Zirkoff B. - EI. Instruction No.1

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EI. Instruction No. I

by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writtings, vol. 12, page(s) 513-541

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513

INSTRUCTION No. I

PRINTED PRIVATELY ON THE ARYAN PRESS

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NOTICE

It must be distinctly understood that this School is entirely apart from the exoteric organization of the Theosophical Society and has no official connection with it.

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STRICTLY PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL

NOT THE PROPERTY OF ANY MEMBER, AND TO BE RETURNED ON DEMAND TO THE AGENT OF THE HEAD OF THE E.S.T.

INSTRUCTION NO. I

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A WARNING ADDRESSED TO ALL ESOTERICISTS.

There is a strange law in Occultism which has been ascertained and proven by thousands of years of experience; nor has it failed to demonstrate itself, almost in every case, during the fifteen years that the T. S. has been in existence. As soon as anyone pledges himself as a “Probationer,” certain occult effects ensue. Of these the first is the throwing outward of everything latent in the nature of the man: his faults, habits, qualities, or subdued desires, whether good, bad, or indifferent.

For instance, if a man is vain or a sensualist, or ambitious, whether by Atavism or by Karmic heirloom, all those vices are sure to break out, even if he has hitherto successfully concealed and repressed them. They will come to the front irrepressibly, and he will have to fight a hundred times harder than before, until he kills all such tendencies in himself.

On the other hand, if he is good, generous, chaste, and abstemious, or has any virtue hitherto latent and concealed in him, it will work its way out as irrepressibly as the rest. Thus a civilized man who hates to be considered a saint, and therefore assumes a mask, will not be able to conceal his true nature, whether base or noble.

THIS IS AN IMMUTABLE LAW IN THE DOMAIN OF THE OCCULT.

Its action is the more marked the more earnest and sincere the desire of the candidate, and the more deeply he has felt the reality and importance of his pledge.

Therefore let all members of this School be warned and on their guard; for even during the three months before the esoteric teaching began several of the most promising candidates failed ignominiously.

The ancient occult axiom, “Know Thyself,” must be familiar to every member of this School; but few if any have apprehended the 516real meaning of this wise exhortation of the Delphic Oracle. You all know your earthly pedigree, but who of you has ever traced all the links of heredity, astral, psychic, and spiritual, which go to make you what you are? Many have written and expressed their desire to unite themselves with their Higher Ego, yet none seem to know the indissoluble link connecting their “Higher Egos” with the One Universal SELF.

For all purposes of Occultism, whether practical or purely metaphysical, such knowledge is absolutely requisite. It is proposed, therefore, to begin the esoteric instruction by showing this connection in all directions with the worlds: Absolute, Archetypal, Spiritual, Mânasic, Psychic, Astral and Elemental. Before, however, we can touch upon the higher worlds––Archetypal, Spiritual, and Manasic––we must master the relations of the seventh, the terrestrial world, the lower Prakriti, or Malkhuth as in the Kabala, to the worlds or planes which immediately follow it.

It is clear that once the human body is admitted to have direct relation with such higher worlds, the specialization of the organs and parts of the body will necessitate the mention of all parts of the human organism without exception. In the eyes of truth and nature no one organ is more noble or ignoble than another. The ancients considered as the most holy precisely those organs which we associate with feelings of shame and secrecy; for they are the creative centers, corresponding to the Creative Forces of the Kosmos.

The Esotericists are therefore warned that unless they are prepared to take everything in the spirit of truth and nature, and forget the code of false propriety bred by hypocrisy and the shameful misuse of primeval functions, which were once considered divine––they had better not study Esotericism.

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OM

“ÔM,” says the Aryan Adept, the son of the Fifth Race, who with this syllable begins and ends his salutation to the human being, his conjuration of, or appeal to, non-human PRESENCES.

“ÔM-MANI,” murmurs the Turanian Adept, the descendant of the Fourth Race; and after pausing he adds, “PADME-HUM.”

This famous invocation is very erroneously translated by the Orientalists as meaning, “O the Jewel in the Lotus.” For although literally, ÔM is a syllable sacred to the Deity, PADME means “in the Lotus,” and MANI is any precious stone, still neither the words themselves, nor their symbolical meaning, are thus really correctly rendered.

517 In this, the most sacred of all Eastern formulas, not only has every syllable a secret potency producing a definite result, but the whole invocation has seven different meanings and can produce seven distinct results, each of which may differ from the others.

The seven meanings and the seven results depend upon the intonation that is given to the whole formula and to each of its syllables; and even the numerical value of the letters is added to or diminished according as such or another rhythm is made use of. Let the student remember that number underlies form, and number guides sound. Number lies at the root of the manifested Universe; numbers and harmonious proportions guide the first differentiations of homogeneous substance into heterogeneous elements; and number and numbers set limits to the formative hand of Nature.

Know the corresponding numbers of the fundamental principle of every element and its sub-elements, learn their interaction and behavior on the occult side of manifesting nature, and the law of correspondences will lead you to the discovery of the greatest mysteries of macrocosmical life.

But to arrive at the macrocosmical, you must begin by the microcosmical: i.e., you must study MAN, the microcosm––in this case as physical science does––inductively, proceeding from particulars to universals. At the same time, however, since a keynote is required to analyze and comprehend any combinations of differentiations of sound, we must never lose sight of the Platonic method, which starts with one general view of all, and descends from the universal to the individual. This is the method adopted in Mathematics––the only exact science that exists in our day.

Let us study Man, therefore; but if we separate him for one moment from the Universal Whole, or view him in isolation, from a single aspect, apart from the “Heavenly Man”––the Universe symbolized by Adam-Kadmon or his equivalents in every philosophy––we shall either land in black magic or fail most ingloriously in our attempt.

Thus the mystic sentence, “Ôm Mani Padme Hum,” when rightly understood, instead of being composed of the almost meaningless words, “O the Jewel in the Lotus,” contains a reference to this indissoluble union between Man and the Universe, rendered in seven different ways and having the capability of seven different applications to as many planes of thought and action.

From whatever aspect we examine it, it means: “I am that I am”; “I am in thee and thou art in me.” In this conjunction and close union the good and pure man becomes a god. Whether consciously or unconsciously, he will bring about or innocently cause to happen unavoidable results. In the first case, if an Initiate––of course an Adept 518of the Right-hand Path alone is meant––he can guide a beneficient or a protecting current, and thus benefit and protect individuals and even whole nations. In the second case, although quite unaware of what he was doing, the good man becomes a shield to whomsoever he is with.

