Chapter XVI: Preface (6)

THEO. Our philosophy teaches that Karmic punishment reaches Ego only in
its next incarnation. After death it receives only the reward for
the unmerited sufferings endured during its past incarnation.[44]
The whole punishment after death, even for the materialist,
consists, therefore, in the absence of any reward, and the utter
loss of the consciousness of one’s bliss and rest. Karma is the
child of the terrestrial Ego, the fruit of the actions of the tree
which is the objective personality visible to all, as much as
the fruit of all the thoughts and even motives of the spiritual
“I”; but Karma is also the tender mother, who heals the wounds
inflicted by her during the preceding life, before she will begin
to torture this Ego by inflicting upon him new ones. If it may
be said that there is not a mental or physical suffering in the
life of a mortal which is not the direct fruit and consequence of
some sin in a preceding existence; on the other hand, since he
does not preserve the slightest recollection of it in his actual
life, and feels himself not deserving of such punishment, and
therefore thinks he suffers for no guilt of his own, this alone is
sufficient to entitle the human soul to the fullest consolation,
rest, and bliss in his _post-mortem_ existence. Death comes to
our spiritual selves ever as a deliverer and friend. For the
materialist, who, notwithstanding his materialism, was not a bad
man, the interval between the two lives will be like the unbroken
and placid sleep of a child, either entirely dreamless, or filled
with pictures of which he will have no definite perception; while
for the average mortal it will be a dream as vivid as life, and
full of realistic bliss and visions.

ENQ. Then the personal man must always go on suffering _blindly_ the
Karmic penalties which the Ego has incurred?

THEO. Not quite so. At the solemn moment of death every man, even when
death is sudden, sees the whole of his past life marshalled before
him, in its minutest details. For one short instant the _personal_
becomes one with the _individual_ and all-knowing _Ego_. But this
instant is enough to show to him the whole claim of causes which
have been at work during his life. He sees and now understands
himself as he is, unadorned by flattery or self-deception. He
reads his life, remaining as a spectator looking down into the
arena he is quitting; he feels and knows the justice of all the
suffering that has overtaken him.

ENQ. Does this happen to everyone?

THEO. Without any exception. Very good and holy men see, we are taught,
not only the life they are leaving, but even several preceding
lives in which were produced the causes that made them what they
were in the life just closing. They recognise the law of Karma in
all its majesty and justice.

ENQ. Is there anything corresponding to this before re-birth?

THEO. There is. As the man at the moment of death has a retrospective
insight into the life he has led, so, at the moment he is reborn
on to earth, the _Ego_, awaking from the state of Devachan, has
a prospective vision of the life which awaits him, and realizes
all the causes that have led to it. He realizes them and sees
futurity, because it is between Devachan and re-birth that the
_Ego_ regains his full _manasic_ consciousness, and re-becomes for
a short time the god he was, before, in compliance with Karmic
law, he first descended into matter and incarnated in the first
man of flesh. The “golden thread” sees all its “pearls” and misses
not one of them.

WHAT IS REALLY MEANT BY ANNIHILATION.

ENQ. I have heard some Theosophists speak of a golden thread on which
their lives were strung. What do they mean by this?

THEO. In the Hindu Sacred books it is said that that which undergoes
periodical incarnation is the _Sutratma_, which means literally
the “Thread Soul.” It is a synonym of the reincarnating Ego—Manas
conjoined with _Buddhi_—which absorbs the Manasic recollections
of all our preceding lives. It is so called, because, like the
pearls on a thread, so is the long series of human lives strung
together on that one thread. In some Upanishad these recurrent
rebirths are likened to the life of a mortal which oscillates
periodically between sleep and waking.

ENQ. This, I must say, does not seem very clear, and I will tell you
why. For the man who awakes, another day commences, but that man
is the same in soul and body as he was the day before; whereas
at every incarnation a full change takes place not only of the
external envelope, sex, and personality, but even of the mental
and psychic capacities. The simile does not seem to me quite
correct. The man who arises from sleep remembers quite clearly
what he has done yesterday, the day before, and even months and
years ago. But none of us has the slightest recollection of a
preceding life or of any fact or event concerning it.... I may
forget in the morning what I have dreamt during the night, still I
know that I have slept and have the certainty that I lived during
sleep; but what recollection can I have of my past incarnation
until the moment of death? How do you reconcile this?

