, the “you”, is a portion of Avalokiteshvara, the God that is
seen, the Christ, the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world,
just as much as the bodies are parts of the ocean of cosmic matter; and both
equally are not the Self. No one hath seen the supreme God at any time –
not even the Son.
128.
This trinity has been considered in various ways:
Avalokiteshvara has been described as follows by Swami T. Subba Rao:
“Parabrahman by itself cannot be seen as it is; It is seen by the Logos with a
veil thrown over it, and that veil is the mighty expanse of Cosmic Matter.” And
again: “Parabrahman, after having appeared on the one hand as the Ego, and on
the other as Mulaprakriti, acts as the one energy through the Logos.” The danger
of all such descriptions is immense; the use of the word “it” alone in this
connection can undo everything. In oneself deliverance, the truth, must
be sought – only I being I can solve this mystery, which is so easy, but that
people will not see. There is also the strongest objection even to the word God
as applied to Parabrahman – for to think of God is to think of the seen, that
is, of Avalokiteshvara; and that God is, after all, a “you”, or rather all
“yous”.
129.
The conception of a subject or “you” involves a time
limitation; that of an object or “it” involves a space limitation. But motion in
both time and space is a mystery. Some ancients argued that nothing could really
move, “because it cannot move in the space where it is, and it certainly cannot
move in the space where it is not.” But subjects can move in time, and objects
can move in space, because all move in Parabrahman. Both time and space are
secondary to motion, properly conceived.1
1 See The Seven Rays,
Ch, viii.
130.
“And these three are one.”2
(2 I John, 4, 12.)
Mulaprakriti, the root of manifestation, basic matter, external being, is not
something other than Parabrahman, but is the same, as seen through the time
limitations of consciousness. Parabrahman is beyond that time limitation, and
therefore seems to be still, and from that arises the appearance of space, the
characteristic of Mulaprakriti – which is in reality a space containing
everything which ever existed or will exist in all of the three periods of time
– past, present and future. Then universal consciousness, the great Man, also
called Daiviprakriti (the divine manifestation), as against Mulaprakriti (the
material manifestation), is Avalokiteshvara, the Ishvara or Ruler or God who
is seen, in contradistinction to Parabrahman, the first member of the
Trinity, who is not seen directly even by him.
131.
Now, in the higher triad in the consciousness of man we have a
reflection of this great Trinity. Therefore Madame Blavatsky says that the
Higher Self, by which she means buddhi or the intuitional love, is the
equivalent of Avalokiteshvara. Any confusion in thought of the universal
reality with atma, buddhi and manas – the three modes of consciousness in man –
would result in serious error, but there is an analogy between the two. The
great Trinity is reflected in man in various ways, and appears in one form in
those three aspects of his consciousness. So atma, buddhi and manas reflect in
their smaller sphere the characteristics of the universal trinity. Atma is the
consciousness of Self, and also the will, which gives self-direction. Manas, at
the other pole, is consciousness of the world, and its thought-power does all
our work, even that which is effected through the hands. But buddhi, between the
two, is the very essence of consciousness, of subjectivity. Thus the greater
Trinity is reproduced in the consciousness of the ego.
132.
Beyond this middle member, triple in character, is the Monad in
man, representative in him of Parabrahman, the state of his true and absolute
nirvana, beyond consciousness. The atma is the state of his false and relative
nirvana of the nirvanic plane, his last illusion, that persists between the
Fourth and Fifth Initiations. As the Monad lies above the trinity of
consciousness, so the personal bodies lie outside or beneath it – they are known
only in reflection in manas. On the first half of the Path (from the First to
the Fourth Initiation) the man is busy shaking himself free from those personal
limitations, from the illusion of “it”. On the second half he is engaged in
releasing himself from the illusion of “you”.
133.
There are still a few more points to consider in Madame
Blavatsky’s notes. Her reference to Adi-Buddha and Atma requires some comment,
though that to the Christos of the Gnostics will be abundantly clear from what
has been said above. The “Atma of the Brahmanas” is rather what the Buddhists
thought that the Brahmanas meant by the term (and what perhaps many of the
Brahmanas who missed the true point of their philosophy really did think); it is
that spiritual soul in man which the Buddha declared to be not utterly
permanent. Yes, even the Christ (the higher self) in man is at last mortal.
Beautiful and wonderful, and far beyond the vision of ordinary men as it lies,
it must at last give up its life, to be one with the Father. It is the “you”
masquerading as the “I” in spiritual men – just as, far earlier in evolution,
the absurd personality, the “it” pretended to be “I”. But when he says that
their belief in atma is wrong, the orthodox Buddhist has not understood the
height of true Brahmana thought, and especially the teaching on this point of
Shri Shankaracharya, who was really one with the Buddha in His anatma doctrine,
because by atma He meant the Monad, the indescribable Parabrahmic aspect of man.
The Buddha saw that people called “you” the atma, the Self, and tried to
dislodge them from that error by saying that what they called “I” was
perishable.
134.
In the foot-note Madame Blavatsky says that Avalokiteshvara is
the same as Adi-Buddha. She amplifies her statement on the subject in The
Secret Doctrine, as follows:
·
In the esoteric, and even exoteric Buddhism of the North,
Adi-Buddha, ... the One Unknown, without beginning or end, identical with
Parabrahman, emits a bright Ray from its Darkness. This is the Logos, the First,
or Vajradhara, the Supreme Buddha, also called Dorjechang. As the Lord of all
Mysteries he cannot manifest, but sends into the world of manifestation his
Heart – the “Diamond Heart,” Vajrasattva or Dorjesempa. This is the Second Logos
of Creation.1 1
Op. cit.. Vol. I, p. 624.
135.
In this extract she clearly shows that the First and Second
Logos are respectively Adi-Buddha and Avalokiteshvara, for the latter is the
same as Vajrasattva. Therefore when she speaks of them as one it can only be as
the Christians speak of the Christ as one with the Father. I wrote as follows on
this subject in The Inner Life, Section II:
·
There has been much discussion as to the exact meaning of the
terms Adi-Buddha and Avalokiteshvara. I have made no special study of these
things from the philosophical standpoint, but so far as I have been able to
gather ideas from discussion of the matter with the living exponents of the
religion, Adi-Buddha seems to be the culmination of one of the great lines of
superhuman development – what might be called the abstract principle of all the
Buddhas. Avalokiteshvara is a term belonging to the
136.
We have already seen that by the term Higher Self Madame
Blavatsky means the buddhi in man, the central member of the trinity of his
immortal consciousness. That is the wisdom in man. But it is a reflection of the
universal wisdom, without which there could be no human wisdom. Similarly,
without the Dhyani-Buddha Avalokiteshvara, “the centre of energy” of the
ultimate wisdom, Adi-Buddha, no human Buddha could become. The Illumination of
the sage Gautama was therefore not essentially the flowering of a man into a
god, but the union of a perfected human consciousness with the wisdom of the
Logos.
137.
The second of the foot-notes under consideration speaks not
only of the manas as the human Soul, but refers also to the animal soul in man.
This is the lower manas, the kama-manas. On its plane reside the group-souls of
animals, while those of the vegetable kingdom are on the plane beneath it, and
those of the mineral lower still. To these meanings of the terms Soul, Higher
Self, etc., Madame Blavatsky keeps with perfect consistency right through the
book.
CHAPTER 6
SELF AND ALL-SELF
·
When to the world’s turmoil thy budding
Soul lends ear; when to the roaring voice of the great illusion thy soul
responds; when frightened at the sight of the hot tears of pain, when deafened
by the cries of distress, thy Soul withdraws like the shy turtle within the
carapace of selfhood, learn, O disciple, of her silent God thy Soul is an
unworthy shrine.
·
When waxing stronger, thy Soul glides
forth from her secure retreat; and breaking loose from the protecting shrine,
extends her silver thread and rushes onward; when beholding her image on the
waves of space she whispers. “This is I” – declare, O disciple, that thy Soul is
caught in the webs of delusion.
138.
C.W.L. – At the
beginning of this passage, in the expression “budding Soul” we have a suggestion
of the idea of evolution. For many centuries in
139.
But long ago there existed a theory of evolution of the Soul,
which has all along been a central doctrine of the Hindu and Buddhist
traditions, and has been spread extensively in the Western world by Theosophists
during the last fifty years, along with the doctrine of reincarnation. This is
put forward as the most logical and ethical theory of human destiny, once it has
been established, on scientific or religious grounds, that the Soul of a man
survives the death of his body. The soul incarnates many times for the sake of
experience, and each one will thereby become at last not merely a genius in some
field of human thought or work, but a perfect man, ready for full conscious
divinity.
140.
There are two great stages on the path of the soul’s evolution
– the first is called the pravritti marga, the way of forth-going, and the
second the nivritti marga, the way of return. In the former the development of
personality takes place, accompanied by the accumulation of much karma as the
soul pursues its restless career of seeking the satisfaction of its
multitudinous desires in the external world. In the latter the soul little by
little turns its back upon the world, and with its face towards the divine, its
source and goal, proceeds with the task of perfecting itself so as to finish up
the human stage of its evolution.
141.
It is this second stage, the nivritti marga, that is divided up
into the probationary path and the Path of Initiation, which have been fully
described in The Path of Discipleship, Initiation, the Perfecting of Man;
and The Masters and the Path. This marga implies a course of voluntary
evolution, in which the candidate is deliberately training himself in the higher
qualities of character; the evolution of the lower creatures and of men on the
pravritti marga is involuntary, they seek and respond to experience, and learn
without clear realization of what is happening to them.
142.
In a foot-note to the word illusion, Madame Blavatsky calls it
Maha-Maya, the great illusion, the objective universe. The meaning of the term
illusion, as applied to the external world, has already been discussed. It is
not the same idea as that referred to in the text as “webs of delusion,” which
has reference, as another foot-note says, to “Sakkayaditthi, the delusion of
personality”.
143.
When the Lord Buddha revealed to men the Noble Eightfold Path,
the way to liberty, the practical means to bring sorrow to an end, He told them
about the ten fetters which the candidate must cast off – one after another. The
first of these was called Sakkayaditthi, the delusion of personality. Let us see
how this arises. A child is born subject to karma – the result of its deeds in
previous lives. It has a certain kind of body, and various things happen to it.
In course of time it hears what people say of it, and it finds out what it can
and what it cannot do. It sees itself in these things as in a mirror – one of
those distorting mirrors which are sometimes set up in exhibitions to amuse
people with their grotesquely flattened or elongated images. It thus obtains
ideas about itself – that it is clever, or stupid, beautiful or ugly, weak or
strong. As its education proceeds it acquires social standing or position or
character, assumes the habits of body and mind of doctor, lawyer, house-wife –
whatever it may be – and thus acquires a settled personality. When it
thinks itself to be that personality, it has what has been called
“self-personality” – exactly the same delusion that obsesses the unfortunate
people in the lunatic asylums, who imagine themselves to be tea-pots, ear-drums,
north poles, Queen Elizabeths and Napoleons.
144.
A definite well-trained set of bodies and personality, with
useful habits, is, of course, a good thing, just as is a good set of tools, or a
good motor-car. We do not want to have weak or nondescript personalities. But
however good our personality may be we should not think it to be ourself, and we
should be able to enjoy all our native will-power, love-power and thought-power
while using it for our purposes, for our spiritual life in the material world.
These personalities should not set themselves up as candidates for immortality,
and try to intrench themselves against the ravages of use and time that beset
all material things. A middle-aged gentleman once said to his son, who
volunteered to relieve him of some work: “No, no, my boy. Always use up the old
ones first!” The personalities must be willing to be used, to be adapted to the
spiritual purposes of the moment, to be worn out – and must be content with the
sole reward of a long and glorious devachan, that will follow the death of the
outer body in the case of all those who have thus served the divine indwelling
self, except, of course, the servants of the Masters who renounce this reward
and take speedy rebirth in order to work for the world.
·
This earth, disciple, is the hall of
sorrow, wherein are set along the path of dire probations, traps to ensnare thy
Ego by the delusion called “great heresy”.
145.
That the physical plane is a place of sorrow is a widespread
Buddhist and Hindu thought. Uncongenial and often disfiguring or debilitating
labour, oppression, disease, indignity and dread fall to the lot of the majority
of mankind. Those whose fortune has set them in places of ease may say that they
find much pleasure in it; but Patanjali says: “To the enlightened all is
misery.” There are many things that give no trouble to the relatively unevolved
– such as the smell of alcohol, meat or onions, the noise of factory sirens or
coarse music, gross manners, hideous clothes and buildings, and a thousand other
things that afflict those who are more sensitive. In addition to these there is
hunger to gain what we want, and fear to lose it when it is in hand, and
suffering for others all round us, if not for ourselves. Surely men must be mad
to hug such chains as these. Surely this world is indeed a hall of sorrow. Think
how poor is its best in the sight of those who know the higher planes.
146.
But it is so chiefly because man has made it so. Think of the
vast sea of life that fills the mineral, the vegetable and the animal kingdoms
of nature, and how all that is throbbing with pleasure. Even the dreadful
picture of the poet, of “nature, red in tooth and claw with ravin” loses most of
its lurid colour when we realize that the animals do not “think before and
after” as men do, with painful longing and fear, and that while their battles
are on, and the blood and wounds distress the human beholder, the excitement of
the animal consciousness is at its greatest height and is often experiencing its
greatest pleasure. Earth is a hall of sorrow only for man, who with his greed
and anger, born of a strong imagination that feeds the flames of hot desire, has
poisoned with innumerable horrors both his personal and his social life.
147.
Yet it only needs the conquest of selfishness to remove
every one of these horrors, and open to all mankind the joys of this world – the
thrill and deep strong peace of beauty, of discovery, of creative work, of
social and bodily well-being.
148.
Madame Blavatsky’s foot-note then speaks of:
·
Attavada, the heresy of the belief in
Soul, or rather in the separateness of Soul or Self from the one universal,
infinite Self.
149.
Atta is the Pali equivalent of the Sanskrit atma, and
vada means doctrine. The doctrine of atma, which we have already considered,
is the great source of cleavage between the Hindus and Buddhists, but as a
matter of fact the distinction is merely one of words, because when the Hindu
says that the Self or atma in man is one with the universal Self, he does not
mean by the word what people usually mean when they think or speak of
themselves, but something altogether deeper, which only the advanced yogi can
even imagine. There is a passage in the Shri Vakya Sudha which warns the
aspirant that when he repeats the great religious formula “I am That,” he must
take care what he means by “I”; it explains that the separate individual should
be understood as threefold, and that it is the union with Brahman only of the
highest of these three that is proclaimed by “Thou art That” and such sayings.
As already explained, the personality is not “I”, and even the “you” in me is
not “I”, but the “I” is something indistinguishable from the universal Self in
which the many and the One are one. The Lord Buddha’s teaching denies the
permanency of the “you” that men call “I”.
150.
It is an unfortunate thing that two such great religions as
Hinduism and Buddhism should be separated mainly by so small a misunderstanding,
and also that because of it the modern Theosophical movement has spread very
slowly among the Buddhists. We have developed a large Theosophical literature,
in which the words atma and Self figure extensively, and this has alienated a
good many Buddhists who have not taken the trouble to clear away this obstacle
of words which we have inadvertently put in their path.
·
This earth, O
ignorant disciple, is but the dismal entrance leading to the twilight that
precedes the valley of true light – that light which no wind can extinguish,
that light which burns without a wick or fuel.
151.
In this and some later verses we have poetical names for the
planes of nature. As previously stated, it was common among oriental occultists
to bunch together the astral and lower mental planes, and Madame Blavatsky often
followed that plan in her teaching. This combining of the two is indicated in
this picture of a “twilight that precedes the valley of true light”. That
description of the valley of true light shows it to be the region of the Soul
and the Higher Self, the planes where buddhi and higher manas have their
habitat.
152.
If we divide the planes by a line separating the lower from the
higher mental, we find that there is a radical difference between those which
lie below the line and those which are above. In the former, matter is dominant;
it is the first thing that strikes the eye; and consciousness shines with
difficulty through the forms. But in the higher planes life is the prominent
thing, and forms are there only for its purposes. The difficulty in the lower
planes is to give the life expression in the forms, but in the higher it is
quite the reverse – to hold and give form to the flood of life. It is only above
the dividing line that the light of consciousness is subject to no wind, and
shines with its own power. The symbol of a spiritual fire is very fitting for
consciousness at those levels, as distinguished from the lower planes, where the
symbol of fire burning fuel is more appropriate.
·
Saith the great Law:
“In order to become the knower of All-Self, thou hast first of Self to be the
knower.” To reach the knowledge of that Self, thou hast to give up self to
non-self, being to non-being.
153.
In a foot-note Madame Blavatsky distinguishes between the
Atmajnam who is mentioned here, and the Tattvajnani. In Hindu literature
generally the distinction is slight and is usually ignored, but she says: “The
Tattvajnani is the knower or discriminator of the principles in nature and in
man; and Atmajnani is the knower of Atma, or the universal One Self.” Jnani
means a knower and tattva means the truth or the real nature of things.
154.
It has always been a teaching of Theosophy that to make
progress we must apply the old Greek formula “Know thyself”. In consequence, a
very large part of our modern Theosophical literature deals with the
constitution, history and destiny of man. It is by the study of the various
principles and bodies of man that we are able gradually to distinguish what he
is, and to separate him in thought from the vehicles that he uses, until at last
we arrive at the real Self. Then, through that real Self in us, we shall realize
the universal Self; in fact, the two are one.
155.
But to know the real Self in oneself, the lower self must be
set aside, must become as naught. As we have already seen, the utter destruction
of “ self-personality “ is the very first task of the Initiate on the Path
proper, since sakkayaditthi, the delusion of the personal self, is the first
fetter which must be cast off.
·
And then thou canst repose between the
wings of the Great Bird. Aye, sweet is rest between the wings of that which is
not born, nor dies, but is the Aum throughout eternal ages.
156.
On the Great Bird, which occupies a prominent place in Oriental
religious symbolism, Madame Blavatsky has the following foot-note:
·
Kala Hamsa, the bird or swan. Says the
Nada-vindupanishat (Rig Veda) translated by the Kumbakonam Theosophical Society
– “The syllable A is considered to be the bird Hamsa’s right wing, U its left, M
its tail, and the Ardhamatra [half metre] is said to be its head.”
157.
The word Aum, generally pronounced
158.
The word Aum is said to have special value as a mantra because
it is the most complete human word. It begins with the vowel A in the back of
the mouth, continues with the vowel U sounded in the centre of the mouth, and
closes with the consonant M, with which the lips are sealed. It thus runs
through the whole gamut of human speech and so represents in man the entire
creative word. Its three parts are also taken as symbolical of the manifestation
of the Trinity, in a variety of ways, to explain which one might fill a book.
Thus we have Parabrahman, Daiviprakriti and Mula-prakriti; Shiva, Vishnu and
Brahma; will, wisdom and activity; ananda, chit and sat, or happiness,
consciousness and being; atma, buddhi and manas; tamas, rajas and sattva; and
many another. Aum is thus a constant reminder of this triplicity running through
all things; it is a key therefore to the solution of many mysteries, as well as
a word of power. The head of the bird is then taken as the unmanifested origin
of the triple word.
159.
Kala, a word which means “time” is one of the names of Vishnu
or Avalokiteshvara. Kala-hamsa therefore means the swan of time or in time,
hamsa being a swan. This symbol of a bird contains the implication of time,
since it is proceeding through space. It is a characteristic of consciousness
that it progresses or evolves, and so exists in time. The consciousness of the
Logos is time, it does not begin nor end in time, and is therefore
without birth or death.
160.
This bird is thus a symbol of the Second Logos, which is also
the great Wisdom. There is a well-known Hindu fable which connects the hamsa or
swan with this idea of wisdom also, for it relates of that bird that when a
mixture of water and milk is placed before it, it can separate the milk from the
water. So does wisdom operate even in human life, selecting from our mixed
experience the essential nutriment of the soul. Wisdom remains in the spiritual
soul of man when experiences have died away, since, as the Bhagavad-Gita
says: “All actions in their entirety culiminate in wisdom.”1
1 Op. cit., iv.
53.
161.
A man on the Path who has passed the Third Initiation is also
called a Hamsa, or swan. He is busy getting rid of raga and dwesha, the fourth
and fifth fetters, which are liking and disliking, and is therefore especially
practising wisdom. People in the world are full of likes and dislikes, and they
therefore suffer greatly from their own opinions about things. Throwing these
two fetters off, the Hamsa becomes like the sage described in the Gita as
one satisfied with wisdom and knowledge, to whom a lump of earth, a stone and
gold are the same, who regards impartially friends and foes, the righteous and
the unrighteous. It is not that this man does not value gold and friends; he
does, but he values also clay and foes. The wise man can profit from every kind
of experience; all are useful for the soul. Epictetus asserted this when he
declared: ‘^There is only one thing for which God has sent me into the world –
to perfect my own character in virtue; and there is nothing in all the world
that I cannot use for that purpose.”
162.
Again, Hamsa is also a form of the saying “Aham Sah” or “I am
That,” or, as it is frequently used, “So’ham,” which consists of the same words
reversed. So when the aspirant repeats this sentence he also remembers that the
way to bestride the Hamsa or bird of life is to realize that he is the Self. It
is said that the devout yogi utters this formula with every breath, of which
there are said to be 21,600 in a day and night, for the air is considered to
come in with the sound of “sah” and go out with that of “ha”.
163.
As long as the bird is flying, the creative word is sounding,
time exists. Although this time has neither beginning nor ending it is
nevertheless a measurable period – which is a great mystery. On this point
Madame Blavatsky has the following note:
·
Eternity with the
Orientals has quite another signification than it has with us. It stands
generally for the 100 years or age of Brahma, the duration of a Maha-Kalpa or a
period of 311,040,000,000,000 years.
164.
This part of the subject is concluded with the words:
·
Bestride the Bird of Life, if thou
would’st know. Give up thy Life, if thou would’st live.
165.
To these are appended the following notes:
·
Says the same Nadavindu, “A Yogi who
bestrides the Hamsa [thus contemplates on Aum] is not affected by karmic
influences or crores of sins.”
·
Give up the life of the physical
personality if you would live in Spirit.
166.
A crore is ten millions. It must not, however, be assumed that
the yogi is permitted to perform these sins; if he did he would not be a yogi.
This expression is only an Oriental way of indicating that he is utterly free
from taint by the material world. The man who thinks and works without personal
desire, with utter unselfishness, suffers no karmic consequences. The fruit of
all his efforts goes into the great reservoir of spiritual force for the helping
of the world, as has already been explained.
CHAPTER 7
THE THREE HALLS
·
Three halls, O weary pilgrim, lead to the
end of toils. Three halls, O conqueror of Mara, will bring thee through three
states into the fourth, and thence into the seven worlds, the worlds of rest
eternal.
·
If thou would’st learn their names, then
hearken, and remember.
·
The name of the first hall is Ignorance –
Avidya. It is the hall in which thou saw’st the light, in which thou livest and
shalt die.
·
The name of hall the second is the Hall
of Learning. In it thy Soul will find the blossoms of life, but under every
flower a serpent coiled.
·
The name of the third hall is Wisdom,
beyond which stretch the shoreless waters of Akshara, the indestructible fount
of omniscience.
167.
C. W. L. – The three halls may be interpreted in two ways: as
objective planes, or as the subjective condition of man.
168.
In the former case the hall of ignorance is the physical plane,
and the hall of learning, described in a foot-note as the hall of probationary
learning “is what may perhaps be called the astro-mental plane (the astral and
lower mental planes taken together). When I wrote The Inner Life sixteen
years ago it seemed to me probable that by the term hall of learning Madame
Blavatsky meant the astral plane, and by the hall of wisdom the lower mental
plane, but having thought the matter over and discussed it many times since
then, I now lean to the opinion that we shall more accurately represent her
thought if we take the hall of learning to include not only the astral but also
the lower mental, and if we raise the hall of wisdom so as to include within it
the planes of higher manas and buddhi.
169.
That Aryasanga was not thinking of the astral plane as the hall
of learning and the lower mental world as the hall of wisdom is shown a little
further on, when He speaks of the latter hall as one “wherein all shadows are
unknown, and where the light of truth shines with unfading glory”. The lower
mental world does not answer to this description; far more glorious and delicate
than the astral plane as it is, it is still a material world and the habitat of
the personalities of men. Further, the Teacher also says that that which is
uncreate abides in the hall of wisdom, and it is the ego, not the personality,
which is uncreate. And in the lower mental plane, as well as in the astral,
there is a serpent coiled under every flower; for if passion and foolish desires
infest the one, pride and prejudices inhabit the other. In the higher mental
plane, though there may be much that the ego does not know, what it does know it
knows correctly; but the lower mental is a region of personality and error.
170.
The extent to which the lower planes are worlds of illusion is
also seen in the way in which our senses and powers work in them. To take sight
as an instance – we see because our sight is obstructed. If one could see
perfectly through the wall one could not see the wall. It is the same with
walking; we have some freedom to move about, because the earth resists the free
motion of our feet. In the higher planes one lives in the light.
171.
The combination of the astral and mental planes is not uncommon
in the Oriental schools of occult training. The Vedantins speak of one body
(called the manomayakosha, the body made of mind),1
(1 See The Secret
Doctrine, Vol. I, p. 181.) where our Theosophical literature usually
distinguishes the two (the astral and the mental), and to that body when
awakened and functioning they ascribe the experiences proper to both planes. The
candidate for the path of yoga in the Raja Yoga schools was always trained to
work from the mental down to the astral. This very cautious procedure is also
shown in the teaching of Patanjali, who makes his first two steps moral, and
requires definite progress in these before the practices leading to the siddhis
or yoga powers are taken. In Raja Yoga: The Occult Training of the
Hindus, Prof. Wood had called these first steps “The ten commandments”, and
has translated them as the five restraints: “Thou shalt not injure, lie, steal,
be incontinent, be greedy”, and the five observances: “Thou shalt be clean,
content, self-controlled, studious and devoted.” These methods were in full
force long before the time of Aryasanga; Pandit N. Bhashyacharya and some other
Sanskrit scholars maintain that Patanjali, who in turn was not the originator of
the system, gave his famous Sutras to the world as far back as in the
ninth century B.C.
172.
In The Masters and the Path I have explained that in the
old Initiations it often happened that much time was taken in instructing the
candidate in astral work, as the awakening of the pupil to work at that level
was left to a relatively later stage than is customary among the modern
Theosophists, who often have already done much astral work and have thus learnt
the detail of the astral world long before Initiation.
173.
If we think of the three halls subjectively, as stages of
progress in human development, we have the following familiar divisions: (l) The
man who lives ignorantly in the world, attracted and repelled by the things
around him, impelled to action by his own uncontrolled passions and desires –
this is the ignorant stage. (2) The man who is learning that nature has definite
laws, and is realizing that by working with them he can gain much more power
than he had in the days of his ignorance – this is the hall of learning. (3) The
man who has realized that there are spiritual laws, and is learning to obey
them. He knows about reincarnation and karma, and the ethical and moral laws
that govern the progress of his own soul and those of others. He is aware that
outer things exist only for the purposes of the evolving soul, and lives
according to this knowledge. He is in the hall of wisdom.
174.
Madame Blavatsky describes the four stages of consciousness:
·
The three states of consciousness, which
are Jagrat, the waking; Svapna, the dreaming; and Sushupti, the deep sleeping
state. These three Yogi conditions lead to the fourth – the Turiya, that beyond
the dreamless state, the one above all, a state of high spiritual consciousness.
175.
These states of consciousness are not fixed, but may be
correlated to the sets of planes or objective halls above mentioned, in the case
of the candidate who is being prepared for the Arhat Initiation. In this case
the waking state may be the physical, the dreaming state the astro-mental, the
sleeping state the higher mental and buddhic, and the turiya state the atmic.
176.
The rather curious terms waking, dreaming and sleeping seem to
have been selected from a physical plane point of view to name the heights of
consciousness reached by the candidate at different times. When the man was
going about his business in the physical plane, with all his faculties awake to
this world, he was in the first state. To understand the second state we have to
remember that there are two kinds of dreams – the often nonsensical productions
of the brain (physical and etheric), and the true experiences of the man away
from his physical body, working and learning in the astro-mental regions. It is
to these latter that this term dreaming applies. The candidate sleeping, or
almost going to sleep in a day-dream, would afterwards remember some such
experiences, and then ascribe them to the “consciousness of the dream state”.
Suppose, however, that the aspirant out of the body should at any time go into
what may be called a second sleep, and rise into the next set of planes, to be
conscious for a time at that higher level. Probably on waking physically he
would remember nothing of what had been happening out of the body – his brain
not being attuned to record the experiences coming from planes higher than his
“dreaming state”. So it would seem to him that he had had deep dreamless sleep,
and usually his only feeling would be one of great satisfaction and well-being.
The “sleeping state” is therefore consciousness in that still higher region.
Now, the fourth state is sometimes called trance, for the following
reason. It has often been explained that an aspirant when out of the body can
rise a stage higher than when in it. It is possible also in deep meditation for
the disciple to rise in trance to the higher state and afterwards bring that
experience down into the waking memory. Thus the Arhat can touch the buddhic
level while in the physical body, and the atmic or nirvanic plane when out if
it, or in deep medidation or trance. The term akshara, which is here applied to
this fourth region, means simply that which does not melt away; it is the
undecaying.
177.
The same set of terms may be used as a relative series for less
advanced occult students. One may have his waking consciousness on the physical
plane, his dreaming state on the astral plane, his deep sleep on the mental;
another, who is able to use his astral faculties in his physical waking
consciousness, will have his dream consciousness on the lower mental, and his
sleep state on the higher mental, and so on. The turiya is a higher state
reached in every case by a special effort of will and meditation, which is a
means to ultimately raising the whole set of three states to a higher level than
before. While the transition is in progress, before the new level is
established, there will always be this fourth stage.
178.
This is seen in meditation. The candidate will sit and fix his
waking consciousness on some object – suppose it is a cat. Then be will rise to
the “dream state”, and try to realize the astral aspect of the animal. Next he
will ascend to the “sleep stage”, and give his attention to the mental being of
the creature. The fourth step would be samadhi – or contemplation – an attempt
to realize its significance and reality for the ego, to go beyond the three
forms of the cat into its subjective meaning. The fixing of the mind on the cat
in the first case is concentration; the process of elevation of the
consciousness is meditation; the final concentration in a higher field of
vision, beyond what was reached before, is contemplation (or samadhi). The last
effort may be like piercing a cloud or fog, out of which the new vision will
gradually form itself, or from which it may come like a flash of lightning. In
either case the practitioner must hold himself very still in order to retain the
impression as long as possible – one thought of self, of the old personal
relativity, can dismiss the whole thing, so that there remains not even a memory
of what it was like.
179.
The three halls, it is said, lead to the end of toils –
not to the end of work, it must be observed. In these lower worlds we
have a sense of work which is certainly quite different from that of higher
levels. To us down here the word is almost synonymous with toil, and often with
drudgery, but from a higher point of view work is really play. Drudgery is
merely action; it does not create the man who does it. But the least bit of work
done occultly, done heartily “as to God and not unto men”, done better than ever
before, is good for the evolution of him who does it. If, in writing a letter,
for example, one is at pains to do it neatly, even beautifully, and to express
oneself briefly, clearly and gracefully, one has developed hand, eye and brain,
thought-power, love-power and will-power. True work, such as that of an artist,
is full of creative influence and of joy. We find some toil even in these
things, however, because of the obstructions of the lower planes. Yet even down
here there is no clear dividing line between toil and play. If one goes out, for
example on a long ride, the earlier part of the journey will be full of delight
for both man and horse, but insensibly that passes away as fatigue increases,
until suddenly the man realizes that the ride which was play in the beginning
has now become work, or rather drudgery. In other cases, there may be a task,
not prolonged, but a little beyond our strength; then there is a sense of toil.
But all work in reality is play when there is willingness and no fatigue or
overstrain.
180.
We have much to learn from the animals, and even from the
plants, in this respect. “Grow as the flower grows,” says Light on the Path,
“opening your heart to the sun.” Said the Christ: “Consider the lilies of
the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say
unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”1
(1 S. Matthew, vi, 7. 7)
It is deadly fear of the morrow that makes men’s work a toil, that makes them
sweat in bitterness. But the Law says: “Do the wise and right thing to-day, and
leave the result to take care of itself.” This is not a doctrine of idleness,
but of work that is play instead of toil.
181.
An illustration of this is also to be seen in the way in which
different people take a long journey. One man will get into the train at
182.
The Hindus have long held that God plays. The Lila or play of
Shri Krishna, as it is called, is the great work of evolution, which looks so
toilsome to us that we shudder at the long ages of work that lie in front, and
cry out for rest. Think of the 311,040,000 million years of our mahakalpa. What
an illusion! When we come to the end of toils life will be all play, all
happiness.
183.
The end of toils, though not of work, comes with the entry of
the candidate, on the fourth Path, into the nirvanic plane. He has finished the
toil of casting off the first five fetters – self-personality, doubt,
superstition, liking and disliking – all of which marked his bondage to material
things, with which his life was one long struggle on an up-hill road. But now
his remaining five fetters are internal; he has to conquer them, truly, but his
weapon will be serenity, quietness, calmness – the use of the will, which is the
quietest thing in the world. These fetters are: desire for life in form and
formless life, pride, agitation and ignorance. Little profit is to be derived
from examining these in detail in this place; it is enough to notice their
internal character, and to say that to destroy them the man must quieten himself
and his vehicles above the line that divides the personality from the ego.
184.
At earlier stages, before the end of toils, the student will do
well to organize his life wisely, so that his work for the Master may be as far
as possible play. It should be pure delight, unmixed happiness – such a
condition would make for the swiftest progress. Toil is not meritorious, nor
especially profitable, though sometimes it may be necessary. How often a student
does meditation, feeling it an irksome thing, but regarding it as a duty to be
done, though with travail and suffering. Do it happily and rejoicing, as play,
or at least look forward to the time when you can do so. Some men sink
luxuriously into the arms of the present, and say, “We will enjoy ourselves now,
and let the future take care of itself.” Others stand aloof in proud strength
and say, “We refuse to respond to that which can distress us.” But the disciple
must bare his back to the strokes of time, rejoicing in the long future, in the
game in which every move can be a dancing poem of delight. On the subject of the
seven worlds, Madame Blavatsky says:
·
Some Oriental mystics locate seven planes
of being, the seven spiritual Lokas or worlds within the body of Kala Hamsa, the
swan out of time and space, convertible into the swan in time, when it becomes
Brahma instead of Brahman.
185.
All the manifestations of seven in nature, such as the seven
principles in man, or the seven planes in the world, come from a sevenfold
division arising from Parabrahman. Three of the seven principles are manifest in
the universal consciousness, and three more in mulaprakriti. One remains at its
source and includes all the others, for the presence of many does not mar the
unity of That which is truly One. So, at his lower level, the man who transcends
his middle set of principles (atma-buddhi-manas), and rises into the first (the
Monad), though he escapes from the worlds or planes, finds them all present in
that new state of real nirvana, which is beyond the consciousness-state as much
as that is beyond the mere matter-state. We speak thus of it, in the third
person, only as a concession to ignorance, and must point out that what has been
said should be translated into terms of “you” for consciousness and “I” for the
true life of super-conscious nirvana, if it is to be understood. These “worlds,”
however, are not entered by the Arhat, but by the full Adept.
186.
There are several other ways in which the Arhat may be thought
of as entering the seven worlds of rest eternal:
187.
In one way those worlds are the sub-planes of the atmic plane,
through which the Arhat begins to climb. The characteristic of the man who
dwells in them is a changeless serenity, for everything is seen as in the One
Self, and where that is realized, fear and anxiety can have no place. As the
Gita says: “For the sage enthroned in yoga, serenity is called the means.”1
(1 Op. cit,, vi,
3.) It is not that there is any lack of activity in those regions – it is one
vast wave of ever-moving life – but there are no obstructions to the will of the
One. On the buddhic plane we have still duality in a sense, since there one sees
others, though the same Self is seen dwelling in them as in ourselves. But
buddhi has to be transcended, for love implies a duality.
188.
The serenity that the Arhat increasingly acquires puts a new
face on the common planes of our existence. He enjoys in them a liberty that
others do not know; he has found that work is play. Having touched the vale of
bliss, he has discovered that life not only there but on all planes is pure
delight. He not only sees and loves the advancing life behind the perishing
forms, but feels and rejoices in the Divine Will behind the changing life. The
rest eternal that he enjoys is not idleness, but the utter internal peace of one
who knows that all is well, that the Divine Will is present even in what may to
others seem the obstructions to progress, as well as in the apparent progress
itself. A philosopher once caught a glimpse of this idea when he said: “Be
serene; for if you fail through no fault of your Own, the failure is a success
better than you knew, since the Divine Will is being done.” The Arhat knows
something of the peace that passes understanding, because he is beginning to
dwell in the Eternal. This is, Madame Blavatsky says, “The region of the full
spiritual consciousness, beyond which there is no longer danger for him who has
reached it.”
189.
If thou would’st cross the first hall
safely, let not thy mind mistake the fires of lust that burn therein for the
sunlight of life.
190.
If thou would’st cross the second safely,
stop not the fragrance of its stupefying blossoms to inhale. If freed thou
would’st be from the karmic chains, seek not for thy Guru in those mayavic
regions.
191.
The wise ones tarry not in
pleasure-grounds of senses.
192.
The wise ones heed not the sweet-tongued
voices of illusion.
193.
Seek for him who is to give thee birth in
the Hall of Wisdom, the hall which lies beyond, wherein all shadows are unknown,
and where the light of truth shines with unfading glory.
194.
The guru here spoken of is the Master, the Teacher. Madame
Blavatsky puts it:
·
The Initiate who leads the disciple,
through the knowledge he imparts, to his spiritual, or second birth, is called
the father, Guru or Master.
195.
A statement of the lives and work of the Gurus or Masters has
been given in The Masters and the Path. A glimpse of the marvel of Their
exalted powers is seen in the account there given of a meditation of the Master
Kuthumi. As He sits in His garden or His room, He seems to be meditating, but
is, in fact, giving attention to some millions of people, dealing with each one
as individually as an ordinary man could if he were to give his full attention
to that one.
196.
Every ego is being helped by one of the Masters, so the man who
can vivify the link in himself between the lower self and the higher may receive
that help in his personal life. The gurus who are to be met with on the physical
plane are generally Initiates, advanced pupils of the full Adepts, as stated
before.
·
That which is uncreate abides in thee,
disciple, as it abides in that hall. If thou would’st reach it and blend the
two, thou must divest thyself of thy dark garments of illusion. Stifle the voice
of flesh, allow no image of the senses to get between its light and thine, that
thus the twain may blend in one. And having learnt thine own Ajnana flee from
the Hall of Learning. This hall is dangerous in its perfidious beauty, is needed
but for thy probation. Beware Lanoo, lest dazzled by illusive radiance thy Soul
should linger and be caught in its deceptive light.
·
This light shines from the jewel of the
great ensnarer (Mara). The senses it bewitches, blinds the mind, and leaves the
unwary an abandoned wreck.
197.
That which is uncreate refers to the higher triad,
atma-buddhi-manas, as distinguished from the personality and its bodies. The
statement that the hall of learning is needed but for probation applies to the
hall of ignorance as well. The set of material planes, physical, astral and
lower mental, are but the buildings and equipment of a school for man, in which
he is taught by means of toys. There is no experience that does not modify the
soul and give it some wisdom; but he who is alive to the educative purpose of it
all, and is eager to learn and to extract from the experience of embodied life
lessons of eternal value, will not find the toys attractive in themselves. He
will be like the bee that takes the honey from the flower and goes away, not
intoxicated, by its scent and colour.
198.
Mara is a personification of the attractiveness of external
things. Madame Blavatsky describes him as follows:
·
Mara is in exoteric
religions a demon, an Asura, but in esoteric philosophy it is personified
temptation through men’s vices, and translated literally means “that which
kills” the soul. It is represented as a king (of the Maras) with a crown in
which shines a jewel of such lustre that it blinds those who look at it, this
lustre referring of course to the fascination exercised by vice upon certain
natures.
199.
In The Light of Asia1
(1 Op. cit., Book vi.) Sir Edwin Arnold has given us a vivid
picture of this prince of darkness, as he came forth leading the ten chief sins,
his angels of evil, against the Lord Buddha, as He sat under the Bodhi Tree,
when nearing His Illumination.
·
The moth attracted to
the dazzling flame of thy night-lamp is doomed to perish in the viscid oil. The
unwary Soul that fails to grapple with the mocking demon of illusion, will
return to earth the slave of Mara.
·
Behold the hosts of
Souls. Watch how they hover o’er the stormy sea of human life, and how,
exhausted, bleeding, broken-winged, they drop one after another on the swelling
waves. Tossed by the fierce winds, chased by the gale, they drift into the
eddies and disappear within the first great vortex.
200.
The subject of “lost souls” is very complex. Some are like the
children in a class at school who are not ready to pass on with the bulk of
their fellow-students into the next grade at the end of the year, either because
they are too young or because they have been lazy. Then, too, there are cases
where the personality has become so immeshed in matter during bodily life that
it has nothing to give to the ego, and it may then be cut off. Thirdly, there
are the terrible fruits of the practice of black magic. It would take too long
to discuss the subject here; I have dealt with it at some length in the article
on Lost Souls in Volume I of The Inner Life.
201.
Some of the expressions in these passages have all the strength
of Oriental imagination. We must not think too literally of abandoned wrecks and
broken wings. He who falls from the Path on account of material desire certainly
does wreck his spiritual prospects for the time being, but even in that case he
has learnt something which will be useful to the soul later on. In all cases it
is best for a man to learn with wise thought; only when that is neglected will
bitter experience be necessary to take its place.
202.
It is by no means requisite that any human being shall go
through every kind of experience. The more advanced and the wiser a man becomes,
the more he will see in everything, and he will learn much from trifles that
others might pass by as insignificant. It is said that a fool cannot learn even
from a wise man, but a wise man can always learn, even from a fool. To know that
fire is hot it is not necessary to put one’s hand into it; a fool may do so, but
the wise man has other ways of learning the fact that fire burns. Yet it is a
great blessing that those who will not think and thus learn willingly, should be
taught in the stern school of experience, without which they would learn nothing
at all and make no progress.
203.
The law of karma, that brings to men the experiences that they
have given to others, is thus a benefactor and ultimately a liberator, not an
instrument of vengeance or punishment. Suppose, for example, that a foot-pad
waylaid a gentleman, knocked him down, perhaps killed him, and took his money.
Under the law he would have to meet with some such painful experience himself,
sooner or later. The robber was capable of such an act because he himself was a
coarse being, lacking sensitiveness and imagination; otherwise he would have
thought of the feelings of his victim or of the latter’s wife and family, and
such thought would have stayed his hand. Because he is coarse, crass,
unimaginative, the foot-pad needs the violent kind of experience that he gives
to others; nothing less will stir him. Later, when through karmic retribution he
has had some suffering, he will remember it when he is about to strike another,
and will say to himself: “That is not a very nice thing for that poor man.” He
will then begin to reform, thanks to the law, which is always educative, never
punitive.
CHAPTER 8
THE WORLD’S MOTHER
·
If through the Hall
of Wisdom thou would’st reach the vale of bliss, disciple, close fast thy
senses against the great dire heresy of
separate-ness, that weans thee from the rest.
204.
C.W.L. – Herbert
Spencer came very near to a revelation of the spiritual truth about evolution,
when he described it as a progressive change from a state of incoherent
homogeneity to one of coherent heterogeneity of structure and function. To him
evolution meant that things which in the beginning were similar and separate,
later become different but united. This specialization is seen in the human
body, which has different organs which work for the whole; thus the digestive
system digests food for the whole body, and the hands grasp, the feet walk, the
eyes look, not for the sake of the hands, the feet and the eyes, but for the
whole body. Similarly, society becomes more and more highly organized as time
goes on. Men become more and more differentiated from one another, as the
professions in life advance in knowledge and skill. The doctor cures all, the
teacher teaches all, the bridge-builder builds bridges for all. One man works
for the benefit of many, and the work of many flows back to benefit him.
205.
