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The Plate shows, moreover, Buddhi, the yellow semi-disc, serving as a vehicle to that Paramâtmic shadow, to be universal, and so also is the human Âtman, the Sun or white sphere above Buddhi. Within the blue Auric Egg we find the orange macrocosmic pentacle of LIFE, Prâna, containing within itself the (red) pentagram which represents man. Have you noticed that while the universal pentacle has its point soaring upwards (the sign of White Magic), in the human red pentacle it is the lower points which are upward, forming the “Horns of Satan,” as the Christian Kabalists call it? This is the symbol of matter, that of personal man, and the recognized pentacle of the black magician. For the red pentacle does not stand only for Kâma, the fifth principle exoterically, but is made also to represent physical man, the animal of flesh with its desires and passions. So far, I have given you only one of its explanations, namely, that which refers to human and not to macrocosmic principles. The orange pentacle may be taken for both the universe and man; but for the present we shall consider the latter only.
The Plate shows, moreover, Buddhi, the yellow semi-disc, serving as a vehicle to that Paramâtmic shadow, to be universal, and so also is the human Âtman, the Sun or white sphere above Buddhi. Within the blue Auric Egg we find the orange macrocosmic pentacle of LIFE, Prâna, containing within itself the (red) pentagram which represents man. Have you noticed that while the universal pentacle has its point soaring upwards (the sign of White Magic), in the human red pentacle it is the lower points which are upward, forming the “Horns of Satan,” as the Christian Kabalists call it? This is the symbol of matter, that of personal man, and the recognized pentacle of the black magician. For the red pentacle does not stand only for Kâma, the fifth principle exoterically, but is made also to represent physical man, the animal of flesh with its desires and passions. So far, I have given you only one of its explanations, namely, that which refers to human and not to macrocosmic principles. The orange pentacle may be taken for both the universe and man; but for the present we shall consider the latter only.
Now, mark well, in order to understand that which follows, that the upper (indigo blue) Manas is connected with the lower (green) Manas by a thin line which binds the two together. This is the Antaskarana, that path or bridge of communication which serves as a link between the personal being whose physical brain is under the sway of the lower (animal) mind, and the reincarnating Individuality, the spiritual Ego, Manas-Manu, the “Divine Man.” This thinking Manu, therefore, is that which alone reincarnates. In truth and in nature, the two Minds (the spiritual and the physical or animal) are one, but separate at reincarnation. For, while that portion of the divine which goes to animate consciously the personality, separating itself, like a dense but {{Page aside|624}}
Now, mark well, in order to understand that which follows, that the upper (indigo blue) Manas is connected with the lower (green) Manas by a thin line which binds the two together. This is the Antaskarana, that path or bridge of communication which serves as a link between the personal being whose physical brain is under the sway of the lower (animal) mind, and the reincarnating Individuality, the spiritual Ego, Manas-Manu, the “Divine Man.” This thinking Manu, therefore, is that which alone reincarnates. In truth and in nature, the two Minds (the spiritual and the physical or animal) are one, but separate at reincarnation. For, while that portion of the divine which goes to animate consciously the personality, separating itself, like a dense but {{Page aside|624}}pure shadow, from the divine Ego,<ref>The essence of the divine Ego is “pure flame,” an entity to which nothing can be added and from which nothing can be taken, it cannot, therefore be diminished even by countless numbers of lower minds, detached from it like flames from a Flame. This is in answer to an objection by an Esotericist who asked whence was that inexhaustible essence of one and the same Individuality which was called upon to furnish a human intellect for every new personality in which it incarnated.</ref> wedges itself into the brain and senses<ref>The brain, or thinking machinery, is not only in the head and skull, but, as every physiologist who is not quite a materialist, will tell you, every organ in man, heart, liver, lungs, etc., down to every nerve and muscle, has, so to speak, its own distinct brain, or thinking apparatus. As our brain has naught to do in the guidance of the collective and individual work of every organ in us, what is that which guides each so unerringly in its incessant functions, that makes these struggle and that too with disease, throw it off and act, each of them even to the smallest not in a clock-work manner, as alleged by some materialists (for, at the slightest disturbance or breakage the clock stops), but as an entity endowed with instinct? To say that it is Nature is to say nothing, if not a fallacy; for Nature, after all, is but a name for these very same functions, the sum of the qualities and attributes, physical, mental, etc., in the universe and man, the total of agencies and forces guided by intelligent laws.</ref> of the uterine babe (at the completion of its seventh month), the Higher Manas does not unite itself with the child before the completion of the first seven years of its life. This detached essence, or rather the reflection or shadow of the Higher Manas, becomes, as the child grows, a distinct thinking principle in man, its chief agent being the physical brain. No wonder the materialists who perceive only this “rational soul,” or mind, will not disconnect it with the brain and matter. But occult philosophy has evolved [solved?], ages ago, the problem of mind, and discovered the duality of Manas. Look at the Plate; see the divine Ego tending with its point upwards towards Buddhi, and the human Ego gravitating downwards, immersed in matter and connected with its higher, subjective half only by that Antaskarana. You will remember the name, as it is the connecting link during life between the two minds––the higher consciousness of the Ego and the human intelligence of the lower mind.
To understand this abstruse metaphysical doctrine fully and correctly, one has to be thoroughly impressed with an idea, which I have in vain endeavored to impart to Theosophists at large, namely, the great axiomatic truth that the only eternal and living reality is that which the Hindus call Paramâtman and Parabrahman. This is the one ever-existing Root-Essence, immutable and unknowable to our physical senses, but manifest and clearly perceptible to our spiritual natures. Once imbued with that basic idea and the further conception that if it is omnipresent, universal and eternal, like abstract Space itself, we must have emanated from it and must, some day, return into it, and all the rest becomes easy.
{{Page aside|625}}
If so, then it stands to reason that life and death, good and evil, past and future, are all empty words, or, at best, figures of speech. If the objective universe itself is but a passing illusion on account of its beginning and finitude, then both life and death must also be aspects and illusions. They are changes of state, in fact, and no more. Real life is in the spiritual consciousness of that life, in a conscious existence in Spirit, not Matter; and real death is the limited perception of life, the impossibility of sensing conscious or even individual existence outside of form, or, at least, of some form of matter. Those who sincerely reject the possibility of conscious life divorced from substance, and a brain––are dead units. The words of Paul, an Initiate, become comprehensible. “Ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God,” which is to say: Ye are personally dead matter, unconscious of its own spiritual essence, and your real life is hid with your divine Ego (Christos) in, or merged with, God (Âtman); now it has departed from you, soulless people.<ref>Colossians, iii. 3.</ref> Speaking on esoteric lines, every irrevocably materialistic person is a dead MAN, a living automaton, in spite of his being endowed with great brain power. Listen to what Âryâsanga says, stating the same fact:
“That which is neither Spirit nor Matter, neither Light nor Darkness, but is verily the container and root of these, that thou art. The Root projects at every Dawn its shadow on ITSELF, and that shadow thou callest Light and Life, O poor dead Form. (This) Life-Light streameth downward through the stair of the seven worlds, the stair, of which each step becomes denser and darker. It is of this seven-times-seven scale that thou art the faithful climber and mirror, O little man! Thou art this, but thou knowest it not.”
This is the first lesson to learn. The second is to study well and know the principles of both the Kosmos and ourselves, dividing the group into the permanent and impermanent, the higher and immortal, and the lower and mortal; for thus only can we master and guide the lower cosmic and personal, then the higher cosmic and impersonal.
Once we can do that, we have secured our immortality. But some may say: “How few are those who can do so! All such are great Adepts, and none can reach such Adeptship in one short life.” Agreed; but there is an alternative. “If Sun thou canst not be, then be the humble Planet,” says the Book of the Golden Precepts. And if even that is beyond our reach, then let us at least endeavor to keep within the ray of some lesser star, so that its silvery light may penetrate the murky darkness, through which the stony path of life trends onward; for without this divine radiance one risks losing more than he imagines.
With regard, then, to “soulless” men and the “second death” of the “Soul,” mentioned in Isis Unveiled,<ref>Vol. II, pp. 367-70.</ref> you will there find that I have {{Page aside|626}}spoken of such soulless people, and even of Avichi, though I leave the latter unnamed. Read from the last paragraph on page 367 to the end of the first paragraph on page 370, and then collate what is there said with what I have now to say.
