HPB-SD(ed.1) v.1 p.3 sec.8: Difference between revisions

{{Style P-No indent|science which postulates that we cannot see and hear otherwise. The Occultists and mystics know better. The Vedic Aryans were as familiar with the mysteries of sound and colour as our physiologists are on the physical plane, but they had mastered the secrets of both on planes inaccessible to the materialist. They knew of a double set of senses ; spiritual and material. In a man who is deprived of one or more senses, the remaining become the more developed : ''e.g''., the blind man will recover his sight through the senses of touch, of hearing, etc., and he who is deaf will be able to hear through sight, by ''seeing audibly ''the words uttered by the lips and mouth of the speaker. But these are cases that belong to the world of matter still. The spiritual senses, those that act on a higher plane of consciousness are rejected ''a priori ''by physiology because the latter is ignorant of the sacred science. It limits the action of ether to vibrations, and, dividing it from air — though air is simply ''differentiated ''and compound ether — makes it assume functions to fit in with the special theories of the physiologist. But there is more real science in the teachings of the Upanishads when these are correctly understood, than the Orientalists, who do not understand them at all, are ready to admit. ''Mental as well as physical correlations of the seven senses ''(seven on the physical and seven on the mental planes) are clearly explained and defined in the Vedas, and especially in the Upanishad called Anugîtâ : “ The indestructible and the destructible, such is the double manifestation of the Self. Of these the indestructible is the existent (the true essence or nature of Self, the underlying principles). The manifestation as an individual (or entity) is called the destructible.” Thus speaks the Ascetic in Anugîtâ ; and also : “ Every one who is twice-born (initiated) knows such is the teaching of the ancients. . . . . Space is the first entity. Now Space (''Akâsa'', or the noumenon of Ether) has one quality . . . and that is sound only . . . and the qualities of sound are Shadga, Rishabha, Gândhâra, Madhyama, Panchama, and beyond these five Nishâda and Dhaivata ” ; (the Hindu gamut). These seven notes of the scale are the principles of sound. (''Vide ''ch. xxxvi. of ''Anugîtâ.'') The qualities of every Element, as of every sense, are septenary, and to judge and dogmatize on them from their manifestation (likewise sevenfold in itself) on the material or objective plane above is quite arbitrary. For it is only by the Self emancipating itself from these (seven) causes of illusion that one acquires the knowledge (secret wisdom) of the qualities of objects of sense on their dual plane of manifestation — the visible and the invisible. Thus it is said : —}}