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Notes on some Oral Teachings.
The Three Vital Air.
It is the pure Âkâsha that passes up Sushumnâ: its two aspects flow in Idâ and Pingalâ. These are the three vital airs, and are symbolized by the Brâhmanical thread. They are ruled by the Will. Will and Desire are the higher and lower aspects of one and the same thing. Hence the importance of the purity of the canals; for if they soil the vital airs energized by the Will, Black Magic results. This is why all sexual intercourse is forbidden in practical Occultism.
From Sushumnâ, Idâ and Pingalâ a circulation is set up, and from the central canal passes into the whole body. (Man is a tree; he has in him the macrocosm and the microcosm. Hence the trees used as symbols; the Dhyân-Chohanic body is thus figured.)
The Auric Egg.
The Auric Egg is formed in curves, which may be conceived from the curves formed by sand on a vibrating metal disk. Each atom, as each body, has its Auric Egg, each centre forming its own. This Auric Egg, with the appropriate materials thrown into it, is a defence; no wild animal, however ferocious, will approach te Yogî thus guarded: it flings back from its surface all malign influences. No Will power is manifested through the Auric Egg.
Q. What is the connection between the circulation of the vital airs and the power of the Yogî to make his Auric Egg a defence against aggression?
A. It is impossible to answer this question. The knowledge is the last word of Magic. It is connected with Kundalini, that can as easily destroy as preserve. The ignorant tyro might kill himself.
Q. Is the Auric Egg of a child a differentiation of Âkâsha, into which may be thrown by the Adept the materials he needs for special purposes–e.g., the Mâyâvi Rûpa?
[The question was somewhat obscurely worded. Evidently what the questioner wanted to know was if the Auric Egg was a differentia-
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tion of Akâsha, into which, as the child became a man, he might, if an Adept, weave the materials needed for special purposes, etc.]
A. Taking the question in the sense of an Adept putting something into or acting on the Auric Egg of a child, then this could not be done, as the Auric Egg is Karmic, and not even an Adept must interfere with such Karmic record. If the Adept were to put anything into the Auric Egg of another, for which the person is not responsible, or which does not come from the Higher Self of that personality, how could Karmic justice be maintained?
The Adept can draw into his own Auric Egg from his planet, or even from that of the globe or of the universe, according to his degree. This envelope is the receptacle of all Karmic causes, and photographs all things like a sensitive plate.
The child has a very small Auric Egg which is in colour almost pure white. At birth the Auric Egg consists of almost pure Âkâsha plus the Tanhâs, which, until the seventh year, remain potential or in latency.
The Auric Egg of an idiot cannot be said to be human, that is, it is not tinged with Manas. It is Âkâshic vibrations rather than an Auric Egg–the material envelope, such as that of the plant, the mineral or other object.
The Auric Egg is the transmitter from the periodical lives to the Life eternal, i.e., from Prâna to Jîva. It disappears, but remains.
The reason why the confession of the Roman Catholic and Greek Churches is so great a sin is because the confessor interferes with the Auric Egg of the penitent by means of his will power, engrafting artificially emanations from his own Auric Egg and casting seeds for germination into the Auric Egg of his subject. It is on the same lines as hypnotic suggestion.
The above remarks apply equally to Hypnotism, although the latter is a psycho-physical force, and it is this which constitutes one of its many serious dangers. At the same time “a good thing may pass through dirty channels,” as in the case of the breaking by suggestion of the alcohol or opium habit. Mesmerism may be used by the Occultist to remove evil habits, if the intention be perfectly pure; as on the higher plane intention is everything, and good intention must work for good.
Q. Is the Auric Egg the expansion of the “Pillar of Light,” the Mânasic Principle, and so not surrounding the child till its seventh year?
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A. It is the Auric Egg. The Auric Egg is quite pure at birth, but it is a question whether the higher or lower Manas will colour it at the seventh year. The Mânasic expansion is pure Âkâsha. The ray of Manas is let down into the vortex of the lower Principles, and being discoloured, and so limited by the Kamic Tanhâs and by the defects of the bodily organism, forms the personality. Hereditary Karma can reach the child before the seventh year, but no individual Karma can come into play till the descent of the Manas.
The Auric Egg is to the Man
As the Astral Light is to the Earth As the Ether is to the Astral Light As the Akâsha is to the Ether
The Auric Egg |
is to the Man | Man | |
| As | „ Astral Light | Earth | |
| „ Ether | Astral Light | ||
| „ Akâsha | Ether | ||
The critical states are left out in the enumeration. They are the Laya Centres, or missing links in our consciousness, and separate these four planes from one another.
The Dweller.
The “Dweller on the Threshold” is found in two cases: (a) In the case of the separation of the Triangle from the Quaternary; (b) When Kâmic desires and passions are so intense that the Kâma Rûpa persists in Kâma Loka beyond the Devachanic period of the Ego, and thus survives the reincarnation of the Devachanic Entity (e.g., when reincarnation occurs within two hundred or three hundred years). The “Dweller” being drawn by affinity towards the Reincarnating Ego to whom it had belonged, and being
unable to reach it, fastens on the Kâma of the new personality, and becomes the Dweller on the Threshold, strengthening the Kâmic element and thus lending it a dangerous potency. Some become mad from this cause.
Intellect.
The white Adept is not always at first of powerful intellect. In fact, H. P. B. had known Adepts whose intellectual powers were originally below the average. It is the Adept’s purity, his equal love to all, his working with Nature, with Karma, with his “Inner God,” that give him his power. Intellect by itself alone will make the Black Magician. For intellect alone is accompanied with pride and selfishness: it is the intellectual plus the spiritual that raises man. For spirituality prevents pride and vanity.
Metaphysics are the domain of the Higher Manas; whereas
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Physics are that of Kâma-Manas, which does the thinking in Physical Science and on material things. Kâma-Manas, like every other Principle, is of seven degrees. The Mathematician without spirituality, however great he may be, will not reach Metaphysics; but the Metaphysician will master the highest conceptions of Mathematics and will apply them without learning the latter. To be born Metaphysician the Psychic Plane will not be of much account: he will see its errors immediately he enters it, inasmuch as it is not the thing he seeks. With respect to Music and other Arts, they are the children of either the Mânasic or Kâma-Mânasic Principle, proportionately as Soul or technicality predominates.
Karma.
After each incarnation, when the Mânasic Ray returns to its Father, the Ego, some of its atoms remain behind and scatter. These Mânasic atoms, Tânhic and other “causes,” being of the same nature as the Manas, are attracted to it by strong bonds of affinity, and on the reincarnation of the Ego are unerringly attracted to it and constitute its Karma. Until these are all gathered up, the individuality is not free from rebirth. The Higher Manas is responsible for the Ray it sends forth. If the Ray be not soiled, no bad Karma is generated.
The Turîya State.
You should bear in mind that, in becoming Karma-less, good Karma, as well as bad, has to be gotten rid of, and that Nidânas, started towards the acquisition of good Karma, are binding as those induced in the other direction. For both are Karma.
Yogis cannot attain the Turîya state unless the Triangle is separated from the Quaternary.
Mahat.
Mahat is the manifested universal Parabrâhmic Mind (for one Manvantara) on the Third Plane [of Kosmos]. It is the Law whereby the Light falls from plane to plane and differentiates. The Mânasaputras are its emanations.
Man alone is capable of conceiving the Universe on this plane of existence.
Existence is; but when the entity does not feel it, for that eternity it is not. The pain of an operation exists, though the patient does not feel it, and for the patient it is not.
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How to Advance.
Q. What is the correct pronunciation of AUM?
A. It should first be practised physically; always at the same pitch, which must be discovered in the same way as the particular colour of the student is found, for each has its own tone.
Aum consists of two vowels and one semi-vowel, which latter must be prolonged. Just as Nature has its Fa, so each man has his: man being differentiated from Nature. The body may be compared to an instrument and the Ego to the player. You begin by producing effect on yourself; then little by little you learn to play on the Tattvas and Principles; learn first the notes, then the chords, then the melodies. Once the student is master of every chord, he may begin to be a co-worker with Nature and for others. He may then, by the experience he has gained of his own nature, and by the knowledge of the chords, strike such as will be beneficial in another, and so will serve as a keynote for beneficial results.
Try to have a clear representation of the geometrical triangle on every plane, the conception gradually growing more metaphysical, and ending with the subjective Triangle, Âtmâ-Buddhi-Manas. It is only by the knowledge of this Triangle under all forms that you can succeed, e.g., in enclosing the past and the future in the present. Remember that you have to merge the Quaternary in the Triangle. The Lower Manas is drawn upwards, with the Kâma, Prâna and Linga, leaving only the physical body behind, the lower reinforcing the higher.
Advance may be made in Occultism even in Devachan, if the Mind and Soul be set thereon during life; but it is only as in a dream, and the knowledge will fade away as memory of a dream fades, unless it be kept alive by conscious study.
Fear and Hatred.
Fear and hatred are essentially one and the same. He who fears nothing will never hate, and he who hates nothing will never fear.
The Triangle.
Q. What is the meaning of the phrase: “Form a clear image of the Triangle on every plane;” e.g., on the Astral Plane, what should one think of as the Triangle?
A. [H. P. B. asked whether the question signified the meaning of
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the Triangle or the way to represent the Triangle on the “screen of light.” The questioner explaining that the latter was the meaning, H. P. B. said that] it was only in the Turîa state, the fourth of the seven steps of Râja Yoga that the Yogî can represent to himself that which is abstract. Below this state, the perceptive power, being conditioned, must have some form to contemplate; it cannot represent to itself the Arûpa. In the Turîya state the Triangle is in yourself and is felt. Below the Turîya state there must be a symbol to represent Atmâ- Buddhi-Manas. It is not a mere geometrical Triangle, but the Triad imaged, to make thought possible. Of this Triad, we can make some kind of representation of Manas, however indistinct; while of Atmâ no image can be formed. We must try to represent the Triangle to ourselves on higher and higher planes. We must figure Manas as overshadowed by Buddhi, and immersed in Âtmâ. Only Manas, the Higher Ego, can be represented; we may think it as the Augoeides, the radiant figure in Zanoni. A very good Psychic might see this.
Psychic Vision.
Psychic vision, however, is not to be desired, since Psyche is earthly and evil. More and more as Science advances, the psychic will be reached and understood; Psychism has in it nothing that is spiritual.
Science is right on its own plane, from its own standpoint. The law of the Conservation of Energy implies that psychic motion is generated by motion. Psychic motion being only motion on the Psychic Plane, a material plane, the Psychologist is right who sees in it nothing beyond matter. Animals have no Spirit, but they have psychic vision, and are sensitive to psychic conditions; observe how these react on their health, their bodily state.
Motion is the abstract Deity; on the highest plane it is Arûpa, absoolute; but on the lowest it is merely mechanical. Psychic action is within the sphere of physical motion. Ere psychic action can be developed in the brain and nerves, there must be adequate action which generates it on the Physical Plane. The paralysed animal that cannot generate action in the physical body, cannot think. Psychics merely see on a plane of different material density; the spiritual glimpses sometimes obtained by them come from a plane beyond. A Psychic’s vision is that of one coming, as it were, into the lighted room, and seeing everything there by an artificial light; when the light is extinguished, vision is lost. Spiritual vision sees by the light within,
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the light hidden beneath the bushel of the body, by which we can see clearly and independently of all outiside. The Psychic seeing by an external light, the vision is coloured by the nature of that light.
X. saying that she felt as though she saw on three planes, H. P. B. answered that each plane was sevenfold, the Astral as every other. She gave as an example on the Physical Plane the vision of a table with the sense of sight; seeing it still, with the eyes closed, by retinal impression; the image of it conserved in the brain; it can be recalled by memory; it can be seen in dream; or as an aggregate of atoms; or as disintegrated. All these are on the Physical Plane. Then we can begin again on the Astral Plane, and obtain another septenary. This hint should be followed and worked out.
Triangle and Quaternary.
Q. Why is the violet, the colour of the Linga Sharîra, placed at the apex of the △, when the Macrocosm is figured as 
, thus throwing the yellow, Buddhi, into the lower Quaternary?
A. It is wrong to speak of the “lower Quaternary” in the Macrocosm. It is the Tetraktys, the highest, the most sacred of all symbols. There comes a moment when, in the highest meditation, the Lower Manas is withdrawn into the Triad, which thus becomes the Quaternary, the Tetraktys of Pythagoras, leaving what was the Quaternay as the lower Triad, which is then reversed. The Triad is reflected in the Lower Manas. The Higher Manas cannot reflect itself, but when the Green passes upwards it becomes a mirror for the Higher; it is then no more Green, having passed from its associations. The Psyche then becomes spiritual, the Ternary is reflected in the Fourth, and the Tetraktys is formed. So long as you are not dead, there must be something to reflect the Higher Triad; for there must be something to bring back to the waking consciousness the experiences passed through on the higher planes. The Lower Manas is as a tablet which retains the impressions made on it during trance.