When men get the organic sense and feeling for their fellows
they cease to be a mob of incoherent homogeneous human beings and become
heterogeneous and coherent. A man with that spirit will do his best for his
community, or nation, or humanity, leaving it to the law of unity to bring him
what he needs from the other organs of the great body. The incoherent
homogeneous elements of matter or of society cannot organize themselves; it is
the inner principle that draws them together and makes swift progress possible
for them through mutual help. The unity is love, the force behind evolution, the
energy of life; it is buddhi, the greatest wisdom. There is a profound
difference between co-operation and brotherhood – the former springs from an
intelligent appreciation of the mutual relations of men, the latter from a
realization in feeling that the same life is dwelling in all.
206.
In the evolution of an individual it is usually the spirit of
co-operation that develops first; the business of the world brings people
together, then by contact the divine fire of buddhi is struck. Two men, for
example, go prospecting together, and support each other in the work. True
friendship supervenes. But if it should chance, as it sometimes does, that
brotherhood comes first, it will not develop into perfect and useful
co-operation unless the intelligence is also awakened and applied to the
business of life. An instance in point was the beautiful love between David
Copperfield and his impractical wife Dora, whom the novelist was constrained to
kill in order to make room for the more practical Agnes, and so give the story a
happier termination.
207.
In the occult life candidates who have developed the higher
intelligence so that they have a keen appreciation of the principle of
co-operation and of spiritual laws, often still find themselves dull and
apparently incapable of rapid progress. They await the awakening in themselves
of true love, buddhi. That is the burning energy of the inner man. Still, in
this second of the stages of true spiritual unfoldment there will often be much
agitation and trouble; the divine energy gushes forth irregularly and not always
in the wisest way, causing much sorrow to its possessor – until the third
spiritual stage, the place of serenity, has been reached. As that serenity is
the goal to which the voice of the silence is directing the candidate, he is
told to pass through the Hall of Wisdom into the vale of bliss. Even in
the buddhic plane there is a certain duality, or separateness. We cannot love
ourselves; love needs an object, even though it be not a material object, but
the divine life manifested in many spiritual souls. Buddhi is the first veil,
the Avalokiteshvara of the Higher Self, not the Parabrahman. The “dire heresy of
separateness” has to be disposed of on every plane in turn, the physical, the
astral, the mental and even the buddhic.
·
Let not thy
“heaven-born,” merged in the
·
Then from the heart that power shall rise
into the sixth, the middle region, the place between thine eyes, when it becomes
the breath of the One-Soul, the voice which filleth all, thy Master’s voice.
208.
The “heaven-born” is chitta, the lower mind. It is born from
the soul above, when manas becomes dual in incarnation. The planes of
atma-buddhi-manas are typified by heaven, while those of the personality are
spoken of as earth. We have already observed the distinction of character which
divides the five planes of human manifestation into two. The monadic and divine
planes, beyond these five, taken together form a third division. So the seven
worlds can also be grouped as three. The lowest division is in the region of
sattwa or law. Here we find everything regulated, but man has some freedom
because the “heaven-born” is in him – so much of the energy of the Law-maker
works through him. It is because man has this liberty and power to go his own
way that his life is usually more disorderly, less regulated, than that of the
lower kingdoms of external nature.
209.
The middle set of planes contains those of spiritual energy,
the indwelling life, without which the rest would be dead and motionless. They
are the planes of the divine, the shining, the Avalokita, or “seen”, God – the
life seen by wisdom, not the form seen by knowledge.
210.
The highest group of planes is that of the Monad, the Self that
is bliss and freedom, where are the realities behind every human ideal and the
ecstasy beyond consciousness that is the extracted quintessence of beauty,
goodness, truth, harmony, comprehension, union and freedom.
211.
What is here called the fiery power is the force named
kundalini in Sanskrit. This may be described as a latent fire, coiled up like a
sleeping serpent at the base of the spine in all men except those few in whom it
has been specially awakened, and is actively working in the etheric body. It
should not be difficult to realize the existence of such a fire, since it is
well known that the breath in our lungs constantly feeds a slow fire, and that
digestion also is a kind of fire. Kundalini is more like electrical fire – a
force developing heat where there is resistance – than fire that burns fuel, but
it is not of the same order of force as electricity.
212.
I have written on this subject in the articles on the
Serpent-Fire and the Force-Centres in The Inner Life and that on Vitality
in Chapter IV of The Hidden Side of Things, and I hope to publish shortly
a somewhat fuller study, illustrated with coloured plates.1
(1 Book on
Chakras has been since issued by T.P.H., Adyar.) There is also an extensive,
if somewhat obscure, literature on the subject in Sanskrit, including the
Shat-chakranirupana, the Ananda Lahari, and many other works. There
is an excellent translation of the first of these, with a commentary, by Arthur
Avalon, called The Serpent Power, published by Ganesh & Co.,
213.
The following is a very brief summary of the subject. Kundalini
is the lower end of a stream of a certain kind of the force of the Logos, and it
commonly lies sleeping in the chakra or force-centre at the base of the spine.
If it is awakened prematurely, that is, before the man has purified his
character of every taint of sensual impurity and selfishness, it may rush
downwards and vivify certain lower centres in the body (used only in some
objectionable forms of black magic), and irresistibly carry the unfortunate man
into a life of indescribable horror; at best, it will intensify all that the man
has in him, including such qualities as ambition and pride. Kundalini should be
wakened only under the personal direction of a Master, who will instruct the
student in the use of the will to arouse it, in the manner in which it should be
moved when aroused, and in the spiral course along which it must be carried
through the chakras or force-centres, from that near the base of the spine, to
those which lie on the surface of the etheric double at the spleen,1
(1 Hindu works usually mention the chakra at the root of the genital
organs as the second. We recognize the existence of such a centre, but we follow
the ancient Egyptians in thinking it eminently undesirable that it should be
stirred into activity.) the navel, the heart, the throat, between the eyebrows,
and at the top of the head. This course differs with different types of people,
and it is quite a definite physical thing, for the force has literally to burn a
pathway for itself through the impurities of the etheric double.
214.
There are chakras in the astral body also, which are already
aroused by kundalini working in that plane in all the cultured people of the
higher races. The process of developing those centres has rendered the astral
body sensitive to the plane, awakening its feeling, it power to travel about,
its sympathetic response to other entities there, its vision and hearing, and
astral faculties generally. But the memory of those experiences or the use of
the astral faculties while in the physical body, becomes possible in a definite
and well-controlled way only when kundalini in the etheric double has been
carried through the corresponding centres.
215.
The special mention of the place between the eyes in our text
has reference to the pineal gland and the pituitary body. The forces from both
the sixth and seventh astral centres (which are between the eyebrows and on top
of the head) usually converge on the pituitary body, when the etheric centre is
aroused, and then vivify it and act through it. But there is a certain type of
people (who are being addressed in our text) in whom the seventh astral chakra
vivifies the pineal gland instead of the pituitary body, and it in that case
forms a line of communication directly with the lower mental plane, without
apparently passing through the astral plane in the ordinary way. Through that
channel come for them the communications from within, while for the other type
of people they come through the pituitary body.
216.
When kundalini awakens of itself, which it rarely does, or is
accidentally aroused, it usually tries to pass up the interior of the spine,
instead of following the spiral course in which the occultist is trained to
guide it. In this case it will probably rush out through the head, and the man
will suffer from nothing worse than a temporary unconsciousness.
217.
The Hindu books hint at, rather than explain, what happens.
They make no references to the chakras on the surface of the etheric double, but
speak of their roots, which are in the spine. In the spine, running from its
base to the top is what is called Merudanda, the rod of Meru, the central axis
of creation. In that rod is the channel called sushumna, and in that again is
the channel called chitrini, which is “as fine as a spider’s thread”. Upon that
are threaded the chakras, like the knots on a bamboo rod. The lowest of the
chakras, called muladhara, lies at the base of the spine, and in it kundalini
sleeps, closing the mouth of the merudanda.
218.
The aim of the aspirant is to raise kundalini through all the
chakras till she reaches that which is between the eyebrows. Then the candidate
will find that he, as it were, remains behind, while she leaps forward into the
sahasrara, the great “thousand-petalled” lotus at the top of the head. If he
goes with her, it will take him out of the body and put a stop for the time
being to his practice of meditation in the body. She rises up chitrini little by
little as the candidate uses his will in meditation. In one practice he may not
get very far, but in the next he will go a little further, and so on. When she
comes to one of the chakras or lotuses she pierces it and the flower, which was
turned downwards, now turns upwards. The candidate meditates upon her in some
form, and upon her associates, seated in that lotus. An elaborate dhyana or
meditation, full of rich symbology, is prescribed for each lotus. When the
meditation is over, the candidate leads kundalini back again by the same path
into the muladhara; but in some schools she is brought back only as far as the
heart chakra, and there she enters what is called her chamber.
219.
Kundalini can be awakened by various methods, but it should be
done only under the direction of a guru or competent teacher, the Master who is
responsible to the Brotherhood for the training of the candidate. He is not
likely to conduct this awakening until the first three fetters on the Path have
been destroyed by the candidate’s own power, so that he is no longer in serious
danger of being stirred by sensuous or material things. Then his “heaven-born”,
closely united or harmonized with the higher manas, can remain master of the
triple house of personality, and when the energy of kundalini is set free in the
body it will be likely to run in pure channels of service to the higher self.
Hence the awakening of kundalini will take place usually somewhere near the
Third Initiation, or, in the present kali yuga, or dark age, it is said, even
later. Even then it is awakened in various layers, so that in the early stages
it may give nothing more than a general sensitiveness to the higher planes.
220.
Kundalini is thought of as a goddess. She is what is called the
shabdabrahman in the body. Shabda means sound. Sound is the creative
force, as before described. Speech is considered to be the most outward form of
it. It is an expression of thought, which in its true active form is
kriyashakti. Certain letters of the alphabet, which are the foundation of human
speech, are said to reside in each of the chakras, and the power of those
letters (their portion of the creative word) is awakened when kundalini enters
them after her union with Shiva in the highest centre, causing them to shine
brilliantly with her light. The creative speech of Brahma, the third Logos, has
four forms or stages; hence He is called the four-faced one. When kundalini
represents him in the body she also exhibits those four forms, as she rises
through the chakras.
221.
Kundalini is called the world’s mother because the outward
action of the powers of consciousness is always regarded as feminine. Thus will,
wisdom and activity are feminine, being shaktis or powers, outward turned
aspects of the divine. She is’ the representative of all these, as they were
expressed in the creation of the world, in the activity of Brahma, the Third
Logos. It has also been said that she is the world’s mother because it is
through her that the various planes are brought into conscious existence for the
occultist.
222.
The following foot-note by Madame Blavatsky will also throw
light on the foregoing explanations.
·
The inner chamber of the heart, called in
Sanskrit, Brahma-pura. The “fiery power” is Kundalini.
·
The “power” and the “world-mother” are
names given to Kundalini – one of the mystic Yogi powers. It is Buddhi
considered as an active instead of a passive principle (which it is generally,
when regarded only as the vehicle, or casket, of the supreme spirit, Atma). It
is an electro-spiritual force, a creative power which when aroused into action
can as easily kill as it can create.
223.
It is by no means certain what Madame Blavatsky meant by saying
that kundalini is active buddhi, but several speculations may be offered:
224.
In normal men buddhi is not positively active in the outer
life, but when the first three fetters have been cast off, the personality is so
purified that the astral body will no longer be active merely on its own
account, but will faithfully respond to buddhi, now active. At or near this
stage kundalini is often aroused, as we have seen, and when the faculties of the
astral body are then laid open to the candidate while in his physical body it is
an astral body reflecting buddhi, which now becomes a veritable fire of love in
the man’s life. That clairvoyance and other psychic powers need not be awakened
in the physical brain even at this advanced stage of human progress, is also
indicated by Dr. Besant, in her Initiation, the Perfecting of
· 1 Op, cit„ p. 82.
225.
The entire higher triad (atma-buddhi-manas) is but the central
member or the buddhi of the still more inclusive triad of Monad, ego and
personality. That larger buddhi is triple (will, wisdom and activity), and now
its third aspect (activity, kriyashakti) comes into operation in the body, to
awaken its organs and liberate its latent powers.
·
‘Tis only then thou
canst become a “walker of the sky,” who treads the winds above the waves, whose
step touches not the waters.
226.
On this, Madame Blavatsky says:
·
Kechara, “sky-walker” or
“goer”. As explained in the 6th Adhyaya of that king of mystic works, the
Jnaneshvari – the body of the Yogi becomes as one formed of the wind; as “a
cloud from which limbs have sprouted out,” after which – “he [the Yogi] beholds
the things beyond the seas and stars;
he hears the language of the Devas and comprehends it, and perceives what is
passing in the mind of the ant.”
227.
The term “walker of the sky” has various grades of meaning. In
Indian story it is, for example, applied to the great Rishi Narada, as an
emissary of the Logos, who could travel through the pure akasha from globe to
globe. On the lower planes the astral body or the mayavi-rupa may be taken as an
illustration, as they can be used to travel in what is the air or sky to
ordinary people.
228.
In the astral world the ordinary man is a kind of cloud, a
being full of kama, that is, desire and emotion, but not by any means a definite
entity such as he is on the physical plane. But when he masters his kama, and
gives it definiteness, the astral body is organized as a vehicle; it is no
longer
CHAPTER 9
THE SEVEN SOUNDS
·
Before thou sett’st
thy foot upon the ladder’s upper rung, the ladder of the mystic sounds, thou
hast to hear the voice of thy inner God in seven manners.
229.
C.W.L. – It has
already been mentioned that The Voice of the Silence is intended to guide
the candidate as far as the Fourth Initiation. At that point his consciousness
is raised to the seventh principle and begins to function in the atmic or
nirvanic plane. The man is then ready to commence treading what is here called
the ladder’s upper rung, to go through the course of/ training which prepares
for the Fifth Initiation, that of the Asekha Adept. The Path has two equal
divisions, which may be called the ladder’s lower and upper rungs.
230.
It is said that the Initiate on the ladder’s lower rung must
hear the voice of his inner God in seven manners. That inner God at his present
stage is the higher self, the buddhi, the second principle. In his meditation
the aspirant may or may not hear a series of seven sounds, marking his
attainment of the seven sub-planes of the buddhic plane; that depends upon his
psychic temperament. But what he must do, in all cases, is to bring the
influence of buddhi down into his life on each of the lower planes, so that the
activity of all his principles will be governed by it, and thus his inner God
will be ever-present in his life.
231.
The latter stage is called the ladder of the mystic sounds;
this is perhaps because they are the sounds of the voice of the silence, hidden
in the atma or Self. One must not push too far the exact interpretation of any
English word in our text, as it is only a translation; though every Sanskrit and
Pali word in it is rich with technical significance. Still, the word mystic,
coming from a root that means to close the eyes, indicates here certain sounds
which do not mingle in the outward life at all, but give direction as from
above, in the ex cathedra manner of pure conscience. It is implied that
the sounds about to be mentioned are more accessible, are not “mystic” at all
events to the candidate at the stage under consideration. True conscience does
not tell you what to do, as is commonly supposed, but it commands
you to follow that which you already really know to be best, when your mind is
trying to invent some excuse to do otherwise. It speaks with the authority of
the spiritual will, determining our path in life. It is not the atma, but the
buddhi, the second principle, that gives intuitive knowledge as to right and
wrong. Manas gives inspiration, buddhi intuition as to right and wrong, atma the
directing conscience.
·
The first is
like the nightingale’s sweet voice, chanting a song of parting to its mate.
·
The second comes as
the sound of a silver cymbal of the Dhyanis, awakening the twinkling stars.
·
The next is as the
plaint melodious of the ocean-sprite imprisoned in its shell.
·
And this is followed
by the chant of the vina.
·
The fifth like the
sound of bamboo-flute shrills in thine ear.
·
It changes next into
a trumpet-blast.
·
The last vibrates
like the dull rumbling of a thunder-cloud.
·
The seventh swallows
all the other sounds. They die, and then are heard no more.
232.
The series of seven sounds mentioned here has caused much
puzzlement among those who meditate upon this little book. We must notice first
of all the character of the sounds; then we shall see that there are several
interpretations of them. They are increasing in materiality and losing in
penetrating quality in the order here given. One may notice, for example, the
difference between the vina and an Indian trumpet of the old-fashioned kind. It
is nearly always a surprise to the European, when he first hears the wonderfully
delicate music of the vina, perhaps in a large and crowded hall, how, without
any exhibition of force, it reaches every corner, and how it gives the
impression of sound half-removed from our material planes.
233.
The highest sound in the series is likened to a certain chant
of the nightingale. It is said that there are occasions when the voice of this
bird rises higher and higher in pitch until it is beyond the range of human
hearing, although one may still see the throat of the warbler trembling with
song. That such high sounds exist is well known to students of science. The note
of a siren, for example, can be raised by increased pressure of air or steam,
until one after another of those who are listening declare that they can no
longer hear it. There is a certain kind of whistle with which German police dogs
can be called. When one blows upon this instrument, which looks like an ordinary
whistle, no man can hear the slightest sound, but the dog, in another room or
some distance away, will instantly prick up its ears, and come leaping and
bounding to the exact spot where what is presumably to it the sound originated.
234.
The interpretations of the sounds fall into two groups. The
first mentioned in the list may represent the last heard by the candidate. The
sounds are enumerated downwards in the order of their creation, after the
Oriental manner, so that the first sound in creation is the seventh when the
aspirant is approaching the Lord of that creation. So, first comes the dull
rumbling of a thunder-cloud, a sound representing or correlated to the physical
principle in man, in the middle is the vina, representing the antahkarana
(according to Madame Blavatsky’s classification), and lastly there is the
nightingale’s melody, associated with atma, the silence. That well typifies the
seventh, the soundless sound, into which all the others have to be raised, until
they die away and are heard no more. The candidate must learn to hear God in the
dull rumbling sound of the physical plane, then in the trumpet-blast of the
astral, then in the sound of the lower mental that is likened to the music of a
bamboo-flute, and so on right up to the world of his highest principle.
235.
The same sounds may be taken in another way as typical of the
intensity with which the aspirant hears the voice of the higher self. It
is one voice, but is heard in seven manners. At first it is delicate and
sweet, like the nightingale’s song, and it often disappears into silence; next
it becomes stronger, like “the silver cymbal of the Dhyanis”. Louder and louder
it becomes, until at last it is constantly heard, as filling all the air, like
the dull rumbling of a thunder-cloud. In the early stages of our progress the
voice of the higher Self may seem thin and faint, but later it will have for us
all the reality of thunder.
236.
Again, in the text the description of these sounds follows upon
the mention of kundalini, which is carried through the chakras. That force
awakens in seven layers, or degrees, and so gives the psychic results already
mentioned in increasing power. The voice that is heard when kundalini rises to
the place between the eyes will therefore be heard with seven degrees of
intensity, typified by the seven sounds here mentioned.
237.
Once more, it is natural that in the densest plane the
candidate should hear the inner voice but faintly, like the nightingale’s voice.
When he rises to the next plane, where the covering of the inner Self is not so
dense, its voice will be more easily heard; until finally, when he reaches the
highest principle it will be like the rumbling of a thunder-cloud. It is only
the illusion of the lower planes that causes us to ascribe delicacy to the
higher things. Ultimately we shall find that they have the full body and reality
of thunder.
238.
These interpretations are not mutually exclusive. All the
experiences which they suggest are possible for the candidate at the same time.
239.
I remember that on one occasion a question about these sounds
was asked in one of our talks on the roof at Adyar. The President and I
respectively answered as follows:
·
A.B. – In
meditation, one of the sounds that you begin to hear (for instance, one thing
that I heard quite distinctly) was a sound which was like the beating of a
tom-tom in an Indian village. I described that to H.P.B., who said: “That is
very good, go on.” Next I heard some strains of beautiful music, and then
something like silver chimes. Another sound was like the ringing of a temple
bell, such as you hear in
·
In
·
These seven sounds mentioned by H.P.B. I have never been able
to sort out. They may mean that you have to wake your consciousness in plane
after plane, and that each is meant to symbolize the note of a particular plane,
just as down here Fa is the combination of the countless sounds in the
physical plane blended together. But that does not really explain matters.
·
C.W.L. – I cannot
make them exactly correspond with the planes; they may possibly be sub-planes.
They may also be intended to symbolize the sounds which accompany the awakening
of the seven centres by the Kundalini, for sound is one of the expressions that
take place in that particular case. I have never felt at all certain of what she
meant. One would be inclined to say that the silver cymbal in different tones
would do for all. The thunder certainly does not seem to fit in very well.
·
A.B. – Of course
there are a certain number of sounds in the head which belong entirely to the
vascular system. If a person hears such sounds very strongly it means that he is
getting into a dangerous state of anaemia.
·
The sounds are not progressive. H.P.B. put things very often in
a circle; she sometimes begins with number four and then works round on the two
sides. It may also be that she gives these sounds in no sort of order. You might
possibly begin with the thunder, then the trumpet blast, and next the ocean
sprite; then you might come to the cymbal for the fourth, the flute for the
fifth and the vina, which is a more delicate sound, for the sixth, and then the
nightingale for the seventh, the top.
·
C.W.L. – If we are
allowed to turn them round like that, they will begin to mean something
definite.
·
A.B. – H.P.B., when
consulted astrally said: “What fools you all were to take them in that way: you
might have arranged them before: thunder, trumpet, ocean-shell, cymbal, flute,
vina, nightingale.” She said that we were abominably literal.
240.
C.W.L. – Similar
lists of sounds are to be found in various Sanskrit works. We have taken the
following example from the Shiva Samhita:
·
The first sound is like the hum of the honey-intoxicated bee,
next that of a flute, then of a harp; after this, by the gradual practice of
Yoga, the destroyer of the darkness of the world, he hears the sounds of ringing
bells; then sounds like the roar of thunder. When one fixes his full attention
on this sound, being free from fear, he gets absorption, O my beloved! When the
mind of the Yogi is exceedingly engaged in this sound, he forgets all external
things, and is absorbed in this sound.”1
· l Op. cit., v, 27-8.
·
When the six are
slain and at the Master’s feet are laid, then is the pupil merged into the One,
becomes that One and lives therein.
·
Madame Blavatsky speaks of the six as:
·
The six principles;
meaning when the lower personality is destroyed and the inner individuality is
merged into and lost in the seventh or Spirit.
241.
And of the One here spoken of she says:
·
The disciple is one
with Brahman or Atma.
242.
When the six principles are “slain”, in other words, when they
no longer assert their independence, but have become entirely obedient to the
will of the Self, the aspirant lives in that One. The seventh voice of buddhi
will carry him up into Atma. Madame Blavatsky applies the term Brahman to the
human atma by analogy. Brahman (neuter) is the One containing the Three; so does
atma contain buddhi and manas within itself, when the man has become an Arhat,
and learned to live in the triple spirit.
·
Before that path is
entered, thou must destroy thy lunar body, cleanse thy mind-body, and make clean
thy heart.
243.
To the term “lunar body” Madame Blavatsky adds the note:
·
The astral form
produced by the kamic principle, the Kama Rupa, or body of desire.
244.
On the term “mind-body” she comments:
·
Manasa Rupa. The
first refers to the astral or personal self; the second to the individuality, or
the reincarnating Ego, whose consciousness on our plane, or the lower Manas, has
to be paralysed.
245.
Madame Blavatsky did not think in planes so completely
as do most of the Theosophists of to-day. She had her eye more on the
principles, and saw the matter of different levels taking form under their
influence.
246.
Here she speaks of “our plane”, meaning the region of personal
existence – physical, astral and lower mental. The “astral form” is by no means
necessarily the astral body, but rather the personal form built up in the
subjective regions of our personal life (the astral and lower mental planes) on
account of our bodily form and the personal feelings and thoughts connected with
it. In my little book The Devachanic Plane and in Dr. Besant’s Ancient
Wisdom an account is given of the four types of life in the heaven-world:
(1) personal friendship, (2) personal devotion, (3) the true missionary spirit,
and (4) human achievement. They are all emotive – though unselfish, they are not
impersonal, but kamic. They take their form from the character of the physical
plane experience. But the pure lower manas would be the antahkarana – it would
be the soul’s mind, not the body’s mind. It would have its activity stimulated
only from above. It must now be cleansed from all the
247.
Think of the condition of the astral body of an advanced
person. It gives practically no direct response to impacts from outside. It is,
by itself, dead to the world. It has no independent life of its own; it has been
“slain”. If some one went up to the average man and struck him, probably his
astral body would burst instantly into flames of anger; that is its immediate
response. Not so that of the advanced man. The impact in his case would go
inwards through the astral to the buddhic vehicle. That would respond in its own
way. Then its impact upon the astral would call forth the beautiful
colours of the love emotions which are its correspondences in the astral
body. Dr. Besant has often explained that the astral aura of an advanced man is
colourless, or rather, slightly milky-white, when in repose, but that all the
most lovely colours which the plane can exhibit flood through it in response to
the great man’s buddhic response to the world.
248.
Eternal
life’s pure waters, clear and crystal, with the monsoon tempest’s muddy torrents
cannot mingle.
249.
Heaven’s
dew-drop glittering in the morn’s first sunbeam within the bosom of the lotus,
when dropped on earth becomes a piece of clay; behold, the pearl is now a speck
of mire.
250.
Strive with
thy thoughts unclean before they overpower thee. Use them as they will thee, for
if thou sparest them and they take root and grow, know well, these thoughts will
overpower and kill thee. Beware, disciple, suffer not e’en though it be their
shadow to approach. For it will grow, increase in size and power, and then this
thing of darkness will absorb thy being before thou hast well realized the black
foul monster’s presence.
251.
There are some people in the world who imagine that it is
possible to carry on the lower things and still make progress on the Path.
Sometimes they actually think that by various forms of vicious excitement they
can generate a great deal of energy which will help to carry them onward and
upward. They are afraid of becoming colourless, should they repress the lower
activities entirely. It has been said, of course, that the colourless person,
the feeble good man, cannot make progress. “I would thou wert cold or hot,” says
the Spirit in Revelation, and “Because thou art lukewarm, and neither
cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.”1
· 1 Revelation 3, 15-16.
252.
This very well represents the facts. The most promising
persons, in order of preference, are (1) the vigorous good man, (2) the vigorous
bad man, (3) the ordinary good man. No man can be an effective criminal unless
he has a strong development of some divine quality. His badness is the result of
unbalance – such as great will-power and courage, or great intelligence, without
love for his fellow-beings. Or great love and will-power, without intelligence,
can make an equally dangerous and harmful man, for he may become a fanatical
leader of forces of discontent and disruption. The mere good man, weak in all
qualities – in will, intelligence and love – makes little progress, though it
may be steady. Great men have great faults, but they may get rid of them
quickly; little men have little faults, which often seem to last for ever.
253.
There is in all this no recommendation to evil living. It
indicates that mere repression of lower tendencies will not make for rapid
progress, but that there must be positive and vigorous exertion in the
expression of what is high and good. While making that effort a person
may possibly fall. The very will-power or knowledge or love that he has gained
by his exertions will make the man’s Jail deep and terrible, should he become
unbalanced. Thus the magnitude of a man’s sin may be a sign of possible rapid
future progress for him; but that progress will begin only when the man through
karmic suffering has realized his error and purged away the impurities
incidental to his fall. Nothing much can be done, however, until that
purification has taken place. Madame Blavatsky deals vigorously with this point
in her First Steps in Occultism, as follows:
·
There are those whose reasoning powers have been so distorted
by foreign influences that they imagine that animal passions can be so
sublimated and elevated that their fury, force and fire can, so to speak, be
turned inwards; that they can be stored and shut up in one’s breast, until their
energy is, not expanded, but turned towards higher and more holy purposes:
namely, until their collective and unexpanded strength enables their possessor
to enter the true Sanctuary of the Soul and stand therein in the presence of the
Master – the Higher Self. For this purpose they will not struggle with their
passions nor slay them, They will simply, by a strong effort of will, put down
the fierce flames and keep them at bay within their natures allowing the fire to
smoulder under a thin layer of ashes. They submit joyfully to the torture of the
Spartan boy who allowed the fox to devour his entrails rather than part with it.
Oh, poor, blind visionaries!
·
As well hope that a band of drunken chimney-sweeps, hot and
greasy from their work, may be shut up in a Sanctuary hung with pure white
linen, and that instead of soiling and turning it by their presence into a heap
of dirty shreds, they will become masters in and of the sacred recess, and
finally emerge from it as immaculate as that recess. Why not imagine that a
dozen skunks imprisoned in the pure atmosphere of a Dgon-pa (a monastery), can
issue out of it impregnated with all the perfumes of the incenses used? Strange
aberration of the human mind.
254.
This portion of our text concludes with the following
uncompromising passages:
·
Before the mystic
power can make of thee a God, Lanoo, thou must have gained the faculty to slay
thy lunar form at will.
·
The Self of matter
and the Self of Spirit can never meet. One of the twain must disappear; there is
no place for both.
·
Ere thy Soul’s mind
can understand, the bud of personality must be crushed out, the worm of sense
destroyed past resurrection.
255.
The mystic power is once more kundalini, the representative in
the body of “the great pristine force which underlies all organic and inorganic
matter”. Madame Blavatsky’s note on the subject is a follows:
·
Kundalini, the
serpent power or mystic fire; it is called the serpentine or the annular power
on account of its spiral-like working or progress in the body of the ascetic
developing the power in himself. It is an electric fiery occult or fohatic
power, the great pristine force which underlies all organic and inorganic
matter.
CHAPTER 10
BECOME THE PATH
·
Thou canst not travel on the Path before
thou hast become that Path itself.
256.
C.W.L. – To this
the following foot-note is appended:
·
This Path is mentioned in all the mystic
works. As
257.
It has already been explained (in the commentary on
At the Feet of the Master)
that the thoughts and feelings which are at first difficult to grasp and
maintain become quite easy in the course of time. When the aspirant has so
trained and developed himself that the buddhic outlook and response to life
become perfectly natural and spontaneous to him, we may say he has become the
Path itself- Sometimes such a consequence of continued effort and practice is
called “second nature”. That expression, however, gives one something of a
feeling that the new qualities have been put on, and afterwards become habitual.
That is unfortunate. It is our original and best nature, our higher nature, that
shows itself in the higher life; it seems to be something new to us only because
it has heretofore been obscured by our material integuments and the pressure of
circumstances in the worlds of our personal being.
258.
An interesting metaphysical truth is indicated in the
foot-note. Our evolution is not a transit, nor even a growth. It is not a
process of going somewhere, nor an increase of size. It is an unfoldment of the
powers potential in our lives. As already stated, in the planes of the ego
materiality takes second place, the powers of consciousness – will, wisdom and
activity, (or will, love and thought) – dominate almost completely the matter of
the planes. Therefore space is not the jailor which it is down here, and
consciousness need not travel through it in order to appear in another place.
The following conversation between a Guru and his pupil has been related to
illustrate this point. The Guru told the pupil to walk across the room, and then
asked:
259.
“What were you doing? Were you moving?”
260.
After meditating upon the matter, the disciple gave the
following answer, which was declared to be correct:
261.
“No, I was not
moving. I was watching the body move. I was thinking, feeling and willing; the
body alone was moving.”1
· 1 See The Seven Rays, p. 13.
262.
This fact is true for all of us; we know of the body’s motion
merely on account of observing it by means of the senses, just as we do that of
any other object. The sensation of rushing along in an open motor-car, for
example, resolves itself, when one shuts one’s eyes, into an actual feeling of
air rushing by, and a sense of power which, acting through the imagination,
exhilarates the body. The same experience could be reproduced by suitable
apparatus, composed of wind and motion machines, without any transportation of
the body. Again, most people who have travelled at night in Pullman berths have
had the experience of waking and wondering whether they were going head first or
feet first, or even whether the train was moving or not, and they have usually
settled the question by slipping up the blind and inferring their direction from
an observation of passing lights and shadows.
263.
The fact that, in order to go from one place to another,
travelling is not necessary for the ego, is shown also in the way in which it
can simultaneously appear in the devachanic images of a number of people in the
lower mental plane in different parts of the world.
264.
Though, at the stage of development presupposed in this
teaching, the candidate is working at the perfection of his personality, at the
same time his inner work is particularly concerned with the development of
buddhi, the spiritual soul. To put it in other words, he is climbing through the
buddhic plane. Hence his becoming the Path is shown in a great development of
sympathy and love for others, as indicated in the following verses:
·
Let thy Soul lend its ear to every cry of
pain like as the lotus bares its heart to drink the morning sun.
·
Let not the fierce sun dry one tear of
pain before thyself hast wiped it from the sufferer’s eye.
·
But let each burning human tear drop on
thy heart and there remain; nor ever brush it off until the pain that caused it
is removed.
·
These tears, O thou of heart most
merciful, these are the streams that irrigate the fields of charity immortal.
‘Tis on such soil that grows the midnight blossom of Buddha, more difficult to
find, more rare to view, than is the flower of the Vogay tree. It is the seed of
freedom from rebirth. It isolates the Arhat both from strife and lust, it leads
him through the fields of being unto the peace and bliss known only in the land
of silence and non-being.
265.
When Christ said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life:
no man cometh unto the Father, but by me,”l
(1 S.John, 14, 6.) He declared a mystic truth, for the
Christ is one with the buddhic aspect of the world-consciousness. There is only
one consciousness; on full recognition of this fact the Initiate can become an
Arhat – but unless he goes through that Christ-principle he cannot reach the
Father, the atmS, above. That truth, explained with wonderful inspiration and
clarity in Dr. Annie Besant’s Esoteric Christianity, is, however, only
one aspect of the matter, for the Christ incarnate embodied the same principle
in His outward life in
266.
Such an expression as “the peace and bliss known only in the
land of silence and non-being” can be understood only by those who are willing
to think of metaphysical realities. Most of such Oriental expressions as this
are based on the fundamental idea that the universal God expresses himself as
sat, chit and ananda, that is, as being, consciousness and bliss.
267.
Being is well understood; people see it all around them;
consciousness they also know by experience; but happiness they seek. All
seek themselves. Happiness is not something that we shall gain, obtain and
possess; it is our true state of Self. But beyond both matter and consciousness
is the real inner life, which is silence and non-being from the standpoint of
the external, and yet is the bliss of true being.
·
Kill out desire; but if thou killest it,
take heed lest from the dead it should again arise.
·
Kill love of life; but if thou slayest
Tanha, let this not be for thirst of life eternal, but to replace the fleeting
by the everlasting.
·
Desire nothing. Chafe not at Karma, nor
at nature’s changeless laws. But struggle only with the personal, the
transitory, the evanescent and the perishable.
268.
Common desire is the love of external things for the sake of
astral or sensuous enjoyment. We have already seen that the disciple must not
seek the satisfaction of such desires, but must give up all the energy of his
personality – physical, emotional, and mental – to the work of spiritual
evolution and the service of the inner life in himself and other men.
269.
Tanha is the root of these desires, because it is the thirst
for sentient life. The ego on its own plane is far from being fully conscious,
but what consciousness it has gives it a feeling of great pleasure, and arouses
a kind of hunger for a fuller realization of life. It is that which is behind
the world’s great clamour for a fuller life. As before explained, the forces of
the higher mental plane pass through the causal body for the most part without
affecting it in the case of ordinary persons, as the ego is not yet developed
and trained so as to respond to more than a few of the vibrations of its own
level. There are no coarse vibrations on that plane, such as it can respond to
in its younger days, so it descends to the lower planes for the sake of feeling
more fully alive. For a long time therefore its consciousness is most vivid when
things of the physical plane are presented to it, but later, when the astral
nature is awakened, the pleasures of that plane prove to be still more intense.
270.
It is not possible in the physical body to realize how keen are
the delights of the astral life. So much is that the case that they often turn
aside and delay persons who have overcome the same sort of pleasure of the
physical plane. Yet that danger is not great for those who in physical life are
definitely seeking the things of the Path, if they are persons of advanced type,
as they are in a position to realize still higher delights, which have a far
greater attraction. The same thing is true of each plane in turn.
271.
Still, the disciple must be on guard not to give up the lower
pleasures merely for the sake of relatively higher ones, but always to keep his
eye upon his ideal goal, beyond all transitory pleasures. He must not
thirst to enjoy the age-long pleasures of the heaven-world, but must give up
all that is transitory and personal. While, on the one hand, he will not
seek to obtain the objects of desire, on the other he will not shrink from the
lessons that karma places before him; he will not wish that his field of
experience should be other than it is. He knows that it is because nature’s laws
are unchanging that he can use experience for growth. Were it not for the
orderly nature of the world, it would be impossible for the intellect to grow or
for man to use his powers at all. So he has no resentment against karma, which
is the embodiment of the Law.
·
Help nature and work on with her; and
nature will regard thee as one of her creators and make obeisance.
·
And she will open wide before thee the
portals of her secret chambers, lay bare before thy gaze the treasures hidden in
the very depths of her pure virgin bosom. Unsullied by the hand of matter, she
shows her treasures only to the eye of Spirit – the eye which never closes, the
eye for which there is no veil in all her kingdoms.
·
Then will she show thee the means and
way, the first gate and the second, the third, up to the very seventh. And then,
the goal; beyond which lie, bathed in the sunlight of the Spirit, glories
untold, unseen by any save the eye of the Soul.
272.
All students of the material sciences are familiar with the
fact that “nature is conquered by obedience”. All the forces that we employ in
modern life, such as the pressure of steam or electricity, are examples of our
working” with nature. It is perhaps rather unsympathetic to use the word
conquered, when the fact is that all our power in the world is the result of
harmony between man and nature. The man in a boat who sets his sail so that he
may go against the wind is not overcoming the wind, but is harmonizing his
affairs with its laws. By working with the laws man gains in power, not by
fighting against them.
273.
The occultist knows that the same principle is true on every
plane, and not only with regard to the matter of each world but also to the
forms of life that dwell there, high or low in the scale of evolution. Therefore
the knowledge of nature’s mechanical laws, which has led to so much power and
wealth for mankind, represents only one aspect of the harmony that should
subsist between the two. A feeling of friendly sympathy towards the animal, the
plants and even the minerals, and towards the nature spirits and the devas, is
equally important, if not more so, for the progress of man. Nature is composed
of life as well as matter, and it is through sympathetic feeling that that life
becomes known, and harmonized with human life. To look upon the world as a place
full of forbidding entities is the unfortunate custom of our age, but the man
who faces life with a feeling of kindliness to all living things will not only
see and learn more than others, but will have a smoother passage on life’s sea.
There is a tradition in
274.
In ordinary human life this sympathy works in many ways. The
modern business man knows that the first requisite for his success is to
establish friendliness with those with whom he wants to deal. The same quality
is necessary for teaching children, who often regard grown-up people as strange,
arbitrary beings, not all of their own class, but somewhat foreign, as an earth
man might regard one of Mr. Wells’ fanciful men from Mars. But when sympathy is
established, all that strangeness goes, and real education becomes possible.
275.
The nature spirits are in the same position as the children,
except that they are not dependent upon us and can easily avoid our vicinity, as
the more pleasing kinds of them usually do when modern civilized man arrives,
with his noisy, clumsy and cruel ways, and his unclean, repellant aura and cloud
of thought-forms. It is a fact that were men sympathetic with the other
kingdoms, did they plant forests and not only destroy them, and did they feel
kindly towards nature in general, we should enjoy more equable climate and more
successful cultivation. It must, of course, be said that the modern movement in
favour of gardens round houses, and trees and flowers even in the roads of our
cities, all tends in the right direction, and that in special ways of
cultivation of the earth and of particular flowers and fruits and grains and
trees, and even animals, men have done much to help the work of the
nature-spirits. But with more sympathy still better results would have accrued.
276.
This sympathy has occasionally been shown, especially by the
poets. Dr. Rabindranath Tagore’s essays and poems exhibit it in a very high
degree; in fact, the spread of this quality may be regarded almost as his
special contribution to modern civilization. Another well-known instance is that
of the philosopher Emerson who, on returning from his winter lecture tours to
his home at
277.
Men who live in their gardens, like Luther Burbank of
278.
Such sympathy is perfectly natural. If you feel special love
and admiration for a certain human being, there is a tendency on his part to
become interested in you and to return the affection. A stage lower, if you are
affectionate with an animal it becomes strongly attached to you. Still lower, in
the vegetable and mineral kingdoms, the same rule obtains, though its effects
are less obvious. From this arises the tradition that flowers and plants will
grow better for some persons than for others, other things being equal. It is
personal magnetism that calls it out; and that is what at a higher level we call
affection.
279.
There is no need to say anything here about the seven gates
mentioned in this passage, for the whole of the third Fragment of this book is
taken up with the seven portals, and there we shall study them in detail.
CHAPTER 11
THE
·
There is but one road
to
the Path; at its very end alone the Voice
of the Silence can be heard. The ladder by which the candidate ascends is formed
of rungs of suffering and pain; these can be silenced only by the voice of
virtue. Woe then to thee, disciple, if there is one single vice thou hast not
left behind; for then the ladder will give way and overthrow thee; its foot
rests in the deep mire of thy sins and failings, and ere thou canst attempt to
cross this wide abyss of matter thou hast to lave thy feet in waters of
renunciation. Beware lest thou should’st set a foot still soiled upon the
ladder’s lowest rung. Woe unto him who dares pollute one rung with miry feet.
The foul and viscous mud will dry, become tenacious, then glue his feet unto the
spot; and like a bird caught in the wily fowler’s lime, he will be stayed from
further progress. His vices will take shape and drag him down. His sins will
raise their voices, like as the jackal’s laugh and sob after the sun goes down;
his thoughts become an army, and bear him off a captive slave.
280.
C.W.L. – We have
seen, in The Masters and the Path, that there are four ways of coming to
the beginning of the probationary path: by contact with those who are already on
the Path; by deep thought; by hearing and reading the sacred word, and by the
practice of virtue.1 (1
Op. cit., Ch. vi.) Then, on the probationary path, there are four
qualifications to be attained, of which the last is given in At the Feet of
the Master as Love, and it is said that without this the other
qualifications are in vain.2
2 Volume I, Ch.
24, Liberation, Nirvana and Moksha.
281.
This, then, is the one road to the path proper – the way of
love, of unselfishness in thought, word and deed.
282.
All the old selfish habits of body and mind must be overcome by
positive virtue. The word virtue as used here cannot mean mere passive goodness
or absence of wrong-doing; it must be taken in its old meaning of strength.
Virtues are forms of strength of the soul. When the soul dominates the personal
life it will be seen to be full of such virtue. In the meantime a great battle
is necessary. In very many cases the candidate for the Path must bring forth all
his determination to stamp out completely any fault of selfishness that he may
find in himself in the course of his daily self-examination. This can best be
done by picturing a scene in which the fault has been exhibited, and then
reconstructing it in the imagination, so that in it the corresponding virtue is
shown; then one may dwell on that for a little while, and resolve that
henceforth, under such circumstances, the virtue, not the fault, will be
expressed.
283.
It is sometimes very hard to overcome habitual faults; hence
the frequent mention of suffering and pain. It gives great pain, for example, to
the drunkard, to resist “just one more, one last drink”. But if he holds firm to
his resolves never to take strong drink again, not even once, in time the
suffering will disappear, and he will know a higher kind of pleasure than that
which he obtained from the stimulus of drink. It is exactly the same with impure
or selfish emotions and thoughts; many a man fails because he dwells upon an
unworthy thought “just once more”. It is just that one that he must give up, and
refuse to harbour in his mind. To give up their faults people have sometimes to
suffer great wounds to their pride. In all these cases humility is a great help,
because it makes men willing to change themselves.
284.
Still, there are many whose lives have already been
considerably purified, who feel little or nothing of this pain. It has, indeed,
been suggested that in this passage Aryasanga has exaggerated the suffering.
That is not so, but He has expressed it in extreme terms, so that no one will
meet with suffering on the Path, expecting the reverse, and all will be ready to
pay toll to the past, to face what suffering there is, and to bring it to an end
for ever by the practice of virtue. We may remember here the encouraging words
of the Gita: “Even if thou art the most sinful of all sinners, yet shalt
thou cross over all sin by the raft of wisdom. As the burning fire reduces fuel
to ashes, O Arjuna, so doth the fire of wisdom reduce all karmas to ashes.”1
(1 Op. cit., iv,
36-37.) And again: “Never doth any who worketh righteousness, O beloved, tread
the path of woe.”2
2 Ibid., vi, 40.
285.
