Anand Gholap
Theosophy
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Anand Gholap Theosophy
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by
Contents
2.
Theosophy is derived
from two Greek words –Theos ,
God; Sophia, Wisdom –and is therefore God-Wisdom, Divine Wisdom. Any dictionary
will give its meaning : “A claim to a direct knowledge
of God and of Spirits”, a definition which is not inaccurate, though it is
scanty and affords but a small idea of all that is covered by the word, either
historically or practically.
3.
The obtaining of “a
direct knowledge of God” is –as we shall see in dealing with the religious
aspect of Theosophy –the ultimate object of all Theosophy, as it is the very
heart and life of all true Religion; this is “the highest knowledge, the
knowledge of Him by whom all else is known”; but the lower knowledge, that of
the knowable "all else”, and the methods of knowing it, bulk largely in
Theosophical study.
4.
This is natural
enough, for the supreme knowledge must be gained by each for himself, and
little can be done by another, save by pointing to the way, by inspiring to the
effort, by setting the example; whereas the lower knowledge may be taught in
books, in lectures, in conversation, is transmissible from mouth to ear.
6.
This inner, or
esoteric, side of religion is found in all the great faiths of the world, more
or less explicitly declared, but always existing as the heart of the religion,
beyond all dogmas which form the exoteric side. Where the exoteric side
propounds a dogma to the intellect, the esoteric offers a truth to the Spirit;
the one is seen and defended by reason, the other is grasped by intuition –that
faculty “beyond the reason” after which the philosophy of the West is now
groping. In the religions that have passed away it was taught in the
“Mysteries”, in the only way in which it can be taught –by giving instruction
how to pursue the methods which unfold the life of the Spirit more rapidly than
that life unfolds in natural and unassisted evolution; we learn from classical
writers that in the Mysteries the fear of death was removed, and that the
object aimed at was not the making of a good man –only the man who was already
good was admissible –but the transforming of the good man into a God.
7.
Such Mysteries existed
as the heart of the religions of antiquity, and only gradually disappeared from
8.
We may find many
traces of the Christian Mysteries in the early Christian writers, especially in
the works of S. Clement of
9.
The condition of high
morality was made here, as in the Greek Mysteries: “Those who for a long time
have been conscious of no transgression … let them draw near”. Indications of
their origin and existence are found in the New Testament, in which the Christ
is said to have taught His disciples secretly –“Unto you it is given to know
the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, but to others in parables” –and these
teachings, Origen maintains, were handed down in the Mysteries of Jesus; S.
Paul also declares that “we speak ‘wisdom’ among them that are ‘perfect’ –two
terms used in the Mysteries.
10.
Islam has its secret
teachings –said to have been derived from Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet
Mohammed –to be found by meditation and a discipline of life, methods taught
among the Sufis.
11.
Buddhism has its
Sangha, within which again by meditation and a discipline of life, the inner
truth is to be found.
12.
Hinduism, both in its
scriptures and its current beliefs, asserts the existence of the supreme and
the lower knowledge, the latter to be gained by instruction, the former, once
more, by meditation and a discipline of life. It is this which makes the
supreme knowledge “esoteric”; it is not deliberately veiled and hidden away,
but it cannot be imparted; it can only be gained by the unfolding of a faculty,
of a power to know, of a mode of consciousness, latent in all men, but not yet
developed in the course of normal evolution.
13.
This shows itself
sporadically in the Mystic, often in erratic fashion, often accompanied with
hysteria, but even then, is none the less an indication –for the clear-sighted
and unprejudiced –of a new departure in the long evolution of human
consciousness. It is brought to the surface sometimes by exceptional purity:
“the pure in heart …shall see God”.
14.
Startling eruptions of
it into ordinary life are seen in such cases of “sudden conversion” as are
recorded by Prof. James. [Varieties of Religious Experience]. The
spiritual consciousness is a reality; its witness is found in all religions,
and it is stirring in many today, as it has stirred in all ages. Its evolution
in the individual can only be gently and deliberately forced, ahead of normal
evolution, by the meditation and the discipline of life alluded to above. For
esotericism in religion is not a teaching, but a stage of consciousness; it is
not an instruction, but a life. Hence the complaint made by many, that it
is elusive, indefinite; it is so to those who have not experienced it, for only that which has been experienced in
consciousness can be known to consciousness.