The Turîya state is entered on the Fourth Path; it is figured in the diagram on p. 478, in the Second Paper.
Q. What is the meaning of a triangle formed of lines of light appearing in the midst of intense vibrating blue?
A. Seeing the Triangle outside is nothing; it is merely a reflection of the Triad on the Auric Envelope, and proves that the seer is outside the Triangle. It should be seen in quite another way. You must
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endeavour to merge yourself in it, to assimilate yourself with it. You are merely seeing things in the Astral. “When the Third Eye is opened in any one of you, you will have something very different to tell me.”
Q. With reference to the “Pillar of Light” in a previous question, is the Auric Envelope the Higher Ego, and does it correspond to the Ring-Pass-Not?
[This question was not answered, as going too far. The Ring-Pass-Not is at the circumference of the manifested Universe.]
Nidânas.
Q. The root of the Nidânas is Avidyâ. How does this differ from Mâyâ? How many Nidânas are there Esoterically?
A. Again too much is asked. The Nidânas, the concatenations of causes and effects (not in the sense of the Orientalists), are not caused by ignorance. They are produced by Dhyân Chohans and Devas, who certainly cannot be said to act in ignorance. We produce Nidânas in ignorance. Each cause started on the Physical Plane sets up action on every plane to all eternity. They are eternal effects reflected from plane to plane on the “screen of eternity.”
Manas.
Q. What is the septenary classification of Manas? There are seven degrees of the Lower Manas, and presumably there are seven degrees of the Higher. Are there then fourteen degrees of Manas, or is Manas, taken as a whole, divided into forty-nine Mânasic fires?
A. Certainly there are fourteen, but you want to run before you can walk. First learn the three, and then go on to the forty-nine. There are three Sons of Agni; they become seven, and then evolve to the forty- nine. But you are still ignorant how to produce the three. Learn first how to produce the “Sacred Fire,” spoken of in the Puranas. The forty-nine fires are all states of Kundalinî, to be produced in ourselves by the friction of the triad. First learn the septenary body, and then that of each Principle. But first of all learn the first Triad (the three vital airs).
The Spinal Cord.
Q. What is the sympathetic nerve and its function in Occultism? Is it found only after a certain stage of animal evolution, and would seem to be evolving in complexity towards a second spinal cord.
A. At the end of the next Round, Humanity will again become
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male-female, and then there will be two spinal cords. In the Seventh Race the two will merge into one. The evolution corresponds to the Races, and with the evolution of the Races the sympathetic develops into a true spinal cord. We are returning up the arc only with self-consciousness added. The Sixth Race will correspond to the “pudding bags,” but will have the perfection of form with the highest intelligence and spirituality.
Anatomists are beginning to find new ramifications and new modifications in the human body. They are in error on many points, e.g., as to the spleen, which they call the manufactory of white blood corpuscles, but which is really the vehicle of the Linga Sharîra. Occultists know each minute portion of the heart, and have a name for each. They call them by the names of the Gods, as Brahmâ’s Hall, Vishnu’s Hall, etc.
They correspond with parts of the brain. The very atoms of the body are the thirty-three crores of Gods. The sympathetic nerve is played on by the Tântrikas, who call it Shiva’s Vînâ.
Prâna.
Q. What is the relation of man to Prâna–the periodical life?
A. Jîva becomes Prâna only when the child is born and begins to breathe. It is the breath of life, Nephesh. There is no Prâna on the Astral Plane.
Antahkarana.
Q. The Antahkarana is the link between the Higher and the Lower Egos; does it correspond to the umbilical cord in projection?
A. No; the umbilical cord joining the astral to the physical body is a real thing. Antahkarana is imaginary, a figure of speech, and is only the bridging over from the Higher to the Lower Manas. Antahkarana only exists when you commence to “throw your thought upwards and downwards.” The Mâyâvi Rûpa, or Mânasic body, has no material connection with the physical body, no umbilical cord. It is spiritual and ethereal, and passes everywhere without let or hindrance. It entirely differs from the astral body, which, if injured, acts by repercussion on the physical body. The Devachanic entity, even previous to birth, can be affected by the Skandhas, but these have nothing to do with the Antahkarana. It is affected, e.g., by the desire for reincarnation.
Q. We are told in The Voice of the Silence that we have to become
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“the path itself,” and in another passage that Antahkarana is that path. Does this mean anything more than that we have to bridge over the gap between the consciousness of the Lower and the Higher Egos?
A. That is all.
Q. We are told that there are seven portals on the Path: is there then a sevenfold division of Antahkarana? Also, is Antahkarana the battlefield?
A. It is the battlefield. There are seven divisions in the Antahkarana. As you pass from each to the next you approach the Higher Manas. When you have bridged the fourth you may consider yourself fortunate.
Miscellaneous.
Q. We are told that AUM “should be practised physically.” Does this mean that, colour being more differentiated than sound, it is only through the colours that we shall get at the real sound of each of us? and that AUM can only have its Spiritual and Occult signification when attained to the Âtmâ-Buddhi- Manas of each person?
A. AUM means good action, not merely lip-sound. You must say it in deeds.
Q. With reference to the △, is not the Âtmâ-Buddhi-Manas different for each entity, according to the plane on which he is?
A. Each Principle is on a different plane. The Chelâ must rise to one after the other, assimilating each, until the three are one. This is the root of the Trinity.
Q. In The Secret Doctrine we are told that Âkâsha is the same as Pradhâna. Akasha is the Auric Egg of the earth, and yet Âkâsha is the same as Pradhâna. Âkâsha is the Auric Egg of the earth, and yet Âkâsha is Mahat. What then is the relation of Manas to the Auric Egg?
A. Mûlaprakriti is the same as Âkâsha (seven degrees). Mahat is the positive aspect of Akasha, and is the Manas of the Kosmic Body. Mahat is to Âkâsha as Manas is to Buddhi, and Pradhâna is but another name for Mûlaprakriti.
The Auric Egg is Âkâsha and has seven degrees. Being pure abstract substance, it reflects abstract ideas, but also reflects lower concrete things.
The Third Logos and Mahat are one, and are the same as the Universal Mind, Alaya.
The Tetraktys is the Chatur Vidyâ, or the fourfold knowledge in one, the four-faced Brahmâ.
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Nâdîs.
Q. Have the Nâdîs any fixed relationship to the vertebræ? can they be located opposite to or between any vertebrae? Can they be regarded as occupying each a given and fixed extent in the cord? Do they correspond to the divisions of the cord known to Anatomists?
A. H. P. B. believed that the Nâdîs corresponded to regions of the spinal cord known to Anatomists. There are thus six or seven Nâdîs or plexuses along the spinal cord. The term, however, is not technical but general, and applies to any knot, centre, ganglion, etc. The sacred Nâdîs are those which run along or above Sushumnâ. Six are known to Science, and one (near the atlas) unknown. Even the Târaka Râja Yogîs speak only of six, and will not mention the sacred seventh.
Idâ and Pingalâ play along the curved wall of the cord in which is Sushumnâ. They are semi-material, positive and negative, sun and moon , and start into action the free and spiritual current of Sushumnâ. They have distinct paths of their own, otherwise they would radiate all over the body. By concentration on Idâ and Pingalâ is generated the “sacred fire.”
Another name for Shiva’s Vînâ (sympathetic system) is Kâlî’s Vînâ.
The sympathetic cords and Idâ and Pingalâ start from a sacred spot above the medulla oblongata, called Triveni. This is one of the sacred centres, another of which is Brahmarandra, which is, if you like, the grey matter of the brain. It is also the anterior fontanelle in the new-born child.
The spinal column is called Brahmadanda, the stick of Brahmâ. This is again symbolized by the bamboo rod carried by Ascetics. The Yogis on the other sides of the Himâlayas, who assemble regularly at Lake Mânsarovara, carry a triple knotted bamboo stick, and are called Tridandins. This has the same signification as the Brâhmanical cord, which has many meanings besides the three vital airs; e.g., it symbolizes the three initiations of a Brâhman, taking place: (a) at birth, when he receives his mystery name from the family Astrologer, who is supposed to have received it from the Devas (he is also thus said to be initiated by the Devas); a Hindu will sooner die than reveal this name; (b) at seven, when he receives the cord; and (c) at eleven or twelve, when he is initiated into his caste.
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Q. If it is right to study the body and its organs, with their correspondences, will you give the main outline of these in connection with the Nâdîs and with the diagram of the orifices?
| A. | The | Spleen | corresponds to the | Linga Sliarira | |
| Liver – | Kâma | ||||
| Heart – | Prâna | ||||
| Corpora-quadrigeinina | Kâma-Manas | ||||
| Pituitary body | Manas-Antahkarana | ||||
| Pineal gland | Manas | ||||
until it is touched by the vibrating light of Kundalinî, which proceeds from Buddhi, when it becomes Buddhi-Manas.
The pineal gland corresponds with Divine Thought. The pituitary body is the organ of the Psychic Plane. Psychic vision is caused by the molecular motion of this body, which is directly connected with the optic nerve, and thus affects the sight and gives rise to hallucinations. Its motion may readily cause flashes of light, such as may be obtained by pressing the eyeballs. Drunkenness and fever produce illusions of sight and hearing by the action of the pituitary body. This body is sometimes so affected by drunkenness that it is paralysed. If an influence on the optic nerve is thus produced and the current thus reversed, the colour will probably be compementary.
Sevens.
Q. If the physical body is no part of the real human septenary, is the physical material world one of the seven planes of the Kosmic septenary?
A. It is. The body is not a Principle in Esoteric parlance, because the body and the Linga are both on the same plane; then the Auric Egg makes the seventh. The body is an Upâdhi rather than a Principle. The earth and its astral light are as closely related to each other as the body and its Linga, the earth being the Upâdhi. Our plane in its lowest division is the earth, in its highest the astral. The terrestrial astral light should of course not be confounded with the universal Astral Light.
Q. A physical object was spoken of as a septenary on the physical plane, inasmuch as we could (1) directly contact it; (2) retinally reproduce it; (3) remember it; (4) dream of it; (5) view it atomically; (6) view it disintegrated; (7) –What is the seventh?
These are seven ways in which we view it: the septenary is our way of seeing one thing. Is it objectively septenary?
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A. The seventh bridges across from one plane to another. The last is the idea, the privation of matter, and carries you to the next plane. The highest of one plane touches the lowest of the next. Seven is a factor in nature, as in colours and sounds. There are seven degrees in the same piece of wood, each perceived by one of the seven senses. In wood the smell is the most material degree, while in other substances it may be the sixth. Substances are septenary apart from the consciousness of the viewer.
The psychometer, seeing a morsel, say of a table a thousand years hence, would see the whole; for every atom reflects the whole body to which it belongs, just as with the Monads of Leibnitz.
After the seven material subdivisions are the seven divisions of the Astral, which is its second Principle. The disintegrated matter–the highest of the material subdivisions–is the privation of the idea of it–the fourth.
The number fourteen is the first step between seven and forty-nine. Each septenary is really a fourteen, because each of the seven has its two aspects. Thus fourteen signifies the inter-relation of two planes in its turn. The septenary is to be clearly traced in the lunar months, fevers, gestations, etc. On it is based the week of the Jews and the septenary Hierarchies of the Lord of Hosts.
Sounds.
Q. Sound is an attribute of Âkâsha; but we cannot cognize anything on the Âkâshic plane; on what plane then do we recognize sound? On what plane is sound produced by the physical contact of bodies? Is there sound on seven planes, and is the physical plane one of them?
A. The physical plane is one of them. You cannot see Âkâsha, but you can sense it from the Fourth Path. You may not be fully conscious of it, and yet you may sense it. Âkâsha is at the root of the manifestation of all sounds. Sound is the expression and manifestation of that which is behind it, and which is the parent of many correlations. All Nature is a sounding-board; or rather Âkâsha is the sounding-board of Nature. It is the Deity, the one Life, the one Existence. (Hearing is the vibration of molecular particles; the order is seen in the sentence, “The disciple feels, hears, sees.”)
Sound can have no end. H. P. B. remarked with regard to a tap made by a pencil on the table: “By this time it has affected the whole universe. The particle which has had its wear and tear destroys some
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thing which passes into something else. It is eternal in the Nidânas it produces.” A sound, if not previously produced on the Astral Plane, and before that on the Âkâshic, could not be produced at all. Âkâsha is the bridge between nerve cells and mental powers.
