Chapter XIII: Preface (3)

THEO. Well, we neither take into consideration this objective and
material nature, which we call an evanescent illusion, nor do
we mean by παν Nature, in the sense of its accepted derivation
from the Latin _Natura_ (becoming, from _nasci_, to be born).
When we speak of the Deity and make it identical, hence coeval,
with Nature, the eternal and uncreate nature is meant, and not
your aggregate of flitting shadows and finite unrealities. We
leave it to the hymn-makers to call the visible sky or heaven,
God’s Throne, and our earth of mud His footstool. Our DEITY is
neither in a paradise, nor in a particular tree, building, or
mountain; it is everywhere, in every atom of the visible as of the
invisible Cosmos, in, over, and around every invisible atom and
divisible molecule; for IT is the mysterious power of evolution
and involution, the omnipresent, omnipotent, and even omniscient
creative potentiality.

ENQ. Stop! Omniscience is the prerogative of something that thinks, and
you deny to your Absoluteness the power of thought.

THEO. We deny it to the ABSOLUTE, since thought is something limited
and conditioned. But you evidently forget that in philosophy
absolute unconsciousness is also absolute consciousness, as
otherwise it would not be _absolute_.

ENQ. Then your Absolute thinks?

THEO. No, IT does not; for the simple reason that it is _Absolute
Thought_ itself. Nor does it exist, for the same reason, as it
is absolute existence, and _Be-ness_, not a Being. Read the
superb Kabalistic poem by Solomon Ben Jehudah Gabirol, in the
Kether-Malchut, and you will understand:—“Thou art one, the root
of all numbers, but not as an element of numeration; for unity
admits not of multiplication, change, or form. Thou art one, and
in the secret of Thy unity the wisest of men are lost, because
they know it not. Thou art one, and Thy unity is never diminished,
never extended, and cannot be changed. Thou art one, and no
thought of mine can fix for Thee a limit, or define Thee. Thou
ART, but not as one existent, for the understanding and vision of
mortals cannot attain to Thy existence, nor determine for Thee the
where, the how and the why,” etc., etc. In short, our Deity is the
eternal, incessantly _evolving_, not _creating_, builder of the
universe; that _universe itself unfolding_ out of its own essence,
not being _made_. It is a sphere, without circumference, in its
symbolism, which has but one ever-acting attribute embracing all
other existing or thinkable attributes—ITSELF. It is the one law,
giving the impulse to manifested, eternal, and immutable laws,
within that never-manifesting, _because_ absolute LAW, which in
its manifesting periods is _The ever-Becoming_.

ENQ. I once heard one of your members remarking that Universal Deity,
being everywhere, was in vessels of dishonour, as in those of
honour, and, therefore, was present in every atom of my cigar ash!
Is this not rank blasphemy?

THEO. I do not think so, as simple logic can hardly be regarded as
blasphemy. Were we to exclude the Omnipresent Principle from one
single mathematical point of the universe, or from a particle of
matter occupying any conceivable space, could we still regard it
as infinite?

IS IT NECESSARY TO PRAY?

ENQ. Do you believe in prayer, and do you ever pray?

THEO. We do not. We _act_, instead of _talking_.

ENQ. You do not offer prayers even to the Absolute Principle?

THEO. Why should we? Being well-occupied people, we can hardly afford
to lose time in addressing verbal prayers to a pure abstraction.
The Unknowable is capable of relations only in its parts to each
other, but is non-existent as regards any finite relations. The
visible universe depends for its existence and phenomena on its
mutually acting forms and their laws, not on prayer or prayers.

ENQ. Do you not believe at all in the efficacy of prayer?

THEO. Not in prayer taught in so many words and repeated externally, if
by prayer you mean the outward petition to an unknown God as the
addressee, which was inaugurated by the Jews and popularised by
the Pharisees.

ENQ. Is there any other kind of prayer?

THEO. Most decidedly; we call it WILL-PRAYER, and it is rather an
internal command than a petition.

ENQ. To whom, then, do you pray when you do so?

THEO. To “our Father in heaven”—in its esoteric meaning.

ENQ. Is that different from the one given to it in theology?

THEO. Entirely so. An Occultist or a Theosophist addresses his prayer
to _his Father which is in secret_ (read, and try to understand,
ch. vi. v. 6, Matthew), not to an extra-cosmic and therefore
finite God; and that “Father” is in man himself.

ENQ. Then you make of man a God?

THEO. Please say “God” and not _a_ God. In our sense, the inner man is
the only God we can have cognizance of. And how can this be
otherwise? Grant us our postulate that God is a universally
diffused, infinite principle, and how can man alone escape from
being soaked through _by_, and _in_, the Deity? We call our
“Father in heaven” that deific essence of which we are cognizant
within us, in our heart and spiritual consciousness, and which
has nothing to do with the anthropomorphic conception we may form
of it in our physical brain or its fancy: “Know ye not that ye
are the temple of God, and that the great spirit of that the
spirit of (the absolute) God dwelleth in you?”[16] Yet, let no
man anthropomorphise that essence in us. Let no Theosophist, if
he would hold to divine, not human truth, say that this “God in
secret” listens to, or is distinct from, either finite man or the
infinite essence—for all are one. Nor, as just remarked, that a
prayer is a petition. It is a mystery rather; an occult process
by which finite and conditioned thoughts and desires, unable to
be assimilated by the absolute spirit which is unconditioned, are
translated into spiritual wills and the will; such process being
called “spiritual transmutation.” The intensity of our ardent
aspirations changes prayer into the “philosopher’s stone,” or
that which transmutes lead into pure gold. The only homogeneous
essence, our “will-power” becomes the active or creative force,
producing effects according to our desire.

ENQ. Do you mean to say that prayer is an occult process bringing about
physical results?