15.
Esoteric methods can
be taught, but the esoteric knowledge to which they lead, when successfully
followed and lived, must be won by each for himself.
We may help to remove obstacles to vision, but a man can only see with his own
eyes.
17.
Theosophy is this
direct knowledge of God; the search after this is the Mysticism, or
Esotericism, common to all religions, thrown by Theosophy into a scientific
form, as in Hinduism, Buddhism, Roman Catholic Christianity, and Sufism.
Like these, it teaches in a quite clear and definite way the methods of
reaching firsthand knowledge by unfolding the
spiritual consciousness, and by evolving the organs through which
that consciousness can function on our earth –once more, the methods of
meditation and of a discipline of life.
18.
Hence it is the same
as the Science of the Self [Atma-vidyä], the Science of the Eternal
[Brahma-vidyä] which is the core of Hinduism; it is “the Knowledge of God which
is Eternal Life” which is the essence of Christianity. It is not a new thing,
but is in all religions, and hence we find the late eminent Orientalist, Max
Müller, writing his well known work on Theosophy, or Psychological Religion.
20.
Theosophy, in a
secondary sense –the above being the primary –is the body of doctrine, obtained
by separating the beliefs common to all religions from the peculiarities,
specialities, rites, ceremonies and customs which mark off one religion from
another; it presents these common truths as a consensus of world-beliefs,
forming, in their entirety, the Wisdom-religion, or the Universal Religion, the
source from which all separate religions spring, the trunk of the Tree of Life
from which they all branch forth.
21.
The name Theosophy,
which as we have said, is Greek, was first used by Ammonius Saccas, in the
third century after Christ, and has remained ever since in the history of
religion in the West, denoting not only Mysticism, but also an eclectic system,
which accepts truth wherever it is to be found, and cares little for its outer
trappings.
22.
It appeared in its
present form in America and Europe in 1875, at the time when Comparative
Mythology was being used as an effective weapon against Christianity, and, by
transforming it into Comparative Religion, it built the researches and
discoveries of archaeologists and antiquarians into bulwarks of defence for the
friends of religion, instead of leaving them as missiles of attack for its
enemies.
23.
COMPARATIVE
MYTHOLOGY
24.
The unburying of
ancient cities, the opening of old tombs, the translation of archaic
manuscripts of both dead and living religions, proved to demonstration the fact
that all the great religions which existed and had existed resembled each other
in their most salient features. Their chief doctrines, the outlines of their
morality, the stories which clustered round their founders, their symbols,
their ceremonies, closely resembled each other. The facts were undeniable, for
they were carved on ancient temples, written down in ancient books; the further
research was carried, the bulkier grew the evidence.
25.
Even among the most
degraded tribes of savages, traces were found of similar teachings, traditions
of sacred truths overlaid by the crudities of animism and fetishism. How to
explain such similarities? What their bearing on Christianity?
26.
“Evolution” was then
the “open sesame” of Science, and the answer to these questions was not long
delayed. Religion had evolved; from the dark ignorance of primal
savages, who personified the powers of the Nature they feared, had evolved the
inspiring religions and the splendid philosophies which had enthralled and
civilised mankind.
27.
The medicine-men of
savages had been glorified into Founders of religions; the teachings of the
Saints and Prophets were the refining of the hysterical babblings of
half-epileptic visionaries; the synthesis of natural forces –a synthesis
wrought out by man’s splendid intellect –had been emotionalised into God. Such
was the answer to Comparative Mythology to the alarmed questionings of men and
women who found their houses of faith crumbling into pieces around them,
leaving them exposed to the icy winds of doubt.
28.
At the same time
Immortality was threatened, and though intuition whispered: “Not all of me
shall die”, physiology had captured psychology,
and was showing the brain as the creator of thought –thought, which was born
with the brain, grew with it, was diseased with it, decayed with it; did it not
finally die with it?
29.
Agnosticism grew and
flourished; what could man know, beyond what his senses could discover, beyond
what his intellect could grasp? Such was the condition of educated thought in
the last quarter of the 19th century. The younger generation can
scarcely realise that veritable “eclipse of faith”.
30.
COMPARATIVE RELIGION
31.