Such is the fact; but its how and why have to be explained, and this can be done only when the actual presence and potency of numbers in sounds, and hence in words and letters, have been rendered clear. The formula, “Ôm Mani Padme Hum,” has been chosen as an illustration on account of its almost infinite potency in the mouth of an Adept, and of its potentiality when pronounced by any man. Be careful, all you who read this: do not use these words in vain or when in anger, lest you become yourself the first sacrificial victim or, what is worse, endanger those whom you love.

The profane Orientalist, who all his life skims mere externals, will tell you flippantly, and laughing at the superstition, that in Tibet this sentence is the most powerful six-syllabled incantation and is said to have been delivered to the nations of Central Asia by Padmapani, the Tibetan Chenrezi.

But who is Padmapani in reality? Each of us must recognize him for himself whenever he is ready. Each of us has within himself the “Jewel in the Lotus,” call it Padmapani, Krisha, Buddha, Christ, or by whatever name we may give to our Divine Self. The exoteric story runs thus:

The supreme Buddha, or Amitabha, they say, at the hour of the creation of man, caused a rosy ray of light to issue from his right eye. The ray emitted a sound and became Padmapani Bodhisattva. Then the Deity allowed to stream from his left eye a blue ray of light which, becoming incarnate in the two virgins Dolma, acquired the power to enlighten the minds of living beings. Amitabha then called the combination, which forthwith took up its abode in man, “Om Mani Padme Hum” (“I am the Jewel in the Lotus, and in it I will remain”). Then Padmapani, “the one in the Lotus,” vowed never to cease working until he had made Humanity feel his presence in itself and had thus saved it from the misery of rebirth. He vowed to perform the feat before the end of the Kalpa, adding that in case of failure he wished that his head would split into numberless fragments. The Kalpa closed; but Humanity felt him not within its cold, evil heart. Then Padmapani’s head split and was shattered into a thousand fragments. Moved with compassion, the Deity re-formed the pieces into ten heads, three white and seven of various colors. And since that day man has become a perfect number, or TEN.

519 In this allegory the potency of SOUND, COLOR and NUMBER is so ingeniously introduced as to veil the real esoteric meaning. To the outsider it reads like one of the many meaningless fairy tales of creation; but it is pregnant with spiritual and divine, physical and magical, meaning. From Amitabha––no color or the white glory––are born the seven

differentiated colors of the prism. These each emit a corresponding sound, forming the seven of the musical scale. As Geometry among the Mathematical Sciences is specially related to Architecture, and also––proceeding to Universals––to Cosmogony, so the ten Yôds of the Pythagorean Tetrad, or Tetraktys, being made to symbolize the Macrocosm, the Microcosm, or man, its image, had also to be divided into ten points. For this Nature herself has provided, as will be seen.

But, before this statement can be proved and the perfect correspondences between the Macrocosm and the Microcosm demonstrated, a few words of explanation are necessary.

To the learner who would study the Esoteric Sciences with their double object: (a) of proving Man to be identical in spiritual and physical essence with both the Absolute Principle and with God in Nature; and (b) of demonstrating the presence in him of the same potential powers as exist in the creative forces in Nature––to such an one a perfect knowledge of the correspondences between Colors, Sounds and Numbers is the first requisite. As already said, the sacred formula of the Far East, Ôm Mani Padme Hûm, is the one best calculated to make these correspondential qualities and functions clear to the learner.

Let those, I say again, who feel themselves too much the children of our age to approach the many mysteries which have to be revealed, in a truly reverential spirit, even though references be made to such subjects and objects as are deemed improper and, to use the correct term, indecent, in our modern day––let such abandon these teachings at once. For I shall have to use terms and refer, especially in the beginning, to the most secret organs and functions of the human body, the bare mention of which is certain to provoke either a feeling of disgust and shame or an irreverent laugh.

It is such feelings which have invariably led the generations of writers on symbology and religions, ever since the day of Kircher, to materialize every natural emblem and ideograph in their impure thought, and finally to sum up all religions, Christianity included, as phallic worship. It is quite true that ever since the days of Pythagoras and Plato the exoteric cults began to deteriorate, until they debased the symbolism into the most shameful practices of sexual worship. Hence the horror and contempt with which every true Occultist regards the so-called “personal God” and the exoteric ritualistic worship of the 520Churches––be they Heathen or Christian. But even in the days of Plato it was not so. It was the persecution of the True Hierophants and the final suppression of those Mysteries, which alone purified man’s thoughts, that led to Tantrika sexual worship and, through the forgetting of divine truth, to BLACK MAGIC, whether conscious or otherwise.

Numerous works have been written upon this subject, especially in the latter part of our century. Every student can read for himself such works as those of Payne Knight, Higgins, Inman, Forlong, and finally Hargrave Jennings’ Phallicism and Allen Campbell’s Phallic Worship. All are based on truth as far as the facts are concerned; all are erroneous and unjust in their ultimate conclusions and deductions.

The above words are addressed to students in order that––knowing how bitter some Occultists feel both towards carnalizing Churches and materialistic thinkers who see phallicism in every symbol––they should not at the outset jump to the conclusion that, after all, the Occult Sciences likewise are based on nothing else but a sexual foundation. Man and woman in their physical aspects and corporeal envelopes are but higher animals, and the various parts of their bodies, if named at all, must be referred to in terms comprehensible to the student. But the idea or the unclean acts with which some of these organs are connected, in the present conception of humanity, does not militate against the fact that each such organ has been evolved and developed to perform six functions on six distinct planes of action, besides its seventh, the lowest and purely terrestrial function on the physical plane. This will suffice as an introduction to what follows.

In the allegory of Padmapani, the Jewel (or Spiritual Ego) in the Lotus, or the symbol of androgynous man, the numbers 3, 4, 7, 10, as synthesizing the Unit, Man, are prominent, as I have already said. It is on the thorough knowledge and comprehension of the meaning and potency of these numbers, in their various and multiform combinations, and in their mutual correspondence with sounds (or words) and colors, or rates of motion (represented in physical science by vibrations), that the progress of a student in Occultism depends. Therefore we must begin by the first, initial word, ÔM or AUM. ÔM is a “blind.” The ‘sentence “Ôm Mani Padme Hum” is not a six- but a seven-syllabled phrase, as the first syllable is double in its right pronunciation, and triple in its essence, A-UM. It represents the forever-concealed primeval triune differentiation, not from but in the ONE Absolute, and is therefore symbolized by the 4, or the Tetraktys, in the metaphysical world. It is the Unit-ray, or Atman.

