Mead G.R.S. - The Great Renunciation

The object of the present paper is to put forward as clearly as possible the ideal of self-sacrifice that Theosophy teaches – an ideal which is certainly new to the West of to-day, and which none of us is at present capable of fully understanding.

To comprehend this ideal, even in some slight measure, it is necessary to understand the theory of human progress that Theosophy puts forward, and to have some idea of the purpose of evolution and the object of attainment which the true Theosophist sets before him.

Let us then start from the point at which we have now arrived in the cycle of evolution. We find that apparently man is the crowning work of Nature, and that he is the effect or product of a line of causes which stretches back into the infinite past. As the books of ancient wisdom tell us, “The stone becomes a plant; a plant, an animal; and an animal, a man”.

Moreover in the human kingdom we see that men differ from one another in very marked degrees, so that we have in humanity itself a ladder of evolution from the lowest savage to the highest sage. Now, we all of us have some general idea of what the lowest savage is like and are agreed upon his place in the cycle of evolution, but all of us are not agreed upon the nature of the highest sage, especially in the West, where the so-called utilitarian and economic criterion is tending to reduce every ideal to a commercial basis. In the mind of the Theosophist, however, there can be no doubt as to the nature of those whom the heart of the world has ever considered its greatest, no matter in what clime or age. What matters the passing opinion of an aggressive minority which flatters itself that the physical intellect is the only tribunal of judgment – simply because it happens to be the strongest force in an ephemeral phase of material evolution, that will have its day and die! Modern Materialism and Agnosticism, the progeny of sense-indulgence and superstition, are surely not competent to decide the fate of a spiritual humanity!

No; the great world-heart has decided this question in no faltering voice, and throughout the ages has given its allegiance to those great Saviours of humanity who have pointed out the Way to mankind by the example of lives of unceasing self-sacrifice for their suffering fellows. The Buddhas and Christs are the world’s greatest, no matter what the worshippers of protoplasm and energy may say.

Thus, then, we see in Humanity as commonly known to us a line of evolution stretching from the most backward of savages to the Christ-man. Between these two points of evolution comes the main body of Humanity, ordinary men and women like ourselves. Clearly enough, then, the path of progress for all of us to tread is that which leads to the state of perfection exemplified by such types as the Buddha and the Christ. 22 For what right has any man to lay down a limit to human evolution, and simply because he has only arrived at a certain point of development, deny that any further advance is possible? Surely such dogmatism is unwise? For if we believe in justice and that all may advance along the same path of progress, surely we have a sufficient part of the Way marked out and even within view which we have yet to traverse. I mean that the lives of the great world-teachers point to what we too some day may be, “if equal justice rules the world”. For we believe that the Christs and Buddhas are perfected men and not the miraculous product of a lawless deity. The student of Theosophy can see the possibility of such development by the help of the doctrine of rebirth, and therefore views such forerunners of a perfected humanity as those who have garnered up the experience of many lives, men who have “shortened the times” by refusing to drift along in the sluggish stream of normal evolution. But how does the Western world of to-day explain the fact of the existence of these great teachers? To say that they are “Sons of God” is no answer, since all men are “Sons of God”. “Heredity”?! Does Heredity account for a Buddha or a Christ?! No, neither religion nor science can give an answer. Theosophy alone with its doctrine of reincarnation can give any satisfactory reply.

It would seem then that our future evolution must be directed towards the realization of the ideal which has been manifested to the world in the lives of the great Saviours of Humanity. We must, therefore, enquire into the nature of this evolution. We find both Gautama and Jesus described as being endowed, on the one hand with enormous powers and knowledge, and on the other with the greatest self-sacrifice and compassion.

Let us first deal with their knowledge and powers, for it is in this direction that the evolution of humanity will tend.

The path of knowledge is in other words the expansion of consciousness, or rather of self-consciousness, which, as those who have followed this path testify, is accompanied by the acquirement of those powers which the world calls “miraculous”. Theosophy, on the contrary, asserts that there is nothing miraculous or supernatural either in the extension of self-consciousness or in the attainment of these powers, but that both the one and the other are in the direct line of the evolution of humanity, which depends upon rigid scientific laws. It is said, moreover, that man is not bound by any necessity of drifting on in the main stream of evolution, but that every individual, if he choose to try, may surge ahead and attain “now and within” the development that the normal man will only reach in the course of many thousands of years. And, if we consider the question patiently, we shall see that there is nothing unscientific nor irrational in such a hypothesis. Space and Time, it will be admitted, are, as everything else in the world, comparative terms, and if we consider that from a scientific and philosophical point of view, every atom of space has the 23 potentiality of all space, and every moment of present time contains in it both the past and future, what reason have we for denying to the atom, man, at every moment of time, the possibility of rising to higher and higher things?