Into that Europe
Theosophy suddenly came, asserting the Gnosis as against Agnosticism,
Comparative Religion against Comparative Mythology. It declared that man had
not exhausted his powers in using his senses and his intellect, for that beyond
these there were the intuition and the sure witness of the Spirit; that the
existence of these powers was a demonstrable fact; that the testimony of the
spiritual consciousness was as indubitable as that of the intellectual and the
sensuous.
32.
It admitted all the
facts discovered by archaeologists and antiquarians, but asserted that they
were susceptible of quite other explanation than that given by the enemies of
religion, and that while the facts were facts the explanation was only a
hypothesis.
33.
It set over against
this hypothesis another, equally explanatory of the facts –that the community
of religious teachings, ethics, stories, symbols, ceremonies, and even the
traces of these among savages, arose from the derivation of all religions from
a common centre, from a Brotherhood of Divine Men, which sent out one of its
members into the world from time to time to found a new religion, containing
the same essential verities as its predecessors, but varying in form with the
needs of the time, and with the capacities of the people to whom the Messenger
was sent.
34.
It was obvious that
either hypothesis would explain the admitted facts. How should a decision
between them be reached? Theosophy appealed to history: it pointed out that the
palmy days of each religion were its early days, and that the teachings of the
Messenger were never improved on by the later adherents of the faith, whereas
the contrary must have been the case if the religion had been produced by
evolution; the Hindks founded themselves on their Upanishads—[their most
ancient literature, a part of the Vedas ], the Zoroastrians on the
teachings of the Prophet, the Buddhists on the sayings of the Lord Buddha, the
Hebrews on Moses and the Prophets, the Christians, the Mohammedans on those of
their great Prophet.
35.
Later religious
literature consisted of commentaries, dissertations, arguments, not of new
departures, more inspiring than the original. Inspiration is ever sought in
later days in the sayings of the Founder, and in the teachings of His immediate
disciples.
36.
Manu, Vyäsa,
Zarathushtra, the Buddha, the Christ –these Figures tower above humanity, and
command the love and reverence of mankind, generation after generation.
37.
There are many
Messengers, the religions are their messages. Theosophy points to all of these
as proofs that its hypothesis is the true explanation of the facts, is no
longer a hypothesis, indeed, but is a truth affirmed by history. Against this
splendid array of Messengers with their messages, Comparative Mythology cannot
bring one single proof from history of a religion that has evolved from
savagery into spirituality and philosophy; its hypothesis is disproved by
history.
38.
The Theosophical view
is now so widely accepted that people do not realise how triumphant was the
opposing theory. When Theosophy again rode into the arena of the world’s
thought in 1875, mounted on its new steed the
Theosophical Society. But any who would realise the conditions then existing
should turn to the literature of Comparative Mythology, published during the
preceding century, form the voluminous works of Dulaure and Dupuis [On phallic
and sun worships.], through Higgins’ Anacalypsis, to the books of
Hargrave Jennings, Forlong, and a dozen others, speaking with a positiveness
that led the reader to believe that the statements made were based on facts,
which no educated person could deny.
39.
Those who plunged into
that labyrinth of discussions in their youth, who lost themselves in its endless
and intricate windings, who saw their faith devoured by the Minotaur of
Comparative Mythology, they know –and only they can know in its fullness –the
intensity of the relief when the modern Ariadne –the much misunderstood and
much maligned Helena Petrovna Blavatsky –gave them a clue which guided them
through the mazes of the labyrinth, and armed them with the sword of “The
Secret Doctrine” [Mme. Blavatsky’s monumental work, published in 1889.] with
which to slay the monster.
40.
It may be interesting
to note, in passing, that old-fashioned Christianity –which believed that all
mankind had descended from Adam, created 4004 B.C. –had preserved a tradition
of a primeval revelation, given to Adam and carried by his posterity to all
parts of the world; man, inheriting original sin from his ancestor, had
corrupted this, but traces of it were to be found in the grains of truth hidden
by the husks of “heathen” religions. This view, however, despite the germ of
truth it contained, was quite out of court with educated people, who knew that
the human race had existed for hundreds of thousands of years, at least,
instead of for a span of six thousand.
42.
