< How Best to Become a Theosophist (continued from page 10-215) >
This, I think, all theosophists will admit; and yet the human mind, so long at least as it is united to the body, demands something more tangible, and more lovable, and more capable of application to daily life than is found in the sublime but abstract and incomprehensible idea of a central spiritual essence.
Hence religion, although its essential meaning is religio, to rebind, that is, to rebind the spirit of man with the Spirit of God, has, in harmony with human nature, been formulated as the Spirit of the Son seeking the Spirit of the Father. And thus in all nations, and in all ages of the world, religion has attempted to concrete itself, and in doing so, and in attempting to realise the Divine Mind, has worshipped that idea as exhibited in or by the advent from time to time of Avatars, or manifestations of the Logos or Wisdom, or Spirit of God, in Divine and miraculous men.
Hence we have Gautama Buddha in the East and Jesus Christ in the West, who, esoterically considered, may be said to teach the one great law of religion, namely, that man can only know the Divine by evoking the gift of God, the Divine light which lies latent within him, and by which light only he can know his Father, and thus return to the bosom of his God.
But although it may in a sense be said that these two esoterically considered are one, yet each would seem to have been moulded in body, soul, and spirit, in harmony with the physical aspects of Nature, as existing on that part of our planet on which he appeared.
In the East we find a hot atmosphere, a luxurious vegetation, and stupendous mountains; and the form the religion takes is that of power, subtlety, contemplation, stillness, repose, rest, sleep, and entrancement; and the ascetic life, with its diet of fruits, vegetables, and cereals, and its soul-power, entrancement, and magic.
In the West, on the other hand, we find a more temperate climate and a more active life—a bigger brain and a manifestation of a wider range of the intellectual and practical life; and while we find the same prayer and contemplation and sacrifice of the bodily desires as in the East, we find at the same time less subtlety and idealism—less repose, but more energy—a severer standard of truth and a more practical benevolence.
In the East we find abstraction, subtlety, secrecy, and the magical power of the individual; in the West we find prayer, a fervid and open boldness with truth, and a spiritual love content with nothing less than the salvation of the whole world.
Moreover, I believe this, that there is in the moral and spiritual progress of the world an evolution, as in the vegetable and animal creation; and with Tennyson I can say that
“I doubt not through the ages an increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widened by the process of the suns.”
We find that all esoteric and ascetic forms of religion take the same ground regarding the body, namely, that it must be brought under subjection to the soul, and thereby rendered a fitter temple for the rule of the spirit.
In this respect the East seems to me to have a more complete and scientific method than the West, for in the East the method has been systematised after a manner almost unknown in the West, and regarding which no systematic rules are laid down, either by Jesus of Nazareth, or by any of His disciples; although this may perhaps be explained by the fact that no universal and minute rules can be laid down with regard to physical details, for that which might be best in Central India could not be best in London or in Greenland.
When I attempt to describe the Eastern method, I do not pretend to speak with authority as to details, because, as we all know, the innermost details are hidden from all but the initiated, and we, as a society, after one year’s connection with the East, have not yet received more than a few fragments of knowledge to be picked up at the threshold.
Broadly stated, however, the occult and ascetic method of the East consists in a life separated from the family ties, and all the anxieties and discords of the world, and in which continual contemplation of God is required.
The devotee must live a life of absolute chastity; he must abstain from the flesh of animals and from all alcohols, and he must practise frequent ablutions.
Having freed his soul from bodily desires and his body from superfluous flesh, he must still further totally abstract himself from the world, and fix his thoughts on the supreme centre; after which, by the practice of retaining the breath, the attainment of which power is progressive, he ultimately obtains the “Internal respiration,” and by the final assistance of those who know, he projects his soul into the astral, and thus becoming the one internal sense, is as a unity at one with God—knowing good and evil, and working as a divine and magical man.
How the adept lives after this stupendous victory, or how he occupies his life, or what his desires and works are, we in the West know very little, except generally.
It is seen, however, that he becomes a magician in the best sense; and so long as he fixes his thoughts on God as the supreme power, and truth, and love, he must live a life of abstract if not active goodness.
Having these magical powers, however, he must, unless simple and wise and true and loving, be exposed to terrible temptations; and if “the angels kept not their first estate,” but by “ambition, that last infirmity of noble minds,” fell, “how can man, then, the (frail) image of his Maker, hope to win by it?” Or how shall he escape the fate of that “Lucifer son of the morning” who, aspiring to be as God, was cast out of heaven and fell headlong into the abyss?
But the idea of the adept is most fascinating to the human mind, and to attain to the dignity and power of the magical man is an ambition far transcending all earthly ambition.
The idea of the true adept is one whose powers and knowledge far transcend all merely human power and knowledge, and with him riches and worldly honours, and rank and distinction, are as nothing. But for this very reason the adept, I conceive, must be for ever in a critical position.
To subdue our base and worldly and animal <... continues on page 10-217 >