It is Atman, this highest spirit in man, which, in conjunction with Buddhi and Manas, is called the upper Triad, or Trinity. This triad 521with its four lower human principles is, moreover, enveloped with an auric atmosphere, like the yolk of an egg (the future embryo) by the albumen and shell. This, to the perceptions of higher beings from other planes, makes of each individuality an oval sphere of more or less radiancy.

To show the student the perfect correspondence between the birth of Kosmos, a World, a Planetary Being, or a Child of Sin and Earth, a more definite and clear description must be given. Those acquainted with Physiology will understand it better than others.

Who, having read say the Vishu- or other Puranas, is not familiar with the exoteric allegory of the birth of Brahma (male-female) in the Egg of the World, Hirayagarbha, surrounded by its seven zones, or rather planes, which in the world of form and matter become seven and fourteen Lokas; the numbers seven and fourteen reappearing as occasion requires.

Without giving out the secret analysis, the Hindus have from time immemorial compared the matrix of the Universe, and also the solar matrix, to the female uterus. It is written of the former: “Its womb is vast as the Meru,” and “the future mighty oceans lay asleep in the waters that filled its cavities, the continents, seas, and mountains, the stars, planets, the gods, demons, and mankind.” The whole resembled, in its inner and outer coverings, the cocoanut filled interiorly with pulp, and covered externally with husk and rind. “Vast as Meru,” say the texts. “Meru was its Amnion, and the other mountains were its Chorion,” adds a verse in Vishu-Purana.

In the same way is man born in his mother’s womb. As Brahma is surrounded, in exoteric traditions, by seven layers within and seven without the Mundane Egg, so is the Embryo––the first or the seventh layer, according to the end from which we begin to count. Thus, just as Esotericism in its Cosmogony enumerates seven inner and seven outer layers, so Physiology notes the contents of the uterus as seven also, although it is completely ignorant of this being a copy of what takes place in the Universal Matrix. These contents are:

1. Embryo. 2. Amniotic Fluid, immediately surrounding the Embryo. 3. Amnion, a membrane derived from the Foetus, which contains the fluid. 4. Umbilical Vesicle, which serves to convey nourishment originally to the Embryo and to nourish it. 5. Allantois, a protrusion from the Embryo in the form of a closed bag, which spreads itself between 3 and 7, in the midst of 6, and which, after being specialized into the Placenta, serves to conduct nourishment to the Embryo.

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1. Embryo.

2. Amniotic Fluid (Liquor Amnii) in which the Embryo floats.

3. Amnion, a foetal membrane surrounding the Embryo, and containing the Amniotic Fluid.

4. Umbilical Vesicle, or Yolk Sac, containing the Yolk, the source of nutrition to the early Embryo.

5. Allantois, a vesicle proceeding from the extremity of the Embryo, spreading itself throughout the interior of the Ovum.

6. Interspace between the outer layer of the Ovum and the Amnion, in which are contained the Umbilical Vesicle and Allantois.

7. Chorion, or False Amnion, formed by the outer layer of the Ovum.

Figure 1 is a representation of the Ovum before the Amnion and Chorion are fully discernable; the Allantois (5) also is in the first stages of its development.

Figure 2 shows the Allantois spreading itself throughout the Interspace (6): here the Yolk Sac has considerably shrunk. Nos. 3 are projections forming the Amnion.

Figure 3 shows the Yolk Sac still further shrunk; the Allantois has completely spread itself in the Interspace between the Amnion and the Chorion (false Amnion), against the walls of the latter, which has grown in the form of ramified villi into the substance of the uterine mucuous membrane. In later stages the latter forms the Placenta.

523 6. Interspace between 3 and 7 (the Amnion and Chorion), filled with an albuminous fluid. 7. Chorion, or outer layer.

Now, each of these seven continents severally corresponds with, and is formed after, an antetype, one on each of the seven planes of being, with which in their turn correspond the seven states of matter and all other forces, sensational or functional, in Nature.

The following is a bird’s eye view of the seven correspondential contents of the wombs of Nature and of Woman. We may contrast them thus:

COSMIC PROCESS (UPPER POLE)	HUMAN PROCESS (LOWER POLE)
(1) The mathematical Point, called the “Cosmic seed,” the Monad of Leibnitz, which contains the whole Universe as the acorn the oak. This is the first bubble on the surface of boundless homogeneous Substance, or Space, the bubble of differentiation in its incipient stage. It is the beginning of the Orphic or Brahma’s Egg. It corresponds in Astrology and Astronomy to the Sun.	(1) The terrestrial Embryo, which contains in it the future man with all his potentialities. In the series of principles of the human system it is the Atman, or the super-spiritual principle, just as in the physical solar system it is the Sun.
(2) The vis vitae of our solar system exudes from the Sun (a) It is called, when referred to the higher planes, Akaśa. (b) It proceeds from the ten “divinities” the ten numbers of the Sun, which is itself the “Perfect Number.” These are called Dis––in reality Space––the forces spread in Space, three of which are contained in the Sun’s Atman, or seventh principle, and seven are the rays shot out by the Sun.	(2) The Amniotic Fluid exudes from the Embryo. (a) It is called on the plane of matter Prana. (b) It proceeds, taking its source in the universal One Life, or J…vatman, from the heart of man, and Buddhi, over which the Seven Solar Rays (Gods) preside.
(3) The Ether of Space, which in its external aspect, is the plastic crust which is supposed to envelope the Sun. On the higher plane it is the whole Universe, as the third differentiation of evolving Substance,. Mulaprakriti becoming Prakriti. (a) It corresponds mystically to the manifested Mahat, or the Intellect or Soul of the World.	(3) The Amnion, the membrane containing the Amniotic Fluid and enveloping the Embryo. After the birth of man it becomes the third layer, so to say, of his magneto-vital aura. (a) Manas, the third principle (counting from above), or the Human Soul in Man.
(4) The Sidereal contents of Ether, the substantial parts of it, unknown to modern science, represented: (a) In Occult and Kabalistic Mysteries by Elementals. (b) In physical Astronomy by meteors, comets, and all kinds of casual and phenomenal cosmic bodies.	(4) Umbilical Vesicle, serving as science teaches to nourish the Embryo originally, but as Occult Science avers to carry to the Foetus by osmosis the cosmic influences extraneous to the mother. (a) In the grown man these become the feeders of Kama, over which they preside. (b) In the physical man, his passions and emotions, the moral meteors and comets of human nature.
(5) Life-currents in Ether, having their origin in the Sun: the canals through which the vital principle of that Ether (the blood of the Cosmic Body) passes to nourish everything on the Earth and on the other planets: from the minerals which are thus made to grow and become specialized, from the plants, which are thus fed, to animal and man, to whom life is thus imparted.	(5) The Allantois, a protrusion from the Embryo which spreads itself between the Amnion and Chorion; it is supposed to conduct the nourishment from the mother to the Embryo. It corresponds to the life-principle, Praa or Jiva.
(6) The double radiation, psychic and physical, which radiates from the Cosmic Seed and expands around the whole Kosmos, as well as around the solar system and every planet. In Occultism it is called the upper divine and the lower material Astral Light.	(6) The Allantois is divided into two layers. The interspace between the Amnion and the Chorion contains the Allantois and also an albuminous fluid.
(7) The outer crust of every sidereal body, the Shell of the Mundane Egg, or the sphere of our solar system, of our earth, and of every man and animal. In sidereal space, Ether proper; on the terrestrial plane, Air, which again is built in seven layers. (a) The primordial potential world-stuff becomes (for the Manvantaric period) the permanent globe or globes.	(7) The Chorion, or the Zona Pellucida, the globular object called Blastodermic Vesicle, the outer and the inner layers of the membrane of which go to form the physical man. The outer (or ectoderm) forms his epidermis, the inner (or endoderm) his muscles, bones, etc. Man’s skin, again, is composed of seven layers. (a) The “primitive” becomes the “permanent” Chorion.