Now this expansion of consciousness includes a development of the subtle senses which open up to the inner man new worlds, peopled with their inhabitants, and interdependent the one with the other. The subjective becomes the objective, with a still more subtle subjectivity beyond, which can become again objective as a still more spiritual consciousness is attained to by the striver after freedom. But all these states of consciousness, and all these planes and worlds of being, are intimately correlated, each plane standing to the next below it in the relation of cause to effect and vice versâ. Thus, as a man proceeds on this path of spiritual evolution, or development, he is enabled to trace the causation of events from plane to plane, to trace back appearances to realities, and dive within the nature of things. To the spiritual eye of the seer causes become objective. This does not mean that they appear in the same material forms as do their effects on this physical plane of consciousness, but that they become objective to the seer in their own appropriate fashion.

Thus the adept sees not only the physical man but also the hidden and concealed man within each physical shell that imprisons a human soul. And so he can see our hidden motives and secret vices; the good we would do, but cannot because of our garments of flesh, and the aspirations which are ever being debased by our lower animal nature.

A man, then, that takes his destiny consciously into his own hands, has at once to set about the conquering of new worlds, the approaches to which are guarded with the utmost care and set about with almost insurmountable natural difficulties. It is indeed a case of taking the Kingdom of Heaven by violence. We have to struggle on alone, and hew for ourselves a path into the inmost recesses of Nature wherein she keeps her jewels of wisdom. It is a hand-to-hand struggle with the guardians of Nature’s secrets, who have the strictest orders to let none pass unless they are either furnished with the signs and pass-words of purity or are warriors of approved valour.

It is impossible to give anyone an idea of what the inner planes of consciousness are; they must be experienced to be comprehended. Moreover, they are exceedingly numerous and extended, as may be imagined when our present objective plane of consciousness and all its contents is said to be the most confined of them. It is a passing through worlds within worlds; in fact, a condensing into a few lives of the whole future experience of humanity in its long pilgrimage along the cycle of normal evolution which, we are told, must continue for many millions of years still. The attainment to this state of advancement and to this expansion of consciousness is known by various names, of which the most familiar to the West is that most misunderstood term Nirvâna. 24 The Nirvânic state of consciousness is the most complete realization of bliss and freedom from suffering, that the mind of man can conceive. This does not mean the day-dream of the mystic or the imaginings of a heavenly rest, but an actual state of consciousness such that the most perfect of men and of sages can imagine none higher. It is a freedom that transcends the wildest dreams of the religionist. No words are capable of expressing what the bliss of Nirvâna must be. It has formed the burden of the grandest literature of the world, and been sung of by the greatest bards and sages, but each has owned his utter inability to convey the slightest conception of its stupendous reality.

Surely it is not a small thing to change the company of men for that of the gods and to transcend even the gods themselves: to be free from the chains of matter and reach a firm resting-place from the tempestuous and relentless billows of the ocean of existence, and to rest in an ever-present assurance of immortality!

Nirvâna is the highest heaven of all heavens, transcending all conceptions of Paradise that the human mind can conceive, surpassing the most exalted imaginings of human experience. It is not a mere heaven such as is the ideal of men who have no experience beyond that of their five senses, but a state that transcends the conception of those who have developed the full consciousness of many planes of existence beyond that of the physical universe.

No one that has not attained unto it can know what it means; no one who has not gained his freedom can know what this freedom signifies. It is not a thing to be made little of, not a thing to be despised, for it is a great fact in nature that attracts the greatest among men and at which they must inevitably arrive if they are to be perfected.

Such is the culmination of the evolution of our humanity; such is the goal which each individual of that humanity may attain.

Thither have come, and now are coming, the great ones of the earth, scaling the heights with incredible effort, toil and suffering. And when the prize is won, they become possessed of the sum total of knowledge possible to be obtained in this cycle of evolution, and gain the wisdom of a Buddha or a Christ.

So far the exoteric teachings of Religion: but the teacher of the “Secret Doctrine” has a further word for the pupil, and whispers:

“Can there be bliss when all that lives must suffer? Shalt thou be saved and hear the whole world cry?”

Thus on the threshold of Nirvâna a “great choice” has to be made, and the triumphant gainer of liberation may renounce his freedom, and remaining without his “Father’s house”, cast himself once more down into the prison of matter, self-condemned to suffer again and still more keenly – because of the full sense of freedom that has been realized – for the sake of 25 helping a thankless humanity that will spurn, reject and crucify him if he ever shows his compassion openly.