THEO. I do. _Will-Power_ becomes a living power. But woe unto those
Occultists and Theosophists, who, instead of crushing out the
desires of the lower personal _ego_ or physical man, and saying,
addressing their _Higher_ Spiritual Ego immersed in Atma-Buddhic
light, “Thy will be done, not mine,” etc., send up waves of
will-power for selfish or unholy purposes! For this is black
magic, abomination, and spiritual sorcery. Unfortunately, all
this is the favorite occupation of our Christian statesmen and
generals, especially when the latter are sending two armies to
murder each other. Both indulge before action in a bit of such
sorcery, by offering respectively prayers to the same God of
Hosts, each entreating his help to cut its enemies’ throats.

ENQ. David prayed to the Lord of Hosts to help him smite the
Philistines and slay the Syrians and the Moabites, and “the Lord
preserved David whithersoever he went.” In that we only follow
what we find in the Bible.

THEO. Of course you do. But since you delight in calling yourselves
Christians, not Israelites or Jews, as far as we know, why do
you not rather follow that which Christ says? And he distinctly
commands you not to follow “them of old times,” or the Mosaic law,
but bids you do as he tells you, and warns those who would kill
by the sword, that they, too, will perish by the sword. Christ
has given you one prayer of which you have made a lip prayer and
a boast, and which none but the _true_ Occultist understands. In
it you say, in your dead-sense meaning: “Forgive us our debts, as
we forgive our debtors,” which you never do. Again, he told you
to _love your enemies_ and do _good to them that hate you_. It is
surely not the “meek prophet of Nazareth” who taught you to pray
to your “Father” to slay, and give you victory over your enemies!
This is why we reject what you call “prayers.”

ENQ. But how do you explain the universal fact that all nations and
peoples have prayed to, and worshipped a God or Gods? Some have
adored and propitiated _devils_ and harmful spirits, but this only
proves the universality of the belief in the efficacy of prayer.

THEO. It is explained by that other fact that prayer has several other
meanings besides that given it by the Christians. It means not
only a pleading or _petition_, but meant, in days of old, far more
an invocation and incantation. The _mantra_, or the rhythmically
chanted prayer of the Hindus, has precisely such a meaning, as the
Brahmins hold themselves higher than the common _devas_ or “Gods.”
A prayer may be an appeal or an incantation for malediction, and
a curse (as in the case of two armies praying simultaneously for
mutual destruction) as much as for blessing. And as the great
majority of people are intensely selfish, and pray only for
themselves, asking to be _given_ their “daily bread” instead of
working for it, and begging God not to lead them “into temptation”
but to deliver them (the memoralists only) from evil, the result
is, that prayer, as now understood, is doubly pernicious: (_a_)
It kills in man self-reliance; (_b_) It develops in him a still
more ferocious selfishness and egotism than he is already endowed
with by nature. I repeat, that we believe in “communion” and
simultaneous action in unison with our “Father in secret”; and
in rare moments of ecstatic bliss, in the mingling of our higher
soul with the universal essence, attracted as it is towards its
origin and centre, a state, called during life _Samadhi_, and
after death, _Nirvana_. We refuse to pray to _created_ finite
beings—_i.e._, gods, saints, angels, etc., because we regard it
as idolatry. We cannot pray to the ABSOLUTE for reasons explained
before; therefore, we try to replace fruitless and useless prayer
by meritorious and good-producing actions.

ENQ. Christians would call it pride and blasphemy. Are they wrong?

THEO. Entirely so. It is they, on the contrary, who show Satanic pride
in their belief that the Absolute or the Infinite, even if there
was such a thing as the possibility of any relation between the
unconditioned and the conditioned—will stoop to listen to every
foolish or egotistical prayer. And it is they again, who virtually
blaspheme, in teaching that an Omniscient and Omnipotent God
needs uttered prayers to know what he has to do! This—understood
esoterically—is corroborated by both Buddha and Jesus. The one
says “seek nought from the helpless Gods—pray not! _but rather
act_; for darkness will not brighten. Ask nought from silence, for
it can neither speak nor hear.” And the other—Jesus—recommends:
“Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name (that of Christos) that will I
do.” Of course, this quotation, if taken in its _literal_ sense,
goes against our argument. But if we accept it esoterically, with
the full knowledge of the meaning of the term, “Christos,” which
to us represents _Atma-Buddhi-Manas_, the “SELF,” it comes to
this: the only God we must recognise and pray to, or rather act
in unison with, is that spirit of God of which our body is the
temple, and in which it dwelleth.

PRAYER KILLS SELF RELIANCE.

ENQ. But did not Christ himself pray and recommend prayer?

THEO. It is so recorded, but those “prayers” are precisely of that kind
of communion just mentioned with one’s “Father in secret.”
Otherwise, and if we identify Jesus with the universal deity,
there would be something too absurdly illogical in the inevitable
conclusion that he, the “very God himself” _prayed to himself_,
and separated the will of that God from his own!

ENQ. One argument more; an argument, moreover, much used by some
Christians. They say, “I feel that I am not able to conquer any
passions and weaknesses in my own strength. But when I pray to
Jesus Christ I feel that he gives me strength and that in his
power I am able to conquer.”

THEO. No wonder. If “Christ Jesus” is God, and one independent and
separate from him who prays, of course everything is, and
_must_ be possible to “a mighty God.” But, then, where’s the
merit, or justice either, of such a conquest? Why should the
pseudo-conqueror be rewarded for something done which has cost
him only prayers? Would you, even a simple mortal man, pay your
labourer a full day’s wage if you did most of his work for him, he
sitting under an apple tree, and praying to you to do so, all the
while? This idea of passing one’s whole life in moral idleness,
and having one’s hardest work and duty done by another—whether God
or man—is most revolting to us, as it is most degrading to human
dignity.

ENQ. Perhaps so, yet it is the idea of trusting in a personal Saviour
to help and strengthen in the battle of life, which is the
fundamental idea of modern Christianity. And there is no doubt
that, subjectively, such belief is efficacious, _i.e._, that those
who believe _do_ feel themselves helped and strengthened.