524 Even in the evolution of the Races we see the same order as in nature and man. Placental animal man became such only after the separation of sexes in the Third Root-Race. In the physiological evolution, the placenta is fully formed and functional only after the third month of uterine life.

Let us put aside such human conceptions as a personal God, and hold to the purely divine, to that which underlies all and everything in boundless Nature. It is called by its Sanskrit esoteric name in the Vedas TAD (or THAT), a term for the unknowable Rootless Root. If

DIAGRAM I

1ST.—MACROCOSM AND ITS 3, 7, OR 10 CENTERS OF CREATIVE FORCES

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we do so, we may answer these seven questions of the Esoteric Catechism thus:

(1) Q.––What is the Eternal Absolute? A.––THAT.

(2) Q.––How came Kosmos into being? A.––Through THAT.

(3) Q.––How, or what will it be when it falls back into Pralaya? A.––In THAT.

(4) Q.––Whence all the animate, and suppositionally, the “inanimate” nature?––A. From THAT.

(5) Q.––What is the Substance and Essence of which the Universe is formed? A.–– THAT.

(6) Q.––Into what has it been and will be again and again resolved? A.––Into THAT.

(7) Q.––Is THAT then both the instrumental and material cause of the Universe? A.––What else is it or can it be than THAT?

As the Universe, the Macrocosm and the Microcosm, are ten, why should we divide Man into seven “principles”? This is the reason why the perfect number ten is divided into two, a reason which cannot be given out publicly: In their completeness, i.e., super-spiritually and physically, the forces are TEN: to wit, three on the subjective and inconceivable, and seven on the objective plane. Bear in mind that I am now giving you the description of the two opposite poles: (a) the primordial triangle, which as soon as it has reflected itself in the “Heavenly Man,” the highest of the lower seven––disappears, returning into “Silence and Darkness”; and (b) the astral paradigmatic man, whose Monad (Atman) is also represented by a triangle, as it has to become a ternary in conscious Devachanic interludes. The purely terrestrial man being reflected in the universe of matter, so to say, upside-down, the upper triangle, wherein the creative ideation and the subjective potentiality of the formative faculty resides, is shifted in the man of clay below the seven. Thus three of the ten, containing in the archetypal world only ideative and paradigmatic potentiality, i.e., existing in possibility, not in action, are in fact one. The potency of formative creation resides in the Logos, the synthesis of the seven Forces or Rays, which becomes forthwith the Quaternary, the sacred Tetraktys. This process is repeated in man, in whom the lower physical Triangle becomes, in conjunction with the female One, the male female creator or generator. The same on a still lower plane in the animal world. A mystery above, a mystery below, truly.

This is how the upper and highest, and the lower and most animal, stand in mutual relation.

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DIAGRAM I.

In this diagram we see that physical man (or his body) does not share in the direct pure wave of the divine Essence which flows from the One in Three, the Unmanifested, through the Manifested Logos (the upper face in the diagram). Purusha, the primeval Spirit, touches the human head and stops there. But the Spiritual Man (the synthesis of the seven principles) is directly connected with it. And here a few words ought to be said about the usual exoteric enumeration of the principles. As those not pledged could hardly be entrusted with the whole truth, an approximate division only was made and given out. Esoteric Buddhism begins with Âtman, the seventh, and ends with the Physical Body, the first. Now, neither Âtman, which is no individual “principle” but a radiation from and one with the Unmanifested Logos; nor the body, which is the material rind or shell of the Spiritual Man, can be, in strict truth, referred to as “principles.” Moreover the chief “principle” of all, one not even mentioned heretofore, is the “Luminous Egg” (Hiranyagarbha) or the invisible magnetic sphere in which every man is enveloped. It is the direct emanation: (a) from the Âtmic Ray in its triple aspect of Creator, Preserver and Destroyer (Regenerator); and (b) from Buddhi-Manas. The seventh aspect of this individual aura is the faculty of assuming the form of its body and becoming the “Radiant,” the Luminous Augoeides. It is this, strictly speaking, which at times becomes the form called Mâyâvi-Rûpa. Therefore as explained in the second face of the diagram (the astral man), the Spiritual Man consists of only five principles, as taught by the Vedântins, who substitute tacitly for the physical this sixth, or Auric Body, and merge the dual Manas (the dual mind or consciousness) into one. Thus they speak of five koœas (sheaths or principles), and call Âtman the sixth yet no “principle.” This is the secret of the late Subba Row’s criticism of the division in Esoteric Buddhism. But let the student now learn the true esoteric enumeration.

PLATE I.