The outcome of the
whole position is that the fact of the community of religious belief is
destructive to any religion which claims for itself a unique and isolated
position; in such a position it is exposed to attack from all sides, and its
claim is easily disproved. But this same fact is a defence, when all religions
stand together, when they present themselves as a Brotherhood, children of one
ancestor, the Divine Wisdom.
43.
This view becomes the
more satisfactory as we notice that each religion has its own special note,
makes its own special contribution to the forces working for the evolution of
man. As we notice their differences, in addition to their similarities, we feel
that they reveal a plan of human education, just as when we hear a splendid
chord we feel that a master-musician has combined the notes, with a full
knowledge of the value of each.
44.
Hinduism proclaims the
One Immanent Life in everything , and hence the solidarity of all, the duty of
each to each, enshrined in the untranslatable word Dharma—
45.
[translated
as religion, duty, obligation, is more than these. It indicates the sum of
man’s past evolution –all that has made him what he is –and
the next steps which he must take in order to ensure his further
evolution with the least possible delay and difficulty.]
46.
Zoroastrianism strikes
the note of purity –purity of surroundings, of body, of mind. Hebraism sounds
out Righteousness.
47.
Out of the fair
spectacle of their varied beauty and the spiritual value of the variety, grows
in our minds the sense of the reality of the great Brotherhood, and its work in
the guidance of spiritual evolution. So deep a unity, so exquisite and fruitful
a diversity, cannot be mere chance, mere coincidence, but must be the result of
a plan deliberately adopted and strongly carried out.
49.
As the Theosophical
system of thought is an immense, an all inclusive, synthesis of truths, as it
deals with God, the Universe, and Man, and their relations to each other, it
will be best to divide its presentation under four heads, corresponding to a
very obvious and rational view of Man. Man may be regarded as having a physical
body, an emotional nature and intellect; and through these he, an eternal
Spirit, manifests himself in this mortal world. These three departments of
human nature, as we may call them, correspond to his great activities: Science,
Ethics and Æsthetics, Philosophy.
50.
1]
Through his senses Man observes the phenomena around him, and verifies
his observations by experiments; through his brain he records and
arranges his observations, makes inductions, frames hypotheses, tests his
hypotheses by devising crucial experiments, and arrives at knowledge of Nature
and understanding of her laws: thus he constructs sciences, the splendid
results of intelligent use of the organs of the physical body on the physical
world. We must study Theosophy as SCIENCE.
51.
2] Man’s
emotional nature shows feelings and desires –feelings caused by contacts with
the outside, contacts which give pleasure or pain; these arouse in him desires
–cravings to re-experience the pleasure, to avoid the recurrence of pain. W e
shall see, when we come to deal with these, that the
deep-rooted yearning for Happiness, planted in every sentient creature, spurs
him to place himself at last in harmony with law, that is, to do the Right, to
refuse to do the Wrong. The expression of this harmony in life, in our
relations with others and in the building of ourselves,
is Right Conduct. The expression of this same harmony in matter is Right Form,
or Beauty. We must study Theosophy as MORALITY-ART.
52.
3] Man’s
intellect demands that his surroundings, both as regards life and matter, shall
be intelligible to him; it demands order, rationality, logical
explanation. It cannot live in a chaos without suffering; it must know and understand, if it is to exist in peace. We must study Theosophy as
PHILOSOPHY.
53.
4] But
these three, Science, Morality-Art, Philosophy, do not perfectly satisfy our
nature. The religious consciousness persistently obtrudes itself in all
nations, all climes, all ages. It refuses to be
silenced, and will feed on the husks of superstition if denied the bread of
Truth. The Spirit who is Man will not cease his search for the Universal Spirit
who is God, and God’s answers –partial but with the promise of more –are religions.
We must study Theosophy as RELIGION.
54.
Under these four heads
all the Theosophical teachings most important to human life and conduct may be
presented. There remain: a few indications of the practical application of
these to social problems, and a mere statement –for within the brief compass of
this little book no more is possible –of the larger vistas of the past and the
future opened up to us by Theosophy.
55.
All divisions which
seek to divide the really indivisible Spirit –the spark from the universal Fire
–are unsatisfactory, and tend to veil from us the unity of the consciousness
which is our Self. Senses, emotions, intellect, are but facets of the one
diamond, aspects of the one Spirit. Spiritual life, Religion, should be a
synthesis of Science, Morality –Art and
Philosophy –they are but facets of religion. Religion should permeate all
studies, as Spirit permeates all forms.