THEO. Nor is there any more doubt, that some patients of “Christian”
and “Mental Scientists”—the great “_Deniers_”[17]—are also
sometimes cured; nor that hypnotism, and suggestion, psychology,
and even mediumship, will produce such results, as often, if not
oftener. You take into consideration, and string on the thread of
your argument, successes alone. And how about ten times the number
of failures? Surely you will not presume to say that failure is
unknown even with a sufficiency of blind faith, among fanatical
Christians?

ENQ. But how can you explain those cases which are followed by full
success? Where does a Theosophist look to for power to subdue his
passions and selfishness?

THEO. To his Higher Self, the divine spirit, or the God in him, and to
his _Karma_. How long shall we have to repeat over and over again
that the tree is known by its fruit, the nature of the cause by
its effects? You speak of subduing passions, and becoming good
through and with the help of God or Christ. We ask, where do
you find more virtuous, guiltless people, abstaining from sin
and crime, in Christendom or Buddhism—in Christian countries or
in heathen lands? Statistics are there to give the answer and
corroborate our claims. According to the last census in Ceylon and
India, in the comparative table of crimes committed by Christians,
Mussulmen, Hindoos, Eurasians, Buddhists, etc., etc., on two
millions of population taken at random from each, and covering the
misdemeanours of several years, the proportion of crimes committed
by the Christian stands as 15 to 4 as against those committed
by the Buddhist population. (Vide LUCIFER for April, 1888, p.
147, Art. Christian Lectures on Buddhism.) No Orientalist, no
historian of any note, or traveller in Buddhist land, from Bishop
Bigandet and Abbé Huc, to Sir William Hunter and every fair-minded
official, will fail to give the palm of virtue to Buddhists before
Christians. Yet the former (not the true Buddhist Siamese sect,
at all events) do not believe in either God or a future reward,
outside of this earth. They do not pray, neither priests nor
laymen. “Pray!” they would exclaim in wonder, “to whom, or what?”

ENQ. Then they are truly Atheists.

THEO. Most undeniably, but they are also the most virtue-loving and
virtue-keeping men in the whole world. Buddhism says: Respect the
religions of other men and remain true to your own; but Church
Christianity, denouncing all the gods of other nations as devils,
would doom every _non_-Christian to eternal perdition.

ENQ. Does not the Buddhist priesthood do the same?

THEO. Never. They hold too much to the wise precept found in the
DHAMMAPADA to do so, for they know that, “If any man, whether he
be learned or not, consider himself so great as to despise other
men, he is like a blind man holding a candle—blind himself, he
illumines others.”

ON THE SOURCE OF THE HUMAN SOUL.

ENQ. How, then, do you account for man being endowed with a Spirit and
Soul? Whence these?

THEO. From the Universal Soul. Certainly not bestowed by a _personal_
God. Whence the moist element in the jelly-fish? From the Ocean
which surrounds it, in which it lives and breathes and has its
being, and whither it returns when dissolved.

ENQ. So you reject the teaching that Soul is given, or breathed into
man, by God?

THEO. We are obliged to. The “Soul” spoken of in ch. ii. of Genesis
(v. 7) is, as therein stated, the “living Soul” or _Nephesh_
(the _vital_, animal soul) with which God (we say “nature” and
_immutable law_) endows man like every animal, is not at all the
thinking Soul or mind; least of all is it the _immortal Spirit_.

ENQ. Well, let us put it otherwise: is it God who endows man with a
human _rational_ Soul and immortal Spirit?

THEO. Again, in the way you put the question, we must object to it.
Since we believe in no _personal_ God, how can we believe that he
endows man with anything? But granting, for the sake of argument,
a God who takes upon himself the risk of creating a new Soul for
every new-born baby, all that can be said is that such a God
can hardly be regarded as himself endowed with any wisdom or
prevision. Certain other difficulties and the impossibility of
reconciling this with the claims made for the mercy, justice,
equity and omniscience of that God, are so many deadly reefs on
which this theological dogma is daily and hourly broken.

ENQ. What do you mean? What difficulties?

THEO. I am thinking of an unanswerable argument offered once in my
presence by a Cingalese Buddhist priest, a famous preacher, to
a Christian missionary—one in no way ignorant or unprepared for
the public discussion during which it was advanced. It was near
Colombo, and the Missionary had challenged the priest Megattivati
to give his reasons why the Christian God should not be accepted
by the “heathen.” Well, the Missionary came out of that for ever
memorable discussion second best, as usual.

ENQ. I should be glad to learn in what way.

THEO. Simply this: the Buddhist priest premised by asking the _padri_
whether his God had given commandments to Moses only for men to
keep, but to be broken by God himself. The missionary denied
the supposition indignantly. Well, said his opponent, “you tell
us that God makes no exceptions to this rule, and that no Soul
can be born without his will. Now God forbids adultery, among
other things, and yet you say in the same breath that it is he
who creates every baby born, and he who endows it with a Soul.
Are we then to understand that the millions of children born in
crime and adultery are your God’s work? That your God forbids and
punishes the breaking of his laws; and that, nevertheless, _he
creates daily and hourly souls for just such children_? According
to the simplest logic, your God is an accomplice in the crime;
since, but for his help and interference, no such children of lust
could be born. Where is the justice of punishing not only the
guilty parents but even the innocent babe for that which is done
by that very God, whom yet you exonerate from any guilt himself?”
The missionary looked at his watch and suddenly found it was
getting too late for further discussion.

ENQ. You forget that all such inexplicable cases are mysteries, and
that we are forbidden by our religion to pry into the mysteries of
God.

THEO. No, we do not forget, but simply reject such impossibilities. Nor
do we want you to believe as we do. We only answer the questions
you ask. We have, however, another name for your “mysteries.”