The reason why public mention of the Auric Body is not permitted is on account of its being so sacred. It is this Body which at death assimilates the essence of Buddhi and Manas and becomes 527the vehicle of these spiritual principles, which are not objective, and then, with the full radiation of Atman upon it, ascends as Manas-Taijasa into the Devachanic state. Therefore it is called by many names. It is the Sutratman, the silver “thread” which “incarnates” from the beginning of Manvantara to the end, stringing upon itself the pearls of human existence––in other words, the spiritual aroma of every personality it follows through the pilgrimage of life. It is also the material from which the Adept forms his Astral Bodies, from the Augoeides and the Mayavi-Rupa downwards. After the death of man, when its most ethereal particles have drawn into themselves the spiritual principles of Buddhi and the Upper Manas, and are illuminated with the radiance of Atman, the Auric Body remains either in the Devachanic state of consciousness or, in the case of a full Adept, prefers the state of a Nirmanakaya––that is, one who has so purified his whole system that he is above even the divine illusion of a Devachani. Such an Adept remains in the astral (invisible) plane connected with our earth, and henceforth moves and lives in the possession of all his principles except the Kama-Rupa and Physical Body. In the case of the Devachani the Linga-Śarira––the alter ego of the Body which during life is within the physical envelope while the radiant aura is without––strengthened by the material particles which this aura leaves behind, remains close to the dead body and outside it, and soon fades away. In the case of the full Adept the body alone becomes subject to dissolution, while the center of that force which was the seat of desires and passions, disappears with its cause––the animal body. But during the life of the latter all these centers are more or less active and in constant correspondence with their prototypes, the cosmic centers, and their microcosms, the principles. It is only through these cosmic and spiritual centers that the physical centers (the upper seven orifices and the lower triad) can benefit by their occult interaction, for these orifices, or openings, are channels conducting into the body the influences that the will of man attracts and uses, viz., the cosmic forces.

This will has, of course, to act primarily through the spiritual principles. To make this clearer, let us take an example. In order to stop pain, let us say in the right eye, you have to attract to it the potent magnetism from that cosmic principle which corresponds to this eye and also to Buddhi. Create, by a powerful will-effort, an imaginary line of communication between the right eye and Buddhi, locating the latter as a center in the same part of the head. This line, though you may call it “imaginary,” is, once you succeed in seeing it with your mental 528eye and give it a shape and color, in truth as good as real. A rope in a dream is not and yet is. Moreover, according to the prismatic color with which you endow your line, so will the influence act. Now, Buddhi and Mercury correspond with each other, and both are yellow, or radiant and golden colored. In the human system the right eye corresponds with Buddhi and Mercury, and the left with Manas and Venus or Lucifer. Thus, if your line is golden or silvery it will stop the pain; if red, it will increase it, for red is the color of Kama and corresponds with Mars. Mental or Christian Scientists have stumbled upon the effects without understanding the causes. Having found by chance the secret of producing such results owing to mental abstraction they attribute them to their union with God––whether a personal or impersonal God, they know best,––whereas it is simply the effect of one or another principle. However it may be, they are on the path of discovery, although they must remain wandering for a long time to come.

Let not the students of the Esoteric School commit the same mistake. It has often been explained that neither the cosmic planes of substance nor even the human principles––with the exception of the lowest material plane or world and the physical body, which, as has been said, are no “principles”––can be located or thought of as being in Space and Time. As the former are seven in One, so are we seven in One––that same Absolute Soul of the World, which is both matter and non-matter, spirit and non-spirit, being and non-being. Impress yourselves well with this idea, all those of you who would study the mysteries of SELF.

Remember that with our physical senses alone at our command, none of us can hope to reach beyond gross matter. We can do so only through one or another of our seven spiritual senses, either by training, or if one is a born seer. Yet even a clairvoyant possessed of such faculties, if not an Adept, no matter how honest and sincere he may be, will, through his ignorance of the truths of Occult Science, be led by the visions he sees in the Astral Light only to mistake for God or Angels the denizens of those spheres of which he may occasionally catch a glimpse––as witness Swedenborg and others.

[Continued on page 532.]

529

PLATE I

In Plate I, we see that ATMAN is no “principle,” but stands separate from the Man, whose seven “principles” are represented as follows:

7th, AURIC EGG, colored Blue.

6th, BUDDHI, colored Yellow.

5th, MANAS { The UPPER, represented as a triangle with its apex pointing upwards, colored Indigo-Blue.The LOWER, represented by a triangle with its apex pointing downwards, colored Green.

4th, KAMA, represented as a five-pointed star, with the “horns of evil” upwards, embracing the LOWER MANAS, colored Blood-Red.

3rd, LINGA-SARIRA, colored Violet as the vehicle of PRANA (Orange), and partaking of KAMA (Red) and occasionally of the AURIC ENVELOPE (Blue).

2nd, PRANA, Life, colored Orange, the hue of the ascetic’s robes.

1st, STHULA-ŚARŸRA, the Physical Body of Man, represented by the mayavic contour of the large five-pointed star within the AURIC EGG.

530 [Thus man functions on, and responds to, seven distinct yet correlated wave-lengths, each of which corresponds to a specific plane or world of being while the One Cosmic Life-Consciousness, binding and permeating everything flows through all of them.

In the light of the teaching outlined above, the constitution of man in embodied existence can be represented by either of the following Diagrams:

ATMAN Divine-Spiritual or Universal Self | BUDDHI Spiritual Self Spiritual Intelligence, Wisdom, Vision and Intuition | MANAS Planetary SelfHigher Human Mind or ReincarnatingSelf | KAMA Animal Self Passions, Emotions, Desires | | | PRANA Vital-Astral Self Field of Vital Currents | LINGA-ŚARŸRA Astral Body, Pattern or Model-Body | STHULA-SARŸRA P hysical Body

ATMAN | | BUDDHI Field of the Spiritual Individuality | | HIGHER MANAS (Buddhi-Manas) Field of the Re-imbodying Self or of the Higher Human Self; Spiritual Intellect | LOWER MANAS (Kama-Manas) Field of the Lower or PersonalHuman Self; Field of the Animal Desires and Passions; Lower Mind | PRANA Vitality; Vital Electricityand Magnetism | | LINGA-ŚARŸRA Astral Body | | STHULA-ŚARŸRA Physical Body

While man is built of “materials” or “stuffs” drawn from the Cosmic reservoir, yet he is not a mere bundle of substances and energies merely gathered together. Man is an intimately correlated series of consciousness-centers, 531and these are termed Monads. The essential or supreme Spiritual-Divine Monad is our ultimate source or root. It is continuously pouring forth streams of intelligence and life-substance which produce by their interacting energies the various “knots” or foci of consciousness that are its children-monads, as it were. Thus, man’s complex structure can also be looked upon as composed of the following sequence of monadic centers:

ATMAN Spiritual-Divine Monad | Spiritual-Divine Ego | Spiritual-Divine Soul | BUDDHI Spiritual Monad | Spiritual Ego (Individuality) | Spiritual Soul | BUDDHI-MANAS Intellectual Monad | Higher Human Ego (Re-imbodying) | Higher Human Soul | KAMA MANAS Psychic Monad | Lower Human Ego (Personal Ego) | Lower Human Soul | KAMA-PRANA Beast Monad | Elementary Ego | Vital-Astral Soul | PRANA––LINGA-SARIRA––STHULA-SARIRA Astral-Physical Monad Elementary Ego | Physical Soul ––Compiler.]