Q. “Colours are psychic, and sounds are spiritual.” What, assuming that these are vibrations, is the successive order (these corresponding to sight and hearing) of the other senses?
A. This phrase was not to be taken out of its context, otherwise confusion would arise. All are on all planes. The First Race had touch all over like a sounding board; this touch differentiated into the other senses, which developed with the Races. The “sense” of the First Race was that of touch, meaning the power of their atoms to vibrate in unison with external atoms. The “touch” would be almost the same as sympathy.
The senses were on a different plane with each Race; e.g., the Fourth Race had very much more developed senses than ourselves, but on another plane. It was also a very material Race. The sixth and seventh senses will merge into the Âkâshic Sound. “It depends to what degree of matter the sense of touch relates itself as to what we call it.”
Prâna.
Q. Is Prâna the production of the countless “lives” of the human body, and therefore, to some extent, of the congeries of the cells or atoms of the body?
A. No; Prâna is the parent of the “lives.” As an example, a sponge may be immersed in an ocean. The water in the sponge’s interior may be compared to Prâna; outside is Jîva. Prâna is the motor-principle in life. The “lives” leave Prâna; Prâna does not leave them. Take out the sponge from the water, and it becomes dry, thus symbolizing death. Every principle is a differentiation of Jîva, but the life-motion in each is Prâna, the “breath of life.” Kâma depends on Prâna, without which there would be no Kâma. Prâna wakes the Kâmic germs to life; it makes all desires vital and living.
The Second Spinal Cord.
Q. With reference to the answer to the question on the second cord, what is it that will become a second spinal cord in the Sixth Race? Will Idâ and Pingalâ have separate physical ducts?
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A. It is the sympathetic cords which will grow together and form another spinal cord. Idâ and Pingalâ will be joined with Sushumnâ, and they will become one. Idâ is on the left side of the cord, and Pingalâ on the right.
Initiates.
Pythagoras was an Initiate, one of the grandest of Scientists. His disciple, Archytas, was marvellously apt in applied Science. Plato and Euclid were Initiates, but not Socrates. No real Initiates were married.
Euclid learned his Geometry in the Mysteries. Modern men of Science only rediscover the old truths.
Kosmic Consciousness.
H. P. B. proceeded to explain Kosmic Consciousness, which is, like all else, on seven planes, of which three are inconceivable and four are cognizable by the highest Adept. She sketched the planes as in the following diagram.
| Manas-Ego. |
| Kâma-Manas
|
| Prânic-Kâma
|
| Astral. |
| Prâkritic
|
Taking the lowest only, the Terrestrial (it was afterwards decided to call this plane Prâkritic), it is divisible into seven planes, and these again into seven, making the forty-nine.
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Terrestrial.
She then took the lowest plane of Prakriti, or the true Terrestrial, and divided it as follows:–
| Para-Ego or Âtmic. | ||
| Inner-Ego or Buddhic. | ||
| Ego-Manas. | ||
| True terrestrial planes,
|
Kâma-Manas or Lower Manas. | |
| Prânic Kâma or Psychic. | ||
| Astral. | ||
| Objective. |
Its objective or sensuous plane is that which is sensed by the five physical senses. On its second plane things are reversed.
Its third plane is psychic: here is the instinct which prevents a kitten going into the water and getting drowned.
The following table of the terrestrial, objective consciousness was given:
- 1. Sensuous.
- 2. Instinctual.
- 3. Physiological-emotional.
- 4. Passional „
- 5. Mental „
- 6. Spiritual „
- 7. x.
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Astral.
| Astral. | |
| Astral Buddhi. | |
| Astral Manas. | |
| Astral Kâma-Manas. | |
| Astral Psychic, or Prânic. | |
| Astral Astral. | |
| Astral Objective. |
With regard to the first division of the second plane, H. P. B. reminded her pupils that all seen on it must be reversed in translating it, e.g., with numbers which appeared backwards. The Astral Objective corresponds in everything to the Terrestrial Objective.
The second division corresponds to the second of the lower plane, but the objects are of extreme tenuity, an astralized Astral. This plane is the limit of the ordinary medium, beyond which he cannot go. A non-mediumistic person to reach it must be asleep or in a trance, or under the influence of laughing-gas; or in ordinary delirium people pass on to this plane.
The third, the Prânic, is of an intensely vivid nature. Extreme delirium carried the patient to this plane. In delirium tremens the sufferer passes to this and to the one above it. Lunatics are often conscious on this plane, where they see terrible visions. It runs into the–
Fourth division, the worst of the astral planes, Kâmic and terrible. Hence come the images that tempt; images of drunkards in Kâma Loka impelling others to drink; images of all vices inoculating men with the desire to commit crimes. The weak imitate these images in a kind of monkeyish fashion, so falling beneath their influence. This is also the cause of epidemics of vices, and cycles of disaster, of accidents of all kinds coming in groups. Extreme delirium tremens is on this plane.
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The fifth division is that of premonitions in dreams, of reflections from the lower mentality, glimpses into the past and future, the plane of things mental and not spiritual. The mesmerized clairvoyant can reach this plane, and even, if good, may go higher.
The sixth is the plane from which come all beautiful inspirations of art, poetry, and music, high types of dreams, flashes of genius. Here we have glimpses of past incarnations, without being able to locate or analyse them.
We are on the seventh plane at the moment of death or in exceptional visions. The drowning man is here when he remembers his past life. The memory of events of this plane must be centred in the heart, “the seat of Buddha.” There it will remain, but impressions from this plane are not made on the physical brain.
[In this diagram all the Kosmic Planes should be figured as of one size–the size given to the lowest plane, Prakriti. Further, within the circle all the Prâkritic Planes should be of one size–that given to the first, or lowest. To do this would make so large a diagram that the planes are compressed.–Ed.]
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General Notes.
The two planes a/bove dealt with are the only two used in the Hatha Yoga.
Prâna and the Auric Envelope are essentially the same, and again, as Jîva, it is the same as the Universal Deity. This, in its Fifth Principle, is Mahat, in its Sixth, Alaya. (The Universal Life is also seven- principled.) Mahat is the highest Entity in Kosmos; beyond this is no diviner Entity; it is of subtlest matter, Sûkshma. In us this is Manas, and the very Logoi are less high, not having gained experience. The Mânasic Entity will not be destroyed, even at the end of the Mahâmanvantara, when all the Gods are absorbed, but will re-emerge from Parabrâhmic latency.
Consciousness is the Kosmic seed of superkosmic omniscience. It has the potentiality of budding into the Divine Consciousness.
Rude physical health is a drawback to seership. This was the case with Swedenborg. Fohat is everywhere: it runs like a thread through all, and has its own seven divisions.
In the Kosmic Auric Envelope is all the Karma of the manifesting Universe. This is the Hiranyagarbha. Jîva is everywhere, and so with the other Principles.
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The above diagram represents the type of all the Solar Systems.
Mahat, single before informing the Universe, differentiates when informing it, as does Manas in man
Taking this figure to represent the human Principles and planes of consciousness, then
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7, 6, 5, represent respectively, Shiva, Vishnu, Brahmâ being the lowest.
Shiva is the four-faced Brahmâ; the Creator, Preserver, Destroyer, and Regenerator.
Between 5 and 4 comes the Antahkarana. The △ represents the Christos, the Sacrificial Victim crucified between the thieves: this is the double-faced entity. The Vedântins make this a quarternary for a blind: Antahkarana, Chit, Buddhi, and Manas.
Manvantaric Aspect of Parabrahman and Mûlaprakriti.
N.B.–The number of rays is arbitrary and without significance.
Perceptive life begins with the Astral: it is not our physical atoms which see, etc.
Consciousness proper begins between Kâma and Manas. Âtmâ-buddhi acts more in the atoms of the body, in the bacilli, microbes, etc., than in Man himself.
Objective Consciousness.
Sensuous objective consciousness includes all that pertains to the five physical senses in man, and rules in animals, birds, fishes and some insects. Here are the “Lives;” their consciousness is in Âtma-Buddhi; these are entirely without Manas.
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Astral Consciousness.
That of some plants (e.g., sensitive) of ants, spiders, and some night-flies (Indian), but not of bees.
The vertebrate animals in general are without this consciousness, but the placental Mammals have all the potentialities of human consciousness, though at present, of course, dormant.
Idiots are on this plane. The common expression “he has lost his mind” is an Occult truth. For when through fright or other cause the lower mind becomes paralysed, then the consciousness is on the Astral Plane. The study of lunacy will throw much light on these points. This may be called the “nerve plane.” It is cognized by our “nervous centres” of which Physiology knows nothing, e.g., the clairvoyant reading with the eyes bandaged, reading with the tips of the fingers, the pit of the stomach, etc. This sense is greatly developed in the deaf and dumb.
Kâma-Prânic Consciousness.
The general life-consciousness which belongs to all the objective world, even to the stones; for if stones were not living they could not decay, emit a spark, etc. Affinity between chemical elements is a manifestation of this Kâmic consciousness.
Kâma-Mânasic Consciousness.
The instinctual consciousness of animals and idiots in its lowest degrees, the planes of sensation; in man these are rationalized, e.g., a dog shut in a room has the instinct to get out, but cannot because its instinct is not sufficiently rationalized to take the necessary means; whereas a man at once takes in the situation and extricates himself. The highest degree of this Kâma-Mânasic consciousness is the psychic. Thus there are seven degrees from the instinctual animal to the rationalized instinctual and psychic.
Mânasic Consciousness.
From this plane Manas stretches upwards to Mahat.
Buddhic Consciousness.
The plane of Buddhi and the Auric Envelope. From here it goes to the Father in heaven, Âtmâ, and reflects all that is in the Auric Envelope. Five and six therefore cover the planes from the psychic to the divine.
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Miscellaneous.
Reason is a thing that oscillates between right and wrong. But Intelligence–Intuition–is higher, it is the clear vision.
To get rid of Kâma we must crush out all out material instincts–“crush out matter.” The flesh is a thing of habit; it will repeat mechanically a good impulse as well as a bad one. It is not the flesh which is always the tempter; in nine cases out of ten it is the Lower Manas, which, by its images, leads the flesh into temptation.
The highest Adept begins his Samâdhi on the Fourth Solar Plane, but cannot go outside the Solar System. When he begins Samâdhi he is on a par with some of the Dhyân Chohans, but he transcends them as he rises to the seventh plane (Nirvâna).
The Silent Watcher is on the Fourth Kosmic Plane.
The higher Mind directs the Will: the lower turns it into selfish Desire. The head should not be covered in meditation. It is covered in Samâdhi.
The Dhyân Chohans are passionless, pure and mindless. They have no struggle, no passion to crush. The Dhyân Chohans are made to pass through the School of Life. “God goes to School.”
The best of us in the future will be Mânasaputras; the lowest will be Pitris. We are seven intellectual Hierarchies here. This earth becomes the moon of the next earth.
The “Pitris” are the Astral overshadowed by Âtma-Buddhi, falling into matter. T he “Pudding-bags” has Life and Âtmâ-Buddhi, but no Manas. They were therefore senseless. The reason for all evolution is the gaining of experience.
In the Fifth Round all of us will pay the part of the Pitris. We shall have to go and shoot out our Chhâyâs into another humanity, and remain until that humanity is perfected. The Pitris have finished their office in this Round and have gone into Nirvâna; but they will return to do the same office up to the middle point of the Fifth Round. The Fourth or Kâmic Hierarchy of the Pitris becomes the “man of flesh.”
The astral body is first in the womb; then comes the germ that fructifies it. It is then clothed with matter, as were the Pitris.
The Chhâyâ is really the lower Manas, the shadow of the higher Mind. This Chhâyâ makes the Mâyâvi Rûpa. The Ray clothes itself
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in the highest degree of the Astral Plane. The Mâyâvi Rûpa is composed of the astral body as Upâdhi, the guiding intelligence from the heart, the attributes and qualities from the Auric Envelopes.
The Auric Envelope takes up the light of Âtmâ, and overshadows the coronal circling round the head.
The Auric Fluid is a combination of the Life and Will principles, the life and the will being one and the same in Kosmos. It emanates from the eyes and hands, when directed by the will of the operator.
The Auric Light surrounds all bodies: it is the “aura” emanating from them, whether they be animal, vegetable, or mineral. It is the light, e.g., seen round magnets.