The necessity of getting rid of vices at the very beginning has
been emphasized in all yoga systems, as mentioned before.1
(1 Ante, p, 91.)
Only when the virtues were firmly established in his character could the student
be allowed to pass on to the later steps of the Path, including practices of
posture, breathing, control of the senses and meditation. The reason for this
demand is that as the pupil advances on the Path the forces of his will and
thought become much more powerful than ever before, and there will come times
when the ego pours his energy down into the body. If there be still remnants of
any vice in the body that energy will give it new strength, so that the fall of
the aspirant will be far greater than anything that is possible for one not so
far advanced. Powers are powers, for good or ill, so the candidate should purify
himself before seeking them, lest he injure others and himself. There is one
place on the Path, just after the Second Initiation, where the danger is
greatest of all, especially from the vice of pride, as has been explained at
length in The Masters and the Path.2
2 Op. cit., Ch.
xi.
·
Kill thy desires,
Lanoo, make thy vices impotent, ere the first step is taken on the solemn
journey.
·
Strangle thy sins,
and make them dumb for ever, before thou dost lift one foot to mount the ladder.
·
Silence thy thoughts and fix thy whole
attention on thy Master, whom yet thou dost not see, but whom thou feelest.
·
Merge into one sense thy senses, if thou
would st be secure against the foe. ‘Tis by that sense alone which lies
concealed within the hollow of thy brain, that the steep path which leadeth to
thy Master may be disclosed before thy soul’s dim eyes.
286.
Aryasanga’s repetition of the injunction to get rid of desires
and vices shows the importance which He attached to this part of the work. Not
only are any such defects enormously intensified as the powers of the candidate
develop, but also his responsibility increases, and he becomes capable of making
far more karma than before.
287.
The sixth sense, the mind, has its physical organ in the brain.
People do not usually employ this when faced by the various objects and
experiences of life. They live too much in their astral bodies. They “like”
certain things, and “dislike” others, quite without reason, quite without
considering what they are, and which are really good and bad, or useful and
useless. That will not do, of course, for anyone who wants to tread the occult
path. He must consider all things dispassionately, and revalue them according to
their usefulness to the soul.
288.
In the brain there are also the organs by means of which direct
perception of things beyond the reach of the physical senses may be had. The
pituitary body is a link between the physical body and the astral body, and so
on. In the same hollow in the brain, but a little further back, lies the pineal
gland, which is connected directly with the mental body, and serves to bring
impressions down from the mental plane. Some people develop the pituitary body
first, some the pineal gland – each must follow the method prescribed by his own
guru.
·
Long and weary is the way before thee, O
disciple. One single thought about the past that thou hast left behind will drag
thee down, and thou wilt have to start the climb anew.
·
Kill in thyself all memory of past
experience. Look not behind or thou art lost.
289.
Once more we find Aryasanga emphasizing the worst aspect of the
matter, so that none shall find the path harder than he may have thought it to
be before entering upon it. Relatively, that path is not long, when one
considers that it is only the last fourteen lives, out of a series of many
hundreds or even thousands, which are usually spent between the First and Fifth
Initiations. Further, in many cases the work of those fourteen lives is done in
but a few, taken consecutively, without devachanic interludes – which makes the
time short indeed.
290.
It is true that “the road winds uphill all the way”, but it
need not necessarily be weary. It is when one thinks only of the goal that the
journey is weary. A student entering College will find his three or four years
there intensely weary if he is thinking only of getting his degree and going out
into the world with it, and is not really interested in his studies. But if he
has planned out his work, which will bring him naturally to his degree if
properly carried out, and if he is really interested in the subjects of his
study, he may then forget all about the years that lie ahead, and may have a
fascinating time. So also on the Path the work is full of interest for heart and
mind, and he who finds it so will make it shorter in fact as well as in
appearance than he who cares only for reaching a certain prescribed goal.
291.
It is the same in meditation; some who practise it faithfully
feel it to be a tedious thing, but do it all the same, for the sake of its
results. Others find it full of interest, and therefore gain much more from it.
Let the candidate not think of his own progress on the Path; as so often
recommended, let him forget himself and work for the world, and his progress
will take care of itself. Self-examination and self-training are necessary, but
that is only like preparing and oiling machinery; it should not take much time,
the work being the important thing.
292.
It is true that sometimes people find it necessary to force
themselves at first along certain lines of work and thought, or meditation,
which they feel that they ought to take up. Very well, go on with the dreary
task, if such it appears to be, and if the motive is pure, you will soon find
that the dreariness departs, a new interest arises, and the work becomes full of
delight.
293.
The statement that one single thought about the past can drag
the candidate right down to earth again should certainly give pause to anyone
who proposes to enter the Path, and yet is unwilling to give up some pet vice,
however trifling. It is not the act so much as the thought of it that drags one
down. Madame Blavatsky says, in The Secret Doctrine:
·
Purity of mind is of greater importance than purity of body.
... An act may be performed to which little or no attention is paid, and it is
of comparatively small importance. But if thought of, dwelt on in the mind, the
effect is a thousand times greater. The thoughts must be kept pure.1
· 1 Op.cit., Vol, III, 570.
294. I
recollect a story about Colonel Olcott which illustrates this point. A young man
who much wanted to live the higher life came to him one day and asked him if he
must give up smoking. The Colonel replied: “Well, if you can’t you must, but if
you can you needn’t.” Certainly strength of will and purity of thought are of
paramount importance, and there is no progress without them, no matter how clean
the body; and the Colonel emphasized the fact very successfully. But it might be
added also that smoking is a dirty habit; it befouls the bodies, and often
causes much annoyance and discomfort to others. The worst of its dirty
selfishness physically is that the smoke is made damp with saliva and then sent
off to enter other people’s lungs. It is a horrible feature of modern life that
we are often compelled to contact and breathe smoke which has been so treated.
295.
As to the effect of a thought of a quality belonging to the
past, Madame Blavatsky also says:
·
The student must guard his thoughts. Five minutes’ thought may
undo the work of five years; and though the five years’ work will be run through
more rapidly the second time, yet time is lost.2
· 2 Ibid., p. 573.
296.
A distinction must be made here between a thought which is
merely a floating form which has entered the mind, and thought proper, which is
a deliberate act. It is the latter that can do so much harm. An unworthy thought
may drift into the mind, but if it is not dwelt upon, encouraged and
strengthened, little harm is done.
297.
That one who falls thus may quickly rise again is encouraging.
That old Greek allegory in which every time that the hero falls to earth,
worsted in the conflict, he gains new strength from it, applies to man. Better
that he should win the battle once and for all without falling; but in any case
he is destined to triumph ultimately. Much may be learned by the intelligent and
willing pupil without bitter experience, just as one may learn that fire is hot
without putting one’s hand into it; but all that is necessary will be learnt
sooner or later in one way or another.
·
Do not believe that lust
can ever be killed put if gratified or satiated, for this is an abomination
inspired by Mara. It is by feeding vice that it expands and waxes strong, like
to the worm that fattens on the blossom’s heart.
·
The rose must
re-become the bud, born of its parent stem, before the parasite has eaten
through its heart and drunk its life-sap.
·
The golden tree puts
forth its jewel-buds before its trunk is withered by the storm.
·
The pupil must regain
the child-state he has lost ere the first sound can fall upon
his ear.
298.
Sir Edwin Arnold speaks of Mara, as he is understood by the
Buddhists, in vigorous and graphic terms, in connection with the temptation of
Buddha just before His illumination:
i.
But he who is the Prince
ii.
Of Darkness, Mara – knowing this was Buddh
iii.
When he should find the Truth and save the worlds –
iv.
Gave unto all his evil powers command.
v.
Wherefore there trooped from every deepest pit
vi.
The fiends who war with Wisdom and the Light,
vii.
Arati, Trishna, Raga, and their crew
viii.
Of passions, horrors, ignorances, lusts,
ix.
The brood of gloom and dread; all hating Buddh,
x.
Seeking to shake his mind.1
a. 1
The Light of
299.
Still, Madame Blavatsky says: “But Mara is also the unconscious
quickener of the birth of the Spiritual.” The resistance that Mara opposes to
the aspirant enables him to develop his strength. An athlete might move his arms
up and down much easier without dumb-bells than with them, yet he would not
develop the same strength so quickly, if at all. That even evil is made use of
for good was once illustrated by the remark of a very spiritual man who took a
high Initiation. For some time before it he had been terribly maligned, and the
important work on which he had set his heart had been spoiled. One day someone
offered him a word of sympathy, which was quite unnecessary, for he said: “The
fact is, I owe a debt of gratitude to those people who tried to injure me,
though I did not realize it at the time; for without their aid I should not yet
have taken that Initiation.” An ordinary man would have been full of anger or of
depression, but in such a man as this Mara calls out an equal strength only of
loving sorrow or compassion. Thus may even the greatest enemy become our friend
while we are in the way with him.
300.
It is, of course, not the ignorance but the innocence of
childhood that is requisite for real spiritual progress. Mere goodness is not
progress; it is only preparatory purification. Progress is the development of
the ego on its own planes, which, when shown in the personality, appears as
strength of character – in will and love and thought. In the three stages of the
relation of a pupil to his Master, it is the third and highest that contains the
idea of childhood, for he is first a probationary pupil, then an accepted one,
and thirdly a Son of the Master.
CHAPTER 12
THE LAST STEPS
·
The light from the one Master, the one
unfading golden light of Spirit, shoots its effulgent beams on the disciple from
the very first.
·
Its rays thread through the thick, dark
clouds of matter.
·
Now here, now there, these rays illumine
it, like sun-sparks light the earth through the thick foliage of the jungle
growth. But, O disciple, unless the flesh is passive, head cool, the Soul as
firm and pure as flaming diamond, the radiance will not reach the chamber, its
sunlight will not warm the heart, nor will the mystic sounds of the akashic
heights reach the ear, however eager, at the initial stage.
301.
C.W.L. – As the sun
is always shining behind the clouds, so is the higher self constantly shedding
its beams on the aspirant. The flashes of inspiration and intuition that come
now and again into the darkness of our minds in what we call our best moments
are derived from that high source. It is a wise policy to try to capture those
best moments, to hold them in imagination, and to dwell upon them in meditation,
and thus to bring the whole life into that diamond-like condition that is
mentioned in the text.
302.
With reference to the “mystic sounds of the akashic heights”
Madame Blavatsky adds the following footnote:
·
The mystic sounds, or the melody, heard
by the ascetic at the beginning of his cycle of meditation, called Anahatashabda
by the Yogis. The Ana-hata is the fourth of the Chakras.
303.
The fourth centre or chakra is that at the heart. When the
consciousness is centred in the heart during meditation it is most susceptible
to the influence of the spiritual soul or higher self. The heart is the centre
in the body for the higher triad, atma-buddhi-manas. The head is the seat of the
psycho-intellectual man; it has its various functions in seven cavities,
including the pituitary body and the pineal gland. He who in concentration can
take his consciousness from the brain to the heart should be able to unite
kama-manas to the higher manas, through the lower manas, which, when pure and
free from
·
1 Op.
cit.,
304.
Indian tradition on the subject says that when kundalini rises
she dissolves the qualities of the various chakras through which she passes and
carries their essence upwards. When she reaches the fourth, the heart chakra,
the yogi hears the sound from above, called anahata-shabda. Shabda is
sound; an-ahata means “not beaten”; so it is that sound which is made
without beating things together. The term is therefore symbolical of that which
is above the planes of personality. The practitioner’s touch with the higher
triad begins at this point. Those who want to increase the contact between the
higher and lower manas should not dwell in meditation on anything below it. The
following meditation, translated from the Gheranda Samhita, is one of
those prescribed for the heart centre. It illustrates the way in which the yogi
gradually withdraws his attention from his surroundings and concentrates it upon
his Ideal.
i.
Let him find in his heart a broad ocean of nectar,
ii.
Within it a beautiful island of gems,
iii.
Where the sands are bright golden and sprinkled with jewels,
iv.
Fair trees line its shores with a myriad of blooms,
v.
And within it rare bushes, trees, creepers and rushes,
vi.
On all sides shed fragrance most sweet to the sense.
vii.
Who would taste of the sweetness of divine completeness
viii.
Should picture therein a most wonderful tree.
ix.
On whose far-spreading branches grow fruit of all fancies –
x.
The four mighty Teachings that hold up the world,
xi.
There the fruit and the flowers know no death and no sorrows,
xii.
While to them the bees hum and soft cuckoos sing.
xiii.
Now, under the shadow of that peaceful arbour
xiv.
A temple of rubies most radiant is seen,
xv.
And he who shall seek there will find on a seat rare,
xvi.
His dearly Beloved, enshrined therein.
xvii.
Let him dwell with his mind, as his Teacher defines,
xviii.
On that Divine Form, with His modes and His signs.1
i.
1 See Concentration,
·
Unless thou hear’st
thou canst not see. Unless thou seest, thou canst not hear. To hear and see,
this is the second
stage.
* *
* *
* *
305.
We have already considered the significance of seeing and
hearing.2 (2
Ante, p. 59.) Unless the candidate is responsive to the inner voice, that
is, unless he understands spiritual laws, he will never see the outer things as
they are. He must learn to look at the things of matter with the eyes of the
spirit, as a Master once expressed it. When he sees the material or outward
things in that way, he will more and more understand the inner voice. This is
like the alternation which is necessary between meditation and experience. To go
through life in a busy way, without stopping to meditate upon it, is to miss
much of the significance of its events; one should spare a little time each day
to let the inner light play upon them. On the other hand, to shut oneself in
one’s study and give one’s whole time to thought would yield little profit; in
that way a man would acquire endless misconceptions, for experience is required
to correct and enlarge our meditation. It is the balanced interplay of the inner
and the outer that the pupil must seek. He must aim to be harmonized – to use
the expression repeated again and again in the Gita.
306.
The inner and outer worlds correspond perfectly to one
another, point for point in God’s system. Says Madame Blavatsky in The Secret
Doctrine:
·
In the realm of hidden forces, an audible sound is but a
subjective colour, and a perceptible colour, but an inaudible sound.1
·
J Op. cit.,
307.
Colour is spoken of here, not form; it makes the statement more
accurate, for we really see only colours, not forms.
308.
It is impossible to say with any certainty why this state of
hearing and seeing harmonized together is called the second stage. We cannot
tell what system of stages Aryasanga was expounding, for a veil is drawn over
his instructions at this point. The line of stops marks a missing portion
dealing with the third stage. When the teaching emerges again (after this
hiatus) we find Aryasanga dealing with later stages exactly as the Yoga
Sutras give them, namely (5) pratyahara, entire control of the senses, (6)
dharana, concentration, (7) dhyana, meditation, and (8) samadhi, contemplation.
·
When the disciple
sees and hears, and when he smells and
tastes, eyes closed, ears shut, with mouth and nostrils stopped; when the four
senses blend and ready are to pass into the fifth, that of the inner touch –
then into stage the fourth he hath passed on.
309.
There are some yogis who do literally stop the mouth and nose
when going into meditation or trance. The fingers are so placed as to keep the
eyes, the nostrils and the mouth closed, and these men have also trained the
tongue so that they can turn it upwards and backwards into the cavity above the
mouth, and thus prevent the inlet of air. This is called khechari mudra, as
practised by certain hatha yogis. It is not done by the raja yogis, and is not
recommended here. There is a stage at which the pupil can close his eyes and
reproduce within himself or experience in the astro-mental region the sensations
of smell, taste, sight and touch. Now, in order to withdraw himself to a still
higher state he must attend to the inner touch, which is hearing. By
giving his attention to the sound within, and tracing it into its finer and
finer recesses, he brings himself to the point where he may practise pratyahara,
the restraint of all sensation, the inner as well as the outer, that Of
the hall of learning as well as that of the hall of ignorance. This practice is
described in the next verse:
·
And in the fifth, O slayer of thy
thoughts, all these again have to be killed beyond re-animation.
310.
The attention is quite commonly withdrawn to a large extent by
most people when, for example, they are especially interested in a book; they do
not then respond to the impressions made upon the senses by the various odours,
sights and sounds surrounding them. To put oneself into that condition at will
is pratyahara, and it is a preparation for really successful meditation. The
killing beyond re-animation means nothing more than that the senses, like good
dogs, will lie down when told to do so, and will not get up again until they are
called. There is a foot-note at this point, as follows:
·
This means that in the sixth stage of
development which in the occult system, is Dharana, every sense as an individual
faculty has to be “killed” (or paralysed) on this plane, passing into and
merging with the seventh sense, the most spiritual.
311.
Dharana is the sixth step of yoga, as given in the Yoga
Sutras. It is that concentration of mind which we have already studied,1
and it follows upon pratyahara. Since mind or chitta is regarded as a sixth
sense, when dharana is complete and that mind thereby ceases to function in
relation to the things of the external world, intuition, here called the seventh
sense, arises. Life teaches us in two ways, by tuition that the world gives us,
and by intuition, the working of the inner self. As men proceed on their
evolutionary pilgrimage, their intuition increases and they do not depend so
much as before on the instruction that the world gives. This is only another way
of saying that the man who uses his inner powers can learn much more from a
little experience than other men can from a great deal. Because of the activity
of his innate intelligence the developed man is able to see the great
significance of even small things; but the undeveloped mind is full of
curiosity. It is constantly eager for novelty, because, not being good at
thinking, it soon exhausts the obvious significance of commonplace things. This
mind is the one that craves miracles in connection with its religious
experience, as it is blind to the countless miracles that surround it all the
time.
312.
1 Ante, p. 40.
·
Withhold thy mind
from all external objects, all external sights. Withhold internal images, lest
on thy Soul-light a dark shadow they should cast. . Thou art now in Dharana, the
sixth stage.
313.
In the practice of concentration it is always necessary to
consider both the external and the internal sources of interruption. One must
prevent the mind from taking an interest in any external thing, for if this is
not done, the slightest sound will awaken its curiosity and spoil the
concentration. Also one must stop the mind from bringing up within itself images
relating to the past or the future; during the practice one must be completely
uninterested in what happened yesterday or what is likely to happen to-morrow.
When this concentration has been successfully achieved, the next and seventh
stage of practice begins, which is called dhyana, that is, meditation.
·
When thou hast passed
into the seventh, O happy one, thou shalt perceive no more the sacred Three, for
thou shalt have become that Three thyself. Thyself and mind, like twins upon a
line, the star which is thy goal burns overhead. The Three that dwell in glory
and in bliss ineffable, now in the world of Maya have lost their names. They
have become one star, the fire which is the Upadhi of the flame.
·
And this, O Yogi of
success, is what men call Dhyana, the right precursor of Samadhi.
314.
Passing from dharana to dhyana, from concentration to
meditation, the aspirant on this Path enters the buddhic consciousness. That is
then “thyself”. The mind here spoken of is the higher manas, for the lower manas
has been silenced. The manasic principle has been raised into that of buddhi, so
the two are like “twins upon a line”, the two lower corners of a triangle, as is
indicated by the following foot-note:
·
Every stage of
development in Raja Yoga is symbolized by a geometrical figure. This one is the
sacred triangle and precedes Dharana. The ∆ is the sign of the high chelas,
while another kind of triangle is that of high Initiates. It is the symbol “I”
discoursed upon by Buddha and used by Him as a symbol of the embodied form of
Tathagata when released from the three methods of the Prajna. Once the
preliminary and lower stages passed, the disciple sees no more the ∆ but the –
the abbreviation of the – the full septenary. Its true form is not given here,
as it is almost sure to be pounced upon by some charlatans and desecrated in its
use for fraudulent purposes.
315.
The star that burns overhead is the atma. But it refers also,
as Madame Blavatsky says in another footnote, to the star of Initiation, which
shines over the head of the Initiate. As the object to be attained is the Fourth
Initiation, that of the Arhat, it is the star of that Initiation, which leads to
the atmic or nirvanic plane, that is his goal.
316.
At this stage, instead of looking upwards in thought, and
regarding the higher triad (atma-buddhi-manas) as above oneself, as was the case
heretofore, one finds oneself to be in the buddhic state, manas being united
with buddhi as manas-taijasi. The “meditation” of the Initiate at this stage
will ultimately lead on to a further union of buddhi and atma. Upon the
attainment of that union the higher triad will have become one star, described
in a foot-note as “the basis, Upadhi, of the ever unreachable flame, so long as
the ascetic is still in this life”. The fuel is the personality; the fire is
this triple spirit; the flame is the Monad. Even the Adept, while remaining in
physical incarnation, does not enter fully into the state of the Monad. Says
Madame Blavatsky:
·
Dhyana is the last
stage before the final on this earth unless one becomes a full Mahatma. As said
already, in this state the Raja Yogi is yet spiritually conscious of self, and
the working of his higher principles. One step more, and he will be on the plane
beyond the seventh, the fourth according to some schools. These, after the
practice of Pratyahara – a preliminary training, in order to control one’s mind
and thoughts – count Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi, and embrace the three under
the generic name of Sannyama. Samadhi is the state in which the ascetic loses
the consciousness’ of every individuality, including his own. He becomes the
All.
317.
It is significant that the three should lose their names.
They are not forms, for their region is that of consciousness. The lower
planes of the personality are planes of form; then come the planes of name or
meaning”, but the Monad is beyond name, beyond what men call consciousness.
318.
The text goes on to indicate that, having attained to the
practice of samadhi, the aspirant has now become an Arhat, and has reached the
goal of the endeavour discussed in this Fragment.
CHAPTER 13
THE GOAL
·
And now thyself is
lost in Self, thyself unto Thyself, merged in that Self from which thou first
didst radiate.
·
Where is thy
individuality, Lanoo, where the Lanoo himself? It is the spark lost in the fire,
the drop within the ocean, the ever-present ray become the All and the eternal
radiance.
·
And now, Lanoo, thou
art the doer and the witness, the radiator and the radiation, light in the
sound, and the sound in the light.
319.
C.W.L. – As a man
rises in life to a realization that the personality is merely “it”, and thus
raises his centre of consciousness to the higher self, so there comes the time
when he discovers as a fact of experience that that consciousness is only “you”,
not “I”.1 (1
See ante, pp. 72, 81.) When that comes about, at or about the Fourth
Initiation, the lower self becomes lost in the true Self, and what the man has
thought or felt to be his individuality goes. And just as he who has achieved
the buddhic state recognizes and accepts the consciousness of others as his own,
and feels their joys and sorrows as his own; so now does this man find only one
true “I” in all.
320.
The distinction between the realization obtained by the
initiate of lower degree, and that of the Arhat, between the consciousness of
the buddhic plane and that of the atmic, has been given in the Bhagavad-Gita.
In the former state the man sees the same Self equally dwelling in all
beings; in the latter he sees that all are in the one Self.
321.
This, according to Yoga Sutras, is the state of
kaivalya, of “oneness”, of freedom, on the full attainment of which the
distinction between seer and seen, between subject and object, is destroyed.
·
Thou art acquainted
with the five impediments, O blessed one. Thou art their conqueror, the master
of the sixth, deliverer of the four modes of truth.
·
The light that falls
upon them shines from thyself, O thou who wast disciple, but art Teacher now.
·
And of these modes of
truth:
·
Hast thou not passed
through knowledge of all misery – truth the first?
·
Hast thou not conquered
the
·
Hast thou not sin at
the third gate destroyed, and truth the third attained?
·
Hast thou not entered
Tau, the path that leads to knowledge – the fourth truth?
322.
Madame Blavatsky adds:.
·
The four modes of truth are, in Northern
Buddhism: Ku, suffering or misery; Tu, the assembling of temptations: Mu, their
destructions; and Tau, the Path. The “five impediments” are the knowledge of
misery, truth about human frailty, oppressive restraints, and the absolute
necessity of separation from all the ties of passion, and even of desires. The
“Path of salvation” is the last one.
323.
There are the Four Noble Truths taught to the world by the Lord
Buddha. These were Sorrow, Sorrow’s Cause, Sorrow’s Ceasing and the Way. These
have been put before the Western world with wonderful beauty arid accuracy in
Sir Edwin Arnold’s matchless poem, The Light of Asia, from which the
following verses are quoted. But all who seek inspiration on the Path should not
fail to read the whole work.
i.
Ye that will tread the
ii.
Bright Reason traces and soft Quiet smoothes;
iii.
Ye who will take the high Nirvana-way,
iv.
List the Four Noble Truths.
v.
The First Truth is of Sorrow. Be not mocked!
vi.
Life which ye prize is long-drawn agony:
vii.
Only its pains abide; its pleasures are
viii.
As birds which light and fly.
ix.
Ache of the birth, ache of the helpless days,
x.
Ache of hot youth and ache of manhood’s prime;
xi.
Ache of the chill grey years and choking death,
xii.
These fill your piteous time.
xiii.
Sweet is fond Love, but funeral-flames must kiss
xiv.
The breasts which pillow and the lips which cling
xv.
Gallant is warlike Might, but vultures pick
xvi.
The joints of chief and King.
xvii.
Beauteous is Earth, but all its forest-broods
xviii.
Plot mutual slaughter, hungering to live;
xix.
Of sapphire are the skies, but when men cry
xx.
Famished, no drops they give.
xxi.
Ask of the sick, the mourners, ask of him
xxii.
Who tottereth on his staff, lone and forlorn,
xxiii.
“ Liketh thee life? .” – these say the babe is wise
xxiv.
That weepeth, being born.
xxv.
The Second Truth is Sorrow’s Cause. What grief
xxvi.
Springs of itself and springs not of Desire?
xxvii.
Senses, and things perceived mingle and light
xxviii.
Passion’s quick spark of fire:
xxix.
So flameth Trishna, lust and thirst of things.
xxx.
Eager ye cleave to shadows, dote on dreams;
xxxi.
A false Self in the midst ye plant, and make
xxxii.
A world around which seems;
xxxiii.
Blind to the heights beyond, deaf to the sound
xxxiv.
Of sweet airs breathed from far past Indra’s sky;
xxxv.
Dumb to the summons of the true life kept
xxxvi.
For him who false puts by.
xxxvii.
So grow the strifes and lusts which make earth’s war,
xxxviii.
So grieve poor cheated hearts and flow salt tears;
xxxix.
So wax the passions, envies, angers, hates;
xl.
So years chase blood-stained years
xli.
With wild red feet. So, where the grain should grow
xlii.
Spreads the biran-weed with its evil root
xliii.
And poisonous blossoms; hardly good seeds find
xliv.
Soil where to fall and shoot;
xlv.
And, drugged with poisonous drink, the soul departs,
xlvi.
And, fierce with thirst to drink, Karma returns;
xlvii.
Sense-struck again the sodden Self begins, And new deceits it
earns.
xlviii.
The Third is Sorrow’s Ceasing. This is peace
xlix.
To conquer love of self and lust of life,
l.
To tear deep-rooted passion from the breast.
li.
To still the inward strife;
lii.
For love to clasp Eternal Beauty close;
liii.
For glory to be Lord of self; for pleasure
liv.
To live beyond the gods; for countless wealth
lv.
To lay up lasting treasure
lvi.
Of perfect service rendered, duties done
lvii.
In charity, soft speech, and stainless days
lviii.
These riches shall not fade away in life,
lix.
Nor any death dispraise.
lx.
Then Sorrow ends, for Life and Death have ceased;
lxi.
How should lamps flicker when their oil is spent?
lxii.
The old sad count is clear, the new is clean;
lxiii.
Thus hath a man content.
1. *
* *
*
lxiv.
The Fourth Truth is The Way. It openeth wide
lxv.
Plain for all feet to tread, easy and near,
lxvi.
The Noble Eightfold Path; it goeth straight
lxvii.
To peace and refuge. Hear!
lxviii.
Manifold tracks lead to yon sister-peaks
lxix.
Around whose snows the gilded clouds are curled;
lxx.
By steep or gentle slopes the climber comes
lxxi.
Where breaks that other world.
lxxii.
Strong limbs may dare the rugged road which storms,
lxxiii.
Soaring and perilous, the mountain’s breast;
lxxiv.
The weak must wind from slower ledge to ledge,
lxxv.
With many a place of rest.
lxxvi.
So is the Eightfold Path which brings to peace;
lxxvii.
By lower or by upper heights it goes.
lxxviii.
The firm soul hastes, the feeble tarries. All
lxxix.
Will reach the sunlit snows.1
a. 1 Op. cit., Book the Eighth.
324.
The five impediments in the way of the candidate for Arhatship
may be taken in various forms. They are the five mentioned by Madame Blavatsky
in the foot-note just quoted, or they are the first five fetters, or they are
the five kleshas mentioned in the Yoga Sutras, and already discussed.2
· 2 Ante, pp. 49-52.
·
And now, rest ‘neath
the Bodhi tree, which is perfection of all knowledge, for, know, thou art the
master of Samadhi – the state of faultless vision.
·
Behold! thou hast
become the light, thou hast become the sound, thou art thy Master and thy God.
Thou art thyself the object of thy search: the voice unbroken, that resounds
throughout eternities, exempt from change, the seven sounds in one, the
Voice of the Silence.
·
Aum Tat Sat.
325.
The termination Aum Tat Sat is one of the Maha-vakyams or
“great sayings” of the Hindus. The meaning of Aum we have already considered.1
(1 Ante, pp.
84-5.) Tat refers to the Supreme. Philosophically, the pronouns he and she are
unsuitable to refer to the Supreme, so Tat, meaning “That”, is employed. Beyond
“it” and “you” is That, which is “I”. So the expression means that it is That
which is the Real. All good works begin and end with this thought.
FRAGMENT
II
THE TWO PATHS
CHAPTER 1
THE OPEN GATE
326.
C.W.L. – We come
now to the second Fragment which Madame Blavatsky translated from The Book of
the Golden Precepts – entitled The Two Paths. This is not necessarily
a continuation of the first Fragment, called The Voice of the Silence,
although it does begin by addressing one who has just reached the goal of
Arhatship. There is nothing to show that the three Fragments stand in any
special relation to one another. They are to all intents and purposes three
separate books dealing in much the same manner with the same subject. It is,
however, a great advantage to the aspirant to hear the teaching about the Path
again and again in slightly different forms. It renews his enthusiasm, draws
attention to points which he may have overlooked, and generally gives him
breadth of vision.
327.
The present Fragment begins by addressing one who has just
achieved the summit of the Path, and the question arises: will he go onwards
into nirvanic bliss, heedless of those who remain behind, or will he turn back
at the threshold and help others who are climbing; will he take liberation for
himself, or will he stay to help the world?
·
And now, O Teacher of
compassion, point Thou the way to other men. Behold all those who, knocking for
admission, await in ignorance and darkness to see the gate of the sweet Law
flung open!
·
The voice of the
candidates:
·
Shalt not Thou,
Master of Thine own mercy, reveal the doctrine of the heart? Shalt Thou refuse
to lead Thy servants unto the Path of liberation?
328.
The opening paragraph of this Fragment may at first seem a
little strange to us in these modern days. We are familiar with the thought that
the Path is open to anyone anywhere, regardless of race, creed, sex, caste or
colour, who lives the life that is prescribed for it. Why, then, should any
people be waiting in darkness and ignorance for a gate to be flung open for
them?
329.
The fact is that at the time when the Lord Buddha taught in
330.
The castes were hence called the Varnas, or colours – the pure
Aryans white, the Aryan and Toltec intermixture red, and the Aryan and Mongolian
yellow. The castes were allowed to intermarry among themselves, but a feeling
quickly grew up that marriages should be restricted within the caste. Later,
those who were not Aryan at all were included under the general appellation of
Shudras, but even here in many cases a certain small amount of Aryan blood may
appear. Many of the hill tribes are partly Aryan – some few are wholly so, like
the Siaposh people and the Gipsy tribes.
331.
There are passages in the Hindu scriptures to show that it was
possible for individuals of exceptional character and ability to be raised in
caste rank, but it must have been a very rare occurrence, and certainly for some
time before the advent of the Lord Buddha it had been generally held that only a
Brahmana could hope for liberation, and anyone who wished to reach that goal
must first contrive to be born as a Brahmana. This was not a very hopeful
doctrine for the majority of the people, since the Brahmanas were never numerous
– even to-day there are only about thirteen millions of them in a population of
some three hundred millions – and they did not allow the lower caste people to
study the sacred books.
332.
But the Buddha’s teaching flung the gates wide open. He taught
that equal respect should be shown to one of any caste who lived the life, and
conversely that a Brahmana who does not live the life was not worthy of respect,
as in the following verse from the Vasala Sutta:
i.
Not by birth does one become low caste,
ii.
Not by birth does one become a Brahmana;
iii.
By actions alone one becomes low caste,
iv.
By his actions alone one becomes a Brahmana.
333.
Many Brahmanas have told me that they actually feel the truth
of this in practical life; they find themselves more drawn to those of lower
castes who live the ideals of the Brahmana life than to members of their own
caste who neglect its ideals and live at a lower standard.
334.
The aim of the Lord Buddha was not to found a new religion, but
to reform Hinduism. For a time almost all
·
The same am I to all beings; there is none hateful to me nor
dear. They verily who worship me with devotion, they are in me, and I also in
them. Even if the most sinful worship me, with undivided heart, he too must be
accounted righteous, for he hath rightly resolved; speedily he becometh dutiful
and goeth to eternal peace, O Kaunteya; know thou for certain that my devotee
perisheth never. They who take refuge with me, O Partba, though of the womb of
sin, women, Vaishyas, even Shudras, they also tread the highest path.1
i. 1 Op. cit., ix, 29-32.
335.
It must not be assumed that Shri Krishna is here placing women
and others on a lower level, but that he is refuting a number of popular
superstitions, among them the idea that those who are in female bodies are
necessarily inferior and so cannot succeed in high spiritual aims.
336.
Madame Blavatsky explains in a foot-note that there are two
Schools of the Buddha’s doctrine, the esoteric and the exoteric, respectively
called the “heart” and the “eye” doctrine, and that the former emanated from the
Buddha’s heart while the latter was the work of His brain or head. Another
interpretation that was given to me relates the terms to the eye and heart of
the candidate: the scheme of things may be learnt by the eye, but the higher
path can be entered only when the heart is in tune with the inner life.
337.
The whole passage is based upon an alleged hesitation on the
part of the Buddha as to whether He should preach. It is said that as He sat
under the Bodhi tree on the morning following His Illumination, He doubted
whether the world would understand and follow Him, until He heard a voice as of
the earth in pain, which cried: “Surely I am lost; I and my creatures!“ And
then, again: “Oh, Supreme, let Thy great Law be uttered!“1
·
1 The Light
of
·
Quoth the Teacher:
·
The paths are two; the great perfections
three; six are the virtues that transform the body into the tree of knowledge.
338.
To this Madame Blavatsky adds the following footnote:
·
The tree of knowledge is a title given by
the followers of the Bodhidharma (Wisdom Religion) to those who have attained
the height of mystic knowledge – Adepts. Nagarjuna, the founder of the
Madhyamika School, was called the dragon-tree, the dragon standing as a symbol
of wisdom and knowledge. The tree is honoured because it is under the Bodhi
(wisdom) tree that Buddha received His birth and enlightenment, preached His
first sermon, and died.
339.
Swami T. Subba Row had a somewhat different interpretation of
this symbol of a tree. He said that the body of the candidate had become a
channel of knowledge (and we may add of force as well), so that it was one of
the twigs on the Tree which is the total wisdom of the world. We may add, too,
the idea that the Initiate is part of the great tree that is the Hierarchy, the
Great White Brotherhood, that has its roots far up in the higher planes, and
whose branches ramify into every part of human life, and even down to the lower
kingdoms. Those who have read the later chapters of The Masters and the Path
will appreciate this ancient symbol of a tree, for there it is shown how the
Occult Hierarchy branches outward from one great Root.
340.
In this statement about the two paths, the three great
perfections, and the six virtues, we have an instance of the methodical
character of the Buddha’s teaching. He always helped His followers to remember
His teaching by giving it to them in a tabular form. There were, for example,
the Four Noble Truths, each represented by a single word which would call to
recollection a quite definite set of ideas. There were also the Noble Eightfold
Path, the Ten Sins, classed as three of the body, four of speech and three of
the mind, and the Twelve Nidanas, or successive causes of material life and
sorrow for man.
341.
The transcendental virtues, or paramitas, are sometimes
reckoned as six, sometimes seven, but more commonly as ten. When in
342.
When in
·
Who shall approach them?
·
Who shall first enter them?
·
Who shall first hear the doctrine of two
paths in h one, the truth unveiled about the Secret Heart? The law
which, shunning learning, teaches wisdom, reveals a tale of woe.
·
Alas, alas, that all men should possess
Alaya, be one with the great Soul, and that, possessing it, Alaya should so
little avail them!
·
Behold how, like the moon reflected in
the tranquil waves, Alaya is reflected by the small and the great, is mirrored
in the tiniest atoms, yet fails to reach the heart of all. Alas, that so few men
should profit by the gift, the priceless boon of learning truth, the right
perception of existing things, the knowledge of the non-existent!
343.
The Secret Heart is the esoteric doctrine. It is a symbol that
comes down to us from Atlantean days. In the innermost shrine of the great
temple in the City of the
344.
When Aryasanga uses the term “secret heart” He also means all
the inner mysteries. Madame Blavatsky’s foot-note says:
·
The Secret Heart is the esoteric
doctrine.
345.
Here the Teacher by “shunning learning” certainly means that
there are times when we must turn our attention away from the mere gaining of
knowledge from the outside through the senses, that we may give time to the
development of the inner learning through intuition. We cannot be wise without
having sufficient learning or knowledge with regard to the things that we have
to deal with in the world, in our particular sphere of duty; but on the other
hand we should be much in error if we thought that the greatest thing in life
was to accumulate great stores of knowledge, or were even to imagine that such
knowledge had intrinsic value, apart from the use that we can make of it in the
service of mankind.
346.
In
347.
Even if we are able to keep our heads among the clouds, it is
necessary that our feet should rest firmly on the earth, and we must treat
impressions coming from within with balanced judgment, just as we apply common
sense to the experiences of everyday life. This is necessary, because it is
quite easy to mistake impulses, coming from the astral body, for intuitions
which come from the higher self. Sometimes it happens, for example, that a dead
person seeing that we are interested in some particular point, offers a
suggestion on the astral plane, and this may come down into the brain and seem
like intuition. Yet, as a matter of fact, that dead person may be a very
incompetent observer on the astral plane, and may therefore be giving quite
wrong information.
348.
This advice to shun learning is useful not only to those who
are on the Path, but also to every one who is at all studious, if we take it to
mean, as it does, that we should avoid more learning. A great amount of
study of the mere outside of things often leads to materialism. Because they see
around them great cataclysms, sacrifice, oppression, sorrow and suffering, and a
vast amount of praying to which no answer seems to be vouchsafed, many people
come to think that conflict and struggle is the law of life, that nature is not
compassionate. But to study the world as fully as possible, all the time
regarding it as a great school for the life dwelling in its multifarious forms,
leads to wisdom, which enables one to see that all things are moving together
for good. When one develops astral and higher forms of vision this fact that all
is well is no longer a matter to be understood by careful reasoning; it leaps to
the eyes. No one with such vision could be a materialist.
349.
The word Alaya means simply a dwelling or house. Esoterically,
Madame Blavatsky says, it has at least a double meaning, as being both the
universal soul, and the Self of an advanced Adept. It is the real dwelling or
home of man, the universal aspect of that which is buddhi in the spiritual triad
in man. It is the male or positive aspect of the universal soul, the Logos. It
is the Over-soul of Emerson, the universal Higher Self of all beings. It is what
Plato called Nous, a principle free from matter yet acting with design, the
jivatma of the Hindus, the source of the divine creative thought. In other words
it is in the Second Logos, the universal spiritual soul, of which the buddhi in
each man is a ray. That one should have “knowledge of the non-existent” must
certainly look strange to those who do not know the exact philosophical meaning
of the last word. To exist means to stand outside of, to have external or
objective being. The kind of being that is called existence belongs to all the
world that is seen as outside ourselves, but the indwelling life or
consciousness has its own state of being – call it “istence” if you like, but
not “existence”. Nothing could be more real than the reality of this conscious
life, which we also possess because we are part of the same Logos – and that is
the “non-existent” of which the aspirant must gain knowledge. Every man is
essentially divine; but to realize it he must stand out of his own light – then
there will be no shadow, no illusion.
CHAPTER 2
·
Saith the pupil:
·
Teacher, what shall I
do to reach to wisdom? O wise one, what, to gain perfection?
·
Search for the paths.
But, O Lanoo, be of clean heart before thou startest on thy journey. Before thou
takest thy first step, learn to discern the real from the false, the
ever-fleeting from the everlasting. Learn above all to separate head-learning
from Soul-wisdom, the “eye” from the “heart” doctrine.
350.
C.W.L. – There is
nothing that can be said here on the subject of the real and the unreal that has
not already been dealt with at length in the comment on “From the unreal lead me
to the real” in At the Feet of the Master.1
351. 1 Op.cit., Ch. IV.
·
Yea, ignorance is
like unto a closed and airless vessel; the Soul a bird shut up within. It
warbles not, nor can it stir a feather; but the songster mute and torpid sits,
and of exhaustion dies.
·
But even ignorance is better than
head-learning with no Soul-wisdom to illuminate and guide it.
352.
No occult progress at all is possible for a man while he is
extremely ignorant, however much he may be developed in other ways. Without some
knowledge of the Truth, and of the Path, he will not move in a definite
direction. Most people have very little knowledge of what it means to be really
a man, what are the qualities and actions which make for progress and what for
retrogression, and they have no conception of the great destiny to which all are
slowly moving. Therefore their progress is very, very slow. We have investigated
clairvoyantly as many as a hundred successive lives of some second class pitris,
or men of the second grade, and find scarcely any perceptible growth at the end
of that series.
353.
There is, however,, a steady though slow evolution of the whole
mass of life going on all the time, and the man has shared in this general
progress. Absolutely he has gone forward, but relatively he has done little. Mr.
Sinnett compared this advance to that of a person going round and round a tower
by a winding staircase; he comes to the same position and outlook again and
again, but every time just a little bit higher than before. It would seem almost
as though men were being treated a little better than they deserve, for we see
that even the ignorant man, whose thoughts are selfish in nine cases out of ten,
is advancing in this way. But the fact is that even a little force directed
towards the higher things is far more potent than a great deal of force turned
towards the lower things. If one tenth of a man’s thoughts are spiritual he is
beyond the average; even in such a case the man is taking nine steps backward
for one step forward, but fortunately the nine steps backward are very short and
the one step forward is very long. It takes a bad life to balance good and evil,
and to fall back a man must be exceptionally bad. Then again, the effect of a
little good is very far-reaching on account of the close association that
obtains among men, and he who sets it going receives much good karma.
354.
But if ignorance is a great obstacle to progress, knowledge
that is not applied is little better; it also does not count for very much. Even
if a man is interested in occult matters he may stay apparently at the same
level life after life; for if it is not applied the knowledge does little good.
To put knowledge into practice is an absolutely necessary condition for rapid
progress.
·
The seeds of wisdom cannot sprout and
grow in airless space. To live and reap experience, the mind needs breadth and
depth and points to draw it towards the Diamond Soul. Seek not those points in
Maya’s realm; but soar beyond illusion, search the eternal and the changeless
Sat, mistrusting fancy’s false suggestions.
355.
In her foot-note, Madame Blavatsky says that the Diamond Soul,
Vajrasattva, is a title of the supreme Buddha, the Lord of all mysteries, called
Vajradhara and Adi-Buddha. In The Secret Doctrine, however, she points
out the distinction between Vajrasattva and Vajradhara. Vajra is a diamond;
sattva in such a connection as this means “by nature”, that is, a character or
soul, so Vajrasattva is one whose nature or character is like a diamond.
Dhara means holding or bearing, so Vajradhara is one who holds a diamond.
Avalokiteshvara, “the Lord who is seen”, is Vajrasattva, the Diamond-Soul or
Diamond-Heart, and is the synthetic reality of all the Dhyani-Buddhas. The First
Logos is Vajradhara or Vajrapani, the Diamond-Holder, or the Diamond-Handed One,
also called Dorjechang in Tibetan. He is the one beyond all conditioning or
manifestation, but He sends into the world of subjective manifestation,
the expression of His Heart – Vajrasattva or Dorjesempa, the Second Logos.1
· 1 See Ante, pp, 73-4.