532 These seven senses of ours correspond with every other septenate in nature and in ourselves. Physically, though invisibly, the human Auric Envelope (the amnion of the physical man in every age of life) has seven layers, just as Cosmic Space and our physical epidermis have. It is this aura which, according to our mental and physical state of purity or impurity either opens for us vistas into other worlds, or shuts us out altogether from anything but this three-dimensional world of matter.

Each of our seven physical senses (two of which are still unknown to profane science), and also our seven states of consciousness–––viz: (1) waking; (2) waking-dreaming; (3) natural sleeping; (4) induced or trance sleep; (5) psychic; (6) super-psychic; and (7) purely spiritual––corresponds with one of the seven cosmic planes, develops and uses one of the seven super-senses, and is connected directly, in its use on the terrestro-spiritual plane, with the cosmic and divine center of force that gave it birth, and which is its direct creator. Each is also connected with, and under the direct influence of, one of the seven Sacred Planets. These belonged to the Lesser Mysteries, whose followers were called Mystai [μυσταί] (the veiled), seeing that they were allowed to perceive things only through a mist, as it were “with the eyes closed”; while the Initiates or “Seers” of the Greater Mysteries were called Epoptai [ἐπόπται] (those who see things unveiled). It was the latter only who were taught the true Mysteries of the Zodiac and the relations and correspondences between its twelve signs (two secret) and the ten human orifices. The latter are now of course ten in the female, and only nine in the male; but this is merely an external difference. In the second volume of the Secret Doctrine it is stated that till the end of the Third Root-Race (when androgynous man separated into male and female) the ten orifices existed in the hermaphrodite, first potentially, then functionally. The evolution of the human embryo shows this. For instance, the only opening formed at first is the buccal cavity, “a cloaca communicating with the anterior extremity of the intestine.” This becomes later the mouth and the posterior orifice: the Logos differentiating and emanating gross matter on the lower plane, in occult parlance. The difficulty which some students will experience in reconciling the correspondences between the Zodiac and the orifices can be easily explained. Magic is coëval with the Third Root-Race, which began by creating through Kriyâúâkti and ended by generating its species in the

533

present way. Woman being left with the full or perfect cosmic number 10 (the divine number of Jehovah), was deemed higher and more spiritual than man. In Egypt, in days of old, the marriage service contained an article that the woman should be the “lady of the lord,” and real lord over him, the husband pledging himself to be “obedient to his wife” for the production of alchemical results such as the elixir of life and the philosopher’s stone, for the spiritual help of the woman was needed by the male alchemist. But woe to the alchemist who should take this in the dead-letter sense of physical union. Such sacrilege would become black magic and be followed by certain failure. The true alchemist of old took aged women to help him, carefully avoiding the young ones; and if any of them happened to be married they treated their wives for months both before and during operations as sisters.

The error of crediting the ancients with knowing only ten of the Zodiacal signs is explained in Isis Unveiled. The ancients did know of twelve, but viewed these signs differently from ourselves. They took neither Virgo nor Scorpio singly into consideration, but regarded them as two in one, since they were made to refer directly and symbolically to the primeval dual man and his separation into sexes. During the re-formation of the Zodiac, Libra was added as the twelfth sign, though it is simply an equilibrating sign, at the turning-point––the mystery of separated man.

Let the student learn all this well. Meanwhile let us recapitulate what has been said.

(1) Each human being is an incarnation of his God––in other words, one with his “Father in Heaven,” just as Jesus, an Initiate, is made to say. As many men on earth, so many Gods in Heaven; and yet these Gods are in reality One, for at the end of every period of activity, they are withdrawn like the rays of the setting sun into the Parent Luminary, the Non-Manifested Logos, which in its turn is merged into the One Absolute. Shall we call these “Fathers” of ours, whether individually or collectively and under any circumstances, our personal God? Occultism answers, Never. All that an average man can know of his “Father” is what he knows of himself, through and within himself. The Soul of his “Heavenly Father” is incarnated in him. This Soul is himself, if he is successful in assimilating the divine individuality while in his physical animal shell. As to the Spirit thereof, as well expect to be heard by the Absolute. Our prayers and supplications are vain, unless to potential words we add potent acts, and make the aura 534which surrounds each one of us so pure and divine that the God within us may act outwardly, or in other words, become as it were an extraneous Potency. Thus have Initiates, Saints and very holy and pure men been enabled to help others as well as themselves in the hour of need, and produce what are foolishly called “miracles,” each by the help and with the aid of the God within himself, which he alone has enabled to act on the outward plane.

(2) The word Aum or Ôm, which corresponds to the upper triangle, if pronounced by a very holy and pure man, will draw out or awaken, not only the less exalted potencies residing in the planetary spaces and elements, but even his Higher Self, or the “Father” within him. Pronounced by an averagely good man, in the correct way, it will strengthen him morally, especially if between two “Aums” he meditates intently on the Aum within him, concentrating all his attention upon the ineffable glory. But woe to the man who pronounces it after the commission of some far-reaching sin: he will thereby only attract to his own impure photosphere invisible presences and forces which could not otherwise break through the divine envelope. All the members of the Esoteric School, if earnest in their endeavor to learn, are invited to pronounce the divine word before going to sleep and the first thing upon awakening. The right accent, however, should be first obtained from one of the officers of the E.S.T.

Âum is the original of Amen. Now, Amen is not a Hebrew term, but, like the word Hallelujah, was borrowed by the Jews and Greeks from the Chaldees. The latter word is often found repeated in certain magical inscriptions upon cups and urns among the Babylonian and Ninivean relics. Amen does not mean “so be it” or “verily,” but signified in hoary antiquity almost the same as Âum. The Jewish Tannaïm (Initiates) used it for the same reason as the Âryan Adepts use Âum, and with a like success, the numerical value of AMeN in Hebrew letters being 91, the same as the full value of YHVH, 26 and ADoNaY, 65, or 91. Both words mean the affirmation of the being, or existence of the sexless “Lord” within us.

(3) Esoteric Science teaches that every sound in the visible world awakens its corresponding sound in the invisible realms, and arouses to action some force or other on the occult side of nature. Moreover, every sound corresponds to a color and a number (a potency spiritual, psychic or physical) and to a sensation on some plane. All these find an echo in every one of the so far developed elements and even on the 535terrestrial plane, in the Lives that swarm in the terrene atmosphere, thus prompting them to action.