The higher triad, Âtma-Buddhi-Manas, may be recognized from the first lines of the quotation from the Egyptian papyrus. In the Ritual (now the Book of the Dead), the purified Soul (the dual Manas) appears as “the victim of the dark influence of the Dragon Apophis” (the physical personality of Kâma-Rûpic man, with his passions). If it has attained the final knowledge of the heavenly and the infernal mysteries, the Gnôsis––the divine and terrestrial mysteries of White and Black Magic––then the defunct personality “will triumph over its enemy”––death. This alludes to the case of a complete reunion, at the end of earth life, of the Ego with its lower Manas, full of “the ‘harvest’ of life.” But if “Apophis” conquers the “Soul,” then it “cannot escape its second death.”
These few lines from a papyrus, many thousands of years old, contain a whole revelation, known, in those days, only to the Hierophants and the Initiates. The “harvest of life” consists of the finest spiritual ideations, of the memory of the noblest and most unselfish deeds of the personality, and the constant presence during its bliss after death of all those it loved with divine, spiritual devotion.<ref>See The Key to Theosophy, pp. 147 et seq.</ref> Remember the teaching: The human soul (lower Manas) is the only and direct mediator between the personality and the divine Ego. That which goes to make up on this earth the personality (miscalled by us individuality) is the sum of all its mental, physical and spiritual characteristic traits, which, being impressed on the human soul, produces the man. Now, of all these characteristics it is the purified ideations alone which can be impressed on the higher immortal Ego. This is done by the “human soul” merging again, in its essence, into its parent source, commingling with its divine Ego during life, and reuniting itself entirely with it after the death of the physical man. Therefore unless Kâma-Manas transmits to Buddhi-Manas such personal ideations, and such consciousness of its “I” as can be assimilated by the divine EGO, nothing of that “I” or personality can survive in the Eternal. Only that which is worthy of the immortal God within us, and identical in its nature with the divine quintessence, can survive; for in this case it is its own, the divine Ego’s, “shadows” or emanations which ascend to it and are indrawn by it into itself again, to become once more part of its own Essence. No noble thought, no grand aspiration, desire, or divine immortal love, can come into the brain of the man of clay and settle there, except as {{Page aside|627}}a direct emanation from the higher to, and through, the lower Ego; all the rest, intellectual as it may seem, proceeds from the “shadow,” the lower mind, in its association and commingling with Kâma, and passes away and disappears forever. But the mental and spiritual ideations of the personal “I” return to it, as parts of the Ego’s essence, and can never fade out. Thus of the personality that was, only its spiritual experiences, the memory of all that is good and noble, with the consciousness of its “I,” blended with that of all the other personal “I’s” that preceded it––survive and become immortal. There is no distinct or separate immortality for the men of earth outside of the EGO which informed them. That Higher Ego is the sole Bearer of all its alter Egos on earth and their sole representative in the mental state called Devachan. As the last disembodied personality, however, has a right to its own special state of bliss, unalloyed and free from the memories of all others, it is the last life only which is fully realistically vivid. Devachan is often compared to the happiest day in a series of many thousands of other “days” in the life of a person. The intensity of its happiness makes the man forget entirely all others, his past becomes obliterated.
This is what we call the Devachanic State and the reward of the personality, and it is on this old teaching that the hazy Christian notion of “Paradise” was built, borrowed with many other things from the Egyptian Mysteries, wherein the doctrine was enacted. And this is the meaning of the passage quoted in Isis. The Soul has triumphed over Apophis, the Dragon of Flesh. Henceforth, the personality will live in eternity, in its highest and noblest elements, the memory of its past deeds, while the “characteristics” of the “Dragon” will be fading out in Kâma-Loka. If the question is asked, “How live in eternity, when Devachan lasts but from 1000 to 2000 years?” the answer is: “In the same way as the memory of each day which is worth remembering lives in the memory of each one of us.” For the sake of an example, the days passed in one personal life may be taken by us as an illustration of each personal life, and this or that person may stand for the divine Ego.
To obtain the key which will open the door of many a psychological mystery it is sufficient to understand and remember that which precedes and that which follows. Many a Spiritualist has felt terribly indignant on being told that personal immortality was conditional, and yet such is the philosophical and logical fact. Much has been said already on the subject, but no one to this day seems to have understood the doctrine. Moreover, it is not enough to know that such a fact is said to exist. An Occultist, or he who would become one, must know why it is so; for having learned and comprehended the raison d’être, {{Page aside|628}}it becomes easier to set others right in their erroneous speculations, and, most important of all, it affords you an opportunity, without saying too much, to teach other people to avoid a calamity which, sad to say, occurs in our age almost daily. This calamity will now be explained at length.
One must know little indeed of the Eastern modes of expression to fail to see in the passage quoted from the Book of the Dead, and the pages of Isis referred to: (a) an allegory for the uninitiated, containing our esoteric teaching; and (b) that the two terms, “second death” and “soul,” are, in one sense, blinds. “Soul” refers indifferently to Buddhi Manas and Kâma-Manas. As to the term “second death,” the qualification “second” applies to several deaths which have to be undergone by the “principles” during their incarnation, Occultists alone understanding fully the sense in which such a statement is made. For we have: (1) the death of the body; (2) the death of the Animal Soul in Kâma-Loka; (3) the death of the Astral (Linga-Śarîra), following that of the Body; (4) the metaphysical death of the Higher Ego, the immortal, every time it “falls into matter,” or incarnates in a new personality. The Animal Soul, or Lower Manas, that shadow of the divine Ego which separates from it to inform the personality (the details of which process will now be given), cannot by any possible means escape death in Kâma-Loka, at any rate that portion of this reflection which remains as a terrestrial residue and cannot be impressed on the Ego. Thus the chief and most important secret with regard to that “second death,” in the esoteric teaching, was and is to this day the terrible possibility of the death of the Soul, that is, its severance from the Ego on earth during a person’s lifetime. This is a real death (though with chances of resurrection), which shows no traces in a person and yet leaves him morally a living corpse. It is difficult to see why this teaching should have been preserved until now with such secrecy, when, by spreading it among people, at any rate among those who believe in reincarnation, so much good might be done. But so it was, and I had no right to question the wisdom of the prohibition, but have given it hitherto, as it was given to myself, under pledge not to reveal it to the world at large. But now I have permission to give it to all, revealing its tenets first to the Esotericists; and then when they have assimilated them thoroughly, it will be their duty to teach others this special tenet of the “second death,” and warn all the Theosophists of its dangers. The pledge of secrecy, therefore, will no longer extend over this one solitary article of the esoteric creed.
To make the teaching clearer, I shall seemingly have to go over old ground; in reality, however, it is given out with new light and new {{Page aside|629}}details. I have tried to hint at it in The Theosophist as I have done in Isis, but have failed to make myself understood. I will now explain it, point by point.
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<center><big>'''THE PHILOSOPHICAL RATIONALE OF THE TENET'''</big></center>
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(1) Imagine, for illustration’s sake, the one homogeneous, absolute and omnipresent Essence, above the upper step of the “stair of the seven planes of worlds,” ready to start on its evolutionary journey. As its correlating reflection gradually descends, it differentiates and transforms into subjective, and finally into objective matter. Let us call it at its north pole Absolute Light; at its south pole (which to us would be the fourth or middle step, or plane, counting either way) we know it esoterically as the One and Universal Life. Now mark the difference. Above, LIGHT; below, Life. The former is ever immutable; the latter manifests under the aspects of countless differentiations. According to the occult law, all potentialities included in the higher become differentiated reflections in the lower; and according to the same law, nothing which is differentiated can be blended with the homogeneous.
Nor can anything endure of that which lives and breathes and has its being in the seething waves of the world, or plane of differentiation. Thus, Buddhi and Manas being both primordial rays of the One Flame––the former the vehicle (upâdhi or vâhana), of the one eternal Essence, the latter the vehicle of Mahat or Divine Ideation (Mahâ-Buddhi in the Purânas), the Universal Intelligent Soul––neither of them, as such, can become extinct or be annihilated, either in essence or consciousness. But the physical personality, with its Linga-Śarîra, and the animal soul with its Kâma,<ref>Kâma-Rûpa, the vehicle of the Lower Manas, is said to dwell in the physical brain, in the five physical senses and in all the sense organs of the physical body.</ref> can and do become so. They are born in the realm of illusion, and must vanish like a fleecy cloud from the blue and eternal sky.