356.
That there should be special points required to draw the
candidate into full touch with That is analogous to what we have seen in the
process of individualization of an animal. In this case, the points are the
finer qualities that it develops, such as affection and devotion, by means of
which it reaches up into the human condition of consciousness. The mind of man
must also put out special points in order that it may unite with the Soul, and
for the Initiate those points must rise up into buddhi, which is the principle
in the reincarnating self corresponding to the Vajrasattva at a still higher
level. Swami T. Subba Row said that it referred to the atma drawing the ego into
the Monad. The same simile can thus be employed at many different levels.
·
For mind is like a
mirror; it gathers dust while it reflects.
357.
This, says Madame Blavatsky, is from the doctrine of Shin-Sien,
who taught that the human mind is like a mirror which attracts and reflects
every atom of dust, and has to be, like that mirror, watched over and dusted
every day. Shin-Sien was the sixth patriarch of
358.
In The Secret Doctrine she explains the position of
Bodhidharma, as follows:
·
When the misuse of dogmatical orthodox Buddhist Scriptures had
reached its climax, and the true spirit of the Buddha’s Philosophy was nearly
lost, several reformers appeared from
359.
The dust on the mirror typifies the prejudices, illusions and
fancies which are in the astral and mental bodies ‘ these are clearly visible to
the sight of the respective planes as decided obstacles to better thought or
feeling. The effects of these impediments and the means to get rid of them we
have already considered carefully in the talks on At the Feet of the Master.2
2 Ante,
Vol. I, Part 4, Chapter 1, Control of Mind,
360.
It needs the gentle breezes of
Soul-wisdom to brush away the dust of our illusions. Seek, O beginner, to blend
thy mind and Soul.
361.
Shun
ignorance and likewise shun illusion. Avert thy face from world deceptions;
mistrust thy
senses; they are false. But within thy
body – the shrine of thy sensations – seek in the impersonal for the Eternal
Man; and having sought him out, look inward: thou art Buddha.
362.
Common experience tells us that the senses must be mistrusted.
The impressions of sight, for example, must be corrected by careful study of the
facts, and judgment about them, as in the matter of the apparent movement of the
sun round the earth. Care must be taken, however, not to read into this
statement the idea that the senses are not to be used. They must be employed on
every plane for the gaining of knowledge, and for doing the work and duty
without which there is no progress.
363.
The eternal man is the reincarnating ego, whose life is
age-long as compared with that of the personality, persisting as it does through
our complete series of human births and deaths.
364.
The word Buddha is used in three distinct senses. Sometimes, as
in this case, it means simply enlightened, illuminated, or wise. Sometimes it is
used as a name for the Lord Gautama. In other cases it means the high office in
the Occult Hierarchy of the Head of the Second Ray, the great department of
teaching and religion, which has been described in The Masters and the Path.
The Buddhists have a list of twenty-four Buddhas, of whom the present holder
of the office is the Lord Gautama, who will be succeeded in the far future by
the Lord Maitreya.
·
Shun praise, O devotee: praise leads to
self-delusion. Thy body is not Self, thy Self is in itself without a body, and
either praise or blame affects it not.
·
Self-gratulation, O disciple, is like
unto a lofty tower, up which a haughty fool has climbed. There-on he sits in
prideful solitude and unperceived by any but himself.
365.
Very many men have been spoiled by undue praise; it leads to
pride in all who do not see clearly what lies ahead of them or above them. Those
pupils who are sufficiently clairvoyant to see the Masters frequently are not so
prone to this danger as many others are, because they cannot but compare their
own littleness with the Master’s greatness, their own farthing rushlight with
His glorious sunlight. It is the man who is looking downward, and comparing
himself with those who are beneath himself, who is most likely to fall through
pride.
366.
But the best way of all is not to think of oneself, but to be
constantly occupied with the work of the Master. There is for all of us every
day far more of that to be done than we can possibly accomplish: and it is only
taking energy and time away from that if we spend it in thinking about our
little selves. There are no doubt several reasons why the Masters do not show
Themselves more than They do to those who are in the earlier stages of Their
service. One of these is that the pupil, seeing the Master so far above him,
might be overwhelmed with his own insignificance and lose confidence in his own
ability to work for the Master. So, while it is necessary to avoid pride on the
one hand, one must equally avoid the under-estimation of one’s powers on the
other. Here, as ever, the middle path is the right one.
367.
The simile of a tower is indeed a good one, for pride does shut
a man away from his fellows. If, for example, he is proud of his learning, he
will be anxious to keep others more ignorant than himself, so as to enjoy his
superior position, and even when he does give out his knowledge it will only be
for the sake of displaying it. Such a man is engaged all the time in enlarging
the gulf between himself and other people, so that he may look down on them from
above.
·
False learning is rejected by the wise,
and scattered to the winds by the Good Law. Its wheel revolves for all, the
humble and the proud. The doctrine of the eye is for the crowd; the doctrine of
the heart for the elect. The first repeat in pride: “Behold, I know”; the last,
they who in humbleness have garnered, low confess: “Thus have I heard.”
368.
Every religion in course of time gathers round itself many
speculations and other accretions. For example, in Hinduism, in the Puranas one
reads of dozens of things that people are told that they must do or must not do;
many of those have been invented by the priests, either for their own
convenience and advantage or because of an excessive estimation of the value of
many prayers and ceremonies. Also particular interpretations of earlier sayings
are developed into dogmas and attached to the original teaching, as, for
instance, the horrible eternal hell teaching which still persists among most
Christians.
369.
The esoteric teaching at once scatters these to the winds, as
it brings the attention back to the essential and vital truths. Still, to act
from the heart is the way only of a strong and advanced man. For the masses,
wandering slowly along the broad road of evolution which winds gently up the
hill-side, the books are still the main guide. Those people are not yet in the
position that is described as follows in the Garuda Purana: “Having
practised the Vedas and the Shastras, and having known the Truth, the wise man
can abandon all the scriptures, just as one rich in grains abandons the straw.”
370. Every
Buddhist scripture begins with, “Thus says —”, or, “Thus have I heard.” It is a
humble beginning. It does not say, “This is absolutely so, and you must believe
it,” but, “This is what has been said, and it would be well to try to understand
it, and so come to a knowledge of the real facts.” It is the attitude of
enquiry, not of dogmatism. Yet, strange to say, there have been those who have
taken it in another, and quite a wrong sense. They say, “It is no use
propounding anything different on this subject, for thus it has been said with
authority”!
·
“Great Sifter “ is the name of the heart
doctrine, O disciple.
·
The wheel of the Good
Law moves swiftly on. It grinds by night and day. The worthless husks it drives
from out the golden grain, the refuse from the flour. The hand of Karma guides
the wheel; the revolutions mark the beatings of the karmic heart.
·
True knowledge is the
flour, false learning is the husk. If thou would’st eat the bread of wisdom, thy
flour thou hast to knead with Amrita’s clear waters. But if thou
kneadest husks with Maya’s dew, thou canst create but food for the black doves
of death, the birds of birth, decay and sorrow.
371.
The heart doctrine is called the Great Sifter because as one
works in the world in the manner which it directs, the mistakes one makes and
the defects one has are gradually sifted out and removed. If one were doing work
without the ideals of the inner doctrine, one might go on making the same kind
of mistakes again and again, life after life. Madame Blavatsky somewhere wrote
that it was one thing to desire to do good, and another to know what is good to
do. Yet, with our imperfect knowledge, we must go forth and do the best we can.
It is something like learning a language. It is a mistake to try to learn it
quite perfectly from books before one makes any attempt to speak it; one must
plunge into it, and make mistakes in it, and in the effort one will learn in due
course to speak without mistakes. But that will come about, of course, only if
one converses in it with others who already know the language correctly.
372.
Similarly the Master, though He may be unseen, will guide the
pupil who is sincerely trying to do his best, into the experiences that will
sift out his faults and mistakes. Keep in mind the conviction that the final
good will inevitably come, and let the heart be full of love; then you may work
without fear of mistakes. They will become smaller and smaller, and fewer and
fewer, and will eventually die away.
373.
There is a moral to be drawn from the analogy of flour and
bread. The true knowledge that you gain does not give you bread, but merely the
flour with which the bread of wisdom has to be made. The kneading is the action
of the higher self, which works upon experiences and converts them into real
wisdom. In ordinary men most of this kneading is done during the devachanic
period, but the pupil of the Master has so broadened the channel between the
higher and the lower self that he is gaining wisdom all the time.
374.
He who takes only external knowledge, and studies it over with
the lower mind, in the light of mere personal necessity and pleasures, is
certainly kneading husks with maya’s dew. He is not preparing for the triumph of
the higher self; he is not treading the Path, but is preparing the karma of
future births and deaths, for the future vehicles and personalities that will
decay and die.
CHAPTER 3
THE LIFE OF ACTION
·
If thou art told that to become Arhan
thou hast to cease to love all beings – tell them they lie.
·
If thou art told that to gain liberation
thou hast to hate thy mother and disregard thy son; to disavow thy father and
call him householder; for man and beast all pity to renounce – tell them their
tongue is false.
·
Thus teach the Tirthikas, the
unbelievers.
·
If thou art taught that sin is born of
action and bliss of absolute inaction, then tell them that they err.
Non-permanence of human action, deliverance of mind from thraldom by the
cessation of sin and faults, are not for Deva Egos. Thus saith the doctrine of
the heart.
375.
C.W.L. – To call a
man a householder is to say that his interests are still centred in worldly
things, but to do this with contempt, as is implied in the text, would certainly
indicate the proud and austere qualities of the left-hand path, leading up to
the heights of the black magicians, who regard the best of human love as nothing
but mere sentimentality. Even though the candidate may have risen above personal
desires, he cannot despise those who are still at the earlier stage of
evolution, nor can he ignore them. Compassion and eagerness to help are the
qualities of his nature.
376.
That the expression householder must be taken in a metaphorical
sense is indicated in a foot-note by Madame Blavatsky, as follows:
·
Rathapala, the great Arhat, thus
addresses his father in the legend called Rathapala Sutrasanne. But as all such
legends are allegorical (e.g., Rathapala’s father had a mansion with seven
doors) hence the reproof to those who accept them literally.
377.
Madame Blavatsky describes the Tirthikas as “ascetic Brahmanas,
visiting holy shrines, especially sacred bathing-places.” A Tirtha is literally
a “crossing-place”. It is thus a landing or bathing place, or any shrine, which
is a crossing place to the other worlds or the higher life. A shrine is thus a
place where there is a special connection between the inner and the outer
worlds. Probably the orthodox Brahmanas and Hindus in general who visit such
Tirthas as, for example, Benares or Hardwar, were called unbelievers because
they did not in most cases follow the Buddha in His assertion that “within
oneself deliverance must be sought.”
378.
In the talks on At the Feet of the Master we have
considered at length the necessity for action, and how there may be intense
activity of the body, and yet the man within may be calm, steady, serene and
strong. The Deva Egos means the reincarnating egos, according to Madame
Blavatsky, but Swami T. Subba Row explained the term as meaning those who aspire
to work with the Devas and for the helping of the world.
379.
The teaching of the Book of the Golden Precepts is
obviously intended for those who wish to follow that line of work. At present
there are not very many egos in incarnation who are ready for special teaching
and training – it would be of little use, for example, to seek among the
dwellers in the east end of London for people who are ready to become pupils of
the Masters. But as time goes on the numbers requiring attention will increase
very rapidly, and within a few hundred years there must be many Arhats prepared
to teach them. Thus a large number of helpers will be needed, and it is to that
work that many of us are called.
·
The Dharma of the eye
is the embodiment of the external and the non-existing.
·
The Dharma of the
heart is the embodiment of Bodhi, the permanent and everlasting.
380.
The word dharma may here be translated “form of religion” or
“belief”, and bodhi is simply “wisdom”.
·
The lamp burns bright
when wick and oil are clean. To make them clean a cleaner is required. The flame
feels not the process of the cleaning. “The branches of a tree are shaken by the
wind; the trunk remains unmoved.”
·
Both action and
inaction may find room in thee; thy body agitated, thy mind tranquil, thy Soul
as limpid as a mountain lake.
381.
Whatever suffering there may be on the path of progress is
experienced only by the lower self. The Self seated within knows the value even
of the painful experience and is therefore quite satisfied. Many people do not
understand that suffering is very largely a question of attitude; in Esoteric
Christianity our President has explained how some of the great martyrs were
filled with joy while undergoing what would be terrible pain to others, because
they were thinking of the great honour that was theirs to suffer so for the sake
of their Lord. So it is true that at last wrong ideas or ignorance are the basis
of all suffering.
382.
Physical suffering is the most difficult to deal with. We may
be able sometimes to draw away from the physical body when it is in pain, but
that does not mean that we have conquered the pain. If it is the result of a
particular disease in which a microbe has to run its course, no amount of
assertion will enable an ordinary person to drive it away; but in all cases a
cheerful attitude makes a big difference. Most people can conquer astral pain,
if they set themselves the task; they can refuse to permit their feelings to
dwell upon the idea that gives them sorrow. Undesirable emotions, such as
jealousy, envy, pride and fear, may be described as astral diseases; they can
always be eradicated by persistent effort to feel the opposite emotions. Mental
suffering, chiefly worry, is even easier to control.
383.
In the causal body a man might have an uneasy sense of
incompleteness or insufficiency – but nothing more than that. Though he may feel
disappointment at the defects of his lower representative, he knows enough to be
patient and to persevere. He is not ignorant; but it is ignorance that makes our
suffering so poignant down here. In childhood, when we were still more ignorant,
a trouble lasting one day seemed a terrible tragedy; if we failed to pass an
examination the idea of waiting a whole year for the next opportunity seemed to
us a calamity, though in later life a year does not seem a long period of time.
To the personality a life’s failure may seem a tragedy, but to the ego, who has
known hundreds or thousands of incarnations, it may not appear so vastly
important.
384.
The ego has put down a personality much as a fisherman makes a
cast. He does not expect that every cast will be successful, and he is not
deeply troubled if one proves a failure. To look after a personality is only one
of his activities, so he may very well console himself with successes in other
lines of activity. In any case, it is the loss of a day, and he may say, “Oh,
well, we will hope to do better to-morrow.” Often the personality would like
more attention from the ego above him, and he may be sure that he will receive
it as soon as he deserves it, as soon as the ego finds it worth while. Mr.
Sinnett put forward this desire of the personality in a humorous way by saying
that what was needed was a school for teaching egos to pay attention to their
personalities.
385.
One stage further on, in the buddhic plane, the man begins to
touch the intensity of bliss that is the life of the Logos. At the same time he
comes closer into touch with other men; on the lower planes he begins to share
their suffering, but on the higher side he knows them as sparks of the divine,
and that gives indescribable bliss, which makes the suffering seem as naught.
Thus sorrow and suffering are for the personality only, and they exist merely
while the consciousness is fixed in the lower planes.
·
Would’st thou become a Yogi of time’s
circle? Then, O Lanoo:
·
Believe thou not that sitting in dark
forests, in proud seclusion and apart from men; believe thou not that life on
roots and plants, that thirst assuaged with snow from the great Range – believe
thou not, O devotee, that this will lead thee to the goal of final liberation.
·
Think not that breaking bone, that
rending flesh and muscle unites thee to thy silent Self. Think not that when the
sins of thy gross form are conquered, O victim of thy shadows, thy duty is
accomplished by nature and by man.
386.
Aryasanga is here once more preaching against the seeking of
liberation as mere escape from the wheel of births and deaths. The yogi of
time’s circle is the one who is willing to remain within the process of time,
for the sake of helping others. When one considers the vast period of time for
which the Lord Buddha and the Lord Maitreya had been preparing Themselves for
Their great work, which has been explained in The Masters and the Path,1
(1 Op. cit.,
Ch. xiv.) one cannot but feel oppressed by the thought of such enormous periods
of incarnate existence. Undoubtedly, however, time cannot be to Them exactly
what it is to us. Even if “a thousand ages in Thy sight are like an evening
gone” does not apply to Them, Their sense of time must be vastly different from
ours. Certainly They are also intensely happy in Their work, and where there is
happiness, as everybody knows by experience, time is of no account – in fact,
under those circumstances we always wish that it could be lengthened.
387.
Very wrong ideas have arisen in most of the religions on the
subject of asceticism. In the original Greek the word asketes meant
simply one who exercises himself as an athlete does. But ecclesiasticism
impounded the word and changed its sense, applying it to the practice of
self-denial in various ways for the purpose of spiritual progress, on the theory
that the bodily nature with its passions and desires has been the stronghold of
the evil inherent in man since the fall of Adam, and that it must therefore be
suppressed by fasting and penance. In the Oriental religions we sometimes
encounter a similar idea, based on the conception of matter as essentially evil,
and following from that the deduction that an approach to ideal good or an
escape from the miseries of existence can be effected only by subduing or
torturing the body.
388.
In both these theories there is dire confusion of thought. The
body and its desires are not in themselves evil or good, but it is true that
before real progress can be made they must be brought under the control of the
higher self within. To govern the body is necessary, but to torture it is
foolish.
389.
There appears to be a wide-spread delusion that to be really
good one must always be uncomfortable – that discomfort in itself is directly
pleasing to the Logos. Nothing can be more grotesque than this idea. In
390.
Another reason for the gospel of the uncomfortable is a
confusion of cause and effect. It is observed that the really advanced person is
simple in his habits and often careless about a large number of minor luxuries
that are considered important and really necessary by the ordinary man. But such
carelessness about luxury is the effect, not the cause of his advancement. He
does not trouble himself about these small matters because he has largely
outgrown them and they no longer interest him – not in the least because he
considers them as wrong; and one who, while still craving for them, imitates him
in abstaining from them does not thereby become advanced.
391.
It is true that our duty to the world is not accomplished when
we have purified ourselves. Then indeed does it become really possible for us to
do our best work for our fellow-men, and since in the higher life the maxim
“From each according to his power, to each according to his need” prevails, our
most serious duty begins at this point, when the shadows, the lower bodies, have
been mastered.
392.
The silent Self in this passage, refers, says Madame Blavatsky,
to the seventh principle, which is atma. Our studies in the first Fragment have
already shown how this idea of silence is attached to that part of the higher
Self.
·
The blessed ones have scorned to do so.
The Lion of the Law, the Lord of Mercy, perceiving the true cause of human woe,
immediately forsook the sweet but selfish rest of quiet wilds. From Aranyaka he
became the Teacher of mankind. After Julai had entered the Nirvana, he preached
on mount and plain, and held discourses in the cities, to Devas, men and Gods.
393.
All the Northern and Southern Buddhist traditions agree in the
statement that the Buddha quitted His solitude as soon as He had reached inner
enlightenment and had solved the problem of life, and that He at once began
teaching publicly.
394.
The term Aranyaka means a forest-dweller. The books relate that
Gautama went into the forest in order to meditate, and there he seated Himself
under the bodhi tree and resolved to attain illumination. When that was
achieved. He considered, whether He would give His teaching to the world; He
knew that most of the people would not understand it, and that it might
therefore do harm. But then, as was remarked at the beginning of our study of
this Fragment, the voice of the earth came to Him, and begged Him to teach. I do
not know exactly what was meant by the voice of the earth, but it is said that
that led Him to decide to teach mankind on the physical plane.
395.
In this passage there are several titles given to the Buddha.
He is called Julai. That is the Chinese name for Tathagata, which is the title
given to every Buddha. Tathagata means literally “he who has gone likewise”, he
has followed in the steps of his predecessors.
396.
It is a fact that when the Buddha preached, others besides men
gathered round to listen to His teaching and enjoy His aura.
·
Sow kindly acts and thou shalt reap their
fruit. Inaction in a deed of mercy is action in a deadly sin.
397.
I have already quoted this in commenting on
At the Feet of the Master. Each man
has the responsibility for exercising the powers of consciousness that he has so
far developed. If he fails to exert himself and neglects to use them, he is
guilty of sins of omission, which are just as serious as sins of commission. For
example, it is our duty to interfere, when we can do so without doing more harm
than good, in cases of wrong or cruelty, such as cruelty to animals or children.
The wise man, seeing such things, will not let indignation master him. He must
feel also for the man who is guilty of the cruelty. His state is in many ways
more pitiable than that of his victim, and he will have to suffer in turn, on
account of karmic law. So, if we can induce him to see the error of his ways and
stop his cruelty, we have done good to both. When it is our duty to interfere,
and we fail to do so, we share the karma of the wrong-doing. The same is true
when we allow others to injure ourselves, without resistance. We are making it
easy for them to do wrong; we are tempting them, and assisting them, and the
karma is partly ours.
·
Thus saith the Sage:
·
Shalt thou abstain from action? Not so
shall thy Soul gain her freedom. To reach Nirvana one must reach Self-knowledge,
and Self-knowledge is of loving deeds the child.
398.
It is not until we begin to work for others that we can acquire
real knowledge of life. In the attempt we learn where we stand, and what
qualities must be developed. There was an old blind man living in the south of
·
Have patience, candidate, as one who
fears no failure, courts no success. Fix thy Soul’s gaze upon the star whose ray
thou art, the flaming star that shines within the lightless depths of
ever-being, the boundless fields of the unknown.
399.
The disciple fears no failure because he knows that the plan of
the Logos will be carried out; no one’s failure can make any difference to that.
We may have the opportunity to do a piece of His work. If we should fail to do
it, it will be done in some other way through someone else. It makes no
difference to the Logos, though it may make a very great difference to
ourselves. It happens constantly that people miss their opportunities, but the
great plans are made in view of every contingency. Our Masters never appear to
notice when we lose an opportunity, but I think that They are quite aware of it.
Madame Blavatsky used sometimes to say about some person: “He has earned the
right to have his chance.” The Masters always assume that we are going to take
our opportunities.
400.
The student who has tried to do some good work and has found
the opposing forces too great for him, will not be disappointed or lose patience
if he understands that all efforts put forth for good must produce a
proportionate result in some way, though the results may be unseen, and though
there may be for the personality none of the satisfaction which comes from
seeing the good that has been done. It is the same in the case of astral work at
night. That work is none the less good and effective when done by those who are
not able to bring any memory of it back into the physical brain. The laws of
nature do not cease to operate because we cannot see the result, or do not
remember what we have done.
401.
Usually the people who have done the greatest work in the world
do not see the result of it. Take, for instance, the example of the Christ’s
three years’ of preaching. He died as a malefactor, execrated by the populace,
and at his death the number of His followers was only a hundred and twenty; now
there are many millions. William Wilberforce, who worked steadily for over forty
years against the greatest odds for the abolition of slavery in the British
Colonies, heard only three days before his death that total abolition of slavery
had at last become law. Impatience and depression would have lost his cause. We
are all in the same position, in our lesser ways. There is none who cannot take
up some good work, and push on with it with tireless and endless patience,
regardless of immediate success or failure.
402.
“The star whose ray thou art” is always that which shines above
us; for one it is the ego, for another, more advanced, the Monad, and so on to
the Planetary Logos, and even the Logos of our system. To know our own star is
also to know the ray to which we belong – which of the seven great rays is the
one that especially connects us with the Logos. These seven rays are indicated
in the chapter dealing with the Chohans of the Rays in The Masters and the
Path, and also in The Seven Rays, by Prof. Ernest Wood. When the
higher self is the master of the personality, it becomes possible for the
disciple to specialize in the work of the ray to which that higher self belongs,
and then he can make very rapid progress in power and usefulness.
·
Have perseverance as one who doth for
evermore endure. Thy shadows live and vanish; that which in thee shall live for
ever, that which in thee knows (for it is knowledge) is not of fleeting life: it
is the Man that was, that is, and will be, for whom the hour shall never strike.
403.
Besides patience we need perseverance, and nothing can develop
this quality in us better than a clear perception of the fact that we endure all
through the ages, and that death is only a passing incident, with no power to
deflect us from our path. Sometimes people say: “Why should I take up such and
such work? I cannot possibly finish it in this life.” But the fact is that there
is only one real lifetime – that of the ego, which endures for ever, for all
practical purposes. It is wise to begin any work in which you are interested, or
the great task of eliminating faults, even in old age, for all the good that is
done is carried forward to the next body, and in it the impulse to continue the
work will be felt while it is young. If one postpones the work to a future life,
once more old age may arrive before one has the opportunity that will draw
attention to it. If you are now ninety, and you have just heard of Theosophy,
and you want to hear of it in your youth in your next life, throw yourself into
it now with whatever vigour you may have. There is also the great benefit to be
derived from the stay in devachan (unless you happen to be one of those who have
the privilege of being able to renounce that period) for in that state whatever
work you have done is dwelt upon and worked up into faculty which will be a
great help in the next incarnation.
404.
Perseverance is necessary also because no great work can be
completed in p. short time. Think, for example, of the artist who is
painting a great picture; he will have very little to show for it in the first
few days, perhaps even weeks, and it is also quite possible that he may not be
pleased with what he has been able to achieve at the end of a few weeks, so that
he has to begin all over again.
405.
A very useful lesson in perseverance may be derived from a
study of the history of the Theosophical Society in the early days. The two
great founders, Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott, could not have succeeded in
establishing the Society permanently, and giving it the material for future
growth, had they not had a clear vision of the inner side of things, a
realization that their work was part of a plan lasting throughout eternity, and
was therefore sure to succeed. They founded the Society in
CHAPTER 4
THE SECRET PATH
406.
If thou
would’st reap sweet peace and rest,
disciple, sow with the seeds of merit the fields of future harvests.
407.
Accept the
woes of birth.
408.
C.W.L. – Aryasanga
is all the time endeavouring to persuade’ the disciple to follow the higher path
of renunciation, and not to accept the peace of nirvana. Life in the atmic or
nirvanic plane has been defined as rest in omniscience, but we must understand
that it is rest only in the sense that there is no consciousness of exertion
followed by fatigue. There is on that plane the most tremendous activity; that
is the very essence of the nature of being on that plane, as I have already
tried to explain.1
People want rest because they feel fatigue, but when one is out of the
body in full consciousness one finds that the fatigue is gone, and then one no
longer desires rest. In such conditions we look upon rest rather as we do upon
death down here; we do not want less but more of the power and energy that we
enjoy. The Solar Logos does not rest, even for a moment. If He did so, even for
a second, we should all cease to be.
· 1 Ante, p. 96.
409.
Many of those who have reached nirvana have nothing further to
do with the world’s evolution; yet it does not seem possible for anyone to have
reached that level and not to be pouring forth glory and splendour on those
below. Even in the case of one so devoted that he continually turns all his
thought upwards, and none downwards, one would think he could not help shedding
devotion on those below.
410.
There are seven paths open to the Adept, and most of them take
the candidate away from the earth, yet they are all equally ways of serving the
Logos. Presumably every Adept is willing to go where he is most needed and can
be most serviceable, but at least it seems necessary to be perfectly willing to
remain and accept “the woes of birth”, if called upon. Any other attitude, and
especially the idea of selfish escape from the world, liberation for one’s
separate self, could not carry the aspirant so high. To us it may seem that to
stay with and help our humanity is the kindest thing to do, and that is very
natural, for if we cannot thus love those who are already near and known to us,
how shall we love others who are not known? Still, we must not forget that if
the Lords of the Flame from Venus had not left Their system and come down into
ours to help us, we should be at least one round behind the position that we
have so far achieved. It may be the duty of some of us in the future to go to
the help of some other system less advanced than ours.
411.
At the same time, there is no question that more and more
advanced pupils of the Masters will be needed to carry on Their work on earth.
It is open to the Arhat to take no more physical births if he so chooses; but it
is evident that our Masters wish us to continue taking birth for the sake of the
work.
·
Step out of sunlight
into shade, to make more room for others. The tears that water the parched soil
of pain and sorrow bring forth the blossoms and the fruits of karmic
retribution. Out of the furnace of man’s life and its black smoke, winged flames
arise, flames purified, that soaring onward, ‘neath the karmic eye, weave in the
end the fabric glorified of the three vestures of the Path.
412.
The opening portion of this passage seems to imply that there
is not enough sunlight for all; but that is surely not so. All can be happy. We
make our own shadow, as the earth does. Sorrows and trouble are of our own
making; they are our own karma, as is everything that comes to us. What
Aryasanga means is that one should always be ready to help others, even at the
cost of trouble or loss to oneself.
413.
There are few kinds of action that bring great karmic
suffering. Cruelty does, of course, and there are some others. But most of
people’s actual suffering comes from the way in which they take the
inconveniences of life that karma brings to them. The suffering is then very
distinctly “ready-money karma”. Such, for example, is the selfish mourning for
those who have passed on to a happier state of existence, which causes suffering
to everybody concerned, often including the dead, who feel the depression and
sorrow very greatly. What karma brings to a man is never more than he can bear,
and bear easily; but that is not the case with what he adds to it of foolish
thought, and feeling and action.
·
These vestures are:
Nirmanakaya, Sambhogakaya and Dharmakaya, robe sublime.
414.
The three vestures will be discussed fully in our study of the
third Fragment. They represent three possibilities which lie open to the man who
has attained Adeptship. He can at once accept nirvana, or take it after having
gone through other high spiritual experiences, or remain in touch with the earth
as a Nirmanakaya in order to fill the spiritual reservoir, or he can take up
work in other globes or systems. This last choice is by no means selfish, of
course; it is an impossible supposition that any selfishness could be
possible at such a level.
415.
There was a reference in the first edition of this book to
“selfish Buddhas”, but Madame Blavatsky, after her death, asked our President to
remove the passage which contained it, because it was causing so much dangerous
misunderstanding. It referred to those who are called the Pratyeka Buddhas.
These are great Adepts at the level of the Buddha, but on the first ray. Because
“eka” means “one”, some Northern Buddhists have thought that a Pratyeka Buddha
is one who works for himself alone, which appears a blasphemous idea to anyone
who knows where They stand. The three Lords of the Flame, who are the pupils of
the Lord of the World, are Pratyeka Buddhas. They came to the earth to serve it
and hasten its evolution along the line of the first ray, while the Buddha works
on the second. It is foolish to criticize Them for not doing work which is not
Theirs. It would be as sensible to find fault with a magistrate for not being a
schoolmaster, saying, “See how little he cares about the education of children!”
Of these great Beings I have tried to give some slight account in The Masters
and the Path.1
·
1
·
The Shangna robe, ‘tis true, can purchase
light eternal. The Shangna robe alone gives the Nirvana of destruction; it stops
rebirth, but O Lanoo, it also kills compassion. No longer can the perfect
Buddhas, Who don the Dharmakaya glory, help man’s salvation. Alas! shall selves
be sacrificed to self; mankind, unto the weal of units?
·
Know, O beginner, this is the open path,
the way to selfish bliss, shunned by the Bodhisattvas of the Secret Heart, the
Buddhas of compassion.
416.
The Shangna robe is something very far beneath any of the three
vestures above mentioned. It means here the balancing of karma, and the
destruction of the personality by quenching all desires, including that for
life. It implies an evolution of the causal body far higher than most men have
attained, but without the development of love and compassion and the desire to
help the world. A man who has thus freed himself from the necessity of rebirth
may live as an ego on the higher levels of the mental world for an enormously
long time.
417.
In this passage, it is almost as though Aryasanga were
complaining against those who take the Dharmakaya vesture, and retire to distant
planes or systems. But it would be really impossible for him to do that. He
could not have thought that there were selfish Buddhas. The Pratyeka Buddhas
certainly are at the same level of attainment as the Lord Buddha; They have the
same quality of compassion that He has, but it is not Their duty to fill the
office. For thousands of years before Their attainment of such heights these
Great Ones must have been utterly incapable of anything like selfishness. We
must remember that The Voice of the Silence was written down by a
disciple of Aryasanga after the death of the latter, so He is not wholly
responsible for it, and it appears that here the disciple must have allowed his
own misconception to colour the ideas of his Teacher.
·
To live to benefit mankind is the first
step. To practise the six glorious virtues is the second. To don Nirmanakaya’s
humble robe is to forego eternal bliss for self, to help on man’s salvation. To
reach Nirvana’s bliss but to renounce it, is the supreme, the final step – the
highest on renunciation’s path.
·
Know, O disciple, this is the secret
path, selected by the Buddhas of perfection, who sacrificed the Self to weaker
selves.
418.
The six glorious virtues are the paramitas, already considered
in Chapter 1 of Fragment II. They represent one of the systems of travelling on
the path. Another is given in the set of qualifications expounded in At the
Feet of the Master, followed by the four stages of the Path proper.
419.
It is not quite true that the Nirmanakaya gives up bliss, for
Adeptship is itself the attainment of bliss. What is true is that the Adept
could remain always on the stupendous levels which He has reached but instead He
comes down to help. By doing that, however, He does not forego the eternal bliss
which is inherent in Him; He merely decides to work at lower levels.
·
Yet, if the doctrine
of the heart is too high-winged for thee, if thou needest help thyself and
fearest to offer help to others – then, thou of timid heart, be warned in time:
remain content with the eye doctrine of the Law. Hope still. For if the secret
Path is unattainable this day, it is within thy reach tomorrow. Learn that no
efforts, not the smallest – whether in right or wrong direction – can vanish
from the world of causes. E’en wasted smoke remains not traceless. “A harsh word
uttered in past lives is not destroyed, but ever comes again.” The pepper plant
will not give birth to roses, not the sweet jessamine’s silver star to thorn or
thistle turn.
·
Thou canst create
this day thy chances for thy morrow. In the great journey, causes sown each hour
bear each its harvest of effects, for rigid justice rules the world. With mighty
sweep of never-erring action it brings to mortals lives of weal or woe, the
karmic progeny of all our former thoughts and deeds.
·
Take then as much as
merit hath in store for thee, O thou of patient heart. Be of good cheer and rest
content with fate. Such is thy Karma, the Karma of the cycle of thy births, the
destiny of those who, in their pain and sorrow, are born along with thee,
rejoice and weep from life to life, chained to thy previous actions.
420.
If one cannot rise immediately to the resolve to be utterly
unselfish there is no need to despair. One must work on in the right direction
until one reaches the position where that ideal will seem perfectly natural and
comparatively easy of accomplishment. Sometimes people feel that because they
cannot fulfil a great ideal that is put before them there is nothing that they
can do which is worth doing. They collapse, and do nothing at all, in
consequence. But that is a great mistake. The Lord Buddha was very wise in
dealing with all kinds of people, and He took care to avoid this kind of
discouragement, by speaking of the highest path to His monks alone. He preached
the middle path to the general public, and told them to live the highest and
noblest life of which they were capable, so that later on they would be in a
position to enter His Order. He said that they were today creating their
opportunities for tomorrow, that is for their next incarnation. There is no need
to despair, for the man who takes one opportunity receives tenfold more
opportunities, and he who uses what powers he has as fully as possible, without
overstraining himself, certainly develops those powers at a surprising rate.
421.
The last paragraph makes reference to those who are born
together. It is a fact that people evolve in groups, the same people coming
closely together in different relationships again and again. What happens to one
in any such group reacts very much upon the others, for both good and ill. It
should be an additional incentive to those who are aspiring to realize that
whatever they are able to attain will be of great benefit to a number of people
whose destinies are thus bound up closely with their own.
CHAPTER 5
THE WHEEL OF LIFE
422.
Act thou for
them today, and they will act for thee tomorrow.
423.
‘Tis from the
bud of renunciation of the self, that springeth the sweet fruit of final
liberation.
424.
To perish
doomed is he who out of fear of Mara refrains from helping man, lest he should
act for self. The pilgrim who would cool his weary limbs in running waters, yet
dares not plunge for terror of the stream, risks to succumb from heat. Inaction
based on selfish fear can bear but evil fruit.
425.
The selfish
devotee lives to no purpose. The man who does not go through his appointed work
in life has lived in vain.
426.
Follow the
wheel of life; follow the wheel of duty to race and kin, to friend and foe, and
close thy mind to pleasures as to pain. Exhaust the law of karmic retribution.
Gain Siddhis for thy future birth.
427.
C.W.L. – There are
people who feel that because they cannot do great things or make rapid advance
no effort is worth making. That is a great mistake. At least they can live to
help those with whom karma has brought them into contact. They will never find
themselves in a better position until they make the most of their present
environment. If they will do this, when the time comes for them to make the
great effort involved in taking the First Initiation, loving friends will be
there to help. Real friends are those who are the friends of the ego. These
never bind one down for the satisfaction of their own very limited and human,
and often really selfish, emotions. They always give one the freedom that is
required to follow the higher path.
428.
Some good people refrain from helping others, fearing that they
themselves may be prompted by a selfish motive. Very often charity is bestowed
upon the unfortunate not really with the desire to help them, but to relieve the
giver of the unhappiness that he feels at the sight of suffering. Such a person
would never go out of his way to find people in trouble, in order that they
might be helped. Again, there are others who systematically give a portion of
their large incomes to charitable organizations, so that they may enjoy the
remainder with no qualms of conscience. Knowing this, a disciple sometimes
questions himself as to whether his own motive is pure. But to refrain from
helping because he doubts his own motive is surely a form of selfishness.
Whatever our motive may be, we must help, though only that counts for real
progress on the Path which is done purely to help the sufferer, without thought
of self.
429.
It is necessary to use discrimination in helping. As the Hindus
say, help should be given to the right person, at the right time, and in the
right place. Yet the necessity for thought should not cause hesitation. We may
not always be certain which is the wiser of two courses of action, but we must
nevertheless decide upon one of them, so that the opportunity to do good may not
be entirely overlooked. Sometimes it is only by thought that we can help, but
that, as I have said before, is very important.1
(1 Ante, Vol. I,
Part II,
430.
The wheel of duty to race and kin, to friend and foe, does, as
a matter of fact, offer the best of opportunities for progress. The Lords of
Karma see to it that each person is given the conditions which are suited to his
growth. They give a man the particular work that is likely to develop the
qualities that he needs. At a low level of development there may be ten thousand
places where a man can have the conditions needed for his progress. But when a
man is more highly evolved his environment has to be chosen with the greatest
care, for everyone must be put absolutely in the position where he can best
advance. It is therefore quite inaccurate to say that a man succeeds in spite of
his circumstances; difficulties are put in his way in order that he may
transcend them, and that his character and powers may grow.
431.
The man who does his daily duties well, will soon be trusted
with higher ones. Every one who can be trusted to do good and conscientious work
is eagerly wanted by Those who guide the destiny of mankind. Be faithful in
small things, and you will be made ruler over many things, as the Bible says. To
be ruler over many things is a responsible position, and in occultism it is
given only to those who have proved themselves faithful in the small things.
That is the test that the Master gives. Many people neglect plain everyday duty
for some visionary work in the future, perhaps of doubtful utility, and not
intended specially for them. Many also regret the ties that they formed before
they knew of Theosophy, when they now find them hampering. But they do their
duty. Unsuitable ties will drop away when the time comes when that freedom will
be most useful for the aspirant’s development, and what is more important, for
the world’s work. But if they are broken prematurely they will only entangle the
man again and much trouble and pain will be caused.
·
If sun thou canst not be, then be the
humble planet. Aye, if thou art debarred from flaming like the noon-day sun upon
the snow-capped mount of purity eternal, then choose, O neophyte, a humbler
course.
·
Point out the way – however dimly, and
lost among the host – as does the evening star to those who tread their path in
darkness.
·
Behold Migmar, as in his crimson veils
his eye sweeps over slumbering Earth. Behold the fiery aura of the hand of
Lhagpa extended in protecting love over the heads of his ascetics. Both are now
servants to Nyima, left in his absence silent watchers in the night. Yet both in
Kalpas past were bright Nyimas, and may in future days again become two suns.
Such are the falls and rises of the karmic law in nature.
·
Be, O Lanoo, like them. Give light and
comfort to the toiling pilgrim, and seek out him who knows still less than thou;
who in his wretched desolation sits starving for the bread of wisdom and the
bread which feeds the shadow, without a Teacher, hope or consolation, and let
him hear the Law.
432.
In a foot-note, H.P.B. says:
·
Nyima, the sun in Tibetan astrology.
Migmar or Mars is symbolised by an eye, and Lhagpa, or Mercury, by a hand.
433.
There are here several points of interesting analogy. The two
planets mentioned give their light at night, when the sun is out of sight, and
all is dark. It is so with us. We have to help those who are in greater darkness
than ourselves; there is no one who cannot find someone more ignorant than
himself whom he may teach. Even if those around us are not ready to enter the
Path, we can lead them in the right direction towards it.
434.
At the time of the transference of life from the moon to the
earth, the planets glowed and shone like small suns. But Mars is mainly a desert
now, and that is why he reflects the yellow or reddish light. From the
standpoint of the poetic author of these verses, they are doing their best work
in giving light to man now. The idea illustrates the fact that we are not
necessarily doing our best work when we shine most. Also, when a building has to
be erected, the foundations must be put in first. They do not count for anything
in the matter of appearance, being hidden out of sight, but on them the building
will be erected. So in the common work of every day the candidate is performing
useful service to society, and at the same time developing the higher siddhis
which are the spiritual powers of the ego.
435.
The Teacher now tells the candidate what to say to those whom
he is trying to bring to the Path.
·
Tell him, O candidate, that he who makes
of pride and self-regard bond-maidens to devotion; that he, who cleaving to
existence, still lays his patience and submission to the Law as a sweet flower
at the feet of Shakya-Thub-pa, becomes a Srotapatti in this birth. The Siddhis
of perfection may loom far, far away; but the first step is taken, the stream is
entered, and he may gain the eye-sight of the mountain eagle, the hearing of the
timid doe.
·
Tell him, O aspirant, that true devotion
may bring him back the knowledge, that knowledge which was his in former births.
The deva-sight and deva-hearing are not obtained in one short birth.
436.
Shakya-Thub-pa is the Lord Buddha. The Srotapatti is, as has
been explained, “he who enters the stream “. An analogy can be drawn between the
outward act of laying one’s service at the feet of the Teacher, and the inner
change when the well-developed manas realizes the presence of buddhi, and bows
down before that higher principle, resolving henceforth to use all its powers in
obedience to its behests. In the ordinary life of men it is generally the mental
nature that is allowed to have the last word. For example, in the matter of
vivisection,1 (1
See ante, Vol. I, Part V, Chapter 4.) many people whose feelings shrink
from the practice with loathing, still decide that it must go on, because they
think it is the only way to obtain certain knowledge which will help humanity.
But the minority, who are in the right, say: “No, it is impossible that
vivisection can lead to good. Our higher nature says with a clear voice that it
is utterly wrong.” If these people were in the majority they would stop it, and
then some other way would be found to secure human health; the mind would be set
to work in obedience to the higher intuition to find a better way.
437.
Every one who feels enthusiasm on hearing about the Path is
sure to have worked for it in a former birth, perhaps in many previous lives. It
is encouraging to know this, for then one may expect to recover quickly the
attainments of former lives, the deva-sight and deva-hearing which are the
faculties of responding to the inner voice and of seeing life and the world with
the eyes of the spirit.
·
Be humble, if thou would’st attain to
wisdom: be humbler still, when wisdom thou hast mastered.
·
Be like the ocean which receives all
streams and rivers; The ocean’s mighty calm remains unmoved; it feels them not.
·
Restrain by thy divine thy lower self.
Restrain by the eternal the divine.
·
Aye, great is he who is the slayer of
desire: still greater he in whom the Self divine has slain the very knowledge of
desire.
·
Guard thou the lower lest it soil the
higher.
438.
As I have said before, he who stands in the presence of the
Masters cannot but be humble, conscious as he is of the great gulf that exists
between Them and himself. Not that even the physical presence of the Master,
however, causes any uneasiness or depression; on the contrary, in His Presence
we feel at our best and we realize that we can achieve because He has achieved.
It is so also with the gaining of knowledge. The man who can grasp some big
ideas can also see what remains to be learned that he does not yet know, and how
much mystery there is in familiar things that others think to be quite simple
and well-understood. So he who has much knowledge is likely to be humble, and
the aspirant is warned that when pride rises in him, it is a sign that he is
unconsciously shutting in front of himself the door to further and higher
knowledge.
439.