Âtmâ-Buddhi-Manas in man corresponds to the three Logoi in Kosmos. They not only correspond, but
each is the radiation from Kosmos to Microcosmos. The third Logos, Mahat, becomes Manas in man, Manas being only Mahat individualized, as the sun-rays are individualized in bodies that absorb them. The sun-rays give life, they fertilize what is already there, and the individual is formed. Mahat, so to say fertilizes, and Manas is the result.
Buddhi-Manas is the Kshetrajña.
There are seven planes of Mahat, as of all else.
The Human Principles.
Here H. P. B. drew two diagrams, illustrating different ways of representing the human principles. In the first:
the two lower are disregarded; they go out, disintegrate, are of not account. Remain five, under the radiation of Âtmâ.
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In the second:
the lower Quaternary is regarded as mere matter, objective illusion, and there remain Manas and the Auric Egg, the higher Principles being reflected in the Auric Egg. In all these systems remember the main principle, the descent and re-ascent of the Spirit, in man as in Kosmos. The Spirit is drawn downwards as by spiritual gravitation.
Seeking further for the cause of this, the students were checked, H. P. B. giving only a suggestion on the three Logoi:
- 1. Potentiality of Mind (Absolute Thought).
- 2. Thought in Germ.
- 3. Ideation in Activity.
Notes.
Protective variation, e.g.,identity of colouring of insects and of that on which they feed, was explained to be the work of Nature Elementals.
Form is on different planes, and the forms of one plane may be formless to dwellers on another. The Kosmocratores build on planes in the Divine Mind, visible to them though not to us. The principle of limitation–principium individuationis–is Form: this principle is Divine Law manifested in Kosmic Matter, which, in its essence, is limitless. The Auric Egg is the limit of man as Hiranyagarbha of the Kosmos.
The first step towards the accomplishment of Kriyâshakti is the use of the Imagination. To imagine a thing is to firmly create a model of what you desire, perfect in all its details. The Will is then brought into action, and the form is thereby transferred to the objective world. This is creation by Kriyâshakti.
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Suns and Planets.
A comet partially cools and settles down as a sun. It then gradually attracts round it planets that are as yet unattached to any centre, and thus, in millions of years, a Solar System is formed. The worn- out planet becomes a moon to the planet of another system.
The sun we see is a reflection of the true Sun: this reflection, as an outward concrete thing, is a Kâma- Rûpa, all the suns forming the Kâma-Rûpa of Kosmos. To its own system the sun is Buddhi, as being the reflection and vehicle of the true Sun, which is Âtmâ, invisible on this plane. All the Fohatic forces– electricity, etc–are in this reflection.
The Moon.
At the beginning of the evolution of our globe, the moon was much nearer to the earth, and larger than it is now. It has retreated from us, and shrunk much in size. (The moon gave all her Principles to the earth, while the Pitris gave only their Chhâyâs to man.)
The influences of the moon are wholly psycho-physiological. It is dead, sending out injurious emanations like a corpse. It vampirizes the earth and its inhabitants, so that any one sleeping in its rays suffers, losing some of his life-force. A white cloth is a protection, the rays not passing through it, and the head especially should be thus guarded. It has most power when it is full. It throws off particles which we absorb, and is gradually disintegrating. Where there is snow the moon looks like a corpse, being unable, through the white snow, to vampirize effectually. Hence snow-covered mountains are free from its bad influences. The moon is phosphorescent.
The Râkshakas of Lanka and the Atlanteans are said to have subjected the moon. The Thessalians learned from them their Magic.
Esoterically, the moon is the symbol of the Lower Manas; it is also the symbol of the Astral.
Plants which under the sun’s rays are beneficent are maleficent under those of the moon. Herbs containing poisons are most active when gathered under the moon’s rays.
A new moon will appear during the Seventh Round, and our moon will finally disintegrate and disappear. There is now a planet, the “Mystery Planet,” behind the moon, and it is gradually dying. Finally the time will come for it to send its Principles to a new Laya Centre, and there a new planet will form, to belong to another Solar System, the
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present Mystery Planet then functioning as moon to that new globe. This moon will have nothing to do with our earth, though it will come within our range of vision.
The Solar System.
All the visible planets placed in our Solar System by Astronomers belong to it, except Neptune. There are also some others not known to Science, belonging to it, and “all moons which are not yet visible for next things.”
The planets only move in our consciousness. The Rulers of the seven Secret Planets have no influence on this earth, as this earth has on other planets. It is the sun and moon which really have not only a mental, but also a physical effect. The effect of the sun on humanity is connected with Kâma-Prâna, with the most physical Kâmic elements in us; it is the vital principle which helps growth. The effect of the moon is chiefly Kâma-Mânasic or psycho-physiological; it acts on the psychological brain, on the brain mind.
Precious Stones.
In answer to a question, H. P. B. said that the diamond and the ruby were under the sun, the saphire under the moon–“but what does it matter to you?”
Time.
When once out of the body, and not subject to the habit of consciousness formed by others, time does not exist.
Cycles and epochs depend on consciousness: we are not here for the first time; the cycles return because we come back into conscious existence. Cycles are measured by the consciousness of humanity and not by Nature. It is because we are the same people as in past epochs that these events occur to us.
Death.
The Hindus look upon death as impure, owing to the disintegration of the body and the passing from one plane to another. “I believe in transformation, not in death.”
Atoms.
The Atom is the Soul of the molecule. It is the six Principles, and the molecule is the body thereof. The Atom is the Âtman of the objective Kosmos, i.e., it is on the seventh plane of the lowest Prakriti.
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Terms.
H. P. B. began by saying that students ought to know the correct meaning of the Sanskrit terms used in Occultism, and should learn the Occult Symbology. To begin with one had better learn the correct Esoteric classification and names of the fourteen (7 × 2 ) and seven (Sapta) Lokas found in the exoteric texts. These are given there in a very confused manner, and are full of “blinds.” To illustrate this three classifications are given below.
Lokas.
1. The general exoteric, orthodox and tântric category:
- Bhûr-loka.
- Bhuvar-loka.
- Swar-loka.
- Mahar-loka. The second seven are reflected.
- Janar-loka.
- Tapar-loka.
- Satya-loka.
2. The Sânkhya category, and that of some Vedântins
- Brahmâ-loka.
- Pitri-loka.
- Soma-loka.
- Indra-loka.
- Gandharva-loka.
- Râkshasa-loka.
- Yaksha-loka.
And an eighth.
3. The Vedântic, the nearest approach to the Esoteric:
- Atala.
- Vitala.
- Sutala.
- Talâtala (or Karatala).
- Rasâtala.
- Mahâtala.
- Pâtâla.
Each and all correspond Esoterically to the Kosmic or Dhyân Chohanic Hierarchies, and to the human States of Consciousness and their subdivisions (forty-nine). To appreciate this the meanings of the terms used in the Vedântic classification must be first understood.
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| Tala | means | place. |
| Atala | means | no place. |
| Vitala | means | some change for the better: i.e., better for matter, in that more matter enters into it, or, in other words, it becomes more differentiated. This is an ancient Occult term. |
| Sutala | means | good, excellent, place. |
| Karatala | means | something that can be grasped or touched (from kara, a hand): i.e., the state in which matter becomes tangible. |
| Rasâtala | means | place of taste; a place you can sense with one of the organs of sense. |
| Mahâtala | means | exoterically “great place”; but, Esoterically, a place including all others subjectively, and potentially including all that precedes it. |
| Pâtâla | means | something under the feet (from pada, foot), the upâdhi, or basis of anything, the antipodes, America, etc. |
Each of the Lokas, places, worlds, states, etc., corresponds with and is transformed into five (exoterically) and seven (Esoterically) states or Tattvas, for which there are no definite names. These in the main divisions cited below make up the forty-nine Fires:
- 5 and 7 Tanmâtras, outer and inner senses.
- 5 and 7 Bhûtas, or elements.
- 5 and 7 Gnyânendryas, or organs of sensation.
- 5 and 7 Karmendryas, or organs of action.
These correspond in general to States of Consciousness, to the Hierarchies of Dhyân Chohans, to the Tattvas, etc. These Tattvas transform themselves into the whole Universe. The fourteen Lokas are made of seven with seven reflections: above, below; within, without; subjective, objective; pure, impure; positive, negative; etc.
Explanation of the States of Consciousness Corresponding to the Vedântic Classification of Lokas.
7. Atala The Âtmic or Auric state or locality: it emanates directly from ABSOLUTENESS, and is the first something in the Universe. Its correspondence is the Hierarchy of non-substantial primordial Beings, in a place which is no place (for us), a state which is no state. This
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Hierarchy contains the primordial plane, all that was, and will be, from the beginning to the end of the Mahâmanvantara; all is there. This statement should not, however, be taken to imply Kismet: the latter is contrary to all the teachings of Occultism.
Here are the Hierarchies of the Dhyâni Buddhas. Their state is that of Parasamâdhi, of the Dharmakâya; a state where no progress is possible. The entities there may be said to be crystallized in purity, in homogeneity.
6. Vitala. Here are the Hierarchies of the celestial Buddhas, or Bodhisattvas, who are said to emanate from the seven Dhyâni Buddhas. It is related on earth to Samâdhi, to the Buddhic consciousness in man. No adept, save one, can be higher than this and live; if he passes into the Âtmic or Dharmakâya state (Alaya) he can return to earth no more. These two states are purely hyper-metaphysical.
5. Sutala. A differential state corresponding on earth with the Higher Manas, and therefore with Shabda (Sound), the Logos, our Higher Ego; and also to the Manushi Buddha state, like that of Gautama, on earth. This is the third stage of Samâdhi (which is septenary). Here belong the Hierachies of the Kumâras–the Agnishvattas, etc.
4. Karatala corresponds with Sparsha (touch) and to the Hierarchies of ethereal, semi-objective Dhyân Chohans of the astral matter of the Mânasa-Manas, or the pure ray of Manas, that is the Lower Manas before it is mixed with Kâma (as in the young child). They are called Sparsha Devas, the Devas endowed with touch. These Hierarchies of Devas are progressive: the first have one sense; the second two; and so on to seven: each containing all the senses potentially, but not yet developed. Sparsha would be rendered better by affinity, contact.
3. Rasâtala, or Rûpatala: corresponds to the Hierachies of Rûpa or Sight Devas, possessed of three senses, sight, hearing, and touch. These are the Kâma-Mânasic entities, and the higher Elementals. With the Rosicrucians they were the Sylphs and Undines. It corresponds on earth with an artificial state of consciousness, such as that produced by hypnotism and drugs (morphia, etc.).
2. Mahâtala. Corresponds to the Hierachies of Rasa or Taste Devas , and includes a state of consciousness embracing the lower five senses and emanations of life and being. It corresponds to Kâma and Prâna in man, and to Salamanders and Gnomes in nature.
1. Pâtala. Corresponds to the Hierarchies of Gandha or Smell
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Devas, the underworld or antipodes: Myalba. The sphere of irrational animals, having no feeling save that of self-preservation and gratification of the senses: also of intensely selfish human beings, walking or sleeping. This is why Nârada is said to have visited Pâtâla when he was cursed to be reborn. He reported that life there was very pleasant for those “who had never left their birth-place”; they were happy. It is the earthly state, and corresponds with the sense of smell. Here are also animal Dugpas, Elementals of animals, and Nature Spirits.
Further Explanations of the Same Classifications.
7. Auric, Âtmic, Alayic, sense or state. One of full potentiality, but not of activity.
6. Buddhic; the sense of being one with the universe; the impossibility of imagining oneself apart from it.
(It was asked why the term Alayic was here given to the Âtmic and not to the Buddhic state. Ans. These classifications are not hard and fast divisions. A term may change places according as the classification is exoteric, Esoteric or practical. For students the effort should be to bring all things down to states of consciousness. Buddhi is really one and indivisible. It is a feeling within, absolutely inexpressible in words. All cataloguing is useless to explain it.)
5. Shâbdic, sense of hearing.
4. Spârshic, sense of touch.
3. Rûpîc, the state of feeling oneself a body and perceiving it (rûpa = form).
2. Râsic, sense of taste.
1. Gândhic, sense of smell.
All the Kosmic and anthropic states and senses correspond with our organs of sensation, Gnyânendryas, rudimentary organs for receiving knowledge through direct contact, sight, etc. These are the faculties of Sharîra, through Netra (eyes), nose, speech, etc., and also with the organs of action, Karmendryas, hands, feet, etc.