THE BUDDHIST TEACHINGS ON THE ABOVE.

ENQ. What does Buddhism teach with regard to the Soul?

THEO. It depends whether you mean exoteric, popular Buddhism, or its
esoteric teachings. The former explains itself in the _Buddhist
Catechism_ in this wise: “Soul it considers a word used by the
ignorant to express a false idea. If everything is subject to
change, then man is included, and every material part of him
must change. That which is subject to change is not permanent,
so there can be no immortal survival of a changeful thing.” This
seems plain and definite. But when we come to the question that
the new personality in each succeeding re-birth is the aggregate
of “_Skandhas_,” or the attributes, of the _old_ personality,
and ask whether this new aggregation of _Skandhas_ is a _new_
being likewise, in which nothing has remained of the last, we
read that: “In one sense it is a new being, in another it is
not. During this life the Skandhas are continually changing,
while the man A. B. of forty is identical as regards personality
with the youth A. B. of eighteen, yet by the continual waste and
reparation of his body and change of mind and character, he is
a different being. Nevertheless, the man in his old age justly
reaps the reward or suffering consequent upon his thoughts and
actions at every previous stage of his life. So the new being of
the re-birth, being the _same individuality as before_ (but not
the same personality), with but a changed form, or new aggregation
of _Skandhas_, justly reaps the consequences of his actions and
thoughts in the previous existence.” This is abstruse metaphysics,
and plainly does not express _disbelief_ in Soul by any means.

ENQ. Is not something like this spoken of in _Esoteric Buddhism_?

THEO. It is, for this teaching belongs both to Esoteric _Budhism_ or
Secret Wisdom, and to the exoteric Buddhism, or the religious
philosophy of Gautama Buddha.

ENQ. But we are distinctly told that most of the Buddhists do not
believe in the Soul’s immortality?

THEO. No more do we, if you mean by Soul the _personal Ego_, or
life-Soul—_Nephesh_. But every learned Buddhist believes in
the individual or _divine Ego_. Those who do not, err in their
judgment. They are as mistaken on this point, as those Christians
who mistake the theological interpolations of the later editors
of the Gospels about damnation and hell-fire, for _verbatim_
utterances of Jesus. Neither Buddha nor “Christ” ever wrote
anything themselves, but both spoke in allegories and used “dark
sayings,” as all true Initiates did, and will do for a long time
yet to come. Both Scriptures treat of all such metaphysical
questions very cautiously, and both, Buddhist and Christian
records, sin by that excess of exotericism; the dead letter
meaning far overshooting the mark in both cases.

ENQ. Do you mean to suggest that neither the teachings of Buddha nor
those of Christ have been heretofore rightly understood?

THEO. What I mean is just as you say. Both Gospels, the Buddhist and
the Christian, were preached with the same object in view.
Both reformers were ardent philanthropists and practical
_altruists—preaching most unmistakably Socialism_ of the noblest
and highest type, self-sacrifice to the bitter end. “Let the sins
of the whole world fall upon me that I may relieve man’s misery
and suffering!” cries Buddha; ... “I would not let one cry whom I
could save!” exclaims the Prince-beggar, clad in the refuse rags
of the burial-grounds. “Come unto me all ye that labour and are
heavy laden and I will give you rest,” is the appeal to the poor
and the disinherited made by the “Man of Sorrows,” who hath not
where to lay his head. The teachings of both are boundless love
for humanity, charity, forgiveness of injury, forgetfulness of
self, and pity for the deluded masses; both show the same contempt
for riches, and make no difference between _meum_ and _tuum_.
Their desire was, without revealing to _all_ the sacred mysteries
of initiation, to give the ignorant and the misled, whose burden
in life was too heavy for them, hope enough and an inkling into
the truth sufficient to support them in their heaviest hours. But
the object of both Reformers was frustrated, owing to excess of
zeal of their later followers. The words of the Masters having
been misunderstood and misinterpreted, behold the consequences!

ENQ. But surely Buddha must have repudiated the soul’s immortality, if
all the Orientalists and his own Priests say so!

THEO. The Arhats began by following the policy of their Master and the
majority of the subsequent priests were not initiated, just as in
Christianity; and so, little by little, the great esoteric truths
became almost lost. A proof in point is, that, out of the two
existing sects in Ceylon, the Siamese believes death to be the
absolute annihilation of individuality and personality, and the
other explains Nirvana, as we theosophists do.

ENQ. But why, in that case, do Buddhism and Christianity represent the
two opposite poles of such belief?

THEO. Because the conditions under which they were preached were not
the same. In India the Brahmins, jealous of their superior
knowledge, and excluding from it every caste save their own, had
driven millions of men into idolatry and almost fetishism. Buddha
had to give the death-blow to an exuberance of unhealthy fancy
and fanatical superstition resulting from ignorance, such as has
rarely been known before or after. Better a philosophical atheism
than such ignorant worship for those—

“Who cry upon their gods and are not heard,
Or are not heeded—”

and who live and die in mental despair. He had to arrest first of
all this muddy torrent of superstition, to uproot _errors_ before
he gave out the truth. And as he could not give out _all_, for
the same good reason as Jesus, who reminds _his_ disciples that
the Mysteries of Heaven are not for the unintelligent masses, but
for the elect alone, and therefore “spake he to them in parables”
(Matt. xiii. 11)—so his caution led Buddha _to conceal too much_.
He even refused to say to the monk Vacchagotta whether there was,
or was not an Ego in man. When pressed to answer, “the Exalted one
maintained silence.”[18]

ENQ. This refers to Gautama, but in what way does it touch the Gospels?