The candidate must also practise moving among the disturbances
of the world, which play upon him all the time – physically, astrally and
mentally – without permitting them to agitate him. He must so train the lower
vehicles that they will respond not to these outer calls, but to the inner
commands. The ego is divine; with its aid the lower self must be controlled; and
when that is done even the ego will have to be controlled by the Monad, the
eternal Self. That all this may be done, the pupil must constantly guard the
vehicles, attending to purity of food and drink and magnetism, of words and
feelings and thoughts, as has been fully explained in The Masters and the
Path.
·
The way to final freedom is within thy
Self. That way begins and ends outside of self.
·
Unpraised by men and humble is the mother
of all rivers in Tirthika’s proud sight; empty the human form, though filled
with Amrita’s sweet waters, in the sight of fools. Withal the birth-place of the
sacred rivers is the sacred land, and he who wisdom hath is honoured by all men.
440.
The orthodox Christian usually considers that there are three
stages in the growth of a soul. First, the man acts rightly for fear of hell.
Secondly, he does so with the desire of reaching heaven. Thirdly, he does right
for love of Christ, who sacrificed Himself to bring men to that condition of
feeling. There is, however, a fourth stage, when the way is found by realizing
ourselves as one with the Self. Then the man does right because it is right, not
even for the sake of making the Master happy or of expressing gratitude to Him.
Our deliverance is thus from within. No external consideration can determine our
steps of progress on the Path. It is not a question of how long we have been at
a certain level; we shall take the next step when we have developed the
necessary qualities and powers within ourselves. No one need be anxious about
this, for as the Tamil proverb says: “Ripe fruit does not remain upon the
branch.”
441.
The Tirthika, as we saw before, is the Brahmana ascetic who
visits the sacred shrines, and is evidently regarded here as feeling somewhat
proud of having done so. Just so, some of the Hadjis – the Muhammadans who have
made a pilgrimage to
442.
The great attraction of Benares,
CHAPTER 6
THE WAY OF THE ARHAT
·
Arhans and Sages the boundless vision are
rare as is the blossom of the Udambara tree. Arhans are born at midnight hour,
together with the sacred plant of nine and seven stalks, the holy flower that
opens and blooms in darkness, out of the pure dew and on the frozen bed of
snow-capped heights, heights that are trodden by no sinful foot.
443.
C.W.L. – At the
present stage of evolution men who have attained the Arhat level are very rare.
That is quite natural, since humanity is expected to attain the Asekha
initiation only at the end of the seventh round, and the Arhat stage precedes
that usually by only seven lives. Still, Arhatship is quite within our reach; it
is principally a matter of our understanding what to aim at, and then using our
wills to achieve that goal. Under the influence of the Lord Buddha thousands
became Arhats. All that was due to His tremendous magnetism. Soon His successor
will be with us, and we shall then also have unusual advantages.
444.
The symbolism of this passage is probably capable of several
different interpretations. The midnight hour may very well be taken as that
darkest moment before the dawn when the candidate seems to be forsaken by
everybody, even by his Master. It is at the fourth Initiation that the seventh
principle comes into operation, as the candidate advances to the atmic plane.
The sacred plant of seven stalks may symbolize this, and the number nine also,
because that seventh principle is really three in one, which with the other six
makes nine. The number nine is considered most sacred by the Hindus.
445.
It is only by going through the greatest trials, by descending
into the very depths of darkness, that the qualities required in the candidate
for this initiation may be attained. The holy flower opens and blooms in that
darkness, yet it comes as a result of development on the buddhic plane.
·
No Arhan, O Lanoo, becomes one in that
birth when for the first time the Soul begins to long for final liberation. Yet,
O thou anxious one, no warrior volunteering fight in the fierce strife between
the living and the dead, not one recruit can ever be refused the right to enter
on the path that leads toward the field of battle.
·
For either he shall win or he shall fall.
·
Yea, if he conquers, Nirvana shall be
his. Before he casts his shadow off, his mortal coil, that pregnant cause of
anguish and illimitable pain, in him will men a great and holy Buddha honour.
·
And if he falls, e’en then he does not
fall in vain; the enemies he slew in the last battle will not return to life in
the next birth that will be his.
·
But if thou would’st Nirvana reach, or
cast the prize away, let not the fruit of action and inaction be thy motive, O
thou of dauntless heart.
·
Know that the Bodhisattva who liberation
changes for renunciation to don the miseries of secret life, is called thrice
honoured, O thou candidate for woe throughout the cycles.
446.
Swami T. Subba Row interpreted the fight between the living and
the dead as the opposition between those who know and those who do not know. It
will be remembered that this distinction was also made by the Master Kuthumi
when teaching Alcyone; he said that there were only two classes of people, those
who know and those who do not know, those who have seen the way and those who
have not yet seen it. He also said that those to be pitied most were not the
bigoted and intolerant, but the millions who do not know that there is anything
beyond the world worth striving for, and are happy in their ignorance. Madame
Blavatsky interpreted the strife to be between the immortal higher ego and the
lower personal ego, these being the living and the dead respectively.
447.
The door is never closed against those who really wish to draw
nearer to the occult path. He who wants to do so must be given his opportunity
to try. And then, even if he fails it will not be in vain, for some of his
enemies, his vices and weaknesses, will have been destroyed, and will not
trouble him again. It is rare for anyone to blunder so badly as to be put
himself back into a distinctly lower grade in life, as for instance, in India
into a lower caste; but if a man takes up black magic containing a great deal of
powerful evil and exerts himself very much in that line, he may wrench away the
personality altogether from the ego, and create such bad karma as to make it
necessary for him to go back to primitive conditions. Such cases are very rare.
A person who has been really unworthy of his class or caste, is usually thrown
back into unpleasant surroundings in the same class or just below it. It would,
however, be great unwisdom not to try to rise because there may be danger of a
fall from a higher and more responsible position.
448.
On the other hand, a man who attains, it is said in the text,
will be honoured as a great and holy Buddha. Of course, the Arhat is not
technically a Buddha. But he is Buddha, that is to say, wise or enlightened.
449.
Madame Blavatsky explained that “the secret life” is that of
the Nirmanakaya. His greatness is hidden from the sight of man, and yet he
continues to live in this world. The term is here used in a general way not only
for those who remain on the threshold of liberation in order to fill the
reservoir of spiritual force, but for all who remain behind, thus including the
official Members of the Hierarchy, such as our Masters. We generally reserve the
term in these days, however, for those who follow one of the seven great lines
after taking the Fifth Initiation – Those who fill the reservoir.
450.
We meet here once more the idea of the path of woe. The
statement is somewhat misleading, and rather a misuse of the term woe. It is
true that a Master who is using the physical body does not obtain the enjoyment
of working on the nirvanic plane, but He would smile at the suggestion that He
was in woe. When a man gains the nirvanic consciousness, He does not lose it
because He keeps a physical body, except when He is actively engaged on the
lower planes. At any moment, between writing two letters or any two pieces of
work on the physical plane, He can slip away at once into the higher
consciousness, and carry on its work, which is infinitely more satisfying, and
altogether more glorious and blissful than anyone can imagine down here.
451.
It is true that coming back from the higher planes to physical
existence is like going down from the sunlight into a very dark dungeon; but you
would not think of that if in that place there was someone whom you very much
loved and wished to help. Physical life does involve the renunciation of the
higher glory but the definite object of helping fills the soul to such an extent
that certainly there is no suffering. Indeed, at a much lower stage of
evolution, a person who knows that someone else is suffering and needs real help
that he can give, and yet neglects that call and goes away to enjoy himself
somewhere else, would afterwards be deeply troubled by remorse, so that his
suffering would ultimately be greater than if he had renounced his pleasure in
the first place. Really, the greatest happiness for all of us comes from doing
the best that we know.
452.
There is -a large number of candidates who do not actually
fall, but are not conscious of making progress. Many of these are subject
occasionally to depression, and have the feeling that their efforts have been in
vain, since there is nothing to show for them. They should not allow themselves
to be depressed, because that spoils the astral atmosphere for other people, and
is therefore selfish. But quite apart from that, it is foolish, because they
ought to know that all the time they are making real inner progress. Long before
they become aware of it in the physical brain, the astral and perhaps the mental
body have been organized by their meditation, and they may be doing very
definite and useful work in the inner worlds in a variety of ways. The whole
life may seem to be a failure, but nevertheless much has been done which will be
carried forward into the next life, and will then make possible some conspicuous
progress, perhaps even on the physical plane-In any given life a man develops
both good and evil qualities. The latter show themselves in the four lower
sub-planes of the astral world. As these reflect their influence in the mental
plane only on its four lower sub-planes, they do not affect the ego at all. The
only emotions that can appeal in the three higher astral sub-planes are those
which are good, such as love, sympathy and devotion. These affect the ego in the
causal body, since it resides on the corresponding sub-planes of the mental
world. Therefore every feeling and thought of a higher kind can be seen, even in
this mechanical way, to have a permanent result in the higher self. And since it
is the ego that treads the Path, he is making quite definite steps of progress
with every right effort. So there is no reason to despair, nor to put off until
tomorrow what we can do today just because we cannot do everything at once.
·
The Path is one, disciple, yet in the
end, twofold. Marked are its stages by four and seven portals. At one end bliss
immediate, and at the other bliss deferred. Both are of merit the reward: the
choice is thine.
·
The one becomes the two, the open and the
secret. The first one leadeth to the goal, the second to self-immolation.
·
When to the permanent is sacrificed the
mutable, the prize is thine; the drop returneth whence it came. The open Path
leads to the changeless change – Nirvana, the glorious state of absoluteness,
the bliss past human thought.
·
Thus, the first Path is liberation.
453.
Yes, there is only one way, and that is by the unfolding of
character. There is no limit to the possibilities of the ego in that respect;
the noblest qualities of the greatest men exist in bud in all our fellow-men and
will unfold into flower sooner or later. And at the end, when one has done all
that is possible in the human kingdom, with the limitations of the human brain
and environment, the path becomes twofold, and one must choose between
liberation and renunciation. Here the term liberation means the acceptance of
nirvana, though sometimes it is used for mere escape from the wheel of births
and deaths at a lower level, as we have already seen in studying At the Feet
of the Master.
454.
Those who do not follow the White Lodge use other methods,
which often develop psychic powers to a relatively high point. But as the path
of grey magic is not hedged round by restrictions, as is that taught by the
Great White Lodge, sooner or later the man misuses his powers – for the
temptation is too great. Sometimes, however, the followers of other lines end by
coming into touch with the true teaching and pledging themselves to the Lodge.
In
455.
The four portals mentioned here are the four initiations
leading to Arhatship, described at length in The Masters and the Path.
Another arrangement divides it into seven stages, as we shall see in the third
Fragment of this book.
456.
At the highest levels of attainment on this path the aspirant
will recover the memory of his past lives, though at the same time his
consciousness will have widened enormously, so as to take in that of great hosts
of beings, and he will realize that his power and love are not his own, but
God’s. Only separateness will have been lost, and looking back he will see that
he has been living under a delusion of separateness. He will see, too, that his
past lives were very commonplace; that the turning-point in them were not
usually the events that he considered to be the most striking and important
while he was experiencing them, but that very often the little things of daily
life were the events that really made for the greatest progress.
·
But Path the second is renunciation, and
therefore called the Path of woe.
·
The secret path leads the Arhan to mental
woe unspeakable; woe for the living dead, and helpless pity for the men of
karmic sorrow; the fruit of Karma Sages dare not still.
·
For it is written: “Teach to eschew all
causes; the ripple of effect, as the great tidal wave, thou shalt let run its
course.”
457.
By the “mental woe unspeakable” of the Arhan, which is another
form of the word Arhat, on the secret path is meant the suffering that comes
through sympathy. He sees all the pain and sorrow of the world; but at the same
time he sees all the joy as well. He feels the greatest compassion for the
“living dead”, that is, for the great majority of mankind, who do not even know
that there is something to strive for. Then, secondly, there is “helpless pity”
that is aroused by seeing the karmic suffering, the results of foolishness,
which he cannot – we should say, rather, dare not – still. We can explain to
people the principle of karma, so that they will take their painful experiences
in the best way, and thus mitigate the suffering to some extent, but we cannot
do away with the results of past actions.
458.
Even in exoteric Christianity, the “forgiveness” of sins is not
explained as meaning that the results of sins will be abolished. In the Anglican
Church, for instance, when a priest is ordained and the power is conferred on
him to forgive sins, in accordance with the words which in the Christian
scriptures are attributed to the Christ: “Whosoever sins ye remit, they are
remitted unto them, and whosoever sins ye retain, they are retained”, it is
explained to him that what he has power to do is to set the offender right again
with God, when by his sin he has put himself in the wrong, or, in other words,
he can turn the man once more into the current of evolution, after he has set
himself athwart it and so blocked his own advance. Behind that Christian
conception there is a beautiful idea, but more beautiful still is the
Theosophical realization that one can never get away from the Divine, that even
the man who falls into avichi is still part of the Deity.
459.
It has repeatedly happened that good and earnest students have
refrained from giving help lest they should be interfering with a person’s
karma. No one can interfere with the law of karma, any more than with the law of
gravitation. If you hold up a book in your hand, it contains the potential
energy of gravitation, and the moment that the force you are employing to hold
it up is withdrawn the book falls. The law of karma operates in the same way.
Karma not paid off is similar to potential energy; it may be suspended for
thousands of years or for hundreds of lives, but when the time comes it will
manifest itself.
460.
People sometimes think of karma as merciless. But it is not so.
It is just as impersonal as any other law of nature. On the physical plane laws
work without any regard to good or bad intentions. If a child falls over a
precipice the amount of injury it sustains depends upon the height of the fall,
and whether the ground is hard or soft, and not at all on such moral
considerations as whether it was trying to pull a companion out of danger, or
wanted to pick a flower for its mother, or whether it threw itself over in a fit
of passion. Similarly, if a man catches hold of a hot bar of iron, he may do it
to prevent its falling on someone else, or with intent to strike someone with
it; the injury done to the hand will be the same in either case. That is the way
in which karma works on the physical plane. But on the mental plane intentions
count for a great deal, for we make our own character for the future by our
thinking. So one should never abstain from giving help when possible. If when
you have done your best you fail, then you may say: “His karma did not allow of
his being helped,” or else: “My karma did not give me the privilege of helping
him”, but that is all. All that really matters is that we work for others. Work
is expansive and cumulative; if you bring one person into Theosophy, he may
bring another ten, and each of those, ten more.
461.
Another sense in which we can take this verse, “the
fruit of karma sages dare not still”, is that even if a great Adept were to do
away with some apparent evil – with all poverty, for instance – He would effect
no real good, but only go against the law of the Logos. I do not mean that the
Logos wills such evil; it would be blasphemous to say that His scheme
includes necessary suffering, that He causes it. Suffering comes only by doing
what He has expressly told us not to do. It is true that all have suffered; no
one, so far as we know, has always chosen the right thing and never made
mistakes; but the suffering has always put us right when we have refused to
learn in any other way, and thus the law has made certain for all of us the
ultimate attainment of the indescribable bliss of nirvana.
462.
The open way, no sooner hast thou reached
its goal, will lead thee to reject the Bodhisattvic body, and make thee enter
the thrice glorious state of Dharmakaya, which is oblivion of the world and men
for ever.
463.
The secret
way leads also to Paranirvanic bliss – but at the close of Kalpas without
number; Nirvanas gained and lost from boundless pity and compassion for the
world of deluded mortals.
464.
But it is
said: “The last shall be the greatest.” Samyak Sambuddha, the Teacher of
perfection, gave up his Self for the salvation of the world, by stopping at the
threshold of Nirvana, the pure state.
465.
We have already considered the three vestures, and seen that no
idea of selfishness can attach to one who takes any of them. The Nirmanakayas
are like the contemplative orders, filling the reservoir of spiritual force for
the use of the Adepts who are in touch with our world. There are some fifty or
sixty posts which the latter may fill. The Nirmanakaya still retains his
permanent atoms, and so could, I suppose, if he wanted, fill one of these posts
if it became vacant. The post of Bodhisattva falls vacant once in each
root-race, but there are already many appointed to fill the office far into the
future, who are now being prepared. Many of those who became Arhats during the
incarnation of the Lord Buddha remain as Nirmanakayas, because of His teaching.
466.
All these offices and positions must be filled, and those who
renounce nirvana are only volunteering to do what we might call the dirty work.
The Adept, if one may put it so, feels not so much the loss of pleasure, as the
knowledge that working on the nirvanic level would be a million times more
effective than down below. And yet someone must do that lower work. In the
scheme of the Logos, the smallest bit of work is as necessary as the greatest,
just as the oiling of a great locomotive is as necessary as the driving of it.
467.
The Bodhisattvic body here alluded to is that of all those who
remain to help the world – not only that of the very limited number of those who
will be Buddhas.
468.
Stopping at the threshold of nirvana means that one does not
enter in and entirely leave the lower planes, as some do, and as the Buddha
might have done had He so chosen. He who thus remains has the higher
consciousness to the fullest extent, and also retains His consciousness even
down to the physical plane, and so can work on any plane required. It is said
that the Buddha is, at His level, free of the solar system, that He can move to
any of the planets of the system, just as some of us can move to other planets
of our chain. Yet even for Him there must be a limit, because He has not yet
entered into the consciousness of the Logos. I do not know whether His
consciousness includes the sun; Swami T. Subba Row once spoke of the sun as a
place of life so intense that even a Dhyan Chohan can hardly enter it.
469.
The buddhic plane appears to take us anywhere through our chain
of worlds. Nirvanic consciousness would mean consciousness anywhere in the solar
system. At the Fourth Initiation a touch of nirvana is given, but that does not
mean the full consciousness of that plane. It is entry into the lowest part of
it, and one has still to rise, sub-plane by sub-plane, until full consciousness
of the plane is acquired.
470.
Of the Buddha it is said that He attained Paranirvana. Thus it
is possible to consider different levels of nirvana – the different sub-planes
of the atmic plane, then the two planes of our system beyond that, and on into
the higher cosmic planes.
·
Thou hast the knowledge now concerning
the two ways. Thy time will come for choice, O thou of eager Soul, when thou
hast reached the end and passed the seven portals. Thy mind is clear. No more
art thou entangled in delusive thoughts, for thou hast learned all. Unveiled
stands Truth and looks thee sternly in the face. She says:
·
“Sweet are the fruits of rest and
liberation for the sake of self; but sweeter still the fruits of long and bitter
duty: aye, renunciation for the sake of others, of suffering fellow-men.”
·
The Bodhisattva who has won the battle,
who holds the prize within his palm, yet says in his divine compassion:
·
“For others’ sake this great reward I
yield” – accomplishes the greater renunciation.
·
A Saviour of the world is he.
·
* *
* *
·
Behold! The goal of bliss and the long
Path of woe are at the furthest end. Thou canst choose either, O aspirant to
sorrow, throughout the coming cycles!
·
Aum vajrapani hum.
471.
The greater renunciation is renouncing the higher work, after
seeing it, in order to do the lesser work, which we have seen to be just as
necessary. Such a matter as the renunciation of the desires of the personality
is an altogether lower renunciation.
472.
We must not import into our thought here any tinge of the
popular Christian idea of a Saviour who comes to save us from eternal torment.
The idea is, of course, nothing but a horrible distortion of the earlier and
truly Christian teaching, as for example that of Origen, who believed in the
deification of man through Christ. Every one who has risen into true communion
with the Master has become identified with Him, and is safe or sure to complete
the treading of the Path in the present cycle. The original meaning of the term
“saved” has been explained in The Masters and the Path.1
· 1 Op. cit., p. 146.
473.
When we speak of the Nirmanakayas as the Guardian Wall, we do
not for a moment imagine that they are protecting us against evil powers who are
waiting for an opportunity to pounce upon mankind. They are engaged, as said
before, in filling the reservoir with force used by the Great White Brotherhood,
to give help and guidance intelligently wherever it is possible, and to save
mankind from many mistakes which it might otherwise commit, and from the
suffering which would then ensue.
474.
This Fragment ends not with “
· 1 Op. cit., p. 325.
FRAGMENT III
THE SEVEN PORTALS
CHAPTER 1
THE
·
Acharya, the choice is made, I thirst for
wisdom. Now hast Thou rent the veil before the secret path, and taught the
greater
475.
C.W.L. – There is a
foot-note to the word Acharya, which means a spiritual preceptor or guru. It
explains that among the Northern Buddhists these are chosen from among the
saintly men learned in gotrabhu-jnana. The gotrabhu is the man who is ready for
any one of the Initiations, he who has all the qualities and only awaits
permission to present himself. Gotrabhu-jnana is the knowledge of those
qualifications. The Masters – Adepts who take pupils or apprentices – are They
who have that knowledge.
476.
The term
·
‘Tis well, Shravaka.
Prepare thyself, for thou wilt have to travel on alone. Thy teacher can but
point the way. The Path is one for all, the means to reach the goal must vary
with the pilgrims.
477.
The word shravaka comes from the root shru which means
to listen. The “listener” is one who attends to the religious instructions, says
a foot-note, and when from theory he passes into the practice or performance of
asceticism, he becomes a Shramana, from shrama, exertion. The two terms
have much the same meaning as the akoustikoi and askitai among the
Greeks.
478.
All who tread the Path must gain the same qualities or virtues,
but the modes of training for this are very varied. There are seven great types
of men, or seven rays, and along each of these aspirants are drawn to teachers
of their own rays. Even within the same type the teaching is adapted to
individual needs, so the pupils of one Master often receive quite different
treatment. Thus a Master may send one of His pupils into seclusion and another
out into the struggle of the world. He may give one the satisfaction of knowing
that he is being taught, and leave another without that knowledge for a great
length of time. Of this training and the different types some considerable
account has been given in The Masters and the Path.
·
Which will thou
choose, O thou of dauntless heart? The Samtan of eye doctrine, fourfold Dhyana,
or thread thy way through Paramitas, six in number, noble gates of virtue
leading to Bodhi and to Prajna, seventh step of wisdom?
·
The rugged path of
fourfold Dhyana winds uphill. Thrice great is he who climbs the lofty top.
·
The Paramita heights
are crossed by a still steeper path. Thou hast to fight thy way through portals
seven, seven strongholds held by cruel, crafty powers – passions incarnate.
479.
Little is said in this Fragment about the fourfold dhyana, but
much about the paramitas. The steps in meditation or dhyana are always spoken of
as three, as we have seen in studying the first Fragment, and these taken
together are called sannyama. These three are dharana, dhyana and samadhi, or
concentration, meditation and contemplation, and there is the preliminary
practice of pratyahara, making the fourth. We have also studied the paramitas in
the second Fragment. Here the path for the attainment of those virtues is spoken
of as having seven portals, at each of which the candidate has to struggle with
and slay a great fault or sin.
480.
It seems a little misleading to put meditation and the
development of these qualities one against the other, for both are necessary.
One cannot meditate without having these qualities, and one cannot develop the
qualities to perfection without meditation. It may have been that even at His
day Aryasanga was contrasting the path of retirement, of the man who avoided the
difficulties and distractions of the world in order to go by himself to meditate
apart from men, with the path of the spiritual life lived in the midst of the
world of men, which requires the practice of ideals in all the affairs of daily
life. He would then have been speaking of the former as a lofty path, but
of the latter as greater still, or rather steeper still. Instances of men
achieving perfection amidst the business of daily life are quite common in the
Hindu books. The great gurus of the Mahabharata were active in the
council-chamber and on the battlefield, and a merchant is also mentioned, in the
person of Tuladhara. In the Bhagavad-Glta the path of duty and action is
taught, and Shri Krishna tells Arjuna, His pupil, that Janaka and others
attained to perfection by action, and he should do the same, performing action
without personal attachment to the fruit of it, but for the sake of mankind.1
· 1 Op. cit.. III. 20.
481.
A glance at the opposites of the paramitas will show the nature
of the cruel, crafty powers which must be fought. The man who is self-centred
forgets that he is one unit in a whole, that, as Epictetus said, without mankind
around him he would not even be a man. Charity and general ethical development
or morality in its full sense do away with this self-centredness, and open the
man up so that he thinks more of others than of himself, and becomes a
benefactor to those who suffer, a good companion to his peers, and a responsive
pupil to his teacher.
482.
People often allow their patience to be ruffled by resentment.
They “feel hurt”, and are discontented, complaining inwardly, if not outwardly.
This means that they forget that just because there is a law of justice, which
is all the time engaged in repaying past debts between man and man, there must
be some apparent injustice. Sometimes a man wants to see the result of his own
work at an early stage, because he is thinking of himself, not of the work, and
he wants to boast about it or at least to congratulate himself upon its
achievement. At a later stage, he is sorry because his efforts made for a good
purpose seem to fail; there is still something of discontent and impatience in
that. Later he will see that it was the effort that was the important thing, not
the results. When these feelings trouble him no more, he will have acquired
patience.
483.
Again, the natural man is lazy. He likes to bask in the sun,
and will not exert himself until hunger moves him, or there arises a
vainglorious desire to hang more scalps to his belt, which urges him to rise
while his fellow-savages are sleeping. Tireless, dauntless energy is not
“natural”. Observe our President, utilizing every moment of the day, always
working, never wasting time. Do you suppose it was natural to her in the past to
be always at work? She does it because she has seen the beauty of the goal – to
be a helper of mankind.
484.
Meditation also is not “natural”. It calls for much trouble, a
strong exertion of the mind, and the keeping of the body in subjection. The
acquirement of wisdom also involves study and effort, and sometimes the courage
to face uncomfortable and even dangerous experiences.
·
Be of good cheer, disciple; bear in mind
the golden rule. Once thou hast passed the gate Srotapatti, “he who the stream
hath entered”; once thy foot hath pressed the bed of the nirvanic stream in this
or any future life; thou hast but seven other births before thee, O thou of
adamantine will.
485.
Seven lives is the average period between the First Initiation
and the Fourth, but if the will is sufficiently strong, a man can attain the
goal in less. It is analogous to the preparation of a student for an
examination; it is considered that a certain period of time spent in study
should fit the average candidate to pass, but any given man may take a longer or
a shorter time. Two lives have often brought a man from his First Initiation to
Arhatship; some few people have achieved that goal in one life. The same rule
then holds good for the attainment of Adeptship, for the Arhat is just half way.
·
Look on. What seest
thou before thine eye, O aspirant to God-like wisdom?
·
“The cloak of
darkness is Upon the deep of matter; within its folds I
struggle. Beneath my gaze it deepens, Lord; it is dispelled beneath the waving
of Thy hand. A shadow moveth, creeping like the stretching serpent coils. ... It
grows, swells out, and disappears in darkness.”
·
It is the shadow of
thyself outside the Path, cast on the darkness of thy sins.
486.
Here one would prefer to say faults and failings rather than
sins. These become much more dangerous on the Path than ever they were before.
Therefore an iron determination to eradicate them utterly and at once is
required for treading the way. When one sees a fault in oneself, one should go
and do exactly the opposite, unflinchingly and steadily, until it is completely
gone. Few people are willing to do this. Sometimes they beg one to be open with
them and tell them just what it is that keeps them back. If one does it, one
risks losing their friendship. Generally they become indignant and say that they
know that they have many faults but not the one to which you have drawn their
attention and that they do not think much of your judgment or intuition. There
are exceptions, but that is the general rule.
487.
On the Path a man has to live by his own rules, not simply to
follow the rules or conventions of the social environment in which he finds
himself. This increases his difficulties and dangers. He is trying his utmost –
of that we may be sure, for if he were not, he would be throwing away the fruits
of the efforts of many lives, and that would be madness. Others have no means of
judging him. He holds in his hand a key which others do not possess, and for him
therefore all things wear a new aspect. He needs the kind thoughts of others –
not criticism of what they do not understand – for he is not insensitive, and
they will aid him to rise rapidly and become a power to uplift the world.
·
“Yea, Lord; I
see the Path; its foot in mire, its
summit lost in glorious light nirvanic: and now I see the ever-narrowing portals
on the hard and thorny road to Jnana.”
·
Thou seest well, Lanoo. These portals
lead the aspirant across the waters on to the other shore.
488.
“The other shore” is a phrase that is constantly used. There
are two distinct forms of symbology which make use of this metaphor. In one, the
whole of life is likened to the ocean, and men are ferried to the other shore,
to the state beyond death’ and rebirth, by the Mahayana or the Hinayana. The
second is a more technical meaning. At the first great Initiation, a man steps
out from the general evolution, which he has now completed, and begins the
special .one. As much as is permissible of the ceremony that then takes place
has been printed in The Masters and the Path, including the words: “You
have entered upon the stream. May you soon reach the further shore.”1
(1 Op, cit., Ch.
VII.) That shore is, of course, Adeptship.
·
Each portal hath a golden key that
openeth its gate; and these keys are:
·
Dana, the key of charity and love
immortal.
489.
This is not mere charity in the sense of giving alms, nor what
is commonly called a charitable attitude, though that is much more than the
former. It means utter readiness to give oneself and all one has in service.
There are not many people in the world who have reached that stage, who are
ready to employ all their time, energy, money, feelings and thoughts to this
end. And even for those who have reached that point there is a further stage,
for there may still exist the fault of identifying the work with oneself instead
of oneself with the work. There are many who are willing to take up great work,
but few who will forget themselves to the point of doing any insignificant piece
of work of which no notice will be taken and for which no thanks are given. The
disciple of the Master has to look round and see what has to be done that he can
do that is not being done. He must not look with disfavour upon the humblest
task, thinking, “I am too good for this.” In the Master’s work no part is more
important than any other, though some portions are more difficult than others,
and therefore require special training or unusual faculties or ability.
490.
To sacrifice yourself thoroughly, you must also sacrifice your
feelings. If these are liable to be hurt, you will waste a lot of force in being
offended that should have been put into the work. We must always do our best,
and not stop to think: “What a fine fellow I am.”
491.
Then we must also have “love immortal”. Tennyson said of the
dead:
i.
They watch like God the rolling hours
ii.
With larger, other eyes than ours,
iii.
To make allowance for us all.
492. God knows all,
and He does not lose patience. We are apt to lose patience with one another, and
quickly get tired of making allowances, but He does not. It has been well said:
“Tout comprendre, c’est tout pardonner.”1
493. 1 “To understand all is to pardon all.”
·
Shila, the key of harmony in word and
act, the key that counterbalances the cause and the effect, and leaves no
further room for karmic action.
494.
The word shila is generally translated simply “conduct”, but
here the writer emphasizes the idea of harmony. He who practises shila will be
ever attentive to his own dharma, studious of what he can do with the powers
that he has in the position in which karma has placed him. This is the quality
also which will close up his karmic account as quickly as possible, and enable
him to enjoy ever-increasing freedom and opportunity to do good.
·
Kshanti, patience sweet, that nought can
ruffle.
495.
While the candidate at this stage of his journey must acquire a
great measure of this quality, it still remains to be perfected later on. To be
utterly unruffled is a very high condition. The Arhat is spoken of as the
perfect – the venerable – yet he has five fetters to cast off before reaching
Adeptship, and of these the last but one is the possibility of being ruffled by
anything whatever.
·
Vairagya, indifference to pleasure and to
pain, illusion conquered, truth alone perceived.
496.
The whole of the third part of our commentary on At the Feet
of the Master is taken up with the quality of vairagya, which is there
translated desirelessness. As was said before, it is usually translated
indifference or dispassion.
497.
This quality is possessed by the man who is keenly alert about
his work, but never allows personal considerations to stand in his way. He has
got rid of feelings that can be hurt, but has not lost sympathy. He is
indifferent to the things which commonly sway men, is not disturbed by passions,
but has calm, cool judgment. This so-called indifference does not mean that the
man will not put enthusiasm into his work, but that he will do so when it is
painful and troublesome just as much as when it is full of pleasure. When the
quality is well developed, the man will see that most of our pleasures and pains
are illusions, and are caused by a wrong way of taking things. He will see the
truth of the saying of the ancient Stoic that it is our opinions about things
that trouble us more than the things themselves.
498.
Virya, the dauntless energy that fights
its way to the supernal truth, out of the mire of lies terrestrial.
499.
Each person who approaches the Path has his own special
qualities, on account of which he will find Some of these portals especially
easy to pass and others difficult. The quality of patience, for example, would
generally be much easier for the Eastern disciple, and the quality of energy for
the Western. When this list was first placed before us, some of us wondered why
the more difficult qualities were placed at the beginning. Really it was not so.
The Lord Buddha was an Indian and he drew it up for the Indian people, and
probably He placed first on the list the steps which they were likely to find
the easiest.
500.
It certainly is difficult, when one has first developed a great
deal of energy, or virya, to acquire the sweet patience, or kshanti, afterwards.
A person who has this energy and hears about the path wants immediately to tread
it to the very end – but without patience he will cause such a disturbance all
along the way, and create such a quantity of troublesome karma that he will
delay himself considerably. On the other hand the man who has the patience and
not the energy will perhaps be content to go along very slowly – and his
progress will then be slow indeed.
501.
There is a tendency of this kind at present in the East. I
remember that in Ceylon I was once told that in ancient times people really
attained nirvana, but that now times were evil – it was what was called a dark
age, a kali yuga – and these achievements were no longer possible, though
perhaps in some far-distant, golden future they would again become so. But the
great teachers are with us still, and though, as the Christian Scripture says,
strait is the gate and narrow is the way, yet now as ever that gate can be found
and that way can be trodden.
502.
In these matters, no man can tell where he stands. To many
Theosophy comes as a recollection; that means that they knew something about it
in former lives. If in those lives a man has worked hard to reach the Path, in
this life a little more work will bring him to it. But if he is only now
beginning that effort he has a long way to go, and it would be an almost
superhuman feat for him to enter the stream in this incarnation.
503.
The efforts that many Theosophists are making imply a great
strain; that is why there is sometimes so much disturbance in the Theosophical
Society, so much irritability and quarrelling. I have heard people say that
other Societies have far less trouble of this kind. That is naturally the case.
If you join a geographical or geological or other similar society, you are
simply joining a set of people who are working together to acquire more
knowledge, generally of a particular kind. But in the Theosophical Society many
people are putting a great strain upon their astral and mental bodies and that
reacts upon their physical bodies. I think, therefore, that as we shall continue
to deal with a set of sensitive and not yet perfect people, who are pressing
forward more rapidly than nature in its normal course intended, the history of
the Society will probably continue to record many disturbances, though the time
is bound to come for each one of its members when he will acquire the “patience
sweet that naught can ruffle”.
504.
Dhyana, whose golden gate once opened
leads the Narjol towards the realm of Sat eternal and its ceaseless
contemplation.
505.
In earlier editions of this book, you will find that the word
narjol is mis-spelt naljor. This was a mistake, corrected in the later editions.
The mis-spelling was due to the fact that Madame Blavatsky read the word
astrally, and reading a book astrally you see at the same time what is written
on the front of the page, and also the reverse of the characters as from behind.
Of course, you would not focus your attention on the reverse aspect of the print
or writing; you would normally notice only the pages spread out before you –
those would be quite distinct, and the reverse would then be out of focus.
Still, reading in this way it is quite easy to make mistakes and get some things
reversed. This is especially true of numbers; you can see at once if you are
looking at 7 the wrong way about, but 18 can easily be mistaken for 81.
506.
Madame Blavatsky sometimes got numbers reversed in this way.
She used often to look astrally at rare books, of which only one or two copies
exist, and some of us would go to the
507.
The word narjol, which has led us into this little digression,
is a Tibetan word which means adept or saint, or, even better, yogi. Its
derivation is from a word meaning “peace”. The narjol is therefore one who
strives after the inner peace.
508.
It is dhyana or meditation which opens the gates of the higher
self. Most of our Theosophical information, and of what is written in the
ancient Scriptures, has come to us by way of clairvoyance. There is a mass of
investigation waiting to be done by clairvoyance. In occult chemistry, for
example, we have examined the elements and some compounds, but there is a vast
work to be done in that field by someone who has the faculty of etheric vision
and magnification, and the patience to observe and count the atoms over and over
again.
509.
The Stanzas of Dzyan must have been written by one who could
read the minds of the directing Devas, and thus see what they were aiming at.
What we say about rings and rounds may not be exact, but the information given
about the astral and mental planes, being the result of thousands of
observations, is reasonably sure to be so. There may still arise errors from
premature generalization – that happens in every science – from the mistaking of
the abnormal for the normal, or from the oversight of some class of phenomena
bearing on a general theory. Such, for example, was our former idea about the
interval between lives, and the way in which egos incarnated regularly in
successive sub-races, which was announced as the normal course of evolution
until we discovered another type of egos who kept mostly to one sub-race and
reincarnated twice as frequently as the others. There may be half a dozen more
types for all we know; all we can say is that we have not yet come across them.
510.
The old Scriptures are especially valuable because they were
largely written by people who could see clairvoyantly. Many are repelled from
them because of the way in which they present their ideas, sometimes by their
archaic flavour. Every age has had its own methods of expression. Our modern way
is quite bald; we put things as plainly as we can. In ancient
511.
In the old days in every part of the world life was much more
leisurely. It was the custom to make things comfortable and easy for everybody,
and generally to put off till tomorrow any business that could possibly be
avoided today. In looking up a great number of past lives, I found the same
thing everywhere. There were no trains to catch or newspapers or magazines to
bring out by a certain time of day or on a certain date. The nearest approach
that I have found to a regular serial publication was a series of letters,
brought out at intervals which were very long and quite irregular – so that
sometimes months elapsed between the issues.
512.
In spite of all this, men did attain Adeptship in those old
days, but they must have found it hard to acquire virya, the dauntless energy
required for the path. Still, the unresting activity, the ceaseless hurry of our
modern Western world, is not exactly the same thing as virya. It is often by
outward compulsion that people show their energy. If they are not punctual and
assiduous in business, the competition is such that other men will pass ahead of
them and they will not be able to make a living. But the student of occultism is
moved by his own inner compulsion, and is always working steadily – but without
hurry or flurry, for he wants his work to be well done.
513.
Probably the principal danger in this matter is that of doing
too little, of letting things go undone which ought to be done. Yet some people
spoil their work by undertaking too much. Mrs. Besant is a magnificent example
of the middle course; she is always at work, and plans all her time to the best
advantage, but she does not attempt more than she can do. She will often say
about a thing: “This is not my work, for I have no time for it.”
514.
There is truth in the saying that the busiest man always has
the most time. It is so because he does not mismanage his time. But there are
men who take upon themselves more work than they can really do, sometimes
because they have the feeling, which may be well founded, that no one else among
the people around them can do the work quite as well. This was once the case
many years ago with a certain General Secretary of one of the Sections of the
Theosophical Society. He was a splendid worker of great ability, and his opinion
that he could do things best was probably justified. But he undertook so much
that work left undone for lack of time accumulated until, when his successor
came into office, things were in an almost hopeless muddle.
515.
It is better to tread the middle path in this matter, to
portion out your work carefully, and to spare some of the time to teach and to
train other workers. It is often much more trouble to show someone else how to
do a piece of work than to do it oneself, but one hopes that, when one has shown
him once or twice, or if necessary ten times, he will be able to do it alone a
hundred times, so that in the end there will be gain.
516.
Prajna, the key to which makes of a man a
God, creating him a Bodhisattva, son of the Dhyanis.
·
Such to the portals are the golden keys.
517.
We have now come to the last of these qualities. Prajna, which
means, once more, wisdom – more in the sense of a faculty of consciousness than
of knowledge that is wisdom because it penetrates to the life behind the form.
Jnana, also translated wisdom, is not a faculty, but prajna is.
518.
It is said that this quality makes the Bodhisattva. This latter
term is used here in a wide sense. Technically, a Bodhisattva is one who is
destined to become a Buddha, who has given to a living Buddha the pledge that in
a future life he will take up that office. But all men alike will pass through
the level of the Bodhisattva, on their various lines. There are seven great
planetary lines, and Masters taking pupils are at work along each of them. Every
man, going along his own line, will ultimately be drawn into contact with a
Master standing at the head of that line. There is, however, the possibility of
a man’s changing from one line to another through devotion to a particular
Master, but this requires a certain extra amount of study and effort; for a man
most readily adapts himself to occult training on his own line.
519.
He who becomes a Buddha must thousands of years beforehand have
made his vow to a living Buddha, and it is said that from that time onward the
influence of the Buddha overshadows him, and that when in due course he attains
Buddhahood, the great influence of the spiritual Buddha hovers over the
incarnate Buddha. The Lord Gautama is said to have taken His vow to Buddha
Dlpankara, and the latter is supposed to have been also present in the
background during the years when the Buddha Gautama was preaching. One can only
repeat what has been said on these high matters, but certainly it is a very
beautiful idea. It is also a natural one, for we know that on a much lower level
the Master is always overshadowing the disciple, who is part of His
consciousness.
CHAPTER 2
TUNING THE HEART
·
Before thou canst approach the last, O
weaver of thy freedom, thou hast to master these Paramitas of perfection – the
virtues transcendental six and ten in number – along the weary path.
·
For, O disciple! before thou wert made
fit to meet thy Teacher face to face, thy Master light to light, what wert thou
told?
·
Before thou canst approach the foremost
gate thou hast to learn to part thy body from thy mind, to dissipate the shadow,
and to live in the eternal. For this, thou hast to live and breathe in all, as
all that thou perceivest breathes in thee; to feel thyself abiding in all
things, all things in Self.
520.
C.W.L. – To meet
thy Master light to light expresses a wonderful truth. When the pupil comes into
touch with his Master’s consciousness, and the latter enfolds him for the first
time, his aura shines forth brilliantly with the Master’s light, as I have
explained in The Masters and the Path.1
521. 1 Op. cit., Ch. V.
522.
These verses go again over much of the ground traversed at the
beginning of the First Fragment. To part the body from the mind means literally
that one must learn to make the mayavi rupa, and metaphorically that one must
discriminate what is reality and understand that one is not the body. The astral
body is the shadow of the physical one; this must not be destroyed, but its
influence over the pupil must be done away with. One must use it, but not allow
it to dominate one. To live in the eternal is not to leave the world, but to
judge things all the time from the standpoint of the eternal life. All these
things we have considered in studying At the Feet of the Master.
523.
He who learns to live from the point of view of the eternal, of
the reincarnating ego, soon learns that nothing that happens to one from the
outside matters at all. When we read the Lives of Alcyone, we see that
many of the characters in them went through much suffering. Some of those
characters were ourselves, and we know that the suffering was temporary and does
not affect us now. Looking back, we sometimes wonder how some of the characters
endured such suffering. Well, they did, and came through it safely. It is not
always so easy to feel that one will come through present suffering all right,
because one is in the midst of it, instead of looking at it in perspective. One
cannot expect to see clearly the whole of an experience or an event in which one
is actually immersed. A soldier on the battlefield, for example, sees very
little of what is going on, and does not usually know the importance of the
particular movement or manoeuvre in which he is taking part; his share of the
work may seem trivial, and yet it may be an important factor in deciding the
battle, or it may be spectacular and prominent and yet not be really vital to
the success of his side.
524.
Nevertheless, I do not think we can overrate the importance of
the Theosophical Society. It is one of the most important movements that the
world has ever seen. To the outer world, the rulers and statesmen, it looks like
any other Society – a mere handful of people. Yet it was founded by the two
Masters who will be the heads of the sixth root-race, and They are choosing from
among us the people who are fit to take part in that race in its early
development. But we can very easily overrate our own personal share in the work
of the Society. No one is indispensable, as we have had occasion to find out in
the course of the Society’s history. Even our great leaders, Madame Biavatsky
and Colonel Olcott, have departed, but the Society has survived their loss, and
gone on spreading its ideals and permeating the world with them, because the
Masters remain.
525.
Disciples of the Masters have to learn to identify their
consciousness with that of their fellow-men and therefore certain exercises are
often set for the purpose. The results are often surprising when the pupil
begins by trying to enter the consciousness of various animals. They have very
limited lines of thought, and actions for which people will often credit them
with motives drawn from human experience are often due to something different.
On the other hand, they follow their few lines of thought much further than is
commonly realized; so that in some ways we credit them with very much more than
is in them, but in others with very much less.
526.