Exoterically, there are five sets of five, giving twenty-five. Of these twenty are facultative and five Buddhic. Exoterically Buddhi is said to perceive; Esoterically it reaches perception only through the Higher Manas. Each of these twenty is both positive and negative, thus making forty in all. There are two subjective states answering to each of the four sets of five, hence eight in all. These being subjective can-
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not be doubled. Thus we have 40 + 8 = 48 “cognitions of Buddhi.” These with Mâyâ, which includes them all, make 49. (Once that you have reached the cognition of Mâyâ, you are an Adept.)
| Tanmâtras | 2 | subjective. | |
| Bhûtas | 2 | ||
| Gnyânendryas | 2 | ||
| Karmendryas | 2 | ||
| Karmendryas | 2 | ||
| 20 + 20 | 8 |
The Lokas.
In their exoteric blinds the Brâhmans count fourteen Lokas earth included), of which seven are objective, though not apparent, and seven subjective, yet fully demonstrable to the Inner Man. There are seven Divine Lokas and seven infernal (terrestrial) Lokas.
| 1. | Bhûrloka (the earth). | Pâtâla (our earth). |
| 2. | Bhuvarloka (between the earth and the sun [Munîs]). | Mahâtala |
| 3. | Svarloka (between the sun and the Pole Star [Yogîs]). | Rasâtala |
| 4. | Maharloka (between the earth and the and the utmost limit of the Solar System). * | Talâtala (or Karatala). |
| 5. | Janarloka (beyond the Solar System, the abode of the Kumâras who do not belong to this plane). | Sutala. |
| 6. | Taparloka (still beyond the Mahâtmic region, the dwelling of the Vairâja deities). | Vitala. |
| 7. | Satyaloka (the abode of the Nirvanîs). | Atala. |
* All these “spaces” denote the special magnetic currents, the planes of substance, and the degrees of approach that the consciousness of the Yogi, or Chela, performs towards assimilation with the inhabitants of the Lokas.
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Diagram V.
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These the Brâhmans read from the bottom.
Now all these fourteen are planes from without within, and (the seven Divine) States of Consciousness through which man can pass–and must pass, once he is determined to go through the seven paths and portals of Dhyâni; one need not be disembodied for this, and all this is reached on earth, and in one or many of the incarnations.
See the order: the four lower ones (1, 2, 3, 4), are rûpa; i.e., they are performed by the Inner Man with the full concurrence of the diviner portions, or elements, of the Lower Manas, and consciously by the personal man. The three higher states cannot be reached and remembered by the latter, unless he is a fully initiated Adept. A Hatha Yogî will never pass beyond the Maharloka, psychically, and the Talâtala (double or dual place), physico-mentally. To become a Râja Yogî, one has to ascend up to the seventh portal, the Satyaloka. For such, the Master Yogîs tells us, is the fruition of Yajna, or sacrifice. When the Bhûr, Bhuvar and Svarga (states) are once passed, and the Yogi’s consciousness centered in Maharloka, it is in the last plane and state between entire identification of the Personal and the Higher Manas.
One thing to remember: while the infernal (or terrestrial) states are also the seven divisions of the earth, for planes and states, as much as they are Kosmic divisions, the divine Saptaloka are purely subjective, and begin with the psychic Astral Light plane, ending with the Satya or Jîvanmukta state. These fourteen Lokas, or spheres, form the extent of the whole Brahmânda (world). The four lower are transitory, with all their dwellers, and the three higher eternal; i.e., the former states, planes and subjects, to these, last only a Day of Brahmâ, changing with every Kalpa: the latter endure for an Age of Brahmâ.
In Diagram V. only Body, Astral, Kâma, Lower Manas, Higher Manas, Buddhi and Auric Âtmâ are given. Life is a Universal Kosmic Principle, and no more than Âtman does it belong to individuals.
In answer to questions on the diagram, H. P. B., said that Touch and Taste have no order. Elements have a regular order, but Fire pervades them all. Every sense pervades every other. There is no universal order, that being first in each which is most developed.
Students must learn the correspondences: then concentrate on the organs and so reach their corresponding states of consciousness. Take them in order beginning with the lowest, and working steadily
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upwards. A medium might irregularly catch glimpses of higher, but would not thus gain orderly development.
The greatest phenomena are produced by touching and centering the attention upon the little finger.
The Lokas and Talas are reflections the one of the other. So also are the Hierarchies in each, in pairs of opposites, at the two poles of the sphere. Everywhere are such opposites: good and evil, light and darkness, male and female.
H. P. B. could not say why blue was the colour of the earth. Blue is a colour by itself, a primary. Indigo is a colour, not a shade of blue, so is violet.
The Vairâjas belong to, are the fiery Egos of, other Manvantaras. They have already been purified in the fire of passions. It is they who refused to create. They have reached the Seventh Portal, and have refused Nirvâna, remaining for succeeding Manvantaras.
The seven steps of Antahkarana correspond with the Lokas.
Samâdhi is the highest state on earth that can be reached in the body. Beyond that the Initiate must have become a Nirmânakâya.
Purity of mind is of greater importance than purity of body. If the Upâdhi be not perfectly pure, it cannot preserve recollections coming from a higher state. An act may be performed to which little or no attention is paid, and it is of comparatively small importance. But if thought of, dwelt on in the mind, the effect is a thousand times greater.
The thoughts must be kept pure.
Remember that Kâma, while having bad passions and emotions, helps you to evolve by giving also the desire and impulse necessary for rising.
The flesh, the body, the human being in his material part, is, on this plane, the most difficult thing to subject. The highest Adept, put into a new body, has to struggle against it and subdue it, and finds its subjugation difficult.
The Liver is the General, the Spleen is the Aide-de-Camp. All that the Liver does not accomplish is taken up and completed by the Spleen.
H. P. B. was asked whether each person must pass through the fourteen states, and answered that the Lokas and Talas represented planes on this earth, through some of which all must pass, and through all of which the disciple must pass, on his way to Adeptship. Everyone passes through the lower Lokas, but not necessarily through the
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corresponding Talas. There are two poles in everything; seven states in every state.
Vitala represents a sublime as well as an infernal state. That state which for the mortal is a complete separation of the Ego from the personality is for a Buddha a mere temporary separation. For the Buddha it is a Kosmic state.
The Brâhmans and Buddhists regard the Talas as hells, but in reality the term is figurative. We are in hell whenever we are in misery, suffer misfortune and so on.
Forms in the Astral Light.
The Elementals in the Astral light are reflections. Everything on earth is reflected there. It is from these that photographs are sometimes obtained through mediums. The mediums unconsciously produce them as forms. The Adepts produce them consciously through Kriyâshakti, bringing them down by a process that may be compared to the focussing of rays of light by a burning glass.
States of Consciousness.
Bhûrloka is the waking state in which we normally live; it is the state in which animals also are, when they sense food, a danger, etc. To be in Svarloka is to be completely abstracted on this plane, leaving only instinct to work, so that on the material plane you would behave as an animal. Yogîs are known who have become crystallized in this state, and then they must be nourished by others. A Yogî near Allahabad had been for fifty-three years sitting on a stone; his Chelâs plunge him into the river every night and then replace him. During the day his consciousness returns to Bhûrloka, and he talks and teaches. A Yogî was found on an island near Calcutta round whose limbs the roots of trees had grown. He was cut out, and in the endeavour to awaken him so many outrages were inflicted on him that he died.
Q. Is it possible to be in more than one state of consciousness at once?
A. The consciousness cannot be entirely on two planes at once. The higher and lower states are not wholly incompatible, but if you are on the higher you will wool-gather on the lower. In order to remember the higher state on returning to the lower, the memory must be carried upwards to the higher. An Adept may apparently enjoy a dual consciousness; when he desires not to see he can abstract himself; he may be in a higher state and yet return answers to questions
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addressed to him. But in this case he will momentarily return to the material plane, shooting up again to the higher plane. This is his only salvation in adverse conditions.
The lower you go in the Talas the more intellectual you become and the less spiritual. You may be a morally good man but not spiritual. Intellect may remain very closely related to Kâma. A man may be in a Loka to which he belongs. Thus a man in Bhûrloka only may pass into the Talas and go to the devil. If he dwells in Bhuvarloka he cannot become as bad. If he has reached the Satya state he can go into any Tala without danger; buoyed up by his own purity he can never be engulfed. The Talas are brain intellect states, while the Lokas–or more accurately the three higher–are spiritual.
Manas absorbs the light of Buddhi. Buddhi is Arûpa, and can absorb nothing. When the Ego takes all the light of Buddhi, it takes that of Âtmâ, Buddhi being the vehicle, and thus the three become one. This done, the full Adept is one spiritually, but has a body. The fourfold Path is finished and he is one. The Masters bodies are, as far as they are concerned, illusionary, and hence do not grow old, become wrinkled, etc.
The student, who is not naturally psychic, should fix the fourfold consciousness in a higher plane and nail it there. Let him make a bundle of the four lower and pin them to a higher state. He should centre on this higher, trying not to permit the body and intellect to draw him down and carry him away. Play ducks and drakes with the body, eating, drinking and sleeping, but living always on the ideal.
Mother-Love.
Mother-love is an instinct, the same in the human being and in the animal, and often stronger in the latter. The continuance of this love in human beings is due to association, to blood magnetism and to psychic affinity. Families are sometimes formed of those who have lived together before, but often not. The causes at work are very complex and have to be balanced. Sometimes when a child with very bad karma is to be born, parents of a callous type are chosen, or they may die before the Karmic results appear. Or the suffering through the child may be their own Karma. Mother-love as an instinct is between Rasâtala and Talâtala.
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The Lipikas keep man’s Karmic record, and impress it on the Astral Light.
Vacillating people pass from one state of consciousness to another.
Thought arises before desire. The thought acts on the brain, the brain on the organ, and then desire awakes. It is not the outer stimulus that arouses the organ. Thought therefore must be slain ere desire can be extinguished. The student must guard his thoughts. Five minutes’ thought may undo the work of five years; and though the five years’ work will be run through more rapidly the second time, yet time is lost.
Consciousness.
H. P. B. began by challenging the views of consciousness in the West, commenting on the lack of definition in the leading Philosphies. No distinction was made between consciousness and self-consciousness, and yet in this lay the difference between man and the animal. The animal was conscious only, not self- conscious; the animal does not know the Ego as Subject, as does man. There is therefore an enormous difference between the consciousness of the bird, the insect, the beast, and that of man.
But the full consciousness of man is self-consciousness–that which makes us say, “I do that.” If there is pleasure is must be traced to some one experiencing it. Now the difference between the consciousness of man and animals is that while there is a Self in the animal, the animal is not conscious of the Self. Spencer reasons on consciousness, but when he comes to a gap he merely jumps over it. So again Hume, when he says that on introspection he sees merely feelings and can never find any “I,” forgets that without an “I” no seeing of feelings would be possible. What is it that studies the feelings? The animal is not conscious of the feeling “I am I,” It has instinct, but instinct is not self-consciousness. Self- consciousness is an attribute of the mind, not of the soul, the anima, whence the very name animal is taken. Humanity had no self-consciousness until the coming of the Mânasaputras in the Third Race. Consciousness, brain-consciousness, is the field of the light of the Ego, of the Auric Egg, of the Higher Manas. The cells of the leg are conscious, but they are the slaves of the idea; they are not self- conscious, they cannot originate an idea although when they are tired they can convey to the brain an uneasy sensation, and so give rise to the idea of fatigue. Instinct is the lower state of consciousness. Man has consciousness running through the
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four lower keys of his septenary consciousness; there are seven scales of consciousness in his consciousness, which is none the less essentially and pre-eminently one, a unit. There are millions and millions of states of consciousness, as there are millions and millions of leaves; but as you cannot find two leaves alike, so you cannot find two states of consciousness alike; a state is never exactly repeated.
Is memory a thing born in us that it can give birth to the Ego? Knowledge, feeling, volition, are colleagues of the mind, not faculties of it. Memory is an artificial thing, an adjunct of relativeness; it can be sharpened or left dull, and it depends on the condition of the brain-cells which store all impressions; knowledge, feeling, volition, cannot be correlated, do what you will. They are not produced from each other, nor produced from mind, but are principles, colleagues. You cannot have knowledge without memory, for memory stores all things, garnishing and furnishing. If you teach a child nothing, it will know nothing. Brain-consciousness depends on the intensity of the light shed by the Higher Manas on the Lower, and the extent of affinity between the brain to this light. Brain-mind is conditioned by the responsiveneness of the brain to this light; it is the field of consciousness of the Manas. The animal has the Monad and the Manas latent, but its brain cannot respond. All potentialities are there, but are dormant. There are certain accepted errors in the West which vitiate all their theories.