None of us can have the slightest conception of what this “great renunciation” means. Look at the worship paid to one whom the West believes to have suffered on the cross for three short hours, thereby taking away the sins of the whole world! Surely not so great a price to pay for so much! Do we not know of many before and many since who, as matters of history, have suffered longer and more cruelly for less? But what is such suffering compared to æons and æons of mental and bodily woe, unknown, unappreciated, unrecognized by men, so that there may be ever waiting and watching friends and brothers to aid those toiling pilgrims of humanity who tread the path of self-consciousness and by their right aspiration make it possible for direct help to be given.

These are the real Saviours of the world, who ceaselessly toil for humanity, fostering all the aspirations that arise in the human heart and averting as far as possible the direful calamities which without their merciful intervention would overwhelm mankind.

No mortal writing has ever chronicled their lives, no mortal book has ever told the history of these “Nirvânas gained and lost for man’s liberation”. None but the highest Initiates know the nature of these divine men who have consummated the greatest sacrifice that man or God can make.

Nowhere in the sacred books will you find any clear teaching on this subject, one of the most sacred mysteries of the wise. But if you once seize hold of the idea, then the holy writings of the East and even of the West will yield quite a new meaning, and all previous ideas will be dwarfed into insignificance beside this stupendous ideal. We, who are members of the Theosophical Society, are more fortunate even than those who have been born in a land where the sacred books that treat of man’s spiritual evolution are read and taught to children, in that we have been given the very key to the sublimest teaching of the Orient in those priceless “Fragments from the Book of the Golden Precepts”, three of which H.P.B. has translated for us and “Dedicated to the Few”. There, all that I have tried to explain, is treated of in a manner and diction worthy of so exalted a theme, and to that book I would refer every earnest student of Theosophy.

H.P.B. dedicated it to “The Few”, because she had little hope that in the West “The Many” would understand it for long years to come. But I think that all Theosophists will understand the ideal of self-sacrifice that H.P.B. has been the means of teaching us, for it lies at the very root of Theosophical ethics.

But do not let any of us think that we have to do nothing for humanity until we have reached Nirvâna. For rest assured that if we were to reach the Nirvânic state of consciousness simply by withdrawing ourselves from humanity, we should certainly choose to pass into Nirvâna, “where the silence dwells”, to enjoy our own selfish spiritual bliss. For nature never 26 makes leaps, and if we would do any great thing we must begin to practise in little things. If we would hold before us the “Great Sacrifice” as our ideal, then we must begin with little sacrifices. Our whole lives must be made up of acts of self-sacrifice. If we would transcend the limits of our lower personal and selfish selves, and become one with the great self of humanity, it must be by a continuous abnegation of this lower personal animal to which we are at present bound hand and foot by our ignorance.

There are two paths which lead to Nirvâna, the selfish and the unselfish; the “open” and the “secret”. A man can attain to the knowledge and bliss of the Nirvânic state, by exaggerating his personal consciousness until it reaches the Nirvânic plane. Such an one is called in contempt by Buddhist teachers, a “rhinoceros”, the symbol of a selfish and solitary animal. Such Buddhas follow the “Doctrine of the Eye”. They gain knowledge but keep it for their own selfish advantage, in order that it may gain them this bliss at the expense of their fellows. They are called Buddhas because they have attained to the Buddhic state of consciousness, that is to say, obtained final enlightenment, or all the normal knowledge and experience that this planet can offer them.

Those Buddhas, on the contrary, who sacrifice themselves, self-immolated on the altar of service to others, are called “Buddhas of Compassion”, and although lower in rank, in that they must exist on a plane of consciousness that is in relation with humanity and not on one entirely beyond it like the Nirvânic plane, yet must they be regarded as immeasurably higher in compassion and mercy. These are said to follow the “Doctrine of the Heart”.

And this is the doctrine which the Theosophical Society is endeavouring to bring before the world. It is not a Utopian theory or an impracticable teaching, but one that can be put into practice every hour of the day. In all that we do, in all that we utter, in all that we think, we can practise self-sacrifice, and learn to look upon ourselves as mere instruments to be used by the higher part of our nature for doing as much good as possible to the world. This does not mean to say that we should with cringing piety call ourselves “weak vessels” unable to do anything of ourselves; but that we should act powerfully and strongly from the higher part of our being which is our true Self, and subordinate the lower parts so that they may serve us in order that we may serve others.

In conclusion I would say that with such a lofty subject it is difficult to know where to begin and where to end, what to say or what to leave unsaid. Words are too weak to convey the idea, and it is certainly incapable of what are called proofs. If the soul of the West has no chords to vibrate in response to the striking of this keynote of humanity, then, indeed, is the music of the spheres dead for us; and we must be content with the jingling of our money bags, the rattle of our steam engines and the roar of our artillery.

G. R. S. Mead, F.T.S.

Footnotes