THEO. Some people do recollect their past incarnations during life; but
these are Buddhas and Initiates. This is what the Yogis call
Samma-Sambuddha, or the knowledge of the whole series of one’s
past incarnations.

ENQ. But we ordinary mortals who have not reached Samma-Sambuddha, how
are we to understand this simile?

THEO. By studying it and trying to understand more correctly the
characteristics and the three kinds of sleep. Sleep is a general
and immutable law for man as for beast, but there are different
kinds of sleep and still more different dreams and visions.

ENQ. But this takes us to another subject. Let us return to the
materialist who, while not denying dreams, which he could hardly
do, yet denies immortality in general and the survival of his own
individuality.

THEO. And the materialist, without knowing it, is right. One who has no
inner perception of, and faith in, the immortality of his soul,
in that man the soul can never become Buddhi-taijasi, but will
remain simply Manas, and for Manas alone there is no immortality
possible. In order to live in the world to come a conscious
life, one has to believe first of all in that life during the
terrestrial existence. On these two aphorisms of the Secret
Science all the philosophy about the _post-mortem_ consciousness
and the immortality of the soul is built. The Ego receives always
according to its deserts. After the dissolution of the body,
there commences for it a period of full awakened consciousness,
or a state of chaotic dreams, or an utterly dreamless sleep
undistinguishable from annihilation, and these are the three
kinds of sleep. If our physiologists find the cause of dreams and
visions in an unconscious preparation for them during the waking
hours, why cannot the same be admitted for the _post-mortem_
dreams? I repeat it: _death is sleep_. After death, before the
spiritual eyes of the soul, begins a performance according to
a programme learnt and very often unconsciously composed by
ourselves: the practical carrying out of _correct_ beliefs or of
illusions which have been created by ourselves. The Methodist will
be Methodist, the Mussulman a Mussulman, at least for some time—in
a perfect fool’s paradise of each man’s creation and making. These
are the _post-mortem_ fruits of the tree of life. Naturally, our
belief or unbelief in the fact of conscious immortality is unable
to influence the unconditioned reality of the fact itself, once
that it exists; but the belief or unbelief in that immortality
as the property of independent or separate entities, cannot fail
to give colour to that fact in its application to each of these
entities. Now do you begin to understand it?

ENQ. I think I do. The materialist, disbelieving in everything that
cannot be proven to him by his five senses, or by scientific
reasoning, based exclusively on the data furnished by these senses
in spite of their inadequacy, and rejecting every spiritual
manifestation, accepts life as the only conscious existence.
Therefore according to their beliefs so will it be unto them. They
will lose their personal Ego, and will plunge into a dreamless
sleep until a new awakening. Is it so?

THEO. Almost so. Remember the practically universal teaching of the two
kinds of conscious existence: the terrestrial and the spiritual.
The latter must be considered real from the very fact that it is
inhabited by the eternal, changeless and immortal Monad; whereas
the incarnating Ego dresses itself up in new garments entirely
different from those of its previous incarnations, and in which
all except its spiritual prototype is doomed to a change so
radical as to leave no trace behind.

ENQ. How so? Can my conscious terrestrial “I” perish not only for a
time, like the consciousness of the materialist, but so entirely
as to leave no trace behind?

THEO. According to the teaching, it must so perish and in its fullness,
all except the principle which, having united itself with the
Monad, has thereby become a purely spiritual and indestructible
essence, one with it in the Eternity. But in the case of an
out-and-out materialist, in whose personal “I” no Buddhi has ever
reflected itself, how can the latter carry away into the Eternity
one particle of that terrestrial personality? Your spiritual “I”
is immortal; but from your present self it can carry away into
Eternity that only which has become worthy of immortality, namely,
the aroma alone of the flower that has been mown by death.

ENQ. Well, and the flower, the terrestrial “I”?

THEO. The flower, as all past and future flowers which have blossomed
and will have to blossom on the mother bough, the _Sutratma_,
all children of one root or Buddhi—will return to dust. Your
present “I,” as you yourself know, is not the body now sitting
before me, nor yet is it what I would call Manas-Sutratma, but
Sutratma-Buddhi.

ENQ. But this does not explain to me, at all, why you call life after
death immortal, infinite and real, and the terrestrial life a
simple phantom or illusion; since even that _post-mortem_ life has
limits, however much wider they may be than those of terrestrial
life.