He who has read The Secret Doctrine with any degree of attention, must know the origin of the human Egos, called generically Monads, and what they were before they were forced to incarnate in the human animal. The divine beings whom Karma led to act in the drama of Manvantaric life, are entities from higher and earlier worlds and planets, whose Karma had not been exhausted when their world went into Pralaya. Such is the teaching; but whether it is so or not, the Higher Egos are––as compared to such forms of transitory, terrestrial mud as ourselves––Divine Beings, Gods, immortal throughout the Mahâmanvantara, or the 311,040,000,000,000 years during which the {{Page aside|630}}Age of Brahmâ lasts. And as the Divine Egos, in order to re-become the One Essence, or be indrawn again into the Universal AUM, have to purify themselves in the fire of suffering and individual experience, so also have the terrestrial Egos, the personalities, to do likewise, if they would partake of the immortality of the Higher Egos. This they can achieve by crushing in themselves all that benefits the lower personal nature of their “selves” and by aspiring to transfuse their thinking Kâmic principle into that of the Higher Ego. We (i.e., our personalities) become immortal by the mere fact of our thinking, moral nature, being grafted on our divine triune Monad (Âtma-Buddhi-Manas), the three in one and one in three (aspects). For the Monad manifested on earth by the incarnating Ego is that which is called the Tree of Life Eternal, that can only be approached by eating the fruit of Knowledge, the Knowledge of Good and Evil, or of GNÔSIS, Divine Wisdom.
In the exoteric teachings, this Ego is the fifth principle in man. But the student who has read and understood the first two Instructions, knows something more. He is aware that the seventh is not a human, but a universal principle in which Man participates; but so does equally every physical and subjective atom, and also every blade of grass and everything that lives or is in Space, whether it is sensible of it or not. He knows, moreover, that if man is more closely connected with it, and assimilates it with a hundredfold more power, it is simply because he is endowed with the highest consciousness on this earth; that man, in short, may become a Spirit, a Deva or a God in his next transformation, whereas neither a stone nor a vegetable, nor an animal can do so before they become men in their proper turn.
(2) Now what are the functions of Buddhi? On this plane it has none, unless it is united with Manas, the Conscious Ego. Buddhi stands to the divine Root-Essence in the same relation as Mûlaprakriti to Parabrahman, in the Vedânta School; or as Alaya, the Universal Soul, to the One Eternal Spirit, or that which is beyond Spirit. It is its human vehicle, one remove from that Absolute which can have no relation whatever to the finite and the conditioned.
(3) What again is Manas and its functions? In its purely metaphysical aspect, Manas, being again one remove (on the downward plane) from Buddhi, is still so immeasurably higher than the physical man, that it cannot enter into direct relation with the personality, except through its reflection, the lower mind. Manas is Spiritual Self-Consciousness, in itself, and Divine Consciousness when united with Buddhi, which is the true “producer” of that “production” (vikâra), or Self Consciousness, through Mahat. Buddhi-Manas, therefore, is entirely unfit to manifest during its periodical incarnations, except through the human mind, or lower Manas. Both are linked together and are inseparable, {{Page aside|631}}and can have as little to do with the lower Tanmâtras<ref>Tanmâtra means subtile and rudimentary form, the gross type of the finer elements. The five Tanmâtras are really the characteristic properties or qualities of matter, as of all the elements; the real spirit of the word is “something” or “merely transcendental,” in the sense of properties or qualities.</ref> (rudimentary atoms) as the homogeneous with the heterogeneous. It is, therefore, the task of the lower Manas, or thinking personality, if it would blend itself with its God, the divine Ego, to dissipate and paralyze the Tanmâtras, or properties of the material form. Therefore, Manas is shown double, as the Ego and Mind of Man. It is Kâma-Manas, or the lower Ego, which, deluded into a notion of independent existence, as the “producer” in its turn and the Sovereign of the five Tanmâtras, becomes Ego-ism, the selfish Self, in which case it has to be considered as Mahâbhûtic and finite, in the sense of its being connected with Ahamkâra, the personal “I-creating” faculty. Hence “Manas has to be regarded as eternal and non-eternal; eternal in its atomic nature (paramanu-rûpa), as eternal substance (dravya), finite (kârya-rûpa), when linked as a duad with Kâma (animal desire or human egoistic volition), a lower production, in short.” In this I do but repeat what I wrote in August, 1883, in answer to a critic in The Theosophist, in an article called “The Real and the Unreal.”<ref>The Theosophist, Vol. IV, August, 1883: “The Real and the Unreal,” p. 268 footnote. [Cf. Collected Writings, Vol. V, p. 80 footnote.]</ref> While, therefore, the INDIVIDUAL EGO, owing to its essence and nature, is immortal throughout eternity, with a form (rûpa) which prevails during the whole lifecycle of the Fourth Round, its Sosie, or resemblance, the personal Ego, has to win its immortality.
(4) Antaskarana is the name of that imaginary bridge, the path which lies between the divine and the human Egos, for they are Egos, during human life, to re-become one Ego in Devachan or Nirvâna. This may seem difficult to understand, but in reality, with the help of a familiar though fanciful illustration, it becomes quite simple. Let us figure to ourselves a bright lamp in the middle of a room, casting its light upon the solid plaster wall. Let the lamp represent the divine Ego, and the light thrown on the wall the lower Manas, and let the wall stand for the body. The atmosphere which transmits the ray from the lamp to the wall, will then in our simile represent the Antaskarana. We must further suppose that the light thus transmitted is endowed with reason and intelligence, and possesses, morever, the faculty of dissipating all the evil shadows which pass across the wall, and of attracting brightness to itself, receiving their indelible impressions. Now, it is in the power of the human Ego to chase away the shadows (sins) and multiply the brightness (good deeds) which make these impressions, {{Page aside|632}}and thus, through Antaskarana, ensure its own permanent connection, and its final reunion with the divine Ego. Remember that the latter cannot take place while there remains a single taint of the terrestrial, or of matter, in the purity of that light. On the other hand, the connection can never be ruptured, and final reunion prevented, so long as there remains one spiritual deed, or potentiality, to serve as a thread of union; but the moment this last spark is extinguished, and the last potentiality exhausted, then comes the severence. In an Eastern parable the divine Ego is likened to the Master who sends out his laborers to till the ground and to gather in the harvest, and who is content to keep the field so long as it can yield even the smallest return. But when the ground becomes actually sterile, not only is it abandoned, but the laborer also (the lower Manas) perishes.
On the other hand, however, still using our simile, when the light thrown on the wall, or the rational human Ego, reaches the point of actual spiritual exhaustion, the Antaskarana disappears, the light is no longer transmitted, and the lamp becomes non-existent to it. The light which has been absorbed gradually disappears and “soul-eclipse” occurs; the being lives on earth and then passes into Kâma-Loka as a mere surviving congeries of material qualities; it can never pass outwards towards Devachan, but is reborn immediately, a human animal and scourge. Let “Jack the Ripper” stand as a type.
This simile, however fantastic, will help one to seize the correct idea. Except through the blending of the moral nature with the divine Ego, there is no immortality for the personal Ego. It is only that which is akin to the most spiritual emanations of the personal human soul which survives. Having, during a lifetime, been imbued with the notion and feeling of the “I-am-I” of its personality, the human soul, the bearer of the very essence of the Karmic deeds of the physical man, becomes, after the death of the latter, part and parcel of the divine Flame (the Ego). It becomes immortal through the mere fact that it is now strongly grafted on the Monad, which is the “Tree of Life Eternal.”
And now we must speak of the tenet of the “second death.” What happens to the Kâmic human soul, always that of a debased and wicked man or of a soulless person? This mystery will now be explained.
The personal “soul” in this case––viz. in that of one who has never a thought unconnected with the animal self, having nothing to transmit to the Higher, or to add to the sum of the experiences from past incarnations which its memory is to preserve throughout eternity––this personal soul becomes separated from the Ego. It can graft nothing of Self on that eternal trunk whose sap throws out millions of personalities, like so many leaves from its branches, leaves which wither and die and fall at the end of their season. These personalities bud, blossom forth {{Page aside|633}}and expire, some without leaving a trace behind, others after commingling their own life with that of the parent stem. It is the “souls” of the former class that are doomed to annihilation, or Avichi, a state so incorrectly understood and still worse described by some Theosophical writers, but which is in fact not only located on our earth, but is this very earth itself.
Thus we see that Antaskarana has been destroyed before the lower man had an opportunity of assimilating the Higher and becoming at one with it; and therefore the Kâmic “Soul” becomes a separate entity, to live henceforth––for a short or long period, according to its Karma––as a “soulless” creature.