56.
Our Self is one, not
multiple, albeit his overflowing life expresses itself in multitudinous ways.
So although, for the sake of clarity, I divide my subject into parts, I would
pray my reader to remember that classification is a means and not an end; that
classifications are many, while consciousness is one; and that while, for lucid
explanation, we may avoid confusing the persons, we should ever bear in mind
that we must also avoid dividing the substance.
59.
The old ways of study
was to state universals, and to descend from them to particulars, and it
remains the best way for serious and philosophic students. The modern way is to
begin with particulars, and to ascend from them to universals; for the modern
reader, who has not yet made up his mind to a serious study of a subject, this
is the easier road, for it keeps the most difficult part for the last. As
this little book is meant for the general reader, I follow this way.
60.
Theosophy accepts the
–method—of Science –observation, experiment, arrangement of ascertained
facts, induction, hypothesis, deduction, verification, assertion of the
discovered truth but immensely increases its area. It sees the sum of
existence as containing but two factors, Life and Form, or, as some call them,
Spirit and Matter, others Time and Space, for Spirit is God’s motion, while
Matter is His stillness; both find their union in Him. Since the Root of Spirit
is His Life, and the Root of Matter is the universal
ether, the two aspects of the One Eternal, out of Space and Time. [See section
III].
61.
While ordinary science
confines Matter to the tangible, Theosophical science extends it through many
grades, intangible to the physical, but tangible to the superphysical senses.
It has observed that the condition of knowing the physical universe is the
possession of a physical body, of which certain parts have been evolved into organs
of sense, eyes, ears, etc., thought which perception of outside objects is
possible, and other parts have been evolved into organs of action, hands, feet,
and the rest, through which contact with outside objects can be obtained.
62.
It sees that, in the past,
physical evolution has been brought about by the efforts of life to use its
nascent powers, and that the struggle to exercise an inborn faculty has slowly
shaped matter into an organ through which that faculty can be more fully
exercised.
63.
To reverse Büchner’s
statement: We do not walk because we have legs; we have legs because we wanted
to move. We can trace the growth of legs from the temporary pseudopodia of the
amœba, through the development of permanent protrusions from bodies, up to the
legs of man, and they were all gradually formed by the efforts of the living
creature to move. As W.K. Clifford said of the huge saurians of a past age:
‘Some wanted to fly, and they became birds”. The “Will to live” –that
is, to desire , to think, to act –lies behind all
evolution.
64.
The Theosophist
carries on the same principle into higher realms, if such exist; and if
consciousness is to know any other sphere [ I use
the word “sphere” to indicate the whole extent of matter belonging to a
definite type, i.e.., built of atoms of one sort. See under “Atoms” in Section
VI. There may be several worlds in a sphere; thus the heaven-world is in the
mental sphere. The word plane has been used in this sense, but it is found that
people do not readily grasp its meaning.] than the
physical, it must have a body of matter belonging to the sphere it wants to
investigate, and the body must have senses, developed by the same want of the
Life to see, to hear, etc. That there should be other spheres, and other bodies
through which those spheres can be known, is no more inherently incredible than
that there is a physical sphere, and that there are physical bodies through
which we know it. The Occultist –the student of the workings
of the divine Mind in Nature –asserts that there are such spheres, and
that he has and uses such bodies.
65.
The following
statements –with one exception which will be noted in its place –are made as
results of investigations carried on in such spheres by the use of such bodies
by the writer and other Occultists; we all received the outline from highly
developed members of our humanity, and have proved it true, step by step, and
have filled in many gaps, by our own researches. We ,
therefore, feel that we have a right to affirm, on our own firsthand experience
–stretching over a period of twenty-three years in one case, and twenty five in
another –that superphysical research is practicable, and is as trustworthy as
physical research, and should be carried on in similar ways; that investigators
are subject to errors, both in physical and superphysical spheres, and for
similar reasons, and that these errors should lead to closer research and not
to its discontinuance.
67.
The following table
presents a view of the spheres related to and including our earth, of the
bodies used in investigating them, and of the states of consciousness
manifested through them by their owner, the
68.