THEO. No doubt. The spiritual Ego of man moves in eternity like a
pendulum between the hours of birth and death. But if these hours,
marking the periods of life terrestrial and life spiritual, are
limited in their duration, and if the very number of such stages
in Eternity between sleep and awakening, illusion and reality,
has its beginning and its end, on the other hand, the spiritual
pilgrim is eternal. Therefore are the hours of his _post-mortem_
life, when, disembodied, he stands face to face with truth and
not the mirages of his transitory earthly existences, during
the period of that pilgrimage which we call “the cycle of
rebirths”—the only reality in our conception. Such intervals,
their limitation notwithstanding, do not prevent the Ego, while
ever perfecting itself, from following undeviatingly, though
gradually and slowly, the path to its last transformation, when
that Ego, having reached its goal, becomes a divine being. These
intervals and stages help towards this final result instead of
hindering it; and without such limited intervals the divine
Ego could never reach its ultimate goal. I have given you once
already a familiar illustration by comparing the _Ego_, or the
_individuality_, to an actor, and its numerous and various
incarnations to the parts it plays. Will you call these parts or
their costumes the individuality of the actor himself? Like that
actor, the Ego is forced to play during the cycle of necessity,
up to the very threshold of _Paranirvana_, many parts such as
may be unpleasant to it. But as the bee collects its honey from
every flower, leaving the rest as food for the earthly worms, so
does our spiritual individuality, whether we call it Sutratma or
Ego. Collecting from every terrestrial personality, into which
Karma forces it to incarnate, the nectar alone of the spiritual
qualities and self-consciousness, it unites all these into one
whole and emerges from its chrysalis as the glorified Dhyan
Chohan. So much the worse for those terrestrial personalities
from which it could collect nothing. Such personalities cannot
assuredly outlive consciously their terrestrial existence.

ENQ. Thus, then, it seems that, for the terrestrial personality,
immortality is still conditional. Is, then, immortality itself
_not_ unconditional?

THEO. Not at all. But immortality cannot touch the _non-existent_: for
all that which exists as SAT, or emanates from SAT, immortality
and Eternity are absolute. Matter is the opposite pole of spirit,
and yet the two are one. The essence of all this, _i.e._, Spirit,
Force and Matter, or the three in one, is as endless as it is
beginningless; but the form acquired by this triple unity during
its incarnations, its externality, is certainly only the illusion
of our personal conceptions. Therefore do we call Nirvana and the
Universal life alone a reality, while relegating the terrestrial
life, its terrestrial personality included, and even its
Devachanic existence, to the phantom realm of illusion.

ENQ. But why in such a case call sleep the reality, and waking the
illusion?

THEO. It is simply a comparison made to facilitate the grasping of the
subject, and from the standpoint of terrestrial conceptions it is
a very correct one.

ENQ. And still I cannot understand, if the life to come is based on
justice and the merited retribution for all our terrestrial
suffering, how in the case of materialists, many of whom are
really honest and charitable men, there should remain of their
personality nothing but the refuse of a faded flower.

THEO. No one ever said such a thing. No materialist, however
unbelieving, can die for ever in the fulness of his spiritual
individuality. What was said is that consciousness can disappear
either fully or partially in the case of a materialist, so that no
conscious remains of his personality survive.

ENQ. But surely this is annihilation?

THEO. Certainly not. One can sleep a dead sleep and miss several
stations during a long railway journey, without the slightest
recollection or consciousness, and awake at another station and
continue the journey past innumerable other halting-places till
the end of the journey or the goal is reached. Three kinds of
sleep were mentioned to you: the dreamless, the chaotic, and
the one which is so real, that to the sleeping man his dreams
become full realities. If you believe in the latter why can’t you
believe in the former; according to the after life a man has
believed in and expected, such is the life he will have. He who
expected no life to come will have an absolute blank, amounting
to annihilation, in the interval between the two rebirths.
This is just the carrying out of the programme we spoke of, a
programme created by the materialists themselves. But there are
various kinds of materialists, as you say. A selfish, wicked
Egoist, one who never shed a tear for anyone but himself, thus
adding entire indifference to the whole world to his unbelief,
must, at the threshold of death, drop his personality for ever.
This personality having no tendrils of sympathy for the world
around and hence nothing to hook on to Sutratma, it follows that
with the last breath every connection between the two is broken.
There being no Devachan for such a materialist, the Sutratma will
reincarnate almost immediately. But those materialists who erred
in nothing but their disbelief will oversleep but one station. And
the time will come when that ex-materialist will perceive himself
in the Eternity and perhaps repent that he lost even one day, one
station, from the life eternal.