THEO. Read history and think over it. At the time the events narrated
in the Gospels are alleged to have happened, there was a similar
intellectual fermentation taking place in the whole civilized
world, only with opposite results in the East and the West. The
old gods were dying out. While the civilized classes drifted
in the train of the unbelieving Sadducees into materialistic
negations and mere dead-letter Mosaic form in Palestine, and
into moral dissolution in Rome, the lowest and poorer classes
ran after sorcery and strange gods, or became hypocrites and
pharisees. Once more the time for a spiritual reform had arrived.
The cruel, anthropomorphic and jealous God of the Jews, with his
sanguinary laws of “an eye for eye and tooth for tooth,” of the
shedding of blood and animal sacrifice, had to be relegated to a
secondary place and replaced by the merciful “Father in Secret.”
The latter had to be shown, not as an extra-Cosmic God, but as a
divine Saviour of the man of flesh, enshrined in his own heart
and soul, in the poor as in the rich. No more here than in India,
could the secrets of initiation be divulged, lest by giving that
which is holy to the dogs, and casting pearls before swine, both
the _Revealer_ and the things revealed should be trodden under
foot. Thus, the reticence of both Buddha and Jesus—whether the
latter lived out the historic period allotted to him or not, and
who equally abstained from revealing plainly the Mysteries of Life
and Death—led in the one case to the blank negations of Southern
Buddhism, and in the other, to the three clashing forms of the
Christian Church and the 300 sects in Protestant England alone.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] Ain-Soph, אין סיף = τὸ πάγ = ἔπειρος Nature, the non-existent which IS, but is not _a_ Being.

[15] How can the non-active eternal principle emanate or emit? The Parabrahm of the Vedantins does nothing of the kind; nor does the Ain-Soph of the Chaldean Kabala. It is an eternal and periodical law which causes an active and creative force (the logos) to emanate from the ever-concealed and incomprehensible one principle at the beginning of every maha-manvantara, or new cycle of life.

[16] One often finds in Theosophical writings conflicting statements about the Christos principle in man. Some call it the sixth principle (_Buddhi_), others the seventh (_Atman_). If Christian Theosophists wish to make use of such expressions, let them be made philosophically correct by following the analogy of the old Wisdom-Religion symbols. We say that Christos is not only one of the three higher principles, but all the three regarded as a Trinity. This Trinity represents the Holy Ghost, the Father, and the Son, as it answers to abstract spirit, differentiated spirit, and embodied spirit. Krishna and Christ are philosophically the same principle under its triple aspect of manifestation. In the _Bhagavatgita_ we find Krishna calling himself indifferently Atman, the abstract Spirit, Kshetragna, the Higher or reincarnating Ego, and the Universal SELF, all names which, when transferred from the Universe to man, answer to _Atma_, _Buddhi_ and _Manas_. The _Anugita_ is full of the same doctrine.

[17] The new sect of healers, who, by disavowing the existence of anything but spirit, which spirit can neither suffer nor be ill, claim to cure all and every disease, provided the patient has faith that what he denies can have no existence. A new form of self-hypnotism.

[18] Buddha gives to Ananda, his _initiated_ disciple, who enquires for the reason of this silence, a plain and unequivocal answer in the dialogue translated by Oldenburg from the _Samyuttaka Nikaya_:—“If I, Ananda, when the wandering monk Vacchagotta asked me: ‘Is there the Ego?’ had answered ‘The Ego is,’ then that, Ananda, would have confirmed the doctrine of the Samanas and Brahmanas, who believed in permanence. If I, Ananda, when the wandering monk Vacchagotta asked me, ‘Is there not the Ego?’ had answered, ‘The Ego is not,’ then that, Ananda, would have confirmed the doctrine of those who believed in annihilation. If I, Ananda, when the wandering monk Vacchagotta asked me, ‘Is there the Ego?’ had answered, ‘The Ego is,’ would that have served my end, Ananda, by producing in him the knowledge: all existences (dhamma) are non-ego? But if I, Ananda, had answered, ‘The Ego is not,’ then that, Ananda, would only have caused the wandering monk Vacchagotta to be thrown from one bewilderment to another: ‘My Ego, did it not exist before? But now it exists no longer!’” This shows, better than anything, that Gautama Buddha withheld such difficult metaphysical doctrines from the masses in order not to perplex them more. What he meant was the difference between the personal temporary Ego and the Higher Self, which sheds its light on the imperishable Ego, the spiritual “I” of man.

VI. THEOSOPHICAL TEACHINGS AS TO NATURE AND MAN.

THE UNITY OF ALL IN ALL.

ENQ. Having told me what God, the Soul and Man are _not_, in your
views, can you inform me what they _are_, according to your
teachings?

THEO. In their origin and in eternity the three, like the universe and
all therein, are one with the absolute Unity, the unknowable
deific essence I spoke about sometime back. We believe in no
_creation_, but in the periodical and consecutive appearances of
the universe from the subjective on to the objective plane of
being, at regular intervals of time, covering periods of immense
duration.

ENQ. Can you elaborate the subject?

THEO. Take as a first comparison and a help towards a more correct
conception, the solar year, and as a second, the two halves
of that year, producing each a day and a night of six months’
duration at the North Pole. Now imagine, if you can, instead of
a Solar year of 365 days, ETERNITY. Let the sun represent the
universe, and the polar days and nights of 6 months each—_days
and nights lasting each 182 trillions and quadrillions of years_,
instead of 182 days each. As the sun arises every morning on our
_objective_ horizon out of its (to us) _subjective_ and antipodal
space, so does the Universe emerge periodically on the plane of
objectivity, issuing from that of subjectivity—the antipodes of
the former. This is the “Cycle of Life.” And as the sun disappears
from our horizon, so does the Universe disappear at regular
periods, when the “Universal night” sets in. The Hindoos call
such alternations the “Days and Nights of Brahma,” or the time of
_Manvantara_ and that of _Pralaya_ (dissolution). The Westerns may
call them Universal Days and Nights if they prefer. During the
latter (the nights) _All is in All_; every atom is resolved into
one Homogeneity.

EVOLUTION AND ILLUSION.

ENQ. But who is it that creates each time the Universe?