Thus a prayer, unless pronounced mentally and addressed to one’s “Father” in the silence and solitude of one’s “closet,” must have more frequently disastrous than beneficial results, seeing that the masses are entirely ignorant of the potent effects which they thus produce. To produce good effects, the prayer must be uttered by “one who knows how to make himself heard in silence,” when it is no longer a prayer but becomes a command. Why is Jesus shown to have forbidden his hearers to go to the public synagogues? Surely every praying man was not a hypocrite and a liar, nor a Pharisee who loved to be seen praying by people! He had a motive we must suppose: the same motive which prompts the experienced Occultist to prevent his pupils from going into crowded places now as then, from entering churches, séance-rooms, etc., unless they are in sympathy with the crowd.

There is one piece of advice to be given to beginners who cannot help going into crowds––one which may appear superstitious but which in the absence of occult knowledge will be found efficacious. As well known to good astrologers, the days of the week are not in the order of those planets whose names they bear. The fact is that the ancient Hindus and Egyptians divided the day into four parts, each day being under the protection (as ascertained by practical magic) of a planet; and every day, as correctly asserted by Dion Cassius, received the name of the planet which ruled and protected its first portion. Let the student protect himself from the “Powers of the Air” (Elementals) which throng public places, by wearing either a ring containing some jewel of the color of the presiding planet, or else of the metal sacred to it. But the best protection is a clear conscience and a firm desire of benefiting Humanity.

536

THE PLANETS, THE DAYS OF THE WEEK, AND THEIR CORRESPONDING COLORS AND METALS

In the accompanying Diagram II, the days of the week do not stand in their usual order, though they are placed in their correct sequence as determined by the order of the colors in the solar spectrum and the corresponding colors of their ruling planets. The fault of the confusion in the order of the days revealed by this comparison lies at the door of the early Christians. Adopting from the Jews their lunar months, they tried to blend them with the solar planets, and so made a mess of it; for the order of the days of the week, as it now stands does not follow the order of the planets.

Now the ancients arranged the planets in the following order: Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, counting the Sun as a planet for exoteric purposes. Again, the Egyptians and Indians, the two oldest nations, divided their day into four parts, each of which was under the protection and rule of a planet. In course of time each day came to be called by the name of that planet which ruled its first portion––the morning. Now, when they arranged their week, the Christians proceeded as follows: they wanted to make the day of the Sun or Sunday, the seventh, so they named the days of the week by taking every fourth planet in turn, e.g., beginning with the Moon (Monday), they counted thus. Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars: thus Tuesday, the day whose first portion was ruled by Mars, became the second of the week; and so on. It should be remembered also that the Moon, like the Sun, is a substitute for a secret planet.

The present division of the solar year was made several centuries later than the beginning of our era; and our week is not that of the ancients and the Occultists. The septenary division of the four parts of the lunar phases is as old as the world, and originated with the people who reckoned time by the lunar months. The Hebrews never used it, for they counted only the seventh day, the Sabbath, though the second chapter of Genesis seems to speak of it. Till the days of the Caesars there is no trace of a week of seven days among any nation save the Hindus. From India it passed to the Arabs, and reached Europe with Christianity. The Roman week consisted of eight days, and the Athenian of ten. Thus one of the numberless contradictions and fallacies of Christendom is the adoption of the Indian septenary week of the lunar reckoning and the preservation at the same time of the mythological names of the planets.

537 Nor do modern Astrologers give the correspondences of the days and planets and their colors correctly; and while Occultists can give good reason for every detail of their own tables of colors, etc., it is doubtful whether the Astrologers can do the same.

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To close this first Instruction let me say that those who have honored me with their confidence by taking the pledge must in all necessity be separated into two broad divisions; those who have not quite rid themselves of the usual sceptical doubts, but who long to ascertain how much truth there may be in the claims of the Occultist; and those others who, having freed themselves from the trammels of materialism and relativity, feel that true and real bliss must be sought only in the knowledge and personal experience of that which the Hindu philosopher calls the Brahma-Vidya, and the Buddhist Arhat the realization of Adi-budha, the primeval Wisdom. Let the former pick out and study from the Instructions only those explanations of the phenomena of life which profane science is unable to give them. Even with such limitations, they will find by the end of a year or two that they will have learned more than all their universities and colleges can teach them. As to the sincere believers, they will be rewarded by seeing their faith transformed into knowledge. True knowledge is of Spirit and in Spirit alone, and cannot be acquired in any other way except through the reign of the higher mind, the only plane from which we can penetrate the depths of the all-pervading Absoluteness. He who carries out only those laws established by human minds, who lives that life which is prescribed by the code of mortals and their fallible legislation, chooses as his guiding star a beacon which shines on the ocean of Maya, or temporary delusions, and lasts for but one incarnation. These laws are necessary for the life and welfare of physical man alone. He has chosen a pilot who directs him through the shoals of one existence, a master who parts with him, however, on the threshold of death. How much happier that man who, while strictly performing on the temporary objective plane the duties of daily life, carrying out each and every law of his country, and rendering, in short, to Caesar what is Caesar’s, leads in reality a spiritual and permanent existence, a life with no breaks of continuity, no gaps, no interludes, not even those periods which are the halting places of the long pilgrimage of purely spiritual life. All the phenomena of the lower human mind disappear like the curtain of a proscenium, allowing him to live in the region beyond it, the plane of the noumenal, the one reality. If man by suppressing, if not destroying, his selfishness and personality, only succeeds in knowing himself as he is behind the veil 538of physical Maya, he will soon stand beyond all pain, all misery, and beyond all the wear and tear of change, which is the chief originator of pain. Such a man will be physically of matter, he will move surrounded by matter, and yet he will live beyond and outside it. His body will be subject to change, but he himself will be entirely without it, and will experience everlasting life even while in temporary bodies of short duration. All this may he achieved by the development of unselfish universal love of Humanity, and the suppression of personality, or selfishness, which is the cause of all sin, and consequently of all human sorrow.

H.P.B.∴

AUM

–––––––

[Excerpt from G. de Purucker’s Fountain-Source of Occultism, pp. 240-43]

“Even the ordinary five senses that we have today are still imperfectly evolved. Each one is progressively growing more subtle, more capable of interpreting, through itself as a channel to the indwelling consciousness, the nature and functions of the universe outside. Remember that man is a stream of consciousness working in vehicles and building in those vehicles appropriate chambers and dwellings, doors and windows, so to speak, for manifesting its own powers and for receiving withinwards from the outside world the stimuli and the reactions which nature obliges it to receive.