But before I elaborate this question, I must explain more clearly the meaning and functions of the Antaskarana. As already said, it is represented in Plate I as a narrow strip connecting the Higher and the lower Manas. If you look at the Glossary of The Voice of the Silence, pp. 88 and 89, you will find that it is a projection of the lower Manas, or, rather, the link between the latter and the Higher Ego, or between the human and the divine or spiritual Soul.<ref>As the author of Esoteric Buddhism and The Occult World called Manas the Human Soul, and Buddhi the Spiritual Soul, I have left these terms unchanged in the Voice, seeing that it was a book intended for the public.</ref> “At death it is destroyed as a path, or medium of communication, and its remains survive as Kâma-Rûpa”––the “shell.” It is this which the Spiritualists see sometimes appearing in the séance rooms as materialized “forms,” which they foolishly mistake for the “Spirits of the Departed.”<ref>In the exoteric teachings of Râja-Yoga, Antaskarana is called the inner organ of perception, and is divided into four parts: the (lower) Manas, Buddhi (reason), Ahaˆkâra (personality), and Chitta (selfishness). It also, together with several other organs, forms a part of Jîva, Soul, called also Lingadeha. Esotericists, however, must not be misled by this popular version.</ref> So far is this from being the case, that in dreams, though Antaskarana is there, the personality is only half awake; therefore Antaskarana is said to be drunk or insane during our normal sleeping state. If such is the case during the periodical death (sleep), of the living body, one may judge of what the consciousness of Antaskarana becomes when it has been transformed after the “eternal sleep” into Kâma-Rûpa.
But to return. In order not to confuse the mind of the student with the abstruse difficulties of Indian metaphysics, let him view the lower Manas or Mind, as the personal Ego during the waking state, and as Antaskarana only during those moments when it aspires towards its higher half, and thus becomes the medium of communication between the two. It is for this reason that it is called “Path.” Now, when a limb or organ belonging to the human physical organism is left in disuse, it becomes weak and finally atrophies; so also is it with any {{Page aside|634}}mental faculty; hence the atrophy of the lower mind-function, called Antaskarana, becomes comprehensible in both completely materialistic natures and those of depraved people.
According to esoteric philosophy, however, the teaching is as follows. Seeing that the faculty and function of Antaskarana is as necessary as the medium of the ear for hearing, or that of the eye for seeing, so long as the feeling of Ahamkâra (of the personal “I” or selfishness) is not entirely crushed out in a man, and the lower mind not entirely merged into and become one with the Higher (Buddhi Manas), it stands to reason that to destroy Antaskarana is like destroying a bridge over an impassable chasm: the traveller can never reach the goal on the other shore. And here lies the difference between the exoteric and the esoteric teaching. The former makes Vedânta state that so long as Mind (the lower) clings through Antaskarana to Spirit (Buddhi-Manas), it is impossible for it to acquire true spiritual Wisdom, Jñâna, and that this can only be attained by seeking to come en rapport with the Universal Soul (Âtman); that, in fact, it is by ignoring the Higher Mind altogether that one reaches Râja-Yoga. We say that it is not so. No single rung of the ladder leading to knowledge can be skipped. No personality can ever reach or bring itself into communication with Âtman, except through Buddhi-Manas; to try and become a Jîvanmukta or a “Mahâtma,” before one has become an Adept or even a Naljor (a sinless man) is like trying to reach Ceylon from India without crossing the sea. Therefore we are told that if we destroy Antaskarana before the personal is absolutely under the control of the impersonal Ego, we risk to lose the latter and be severed forever from it, unless indeed we hasten to reëstablish the communication by a supreme and final effort.
It is only when we are indissolubly linked with the essence of the divine Mind, that we have to destroy Antaskarana. “Like as a solitary warrior pursued by an army, seeks refuge in a stronghold; to cut himself off from the enemy, he first destroys the drawbridge, and then only commences to destroy the pursuer; so must the Srotâpanna act before he slays Antaskarana.” Or, as an occult axiom has it: “The unit becomes three, and three generate four. It is for the latter (the quaternary) to rebecome three, and for the divine three to expand into the Absolute One.” Monads (which become duads on the differentiated plane, to develop into triads during the cycle of incarnations), even when incarnated, know neither Space nor Time, but are diffused through the lower principles of the quaternary, being omnipresent and omniscient in their nature. But this omniscience is innate, and can manifest its reflected light only through that which is at least semi-terrestrial or material; even as the physical brain which, in its turn, {{Page aside|635}}is the vehicle of the lower Manas enthroned in Kâma-Rûpa. And it is this which is gradually annihilated in cases of “second death.”
But such annihilation––which is in reality the absence of the slightest trace of the doomed soul from the eternal MEMORY, and therefore signifies annihilation in eternity––does not mean simply discontinuation of human life on earth, for earth is AVICHI, and the worst Avichi possible. Expelled forever from the consciousness of the Individuality (the reincarnating Ego), the physical atoms and psychic vibrations of the now separate personality are immediately reincarnated on the same earth, only in a lower and still more abject creature, a human being only in form, doomed to Karmic torments during the whole of its new life. Moreover, if it persists in its criminal or debauched course, it will suffer a long series of such immediate reincarnations.
Here two questions present themselves: (1) What becomes of the Higher Ego in such cases? (2) What kind of an animal is a human creature born soulless?
Before answering these two very natural queries, I have to draw the attention of all of you who are born in Christian countries to the fact that the romance of the vicarious atonement and mission of Jesus, as it now stands, was drawn or borrowed by some too liberal Initiates from the mysterious and weird tenet of the earthly experiences of the reincarnating Ego. The latter is indeed the sacrificial victim of, and through, his own Karma in previous Manvantaras, who takes upon himself voluntarily though unwillingly the duty of saving what would be otherwise soulless men or personalities. Eastern truth is thus more philosophical and logical than Western fiction. The Christos (Buddhi-Manas) of each man is not quite an innocent and sinless God, though in one sense it is the “Father,” being of the same essence with the Universal Spirit, and at the same time the “Son,” for Manas is the second remove from the “Father.” By incarnation the Divine Son makes himself responsible for the sins of all the personalities which he will inform. This he can do only through his proxy or reflection, the Lower Manas. This, then, is what happens when it has to break off from the personality. It is the only case in which the Divine Ego can escape individual penalty and responsibility as a guiding principle, because matter, with its psychic and astral vibrations, is then, by the very intensity of its combinations, placed beyond the control of the EGO. “Apophis, the Dragon,” having become the conqueror, the reincarnating Manas, separating itself gradually from its tabernacle, breaks finally asunder from the psycho-animal Soul.
Thus, in answer to the first question, I say:
(1) The Divine Ego does one of two things: either (a) it recommences immediately under its own Karmic impulses a fresh series of {{Page aside|636}}incarnations; or (b) it seeks and finds refuge in the “bosom of the Mother,” Alaya, the Universal Soul, of which the Manvantaric aspect is Mahat. Freed from the life impressions of the personality, it merges into a kind of interlude of Nirvana, wherein there can be nothing but the eternal Present, which absorbs the Past and Future. Bereft of the “laborer,” both field and harvest now being lost, the Master, in the infinitude of his thought, naturally preserves no recollection of the finite and evanescent illusion which had been his last personality. The latter, then, is indeed annihilated.
(2) The future of the Lower Manas is more terrible, and still more terrible to humanity than to the now animal man. It sometimes happens that after the separation the exhausted Soul, now become supremely animal, fades out in Kâma-Loka, as do all other animal souls. But seeing that the more material the human mind, the longer it lasts, in that intermediate stage, it frequently happens that after the actual life of the soulless man is ended, he is again and again reincarnated into new personalities, each one more abject than the other. The impulse of animal life is too strong; it cannot wear itself out in one or two lives only. In rarer cases, however, something far more dreadful may happen. When the lower Manas is doomed to exhaust itself by starvation; when there is no longer hope that even a remnant of a lower light will, owing to favorable conditions––say, even a short period of spiritual aspiration and repentance––attract back to itself its Parent Ego, then Karma leads the Higher Ego back to new incarnations. In this case the Kâma-Mânasic spook may become that which we call in Occultism the “Dweller on the Threshold.” This “Dweller” is not like that which is described so graphically in Zanoni, but an actual fact in nature and not a fiction in romance, however beautiful the latter may be. Bulwer must have got the idea from some Eastern Initiate. Our “Dweller,” led by affinity and attraction, forces itself into the astral current, and through the Auric Envelope of the new tabernacle inhabited by the Parent Ego, and declares war to the lower light which has replaced it. This, of course, can only happen in the case of the moral weakness of the personality so obsessed. No one strong in his virtue, and righteous in his walk of life, can risk or dread any such thing; but only those depraved in heart. Robert Louis Stevenson had a glimpse of a true vision indeed when he wrote his Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. His story is a true allegory. Every Chela would recognize in it a substratum of truth, and in Mr. Hyde a “Dweller,” an obsessor of the personality, the tabernacle of the “Parent Spirit.”