THEO. No one creates it. Science would call the process evolution; the
pre-Christian philosophers and the Orientalists called it
emanation: we, Occultists and Theosophists, see in it the only
universal and eternal _reality_ casting a periodical reflection of
_itself_ on the infinite Spatial depths. This reflection, which
you regard as the objective _material_ universe, we consider as a
temporary _illusion_ and nothing else. That alone which is eternal
is _real_.

ENQ. At that rate, you and I are also illusions.

THEO. As flitting personalities, to-day one person, to-morrow
another—we are. Would you call the sudden flashes of the _Aurora
borealis_, the Northern lights, a “reality,” though it is as real
as can be while you look at it? Certainly not; it is the cause
that produces it, if permanent and eternal, which is the only
reality, while the other is but a passing illusion.

ENQ. All this does not explain to me how this illusion called the
universe originates; how the conscious _to be_, proceeds to
manifest itself from the unconsciousness that _is_.

THEO. It is _unconsciousness_ only to our finite consciousness. Verily
may we paraphrase verse v, in the 1st chapter of St. John,
and say “and (Absolute) light (which is darkness) shineth in
darkness (which is illusionary material light); and the darkness
comprehendeth it not.” This absolute light is also absolute and
immutable law. Whether by radiation or emanation—we need not
quarrel over terms—the universe passes out of its homogeneous
subjectivity on to the first plane of manifestation, of which
planes there are seven, we are taught. With each plane it becomes
more dense and material until it reaches this, our plane, on which
the only world approximately known and understood in its physical
composition by Science, is the planetary or Solar system—one _sui
generis_, we are told.

ENQ. What do you mean by _sui generis_?

THEO. I mean that, though the fundamental law and the universal working
of laws of Nature are uniform, still our Solar system (like every
other such system in the millions of others in Cosmos) and even
our Earth, has its own programme of manifestations differing
from the respective programmes of all others. We speak of the
inhabitants of other planets and imagine that if they are _men_,
_i.e._, thinking entities, they must be as we are. The fancy of
poets and painters and sculptors never fails to represent even
the angels as a beautiful copy of man—_plus_ wings. We say that
all this is an error and a delusion; because, if on this little
earth alone one finds such a diversity in its flora, fauna and
mankind—from the seaweed to the cedar of Lebanon, from the
jelly-fish to the elephant, from the Bushman and negro to the
Apollo Belvedere—alter the conditions cosmic and planetary, and
there must be as a result quite a different flora, fauna and
mankind. The same laws will fashion quite a different set of
things and beings even on this our plane, including in it all
our planets. How much more different then must be _external_
nature in other Solar systems, and how foolish is it to judge of
other _stars_ and worlds and human beings by our own, as physical
science does!

ENQ. But what are your data for this assertion?

THEO. What science in general will never accept as proof—the cumulative
testimony of an endless series of Seers who have testified to this
fact. Their spiritual visions, real explorations by, and through,
physical and spiritual senses untrammeled by blind flesh, were
systematically checked and compared one with the other, and their
nature sifted. All that was not corroborated by unanimous and
collective experience was rejected, while that only was recorded
as established truth which, in various ages, under different
climes, and throughout an untold series of incessant observations,
was found to agree and receive constantly further corroboration.
The methods used by our scholars and students of the
psycho-spiritual sciences do not differ from those of students of
the natural and physical sciences, as you may see. Only our fields
of research are on two different planes, and our instruments are
made by no human hands, for which reason perchance they are only
the more reliable. The retorts, accumulators, and microscopes of
the chemist and naturalist may get out of order; the telescope
and the astronomer’s horological instruments may get spoiled; our
recording instruments are beyond the influence of weather or the
elements.

ENQ. And therefore you have implicit faith in them?

THEO. Faith is a word not to be found in theosophical dictionaries: we
say _knowledge based on observation and experience_. There is this
difference, however, that while the observation and experience of
physical science lead the Scientists to about as many “working”
hypotheses as there are minds to evolve them, our _knowledge_
consents to add to its lore only those facts which have become
undeniable, and which are fully and absolutely demonstrated. We
have no two beliefs or hypotheses on the same subject.

ENQ. Is it on such data that you came to accept the strange theories we
find in _Esoteric Buddhism_?

THEO. Just so. These theories may be slightly incorrect in their minor
details, and even faulty in their exposition by lay students; they
are _facts_ in nature, nevertheless, and come nearer the truth
than any scientific hypothesis.

ON THE SEPTENARY CONSTITUTION OF OUR PLANET.

ENQ. I understand that you describe our earth as forming part of a
chain of earths?

THEO. We do. But the other six “earths” or globes, are not on the same
plane of objectivity as our earth is; therefore we cannot see them.

ENQ. Is that on account of the great distance?

THEO. Not at all, for we see with our naked eye planets and even stars
at immeasurably greater distances; but it is owing to those six
globes being outside our physical means of perception, or plane
of being. It is not only that their material density, weight, or
fabric are entirely different from those of our earth and the
other known planets; but they are (to us) on an entirely different
_layer_ of space, so to speak; a layer not to be perceived or felt
by our physical senses. And when I say “layer,” please do not
allow your fancy to suggest to you layers like strata or beds laid
one over the other, for this would only lead to another absurd
misconception. What I mean by “layer” is that plane of infinite
space which by its nature cannot fall under our ordinary waking
perceptions, whether mental or physical; but which exists in
nature outside of our normal mentality or consciousness, outside
of our three dimensional space, and outside of our division of
time. Each of the seven fundamental planes (or layers) in space—of
course as a whole, as the pure space of Locke’s definition, not as
our finite space—has its own objectivity and subjectivity, its own
space and time, its own consciousness and set of senses. But all
this will be hardly comprehensible to one trained in the modern
ways of thought.

ENQ. What do you mean by a different set of senses? Is there anything
on our human plane that you could bring as an illustration of what
you say, just to give a clearer idea of what you may mean by this
variety of senses, spaces, and respective perceptions?