This ray,
appropriating an atom of matter from each of the three higher of these spheres,
appears as the human Spirit, reproducing the three aspects of the Monad, of
will, Wisdom, and Creative Activity, and reveals himself, at a certain stage of
evolution, as the human ego, the individualised Self ; he begins his long
journey as a mere seed of life, and, never losing his identity, moves through
that long journey, unfolding all the powers of the Monad, that lie hidden
within him, as the tree within the seed.
69.
As he conquers his
kingdom of matter, his Parent-Monad pours down into him more and more life, and
draws from him more and more knowledge of the worlds in which he lives. But the
passing into the three highest manifested spheres is not enough for gaining
full knowledge and full power in our Solar System; two yet remain, and the
process of dipping down into matter goes on.
70.
The Spirit strengthens
himself for his work by appropriating a molecule of the coarser matter of the
lowest sphere he has so far entered, and links on to this, an atom from the
fourth manifested sphere of denser matter, and one from the fifth, the lowest
our physical sphere. He is to obtain bodies, formed round these permanently
appropriated particles of matter, by which he may be able to know and act upon
the five manifested spheres.
We shall see that his lower
bodies, forming what is called his Personality, are cast off at and after what
we call death, and are renewed for each successive birth, while the higher,
forming his Individuality, remain through this long pilgrimage –an important
fact as bearing on the possibility of remembering the past. The above facts are
tabulated hereafter.
|
SPHERES |
BEINGS |
|
STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS |
BODIES |
|||
|
Unmanifested |
1 |
Divine |
Adi |
Logos |
|
Divine Triplicity
(1) |
.................. |
|
2 |
Monadic |
Anupädaka |
Human Monad
|
|
Monadic Triplicity (2)
|
.................. |
|
|
Manifested
|
3 |
Spiritual |
Atma |
Man who is |
[A] |
Spirit, individualized as Will
|
Atom |
|
4 |
Intuitional
|
Buddhi |
Spirit, individualized as
Intuition |
Intuitional |
|||
|
5 |
Mental (higher)
|
Manas |
spirit, individualized as
Intellect
|
Causal
|
|||
|
5 |
Mental (lower)
|
Manas |
Man who
has |
[B] |
Mind |
Mental
|
|
|
6 |
Astral (or Emotional)
|
Käma |
Desires and Emotions
|
Astral |
|||
|
7 |
Physical
|
Sthula |
Vitality
(3) |
Physical
|
|||
|
[A]- An immortal Individuality [B] -A mortal
Personality |
|||||||
|
[The Student may find the
Sanskrit terms useful, as they have been much employed in Theosophical
literature, and the above are my own English equivalents: 1. Adi;
2-Anupâdaka; 3-Atmâ or Nirvâna; 4.Buddhi; 5. Manas (adjective, mânasic); 6. Kâma;
7. Sthula. The Buddhists use for Adi, Mahäparinirväna, and for Anupädaka,
Parinirväna.] |
|||||||
|
(1) The Trinities of religions, the Three Persons of
Christianity. As manifested in a Solar System. They appear three by
difference of function, seen from below. The whole Solar System may be called
the Body of the Logos, and the Sun His physical Body, but they only embody a
fragment of Him. |
|||||||
|
(2) Man"made in the Image of God". His aspects,
Will, Wisdom, and Activity, or Power, Knowledge-Love, and Creativeness are
shown in the embodied reproduction of himself, as Will, Intuition, and
Intellect. |
|||||||
|
(3) The seven are named from below upwards: solid, liquid,
gaseous, etheric, super-etheric, sub-abtomic, atomic |
|||||||
71.
[ As vitality shows itself in two main forms in the Physical
Body, the latter is functionally divided into two : Energising Vitality works
through the finer part, called the etheric Double, composed of the four
physical ethers, and Automatic Vitality uses the denser part, composed of
solids, liquids and gases. These seven subdivisions of physical matter make up
the physical sphere.
72.
It may be asked: “What
is the object of this descent into matter? What does the Monad gain by it? “ Omniscient in his own sphere, he is blinded by
matter in the spheres of manifestation, being unable to respond to their
vibrations. As a man who cannot swim, flung into deep water, is drowned, but
can learn to move freely in it, so with the Monad. At the end of his pilgrimage,
he will be free of the Solar System, able to function in any part of it, to
create at will, to move at pleasure. Every power that he unfolds through denser
matter, he retains forever under all conditions; the implicit has become
explicit, the potential the actual. It is his own Will to live in all spheres,
and not only in one, that draws him into
manifestation.