“This is a nightmare tale!” I was often told by one, now no more in our ranks, a person who had a most pronounced “Dweller,” a “Mr. Hyde,” as an almost constant companion. “How can such a process take {{Page aside|637}}place without one’s knowledge?” It can and does so happen, and I have almost described it once before in The Theosophist. “The Soul, the Lower Mind, becomes as a half animal principle almost paralyzed with daily vice, and grows gradually unconscious of its subjective half, the Lord, . . . one of the mighty Host”; and “in proportion to the rapid sensuous development of the brain and nerves, sooner or later, it (the personal Soul) finally loses sight of its divine mission on earth.” Truly, “like the vampire, the brain feeds and lives and grows in strength at the expense of its spiritual parent . . . and the personal half-unconscious Soul becomes senseless, beyond hope of redemption. It is powerless to discern the voice of its ‘God.’ It aims but at the development and fuller comprehension of natural, earthly life; and thus can discover but the mysteries of physical nature. . . . It begins by becoming virtually dead, during the life of the body; and ends by dying completely––that is, by being annihilated as a complete immortal Soul. Such a catastrophe may often happen long years before one’s physical death: ‘We elbow soulless men and women at every step in life.’ And, when death arrives . . . there is no more a Soul (the reincarnating Spiritual Ego) to liberate, . . . for it has fled years before.”
Result: Bereft of its guiding principles, but strengthened by the material elements, Kâma-Manas, from being a “derived light,” now becomes an independent Entity. After suffering itself to sink lower and lower on the animal plane, when the hour strikes for its earthly body to die, one of two things happens: either Kâma-Manas is immediately reborn in Myalba (the state of Avichi on earth),<ref>The Earth, or earth-life rather, is the only Avichi (Hell) that exists for the men of our humanity on this globe. Avichi is a state, not a locality––a counterpart of Devachan. Such a state follows the “Soul” wherever it goes, whether into Kâma-Loka, as a semi-conscious “spook” or into a human body, when reborn to suffer Avichi. Our philosophy recognizes no other Hell.</ref> or, if it become too strong in evil––“immortal in Satan” is the Occult expression––it is sometimes allowed, for Karmic purposes, to remain in an active state of Avichi in the terrestrial Aura. Then through despair and loss of all hope it becomes like the mythical “devil” in its endless wickedness; it continues in its elements, imbued through and through with the essence of matter; for evil is coëval with matter rent asunder from spirit. And when its higher Ego has once more reincarnated, evolving a new reflection, or Kâma-Manas, the doomed Lower Ego, like a Frankenstein’s monster, will ever feel attracted to its “Father,” who repudiates his Son, and will become a regular “Dweller” on the “threshold” of terrestrial life. Though an Occult Doctrine, I gave the outlines in The Theosophist of October, 1881, and November, 1882, but would not go into details, and therefore got very much embarrassed when called upon {{Page aside|638}}to explain. Yet I had written there plainly enough about “useless drones”––those who refuse to become co-workers with nature and who perish by millions during the Manvantaric life-cycle; those (as in the case in hand) who prefer to be ever suffering in Avichi under Karmic Law than to give up their lives “in evil,” and finally, those who are co-workers with Nature for destruction. There are thoroughly wicked and depraved men, but yet as highly intellectual and acutely spiritual for evil, as those who are spiritual for good. “The (lower) Egos of these may escape the law of final destruction or annihilation for ages to come.”<ref>[Reference to Volumes III and IV of The Theosophist, October, 1881 and November, 1882, respectively, wherein H. P. B. appended some Notes and Footnotes to Éliphas Lévi’s essays on “Death” and “Satan.” Consult H. P. B’s Collected Writings, Vol. III, pp. 287 et seq., wherein additional remarks precipitated by Master K. H. are also included.]</ref>
Thus we find two kinds of soulless beings on earth: those who have lost their higher Ego in the present incarnation, and those who are born soulless, having been severed from their Spiritual Soul in the preceding birth. The former are candidates for Avichi; the latter are “Mr. Hydes,” whether in or out of their human bodies, whether incarnated or hanging about as invisible but potent ghouls. In such men, cunning develops to an enormous degree, and no one except those who are familiar with the doctrine would suspect them of being soulless, for neither Religion nor Science has the least suspicion that such facts actually exist in Nature.
While yet in the body which has lost its higher “Soul” through its vices, there is still hope for such a person. He may be still redeemed and made to turn on his material nature; in which case either an intense feeling of repentence, or one single earnest appeal to the Ego that has fled, or best of all, an active effort to mend one’s ways, may bring the Higher Ego back again. The thread or connection is not altogether broken, though the Ego is now beyond forcible reach, for “Antaskarana is destroyed,” and the personal Entity has one foot already in Myalba;<ref>See The Voice of the Silence, p. 97 (Note 35 to Part III).</ref> but it is not yet beyond hearing a strong spiritual appeal. There is another statement made in Isis Unveiled (loc. cit.) on this subject. It is said that this terrible death may be sometimes avoided “by the knowledge of the mysterious NAME, the ‘WORD.’ “<ref>Read the last footnote on page 368, Vol. II of Isis Unveiled, and you will see that even profane Egyptologists and men who, like Bunsen, were ignorant of Initiation, were struck by their own discoveries when they found the “Word” mentioned in old papyri.</ref> What this “WORD” (which is not a “Word” but a Sound) is, you all know. Its potency lies in the rhythm or the accent. This means simply {{Page aside|639}}that even a bad person may, by a study of the Sacred Science, be redeemed and stopped on the path of destruction. But unless he is in thorough union with his Higher Ego, he may repeat it, parrot-like, ten thousand times a day, and the “Word” will not help him. On the contrary, if not entirely at one with his higher Triad it may produce quite the reverse of a benificent effect, the “Brothers of the Shadow” using it very often for malicious objects; in which case it awakens and stirs up only the evil, material elements of nature. But if one’s nature is good, and sincerely strives towards the HIGHER SELF, which is that “Aum,” through one’s Higher Ego, which is its third letter (Buddhi being the second), there is no attack of the Dragon Apophis which it will not repel. From those to whom much is given much is expected. He who knocks at the door of the Sanctuary in full knowledge of its sacredness, and after obtaining admission, runs away from the threshold, or turns and says, “Oh, there’s nothing in it!” and thus loses his chance of learning the whole truth––can but await his Karma.
Such are then the esoteric explanations of that which has perplexed so many who have found what they thought contradictions in various Theosophical writings, including “Fragments of Occult Truth,” in Vols. III and IV of The Theosophist, etc. Before finally dismissing the subject I must add a caution, which pray keep well in mind. It will be most natural for you who are Esotericists to hope that none of you belongs so far to the soulless portion of mankind, and that you can feel quite easy about Avichi, even as the good citizen is about the penal laws. Though not, perhaps, exactly on the Path as yet, you are skirting its border, and most of you in the right direction. Between our venal faults––inevitable under our social environment––and the blasting wickedness described in the Editor’s note on Éliphas Lévi’s “Satan,”<ref>See The Theosophist, Vol. III, October, 1881, pp. 12-15, [Cf. Collected Writings, Vol. III, pp. 287-91.]</ref> there is an abyss. If not become “immortal in good by identification with (our) God,” or AUM, Âtma-Buddhi-Manas, we have surely not made ourselves “immortal in evil” by coalescing with Satan, the Lower Self. You forget however, that everything must have a beginning, and that the first step on a slippery mountain slope is the necessary antecedent to one’s falling precipitately to the bottom and to death. Be it far from me the suspicion that any of the esoteric students have reached to any considerable point down the plane of spiritual descent. All the same I warn you to avoid taking the first step. You may not reach the bottom in this life or the next, but you may now generate causes which will insure your spiritual destruction in your third, fourth, fifth, or some subsequent birth. In the great Indian epic you may read {{Page aside|640}}how a mother, whose whole family of warrior sons were slaughtered in battle, complained to Krishna that though she had the spiritual vision to enable her to look back fifty incarnations, yet she could see no sin of hers that could have begotten so dreadful a Karma; and Krishna answered her: “If thou couldst look back to thy fifty-first anterior birth, as I can, thou would see thyself killing in wanton cruelty the same number of ants as that of the sons thou hast now lost.” This of course, is only a poetical exaggeration; yet it is a striking image to show how great results come from apparently trifling causes.