THEO. None; except, perhaps, that which for Science would be rather a
handy peg on which to hang a counter-argument. We have a different
set of senses in dream-life, have we not? We feel, talk, hear,
see, taste and function in general on a different plane; the
change of state of our consciousness being evidenced by the fact
that a series of acts and events embracing years, as we think,
pass ideally through our mind in one instant. Well, that extreme
rapidity of our mental operations in dreams, and the perfect
naturalness, for the time being, of all the other functions, show
us that we are on quite another plane. Our philosophy teaches
us that, as there are seven fundamental forces in nature, and
seven planes of being, so there are seven states of consciousness
in which man can live, think, remember and have his being. To
enumerate these here is impossible, and for this one has to turn
to the study of Eastern metaphysics. But in these two states—the
waking and the dreaming—every ordinary mortal, from a learned
philosopher down to a poor untutored savage, has a good proof that
such states differ.

ENQ. You do not accept, then, the well-known explanations of biology
and physiology to account for the dream state?

THEO. We do not. We reject even the hypotheses of your psychologists,
preferring the teachings of Eastern Wisdom. Believing in seven
planes of Kosmic being and states of Consciousness, with regard
to the Universe or the Macrocosm, we stop at the fourth plane,
finding it impossible to go with any degree of certainty beyond.
But with respect to the Microcosm, or man, we speculate freely on
his seven states and principles.

ENQ. How do you explain these?

THEO. We find, first of all, two distinct beings in man; the spiritual
and the physical, the man who thinks, and the man who records as
much of these thoughts as he is able to assimilate. Therefore we
divide him into two distinct natures; the upper or the spiritual
being, composed of three “principles” or _aspects_; and the lower
or the physical quaternary, composed of _four_—in all _seven_.

THE SEPTENARY NATURE OF MAN.

ENQ. Is it what we call Spirit and Soul, and the man of flesh?

THEO. It is not. That is the old Platonic division. Plato was an
Initiate, and therefore could not go into forbidden details; but
he who is acquainted with the archaic doctrine finds the seven
in Plato’s various combinations of Soul and Spirit. He regarded
man as constituted of two parts—one eternal, formed of the same
essence as the Absoluteness, the other mortal and corruptible,
deriving its constituent parts from the _minor_ “created” Gods.
Man is composed, he shows, of (1) A mortal body, (2) An immortal
principle, and (3) A “separate mortal kind of Soul.” It is that
which we respectively call the physical man, the Spiritual Soul
or Spirit, and the animal Soul (the _Nous_ and _psuche_). This
is the division adopted by Paul, another Initiate, who maintains
that there is a psychical body which is sown in the corruptible
(astral soul or body), and a _spiritual_ body that is raised in
incorruptible substance. Even James (iii. 15) corroborates the
same by saying that the “wisdom” (of our lower soul) descendeth
not from the above, but is terrestrial (“psychical,” “demoniacal,”
_vide_ Greek text); while the other is heavenly wisdom. Now so
plain is it that Plato and even Pythagoras, while speaking but of
three “principles,” give them seven separate functions, in their
various combinations, that if we contrast our teachings this will
become quite plain. Let us take a cursory view of these seven
aspects by drawing two tables.

THEOSOPHICAL DIVISION.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
{ SANSCRIT TERMS. | EXOTERIC MEANING.| EXPLANATORY.
{------------------------------------------------------------------
L { | |
o {(_a_) Rupa, or |(_a_) Physical |(_a_) Is the vehicle of
w { Sthula-Sarira. | body. | all the other
e { | | “principles” during
r { | | life.
{(_b_) Pranâ. |(_b_) Life, or |(_b_) Necessary only to
{ | Vital principle.| _a_, _c_, _d_, and
Q { | | the functions of the
u { | | lower _Manas_, which
a { | | embrace all those
t { | | limited to the
e { | | (_physical_) brain.
r {(_c_) Linga Sharira.|(_c_) Astral Body.|(_c_) The _Double_, the
n { | | phantom body.
a {(_d_) Kama rupa. |(_d_) The seat of |(_d_) This is the centre
r { | animal desires| of the animal man,
y { | and passions. | wherelies the line
. { | | of demarcation which
{ | | separates the mortal
{ | | man from the
{ | | immortal entity.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------- { | | { SANSCRIT TERMS. | EXOTERIC MEANING. | EXPLANATORY. { | | T {------------------------------------------------------------------- H {(_e_) _Manas_—a |(_e_) Mind, Intelligence:|(_e_) The future state E { dual principle| which is the higher | and the Karmic { in its | human mind, whose | destiny of man U { functions. | light, or radiation, | depend on whether P { | links the MONAD, for | Manas gravitates P { | the lifetime, to the | more downward to E { | mortal man. | Kama rupa, the R { | | seat of the animal { | | passions, or I { | | upwards to_Buddhi_, M { | | Spiritual _Ego_. In P { | | the latter case, E { | | the higher R { | | consciousness of I { | | the individual S { | | Spiritual H { | | aspirations of A { | | _mind_ (Manas), B { | | assimilating L { | | Buddhi, are E { | | absorbed by it { | | and form the _Ego_, T { | | which goes into R { | | Devachanic bliss.[19] I {(_f_) Buddhi. |(_f_) The Spiritual |(_f_) The vehicle of A { | Soul. | pure universal D { | | spirit. . {(_g_) Atma. |(_g_) Spirit. |(_g_) One with the { | | Absolute, as its { | | radiation. ---------------------------------------------------------------------

Now what does Plato teach? He speaks of the _interior_ man as
constituted of two parts—one immutable and always the same,
formed of the same _substance_ as Deity, and the other mortal and
corruptible. These “two parts” are found in our upper _Triad_,
and the lower _Quaternary_ (_vide_ Table). He explains that when
the Soul, _psuche_, “allies herself to the Nous (divine spirit
or substance[20]), she does everything aright and felicitously”;
but the case is otherwise when she attaches herself to _Anoia_,
(folly, or the irrational animal Soul). Here, then, we have
_Manas_ (or the Soul in general) in its two aspects: when
attaching itself to _Anoia_ (our _Kama rupa_, or the “Animal Soul”
in “Esoteric Buddhism,”) it runs towards entire annihilation, as
far as the personal Ego is concerned; when allying itself to the
_Nous_ (Atma-Buddhi) it merges into the immortal, imperishable
Ego, and then its spiritual consciousness of the personal that
_was_, becomes immortal.

THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN SOUL AND SPIRIT.

ENQ. Do you really teach, as you are accused of doing by some
Spiritualists and French Spiritists, the annihilation of every
personality?

THEO. We do not. But as this question of the duality—the
_individuality_ of the Divine Ego, and the _personality_ of the
human animal—involves that of the possibility of the real immortal
Ego appearing in _Séance rooms_ as a “materialised spirit,” which
we deny as already explained, our opponents have started the
nonsensical charge.

ENQ. You have just spoken of _psuche_ running towards its entire
annihilation if it attaches itself to _Anoia_. What did Plato, and
do you mean by this?

THEO. The _entire_ annihilation of the _personal_ consciousness, as an
exceptional and rare case, I think. The general and almost
invariable rule is the merging of the personal into the individual
or immortal consciousness of the Ego, a transformation or a divine
transfiguration, and the entire annihilation only of the lower
_quaternary_. Would you expect the man of flesh, or the _temporary
personality_, his shadow, the “astral,” his animal instincts
and even physical life, to survive with the “spiritual Ego” and
become sempiternal? Naturally all this ceases to exist, either
at, or soon after corporeal death. It becomes in time entirely
disintegrated and disappears from view, being annihilated as a
whole.

ENQ. Then you also reject _resurrection in the flesh_?

THEO. Most decidedly we do! Why should we, who believe in the archaic
esoteric philosophy of the Ancients, accept the unphilosophical
speculations of the later Christian theology, borrowed from the
Egyptian and Greek exoteric Systems of the Gnostics?

ENQ. The Egyptians revered Nature-Spirits, and deified even onions:
your Hindus are _idolaters_, to this day; the Zoroastrians
worshipped, and do still worship, the Sun; and the best Greek
philosophers were either dreamers or materialists—witness Plato
and Democritus. How can you compare?

THEO. It may be so in your modern Christian and even Scientific
catechism; it is not so for unbiased minds. The Egyptians
revered the “One-Only-One,” as _Nout_; and it is from this word
that Anaxagoras got his denomination _Nous_, or as he calls it,
Νους αυτοχρατης, “the Mind or Spirit Self-Potent,” the αρχητης
χινηδεως, the leading motor, or _primum-mobile_ of all. With
him the _Nous_ was God, and the _logos_ was man, his emanation.
The _Nous_ is the spirit (whether in Kosmos or in man), and the
_logos_, whether Universe or astral body, the emanation of the
former, the physical body being merely the animal. Our external
powers perceive _phenomena_; our _Nous_ alone is able to recognise
their _noumena_. It is the logos alone, or the _noumenon_, that
survives, because it is immortal in its very nature and essence,
and the _logos_ in man is the Eternal Ego, that which reincarnates
and lasts for ever. But how can the evanescent or external shadow,
the temporary clothing of that divine Emanation which returns
to the source whence it proceeded, be that _which is raised in
incorruptibility_?

ENQ. Still you can hardly escape the charge of having invented a new
division of man’s spiritual and psychic constituents; for no
philosopher speaks of them, though you believe that Plato does.

THEO. And I support the view. Besides Plato, there is Pythagoras, who
also followed the same idea.[21] He described the _Soul_ as a
self-moving Unit (_monad_) composed of three elements, the _Nous_
(Spirit), the _phren_ (mind), and the _thumos_ (life, breath or
the _Nephesh_ of the Kabalists) which three correspond to our
“Atma-Buddhi,” (higher Spirit-Soul), to _Manas_ (The EGO), and
to _Kama-rupa_ in conjunction with the _lower_ reflection of
Manas. That which the Ancient Greek philosophers termed _Soul_,
in general, we call Spirit, or Spiritual _Soul_, _Buddhi_, as the
vehicle of _Atma_ (the _Agathon_, or Plato’s Supreme Deity). The
fact that Pythagoras and others state that _phren_ and _thumos_
are shared by us with the brutes, proves that in this case the
_lower_ Manasic reflection (instinct) and _Kama-rupa_ (animal
living passions) are meant. And as Socrates and Plato accepted
the clue and followed it, if to these five, namely, _Agathon_
(Deity or Atma), _Psuche_ (Soul in its collective sense), _Nous_
(Spirit or Mind), _Phren_ (physical mind), and _Thumos_ (Kama-rupa
or passions) we add the _eidolon_ of the Mysteries, the shadowy
_form_ or the human double, and the _physical body_, it will be
easy to demonstrate that the ideas of both Pythagoras and Plato
were identical with ours. Even the Egyptians held to the Septenary
division. In its exit, they taught, the Soul (EGO) had to pass
through its seven chambers, or principles, those it left behind,
and those it took along with itself. The only difference is that,
ever bearing in mind the penalty of revealing Mystery-doctrines,
which was _death_, they gave out the teaching in a broad outline,
while we elaborate it and explain it in its details. But though
we do give out to the world as much as is lawful, even in our
doctrine more than one important detail is withheld, which those
who study the esoteric philosophy and are pledged to silence, _are
alone entitled to know_.

THE GREEK TEACHINGS.

ENQ. We have magnificent Greek and Latin, Sanskrit and Hebrew scholars.
How is it that we find nothing in their translations that would
afford us a clue to what you say?