“Five senses hitherto have manifested themselves more or less perfectly; and they have been derived in the following order: first, hearing from âkâúa or aether; next, touch from vâyu or air; then, sight from fire or rather light, called tejas or taijasa; fourth, taste from âpas or water; fifth and last, smell from earth or prithivî. Of all these, taste is the grossest and most material; but the faculty of smell and its reactions upon the stream of consciousness are even worse than those of taste. Two more senses will develop in us and express themselves with an appropriate physical apparatus before the manvantara of this present round on this globe has run its course. All these senses are functions of the indwelling consciousness.

“From the Middle Ages on, in a minor cycle, we have been moving up out of the prithivî-tattwa, successively into the water or âpas-tattwa, 539into the air or vâyu-tattwa, then into the fire or taijasa-tattwa, and now we are entering gently, slowly, into the aether or âkâúa-tattwa––very imperfectly it is true, mere forecasting of what will happen in the seventh race; still we have been and are passing through small cycles of all these, and inventions correspond. Human productions keep pace; and it will all depend upon man’s genius whether these new discoveries be used for the purpose of heaven or hell. If for the latter, we shall go down, stifled and choked in our own evil effluvia. If they are used for purposes of beneficence, the whole of mankind will advance. The signs are all around us of a changing era, with the incoming of a new tide in human affairs.

“After the downfall of the Roman Empire, men lived for the most part on land, in the prithivî -tattwa, scarcely going to sea at all. Then they began to travel more extensively and with greater cleverness over the waters––the âpas-tattwa coming to the fore. Next they started to use steam (vapor, ‘air,’ gas)––the vayu-element; in later centuries taking to the air itself. Now with a rushing towards a culmination of airy experience, out of the air they are entering the more subtle tattwas. They are using, ever more extensively, fire (the taijasa-element), electricity, explosives, including all the various kinds of igneous horrors––connected with the air because rising out of it. Finally ether (âkâúa) is manifesting in the works of man as evidenced by wireless and the radio, etc. All of this shows that there are small cycles within greater cycles, repeating in general outline the processes of the greater ones.

“The two future senses are almost impossible to describe, because the one following the present fifth, smell, has not yet even manifested its presence, except by an occasional instinct of its functioning. It will partake somewhat of the nature of the faculty or sense belonging to touch; but instead of being physical touch, it will be an interior sense, and the intuition of it, or the instinct of it, is occasionally found even among men today––shadows of coming events. Just as touch contacts the outer world, so will these two other senses on the ascending arc be on the same respective planes as hearing and touch; but, because they will exist in a more evolved entity, they will manifest themselves at first through an interior physical organ. An intimation of the sixth sense is what we call hunches that such a thing is right or wrong, or the thing to do or not to do. This is not intuition, however, for it is lower than intuition: it is a hunch or a feeling of things that are coming. It might in one sense be spoken of as a form of clairvoyance.

“And the seventh sense, corresponding to hearing on the physical plane, will also be an âkâúic development. It will be the last sense to be brought forth by evolution in the physical body of man, and therefore will express an interior faculty, which will be awakened by contact 540with the lowest grades of the âkâúa. The nearest approach that we can arrive at as to what this faculty will be, leaving aside the nature and locality of the organ through which it will work, is intuition, fully developed as far as it can be on this planet in this manvantara: instant, always ready, functioning regularly, to be stopped or used at will.

“Every faculty of sense, and therefore every sense organ as its expression in the body, is a faculty of our stream of consciousness; and no sense faculty can appear in evolution, and consequently no sense organ can show itself in the body, until that portion of the stream of consciousness has equivalently expressed itself. The Atlanteans, for instance, had in their beginning but an instinct of what smell is. They used this faculty almost unconsciously, even as men today are using the sixth sense and the sixth faculty almost unconsciously, and only occasionally are vaguely aware of it and say, “I had a hunch.” The faculty passes from the invisible into the visible and creates for itself its appropriate organ, which develops exactly as the inner faculty evolves on its own plane.

“It might be as well to add a few words here about the guas, because they are sometimes confused with the cosmic essences or tattwas. The guas or ‘qualities,’ commonly enumerated as sattva, rajas and tamas, are the three fundamental and universally potent modes of consciousness of the armies of beings which make the universe. From sattva flow forth the other two modes of consciousness, rajas or activity, and tamas or inactivity, generally speaking. Now the union of these two qualities, which do not neutralize each other but combine to form something superior to either, is what is meant by sattva––that which is ‘real.’ It is the condition in which the high gods live.

“When the universe is in manvantaric manifestation, it is the rajas quality which predominates, although of course the tamas and likewise the sattva are both present. When the universe is in pralaya with the unending peace and quiet that then prevail, the predominating quality is highest tamas, yet rajas is present, albeit relatively latent. Thus in the Vedas as well as in the Laws of Manu it is stated that before manifestation begins the universe is in the tamas condition, in utter repose. Of course the highest principles of the universe are then in the sattva quality, while the rajas quality during pralaya is dormant.

“Hindu philosophy in connection with its Trimurti or triad of Brahma-Vishu-Śiva, usually ascribes the sattva gua or characteristic to Brahma; the quality of rajas to Vishu; and the quality of tamas to Śiva. Yet in both manvantara and pralaya the sattva quality runs throughout all. Thus the gods while eternally active are nevertheless 541peaceful because filled with wisdom, and their motions are effortless activity, and their actions are wondrously quiet and undisturbed.

“Furthermore, every one of the guas––because the universe is fundamentally one, and all things in it are interblended and interacting––is itself threefold, otherwise we should have each of these three universal qualities existing absolutely separate and distinct from the other two, and this would make three absolutes. They are not absolutes, but all three are relative; and both rajas and tamas, when united and balancing each other without loss of individuality in either, manifest the presence of their common originant, sattva.

“It has been customary among some Orientalists, who do not understand the esoteric meaning of these gunas, to speak of the tamas as being only sloth, darkness, evil, but this is quite wrong; for there is a sattva-tamas as well as a tamas-tamas; and the same type of observation may be made with regard to both the rajas and the sattva character or guna.

“Thus it is that every one of the cosmic essences or tattwas is marked by the presence and inherent activity of the three gunas, each one acting in conjunction with the other twain. It should be the endeavor of all men to bring forth the sattva quality especially, for this means that instead of the frequent unbalance or bias of either rajas or tamas, both these qualities are in balance in the character and cooperating.”

Footnotes

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