Good and evil are relative, and are intensified or lessened according to the conditions by which man is surrounded. One who belongs to that which we call the “useless portion of mankind,” that is, the lay majority, is in many cases irresponsible. Crimes committed in Avidyâ (ignorance) involve physical but not moral responsibilities or Karma. Take, for example, the case of idiots, children, savages, and other people who know no better. But the case of each of you, pledged to the HIGHER SELF, is quite another matter. You cannot invoke this Divine Witness with impunity, and once that you have put yourself under its tutelage, you have asked the Radiant Light to shine into and search through all the dark corners of your being; consciously you have invoked the Divine Justice of Karma to take note of your motives, to scrutinize your actions, and to enter up all in your account. The step is as irrevocable as that of the infant taking birth. Never again can you force yourselves back into the Matrix of Avidyâ and irresponsibility. Resignation and return of your pledges will not help you. Though you flee to the uttermost parts of the earth, and hide yourselves from the sight of man, or seek oblivion in the tumult of the social whirl, that LIGHT will find you out and lighten your every thought, word and deed. Were any of you so foolish as to suppose that it was to poor, miserable H.P.B. you were giving your pledge? All she can do is to send to each earnest one among you, a most sincerely fraternal sympathy and hope for a good outcome to your endeavours. Nevertheless, be not discouraged, but try, ever keep trying,<ref>Read pages 40 and 63 in The Voice of the Silence.</ref> twenty failures are not irremediable if followed by as many undaunted struggles upward. Is it not so that mountains are climbed? And know further, that if Karma relentlessly records in the Esotericist’s account, bad deeds that in the ignorant would be overlooked, yet, equally true is it that each of his good deeds is, by reason of his association with the Higher Self, a hundredfold intensified as a potency for good.
Finally, keep ever in mind, the Consciousness that though you see no Master by your bedside, nor hear one audible whisper in the silence {{Page aside|641}}of the still night, yet the Holy Power is about you, the Holy Light is shining into your hour of Spiritual need and aspirations, and it will be no fault of the MASTERS, or of their humble mouthpiece and servant, if through perversity or moral feebleness some of you cut yourselves off from these higher Potencies, and step upon the declivity that leads to Avichi.
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<center><big>'''APPENDIX'''</big></center>
<center><big>'''NOTES ON INSTRUCTIONS I AND II'''</big></center>
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Students in the West have little or no idea of the forces that lie latent in Sound, the Âkâśic vibrations that may be set up by those who understand how to pronounce certain words. The Om, or the “Om mani padme hûm” are in spiritual affinity with cosmic forces, but without a knowledge of the natural arrangement, or of the order in which the syllables stand, very little can be achieved. “Om” is, of course, Aum, that may be pronounced as two, three or seven syllables, setting up different vibrations.
Now, letters, as vocal sounds, cannot fail to correspond with musical notes, and therefore with numbers and colors; hence also with Forces and Tattvas. He who remembers that the universe is built up from the Tattvas, will readily understand something of the power that may be exercised by vocal sounds. Every letter in the alphabet, whether divided into three, four, or seven septenaries, or forty-nine letters, has its own color, or shade of color. He who has learned the colors of the alphabetical letters, and the corresponding numbers of the seven, and the forty-nine colors and shades on the scale of planes and forces, and knows their respective order in the seven planes, will easily master the art of bringing them into affinity or interplay. But here a difficulty arises. The Senzar and Sanskrit alphabets, and other occult tongues, besides other potencies, have a number, color and distinct syllable for every letter, and so had also the old Mosaic Hebrew. But how many of the E.S. know any of these tongues? When the time comes, therefore, it must suffice to teach the students the numbers and colors attached to the Latin letters only (N.B., as pronounced in Latin, not in Anglo-Saxon, Scotch, or Irish.) This, however, would be, at present, premature.
The color and number of not only the planets but also the zodiacal constellations corresponding to every letter of the alphabet, are necessary to make any special syllable, and even letter, operative.<ref>See The Voice of the Silence, p. viii.</ref> Therefore if a student would make Buddhi operative, for instance, he would have to intone the first words of the Mantra on the note mi. But he would have still further to accentuate the mi, and produce mentally the yellow color corresponding to this sound and note, on every letter M {{Page aside|643}}in “Om mani padme hûm”; this, not because the note bears the same in the vernacular, Sanskrit, or even the Senzar, for it does not––but because the letter M follows the first letter, and is in this sacred formula also the seventh and the fourth. As Buddhi it is second; as Buddhi-Manas it is the second and third combined.
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<sup>1</sup>“THE CLASSES OF SPIRITUAL beings which infill our solar system are twelve in number, often however referred to as ten, of which three are spoken of as residing in the silence, and seven as being manifested. As H.P.B. wrote in The Secret Doctrine (II, 77):
“Occultism divides the “Creators” into twelve classes; of which four have reached liberation to the end of the “Great Age,” the fifth is ready to reach it, but still remains active on the intellectual planes, while seven are still under direct Karmic law. These last act on the man-bearing globes of our chain.”
“The four highest of the twelve classes of monadic or spiritual entities are the highest classes of the gods. The fifth class are entities who stand on the threshold of divinity, and may be regarded as quasi-divine; these are the various grades of the higher buddhas, whether Buddhas of Compassion or even the highest Pratyeka Buddhas. They are lofty spirits, liberated dhyâni-chohans, above the lower seven grades of manifested beings. This fifth class composes, collectively, the link by which all the lower septenary manifested universe is held as a pendant from the divine realms. As the apex of any one hierarchy blends into the lowest plane of the one superior to it, there must be links between them, connecting agencies, hierarchies of beings serving as intermediaries. It is this fifth class of lofty beings which directly links us with the gods. Their place in nature is in fact the realm of the Silent Watcher.
“The remaining seven classes of monads or cosmic spirits––dhyâni-chohans of many grades and degrees––are commonly divided into two groups: the upper three, and the lower four. Those of the upper three of this septenary host of spiritual beings are spoken of as the dhyâni-buddhas and it is they who comprise the Hierarchy of Compassion. They are the intelligences impelling the builders, i.e., the dhyâni-chohans of the lower four, into action. It is the interacting of the energy-substances between these two lines which together comprise the totality of all evolutionary processes within our kosmos. These two lines should not be confused. The dhyâni-buddhas are the architects, the overseers {{Page aside|644}}who provide the model, lay down the plans, and their work is carried out by the inferior grades of dhyâni-chohans called the builders, who receive the creative impress from the beings of the luminous arc, and carry it out. The builders not only work in, but actually form, the outer or material kosmos, and are (in one sense) the lower principles of the dhyâni-buddhas who compose the inner kosmos. Now each of these two lines is septenary: there are seven classes of dhyâni-buddhas, and seven classes of the inferior grades of dhyâni-chohans . . .
“A full-blown dhyâni-chohan was aeons upon aeons ago, in other solar manvantaras, a life atom; and every one of the hosts of life-atoms that compose our entire constitution on all its planes and in all its principles is in its outer self a dhyâni-chohan-to-be and at its heart of hearts a fully developed dhyâni-chohan––although as yet unexpressed. So man is not only one essence, which is already a dhyâni-chohan, but is also a host, a vast and almost infinite multitude of unevolved dhyâni-chohans. Even his human soul is on its way to evolving forth dhyâni-chohanship . .
“The agnishwâttas<ref>Agnishwâtta is a Sanskrit compound: agni, fire and svad, to taste or to sweeten hence it means those who have tasted of or been tasted by fire––the fire of suffering and pain in material existence producing great fiber and strength of character i.e. spirituality. This word ‘taste’ likewise has the meaning of becoming one with. Thus to taste of fire is to become at one with it: the fire-part of one’s nature is the part in which the monadic essence is at the time manifesting itself around an egoic center. From the standpoint of occultism, the term agnishwâtta signifies an entity who has become through evolution one in essence with the aethery fire of Spirit. The agnishwâtta pitris are our solar ancestors as contrasted with the barhishads, our lunar ancestors.</ref> or solar Lhas are another aspect of this chohanic host. The agnishwâtta pitris belong to the higher triad of the manifested seven which work directly in and through man. And it is precisely because we are straitly allied with this solar hierarchy, in fact belong to it, that we have these links of psychological and intellectual and spiritual connection with the solar divinity, Father Sun . .
“The mânasaputras<ref>Mânasaputra is a compound: mânasa, mental, from the word manas, mind, and putra, child––offspring of the cosmic mahat or intelligence, which later has always been described as the fire of spiritual consciousness.</ref> are likewise dhyâni-chohans. There are seven classes of these mânasaputras, just as there are seven classes of agnishwattas. In fact, the agnishwâtta-energy and the mânasaputra-energy are two aspects of the same cosmic beings. The incarnation or entrance of these mânasaputras into the as yet mentally unawakened humanity, of the middle and later third root-race of this fourth globe during this present fourth round, took place in seven stages, according to the seven classes of the mânasaputras. It took ages before all the humanity of that period became self-conscious. The highest class of the mânasaputras {{Page aside|645}}incarnated first, so that the human vehicles in which they imbodied were not only the first to become self-conscious, but likewise were the greatest humans of that far distant period; and the least advanced mânasaputras were they who entered the lowest human vehicles, which were also the last in time to become self-conscious . . .