Often a pupil is put into the body of someone else, in order
that he may understand that other’s position, and also that he may realize
himself in different forms. A rather drastic experience of the kind was related
to me by Mr. Damodar K. Mavalankar many years ago. He was one day taken out of
his body, and flung into that of a drunken sailor in some dock in a foreign
country. He was a Brahmana, with all the Brahmana’s hereditary shrinking, if it
may be so described, from contact with what is low or unclean – a feeling
stronger than almost any Western person can quite understand. Naturally, it was
a terrible shock. He found himself immersed in what to him was unspeakable
filth. Yet in the midst of this horror which had suddenly fallen upon him he was
able to continue to realize himself, and to say to himself: “I am not this; I am
Damodar.” And he was able to remain calm, and to think: “This too is humanity; I
have to sympathize also with this.” So he came out of the test with credit.
527.
Many people, if subjected to such a test, would have got into a
great flurry, would have thought it a dreadful nightmare, and in struggling
madly to get free would have injured themselves. To most, perhaps, the first
feeling would have been one of disgust. But an Adept does not feel like that. He
does not condone any wrong; He would realize that very much more than we could,
but He is not disgusted. He recognizes all the stages of human life. He
remembers that He has been through something like this Himself – ages ago,
perhaps on some other planet. His buddhic consciousness is also perfectly
unfolded, and when that is the case one is able to enfold sinners within
oneself. There is no repulsion for the man who is doing wrong; one feels only
the desire to give whatever help is possible. Generally, however, only a little
can be given to people in those stages, and that must be given cautiously. Not
only sympathy is necessary, but also wisdom to understand what he can respond
to, and patience and tact to make him realize the excellence of a life a little
superior to that which he has been leading.
528.
It is through this experience of identification that one learns
wise sympathy, and I think that is the only way in which it can be done
perfectly. One sees then why a man does certain things, and how they appear to
him. Those who have not that experience must do their best to try to see things
from the point of view of others.
·
Thou shalt not let thy senses make a
playground of thy mind.
·
Thou shalt not separate thy being from
Being, and the rest, but merge the ocean in the drop, the drop within the ocean.
·
So shalt thou be in full accord with all
that lives; bear love to men as though they were thy brother-pupils, disciples
of one Teacher, the sons of one sweet mother.
529.
The first of these verses reminds one of the earlier portion of
the first Fragment, where it says: “The mind is the great slayer of the real.
Let the disciple slay the slayer.” It is such a slayer because we have allowed
prejudices to grow up in it. It is commonplace knowledge that we never see
another person, but only our thought of him. To slay the slayer, however, does
not mean that we are to try to get along without the intellect, and trust solely
to our impulses, which are a stage lower. We must rise to the intuitional level,
which is above the intellect, and allow that to determine to what objects our
thoughts shall be directed.
530.
If people could see the effect of prejudice in the mental body,
they would be surprised. The matter of that body is, or should be, in a constant
rhythmical flow, and different parts of it, or rings, have to do with thought
along different lines. If one has a prejudice along some one line of thinking,
there is a congestion in the ring which has to do with that line; the matter in
that place no longer flows freely. The appearance made on the mental body by
this congestion is exactly like that of a great wart. We ought to be able to
look out through any portion of the mental body, but the effect of that wart is
to interfere with our vision. When we try to look out through this part of the
mental body things will appear distorted, as has been explained before.1
· 1 Ante Vol. I, Part IV, Chapter 1, Control of Mind.
531.
It is in this way that the mind is the slayer of the real. Even
the best people have some prejudices. Someone, for example, who prides himself
on being free from them in one direction – let us say about caste or colour –
will have them in another, perhaps in regard to manners. He does not mind
whether a man’s skin be brown, or white, or red, or yellow; but if the man
should happen to eat off his knife, or pronounce words in a provincial way, he
is not at all indifferent.
532.
The worst of these prejudices are generally those of the
existence of which we are quite unaware, with which perhaps we have grown up
from childhood. They are exceedingly hard to eradicate. The only way to conquer
them completely is by love. If the man’s manners offend us, he will learn better
ones in time – if not in this incarnation, then in the next – but the man is
part of the Logos, just as we are. The love of God, like the peace of God,
passeth understanding, and not only excuses all, but feels no need to excuse.
533.
We must learn to bear love to all men as though they were our
brother-pupils. The tie between pupils of the same Master is the strongest in
the world, except that which exists between members of the Brotherhood. In time,
the pupil will learn to extend the quality of love that he has acquired under
these conditions of unity, until he feels it towards all whom he sees.
·
Of teachers there are
many: the Master-Soul is one, Alaya, the universal Soul. Live in that Master as
its ray in thee. Live in thy fellows as they live in it.
534.
This is the same idea of unity, put even more beautifully.
·
Before thou standest
on the threshold of the Path; before thou crossest the foremost gate, thou hast
to
merge the two into the one and sacrifice
the personal to the Self impersonal, and thus destroy the path between the two –
Antahkarana.
535.
The general meaning of this verse is quite clear to us, but the
use of the word antahkarana is a little unusual, especially as Madame Blavatsky
has annotated it. She says: “Antahkarana is the lower Manas, the path of
communication or communion between the personality and the higher Manas or human
Soul. At death it is destroyed as a path or medium of communication, and its
remains survive in a form as a Kamarupa – the shell.”
536.
In the latter part of the third volume of The Secret
Doctrine, Madame Blavatsky sometimes uses the word kama-manas for what we
now call the lower mind, meaning a mind the character of which is built up
during the personal life under the influence of kama. The antahkarana could then
be regarded as the lower manas pure and undented, the ray of the higher manas.
During life, it is possible for a man to get into touch with the higher manas
through that channel, and as we have seen in The Masters and the Path,1
(1 Op. cit.,
Ch. VIII.) the pupil addresses himself to the task of so widening the channel
that it is always fully open, and the active higher manas may express himself
all the time in the personality. But after death the average man has not the
freedom that he had before to initiate new activities or to try new experiments;
he is now in the world of the effects of the causes he set going during earth
life, and must first work out his collected lower emotions on the astral plane,
and then his collected higher emotions on the lower mental plane, in the
devachanic condition. So, in a sense, his antahkarana has ceased to function as
a downward channel. This does not apply, however, to the man who is the master
of his own feelings and thoughts or to the pupil who ranges the astral and lower
mental planes at will.
537.
During life the ego in the causal body has entrusted some of
his own energy, as it were, to the search for useful experience to which his
personality was adapted, and in so far as the personality failed in its mission,
that energy, those rays of the higher manas, have been lost, remaining but as a
centre for the shell, or even for the production of a dweller on the threshold
if they are strong enough to last over to the next incarnation.
538.
In current Theosophical terms, after death the man remains in
the astral plane for a period, longer or shorter, according to the quantity and
virility of his selfish desires, be they gross or refined or mixed. Then he
meets with his second death, the death of the astral body, and goes on into
devachan, a special condition on the lower mental plane, in his lower mental
body, in which he works up to perfection all his unselfish ambitions and
desires. While he is in this latter state, some part of the discarded astral
corpse may still be roaming about in a congenial environment, if that body was
coarse. All this has been very fully explained in my little works The Astral
Plane and The Devachanic Plane. Anything like a full description of
these after-death states here would swell this book to unwieldy proportions.
539.
When writing the article on Lost Souls, which has been
incorporated in The Inner Life, I thought of a simple explanation of the
connection between the higher and lower mind. By far the greater part of the ego
belongs to the highest sub-plane of the mental; a lesser portion belongs to the
second sub-plane, and still less to the third. We may therefore imagine a
diagram representing the ego on those three sub-planes, as being shaped
something like a conventional heart, tapering to a point at the bottom. In the
ordinary person only that little point comes down into the personality – so that
a very small portion of the ego is in activity in reference to it.
540.
Probably not more than a hundredth part of it is active in
people who are unevolved. With occult students a little of the second sub-plane
is generally in activity also. More advanced students have a great deal of that
sub-plane in activity, and in the stage below that of the Arhat, about one half
the ego is active.
541.
The hold that the ego has over his lower vehicles is only very
partial, and the antahkarana may be regarded as the arm stretched out between
the little piece of the ego that is awakened, and the part put down, the hand,
which frequently forgets about the higher and often even works against it. When
the two are perfectly joined this attenuated thread ceases to exist.
542.
In Sanskrit the word antahkarana means the inner organ or inner
instrument, and the destruction of that would imply that the ego would no longer
need an instrument, but would work directly on the personality. The ego actually
loses a part of himself when the cohesion of the ego as a whole is weaker than
the forces of entanglement, but he has also gained something during the life,
and generally (always excepting the case of a very wicked life) the gain is more
than the loss sustained through the entanglement with the lower manas. A little
of himself and a little of the lower manas is left in the kama-rupa at the
second death. The antahkarana should therefore be thought of as the link which
joins the higher and the lower self, and which disappears when one will operates
the two.
·
Thou hast to be prepared to answer
Dharma, the stern law, whose voice will ask thee at thy first, at thy initial
step:
·
“Hast thou complied with all the rules, O
thou of lofty hopes?
·
Hast thou attuned thy heart and mind to
the great mind and heart of all mankind? For as the sacred river’s roaring voice
whereby all nature-sounds are echoed back, so must the heart of him who in the
stream would enter thrill in response to every sigh and thought of all that
lives and breathes.”
543.
Madame Blavatsky here gives us a long foot-note, explaining
that the Northern Buddhists, and indeed all Chinamen, find in the deep roar of
some of the great and sacred rivers the key-note of nature. She points out that
it is a well-known fact in physical science, as well as in occultism, that the
aggregate sound of nature – such as is heard in the roar of great rivers, the
noise produced by the waving tops of trees in larger forests, or that of a city
heard at a distance – is a definite single tone of quite an appreciable pitch.
All that is true, and one who has learned to do so can always hear the
underlying tone of nature. Every planet also has its own sound; it intones its
own notes as it moves through space, and by this tone the Logos knows whether
all is going well, with His worlds, somewhat in the same way that a practised
engineer can tell by the sound of his engine whether all is well with his
machinery. So must the aspirant listen constantly to the life in all around him.
This brings us back to that quality of sympathy which this book so strongly
insists upon. Often we think we understand our nearest friends, but really we do
not, as is often quite apparent to an outside observer.1
But a Master always understands; He cannot possibly misunderstand. He may say
that He does not approve of something that He sees; yet He is always in perfect
sympathy, and understands without our needing to say a single word. We must try
to understand others by endeavouring to see things as they see them, by
understanding what their thoughts are, not by doing what they do.
·
1
Ante, Vol. I, Part II,
·
Disciples may be likened to the strings
of the soul-echoing vina; mankind, unto its sounding-board; the hand that sweeps
it to the tuneful breath of the great World-Soul. The string that fails to
answer neath the Master’s touch in dulcet harmony with all the others, breaks
and is cast away. So the collective minds of Lanoo Shravakas. They have to be
attuned to the Acharya’s mind – one with the Over-Soul – or break away.
544.
The Occult Hierarchy makes use of disciples as the strings of a
vina, on which it may sound the splendid music of the march of evolution, that
all that music may then resound among mankind. What would you do, were you a
musician, with a string that did not wish to blend itself with the rest, but
tried to force itself into more prominent notice? You would throw it away.
Anyone who has an axe of his own to grind, who wants knowledge or liberation, or
anything else for himself, is not fit to be a pupil of the Master. With this in
view every pupil will be tested. He will be given pieces of work which, if he
neglects them, will be left undone. If the work is important, the Master will
always have an understudy ready, but when it is just on the fringe of things it
may be left, and that string will be cast aside.
545.
The disciple must have not only harmony with the great purpose
of the Master, but also with the rest of the workers. A man must do the work of
his own department and not interfere with that of others; when their work
touches his, he can only either help or hinder them, and it is his duty to help,
to make things as easy as possible for a brother. This mutual forbearance and
help acts like oil in machinery; when oil is lacking it may still work, but not
so smoothly or well, and more energy will be needed to make it go. If one puts
all one’s energy into the work, and yet wastes much of it in friction, that is
almost the same as giving but a part of it. One must have in mind, not his own
advancement, nor even the success of his own department, but the good of the
whole.
·
Thus do the brothers of the shadow – the
murderers of their Souls, the dread Dad-Dugpa clan.
546.
All through her writings Madame Blavatsky applies the name
Dugpa to the brothers of the shadow – black magicians, as we often call them.
Perhaps it is rather an unfortunate name to have chosen, because the dugpas do
not quite deserve all the hard things she has said about them.
547.
In
548.
The same thing has happened in other religions. In
Christianity, for example, as I have before pointed out,1
(1 Ante, Vol. I,
Part V,
549.
In
550.
The termination pa means simply “people”. Thus, the
followers of the Master Kuthumi are called in
551.
Then came the third and last reform, by Tsong-ka-pa. The
followers of this are the Gelug-pa, or Yellow-caps. To this sect belong the
Dalai Lama and the Teshu Lama, and the present government of the country. To it
also belong outwardly our two Masters. The people of this sect wear, on great
occasions, yellow robes, and curious high-pointed helmet-like caps.
552.
Aryasanga belonged to the Yellow-caps; so, of course, did
Alcyone, in His last incarnation, as the former’s disciple. Perhaps Alcyone
somewhat strengthened His teacher’s expressions when speaking of the Red-caps.
To call them “murderers of their souls” is hardly in keeping with the spirit of
the Buddhist religion.
553.
The Dug-pa clan, then, is not quite so bad as it has been
painted. They are Buddhists, with nature-worship super-imposed. This old
worship, its enemies say, included animal sacrifices, and even human sacrifices
at one time.
554.
The Yellow-caps are opposed to them, because they are striving
to maintain a purer Buddhism. Their rules are stricter, and admit much less of
nature-worship, though even they have not been able to keep entirely free from
it, so that some day a fresh reform may well be undertaken. From the Dug-pa clan
some have joined the Yellow-caps, and have even attracted the attention of our
Masters, so they cannot be altogether bad. The Bhon-pa are not a very advanced
or dignified kind of black magicians, so to call them “brothers of the shadow”
gives them more credit than they deserve, even on their own line.
·
Hast thou attuned thy being to humanity’s
great pain, O candidate for light?
·
Thou hast? . . . Thou mayest enter. Yet,
ere thou settest foot upon the dreary path of sorrow, ‘tis well thou should’st
first learn the pitfalls on thy way.
555.
Once more we have that idea of the path of woe. There is no
sorrow on this Path; strenuous effort there is, but with it the greatest joy in
the work. Of this joy many teachers have spoken, with the result sometimes that
their pupils, encountering the early difficulties, have been disappointed.
Aryasanga evidently was anxious hot to mislead any pupil of his, so he laid
stress on the difficulties.
556.
There is a difficult stage through which all have to pass – a
stage between two certainties. Many in this position care nothing for the things
of the world. They do not care, for example, whether they have money, fine
houses and clothes, or not. If wealth should come to them, it would be a
responsibility that they would meet like any other, but they would be equally
content if they had just sufficient. The lower things have fallen away, and yet
the higher ones are still matters of faith, not of knowledge and experience. In
this condition the man inevitably has a monotonous and sometimes a miserable
time, which may last for a longer or shorter period, and may possibly occur
several times.
557.
But when the higher is clearly seen, all is changed, and the
Path becomes radiant with happiness. Then the lower things have lost all
attraction. Take the case of our President. If she devoted her time and talents
to worldly ends, she could certainly win great fame and position along one or
other of several lines; but if you were to ask her whether it would be a
pleasure to give up what she has chosen and follow a line of worldly ambition,
she would surely say; “Certainly not; why should I? Nothing could possibly equal
the delight of the Master’s service.”
558.
There is far greater joy in the life of the disciple than in
any worldly life, however beautiful the surroundings may be. He renounces
personal possessions of every sort, but what does he want with them? In
CHAPTER 3
THE FIRST THREE GATES
·
Armed with the key of
charity, of love and tender mercy, thou art secure before the gate of Dana, the
gate that standeth at the entrance of the Path.
559.
C.W.L. – Aryasanga
now runs over once again the seven portals, taking them as stages on the path,
and looking at them especially from the standpoint of the pitfalls that endanger
the aspirant. The brighter side of the matter, the encouragement and strength
that the candidate receives, are for the moment not being thought of; it is
desirable to remember this, lest the Path should seem too sad.
560.
Dana, as already explained, means more than simple almsgiving,
more even than the feeling of charity; it implies the complete giving of oneself
to the service of humanity, holding nothing back.
·
Behold, O happy
pilgrim! The portal that faceth
thee is high and wide, seems easy of
access. The road that leads therethrough is straight and smooth and green. Tis
like a sunny glade in the dark forest depths, a spot on earth mirrored from
Amitabha’s paradise. There nightingales of hope and birds of radiant plumage
sing, perched in green bowers, chanting success to fearless pilgrims. They sing
of Bodhisattva’s virtues five, the fivefold source of Bodhi power, and of the
seven steps in knowledge.
·
Pass on! For thou
hast brought the
key; thou art secure.
561.
This verse gives us a beautiful and poetic description of the
Path as its first part appears to the happy pilgrim. At first he thinks it is
full of joy and very pleasant and easy to tread. It is easy, when one has seen
the Holy Grail to give up all else and follow it. But after a while the vision
may fade, the first enthusiasm wears itself out, and the man begins to grow
weary. It is the way of human nature to want constant change. See how people
rush after a novelty, and how, after a short time their interest slackens, the
pursuit becomes monotonous, and they turn their attention to something else.
562.
Studies in the lives of Alcyone showed us that most people make
very little progress, even in a series of twenty or thirty lives. One man wrote,
after hearing what name he bore in the Lives, and learning that he was
very much the same fifty thousand years ago as he is now: If anyone had told me
before that twenty-five thousand years ago I was anything but a savage in the
woods, I could not have believed it. I answered him: “If twenty-five thousand
years ago you had been a savage in the woods, the chances are that you would
still be one today.”
563.
If, however, a person does become enthusiastic for a spiritual
object, he at once makes a rapid move forward; if he cannot continue his
enthusiasm it is a pity, but probably in the rush he has accomplished as much as
was intended for him in the present life. Now we have not only the motive to go
forward, but we have also a great deal of knowledge to enable us to do so, and
that helps to prevent us from falling back.
564.
We must try to keep our enthusiasm always, and not allow
ourselves to be affected by moods so that it is at the mercy of what happens to
influence us on the physical plane, or on the psychical planes. We had a great
testing of our enthusiasm when Madame Blavatsky died. I remember how it tended
to fade when she left us. She had the faculty of keeping us all going, and when
she went we felt limp, though some of us had succeeded in getting into direct
touch with the Masters.
·
And to the second
gate the way is verdant too, but it is steep and winds uphill; yea, to its rocky
top. Grey mists will overhang its rough and stony height, and all be dark
beyond. As on he goes, the song of hope soundeth more feeble in the pilgrim’s
heart. The thrill of doubt is now upon him; his step less steady grows.
·
Beware of this, O
candidate; beware of fear that spreadeth, like the black and soundless wings of
midnight bat, between the moonlight of thy Soul and thy great goal that loometh
in the distance far away.
·
Fear, O disciple,
kills the will and stays all action. If lacking in the Shila virtue, the pilgrim
trips, and karmic pebbles bruise his feet along the rocky path.
565.
The pupil generally comes in with a splendid outburst, and then
slackens down. This is because he expected, though he may not have confessed it
even to himself, that his life was going to be all changed; perhaps he imagined
that he would have a life full of phenomena or that he would always realize the
presence of the Master, and so be able to keep constantly at his highest level.
His life is changed, but not in the way he thought.
566.
When doubt appears it is for some students doubt of the entire
body of Theosophical knowledge; they have not yet come into conscious touch with
the Masters, and they begin to doubt Their very existence, and to wonder whether
they are following an ignis fatuus. I hope no such doubt will come to any
of us, but if it does it is best to fall back on first principles. Go back to
the beginning; inspect your motives; examine the evidence.
567.
Then there is doubt of oneself, which sometimes assails the
beginner; one may not be showing out the divinity that one wishes. But one must
go on trying, without doubting, because success is absolutely assured for every
man, and doubt is a great obstacle to attainment. Let a person who is sure from
the outset that he will not be able to do it try to learn swimming. He will
never learn. The doubt sends him under the water more than any real difficulty.
Another, who has confidence, will learn almost at once.
568.
The trouble with many aspirants to the Path is that they have
this doubt as to whether they can achieve. Well, they must go on working for it,
and get rid of their prejudice against themselves, for that is what it is, by
reasoning it away. They must say to themselves: “I am going to do it, whether I
can or not!”
569.
Aryasanga’s similes are always beautiful. He speaks here of the
moonlight of the soul. It shines with a reflected light from the Logos, the sun,
and also from the spiritual soul, buddhi, and the spirit, atma. He must let
nothing come between, or the soul will be left in darkness.
570.
“The soundless wings of the midnight bat” gives a vivid
picture of the way in which fear steals upon a man. Fear is one of the most
deadly things, and it is pressing in upon us on every side, for the world is
full of it in a multitude of varieties of form. The man in business, for
example, is in a constant little turmoil of fear; the employee is afraid of what
his superior will think of him, or of losing his place. Religious people are
afraid of death, of hell, of the fate of their departed friends, and all sorts
of absurd things. Many children live in constant fear of their elders, their
fathers and schoolmasters, as I have explained in the earlier commentary.1
·
1
Ante, Vol. I, Part V,
571.
Aryasanga well says: “Beware of fear.” It darkens the soul, and
makes it a dimmer reflection of the Logos. The Logos is love, and, said S. John,
“Perfect love casteth out fear.”1
·
1
572.
The Shila virtue is harmony, good conduct. The occultist has a
moral code different from that of the world – different in being far more
strict. He is not bound by the rules and conventions of society, but by
something far stronger – the principles of the spiritual life, which allow not
the slightest deviation from truth, love and a life of service, with no room at
all for personal self-indulgence.
·
Be of sure foot, O candidate. In Kshanti
s essence bathe thy soul; for now thou dost approach the portal of that name,
the gate of fortitude and patience.
573.
We have come to the third portal. Kshanti is patience and
fortitude. Steady enthusiasm is required; not the nervous, anxious, spasmodic
kind of enthusiasm that wears out its possessor before it has accomplished
anything useful.
·
Close not thine eyes, nor lose thy sight
of Dorje; Mara’s arrows ever smite the man who has not reached Vairagya.
574.
Mara is the king of desire, the personification of desire; so
it is said that his arrows ever strike those who have not reached the condition
of vairagya or desire-lessness.
575.
Madame Blavatsky gives us a note about Dorje, or Vajra, the
thunderbolt, the Rod of Power, which was also mentioned in the second Fragment.
She says:
·
Dorje is the Sanskrit Vajra, a weapon or
instrument in the hands of some Gods (the Tibetan Dragshed, the Devas who
protect men), and is regarded as having the same occult power of repelling evil
influences by purifying the air as ozone in chemistry. It is also a Mudra, a
gesture and posture used in sitting for meditation. It is, in short, a symbol of
power over invisible evil influence, whether as a posture or a talisman. The
Bhons and Dugpas, however, having appropriated the symbol, misuse it for
purposes of black magic. With the yellow-caps, or Gelugpas, it is a symbol of
power, as the cross is with the Christians, while it is in no way more
superstitious. With the Bhons, it is, like the double triangle reversed, the
sign of sorcery.
576.
The Rod of Power which is kept at Shamballa and used in
Initiations and at other times, is probably the strongest talisman on this
planet. At the same time it is a great symbol of that power which is resistless,
which, felt in ourselves, makes fear impossible for us.
577.
Talismans are not mere relics of mediaeval superstition, as
some people think. If anyone who is in the least degree sensitive will go to the
case in the
578.
A jewel makes the best talisman, since it preserves ‘magnetism
best, being the highest type of mineral. In ordinary circumstances, fear begins
faintly, and only gradually gathers strength. In all such cases, a talisman
charged with the right kind of magnetism is a help, for it repels those first
faint vibrations. The wearer thus has time to gather himself together, to call
up his own strength and to set in motion in his astral body vibrations of the
opposite kind.
579.
Aryasanga returns to the subject of fear:
·
Beware of trembling. ‘Neath the breath of
fear the key of Kshanti rusty grows; the rusty key refuseth to unlock.
·
The more thou dost advance, the more thy
feet pitfalls will meet. The path that leadeth on is lighted by one fire – the
light of daring burning in the heart. The more one dares, the more he shall
obtain. The more he fears, the more that light shall pale – and that alone can
guide. For as the lingering sunbeam that on the top of some tall mountain shines
is followed by black night when out it fades, so is heart-light. When out it
goes, a dark and threatening shade will fall from thine own heart upon the Path,
and root thy feet in terror to the spot.
·
Beware, disciple, of that lethal shade.
No light that shines from Spirit can dispel the darkness of the nether Soul
unless all selfish thought has fled therefrom, and that the pilgrim saith: “I
have renounced this passing frame; I have destroyed the cause; the shadows cast
can, as effects, no longer be.” For now the last great fight, the final war
between the higher and the lower self, hath taken place. Behold, the very
battlefield is now engulfed in the great war, and is no more.
·
But once thou hast passed the gate of
Kshanti step the third is taken. Thy body is thy slave.
580.
It is clear from these verses that the candidate must learn to
put the lower self aside utterly. Fear belongs to that, for the higher self can
have nothing to fear in all the world – the only fear that a real man can have,
said an old Roman philosopher, is that he himself should fail to use to the full
all his virtues or powers for good.
581.
Selfishness also belongs to it, and in this matter the habit of
hundreds of incarnations may have to be reversed; for some time one may find
oneself somewhat selfish even when the heart is definitely turned against it; it
is comparable to what happens when the engines of a steamboat are suddenly
reversed, in order to stop it – the boat still goes forward, against the
engines. But presently the forward momentum will be entirely neutralized, and
then the boat will obey the engines perfectly.
582.
Until one gets rid of this selfishness the higher self cannot
shine fully into the personality. The ego or soul itself may have what looks
like selfishness, though it is quite different from that of the personality. It
may ignore others, if it remains just manas, and not manas-taijasi, manas
strongly connected with buddhi, and so may be selfish in that way; but it could
never make the mistake of thinking that it can gain through the loss of another,
an error that is common enough down here. Men often do things in trade, for
example, which they know to be wrong; they think they have gained, that they
have over-reached their neighbours, but they make a great mistake. Quite apart
from the law of karma, which is bound to operate, the man has set his mind to
plan how to cheat, and he will have to suffer the reaction of all the force of
thought and desire that he has set going in that direction. He has set up a
habit, and the next time that an opportunity occurs to do some underhand thing,
it will be a little easier for him to yield to the temptation, and a little
harder to check himself and do the right. If he could see the whole of the
transaction and not merely one little corner of it, he would realize that he has
not gained, but has lost enormously.
583.
An ego could not be as blind as that. The man who cheats,
because he sees only the immediate results on the physical plane, is like a
general who should neglect all the rest of the battle-field in order to take one
small position. He might capture that position, but he would lose the battle.
584.
If you have reached the stage where you have destroyed
selfishness, you can say: “I have destroyed the cause”; – the cause of all
trouble and sorrow down here.
585.
The battle-field that is now engulfed and is no more is the
antahkarana, which disappears when the higher has swallowed up the lower, and no
longer exists.
586.
It appears that Aryasanga had in the background of his mind an
idea of the correspondence between these seven portals and the seven principles
in man. The first three are related in some way to the three lower principles in
the personality, while the fourth is concerned with that pure lower mind which
is the ray of higher manas, and is the antahkarana. At this point the
temptations begin to be those of the higher principles, and thus belong to the
inner man.
CHAPTER 4
THE FOURTH GATE
587.
Now for the fourth
prepare, the portal of temptations which ensnare the inner man.
588.
Ere thou canst
near that goal, before thine hand is lifted to upraise the fourth gate’s latch,
thou must have mastered all the mental changes in thyself, and slain the army of
the thought sensations that, subtle and insidious, creep unasked within the
Soul’s bright shrine.
589.
C.W.L. – It is
within the experience of many aspirants to the Path that the common faults which
have been met and conquered in ordinary life reappear later on in a different
form. You may have killed pride, for example, in its ordinary worldly forms, but
it will reappear again as spiritual pride. So also you may have got rid of
desire for worldly gain, but it comes up again as desire for personal progress
or knowledge for personal satisfaction, for the sake of feeling that one has
knowledge. Then, even when sympathy has begun to make itself a power in the
life, selfishness tries to capture it and make you desire only to get rid of the
cause of your own discomfort and unhappiness, by putting the object of suffering
out of sight. It is something like the case of a housewife – if there be one of
this kind – who dislikes to see dust in the room, so sweeps it under the carpet,
instead of keeping the place properly clean.
590.
Even hatred turns up again, incredible as it may seem that so
coarse a vice should appear among those who are striving to live the higher
life. Some of our students come perilously near it, if another differs from them
on any subject, let us say that of the planetary chains, or the question as to
whether Mars and Mercury belong to our earth chain or not! Of course, if one
asks point-blank, “Do you hate So-and-so because his opinion on this point is
different from yours?” he will deny it; but he will not go to visit the other
man, and if they should chance to meet he will feel much disturbed and be
disagreeable, or else he will cover that feeling up with an artificial ease, a
smooth surface, like oil on water.
591.
This is a singularly persistent fault, and it has been
responsible for some of the world’s big troubles. Was not the whole Christian
world convulsed and rent asunder in the fourth century because of one dot on one
letter of a word? It made the difference in the word as to whether the Second
Logos was of the same substance as the First or of like substance.
This was the whole dispute which raged round
592.
In Buddhism, to take another example, two large sections of
co-religionists are divided by the question as to whether the platform erected
on the water for the performance of certain ceremonies should be composed of
three planks or of four. They have to perform their ceremonies separately on
this account!
593.
What does it matter whether Mars and Mercury belong to our
chain or not? We can be just as good men and women, just as good citizens, just
as earnest Theosophists, just as good servants of the Masters, and one hopes
just as good friends, whatever our opinions may be. Personally, I study and
observe as carefully as I can, and then give out what I know, as it seems to me
my duty to do, but I have never pretended to infallibility, and am learning more
every day. I should never think of finding fault with anybody who disagrees with
what I say. I have indeed more than once heard our great President say how
deeply she hopes that no one will ever make a dogma of anything she has said,
and put her up as an obstacle to future progress in our Society, and as a cause
of division. If she has any anxiety at all, it is in regard to this danger.
594.
Theosophists are supposed to have given up the idea of the
infallibility of any particular source of knowledge. The question for us when a
new idea is promulgated is, “Does it ring true? Does it inspire, elevate,
illuminate?” – not, “Who said it? What book did you get that from?” There are,
however, some who, having given up blind faith in the Bible, have transferred it
to The Secret Doctrine, which, though a mine of wonderful wisdom, is not
perfect, as its author said. It is, she said, but a selection of fragments of
the fundamental tenets of the secret doctrine, paying special attention to some
facts which have been seized upon by various writers, and distorted out of all
resemblance to the truth. And she quoted the words of Montaigne: “I have here
made only a nosegay of culled flowers, and have brought nothing of my own but
the string that ties them.” The Secret Doctrine will be a treasure house
for Theosophists for hundreds of years; let us not attach to it the curse of
dogmatism. No one can say the last word in occultism. The knowledge that we have
acquired up to the present is only like the lifting of a little corner of a
great veil; we have ho idea of what may be revealed by the raising of another
part.
595.
Before one can hope to pass this fourth portal, says Aryasanga,
one must have mastered the mental changes in oneself. Moods come and go, and
colour one’s outlook very effectually. It is difficult for a man to realize that
when he is in a cloud of depression the world outside is really no blacker than
it was before. When a great, upsetting sorrow has fallen upon him, it is with
something of a shock that he goes out and sees that the sun is still shining and
people are smiling and even laughing.
596.
A man who is very miserable himself sometimes feels quite angry
at seeing others as happy as usual. He thinks the world is very hard, and that
it does not care much about him. He forgets that yesterday, when he was
happy, some others were distressed, and he did not care about them, but went
along quite comfortably. I know that depression is a very real thing, but it is
always self-created or self-permitted. Sometimes it comes from ill-health,
over-fatigue or nervous strain. At others it comes from the astral world, where
there are many so-called dead people in a state of depression. It is therefore
not always one’s own fault that the depression should come, but it is one’s own
fault if one allows it to stay.
597.
Quite a large number of people seem to imagine that their
attitude towards things makes a difference. “Oh, no, you will never get me to
believe that!” such a person will say, imagining that his disbelief disposes of
the matter in question. But if a thing is a fact, it remains a fact, whether he
believes it or not. This is one of the queer little ways in which human conceit
shows itself.
598.
One must also take care that casual thoughts do not interfere
with one’s being of service, nor be blind to a chance of doing a good service to
a man because one does not like something about him – the way he cuts his hair,
for example. Such a thing sounds trifling, but it shows the condition of one’s
mind and character. Often it is a thought about race, class or caste that stands
in the way. The Brahmana in
·
If thou would’st not be slain by them,
then must thou harmless make thy own creations, the children of thy thoughts,
unseen, impalpable, that swarm round humankind, the progeny and heirs to man and
his terrestrial spoils. Thou hast to study the void-ness of the seeming full,
the fulness of the seeming void.
599.
The fulness of the seeming void is a phrase replete with
meaning. It applies to many different conditions. First one thinks of the
koilon, the aether of space. Commonly people think of space as something that is
empty, but the fact is that it is filled with a density of substance that can
scarcely be imagined. It is the apparently solid matter that is “empty”. The
matter that we see consists of holes in the real matter, of bubbles blown in
koilon.
600.
As a French scientist recently said: “Il n’y a plus de matiere.
Il n’y a que des trous dans l’etere.”1
(1”There is no longer any
matter. There is nothing but holes in the ether.”) The latest verdict of science
with regard to the aether of space is that its density is ten thousand times
that of water, and about five hundred times the density of the heaviest metal,
the densest thing you can think of.
601.
The Hindus speak of root-matter or mulaprakriti; of which
koilon is a densification, I think. They say that when the Logos realizes
Himself, when He differentiates Himself from the Absolute and looks back, as it
were, upon that Absolute, He does not see it, but a veil thrown over it – and
that veil is mulaprakriti. In The Secret Doctrine, Madame Blavatsky
quotes the words of Swarm T. Subba Row on this subject, as follows:
·
When once it [i.e., the Logos, “... the first
manifestation (or aspect) of Parabrahman ‘‘] starts into existence as a
conscious being, ... from its objective standpoint, Parabrahman appears to it as
Mulaprakriti. Please bear this in mind ... for here is the root of the whole
difficulty about Purusha and Prakriti felt by the various writers on Vedantic
philosophy ... This Mulaprakriti is material to it (the Logos), as any material
object is to us. This Mulaprakriti is no more Parabrahman than the bundle of
attributes of a pillar is the pillar itself; Parabrahman is an unconditioned and
absolute reality, and Mulaprakriti is a sort of veil thrown Over it. Parabrahman
by itself cannot be seen as it is. It is seen by the Logos with a veil thrown
over it, and that veil is the mighty expanse of Cosmic Matter ...”
2
i. 2 Op. cit., Vol. I, p. 462, See also ante. p. 69.
602.
The Logos here mentioned is the Logos of our Universe, in which
are millions of solar systems – not the Logos of one solar system. It was He who
blew His breath into the root-matter, who dug holes in space, so that the
universe came into being. Fourteen thousand millions of these bubbles make a
physical atom, and eighteen of these make an atom of hydrogen, which is the
lightest of the chemical elements.
603.
It is therefore a fact that all that we know as matter is
nothing else but holes in the real matter. The pressure of that root-matter is
several million tons per square inch. When men learn to exclude this pressure,
they will be able to use that tremendous force to run their machinery. They will
be able to utilize the force of the Logos that is in the atom, which holds
itself against that great pressure. But it will first be the force involved in
the disintegration of the physical atom that will be tapped.
604.
The fulness of the seeming void and the voidness of the seeming
full can be studied in a variety of familiar experiences. The atmosphere is full
of the thoughts of other people and other beings. As it says in The Occult
World:
·
Every thought of man upon being evolved passes into the inner
world, and becomes an active entity by associating itself, coalescing we might
term it, which an elemental – that is to say, with one of the semi-intelligent
forces of the kingdoms. It survives as an active intelligence – a creature of
the mind’s begetting – for a longer or shorter period proportionate with the
original intensity of the cerebral action which generated it. Thus good thought
is perpetuated as an active, beneficent power, an evil one as a maleficent
demon. And so man is continually peopling his current in space with a world of
his own, crowded with the offspring of his fancies, desires, impulses and
passions; a current which re-acts upon any sensitive or nervous organization
which comes in contact with it, in proportion to its dynamic intensity.1
i. 1 Op. cit., p. 111.
605.
Again, one may be meditating in a room that is empty or full of
other people. In the latter case, it may be empty for him, because those other
people are not greatly affecting him. In the former case it may yet be full of
powerful unseen presences and influences attracted there by the meditation, and
engaged in pouring out their force upon him who seems to be alone.
606.
Something similar is to be seen in the varied circumstances of
life. Many seemingly big events pass over us and leave us unaffected, while some
tiny occurrence may affect the whole life. The death of a near relation, or the
loss of one’s fortune, looks so great when it happens that one thinks it will
make a permanent landmark in one’s life, and yet it may make scarcely any
difference in the end. That has been my experience. As a young man I lost all
the considerable money which I possessed, in the great financial disaster of
1866. It seemed a great event at the time; yet it has made no difference to me.
But my meeting casually with a person who told me about Madame Blavatsky has
made all the difference to my life. The meeting seemed to be by chance, but it
must have been intended and arranged in that seeming void that is really so full
in every possible way.
607.
In the same way, a passing Deva locked in upon me one Sunday
morning when I was giving a talk to some Theosophists at Adyar. He showed me
some of the ways in which the Devas would influence men through religion in the
beginnings of the sixth root-race. I then thought it but the kindly act of a
friend passing by, but now I am sure it was much more than that, in view of what
has resulted from it. It led to our knowledge of very much about the beginnings
of the new race, to the investigation on which the second part of Man:
Whence, How and Whither was based, and a little later to joint investigation
by Dr. Besant and myself, which resulted in the first part of the same book.
Looking forward into that community of the future, I saw that she would be
remembered by that book when all that she has written before it will have been
forgotten; but her greatest book, by which she will be remembered in history,
has still to be written.
·
fearless aspirant, look deep within the
well of thine own heart, and answer. Knowest thou of Self the powers, O thou
perceiver of external shadows?
608.
Purity is a great thing, but it is not enough. The little baby
is pure, because it knows nothing of good or evil. Knowledge also is needed in
order that we may act, and also the will to put that knowledge into action. The
animals are purer than man, the vegetables purer still; they have not the
imagination of man, that causes him to seek material pleasure in defiance or
disregard of natural laws. Yet it is necessary that man should go through this
experience with matter in order that he may have knowledge, and may then return
to the Divine from which he descended, regaining his purity. We come out from
the Logos a divine cloud, but return to Him a divine being with definite powers.
609.
The man on the Path has recognized the divine Self in himself,
and is emerging from the influence of the world of shadows. Their reality is
only relative, and is now no reality to him beside that of the indwelling life,
which offers him a far richer field of conscious experience than the excitement
produced by the impacts of external things. He has thought the shadows to be
real, absolutely real, more real than anything else, throughout many
incarnations, and it was all necessary, for without their attraction he would
never have awakened, never have paid attention, never have learned anything at
all.
·
If thou dost not, then thou art lost.
·
For, on path fourth, the lightest breeze
of passion or desire will stir the steady light upon the pure white walls of the
Soul. The smallest wave of longing or regret for Maya’s gifts illusive, along
Antahkarana – the path that lies between thy Spirit and thy self, the highway of
sensations, the rude arousers of Ahamkara – a thought as fleeting as the
lightning flash will make thee thy three prizes forfeit – the prizes thou hast
won.
610.
Aryasanga is now talking about vairagya, and He says that when
one is striving to perfect that, the least response to the attractiveness of
things, or desire for them throws one back again into the ranks of those who are
disturbed. This recalls the simile of the soul as limpid as a mountain lake in
the second Fragment.1
(1 Ante, p.
203.) Here He takes the simile of a lamp to express the steadiness that must be
attained in this stage. Even a casual thought will throw one back; that is true,
but we must remember the qualification: if it is one’s own thought. As I have
before explained, if it is merely a reflection of someone else’s thought, merely
a drifting thought-form that has attracted the attention, and that is not taken
up and made one’s own, then there is not the same disturbance to one’s purity
and tranquillity, to one’s vairagya.
611.
Sometimes very good people are distressed by such passing
thoughts, and they feel that they must be very wicked to have such ideas. But if
they do not take them up and nourish them and send them out reinforced to do
greater work of destruction, they have not really committed a fault. It is quite
true that we should not be conscious of an evil or impure thought if it did not
touch something akin to itself in us. But that is only saying that we are not
yet perfect. If a thought of that nature floated through the mind of an Adept,
He would not even notice it; but if there were many of them round Him, He might
require to brush them aside, as one brushes away flies and mosquitoes. Do not,
therefore, be troubled unnecessarily about the instinctive stirrings of anger,
or selfishness, or undesirable stray thoughts; they are a legacy from the past
or they belong to your environment. But do not adopt them, for if you do you
will not only fail to attain vairagya, but will forfeit the three prizes already
won, and start climbing again from the very beginning of the Path.
612.
Antahkarana is here called the highway of sensations. It is the
mysterious means by which material things can affect consciousness, the channel
between object and subject, that which causes an impact upon a sense-organ to
appear in consciousness as a sensation. Such sensation, direct perception of
things, is more vivid than any description in words. To have heard, seen or felt
something gives one a greater sense of its reality than merely to have thought
about it. That is why clairvoyant perception of the other planes is worth so
much more than the descriptions that we can give. It is also the reason why the
yoga books say that all the testimony of others, and all his judgments about
things as yet unseen by him, will at last have to be replaced by the aspirant
with his own direct perception, which alone can give a clear vision of the
truth.
613.
Sensations are here called the rude arousers of ahamkara.
Aham means “I” and kara is “making”; therefore ahamkara means the
“I-maker”. The very vividness of that direct experience calls out the vividness
of our sense of our own existence by the contrast. And as this process occurs at
all levels, it calls out the vividness of the false personality while the man is
still in the world; but when he is well on the Path and the illusion of the
personal self has been quite destroyed, it calls out the Self that is the Atma,
the will, in the spiritual man. W e have already studied this higher form of
ahamkara, often mentioned in Hindu philosophy, in the first Fragment.1
· 1 Ante, p. 71.
·
For know that the
Eternal
knows no change.
614.
Briefly, one must be willing to give up the lower for the sake
of the higher; one cannot take worldly goods into the kingdom of heaven. The
laws and conditions of the higher world will not change to suit the desire of
any aspirant.
·
“The eight dire miseries forsake for
evermore; if not, to wisdom sure thou canst not come, nor yet to liberation,”
saith the great Lord, the Tathagata of perfection, “he who has followed in the
footsteps of his predecessors.
615.
The eight dire miseries are: malice, sloth, pride, doubt,
desire, delusion, ignorance and future lives. The last one seems curious at
first sight; but the meaning is quite clear – that life in this world is misery
in comparison with what the higher planes have to offer us.
616.
The title Tathagata is here translated “He who walks in the
steps of his predecessors “. In
·
Stern and exacting is
the virtue of Vairagya. If thou its path would’st master, thou must keep thy
mind and thy, perceptions far freer than before from killing action.
·
Thou hast to saturate thyself with pure
Alaya, become as one with nature’s Soul-thought. At one with it thou art
invincible; in separation, thou becomest the playground of Samvritti, origin of
all the world’s delusions.
617.
Then there is a long foot-note explaining Samvritti:
·
Samvritti is that one of the two truths
which demonstrates the illusive character or emptiness of all things. It is
relative truth in this case. The Mahayana school teaches the difference between
these two truths – Paramarthasatya arid Samvritti-satya (Satya, truth). This is
the bone of contention between the Madhyamikas and the Yoga-chayyas, the former
denying and the latter affirming that every object exists owing to a previous
cause or by a concatenation. The Madhyamikas are the great Nihilists and
deniers, for whom everything is Parikalpita, an illusion and an error in the
world of thought and the subjective, as much as in the objective universe. The
Yogacharyas are the great spiritualists. Samvritti, therefore, as only relative
truth, is the origin all illusion.
618.