How many impressions can a man receive simultaneously into his consciousness and record? The Western say one: Occultists say normally seven, and abnormally fourteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty- one, up to forty-nine, impressions can be simultaneously received. Occultism teaches that the consciousness always receives a sevenfold impression and stores it in the memory. You can prove it by striking at once the seven notes of the musical scale: the seven sounds reach the consciousness simultaneously, but the untrained ear can only recognize them one after another, and if you choose you can measure the intervals. The trained ear will hear the seven notes at once simultaneously. And experiment has shown that in two or three weeks a man may be trained to receive seventeen or eighteen impressions of colour, the intervals decreasing with patience.
Memory is acquired for this life, and can be expanded. Genius is the greatest responsiveness of the brain and brain-memory to the Higher Manas. Impressions on any sense are stored in the memory.
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Before a physical sense is developed there is a mental feeling which proceeds to become a physical sense. Fishes who are blind, living in the deep sea, or subterranean waters, if they are put into a pond will in a few generations develop eyes. But in their previous state there is a sense of seeing, though no physical sight; how else should they in the darkness find their way, avoid dangers, etc.? The mind will take in and store all kinds of things mechanically and unconsciously, and will throw them into the memory as unconscious perceptions. If the attention is greatly engrossed in any way, the sense perception of any injury is not felt at the time, but later the suffering enters into consciousness. So, returning to our example of the seven notes struck simultaneously, we have one impression, but the ear is affected in succession by the notes one after another, so that they are stored in the brain-mind in order, for the untrained consciousness cannot register them simultaneously. All depends on training and on attention. Thus the transference of a sensation passing from any organ to the consciousness is almost simultaneous if your attention is fixed on it, but if any noise distracts your attention, then it will take a fraction more of a second before it reaches your consciousness. The Occultist should train himself to receive and transmit along the line of the seven scales of his consciousness every impression, or impressions, simultaneously. He who reduces the intervals of physical time the most has made the most progress.
Consciousness, Its Seven Scales.
There are seven scales or shades of consciousness, of the Unit; e.g., in a moment of pleasure or pain; four lower and three higher.
| 1. Physical sense-perception: | Perception of the cell (if paralyzed, the sense is there, though you do not feel it). |
| 2. Self-perception or apperception: | I.e., self-perception of cell. |
| 3. Psychic apperception: | Of astral double, döppelganger, carrying it higher to the |
| 4. Vital perception: | Physical feeling, sensations of pleasure and pain, of quality. |
These are the four lower scales, and belong to the psycho-physiological man.
| 5. Manasic discernment of the Lower Manas. | Mânasic self-perception. |
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| 6. Will perception: | Volitional perception, the voluntary taking in of an idea; you can regard or disregard physical pain. |
| 7. Spiritual, entirely conscious apperception: | Because it reaches the Higher, self- conscious conscious Manas. |
[Apperception means self-perception, conscious action, not as with Leibnitz, but when attention is fixed on the perception.]
You can take these on any planes: e.g., bad news passes through the four lower stages before coming to the heart.
Or take Sound:
- 1. It strikes the ear.
- 2. Self-perception of the ear.
- 3. On the psychic or mental, which carries it to
- 4. Vital (harsh, soft; strong, weak; etc.).
The Ego.
One of the best proofs that there is an Ego, a true Field of Consciousness is the fact already mentionned, that a state of consciousness, is never exactly reproduced, though you should live a hundred years, and pass through milliards and milliards. In an active day, how many states and substates there are; it would be impossible to have cells enough for all. This will help you to understand why some mental states and abstract things follow the Ego into Devachan, and why others merely scatter in space. That which touches the Entity has an affinity for it, as a noble action is immortal and goes with it into Devachan, forming part and parcel of the biography of the personality which is disintegrating. A lofty emotion runs through the seven stages, and touches the Ego, the mind that plays its tunes in the mind-cells. We can analyze the work of consciousness and describe it; but we cannot define consciousness unless we postulate a Subject.
Bhûrloka.
The Bhûrloka begins with the Lower Manas. Animals do not feel as do men. The dog thinks more of his master being angry than of the actual pain of the lash. The animal does not suffer in memory and in imagination, feeling past and future as well as actual present pain.
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Pineal Gland.
The special physical organ of perception is the brain, and perception is located in the aura of the pineal gland. This aura answers in vibrations to any impressions, but it can only be sensed, not perceived, in the living man. During the process of thought manifesting in consciousness, a constant vibration occurs in the light of this aura, and a clairvoyant looking at the brain of a living man may almost count, see with the spiritual eye, the seven scales, the seven shades of light, passing from the dullest to the brightest. You touch your hand; before you touch it the vibration is already in the aura of the pineal gland, and has its own shade of colour. It is this aura which causes the wear and tear of the organ, by the vibrations its sets up. The brain, set vibrating, conveys the vibrations to the spinal cord, and so to the rest of the body. Happiness as well as sorrow sets up these strong vibrations, and so wears out the body. Powerful vibrations of joy or sorrow may thus kill.
The Heart.
The septenary disturbance and play of light around the pineal gland are reflected in the heart, or rather the aura of the heart, which vibrates and illumines the seven brains of the heart, just as does the aura round the pineal gland. This is the exoterically four- but Esoterically seven-leaved lotus, the Saptaparna, the cave of Buddha, with its seven compartments.
Astral and Ego.
There is a difference between the nature and the essence of the Astral Body and the Ego. The Astral Body is molecular, however etherealized it may be: the Ego is atomic, spiritual. The Atoms are spiritual, and are for ever invisible on this plane; molecules form around them, they remaining as the higher invisible principles of the molecules. The eyes are the most Occult of our senses; close them and you pass to the mental plane. Stop all the senses and you are entirely on another plane.
Individuality.
If twelve people are smoking together, the smoke of their cigarettes may mingle, but the molecules of the smoke from each have an affinity with each other, and they remain distinct for ever and ever, no matter
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how the whole mass may interblend. So a drop of water, though it fall into the ocean retains its individuality. It has become a drop with a life of its own, like a man, and cannot be annihilated. Any group of people would appear as a group in the Astral Light, but would not be permanent; but a group meeting to study Occultism would cohere and the impression would be more permanent. The higher and the more spiritual the affinity, the more permanent the cohesion.
Lower Manas.
The Lower Manas is an emanation from the Higher Manas, and is of the same nature as the Higher. This nature can make no impression on this plane, nor receive any: an Archangel, having no experience, would be senseless on this plane, and could neither give nor receive impressions. So the Lower Manas clothes itself with the essence of the Astral Light; this astral envelope shuts it out from its Parent, except through the Antahkarana which is its only salvation. Break this and you become an animal.
Kâma.
Kâma is life, it is the essence of the blood. When this leaves the blood the latter congeals. Prâna is universal on this plane; it is in us the vital principle, Prânic, rather than Pranâ.
Self-Hood.
Qualities determine the properties of “Self-hood.” As, for instance two wolves placed in the same environment would probably not act differently.
The field of the consciousness of the Higher Ego is never reflected in the Astral Light. The Auric Envelope receives the impressions of both the Higher and the Lower Manas, and it is the latter impressions that are also reflected in the Astral Light. Whereas the essence of all things spiritual, all that which reaches, or is not rejected by the Higher Ego is not reflected in the Astral Light, because it is on too low a plane. But during the life of a man, this essence, with a view to Karmîc ends, is impressed on the Auric Envelope, and after death and the separation of the Principles is united with the Universal Mind (that is to say, those “impressions” which are superior to even the Devachanic Plane), to await there Karmically until the day when the Ego is to be reincarnated. [There are thus three sets of impressions, which we may call the Kâmic, Devachanic and Mânasic.] For the entities
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no matter how high, must have their Karmic rewards and punishments on earth. These spiritual impressions are made more or less on the brain, otherwise the Lower Ego would not be responsible. There are some impressions, however, received through the brain, which are not of our previous experience. In the case of the Adept the brain is trained to retain these impressions.
The reincarnating Ray may, for convenience, be separated into two aspects: the lower Kâmic Ego is scattered in Kâma Loka; the Mânasic part accomplishes its cycle and returns to the Higher Ego. It is, in reality, this Higher Ego which is, so to speak, punished, which suffers. This is the true crucifixion of the Christos – the most abstruse but yet the most important mystery of Occultism; all the cycle of our lives hangs on it. It is indeed the Higher Ego that is the sufferer; for remember that the abstract consciousness of the higher personal consciousness will remained impressed on the Ego, since it must be part and parcel of its eternity. All our grandest impressions are impressed on the Higher Ego, because they are of the same nature as itself.
Patriotism and great actions in national service are not altogether good, from the point of view of the highest. To benefit a portion of humanity is good; but to do so at the expense of the rest is bad.
Therefore, in patriotism, etc., the venom is present with the good. For though the inner essence of the Higher Ego is unsoilable, the outer garment may be soiled. Thus both the bad and the good of such thoughts and actions are impressed on the Auric Envelope and the Karma of the bad is taken up by the Higher Ego, though it is perfectly guiltless of it. Thus both sets of impressions after death, scatter in the Universal Mind, and at reincarnation the Ego sends out a Ray which is itself, into a new personality, and there suffers. It suffers in the Self-consciousness that it has created by its own accumulated experiences.
Every one of our Egos has the Karma of past Manvantaras behind. There are seven Hierarchies of Egos, some of which, e.g., in inferior tribes, may be said to be only just beginning the present cycle. The Ego starts with Divine Consciousness; no past, no future, no separation. It is long before realizing that it is itself. Only after many births does it begin to discern, by this collectivity of experience, that it is individual. At the end of its cycle of reincarnation it is still the same Divine Consciousness, but it has now become individualized Self-consciousness.
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The feeling of responsibility is inspired by the presence of the Light of the Higher Ego. As the Ego in its cycle of re-birth becomes more and more individualized, it learns more and more by suffering to recognize its own responsibility, by which it finally gains Self-consciousness, the consciousness of all the Egos of the whole Universe. Absolute Being, to have the idea of sensation of all this, must pass through all experience individually, not universally, so that when it returns it should be of the same omniscience as the Universal Mind plus the memory of all that it has passed through.
At the Day “Be with us” every Ego has to remember all the cycles of its past reincarnations for Manvantaras. The Ego comes in contact with this earth, all seven Principles become one, it sees all that it has done therein. It sees the stream of its past reincarnations by a certain divine light. It sees all humanity at once, but still there is ever, as it were, a stream which is always the “I.”
We should therefore always endeavour to accentuate our responsibility.
The Higher Ego is, as it were, a globe of pure divine light, a Unit from a higher plane, on which is no differentiation. Descending to a plane of differentiation it emanates a Ray, which it can only manifest through the personality which is already differentiated. A portion of this Ray, the Lower Manas, during life, may so crystallize itself and become one with Kâma that it will remain assimilated with Matter. That portion which retains its purity forms Antahkarana. The whole fate of an incarnation depends on whether Antahkarana will be able to restrain the Kâma-Manas or not. After death the higher light (Antahkarana) which bears the impressions and memory of all good and noble aspirations, assimilates itself with the Higher Ego, the bad is dissociated in space, and comes back as bad Karma awaiting the personality.
The feeling of responsibility is the beginning of Wisdom, a proof that Ahankâra is beginning to fade out, the beginning of losing the sense of separateness.
Kâma Rûpa.
The Kâma Rûpa eventually breaks up and goes into animals. All red-blooded animals come from man. The cold-blooded are from the matter of the past. The blood is the Kâma Rûpa.
The white corpuscles are the scavengers, “devourers”; they are
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oozed out of the Astral through the spleen, and are of the same essence as the Astral. They are the seat-born of the Chhâyâ. Kâma is everywhere in the body. The red cells are drops of electrical fluid, the perspiration of all the organs oozed out from every cell. They are the progeny of the Fohatic Principle.
Heart.
There are seven brains in the heart, the Upâdhis and symbols of the seven Hierarchies.
The Fires.
The fires are always playing round the pineal gland, but when Kundalini illuminates them for a brief instant the whole universe is seen. Even in deep sleep the Third Eye opens. This is good for Manas, who profits by it, though we ourselves do not remember.
Perception.
In answer to a question on the seven stages of perception, H. P. B. said that thought should be centred on the highest, the seventh, and then an attempt to transcend this will prove that it is impossible to go beyond it on this plane. There is nothing in the brain to carry the thinker on, and if thought is to rise yet further it might be thought without a brain. Let the eyes be closed, the will set not to let the brain work, and then the point may be transcended and the student will pass to the next plane. All the seen stages of perception come before Antahkarana; if you can pass beyond them you are on the Mânasic Plane.