74.
The actual unfolding
of consciousness is best traced from below, for the physical body is the one
which is first organised as its instrument for knowledge, and it unfolds itself
by this in the physical world we know. The emotional nature stimulates the
glands and ganglia of the physical body, and the mental enthrones itself over
the cerebrospinal system, and these proceed with their evolution in the
invisible spheres through the stimulus obtained from the physical.
75.
We need not dwell on
the evolution of the dense physical body, as they may be studied as physical
science. Human consciousness is here automatic, the Man having no longer need
to direct physical processes; they go on by habit, the result of long pressure
from consciousness.
76.
The finer part of the
physical body, the etheric double, permeates the dense, and extends a little
beyond it over the whole surface; its proper sense-organs are vortices on its
own surface, situated opposite 1] the top of the head, 2] the point between the
eyebrows, 3] the throat, 4] the heart, 5] the spleen, 6] the solar plexus, 7]
the base of the spine, [8,9,10] in the lower part of the pelvic basin; these
last are not used, except in Black Magic.
77.
These
vortices–technically called chakrams, wheels, from their appearance –are
aroused into activity in the course of occult training, and form a bridge
between the physical and astral spheres, so that the latter comes to be
included within the activity of the waking consciousness. The health of its
dense partner depends on the Vitality in the etheric double, which draws its
energy directly from the Sun, and, in the part in contact with the spleen, divides
this energy into streams, which it conveys to the different organs of the dense
body; the surplusage radiates outwards and energises all living creatures
within its range.
78.
The very neighbourhood
of a vigorously healthy person vitalises, while a weak body draws on all around
it for Vitality, often seriously depleting those near to it. Physical
magnetism, the power of healing, etc., are ways in which this surplus Vitality
may be usefully expended.
79.
Etheric vision
–physical vision keener than the normal –may be used for examining minute
objects, such as chemical atoms, or for studying such of the nature-spirits as
use etheric matter for their lowest bodies –fairies, gnomes, brownies, and
creatures of that ilk. Very slightly increased tenseness of the nerves, caused
by excitement, ill-health, alcohol, may bring these within sight.
80.
The etheric part of
the brain plays an active part in dreams, especially in those caused by
impressions from outside, or from any internal pressure from the cerebral
vessels. Its dreams are usually dramatic, and may embroider any memory of past
events, objects, or persons. [See the many cases given in Du Prel’s Philosophy
of Mysticism.]
81.
In normal healthy
persons the etheric part of the physical body does not separate from the dense,
but the greater part of it may be driven out by anæsthetics, and slips out
easily in the case of persons who are mediumistic, often serving as the basis
for materialisations.
82.
Death is the complete
withdrawal from its dense counterpart, in conjunction with the consciousness in
the higher bodies; it remains with these fro a varying interval –usually about
36 hours after death –and then is thrown off by the Man as of no further use;
it decays away pari passu with the dense corpse.
84.
The astral sphere
connected with our earth contains two globes with which we need not here
concern ourselves, also the astral world and its inhabitants, and the
intermediate or desire world, a part of the astral, the inhabitants of which
are normally under special conditions.
85.
The whole sphere
belongs to the state of consciousness which shows itself as feelings, desires,
and emotions; these changes in consciousness are accompanied with vibrations in
astral matter, and as astral matter is fine and very rapid in its vibratory
motions, the vibrations are visible to astral sight as colours.
86.
The passion of anger
causes vibrations that yield a flash of scarlet, while a feeling of devotion or
love suffuses the astral body with a blue or rosy hue. Each feeling has its
appropriate colour, because each is accompanied by its own invariable set of
vibrations.
87.
The human astral body
is, of course, composed of astral matter, and, when accompanying the physical
body, which it permeates and beyond which it extends, it appears as a cloud, or
as a defined oval, according as its owner is little or much developed.
88.
Clearness and
brightness of the more delicate colours, increased definiteness of form and
increase of size mark the higher evolution. When the Man in his higher bodies
draws away from the physical –as he does every night in sleep –then the astral
body assumes the likeness of the physical.