“Kumâra<ref>A Sanskrit word: ku, with difficulty, and mâra, mortal; the idea being that these spiritual beings are so lofty they pass through the worlds of matter. i.e., become mortal, only with difficulty. Cf. Occult Glossary, pp. 2-4.</ref> is still another name for these gods or cosmic spirits, and constitutes a third aspect of the same host of beings. Each hierarchy, whether it be sun, planet, or man himself, is an aggregate of monads, all connected together by unbreakable bonds––not of matter or of thought, but of the essence of the universe. They are intrinsically one, just as every ray that springs from Father Sun is of the same fundamental stuff, and yet they are different as individuals. The monads are kumâras higher even than the agnishwâttas and mânasaputras. The agnishwâttas or mânasaputras are called kumâras because, as compared with us, they are beings of spiritual purity. Of these three terms, kumâras is the most general, and could likewise be applied to other hierarchies of beings which cannot technically be called mânasaputras or agnishwâttas.”<ref>G. de Purucker, Fountain-Source of Occultism. Pasadena, Calif.: Theosophical University Press, 1974, pp. 477-82.</ref>
2 “We should note that in this passage only four basic principles are mentioned: âtman, its auric envelope, buddhi, and manas––the last really being the higher manas; and three transitory aspects: prâna, linga-œarîra, and the lower manas or animal soul. Certain students have wondered about this, and also why the second principle is given as the auric envelope; and, again, why kâma does not enter into the picture.
“First, kâma is inherent in every one of those four basic principles and their three aspects, because, in the human constitution, it is representative of cosmic kâma––the universal and fundamental principle-attribute which is the intrinsic force or energy of the universe. For we should always remember that every one of the seven principles in man, whether a basic principle or an aspect, is itself septenary.
“These four principles are considered ‘basic’ because they are the highest and therefore the most powerful and enduring in the entire constitution of man. They survive the great drama which takes place at death leading to the dissolution of the lower quaternary, or what H.P.B. calls the three aspects plus the physical vehicle–these lower {{Page aside|646}}three aspects being reunited only preceding and at the time of the next reincarnation. This applies with equal force and propriety to the constitution and ‘death’ of any cosmic entity, such as a planet or a galaxy.
“By placing the principles in parallel columns H.P.B. suggests that each of them has its particular corresponding aspect on earth during the lifetime of a complete septenary man. To illustrate: various prânas in man correspond with the âtman; for, when traced back to their ultimate origin, the prânas will be found to be emanations from the âtmic monad. In similar fashion, the linga-œarîra is coupled with the ‘auric envelope’ enclosing the âtman as its spiritual aura; and likewise the third aspect or lower manas, the animal soul, is in the imbodied man the reflection of his buddhi. We can carry the analogy one step farther by pointing out that, just as manas is the focal center of the egoic human individual, so it has its correspondence on earth in the sthûla-œarîra, which is the focus of the powers and faculties making the physical man an individual separate from others.
“Now all these principles and aspects, and indeed everything in the human constitution, are enclosed within the auric egg, which is at one and the same time the aggregated effluvia from all the different monads and, because of this, the conjoined representative expression of the forces and energies of the septenary imbodied human being. Yet, when death ensues, the lower part of the auric egg, because built largely of the effluxes from the aspects, dissipates in that part of the astral light which is called the kâma-loka of earth; although even here the more ethereal life-atoms or appurtenant forces and substances are drawn upwards into latency to become the tanhic<ref>Tanhâ, a Buddhist term signifying “thirst for life.”</ref> elementals in the higher parts of the auric egg enclosing the permanent basic principles mentioned by H.P.B. Hence, the auric egg, because continuously functioning and perennially enduring, in one sense is the most important of all the principles or parts of the human constitution. Outside of anything else, it is the field, or composite fields, of the different phases of human consciousness on all its septenary planes. Thus at each new incarnation the various ‘aspects’ are formed out of the substances and forces of the auric egg––even the physical body or sthûla-œarîra being of the linga-œarîra, itself a condensed emanation of the lower layers of the auric egg.
“Further, H.P.B. points out that the mâyâvi-rûpa, or body of thought and feeling projected by the adept at his will, is formed of the substances and energies of appropriate layers of the auric egg; and just {{Page aside|647}}because all such projections of the auric substance are for temporary purposes, the mâyâvi-rûpa possesses its name, ‘illusion-body.’
“It is from the auric egg that the actual rûpa or shape which surrounds the devachanic entity is formed, so that we can properly speak of this part of the auric egg, vibrating with the relatively spiritual consciousness of the devachanî, as being the field for the play of its consciousness. These layers of the auric egg, which we may perhaps rather graphically call the ‘body’ of the devachanî, give to the devachanic ego the illusion that it is in a beautiful spiritual vehicle. The kâma-rûpa after death, whether before or after it becomes the spook, is likewise formed of the appropriate substances drawn from the lower layers of the auric egg.
“From the foregoing we see how very important is the role that the auric egg plays in the human constitution, for it not only is the field of all the different ranges of consciousness of the imbodied man, but it is likewise the ethereal and astral and even spiritual substance or auric envelope out of which are formed every one of the vehicles of the human entity including his linga-œarîra, his mâyâvi-rûpa, his devachanic auric shell, and his kâma-rûpa after death.
“There are two basic ways of viewing man: one, as being compounded of the seven cosmic elements, as H.P.B. at first presented it; and the other, as being a composite of interacting monads or centers of consciousness working in and through and by means of the instrumental aid of the seven cosmic elements which give to man his seven principles.
“What, then, is the distinction between the different monads in man and the seven principles, and what are their respective functions? This very question was at the bottom of the dispute between H.P.B. and Subba Row. Subba Row followed the teaching of the Brahmanic esoteric school in fastening attention on the monads, looking upon the universe as a vast aggregate of individualities; while H.P.B. for that time of the world’s history saw the need to give to the inquiring Western mind, then taking a materialistically scientific bent, some real explanation of what the composition of the universe is as an entity-what its ‘stuff’ is, and what man is as an integral part of it. Now the seven principles are the seven kinds of ‘stuff’ of the universe. The higher part of each kind is its consciousness side; the lower part of each is the body side through which its own consciousness expresses itself. Yet every mathematical point in boundless Space can really be looked upon as a monad, because the universe is imbodied consciousness collectively; and imbodied consciousness or monads individually. . .
“Now then, what are these seven (or ten) principles? That is the point which was so important to bring out in H.P.B.’s time. A background {{Page aside|648}}of divinity clothing itself in spirit, these bringing into birth the light of mind; and the light of mind, co-working with the other principles and elements thus far evolved, brought forth cosmic desire; and so on down until we reach the sthûla-œarîra. (This word, by the way, does not mean physical but rather substantial or concreted body on whatever plane, whether physical, spiritual or divine; sthûla simply means compacted, gross.) As the universe is built of radiations, light and energy, these radiations, manifesting in a graded scale, can from one point of view be considered as forces; but when they become enormously concreted, they become gross stuff, which the higher forms of radiation nevertheless continuously work through.
“Every mathematical point of space is a monad, a point of consciousness, because all Infinity is infinite consciousness. Therefore every point of Infinity must be a consciousness-center, a sevenfold monad, which has its âtman, buddhi, manas, right on down, because the universe is built of these seven stuffs reducible to one causal stuff––spirit, consciousness, âtman. I emphasize this point because we must not have our minds confused with the idea that the seven principles are one thing, and the monads are something else which work through the principles as disjunct from them. That is wrong.
“Every one of the seven principles or elements of a monad can represent one of the cosmic planes, and is itself sevenfold. For instance, there is an âtman of the kâma, a buddhi of the kâma, and so forth throughout the range of element-principles or stuffs. What differentiates one man from another, or a man from a beast? The differences do not lie in their respective seven principles, because these enter and form the compound constitution of all entities, but arise from the relative degree of evolution of the individual monads. The human monad is far more evolved than is that of an animal or of a plant, or than are the highly unified monads which, due to their relative stages of development distinguish granite from marble or sandstone.