It is discrimination, the first of the four qualifications,
that can enable one always to distinguish between the real and the relatively
real which we sometimes call the unreal. Every time that one pierces the unreal
and sees the real it becomes easier to do it again, because that by which we
recognize the real is the God within us. The more that is awakened the easier
will it be to see its purpose in all things, and its life in other people.
619.
The same pure Alaya, which is in us and also behind the Divine
Mind in nature, has been realized by the seers of all religions. A learned
Muhammadan once told me that the well-known sentence of Islam; “La ilaha ilia
‘ilah”, means not “There is no God but God,” as it is generally translated, but
“There is nothing but God.” He explained that the Arabic words could be
literally taken to have the former meaning, but the latter was the esoteric
meaning, imparted secretly among themselves. This is the true proclamation of
monotheism; not simply that there are many Gods, but one only is worthy of the
name, and of adoration. This esoteric interpretation, if accurate, constitutes a
strong link with Hinduism, which speaks of “One only, without a second”, the One
in whom, they say, is both being and non-being.
·
All is impermanent in man except the pure
bright essence of Alaya. Man is its crystal ray; a beam of light immaculate
within, a form of clay material upon the lower surface. That beam is thy
life-guide and thy true Self, the watcher and the silent thinker, the victim of
thy lower self. Thy Soul cannot be hurt but through thy erring body; control and
master both, and thou art safe when crossing to the nearing “gate of balance”.
620.
Nothing but the One is permanent. The personality of a man
lasts a very short time – till the end of his devachanic period; the ego lasts
through the whole series of human incarnations, perhaps to the extent of a
chain-period; the monad no doubt lasts longer still, but even that is
impermanent. Only the One remains. Not that we shall lose ourselves. We can
truly say, with Emily Bronte:
i.
Though earth and man were gone,
ii.
And suns and universes ceased to be,
iii.
And Thou wert left alone,
iv.
Every existence would exist in Thee.
621.
The Monad in man is a spark of the one flame. As long as it is
in time it will appear to be evolving. Speaking with the deepest reverence, even
the Logos appears to be doing the same. He answers to all that is best and
greatest in our conception of God, yet it is true that He will not be the same
at the end of the solar system as He was at the beginning; for that to Him is an
incarnation.
622.
The “form of clay material” is only useful to man in so far as
it helps the development of the divine spark in him. The material part cannot
affect the divine spark in the sense of actually harming it, but it can advance
or retard its unfolding, which for it are the equivalents of help or injury.
Therefore it is called the victim of the lower self.
623.
The fourth portal is here called the gate of balance, as it
concerns the middle principle in man. It is always a question as to whether the
outer or the inner will now gain the ascendancy; the candidate having developed
and purified his lower principles, physical, astral and mental, must now put his
weight on the side of the higher principles, and make their development his
chief business.
·
Be of good cheer, O daring pilgrim to the
other shore. Heed not the whisperings of Mara’s hosts; wave off the tempters,
those ill-natured sprites, the jealous Lhamayin in endless space.
624.
There is a note to the word Lhamayin, which says they are
elementals and evil spirits adverse to men, and their enemies. There are no
creatures that do evil for evil’s sake, but there are elementals who are harmful
to man; they are living their own life, and we get in their way. The elementals
are much like the wild creatures. They are not man’s enemies, but they dislike
man’s intrusion into their domain, and they feel resentment because men have
treated them badly.
625.
Nature-spirits are joyous creatures; the worst that can be said
of them is that they play little mischievous tricks which are tiresome to the
people concerned. They object to man because he does so many things which to
them are odious and a source of trouble. They live a glad and contented life in
the countryside, and love to frolic about with the young of the wild creatures,
and they love them and the flowers and trees. They have no trouble in their
innocent life; and they feel no pressure of necessity, for they need not toil
for food and clothing as man has to do.
626.
Into this sylvan happiness comes man; he hunts and kills the
animals who are their friends: he cuts down the trees they love, in order to
plant crops or build houses: he pollutes the air with the filthy emanations of
alcohol and tobacco. All their beautiful country is made to them a horrible
wilderness, and they are forced to flee away. They may feel somewhat as an
artist does when he sees some beautiful landscape spoilt and made hideous with
factories, whose chimneys belch forth black smoke, and fumes kill the grass and
flowers and trees. We call it progress; it may be so for us, but the
nature-spirit feels it differently, for his home is ruined and his friends are
killed.
627.
So it comes about that the nature-spirits shun man, and when a
man takes a walk in a wood or along a lane they slip away at his approach. He
may be able to overcome this aversion of theirs, just as one can sometimes
overcome the timidity of the wild creatures. A Yogi can caress the wild animals
that come near him as he sits in meditation. If one goes into the country and
forces oneself to lie quiet and still for an hour or two, the little wild
things, such as squirrels and birds, will come near. Similarly, if one lives for
a long time in one place the nature-spirits gradually find out that one is a
harmless specimen of mankind, and in time will be quite willing to make friends,
and at last they will sport round one, and be quite proud of having a human
friend. In the astral plane these creatures regard men as intruders of a
troublesome and dangerous character, much as we should regard an invading army.
They therefore make it their business to try to frighten the new-comer. These
are not, however, tempters. It is principally the evil thought-forms of man
himself that play that role.
628.
There are certain men, whom we sometimes call the black
magicians, who work to oppose the spiritual progress of humanity, believing
quite honestly that our high emotions are not good things, but relics of animal
desires and sentiments. Such magicians may see a person in some special
situation, one who is making swift progress on the Path, and may at the time be
in a condition to be affected by them. It may then seem worth their while to
send against him an elemental calculated to upset him, and so cause a
disturbance which will block the Masters’ work. This is the nearest thing that
exists to the tempting demon of popular Christian belief. Still, no aspirant
should fear these, for the worst black magician can do nothing to or through a
man who is one-pointed, thinking only of the Master’s work, not of himself.
·
Hold firm! Thou nearest now the middle
portal, the gate of woe, with its ten thousand snares.
·
Have mastery o’er thy thoughts, O striver
for perfection, if thou would’st cross its threshold.
·
Have mastery o’er thy Soul, O seeker
after truths undying, if thou would’st reach the goal.
·
Thy Soul-gaze centre on the one pure
light, the light that is free from affection, and use thy golden key.
629.
Aryasanga may well speak of ten thousand snares, for many times
does the candidate imagine that he has achieved vairagya or desirelessness, only
to find that in some subtle way he encounters the same snares over and over
again. Even the soul, the higher manas, has to be under the control of the
buddhic nature. As we have seen, at the first Initiation the buddhic life
begins, if not before, and the candidate treads that plane sub-plane by
sub-plane. This work can only be carried to perfection if the soul itself, the
higher manas, co-operates, becoming a servant in turn to that higher principle.
Then, when that work is done, and the candidate is ready for the next plane, he
will take his Fourth Initiation, and step over another threshold.
630.
To be free from affection here means from being affected; as we
have already seen, that is the significance of vairagya.
CHAPTER 5
THE FIFTH AND SIXTH GATES
·
The dreary task is done, thy labour
well-nigh o’er. The wide abyss that gaped to swallow thee is almost spanned.
·
* *
* *
* *
·
Thou hast now crossed the moat that
circles round the gate of human passions. Thou hast now conquered Mara and his
furious host.
·
Thou hast removed pollution from thine
heart and bled it from impure desire.
631.
C.W.L. – We must
not misunderstand the statement that the candidate’s labour is well-nigh over.
The Nirmanakaya, at His far higher level, still labours, and the same may be
said of the Logos Himself. But perhaps a distinction should be drawn between the
drudgery of the labour of getting rid of the faults of the personality, and the
glorious work that continues on the higher planes after the personality is
conquered.
632.
The same thought applies to the question of strain. Incessant
work is a great strain on the physical body, but in the planes of the ego work
is pure joy; there is then no difference between work and play, such as exists
on the lower planes.1
Once a man has seen the great sacrifice of the Logos, and the way in which the
Masters throw Themselves into His work, there remains no possibility for him but
to plunge into the stream of it, and do all that he can to help.
· 1 Ante, p. 96.
633.
We are still considering a man who is not quite pure, because
he is still capable of a little selfishness. A thought is impure that has the
slightest tinge of self in it, however good it may otherwise be. There may be a
little thought of pride, such as: “People will think well of me for doing this.”
That would be called impure, when we are considering this high level of the
Path. Not only must we keep impurity away, but we must see that it never occurs
to us at all.
·
But, O thou glorious
combatant, thy task is not yet done. Build high, Lanoo, the wall that shall
hedge in the holy isle, the dam that will protect thy mind from pride and
satisfaction at thoughts of the great feat achieved.
·
A sense of pride
would mar the work.
Aye, build it strong, lest the fierce
rush of battling waves, that mount and beat its shore from out the great World
Maya’s ocean, swallow up the pilgrim and the isle – yea, even when the victory’s
achieved.
·
Thine ‘isle’ is the
deer, thy thoughts the hounds that weary and pursue his progress to the stream
of life. Woe to the deer that is o’ertaken by the barking fiends before he reach
the vale of refuge – “Jnana-marga,” “path of pure knowledge” named.
634.
To hold the position that he has now gained, against the strong
pressure of the thoughts of millions of other people around him, of which we
have so often spoken, the aspirant now needs strong concentration and positive
power of thought. This strength is necessary before he can successfully carry
out that meditation which will raise him to the highest levels of the buddhic
plane.
635.
The “isle”, Madame Blavatsky tells us, is the higher ego or
thinking self. From it all lower thoughts must be wiped out, so that the higher
may manifest. Yet one must become in no sense a medium. There is a vast
difference between making a place empty, and letting someone from the outside
enter into it and take possession; that is the difference between the yogi and
the medium. Here also lies the difference between the Theosophist and the
Spiritualist. Both agree that man is eternal and that his progress has no limit.
But the latter considers that it is good for a man to be a medium for good
spirits, while the former insists upon the preservation of his own positive
consciousness under all circumstances, and maintains that there is nothing which
passive mediumship can give which is not obtainable by conscious clairvoyance.
636.
Aryasanga says, “Woe to the deer that is overtaken.” That means
woe to the ego that falls into prejudice because he has been overcome by the
pressure of outside thoughts. He cannot then reach the place of true thought.
Madame Blavatsky says of the path of pure knowledge, or Jnana-marga, that it “is
literally the path of Jnana, or the path of pure knowledge, of Paramartha or
(Sanskrit) Svasamvedana, the self-evident or self-analysing reflection.” Jnana
is, among the Hindus, the higher knowledge, wisdom, not the lower knowledge
concerning the world, which is called vijnana.
·
Ere thou canst settle in Jnana-marga and
call it thine, thy Soul has to become as the ripe mango fruit: as soft and sweet
as its bright golden pulp for others’ woes, as hard as that fruit’s stone for
thine own throes and sorrows, O conqueror of weal and woe.
·
Make hard thy Soul against the snares of
self; deserve for it the name of Diamond-Soul.
·
For as the diamond buried deep within the
throbbing heart of earth can never mirror back the earthly lights, so are thy
mind and Soul; plunged in Jnana-marga, these must mirror nought of Maya’s realm
illusive.
637.
Of our personal sorrow Longfellow has sung:
i.
But now it has fallen from me.
ii.
It has sunken into the sea,
iii.
And only the sorrows of others
iv.
Throw their shadows over me.
638.
We must go a step further than that and not let any sorrows
cast shadows over us. When you merely feel the sorrow of another you are not
helping him, but adding to his trouble; but when you feel real sympathy you are
pouring out vibrations of love, and are giving real help to him. The Master
always feels the sympathy, but never the sorrow. He cannot suffer, even though
he be truly one with those who are suffering, because He is one with them and
knows the joy of their existence on higher planes and the wonderful glory of
that state towards which they are evolving with unerring certainty. The danger
for most people is that when they cast out sorrow from their hearts, they tend
to lose sympathy as well, and in such a case they may enter the left-hand path,
the path of black magic. The brothers of the shadow become perfectly callous to
the feelings of others, as well as to their own; they ruthlessly repress all
feelings on the ground that they are a waste of force.
·
When thou hast reached that state, the
portals that thou hast to conquer on the path fling open wide their gates to let
thee pass, and nature’s strongest mights possess no power to stay thy course.
Thou wilt be master of the sevenfold Path; but not till then, O candidate for
trials passing speech.
639.
It seems probable that the trials passing speech are not
dangers and difficulties so great as to be quite indescribable, but of a kind
unknown to ordinary men, and known only to the ego. The path along which
Aryasanga is guiding his people is an inner path for the ego. When the
personality has been conquered in the outer worlds, the ego has to scale the
heights of planes above him, and therefore has to do what cannot be described.
640.
Another possible interpretation is that the candidate finds
himself now able to do what at first be was unable to believe that he could. The
ordinary man would be inclined to say, for example, that the purity and
unselfishness of which we have constantly been speaking are beyond him, and
quite impossible of attainment, that they are a counsel of perfection. But some
day, if he tries to acquire them, if he keeps on desiring it and trying, he will
awake to find that it is perfectly natural and easy for him to have these
qualities.
641.
The ordinary man says that a thing is impossible, and so he
does not try; but we have learned, like Napoleon, to erase that word from our
dictionary. It is not impossible for the reader of this page to attain Adeptship
within twenty-four hours; that would be possible if he had sufficient will – a
will, however, which no one seems to have. But leaving time out of the question,
it is possible for him to attain Adeptship; if he fixes his eye on the goal, and
goes straight ahead without thinking about the passage of time, he will
comparatively soon find himself there.
·
Till then, a task for harder still awaits
thee; thou hast to feel thyself all thought, and yet exile all thoughts from out
thy Soul.
·
Thou hast to reach that fixity of mind in
which no breeze, however strong, can waft an earthly thought within. Thus
purified, the shrine must of all action, sound, or earthly light be void; e’en
as the butterfly, o’ertaken by the frost, falls lifeless at the threshold – so
must all earthly thoughts fall dead before the fane.
·
Behold it written:
·
“Ere the gold flame can burn with steady
light, the lamp must stand well guarded in a spot free from all wind.” Exposed
to shifting breeze, the jet will flicker and the quivering flame cast shades
deceptive, dark and everchanging, on the Soul’s white shrine.
642.
Here is a poetical description of concentration – such fixity
of the higher manas that even on that plane nothing can enter from the outside.
This is the same thing as dharana, mentioned in the first Fragment,1
(1 Ante, p. 40.)
though in this Fragment it is called virya, which means strength – not physical
strength, of course, but the dauntless and unshaken manhood of the ego.
643.
Dharana is called the sixth stage, in the first Fragment, but
here virya is the fifth portal. There is no confusion of numbers in this, for
the fifth portal leads to the sixth stage; in that stage the man is using the
quality which he acquired in the fifth stage to admit him to the sixth through
the fifth portal.
644.
The same quality is the passport to the buddhic plane; when the
man has risen to this level he has silenced the higher mental activity for the
time, and now, instead of his own thoughts he feels himself all thought – he is
one with others, and their thoughts are his. At this stage he feels the quality
of unity of the Solar Logos; to him it is now a definite reality, a matter of
direct experience, no longer a beautiful idea or an occasional thrilling
inspiration. As to whether all this will come down to any extent into the
physical brain – that is another matter; most of it cannot. And the
concentration and meditation of these high stages are done for the most part out
of the body during sleep.
645.
We often talk of fighting earthly thoughts and feelings. That
is a stage in which one is putting oneself on an equality with them; but the
stage of which we are now speaking is one in which they fall dead at the
threshold of the aura. The rates of vibration of the respective bodies are so
tremendous that the lower thought-forms are knocked aside and cannot penetrate.
There are many illustrations of this in the physical plane. If a wheel is
rotating slowly, one can throw a ball through the spokes, but not if it is
turning rapidly. If a jet of water is sufficiently strong, one cannot cut it
with a sword; the weapon is thrown back as though the water were solid. One of
the well-known children’s fairy stories tells of a man who could stand out in
the rain, and whirl his sword so rapidly above his head that not one drop could
get through the circle and fall upon him!
646.
The quotation about the lamp is taken from the
Bhagavad-Gita. It further says: “To such is likened the Yogi of subdued
thought, absorbed in the yoga of the Self,”1
(l Op. cit., VI,
19.) and goes on to explain that he then sees the Self by the Self, and in the
Self is satisfied, that he thinks there is no greater gain beyond it, and is not
shaken any more, even by heavy sorrow.2
2 ibid., VI, 22.
647.
This experience of the yogi is a true intuition, because it
comes from within, from a deeper part of the nature than even the causal levels.
How such an intuition will come down into the personality, if it does so,
depends upon the type of person who experiences it. There are two main modes for
its transmission – one which comes through the higher to the lower mental plane,
and the other direct from the buddhi to the astral body.
648.
Which of these lines one will more easily follow depends upon
the manner in which one was individualized from the animal kingdom long ago.
Some attained that level through deep understanding, others through a rush of
high emotion, probably of devotion to a human master. In the former mode it will
come into the lower mind as a conviction, requiring no reasoning to establish
its truth at present, though it must have been understood in previous lives or
out of the body in the lower mental plane. In the case of those who
individualized by emotion the intuition is received through the feelings, not
the mind.
649.
In neither case can these intuitions come through
satisfactorily unless the vehicles are steady. It is like transmitting a musical
note. If it has come not only through the air, but through a thick wall, it may
be muffled, and the sound may become quite different from what it was. If it has
to pass through some disturbance – a hurricane for example – it will be still
less clear.
650.
The latter simile very well indicates the case when the astral
and mental bodies are full of disturbance.
·
And then, O thou
pursuer of the truth, thy mind-soul will become as a mad elephant, that rages in
the jungle. Mistaking forest trees for living foes, he perishes in his attempts
to kill the ever-shifting shadows dancing on the wall of sunlit rocks.
651.
I do not know whether such a thing as this really happens in
the jungle; but the idea is that when an elephant goes mad, he either mistakes
the trees for living foes or, what is even worse, charges against the rocks and
perishes. In the same way, some have had the experience that when the mind feels
the newly awakened energy of the higher self coming from above, it rebels with a
last burst of ferocity against its new master, unwilling in its pride and fear
to give up its independence, which it has enjoyed so long. Then it rages, and
the last reserves of the army of doubts and suspicions are routed out from every
depth and corner, and come forth to do battle against the light, mistaking its
every movement for a hostile foe. The mind is a stronghold of pride, and what
there is left of that quality rises up in hatred against its superior, just as
the persecutors of Jesus rose and killed Him, unable to bear the comparison of
His purity and greatness with their own earthly mould.
·
Beware, lest in the
care of Self thy Soul should lose her foot-hold on the soil of Deva-knowledge.
·
Beware, lest in
forgetting Self thy Soul lose o’er its trembling mind control, and forfeit thus
the due fruition of its conquests.
652.
Deva-knowledge here refers, as before, to the knowledge of the
divine underlying all manifestation. There is a danger that the candidate,
anxious to see that he is going the right way, should become, not selfish, but
self-centred. There is a real distinction between these two. None of us would
willingly take anything for ourselves knowing that it would injure another
person. That defect would be indicated in the aura by a dull brown-grey. But
there is a danger of being self-centred, taking things too much from one’s own
point of view. That is indicated in the aura by a hardening of the outer
surface, which prevents impressions from coming in.
653.
The other warning relates to the one Self, which must not be
forgotten. The aspirant must ever remember that all are one, that the divine
unity is in each. This is a practical instruction for every plane. Physically a
man must be clean, honest and true, so as not to contaminate society; astrally
and mentally his feelings and thoughts must be pure and lofty, not that he may
have the pleasure of being so, but for the sake of all around.
·
Beware of change, for change is thy great
foe. This change will fight thee off, and throw thee back out of the path thou
treadest, deep into viscous swamps of doubt.
654.
The warning against change looks a little curious at first,
especially when we remember that we are all the time changing and that in
treading the Path we have become that Path, and are thus very busily engaged in
changing ourselves. What is meant is that one must take care, during the period
of change, not to change one’s basis, or essential attitude. There is a trying
time when one gives up the worldly things that one used to value, and has not
yet a permanent hold on the new and higher things. These latter have been
visible in special moments when we have been at our best, but we have fallen
away from them again and again, into that condition of spiritual dryness
mentioned by so many mystics. What is required is that one shall hold to the
vision all through those fluctuations, not changing that essential position.
655.
These changes may be caused in several ways. Sometimes it is
merely that the physical brain gets a little congested or anaemic; that affects
the vehicles, but must not be allowed to affect the real man. When the
fluctuations come, we should say: “I knew this would come. I know that I saw
clearly before. Now the vision is dim and I begin to doubt; but I know I shall
come out of this depression, that it is merely a fluctuation in my astral body.”
656.
Sometimes it is a great shock and trial for people to give up
the picturesque faith of their childhood, when they realize that it cannot fit
the facts of life, and can no longer satisfy the needs of mind and heart. Then
there often comes doubt of everything, and a rudderless condition which has in
extreme cases been known to last for several lives. In that case one must listen
and read and think, and hold on to the hypotheses that best explain the facts,
until doubt has been laid to rest by the knowledge that sooner or later will
surely come. It is, of course, not necessary to pass through a sceptical stage;
it is quite possible to drop the accretions and widen out one’s religion little
by little, until one arrives at the Theosophical understanding of its message.
·
Prepare, and be forewarned in time. If
thou hast tried and failed, O dauntless fighter, yet lose not courage; fight on,
and to the charge return again and yet again.
·
The fearless warrior, his precious
life-blood oozing from his wide and gaping wounds, will still attack the foe,
drive him from out his stronghold, vanquish him, ere he himself expires. Act
then, all ye who fail and suffer, act like him; and from the stronghold of your
Soul chase all your foes away – ambition, anger, hatred, e’en to the shadow of
desire – when even you have failed . . .
·
Remember, thou that tightest for man’s
liberation, each failure is success, and each sincere attempt wins its reward in
time. The holy germs that sprout and grow unseen in the disciple’s Soul, their
stalks wax strong at each new trial, they bend like reeds but never break, nor
can they e’er be lost. But when the hour has struck, they blossom forth.
·
* *
* *
·
But if thou can’st prepared, then have no
fear
657.
In the course of a foot-note to this, H.P.B. refers to the
well-known belief that every additional saint is a new soldier in the army of
those who work for the liberation of mankind, and that in Northern Buddhist
countries, where the doctrine of the Nirmanakayas is taught, every new
Bodhisattva is called a liberator of mankind. We must remember, of course, that
she refers to all who have become Arhats, not only to the great being who fills
the office of Bodhisattva. Every one who makes progress makes it for all.
658.
The candidate cannot have personal ambition on this path. The
idea of glory for oneself is selfish, and long before this stage is reached the
aspirant has set his will resolutely against such desires. The pupil of the
Master thinks not “What do I want?”, but “What does the Master want?” When we
realize that we are sparks of the divine Fire we can think only of what God
wants. We are parts of Him; separately we can have no glory; so the idea of
glory for oneself is quite a delusion.
659.
No man who goes on trying can possibly fail. He may not succeed
in doing just what he wanted to do at a given time; but if he has put force into
his effort it cannot be wasted, and as action and reaction are equal and
opposite, every time he tried it reacted upon himself to give him greater
strength for the future. Further, every man who tries must succeed, because the
whole trend of evolution is on his side. He does not know what may be the
thickness of the karmic wall of obstacles through which he must break, nor at
what moment he may come through to light on the other side.
660.
Under these circumstances it is simply foolish to despair, or
to stop trying, because as yet one has no visible success. In Frederick Myers’
grand poem,
661.
Aryasanga tells the candidate to be like the warrior who
fights, and wins the battle just as he himself expires. He must hold out to the
very last, and never give in. The teacher knew that death is but a trivial
thing, not to be taken into account in our work. It will come to each of us at
its proper time; some who are old may still have many years to live, and others
who are young will be suddenly taken away. We shall go on with our work just the
same after it comes as we did before.
·
Henceforth thy way is clear right through
the Virya gate, the fifth one of the seven portals. Thou art now on the way that
leadeth to the Dhyana haven, the sixth, the Bodhi portal.
·
The Dhyana gate is like an alabaster
vase, white and transparent; within there burns a steady golden fire, the flame
of Prajna that radiates from Atma.
·
Thou art that vase.
662.
We have here a wonderfully beautiful illustration – the
alabaster vase, with a steady golden fire within. It well typifies the buddhic
body or sheath, which is utterly transparent and offers no obstruction to the
unity of life at that level. Dhyana is the higher meditation in that body – in
which one takes something and tries to understand its innermost meaning, or in
which one fixes one’s thought upon a Great One and tries to understand oneself
as part of Him. There is no longer any outer knowledge; no standing outside and
thinking of the object as apart from oneself; one realizes its nature by
becoming one with it, contemplating it from within.
·
Thou hast estranged thyself from objects
of the senses, travelled on the path of seeing, on the path of hearing, and
standest in the light of knowledge. Thou hast now reached Titiksha state.
·
Narjol, thou art safe.
663.
The same word titiksha has been applied, as we have seen, to
one of the qualifications, one of the points of good conduct, meaning endurance.
The term is now applied again at a higher stage. In a foot-note Madame Blavatsky
says it means “supreme indifference; submission, if necessary, to what is called
‘pleasure and pain for all’, but deriving neither pleasure nor pain from such
submission – in short, the becoming physically, mentally and morally indifferent
and insensible to either pleasure or pain.”
664.
That is not very clearly put. The candidate does not act from
considerations of pleasure and pain; he simply does what he knows to be his
duty. He still feels pleasure and pain in his vehicles, as other people do. Yet
it may be said that so great is the joy of this level, so intently are the
thoughts fixed upon the goal, that pleasure and pain have lost their power.
Though the Christ might feel to tha full and cry out, “My God, My God, why hast
Thou forsaken me?” still there rings in his heart the cry, “My God, My God, how
Thou dost glorify me,” as I have explained in describing the Fourth Initiation,
in The Masters and the Path.1
·
l
CHAPTER 6
THE SEVENTH GATE
·
Know, conqueror of sins, once that a
Sowani hath crossed the seventh path, all nature thrills with joyous awe and
feels subdued. The silver star now twinkles out the news to the night-blossoms,
the streamlet to the pebbles ripples out the tale; dark ocean waves will roar it
to the rocks surf-bound, scent-laden breezes sing it to the vales, and stately
pines mysteriously whisper: “A Master has arisen, a Master of the Day.”
665.
C.W.L. – The Master
of the Day means one who has become safe for the present cycle; therefore it
refers to the candidate who has taken the first Initiation, as well as to him
who has reached the further shore. That all nature rejoices at such an event is
the simple fact, which is here so beautifully and poetically expressed. Many
people at such a time find themselves unaccountably happy, and sometimes are
conscious of a decided spiritual thrill. The majority of people of our civilized
races are scarcely sufficiently sensitive to be conscious of these events, but
sensitive individuals might very well feel: “I am curiously happy to day. I
wonder what has happened.” It is felt in nature in that way – as a general sense
of well-being.
666.
Most people are busy developing the mind, and they have in
consequence lost much sensitiveness, which arises much more with the development
of feelings and emotions than with that of the mind. The higher types of savages
are far more sensitive in many ways, but usually only in a vague and indefinite
manner and without any control over their sensitiveness. They receive
impressions, and are often able to foretell events in a general way. All this
comes back to us, but in a clear and definite form on a higher turn of the
spiral, with the development of the higher emotions. When that unfoldment comes
we shall not only feel the sense of well-being and happiness of these great
occasions, but will also know why we feel, and from what centre comes the great
song of joy. The rest of nature, although below our level, is not yet centred on
material things as much as many men are. Unless he is busily occupied with a
desire rising from hunger or some other need of the body, an animal will
generally be somewhat responsive to the thrill.
667.
The great object of the Theosophical Society is not so much to
provide the mental development, as to raise those who are ready into
responsiveness to buddhic influences, to reawaken the sensitiveness of its
people on a higher turn of the spiral, and prepare them for the new race. It
does not deprecate mental development – far from it – but it prepares for the
next stage, when intuitional love will produce harmony and brotherhood; and will
employ the developed intellect to build a new civilization, based on those
ideals. Our Society, being in close sympathy with the higher planes, is very
sensitive to the forces liberated when another “Son of Man” comes to birth. It
receives the first touch of the great outrush, and this gives it new impetus;
its work increases and spreads, and there is an advance in numbers and in
brotherly feelings.
668.
Sometimes, however, this stimulation of life produces friction,
due to a loss of the sense of proportion. Some great idea arises in the mind of
a member; the inrush of force intensifies it – and that is very good if he is a
well-balanced man, and can pursue his own ideas without depreciating those of
other people. But where there is unbalance and narrowness, differences of
opinion may be made stronger. We have our special lines of work in Theosophy.
Some take up one form of activity and some another, but danger arises when a man
begins to think that his line is the one which the whole Society ought to take
up and emphasize. When other people try to follow out their ideas, be tends to
think that they are not doing the best for the Society, because they do not come
and help him. It is not unnatural that enthusiasm should sometimes cause
friction in such cases, when brotherly love and real tolerance fall a little
behind.
669.
Our great President has occasionally explained how she has
often worked with others at a “second or third best idea” of theirs. She knew
what was best, but would quietly yield for the sake of harmony, and that people
might have the experience of carrying out their ideas. If a person comes to her
with some plan of which he is very full, though it is often not the best thing,
she does not discourage him, but says, “Go ahead, try it, and prosper.” The man
tries it, and perhaps after a year or two he finds that it was not the best, and
he modifies it; but sometimes good results have been brought about in this way.
670.
It is nearly always wise to let people try their ideas, but
always sad when they urge them too strongly upon others. Experience tells us
ever more and more that the most important thing in the Society is harmony among
the workers. Indeed, it may be said that harmony among the workers is more
important than success in any piece of work. So, let each man follow the best
inspiration that comes to him, but let him have the fullest possible sympathy
for others also in their individual ideas. If without peril to the spirit of
harmony which makes the Society a perfect channel for higher forces, an open
door to the Great Ones, we can engage in vigorous activity, it is well indeed,
but not otherwise.
671.
The silver star mentioned in the text may also be thought of as
the star of Initiation. It is the sign of the thought and the presence of the
King. In the ceremony of Initiation the one who acts for Him, the One Initiator,
calls to Him to ratify that which has been done, and the answer is the flashing
out of the silver star.
·
He standeth now
like a white pillar to the west, upon
whose face the rising sun of thought eternal poureth forth its first most
glorious waves. His mind, like a becalmed and boundless ocean, spreadeth out in
shoreless space. He holdeth life and death in his strong hand.
·
Yea, he is mighty. The living power made
free in him, that power which is Himself, can raise the tabernacle of illusion
high above the Gods, above great Brahma and Indra.
672.
Through the Great White Brotherhood comes to the world all the
Light that relieves the darkness of human life, and accelerates enormously the
evolution of mankind. Often the symbol of the East has been used to typify the
position of the Brotherhood, and the member thereof who has his face turned to
help the outer world may therefore be said to be turned to the West.
673.
The illusion referred to here is that of separateness. The
aspirant has now won his freedom from that illusion, and on the Path he will
raise himself step by step, plane by plane, until he has destroyed the illusion
on each of them, and is master of himself on all the planes of human life. There
seems to be no limit to the height to which a man can rise, so the reference to
Brahma and Indra is no exaggeration, though it is no doubt intended in a general
sense. It reminds us also of the line in The Light of
· 1 Op. cit.. Book the Eighth.
674.
A practical bearing of this illustration is to be found in the
change of ray, described in The Masters and the Path. It is possible in
the Hierarchy of our earth to advance further on the first ray than on the
second, and further on the second than on any of the remaining five; so, anyone
who has raised himself to the Seventh Initiation on one of the last five rays
must change to the second or the first ray, if he wants to go on to the Eighth
Initiation, and on to the first ray only if he wishes to go still further.
The Secret Doctrine compares Indra to the Second Logos, the Sun-God, and
Brahma is the Third Logos, the Creator. In the Hierarchy these two are
represented by (1) the Head of the second ray, the Buddha, and (2) the
Mahachohan, who governs the five rays, three to seven. The Lord of the World is
on the first ray, and He has raised His lot higher than that of the other two.
·
Now
he shall surely reach his great reward!
·
Shall he not use the gifts which it
confers for his own rest and bliss, his well-earned weal and glory – he, the
subduer of the great delusion?
·
Nay, O thou candidate for nature’s hidden
lore! If one would follow in the steps of holy Tathagata, those gifts and powers
are not for self.
·
Would’st thou thus dam the waters born on
Sumeru? Shalt thou divert the stream for thine own sake, or send it back to its
prime source along the crests of cycles?
675.
Once more we come to the question of liberation from the wheel
of births and deaths, with its attendant idea of rest. At this stage there can
be no feeling of fatigue and labour such as we have down here, but looking from
below the lot of an Adept who remains embodied for millions of years does appear
appallingly tedious. Still, the candidate to whom Aryasanga is speaking is
looking from below, and the Teacher desires that he shall have no unwillingness
to face that future, though he may at present be able to see only the darker
side of the picture. It is perhaps impossible for Him to describe the joys of
that higher life; they cannot be expressed in terms of any worldly happiness
that we know; it is somewhat dangerous therefore to hold out its joys as an
attraction to the candidate, as it might cause him to fix his mind on some lower
form of happiness, all unwitting, and that would delay his progress.
676.
·
If thou would’st have that stream of
hard-earned knowledge, of wisdom heaven-born, remain sweet running waters, thou
should’st not leave it to become a stagnant pond.
·
Know, if of Amitabha, the Boundless Age,
thou would’st become co-worker, then must thou shed the light acquired, like to
the Bodhisattvas twain, upon the span of all three worlds.
677.
On this Madame Blavatsky has the following note:
·
In the Northern Buddhist symbology,
Amitabha or boundless space (Parabrahman) is said to have in his paradise two
Bodhisattvas – Kwan-shi-yin and Tashishi – who ever radiate light over the three
worlds where they lived, including our own, in order to help with this light (of
knowledge) in the instruction of Yogis, who will, in their turn, save men. Their
exalted position in Amitabha’s realm is due to deeds of mercy performed by the
two, as such Yogis, when on earth, says the allegory.
678.
This is a little complicated, and requires some explanation.
Madame Blavatsky here makes Amitabha the equivalent of Parabrahman, but it is
difficult to see how that could be so, when the former is the Boundless Light,
the Boundless Wisdom, the Essence of all the Buddhas. Parabrahman is the first
member of the great Trinity, and Avalokiteshvara is the second, which is also
Amitabha, described as the “middle principle” of the Buddha. With that second or
middle principle it is possible for us to become co-workers, but not with
Parabrahman.
679.
However, she often speaks of the two as one, as the
Parabrahman is the concealed wisdom, and He manifests as Avalokiteshvara, the
manifested Ishvara, the Logos. Looking upward from below, there is in us, and in
all, a God who is seen (the second of the Three) and a God who is concealed (the
first of the Three).1
· 1 Ante, p. 68.
680.
The middle principle is also called the Bodhisattva, and is
described as dual, male and female, namely, Kwan-shi-yin, the male aspect, and
Kwan-yin the female aspect of Avalokiteshvara. The latter, it is said, “assumes
any form at pleasure in order to save mankind.”
681.
All the three worlds, says a foot-note, refers to “the three
planes of being, the terrestrial, astral and spiritual.” Madame Blavatsky is
here using the term “astral” in an unusual way, as she has also done in The
Secret Doctrine when touching on the present topic. She takes the whole of
man, from the Monad down to the material bodies, and divides him into three
parts, first the spiritual, which is the Monad; secondly, the astral, which
comprises our atma-buddhi-manas, or the rupa beyond sense; and thirdly the
material or terrestrial, comprising our lower mental, astral and physical
bodies.
682.
We may take the reference to the two Bodhisattvas also in
another sense, as referring to the two great Brothers, the Lord Gautama and the
Lord Maitreya, who represent the middle principle in the Hierarchy, the former
dealing with the higher worlds, and the latter turned downwards, as it were, to
deal with the personalities of men in the lower planes. The story of the
wonderful effort and sacrifice of these two Brothers has been told in The
Masters and the Path.1
·
1
683.
But perhaps the most practical interpretation of the allegory
from the human point of view is this. Gautama became one with Amitabha – that
is, He became the Buddha. He continues His work on the higher planes, but in the
world of men He works through the dual Bodhisattva, whose male form is
Kwan-shi-yin, the Lord Maitreya, and whose female form is Kwan-yin, the
mysterious companion and shakti of the former in almost all religions.
·
Know that the stream of superhuman
knowledge and the Deva-wisdom thou hast won, must, from thyself, the channel of
Alaya, be poured forth into another bed.
·
Know, O Narjol, thou of the secret path,
its pure fresh waters must be used to sweeter make the ocean’s bitter waves –
that mighty sea of sorrow formed of the tears of men.
684.
The superhuman knowledge refers probably to the key of
knowledge which is given to the Initiate when he takes his first step. The man
who has passed through several Initiations has certain blocks of knowledge which
he is not allowed to communicate to others. He acts under that knowledge, and
necessarily it makes certain differences in what he does and the way he lives.
Others may observe these things, and follow them by imitation or through
devotion. Those who are natural protestants object to this kind of imitation of
great people. They draw attention to the fact that a person may be great in some
directions but not at all so in many others, that one who follows may easily
fall into superstition, as the people did in the story of the cat and the
bedpost.1 (1
Ante., Vol. I, Part IV,
685.
The Deva-wisdom is probably the Divine Wisdom, which we call
Theosophy. It is knowledge of the worlds as the dwelling-place of God’s life,
not merely as external regions. Aryasanga always makes a distinction between
what one really knows and what one only believes. If He were speaking at one of
our Theosophical meetings He might say: “You ought to believe in the existence
of the astral and mental planes, because it is a rational necessity. But you do
not know it unless you have direct experience.” Such knowledge is superhuman
only in the sense that it is beyond the reach of normal humanity at the present
time, though it will be within the reach of the average person in due course.
686.
Direct experience makes a great difference to one’s realization
of these verities. I remember Mr. W. T. Stead once saying that he had made
extensive studies and investigations into things psychic, but one day he had a
clairvoyant vision which gave new colour and reality to it all. He was falling
asleep when he saw before him a little picture of the sea-shore, with the waves
dashing against the rocks. It was a small thing, but it taught him much. “Now,”
he said, “I understand what a clairvoyant means when he says he sees this or
that.”
687.
It made an enormous difference to Dr. Besant and myself when we
began to see the inner planes for ourselves. We were familiar from the outside
with facts about the astral and mental worlds, but direct vision gave them life
for us. Even with regard to physical plane matters, the man who learns only from
books has a cut and dried type of knowledge, but the man who has lived
his knowledge has it full of colour and light. I remember well this difference
among the Buddhist monks whom I used to meet in
688.
Clairvoyance does not spring suddenly into existence, in a form
in which it can be relied upon. Much careful training is required to enable a
person to see accurately, to realize the significance of what he sees, and to
eliminate the personal equation. One may put a telescope into a man’s hands and
expect that he will then know all about the stars – but he will know very little
until he has been trained to use it properly, and has brought to bear upon what
he sees a great deal of knowledge and intelligence. Astronomers have found-that
they must also make allowance for the personal equation in their considerations.
689.
In clairvoyance this appears in many forms – one may see things
a little too large, a little too blue, or too red, and so forth. Personal bias
also is evident in the form of prejudice – one lady clairvoyant, for example,
who was also an ardent Christian, would persist in associating ideas of baptism
with any pouring out of water that she might happen to see, and she was quite
offended when others could not agree with her view. With all our efforts we
cannot see things fully, as would be necessary for perfect accuracy. It may be
that even at Their level of Adeptship, the Masters make allowances for Their
“personal equations” when working in the lower planes.
690.
The Initiate has, however, absolute certainty, from experience,
of a number of matters, which enables him to be a channel for the higher forces.
It alters the polarity of his mental and causal vehicles, so that he can be used
as others cannot, however highly they may be developed along other lines.
691.
Alas! When once thou hast become like the fixed star in highest
heaven, that bright celestial orb must shine from out the spatial depths for
all, save for itself; give light to all, but take from none.
692.
It must not be assumed that the star is sorry to have to shine;
it does so because it cannot help it. “Beings follow their own nature; what
shall restraint avail?” says The Bhagavad Gita.1
(1 Op.cit.,
693.
One great example of this is given by the mighty entities who
live in the forms of the rice grains or willow leaves of the sun, in order that
through them light, heat and vitality may be shed upon the system. This is
always spoken of as a sacrifice on their part. But it is spontaneous, their way
of expressing their inner nature. Instead of living a life of splendid activity
on some higher plane of which we have no idea, they keep physical bodies, and
live there for the benefit of the worlds which float around our sun. They form a
guardian wall in very truth, a channel through which Alaya may flow into another
bed.
694.
Alas! When once thou hast become like the pure snow in mountain
vales, cold and unfeeling to the touch, warm and protective to the seed that
sleepeth deep beneath its bosom – ‘tis now that snow which must receive the
biting frost, the northern blasts, thus shielding from their sharp and cruel
tooth the earth that holds the promised harvest, the harvest that will feed the
hungry.
695.
The simile of the snow is very beautiful, but must not be
pushed too far. The disciple has to become like pure snow – white, stainless,
spotless. No doubt when Aryasanga spoke of this to his disciples, he pointed to
the snow-covered peaks which were always in sight.
696.
The snow is unfeeling not in the sense of being harmful in any
way, but as being not itself affected by the cold. No matter how much colder the
temperature of the air may become, the snow remains just the same. Because it is
itself unaffected it is able to protect the earth from the more intense cold.
That is the position to which the aspirant must rise. He must be unfeeling only
in the sense that he does not mind if he himself is troubled or injured by any
outward thing, whatever it may be, but he must remain protective to the seed
that sleeps below.
697.
The seed is the deity in man. It is beginning to awaken in all
those who are turning their attention to higher things and are striving to
develop themselves. It is this seed that must be cherished in others. An
Upanishad tells us that in the acorn exists the oak tree potentially; it has
only to unfold itself, and draw in from the air, the earth and the sunlight that
which will enable it to manifest. In the same way the divine spark within us,
the Monad, has the whole possibility of the Logos that we shall be one day, but
it has still to unfold itself.
698.
We must provide for those divine seeds the conditions under
which they can best unfold themselves in the lower worlds. We must therefore
receive the biting frost, the northern blast, so as to shield the other people,
who might be affected and kept back by it. There are some who are ready for
spiritual teaching, and they must be fed with spiritual food. These are the
hungry, and we must give them the food they need for growth. They do not quite
know what they want, but as soon as it is put before them they grasp it. That
has been the experience of some of us with regard to Theosophy. The moment that
it came before us we felt: “That is exactly what I have been waiting for,”
although before we heard of it we did not know what we wanted. There are many
other people waiting in the same way to recognize it, and we must be like the
snow, whose function is to protect while the cold lasts, and then, when the sun
shines, to melt away and efface itself.
699.
That is exactly what we do for children in the home; when times
are hard or there is trouble of any kind, we take care that the children do not
know of it. If there is a lack of food the children are fed first, and the
father and mother go short. Mercifully there is so much of the divine instinct
in us that we know that it is our duty to protect the young and helpless.
700.
The same spirit has to be carried into other branches of life.
We are a little ahead of the people who know nothing. They are the people to be
pitied most, not those who think they are in great mental trouble and
difficulty, struggling towards the light, such as the people who are worried
because their religion does not express to them all that they need; these are
not the people who most need sympathy, because at least they are awake and
struggling towards the light. It is the great orphan humanity, those who do not
know there is anything to struggle for, who most need sympathy. We cannot do
much for them. The only thing one can do for a chick in a shell is to keep it
comfortably warm. The warmth is the life that we can pour out. We must be
kindly, brotherly and upright, When they need teaching, we can give it to them;
but we can always give them love and make beautiful thoughts for them,
for though they will not receive the exact thought they will feel the warmth, as
the chicken does in the egg.
701.
It has been said that it is very well to preach and teach, but
the greatest of all sermons is a noble life. One reason for that is that such
preaching affects the people who do not yet know what they want. The mass of
people are engaged in making a living and looking after their families, and they
do not trouble themselves about Theosophy or religion. In
702.