Try to imagine something which transcends your power of thought, say, the nature of the Dhyân Chohans. Then make the brain passive, and pass beyond; you will see a white radiant light, like silver, but opalescent as mother of pearl; then waves of colour will pass over it, beginning in the tenderest violet, and through bronze shades of green to indigo with metallic lustre, and that colour will remain. If you see this you are on another plane. You should pass through seven stages.
When a colour comes, glance at it, and if it is not good reject it. Let your attention be arrested only on the green, indigo and yellow. These are good colours. The eyes being connected with the brain, the colour you see most easily will be the colour of the personality. If you see red, it is merely physiological, and is to be disregarded. Green-bronze is the Lower Manas: yellow-bronze the Antahkarana,
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indigo-bronze is Manas. These are to be observed, and when the yellow-bronze merges into the indigo you are on the Mânasic Plane.
On the Mânasic Plane you see the Noumena, the essence of phenomena. You do not see people or other consciousnesses, but have enough to do to keep your own. The trained Seer can see Noumena always. The Adept sees the Noumena on this plane, the reality of things, so cannot be deceived.
In meditation the beginner may waver backwards and forwards between two planes. You hear the ticking of a clock on this plane, then on the astral–the soul of the ticking. When clocks are stopped here the ticking goes on on higher planes, in the astral, and then in the ether, until the last bit of the clock is gone. It is the same as with a dead body, which sends out emanations until the last molecule is disintegrated.
There is no time in meditation, because there is no succession of states of consciousness on this plane.
Violet is the colour of the Astral. You begin with it, but should not stay in it; try to pass on. When you see a sheet of violet, you are beginning unconsciously to form a Mâyâvi Rûpa. Fix your attention, and if you go away keep your consciousness firmly to the Mâyâvic Body; do not lose sight of it, hold on like grim death.
Consciousness.
The consciousness which is merely the animal consciousness is made up of the consciousness of all the cells in the body except those of the heart. The heart is the king, the most important organ in the body of man. Even if the head be severed from the body, the heart will continue to beat for thirty minutes. It will beat for some hours if wrapped in cotton wool and put in a warm place. The spot in the heart which is the last of all to die is the seat of life, the centre of all, Brahmâ, the first spot that lives in the fœtus and the last that dies. When a Yogi is buried in a trance it is this spot that lives, though the rest of the body be dead, and as long as this is alive the Yogî can be resurrected. This spot contains potentially mind, life, energy, and will. During life it radiates prismatic colours, fiery and opalescent. The heart is the centre of spiritual consciousness, as the brain is the centre of intellectual. But this consciousness cannot be guided by a person, nor its energy directed by him until he is at one with Buddhi-Manas; until then it guides him–if it can. Hence the pangs of
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remorse, the prickings of conscience, they come from the heart, not the head. In the heart is the only manifested God, the other two are invisible, and it is this which represents the Triad. Âtmâ-Buddhi-Manas.
In reply to a question whether the consciousness might not be concentrated in the heart, and so the promptings of the Spirit caught. H. P. B. said that any one who could thus concentrate would be at one with Manas, would have united Kâma-Manas to the Higher Manas. The Higher Manas could not directly guide man, it could only act through the Lower Manas.
There are three principal centres in man, Heart, Head, and Navel: any two of which may be + or – to each other, according to the relative predominance of the centres.
The heart represents the Higher Triad; the liver and spleen represent the Quaternary. The solar plexus is the brain of the stomach.
H. P. B. was asked if the three centres above-named would represent the Christos, crucified between two thieves; she said it might serve as an analogy, but these figures must not be over-driven. It must never be forgotten that the Lower Manas is the same in its essence as the Higher, and may become one with it by rejecting Kâmic impulses. The crucifixion of the Christos represents the self-sacrifice of the Higher Manas, the Father that sends his only begotten Son into the world to take upon him our sins: the Christ- myth came from the Mysteries. So also did the life of Apollonius of Tyana; this was suppressed by the Fathers of the Church because of its striking similarity to the life of Christ.
The psycho-intellectual man is all in the head with its seven gateways; the spiritual man is in the heart. The convolutions are formed by thought.
The third ventricle in life is filled with light, and not with a liquid as after death.
There are seven cavities in the brain which are quite empty during life, and it is in these that visions must be reflected if they are to remain in the memory. These centres are, in Occultism, called the seven harmonies, the scale of the divine harmonies. They are filled with Âkâsha, each with its own colour, according to the state of consciousness in which you are. The sixth is the pineal gland, which is hollow and empty during life; the seventh is the whole; the fifth is the third ventricle; the fourth the pituitary body. When Manas is united
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to Âtmâ-Buddhi, or when Âtmâ-Buddhi is centred in Manas, it acts in the three higher cavities, radiating, sending forth a halo of light, and this is visible in the case of a very holy person.
The cerebellum is the centre, the storehouse of all the forces; it is the Kâma of the head. The pineal gland corresponds to the uterus; its peduncles to the Fallopian tubes. The pituitary body is only its servant, its torch-bearer, like the servants bearing lights that used to run before the carriage of a princess. Man is thus androgyne so far as his head is concerned.
Man contains in himself every element that is found in the Universe. There is nothing in the Macrocosm that is not in the Microcosm. The pineal gland, as was said, is quite empty during life; the pituitary contains various essences. The granules in the pineal gland are precipitated after death within the cavity.
The cerebellum furnishes the materials for ideation; the frontal lobes of the cerebrum are the finishers and polishers of the materials, but they cannot create of themselves.
Clairvoyant perception is the consciousness of touch: thus reading letters, psychometrizing substances, etc., may be done at the pit of the stomach. Every sense has its consciousness, and you can have consciousness through every sense. There may be consciousness on the plane of sight, though the brain be paralyzed; the eyes of a paralyzed person will show terror. So with the sense of hearing. Those who are physically blind, deaf or dumb, are still possessed of the psychic counterparts of these senses.
Will and Desire.
Eros in man is the will of the genius to create great pictures, great music, things that will live and serve the race. It has nothing in common with the animal desire to create. Will is the Higher Manas. It is the universal harmonious tendency acting by the Higher Manas. Desire is the outcome of separateness, aiming at the satisfaction of Self in Matter. The path opened between the Higher Ego and the Lower enables the Ego to act on the personal self.
Conversion.
It is not true that a man powerful in evil can suddenly be converted and become as powerfully for good. His vehicle is too defiled, and he can at best but neutralize the evil, balancing up the bad Karmic causes
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he has set in motion, at any rate for this incarnation. You cannot take a herring barrel and use it for attar of roses; the wood is too soaked through with the drippings. When evil impulses and tendencies have become impressed on the physical nature, they cannot at once be reversed. The molecules of the body have been set in a Kâmic direction, and though they have sufficient intelligence to discern between things on their own plane, i.e., to avoid things harmful to themselves, they cannot understand a change of direction, the impulse to which is from another plane. If they are forced too violently, disease, madness or death will result.
Origines.
Absolute eternal motion, Parabrahman, which is nothing and everything, motion inconceivably rapid, in this motion throws off a film which is Energy, Eros. It thus transforms itself to Mûlaprakrity, primordial Substance which is still Energy. This Energy, still transforming itself in its ceaseless and inconceivable motion, becomes the Atom, or rather the germ of the Atom, and then it is on the Third Plane.
Our Manas is a Ray from the World-Soul and is withdrawn at Pralaya; “it is perhaps the Lower Manas of Parabrahman,” that is, of the Parabrahman of the manifested Universe. The first film is Energy, or motion on the manifested plane; Alaya is the Third Logos, Mahâ-Buddhi, Mahat. We always begin on the Third Plane; beyond that all is inconceivable. Âtmâ is focussed in Buddhi, but is embodied only in Manas, these being the Spirit, Soul and Body of the Universe.
Dreams.
We may have evil experiences in dreams as well as good. We should, therefore, train ourselves so as to awaken directly we tend to do wrong.
The Lower Manas is asleep in sense-dreams, the animal consciousness being then guided towards the Astral Light by Kâma; the tendency of such sense-dreams is always towards the animal.
If we could remember our dreams in deep sleep, then we should be able to remember all our past incarnations.
Nidânas.
There are twelve Nidânas, exoteric and Esoteric, the fundamental doctrine of Buddhism.
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So also there are twelve exoteric Buddhist Sûttas called Nidânas, each giving one Nidâna.
The Nidânas have a dual meaning. They are:
(1) The twelve causes of sentient existence, through the twelve links of subjective with objective Nature, or between the subjective and objective Natures.
(2) A concatenation of causes and effects.
Every cause produces an effect, and this effect becomes in its turn a cause. Each of these has an Upâdhi (basis), one of the sub-divisions of one of the Nidânas, and also an effect or consequence.
Both bases and effects belong to one or another Nidâna, each having from three to seventeen, eighteen and twenty-one sub-divisions.
The names of the twelve Nidânas are:
|
(1) Jarâmarana (2) Jâti (3) Bhava (4) Upâdâna (5) Trishnâ (6) Vedanâ |
(7) Sparsha (8) Chadayâtana (9) Nâmarûpa (10) Vigñâna (11) Samskâra (12) Avidyâ * |
(1) Jarâmarana, lit death in consequence of decrepitude. Notice that death and not life comes as the first of the Nidânas. This is the first fundamental in Buddhist Philosophy; every Atom, at every moment, as soon as it is born begins dying.
The five Skandhahas are founded on it; they are its effects or product. Moreover, in its turn, it is based on the five Skandhas. They are mutual things, one gives to the other.
(2) Jâti, lit. Birth.
That is to say, Birth according to one of the four modes of Chaturyoni (the four wombs), viz.,:
- (i) Through the womb, like Mammalia.
- (ii) Through Eggs.
- (iii) Ethereal or liquid Germs–fish spawn, pollen, insects, etc.
- (iv) Anupâdaka–Nirmânakâyas, Gods, etc.
That is to say that birth takes place by one of these modes. You must be born in one of the six objective modes of existence, or in the seventh which is subjective. These four are within six modes of existence, vis.:
* [If the Nidânas are read the reverse way, i.e., from 12 to 1, they give the evolutionary order. – Ed.]
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Exoterically:–
(i) Devas; (ii) Men; (iii) Asuras; (iv) Men in Hell; (v) Pretas, devouring demons on earth; (vi) animals.
Esoterically:–
(i) Higher Gods; (ii) Devas or Pitris (all classes); (iii) Nirmânakâyas; (iv) Bodhisattvas; (v) Men in Myalba; (vi) Kâma Rûpic existences, whether of men or animals, in Kâma Loka or the Astral Light; (vii) Elementals (Subjective Existences).
(3) Bhava = Karmic existence, not life existence, but as a moral agent which determines where you will be born, i.e., in which of the Triloka, Bhûr, Bhuvar or Svar (seven Lokas in reality).
The cause or Nidâna of Bhava is Upâdâna, that is, the clinging to existence, that which makes us desire life in whatever form.
Its effect is Jatî in one or another of the Triloka and under whatever conditions.
Nidânas are the detailed expression of the law of Karma under twelve aspects; or we might say the law of Karma under twelve Nidânic aspects.
Skandhas.
Skandhas are the germs of life on all the seven planes of Being, and make up the totality of the subjective and objective man. Every vibration we have made is a Skandha. The Skandhas are closely united to the pictures in the Astral Light, which is the medium of impressions, and the Skandhas, or vibrations, connected with subjective or objective man, are the links which attract the Reincarnating Ego, the germs left behind when it went into Devachan which have to be picked up again and exhausted by a new personality. The exoteric Skandhas have to do with the physical atoms and vibrations, or objective man; the Esoteric with the internal and subjective man.
A mental change, or a glimpse of spiritual truth, may make a man suddenly change to the truth even at his death, thus creating good Skandhas for the next life. The last acts or thoughts of a man have an enormous effect upon his future life, but he would still have to suffer for his misdeeds, and this is the basis of the idea of a death-bed repentance. But the Karmic effects of the past life must follow, for the man in his next birth must pick up the Skandhas or vibratory impressions that he left in the Astral Light, since nothing comes from nothing in Occultism, and there must be a link between the lives. New Skandhas are born from their old parents.