“The seven principles which compose man––âtman, buddhi, manas, kâma, prâna, linga-œarîra, sthûla-œarîra––are identic with those which compose our solar cosmos, man’s seven principles interblending and interacting in more or less the same fashion as the cosmic principles do. For instance, just as the astral light of our earth is its fluidic astral double, so in man the linga-œarîra is the astral double of the human body; and just as the various cosmic prânas are the compound vitality of our globe, so is the compounded prâna of the human constitution the element of vitality in man.”<ref>G. de Purucker, op. cit., pp. 441-45.</ref>
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3“The tanhic elementals may be otherwise described as the emotional and mental thought-deposits, as Patañjali did; and these remain after the second death––and before the ego’s entering the devachan-stamped upon the various kinds of life-atoms which had functioned on all the lower planes of man’s constitution. Some of these tanhic elementals or life atoms peregrinate, and finally are psychomagnetically attracted back to the reincarnating ego during its process of bringing forth a new astral form preceding rebirth. Others belong to the monadic substances of the auric egg, and consequently remain therein in a latent condition, to awaken only when the devachanî leaves the devachan. Then these dormant tanhic elementals, in combination with the other life-atoms which had been peregrinating, combine in building up the new astral form that H.P.B. speaks of; and it is largely these two classes of tanhic life-atoms or elementals which compose the skandhas<ref>A Sankrit word meaning bundles or aggregates.</ref> of the man in his coming incarnation. And these skandhas are the various groups of mental, emotional, psychovital and physical characteristics which, when all collected together, make the new personality through which the higher man or egoic individuality works. They slowly begin to recombine and fall into their appropriate functions and places during the gestation period, continuing such ‘fixation’ in the womb, and finally after birth maturing as the entity grows to adulthood.
“Now the formation of the astral man takes place within the auric egg of the ex-devachanî. From the moment when the ego leaves the devachanic condition, the astral form becomes steadily more complete or definite as the gestating entity approaches the entrance into the womb. The ray from the reincarnating ego enters first the aura and later the womb of the mother-to-be by means of the growing astral form, which takes its rise in and from the most appropriate life-center or life-atom latent in the auric egg of the incoming entity.
“The term astral form is descriptive not so much of an actual body (as we think of it in our physical world), as it is of an ethereal agglomerate of life-atoms in the auric egg which is at first but vaguely shadowed, yet gradually assumes more or less a definite human outline, and usually one of extremely small size. However, we should not concentrate our attention so much upon size and shape as upon forces and energies in the auric egg more or less aggregated into a focus of activity.
“The entity thus preceding rebirth is attracted to the family to which its karma draws or impels it; and if the appropriate physiological activities take place at the right moment, then conception occurs and the growth of the embryo proceeds.
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“As the radiance or ray of the reincarnating ego reaches this plane, it gradually entangles itself in physical substance, and establishes thereby its link with the human reproductive cell. That link is made because of electromagnetic, or rather psychomagnetic, affinity between the reimbodying ray and the living germ cell. Every germ cell is a compact of inner forces and substances ranging from the divine to the physical, and therefore is the ‘precipitation’ onto our plane of a psychoethereal radiation. In other words, it is an imbodiment of a ray-point that, originating in the invisible worlds and contacting physical matter by affinity, thus arouses a molecular aggregate of living substance into becoming a reproductive cell.
“This molecular aggregate is the first or preliminary deposit or appearance on the physical plane of the action of the ray-point. We see that the germinal or reproductive cells are not ‘created’ by the parent’s body but appear in and work through it from the imbodying egoic force or entity ‘outside’––the parent being the host or transmitter. The vital germ cell, whether of man or of woman, is originally an integral part of the model-body, which is an electromagnetic body of astral substance belonging to the plane just above the physical; and around this astral form the physical body is built cell for cell, bone for bone, and feature for feature.
“When the life atom as the chosen ray-point is invigorated by the descending energies of the reincarnating ray, it enters by psycho-magnetic attraction into the father’s astral body, and is in due course deposited into his appropriate physical organ as an astral precipitate. It thus becomes physicalized as a germ cell. In the mother this process of astral precipitation is the same in general outline, the precipitation being from the identic ray in both cases: in fact, each parent contains in his or her appropriate organ life-atoms belonging to and used by the reincarnating ego in past lives.
“The female parent is the vehicle of what may be called the vegetative or passive side of the ray-point, and the male parent the vehicle for the positive or active side. The ray-point seems to split into two, later to reunite by the coalescence of the positive and negative sides after the fertilizing of the germinal cell. We are here dealing with subtle astral forces which obey their own laws and which are not hindered in their action by the heavy physical world in which our bodies live.
“To restate the above in somewhat different language: the more material part of the new astral form is drawn first into the woman’s aura and then into the womb wherein it produces the living ovum and finds its suitable milieu; coincidently the inner and more mânasic portion of the astral form, which is the more ethereal part of the tip of the ray from the reincarnating ego, flashes to the male parent and {{Page aside|651}}produces in its appropriate physiological seat the positive life-germ. The father sows the seed, the mother receives it, fosters it, and brings it forth.<ref> I might point out that once conception has taken place and the embryo begins its growth, any attempt whatsoever to stop its development or to destroy it is plain murder. In the teaching of the esoteric philosophy, it is considered as being only a little less bad than murder of an adult human––little less only because such destruction or abortion takes place before the self-consciousness of the victim has had a chance to come into flower.</ref>
“The human egos awaiting incarnation are exceedingly numerous, so that there may be scores of entities which could become children of any one couple, yet there is always one whose attraction is strongest to the mother-to-be at any specific physiological moment, and it is this astral form which becomes the child. Many are the cases where the astral form, thus ‘rayed’ in two directions, so to speak, finds its progress into physical birth stopped because the man and the woman are either celibate or prefer no children, or for some other reason.” In such cases, the astral form under karmic urge and natural law tries again. Should the first environment prove a failure, the reincarnating ego may find itself drawn to another couple because of karmic relationships in other lives.
“The reincarnating ego has in a sense very little choice in the matter, if by this we mean a deliberate selecting of one’s future family. Such a choice as we understand it is almost non-existent, because the reincarnating ego has but just left the devachan and is sunken into the relative unconsciousness of the gestation period preceding rebirth, and thus is in no condition to choose with self-conscious intent. It is karma, which throughout controls these things; and karma in the abstract is infallible in its action.
“Every human being is surrounded by his own emotional and passional as well as psychovital atmosphere, which is really a portion of the lower layers of his auric egg. Now this atmosphere is alive and, vibrating with varying intensities, has its own psycho-auric individuality or vibrational frequency. It becomes obvious therefore that the ray-point, which likewise possesses its own frequency, is drawn more or less on the line of magnetic attraction to the atmosphere of the parent or parents whose vibrational frequency is most sympathetic to its own and with whom its karmic affinities are strongest. To round out the picture, I might add that both hate and intense psychic dislike––each of which is a kind of inverted love––sometimes produce strong psycho-auric attractions, thus explaining the pathetic situation of parent and child who repel each other.
“When the astral form has definite union with the human ovum, it begins to grow as the foetus. The lower or grosser portions of the astral {{Page aside|652}}form become the linga-œarîra of the child, in combination with the two general classes of tanhic elementals; whereas its higher portions, the vehicles of the ‘ray’ from the reincarnating ego (as the embryo and later as the child grows), become the intermediate parts of the constitution of the man.
“We must always keep in mind the important part played by the auric egg of the reincarnating ego in all the various steps preceding rebirth. The astral form begins its first growth within the reimbodying auric egg, gestates within it and continues to be ‘fed’ by its essences throughout the prenatal processes, and in time brings about the stages of birth, infancy, childhood and adulthood; for, in fact, the auric egg is really the true manifested man considered as being the vital auric prânas flowing forth from the various foci of the reincarnating monad.
“When the ray-point of the reimbodying ego, itself a ray from the spiritual monad, reaches its own intermediate sphere, it descends no farther into matter. But its psychomagnetic ray, having stronger affinities for the material worlds, descends still farther, awakening into activity the life-atoms in each one of the planes between that of the reimbodying ego and the astral- physical matter of our earth.
“Just here we see that the ‘life’ or characteristic of each part of the composite human constitution remains on its own plane, but extrudes its excess of life from itself into the next lower one, until finally the physical plane is reached, wherein the tip of the ray, collecting unto itself life-atoms of this plane, builds or forms the physical germinal cell. It would be quite wrong to suppose that the reimbodying ego itself is in the germinal cell or on a plane only slightly less physical than ours. The process is an exact analogy of what occurs in the building of the globes of a planetary chain, where the passage of the excess of life takes place along and around the ranges of substance from cosmic plane to cosmic plane.”<ref>G. de Purucker, op. cit., pp. 622-26.</ref>
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