An objection to many missionary efforts is that they put
preaching before example. A missionary settles, for example, in a bungalow in an
Indian country town, close to the European magistrate and tax collector, who is
almost a king in his division. Nearly all the Hindus round about are strict
vegetarians and teetotallers; but the missionary has meat killed for himself,
and generally he keeps a decanter of whiskey or other strong drink at hand, even
when he does not share in the shooting of birds and small animals in which his
European friends indulge. Then he preaches the purity and love of Christ, and
sometimes dares to abuse the objects of worship of the people. Usually he
produces no effect, except among some hypocrites who can obtain material
benefits through connection with him. In schools, he often manages to undermine
the children’s religion without implanting his own. He rarely converts a good
Hindu into a good Christian, which in any case would be no advantage, but
occasionally he changes a good Hindu into an indifferent Christian. It would be
better if he would set himself to live a saintly life such as the Hindus can
understand, and then speak of Christ as his divine Guru, who has inspired him
and made him what he is. Even for his own purpose this would be better
propaganda, because the Hindus are broad-minded, and are generally willing to
allow Those whom others worship a place beside their own Divine Incarnations.
703.
We often hear people say that Eastern lands are being rapidly
Christianized when what is meant is that they are taking up modern civilization
– such as electric light and sanitation, and are dropping certain social
customs, such as the seclusion of the better-class women and early marriage,
which were common enough in Christian Europe a century or two ago. Perhaps they
forget how the orthodox Christians in Europe fought against science and social
reform, and how these improvements had to win their way in the teeth of the kind
of “Christianity” which the missionaries are themselves for the most part still
preaching. The situation would be comical, were it not both hypocritical and
cruel.
·
Self-doomed to live through future
Kalpas, unthanked and unperceived by men; wedged as a stone with countless other
stones which form the Guardian Wall, such is thy future if the seventh gate thou
passest. Built by the hands of many Masters of compassion, raised by their
tortures, by their blood cemented, it shields mankind, since man is man,
protecting it from further and far greater misery and sorrow.
·
Withal man sees it not, will not perceive
it, nor will he heed the word of wisdom ... for he knows it not.
·
But thou hast heard it, thou knowest all,
O thou of eager, guileless Soul ... and thou must choose. Then hearken yet
again.
704.
I cannot help thinking that Aryasanga’s pupils must have been
rather inferior in certain ways, because again and again He seems to find it
necessary to reiterate that they must not expect anything for themselves. That
has been said to us too, but I venture to hope that we who are students of
occultism have reached a stage where we do not mind being unthanked and
unperceived by men.
705.
The idea of wanting these recognitions seems to be significant
of rather a lower stage. One is not looking for any thanks or pleasure in
connection with the results of one’s work, yet one acts carefully and with
prevision. It is the duty of the occultist to see beforehand what will be the
probable consequence of his action or speech, and not to do anything rash. It is
our business to do our best, and to see that failure is not due to our lack of
effort, but it is all the same to us whether we see results or not.
706.
Suppose, for example, that a member of our Society is sent out
to start a Lodge in some new district. He gives all the devotion that he has,
shows all the tact at his command, and does his best in every way. Then, whether
many or few join does not trouble him. It would be foolish for him to say
regretfully: “If somebody else had been here they would have succeeded.” The man
was sent there to do his own best, not that of some other person. It is a
mistake for a man to compare himself with others.
707.
The expression “Guardian Wall” has caused a great deal of
misunderstanding. It is a beautiful symbol, but, like other symbols, it must not
be pressed too far. There is no evil of any sort menacing humanity which is not
of its own generating. We ourselves are our only possible enemies. No one can
hurt a man save himself, and no one can really help him save himself. Others can
only put him in the way to learn how to help himself, or put him in a position
where if he is not careful he may injure himself. The man in the outer world
says that he is injured by another man who defames him; but the fact is that
when he is angry the man in his anger injures himself. He need not feel angry.
People say that it is natural to do so; that may be so for the undeveloped man,
but it is not so for him who has learned a little more.
708.
The expression “since man is man” is capable of two meanings.
It may be taken as indicating that the Guardian Wall has existed ever since man
became man, or it may mean that it was brought into existence because man is
only man, and is therefore liable to injure himself very seriously, unless he
receives help and protection and guidance from above. Probably both meanings are
true. We know that the Lodge of Adepts is very ancient, that it existed long
before our humanity reached the level when it could produce Adepts, and in those
days They belonged to other and previous chains.
CHAPTER 7
THE ARYA PATH
709.
On Sowan’s
Path, O Srotapatti, thou art secure.
Aye, on that Marga, where nought but darkness meets the weary pilgrim, where
torn by thorns the hands drip blood, the feet are cut by sharp, unyielding
flints, and Mara wields his strongest arms – there lies a great reward
immediately beyond.
710.
Calm and
unmoved the pilgrim glideth up the stream that to Nirvana leads. He knoweth that
the more his feet will bleed, the whiter will himself be washed. He knoweth well
that after seven short and fleeting births Nirvana will be his ...
711.
Such is the
Dhyana path, the haven of the Yogi, the blessed goal that Srotapattis crave.
712.
C.W.L. – The term
Sowan is another Buddhist expression, which has the same meaning as Srotapatti –
the man who has taken the First Initiation. At the end of what is here called
the path of dhyana, the meditation by which he steadily works his way upward
through the levels of the buddhic plane, he takes his Fourth Initiation, and
immediately enters the nirvanic plane.
713.
He does not rest at that point, however, but then treads the
Arhat path to the gate of Prajna. That term is no doubt connected with the
casting off of the last fetter, which is ignorance or avidya. It has been
suggested that the translation ignorance, which is so common, is somewhat
unfortunate, and that unwisdom would have been better. The idea is that no
matter how much knowledge about things as seen from the outside a man may have
he is still ignorant; but when he realizes those things from within, when he has
realized the same Self, the One dwelling equally in all, he can see the inner
side of all these things, and then he has wisdom. Jnana is wisdom, and the
jna in prajna has the same meaning, the pra being a prefix implying
activity or moving forth. Therefore prajna is sometimes translated
consciousness, and sometimes intelligence, discernment or simply wisdom.
714.
It means in practice not that the Adept has all knowledge, but
that He is in a position to obtain the result of any knowledge he wishes. For
example, the Master Morya, when first I had the privilege of meeting Him, spoke
English very imperfectly and with a strong accent. Since then he has acquired
far greater fluency in English, though something of the accent still remains.
The Master Kuthumi has always, within our experience, spoken English with the
greatest fluency and without any trace of accent, but at the same time with one
or two little peculiarities such as any man might have, which enable one to
identify His style.
715.
I remember an early experience when one of the Masters wished
to send a letter in the Tamil language. As He did not know that tongue, He
instructed a pupil of His, who did know it, to think what He wanted to say; then
He watched in that man’s mind how the thoughts wouid be expressed, and so
precipitated a letter which was correct, though He did not in His body know the
meaning of the written symbols used.
716.
I remember that my inner feelings of devotion and reverence
received a little shock at the idea that a Master did not know Tamil; but I
discovered very soon that it would not be worth while for an Adept to know
everything from our point of view. I remembered a remark made by an exceedingly
clever man with regard to some matter of astronomy or some other science. A
friend of his had expressed surprise when he showed ignorance of the matter, and
said: “What, do you mean to say you didn’t know that?” He replied: “No, I did
not know it, and even now that you have told me, 1 shall put the thought aside
and probably forget all about it. My brain will hold only a certain amount of
information, and I am going to be a specialist on my own line.”
717.
Brain capacity is limited, and to acquire a vast amount of
information that has scarcely any bearing on our life and work is not wise. I
once knew a young man who told me that he had been a very ardent reader of the
books of a large reference library in, the north of England, until one day he
made a calculation as to how long it would take him merely to read all the books
that he wanted to study in that particular library alone. His computation showed
that it would take him about five hundred life-times if he spent eight hours a
day in that occupation! He then decided to select his future reading very
carefully.
718.
It is one of the big problems of life to decide just what
knowledge one should try to acquire. Karma brings within our reach all that we
need to know for our immediate progress. It is possible for us to go beyond that
and spend our time and energy on study which is not useful in our lives, though
it may be of importance to someone else. The more we learn the more we realize
the paralyzing immensity of things; we are like small insects in a great room,
looking at it from one corner.
719.
We realized something of this immensity when looking up a long
series of lives. For the long time involved we had to use the precession of the
equinoxes to mark periods of time; the astronomers make that period about
twenty-five thousand years, but higher vision showed it to be thirty-one
thousand. The inexactitude of scientific information in these matters is due to
the limited period of time over which the investigations could extend – a few
hundred years, or a few thousand if the records of the Chaldeans are to be taken
into account. The observations have thus been limited to a very small arc of a
circle, from which the dimensions of the whole had to be calculated, so the
least error in approximation becomes multiplied many times. But that is nothing
beside an Age of Brahma, with its 311,040,000 million years. And the greatest
distances we can clearly imagine are naught besides the light-years which
separate the stars.
720.
We can imagine two kinds or types of learned men. One might
become learned by acquiring an immense amount of knowledge; another, by
surrounding himself with a well-chosen set of books and having the knowledge how
to turn to those books and get from them the information which he needed. The
knowledge of the Adept is somewhat of the second type; He does not necessarily
possess books, but He has the power to get at any knowledge that He wants almost
in a moment. If the Adept wants knowledge on a particular subject, He can make
Himself one with it and get at the core of it instantly, and then observe the
surrounding details as He may require them.
721.
The Adept approaches the subject from a higher plane, and
therefore it might appear to us on lower levels that there were many things
which He did not know. It seems to me possible that if an Adept moved among us
now, we might find that we knew more than He along certain lines; but if we came
to deal with realities, with the core of the matter, with the real grasp of its
essentials, the Master would know more than any of us. Let us try to understand
it by considering the study of geology. The student buys a number of manuals,
and studies the subject month after month, and perhaps year after year. What
would a Master do if He wanted to know geology? Somewhere on the buddhic or
nirvanic plane, He would grasp the idea that lies at the back of the science and
make Himself one with that; then, from that point of view, He would reach down
into any details He might require. Therefore, while undoubtedly some of us may
have detailed information of which a given Master is not possessed, He has
powers of knowledge different from ours.
722.
An Adept, wishing to occupy His physical energies and time with
the very definite purposes that He always has in view, may very well put aside
many things and not bother about them. But in addition to that, we must take
into account the fact that His consciousness is not only definitely greater than
ours, but also different in kind, and no doubt quite indescribable to us who
have not yet reached that state.
723.
The Arhat has still seven lives before him as a general rule,
before he attains Adeptship, but they need not be lived in a physical body. He
must descend as far as the astral plane, but the taking of a physical vehicle
for those seven lives is quite optional. While in the astral body he may at any
moment that he chooses enjoy the nirvanic consciousness, but as in the physical
body it is only possible for one to reach a plane below the highest that one can
reach while in the astral body, the Arhat incarnated physically can have that
nirvanic experience only when he leaves his body during sleep or in trance. The
normal home of the Arhat’s consciousness is the buddhic plane. If he were
speaking to anyone on the physical plane, or doing a piece of work that required
attention, his consciousness would be fixed in the physical brain, but when he
turns aside and rests for a moment it slips back to its normal home. He has a
number of planes open to him, and can focus his consciousness at any particular
level, as he chooses, although there will always be a background of the buddhic
or the nirvanic consciousness.
724.
One must be careful not to misjudge people who habitually use
the higher consciousness. There have been cases where such a person was
misunderstood by some people who spoke to him and did not immediately get a
comprehensible reply, because of the fact that his attention was abstracted at
the time. Sometimes people have got an impression of coldness or aloofness under
these circumstances. It is wiser to be on the alert to understand what is
happening, and if we receive a preoccupied answer, to go away and try another
time. Many a time I have approached the Master in His home, and noticed by the
appearance of His aura that He was preoccupied; in such a case one waits until
the Master has finished, or one goes away to do some other work and then
returns.
725.
All the symbolism, in this and similar passages, about the
weary pilgrim being torn by thorns and washed with blood and so forth is rather
unpleasant to me. It is, of course, a materialistic way of symbolizing
difficulties which all aspirants feel to some extent, but I should prefer to
employ more agreeable illustrations. People differ, naturally, and one
recognizes that what seems almost repulsive to some is taken very much as a
matter of course by others. I have never been able to bring myself to like the
Sufi symbolism in which they speak of drinking wisdom as wine, or some parts of
the symbolism in the Puranas typifying quite materially the devotion of the
Gopis to Shrl Krishna. Of course, I know what the Sufi means – that just as the
man is entirely filled with his wine and forgets everything else, so must he be
filled with the divine wisdom until it is everything to him. I would rather say,
with the Psalm, “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul
after thee, O God.”1 (1
Psalm, 42, 1.) Nevertheless, we do not wish to criticise those who use a
symbolism different from our own.
·
Not so when he hath crossed and won the
Arhata Path.
·
There Klesha is destroyed for ever,
Tanha’s roots torn out. But stay, disciple . . . yet one word. Canst thou
destroy divine compassion? Compassion is no attribute. It is the law of laws –
eternal harmony, Alaya’s Self; a shoreless universal essence, the light of
everlasting right, and fitness of all things, the law of love eternal.
·
The more thou dost become at one with it,
thy being melted in its being, the more thy Soul unites with that which is, the
more thou wilt become compassion absolute.
·
Such is the Arya path, path of the
Buddhas of perfection.
726.
In foot-notes to this passage Madame Blavatsky writes: “Klesha
is the love of pleasure or of worldly enjoyment, evil or good,” and “Tanha, the
will to live, that which causes rebirth.” The kleshas are technically considered
among the Hindus as five forms of attachment to the world which are the great
troubles and obstacles of the path. They have been dealt with in our comments on
the first Fragment.1 (1
Ante., pp. 49-52,) Tanha, as explained before, is the thirst of the ego
for the strong vibrations of material existence, which, in the early stages of
his evolution, help to awaken him to a more vivid realization of his own
existence.
727.
There is also a foot-note on the subject of compassion, as
follows:
·
This compassion must not be regarded in
the same light as “God, the divine Love” of the Theists. Compassion stands here
as an abstract, impersonal law, whose nature, being absolute harmony, is thrown
into confusion by discord, suffering and sin.
728.
I have always felt that perhaps our great Founder did a little
less than justice to the Theists there. She says that one must not think of the
Absolute Compassion as God, the Divine Love. I believe myself that one should so
think of it, only that one should make one’s idea of God, the Divine Love, a
higher, a greater and nobler thing than many have made it.
729.
In many devotional books it has been made very personal indeed.
In some of the Roman Catholic books of devotion, and in books of the Quietists
we find expressions such as “Christ, the Lover of his Church” which are more
suited to love between people on the physical plane. In
730.
Probably Madame Blavatsky was thinking of these things, and
warning us not to identify absolute compassion with that idea of divine love.
Divine love is stronger than that, yet too abstract to be put into words; it is
not a quality of God, but it is He; He is all love and there is nothing
that is not love. So I think this compassion absolute is simply what we mean by
God, not a personal God, but the utter Reality which lies behind all. And
because that is absolute love we, being one with all others in that, must feel
the need to help others.
·
Withal, what mean the sacred scrolls
which make thee say:
·
“Aum! I believe it is not all the Arhats
that get of the nirvanic path the sweet fruition.”
·
“Aum! 1 believe that the Nirvana-dharma
is entered not by all the Buddhas.”
·
Yea, on the Arya path thou art no more
Srotapatti, thou art a Bodhisattva. The stream is crossed.
731.
When it is said that the nirvana-dharma is not entered by all
the Buddhas, the term buddha is used in a general way, meaning those who are
illuminated or enlightened or wise. Madame Blavatsky said: “In the Northern
Buddhist phraseology all the great Arhats, Adepts and saints are called
Buddhas.” And when it says “Thou art a Bodhisattva” it means one who is
preparing to become a Buddha in that general sense, and may be taken as
equivalent to the term Arhat. Here the text speaks of the arya path, where
before it said “the arhata path.” The word jirya means noble, and it may be that
the term arhat applied to the path has a tinge of its general meaning of worthy
or venerable, so that it would be not simply the path of the Arhat, but the
venerable or noble path, as distinguished from the other path, that pi
accepting nirvana, which, as we have seen before, Aryasanga or His reporter is
inclined to slight.
732.
It has already been explained that the word bodhisattva has at
least three meanings, of which one is that it names the office in the Hierarchy
of the future Buddha who is the Teacher of Devas and men for a particular
root-race. In a foot-note here Madame Blavatsky says that popular feeling
rightly places this great being even higher in its reverence than a perfect
Buddha. The Buddha is, of course, a higher official, but inasmuch as the
Bodhisattva who for our root-race is the Lord Maitreya, is the great Teacher in
the lower worlds, He may be said to be more directly and closely in touch with
them, and therefore may take a more vital and living place in their devotion, in
much the same way as affection and loyalty for some Prince who is in charge of a
province may be greater than that felt for the great Emperor far away, who is
seldom or never seen.
733.
It has often been asked “Do the Buddhists worship Buddha?”
Colonel Olcott, when writing his Buddhist Catechism had to deal
with the question: “Was the Buddha God?” To his answer, “No”, the Burmese
Buddhists raised objection, though the Sinhalese Buddhists were quite satisfied.
The Lord Buddha is regarded in
734.
These local differences of philosophical and devotional outlook
are due to the temperament of the people of the two countries; Buddhism contains
both aspects. Every great religion has begun by providing for all types of men;
but in each case as the centuries rolled on certain portions or aspects of the
teaching were allowed to fade while others were brought into prominence.
Christianity nowadays provides almost exclusively for the devotional type of
people; of the knowledge and philosophy that it had in the form of the Gnostic
teaching but little is left. The Muhammadan religion also appeals principally to
the devotional element, though there is philosophy among the Sufis. The Jewish
religion is in the same plight; in it, however, the Talmud offers a
philosophical system. Of all religions, it is perhaps only Hinduism that at
present shows out both the philosophical and devotional sides with equal
brilliance and fervour.
CHAPTER 8
THE THREE VESTURES
·
‘Tis true thou hast a right to Dharmakaya
vesture; but Sambhogakaya is greater than a Nirvani, and greater still is a
Nirmanakaya – the Buddha of Compassion.
735.
C.W.L. – We come
now to the three vestures, on which Madame Blavatsky has a very long note, which
I will comment upon piecemeal. The vestures refer to the lines of activity open
to him who has taken the Fifth Initiation. Very little has ever been said about
the seven paths that lie beyond Adeptship, but we have summarized what
information is available in the following passage:1
· 1 From Man: Whence, How and Whither, pp. 12-13.
·
When the Human Kingdom is traversed, and man stands on the
threshold of His superhuman life, a liberated Spirit, seven paths open before
Him for His choosing: He may enter into the blissful omniscience and omnipotence
of Nirvana, with activities far beyond our knowing, to become, perchance, in
some future world an Avatara, or divine Incarnation: this is sometimes called,
‘taking the Dharmakaya vesture’. He may enter on ‘the Spiritual Period’ – a
phrase covering unknown meanings, among them probably that of ‘taking the
Sambhogakaya vesture’. He may become part of that treasure-house of spiritual
forces on which the Agents of the Logos draw for Their work, ‘taking the
Nirmanakaya vesture’. He may remain a member of the Occult Hierarchy which rules
and guards the world in which He has reached perfection. He may pass on to the
next Chain, to aid in building up its forms. He may enter the splendid Angel –
Deva – Evolution. He may give himself to the immediate service of the Logos, to
be used by Him in any part of the Solar System, His Servant and Messenger, who
lives but to carry out His will and do His work over the whole of the system
which He rules. As a General has his Staff, the members of which carry his
messages to any part of the field, so are These the Staff of Him who commands
all, “Ministers of His that do His pleasure.”
736.
In earlier days, in the moon chain, these paths probably opened
before the Arhat, because that was the level of attainment set for humanity in
that chain. The line of those who remain in the Hierarchy on our earth leads to
the Sixth Initiation, that of the Chohan, and still further to a seventh, that
of the Mahachohan. That is the last Initiation that is possible on rays three to
seven, but on the second ray a further step may be taken, that of the Buddha,
and on the first ray yet one more, that of the Lord of the World.
737.
In the division of the seven ways into three sections as given
here, no doubt the path of work in the Hierarchy would be included among those
described as Nirmanakayas, along with the other path of the Nirmanakaya proper.
Our Masters, who keep Their physical bodies for certain purposes connected with
Their work, still give most of Their help to men on higher levels. They work
habitually on the causal bodies of men, and sometimes on the buddhic and atmic
sheaths.
738.
The Nirmanakaya usually retains his causal body, that is the
Augoeides, the glorified form which he has been building up in the course of his
evolution. With that he usually also retains the permanent atoms of the lower
mental and the astral and physical bodies, so that he can whenever he chooses
(which is a very rare thing) make for himself a vehicle on any of those planes,
and show himself in it. Ordinarily, he lives in his causal body, and spends his
time in the generation of spiritual force, which is poured into the reservoir,
and is then distributed by the members of the Hierarchy and Their pupils. Both
these classes, Madame Blavatsky said, “prefer to remain invisibly (in spirit, so
to speak) in the world, and contribute towards men’s salvation by influencing
them to follow the good Law.”
739.
Further on she speaks of the Nirmanakaya as “that ethereal form
which one would assume when leaving his physical he would appear in his astral
body – having in addition all the knowledge of an Adept. The Bodhisattva
develops it in Himself as he proceeds on the path. Having reached the goal and
refused its fruition, he remains on earth, as an Adept; and when he dies,
instead of going into Nirvana, he remains in that glorious body he has woven for
himself, invisible to uninitiated mankind, to watch over and protect it.”
740.
Madame Blavatsky is here using the term astral body in quite a
different sense from that in which she commonly employed it and in which it is
now used, but she used it in this way also in her article on The Mystery of
Buddha in the third volume of The Secret Doctrine. She there explains
that Shri Shankaracharya, who appeared in India shortly after the death of the
Lord Buddha, was in a sense a reincarnation of the Buddha, inasmuch as He
used the “astral” remains of Gautama, and she says, such “astral bodies” must be
regarded in the light of separate or independent Powers or Gods rather than
material objects. She concludes: “Hence the right way of representing the truth
would be to say that the various principles, the Bodhisattva, of Gautama Buddha,
which did not go to Nirvana, re-united to form the middle principle of
Shankaracharya, the earthly Entity.”1
·
1 The
Secret Doctrine,
741.
In order to understand this mystery of Buddha we must first
realize the constitution of the physical atoms and then how these evolve by
being used in the human body both in a general way to build up its particles and
in a special way as permanent atoms. When you look at a physical ultimate atom
with etheric sight you first of all see that it resembles a wire cage; then,
looking more closely, you find that each wire is made up of a finer coil, and
that in all there are seven sets of such spirillae. One of these spirillae is
developed into activity in each round of evolution, so, as we are now in the
fourth round of our earth chain incarnation, there are only four spirillae in
activity at present in the majority of atoms. In each round a new set will be
developed, so that in the seventh round the entire seven spirillae will be
active; the atoms will therefore be better atoms in the seventh round than they
are now, and the people who will live in that round will therefore find it far
easier than people do today to respond to inner things and to live the higher
life.
742.
This awakening or evolution of the atoms is due to their being
used in the bodies of living creatures, from the mineral to man. Everything is
built of atoms, which are floating around us in unthinkable numbers. There must
be some of them which have never been used at all, but others have frequently
been taken into and thrown off from the bodies of living beings. Some few have
experienced constant association with man, having been adopted as permanent
atoms, to be carried from life to life through the man’s cycle of
reincarnations. The atoms thus live with us and form our bodies. It is said that
once in seven years every particle in the physical body is changed; some
scientists have stated the period as three years. It is probable that the bony
structure changes much more slowly, but it seems to me reasonable to imagine
that the fleshy material is renewed entirely in about three years. The particles
of the blood change more rapidly still; one would not be surprised to learn that
they are entirely replaced every few days.
743.
All atoms absorbed into living things are changed considerably.
Those which form part of the earth are very little evolved by that, but those
which compose precious stones are considerably developed. Vegetables and animals
offer a still better opportunity, but the best possible evolution for atoms is
to be drawn into the bodies of human beings. Among men, those who are living the
occult life offer better conditions than men less advanced, since they have
purer bodies because of what they eat and drink (or rather because of what they
do not eat nor drink). As we evolve we also attract better atoms and our bodies
more and more tend to reject those less evolved.
744.
When a man reaches Adeptship he cannot express himself through
the ordinary atoms that we find about us. They must be specially advanced and
refined atoms, because his various vehicles are required to be so very much
purer than ours, and capable of vibrating at rates which ours cannot maintain.
When a person reaches the level of a Buddha, it is quite impossible for him to
find atoms useful to him, except such as have been used as permanent atoms, and
have therefore been in the human body all the time, except during the intervals
between incarnations. Permanent atoms are very much more evolved than others.
They are at the fullest development of seventh round atoms in men who are ‘
about to become Adepts. They are as highly developed as atoms can possibly be,
and are charged with all the qualities which they have brought over from
previous births.
745.
All the permanent atoms of all who, in connection with this
world or probably even this chain of worlds, have attained Adeptship and have
cast them off, have been collected together by the Lord Gautama, or for Him. He
was the first Buddha of our human race. All those who had been Buddhas before
Him had come from some other evolution, and had no doubt brought whatever they
needed in the way of bodies with them. But the Lord Gautama, who was the first
really human Buddha, had to find His bodies from the material of this chain.
Therefore He, or some greater Ones for Him, made these bodies. His causal body
was built up of the “remains”, or permanent atoms of all the causal bodies which
had been used by such great Ones; His mental body was built of the mental units
gathered from such people, and His astral body was made of Their permanent
astral atoms. There were not quite enough of these to make the entire vehicle,
so some ordinary atoms, the best available, had also to be employed; but these
were galvanized into activity, by the others, and they are replaced by permanent
atoms obtained from every new Adept who takes the Sambhogakaya or the Dharmakaya
vesture. Thus has been built up a set of bodies which is absolutely unique.
There are no other such bodies in the world, and there is no material to make
another such set. They were used by Gautama Buddha, and afterwards preserved. We
are now in a position to understand Madame Blavatsky’s statement that the
principles of the Buddha were employed as the middle principles of Shri
Shankaracharya, but the physical Shankaracharya was quite a different man, and
the Atma of Shankaracharya was absolutely distinct from that of the Buddha.
These three intermediary bodies were used by Shankaracharya, and are now being
used by the Lord Maitreya. Madame Blavatsky employed a curious nomenclature in
her article. S. Paul divided man into three parts – spirit, soul and body. By
the spirit he meant what we call the Monad; by the soul the ego, and by the body
the personality, no doubt. Madame Blavatsky is alluding to the same triple
division; but she says that the Buddha is a person so exalted that you cannot
think of His component principles in the same way as those of a man. So instead
of speaking of the Monad of the Buddha, she speaks of it as the Dhyani Buddha.
Then she calls the intermediate principles His Bodhisattva. Thirdly, she calls
the physical body of the Buddha the Manushya Buddha. And so we have these three
things as the principles of the Buddha: the Monad of the Buddha, which, because
He is one with it in a way which is not the case with us now, is called the
Dhyani Buddha; the Bodhisattva; and then the Manushya Buddha, which is His
manifestation on the physical plane. The astral and mental bodies, which have
not been dissipated, are also included in the Bodhisattva.
746.
At first many of us were much confused by Madame Blavatsky’s
terminology, but as the facts became more fully known to us we began to see what
she means when she says that the Manushya Buddha dies and passes away, the
Dhyani Buddha enters Nirvana, and the Bodhisattva remains on the earth to carry
on the work of the Buddha. The Bodhisattva means the principles of the Buddha,
which the present Bodhisattva uses. As the Lord Maitreya is using these, it is
not these which we see on the Wesak day, for that is called the Shadow of the
Buddha.1 (1
See The Masters and the Path, Ch. XIV.) It is but a reflection of Him in
the same way as the living image is a reflection of the astral and mental bodies
of the pupil,2 (2
Ibid., Ch. V.) but He functions through it and uses it.
747.
I have explained in The Masters and the Path that the
work of the Lord Buddha was, in some way incomprehensible to us, not entirely
successful. He and the Lord Maitreya were both far in advance of the rest of
humanity, but at the time when the first human Buddha was needed, neither of
Them was quite sufficiently advanced to take that high position. When the time
came, the Lord Gautama, in his great love for humanity, said that He would at
any cost fit Himself to fill this position, that He would make the great
sacrifice necessary to push Himself on very much more quickly.1
· 1 See The Masters and the Path, Ch. XIV.
748.
He did this, and the whole of the Buddhist world venerates Him
for it to an extent which no one can understand unless, he has lived there. He
lived the life of the Buddha and did the work, and it would seem to us looking
at it a wonderful life. It is impossible to find any defect in it, to discover
anything short of perfection in His life and teaching and work, and yet it is
said that some parts of it were not fully completed. In order to compensate for
whatever was lacking, two arrangements were made. The first was that the Lord
Buddha Himself undertook to appear once a year and give His blessing – He
appears on Wesak day, and gives an outpouring of spiritual force which helps the
world very much. Then there was to be an incarnation almost immediately after
His death, and that requirement was fulfilled by the birth of Shri
Shankaracharya.
749.
The first we ever heard about the occult relation between the
Lord Buddha and Shri Shankaracharya was from the teaching given in Esoteric
Buddhism, by Mr. Sinnett. In that he said that the Buddha reincarnated as
Shri Shankaracharya, that Shankaracharya was simply Gautama in a new body. Now
very early we knew that that was not so, for the reason – besides many others –
that Shankaracharya was a first ray man, and the Lord Buddha was the head of the
second ray. Madame Blavatsky quotes that remark of Mr. Sinnett’s, and says that
it is true in a certain occult way, but that it was very misleading as it was
put. She was asked if Shankaracharya was the Lord Gautama under a new form. Her
answer was that there was the astral Gautama inside the outward Shankaracharya,
whose Atma was nevertheless His own divine prototype, the heavenly mind-born son
of Light.
750.
When Madame Blavatsky says that Shri Shankaracharya was a
Buddha, but not an incarnation of the Buddha, she means that He is a Pratyeka
Buddha, that is a Buddha on the first ray. He still lives at Shamballa in the
body which He brought from Venus. The bodies of the Lords of the Flame are not
like ours at all. They do not change their particles, but have been compared to
bodies of glass; they look like ours, but very much more glorified, and I
suppose that They brought them entire from Venus, and that they are built of the
physical matter of that evolution. Madame Blavatsky says that Shankaracharya was
an Avatara in the full sense of the word, the abode of a flame of the highest of
manifested spiritual beings. As an Avatara is literally one who “crosses over”
or “descends”, not one of our humanity, the term is strictly applied in this
case, as He is one of the three Lords of the Flame from Venus who remain on our
earth as assistants and pupils of the Lord of the World.
751.
To return to the general subject of the Nirmanakayas, Madame
Blavatsky’s foot-note further says: “It is part of the exoteric Northern
Buddhism to honour all such great characters as saints, and even to offer
prayers to them, as the Greeks and Catholics do to their saints and patrons;, on
the other hand, the esoteric teachings countenance no such thing.” By Greeks she
means members of the Greek Church – the ancient Greek did not usually make it a
custom to offer prayers, and certainly not to saints. When she says that the
esoteric teachings do not countenance prayer to the Nirmanakayas, she means that
no esoteric student would pray to a Nirmanakaya to give him help, because he
knows that They are not connected with individuals at all, but are fully engaged
in pouring out Their splendid energies in Their own line of work.
752.
Still, it is said that these Great Beings, the Buddhas of
Compassion, are reverenced popularly more than those who have taken the other
paths. Madame Blavatsky also says “This same popular reverence calls ‘Buddhas of
Compassion’ those Bodhisattvas who, having reached the rank of an Arhat
(i.e., having completed the fourth or seventh Path), refuse to pass into the
nirvanic state or ‘won the Dharmakaya robe and cross to the other shore,’ as it
would then become beyond their power to assist men even so little as Karma
permits.”
753.
The main ideas here are perfectly clear, but the terminology is
a little confusing. Every Adept has crossed to the other shore; that is the
termination of the path which he began to tread when he entered upon the stream.
As is said in the text, “the stream is crossed” before the choice of these three
vestures is made; and it is the Adept, not the Arhat in the ordinary sense, who
makes the choice. He who dons the Dharmakaya vesture crosses to the other shore,
but in a fuller sense.
754.
The Sambhogakaya, Madame Blavatsky continues, ‘‘is the same but
with the additional lustre of three perfections, one of which is entire
obliteration of all earthly concerns.” He enters a spiritual line of evolution,
and takes nirvana at a later stage. He retains the nirvanic atom, the nirvanic
body, but I think none of the lower atoms. He usually shows himself at that
level as the triple spirit. Included in this class is probably that order of
perfected men who have joined the Staff Corps of the Logos. They are no longer
especially attached to our earth, but are in the service of the Logos, to be
sent by Him anywhere within His system.
755.
Then comes the Dharmakaya robe, which is “That of a complete
Buddha, i.e., no body at all, but an ideal breath; consciousness merged
in the universal consciousness, or soul devoid of every attribute.” This means
that the man who takes the Dharmakaya vesture retires into the Monad. He drops
his permanent atoms altogether, and works only on high planes, the lowest for
him being the nirvanic. He burns his boats behind him, as it were, and starts
out on cosmic life, but I believe that if he chooses he may yet show himself as
the triple spirit, but he does not retain, I think, even the nirvanic atom.
756.
All through our evolution we keep the same causal body until we
are able to raise our consciousness to the buddhic plane, and then the mere act
of focusing oneself in the buddhic body causes the causal vehicle to vanish. As
soon, however, as one brings one’s consciousness down again on to the higher
mental plane the causal body reappears; it is not the same as it was before,
because the particles have been dissipated, but it seems in every way exactly
the same body. A similar process takes place in the case of the Dharmakaya
vesture. The man has dropped his nirvanic atom, his manifestation on the
nirvanic plane, but I believe if he puts himself down to that level for a moment
he instantly draws to himself an atom exactly similar, a nirvanic vesture
through which he may manifest as the triple spirit.
757.
Comparing the three, it may be said that the Dharmakaya keeps
nothing below the Monad, though what the vesture of the Monad may be on its own
plane we do not know. The Sambhogakaya retains his manifestation as a .triple
spirit, and I think he can reach down and show himself in a temporary Augoeides.
The Nirmanakaya appears to preserve his Augoeides and keeps all his permanent
atoms, and therefore has the power to show himself at whichever level he
chooses. Yet the three are all equal in development; the difference is only that
he who casts aside the permanent atoms is therefore unable to make himself
visible on the lower levels, and he throws them away because he no longer needs
them for his kind of work. The man who retains them has the power to come down
to those levels and work upon them, but it cannot rightly be said that those who
choose to do the other work are in any way less important, lower in value or
honour. We might think of him who is dealing at a higher level with great solar
forces as the more important, but that would be a mistake, for the whole solar
system is a manifestation of the Logos.
758.
Madame Blavatsky speaks of all these kayas as buddhic bodies.
In so doing, she is using the term buddhic as an adjective of buddha, and is
using buddha as the equivalent of our term Asekha Adept, one who has passed the
Fifth Initiation. We have restricted the term to those who have taken the Buddha
Initiation; our Masters stand two steps lower than that, but They are spoken of
as “living Buddhas” in
759.
The closing passage in the note says: “The esoteric school
teaches that Gautama Buddha, with several of His Arhats, is such a Nirmanakaya
higher than whom, on account of His great renunciation and sacrifice for
mankind, there is none known.” We must not take this to mean that Gautama Buddha
and several of His Arhats make one Nirmanakaya, but that He is such a Being, and
several of His followers have also taken the same line. Then it is said that
none higher is known to mankind. This statement is perfectly accurate if it
means that of our humanity no other has yet reached so high a level as the Lord
Gautama.
760.
Even the Bodhisattva, the Lord Maitreya Himself, who long ago
was equal with Him, as I have explained in The Masters and the Path, has
not yet taken the step which would make Him a Buddha. Had He done so, He could
not occupy His present position as Head of the teaching department of the world.
He is often called Maitreya Buddha by the Buddhists, but that is an honorific
title.
761.
There is one level in the Hierarchy, higher even than that of
the Buddha – the level of the great King who is the One Initiator, but as He is
one of the Lords of the Flame who came from Venus, it remains true that Gautama
Buddha is the highest of our humanity.
·
Now bend thy head and listen well, O
Bodhisattva – compassion speaks and saith: “Can there be bliss when all that
lives must suffer? Shalt thou be saved and hear the whole world cry? “
·
Now thou hast heard that which was said:
Now thou shalt attain the seventh step and cross the gate of final knowledge,
but only to wed woe – if thou would’st be Tathagata, follow upon thy
predecessor’s steps, remain unselfish to the endless end.
·
Thou art enlightened- – choose thy way.
762.
Once more Aryasanga brings forward His prevailing idea, and
urges His followers to take the path of compassion. He says one cannot desert
one’s brothers when they are suffering. We have already considered the question
of suffering quite fully, and realized that though the Arhat may still work in
the world that is full of suffering, his consciousness on the higher planes
knows the glory that is behind it all, knows the heights of happiness which all
men will infallibly reach, so that it is impossible for him to suffer as
ordinary men do who see so little of the glory of life. The Arhat, who is here
addressed as a Bodhisattva, is in a position to share the triumphant song of the
Lord Buddha, so well expressed in The Light of
i.
Ye are not bound! The Soul of things is sweet,
ii.
The Heart of Being is celestial rest;
iii.
Stronger than woe is will: that which was Good
iv.
Doth pass to Better – Best.
v.
I, Buddh, who wept with all my brothers’ tears,
vi.
Whose heart was broken by a whole world’s woe,
vii.
Laugh and am glad, for there is
viii. 1 Op. cit.. Book the Eighth.
763.
When Aryasanga urges His followers to remain unselfish to the
endless end, He uses an expression curiously similar to a phrase which in
Christianity is translated “World without end”; the Latin form is in secula
seculorum, in the ages of the ages. It means until the end of our set of
worlds, or perhaps until the end of our present chain. The suggestion is that we
should remain in touch with humanity until the work of the present human cycle
is complete, and humanity has reached its goal.
764.
Our own method of offering, ourselves is a little different
from that; we have put ourselves completely at the disposal of the Masters, not
asking that They should send us to this work or that, but leaving it absolutely
to Them, saying: “Here am I; send me.” Aryasanga’s desire was that His pupils
should follow the line that He Himself had chosen. Perhaps He felt that many
more workers were urgently needed in that particular field. He was speaking at a
certain period of Indian history, in the reign of King Harsha, when there seems
to have been a decay of religion, when people were thinking more of outward
forms than of the real life behind, when everything had become much specialized
and somewhat artificial; under these circumstances perhaps he felt the necessity
for more teachers, for the revival of the religious life and the ideal of
service.
765.
Finally he urges the pupils to be Tathagata, to follow in the
steps of the Lord Buddha. He tells them that they are now enlightened and should
choose their way. Next comes a line of dots – while the person is choosing,
apparently, and then he breaks out into a magnificent peroration:
·
Behold, the mellow
light that floods the eastern sky. In signs of praise both heaven and earth
unite. And from the four-fold manifested powers
a
chant of love ariseth, both from the flaming fire and flowing water, and from
sweet-smelling earth and rushing wind.
·
Hark! ... from the
deep unfathomable vortex of that golden light in which the Victor bathes, all
nature’s wordless voice in thousand tones ariseth to proclaim:
·
Joy unto you, O men
of Myalba. A pilgrim hath returned back from the other shore. A new Arhan is
born.
766.
I have already spoken of the way in which all nature rejoices
when a new Initiate is born. In this, it is now said, both heaven and earth
unite. The spirit of the earth gains an added sense of well-being. That spirit
is a great entity, not on our human line at all, for whom the whole earth acts
as a physical body. It is difficult to grasp the nature of such a being. When we
think of the earth as merely a huge globe, whirling through space, without
specialized organs, we might wonder how it can serve any being as a body. But if
all the creatures that live upon it contribute to the consciousness of the
spirit of the earth it needs no other eyes than theirs. It lives in their life
and so gains experience. Again, the earth moves on its way as one of a mighty
choir of planets, each one sounding its own note in the music of the spheres,
possessing within itself all the things which we have to reach out to get.
767.
This entity lives on a scale very different from ours. Our
bodies happen to have a certain size and to live for a certain time; that seems
to us the correct standard, so a tiny creature with a small span of life seems
despicable, and a large creature with a long life-period is respected. But size
and length of life are no criteria of development or advancement. Some
antediluvian animals were enormously bigger than the elephant, but they were
much less intelligent, just as today the rhinoceros and hippopotamus have less
mind than the dog. We need not assume, therefore, that because the spirit of the
earth has a globe eight thousand miles in diameter for a body, and because for
him one incarnation is an entire world period, he is more intelligent than we
are. Consciousness is a point in each of us. That of the spirit of the earth
seems to be curiously multiplex, and, notwithstanding his great size, to be less
advanced in some ways than that of many of the great Devas who move about his
body.
768.
If we stand upon a hill and look over the surrounding country
we find it permeated with something of the life of the spirit of the earth. That
life seems to divide itself into parts, temporarily or permanently. A beautiful
view, which has been admired by many people, is ensouled by a vague
individuality which is part of that spirit. Such admiration, whether from human
beings or great Devas, seems to excite the life in that portion, so that it
answers to the feeling of delight. When we admire a fine view it is acting upon
us, but we also are acting upon it. This response is in addition to what is felt
by the life in the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms.
769.
When a man is initiated the influence to which he has tuned
himself on higher planes rushes through every part of his being. Though there is
little effect in the solids, liquids and gases of the physical plane, there is a
great deal of radiation from the etheric double, and from his astral and mental
bodies, and this is felt, as we have already seen by the kingdoms of nature, and
by such men as are in a condition to respond.
770.
The fourfold manifested powers are those of earth, water, fire
and air – the four Devarajas or Maharajas, who are the administrators of karma
for us down here, the under-servants, as it were, of the Lipika, the Great Lords
of Karma. Their names among the Hindus are, it is said, Dhritarashtra, Virudhaka,
Virupaksha and Vaishravana, and each of them is at the head of one line of
development. Dhritarashtra is said to be the head of the Gandharvas, the spirits
of the air, the great Devas who express themselves by music; to them is always
assigned the east and they are always symbolized by the colour white, as
horsemen arrayed in white, riding white horses, and carrying targets of pearl.
Under Virudhaka come the Kumbhandas. They are the Angels of the south, the
spirits of water, so connected because the southern part of the world has far
more water than earth. They are represented as blue, the colour of water, and
are said to carry sapphire shields. Under Virupaksha are the Nagas, Angels of
the west, spirits of the fire, whose colour is red and who carry coral shields.
These Ezekiel described as fiery creatures full of eyes within, and also as
winged wheels. Then come the Yakshas, ruled by Vaishravana. To them the north is
consecrated; they are the earth Devas or Angels, and their colour is always gold
– that of the gold hidden in the earth.1
·
1 See
The Light of
771.
Madame Blavatsky explains Myalba as “our earth – pertinently
called hell, and the greatest of all hells, by the esoteric school. The esoteric
doctrine knows of no hell or place of punishment other than a man-bearing planet
or earth. Avichi is a state, not a locality.” Although some people suffer after
death in the astral plane, it cannot quite be regarded as punishment. They are
suffering from their own disordered imaginations or low desires, and although
things may sometimes be had on that plane, the worst of it is not so mean and
sordid as some of the things which happen down here; all who have had experience
on higher planes will agree with Madame Blavatsky that there is nothing quite so
bad as physical life anywhere else.
772.
“A pilgrim hath returned back from the other shore” evidently
means that someone has gained the higher level, but still chooses to remain and
work among men in this world. Generally we think of the other shore as the Fifth
Initiation, not as the Fourth, but here it is used in the more restricted sense.
773.
Aryasanga closes with the salutation:
Peace to all Beings
774.
Similar blessings are to be found at the end of every Buddhist
or Hindu religious book. Aryasanga closes His book with very great rejoicing. He
has sometimes spoken of the path of woe, but He ends with a paean of wonderful
joy and beautiful peace.
Copyright © 2016 by Anand Gholap. All rights reserved. Terms of Use of this web-site