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It is wrong to speak of Tanhâs in the plural; there is only one Tanhâ, the desire to live. This develops into a multitude or one might say a congeries of ideas. The Skandhas are Karmic and non- Karmic. Skandhas may produce Elementals by unconscious Kriyâshakti. Every Elemental that is thrown out by man must return to him sooner or later, since it is his own vibration. They thus become his Frankenstein. Elementals are simply effects producing effects. They are disembodied thoughts, good and bad. They remain crystallized in the Astral Light and are attracted by affinity and galvanized back into life again, when their originator returns to earth-life. You can paralyze them by reverse effects. Elementals are caught like a disease and hence are dangerous to ourselves and to others. This is why it is dangerous to influence others. The Elementals which live after your death are those which you implant in others: the rest remain latent till you are reincarnated, when they come to life in you. “Thus,” H. P. B. said, “if you are badly taught by me or incited thereby to do something wrong, you would go on after my death and sin through me, but I should have to bear the Karma. Calvin, for instance, will have to suffer for all the wrong teaching he has given, though he gave it with good intentions. The worst * * * * does is to arrest the progress of truth. Even Buddha made mistakes. He applied his teaching to people who were not ready; and this has produced Nidânas.”
Subtle Bodies.
When a man visits another in his Astral Body, it is the Linga Sharira which goes, but this cannot happen at any great distance. When a man thinks of another at a distance very intently, he sometimes appears to that person.
In this case it is the Mâyâvî Rûpa, which is created by unconscious Kriyâshakti, and the man himself is not conscious of appearing. If he were, and projected his Mâyâvi Rûpa consciously, he would be an Adept. * No two persons can be simultaneously conscious of one another’s presence, unless one be an Adept. Dugpas use the Mâyâvi Rûpa and sorcerers also. Dugpas work on the Linga Sharîra of other people.
The Linga Sharîra in the spleen is the perfect picture of the man, and is good or bad, according to his own nature. The Astral Body is the subjective image of the man which is to be, the first germ in the
* [I.e., an Initiate, the word Adept being used by H. P. B.. to cover all grades of Initiation. As above seen, she used the words Mâyâvi Rûpa in more than one sense. – Ed.]
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matrix, the model of the physical body in which the child is formed and developed. The Linga Sharîra may be hurt by a sharp instrument, and would not face a sword or a bayonet, although it would easily pass through a table or other piece of furniture.
Nothing however can hurt the Mâyâvi Rûpa or thought-body, since it is purely subjective. When swords are struck at shades, it is the sword itself, not its Linga Sharîra or Astral that cuts. Sharp instruments alone can penetrate Astrals, e.g., under water, a blow will not affect you, but a cut will.
The projection of the Astral Body should not be attempted, but the power of Kriyâshakti should be exercised in the projection of the Mâyâvi Rûpa.
Fire.
Fire is not an Element but a divine thing. The physical flame is the objective vehicle of the highest Spirit. The Fire Elementals are the highest. Everything in this world has its Aura and its Spirit. The flame you apply to the candle has nothing to do with the candle itself. The Aura of the object comes into conjunction with the lowest part of the other. Granite cannot burn because its Aura is Fire. Fire Elementals have no consciousness on this plane, they are too high, reflecting the divinity of their own source. Other Elementals have consciousness on this plane as they reflect man and his nature. There is a very great difference between the mineral and vegetable kingdoms. The wick of the lamp, for instance, is negative. It is made positive by fire, the oil being the medium. Æther is Fire. The lowest part of Æther is the flame which you see. Fire is Divinity in its subjective presence throughout the universe. Under other conditions, this Universal Fire manifests as water, air and earth. It is the one Element in our visible Universe which is the Kriyâshakti of all forms of life. It is that which gives light, heat, death, life, etc. It is even the blood. In all its various manifestations it is essentially one.
It is the “seven Cosmocratores.”
Evidence of the esteem in which Fire was held are to be found in the Old Testament. The Pillar of Fire, the Burning Bush, the Shining Face of Moses–all Fire. Fire is like a looking-glass in its nature, and reflects the beams of the first order of subjective manifestations which are supposed to be thrown on to the screen of the first outlines of the created universe; in their lower aspect these are the creations of Fire.
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Fire in the grossest aspect of its essence is the first form and reflects the lower forms of the first subjective beings which are in the universe. The first divine chaotic thoughts are the Fire Elementals. When on earth they take form and come flitting in the flame in the form of the Salamanders or lower Fire Elementals. In the air you have millions of living and conscious beings, besides our thoughts which they catch up. The Fire Elementals are related to the sense of sight and absorb the Elements of all the other senses. Thus through sight you can have the consciousness of feeling, hearing, tasting, etc., since all are included in the sense of sight.
Hints on the Future.
As time passes on there will be more and more ether in the air. When ether fills the air, then will be born children without fathers. In Virginia there is an apple tree of a special kind. It does not blossom but bears fruit from a kind of berry without any seeds. This will gradually extend to animals and then to men.
Women will bear children without impregnation, and in the Seventh Round there will appear men who can reproduce themselves. In the Seventh Race of the Fourth Round, men will change their skins every year and will have new toe and finger nails. People will become more psychic, then spiritual. Last of all in the Seventh Round, Buddhas will be born without sin. The Fourth Round is the longest in the Kali Yuga, then the Fifth, then the Sixth, and the Seventh Round will be very short.
The Egos.
In explaining the relations of the Higher and Lower Ego, Devachan, and the “Death of the Soul,” the following figure was drawn:
On the separation of the Principles at death the Higher Ego may be said to go to Devachan by reason of the experiences of the Lower. The Higher Ego in its own plane is the Kumâra.
The Lower Quaternary dissolves; the body rots, the Linga Sharîra fades out.
At reincarnation the Higher Ego shoots out a Ray, the Lower Ego.
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Its energies are upward and downward. The upward tendencies become its Devachanic experiences; the lower are Kâmic. The Higher Manas stands to Buddhi as the Lower Manas to the Higher.
As to the question of responsibility, it may be understood by an example. If you take the form of Jack the Ripper, you must suffer for its misdeeds, for the law will punish the murderer and hold him responsible.
You are the sacrificial victim. In the same way the Higher Ego takes the responsibility of every body it informs.
You borrow some money to lend it to another; the other runs away, but it is you who are responsible. The mission of the Higher Ego is to shoot out a Ray to be a Soul in a child.
Thus the Ego incarnates in a thousand bodies, taking upon itself the sins and responsibilities of each body. At every incarnation a new Ray is emitted, and yet it is the same Ray in essence, the same in you and me and every one. The dross of the incarnation disintegrates, the good goes to Devachan.
The Flame is eternal. From the Flame of the Higher Ego, the Lower is lighted, and from this a lower vehicle and so on.
And yet the Lower Manas is such as it makes itself. It is possible for it to act differently in like conditions, for it has reason and self-conscious knowledge of right and wrong, and good and evil, given to it. It is in fact endowed with all the attributes of the Divine Soul. In this the Ray is the Higher Manas, the speck of responsibility on earth.
The part of the essence is the essence, but while it is out of itself, so to say, it can get soiled and polluted. The Ray can be manifested on this earth because it can send forth its Mâyâvi Rûpa. But the Higher cannot, so it has to send forth a Ray. We may look upon the Higher Ego as the Sun, and the personal Manases as its Rays. If we take away the surrounding air and light the Ray may be said to return to the Sun, so with the Lower Manas and Lower Quaternary.
The Higher Ego can only manifest through its attributes.
In cases of sudden death, the Lower Manas no more disappears than does the Kâma Rûpa after death. After the severance the Ray may be said to snap or be dropped. After death such a man cannot go to Devachan, nor yet remain in Kâma Loka; his fate is to reincarnate immediately. Such an entity is then an animal Soul plus the intelligence of the severed Ray. The manifestation of this intelligence in
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the next birth will depend entirely on the physical formation of the brain and on education.
Such a Soul may be re-united with its Higher Ego in the next birth, if the environment is such as to give it a chance of aspiration (this is the “grace” of the Christians); or it may go on for two or three incarnations, the Ray becoming weaker and weaker, and gradually dissipating, until it is born a congenital idiot and then finally dissipated in lower forms.
There are enormous mysteries connected with the Lower Manas.
With regard to some intellectual giants, they are in somewhat the same condition as smaller men, for their Higher Ego is paralyzed, that is to say, their spiritual nature is atrophied.
The Manas can pass its essence to several vehicles, e.g., the Mâyâvi Rûpa, etc., and even to Elementals which it can ensoul, as the Rosicrucians taught.
The Mâyâvi Rûpa may be sometimes so vitalized that it goes on to another plane and unites with the beings of that plane and so ensouls them.
People who bestow great affection upon animal pets are ensouling them to a certain extent, and such animal souls progress rapidly; in return such persons get back the animal vitality and magnetism. It is, however, against Nature to thus accentuate animal evolution, and on the whole is bad.
Monadic Evolution.
The Kumâras do not direct the evolution of the Lunar Pitris. To understand the latter, we might take the analogy of the blood.
The blood maybe compared to the universal Life Principle, the corpuscles to the Monads. The different kinds of corpuscles are the same as the various classes of Monads and various kingdoms, not, however, because of their essence being different, but because of the environment in which they are. The Chhâyâ the permanent seed, and Weissmann in his hereditary germ theory is very near truth.
H. P. B. was asked whether there was one Ego to one permanent Chhâyâ seed, oversouling it in a series of incarnations; her answer was: “No, it is Heaven and Earth kissing each other.”
The animal Souls are in temporary forms and shells in which they gain experience, and in which they prepare materials for higher evolution.
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Until the age of seven the astral atavic germ forms and moulds the body; after that the body forms the Astral.
The Astral and the Mind Mutually react on each other.
The meaning of the passage in the Upanishads, where it says that the Gods feed on men, is that the Higher Ego obtains its earth experience through the Lower.
Astral Body.
The Astral can get out unconsciously to the person and wander about. The Chhâyâ is the same as the Astral Body.
The germ or life essence of it is in the spleen.
“The Chhâyâ is coiled up in the spleen.” It is from this that the Astral is formed; it evolves in a shadowy curling or gyrating essence like smoke, gradually taking form as it grows. But it is not projected from the physical, atom for atom. This latter intermolecular form is the Kâmâ Rûpa. At death every cell and molecule gives out its essence, and from it is formed the Astral of the Kâma Rûpa; but this can never come out during life.
The Chhâyâ in order to become visible draws upon the surrounding atmosphere, attracting the atoms to itself; the Linga Sharîra could not form in vacuo. The fact of the Astral Body accounts for the Arabian and Eastern tales of Djins and bottle imps, etc.
In spiritualistic phenomena, the resemblance to deceased persons is mostly caused by the imagination. The clothing of such phantoms is formed from the living atoms of the medium, and is no real clothing, and has nothing to do with the clothing of the medium. “All the clothing of a materialization has been paid for.”
The Astral supports life; it is the reservoir or sponge of life, gathering it up from all the natural kingdoms around, and is the intermediary between the kingdoms of Prânic and physical life.
Life cannot come immediately from the subjective to the objective, for Nature goes gradually through each sphere. Therefore the Linga Sharîra is the intermediary between Prâna and our physical body, and pumps in the life.
The spleen is consequently a very delicate organ, but the physical spleen is only a cover for the real spleen.
Now Life is in reality Divinity; Parabrahman. But in order to manifest on the physical Plane it must be assimilated; and as the purely physical is too gross, it must have a medium, viz., the Astral.
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Astral matter is not homogeneous, and the Astral Light is nothing but the shadow of the real Divine Light; it is however not molecular.
Those (Kâmarûpic) entities which are below the Devachanic Plane are in Kama Loka and only possess
intelligence like monkeys. There are no entities in the four lower kingdoms possessing intelligence which can communicate with men, but the Elementals have instincts like animals. It is, however possible for the Sylphs (the Air Elementals, the wickedest things in the world) to commuicate, but they require to be propitiated.
Spooks (Kâmarûpic entities) can only give the information they see immediately before them. They see things in the Aura of people, although the people may not be aware of them themselves.
Earth-bound spirits are Kâmalokic entities that have been so materialistic that they cannot be dissolved for a long time. They have only a glimmering of consciousness and do not know why they are held, some sleep, some preserve a glimmering of consciousness and suffer torture.
In the case of people who have very little Devachan, the greater part of the consciousness remains in Kâma Loka, and may last far beyond the normal period of one hundred and fifty years and remain over until the next reincarnation of the Spirit. This then, becomes the Dweller on the Threshold and fights with the new Astral.
The acme of Kâma is the sexual instinct, e.g., idiots have such desires and also food appetites, etc., and nothing else.
Devachan is a state on a plane of spiritual consciousness; Kâma Loka is a place of physical consciousness. It is the shadow of the animal world and that of instinctual feeling. When the consciousness thinks of spiritual things, it is on a spiritual plane.
If one’s thoughts are of nature, flowers, etc., then the consciousness is on the material plane.
But if thoughts are about eating, drinking, etc., and the passions, then the consciousness is in the Kâmalokic plane, which is the plane of animal instincts pure and simple.