ENQ. Still, would it not be more correct to say that death is birth
into a new life, or a return once more into eternity?

THEO. You may if you like. Only remember that births differ, and that
there are births of “still-born” beings, which are _failures_ of
nature. Moreover, with your Western fixed ideas about material
life, the words “living” and “being” are quite inapplicable to
the pure subjective state of _post-mortem_ existence. It is just
because, save in a few philosophers who are not read by the many,
and who themselves are too confused to present a distinct picture
of it, it is just because your Western ideas of life and death
have finally become so narrow, that on the one hand they have
led to crass materialism, and on the other, to the still more
material conception of the other life, which the spiritualists
have formulated in their Summer-land. There the souls of men eat,
drink, marry, and live in a paradise quite as sensual as that
of Mohammed, but even less philosophical. Nor are the average
conceptions of the uneducated Christians any better, being if
possible still more material. What between truncated angels, brass
trumpets, golden harps, and material hell-fires, the Christian
heaven seems like a fairy scene at a Christmas pantomime.

It is because of these narrow conceptions that you find such
difficulty in understanding. It is just because the life of the
disembodied soul, while possessing all the vividness of reality,
as in certain dreams, is devoid of every grossly objective form of
terrestrial life, that the Eastern philosophers have compared it
with visions during sleep.

DEFINITE WORDS FOR DEFINITE THINGS.

ENQ. Don’t you think it is because there are no definite and fixed
terms to indicate each “Principle” in man, that such a confusion
of ideas arises in our minds with respect to the respective
functions of these “Principles”?

THEO. I have thought of it myself. The whole trouble has arisen from
this: we have started our expositions of, and discussion about,
the “Principles” using their Sanskrit names instead of coining
immediately, for the use of Theosophists, their equivalents in
English. We must try and remedy this now.

ENQ. You will do well, as it may avoid further confusion; no two
theosophical writers, it seems to me, have hitherto agreed to call
the same “Principle” by the same name.

THEO. The confusion is more apparent than real, however. I have heard
some of our Theosophists express surprise at, and criticize
several essays speaking of these “principles”; but, when examined,
there was no worse mistake in them than that of using the word
“Soul” to cover the three principles without specifying the
distinctions. The first, as positively the clearest of our
Theosophical writers, Mr. A. P. Sinnett, has some comprehensive
and admirably-written passages on the “Higher Self.”[45] His real
idea has also been misconceived by some, owing to his using the
word “Soul” in a general sense. Yet here are a few passages which
will show to you how clear and comprehensive is all that he writes
on the subject:—

... “The human soul, once launched on the streams of evolution
as a human individuality,[46] passes through alternate periods of
physical and relatively spiritual existence. It passes from the
one plane, or stratum, or condition of nature to the other under
the guidance of its Karmic affinities; living in incarnations the
life which its Karma has pre-ordained; modifying its progress
within the limitations of circumstances, and,—developing fresh
Karma by its use or abuse of opportunities,—it returns to
spiritual existence (Devachan) after each physical life,—through
the intervening region of Kamaloca—for rest and refreshment and
for the gradual absorption into its essence, as so much cosmic
progress, of the life’s experience gained ‘on earth’ or during
physical existence. This view of the matter will, moreover, have
suggested many collateral inferences to anyone thinking over the
subject; for instance, that the transfer of consciousness from
the Kamaloca to the Devachanic stage of this progression would
necessarily be gradual[47]; that in truth, no hard-and-fast line
separates the varieties of spiritual conditions; that even the
spiritual and physical planes, as psychic faculties in living
people show, are not so hopelessly walled off from one another
as materialistic theories would suggest; that all states of
nature are all around us simultaneously, and appeal to different
perceptive faculties; and so on.... It is clear that during
physical existence people who possess psychic faculties remain in
connection with the planes of superphysical consciousness; and
although most people may not be endowed with such faculties, we
all, as the phenomena of sleep, even, and especially ... those
of somnambulism or mesmerism, show, are capable of entering into
conditions of consciousness that the five physical senses have
nothing to do with. We—the souls within us—are not as it were
altogether adrift in the ocean of matter. We clearly retain some
surviving interest or rights in the shore from which, for a time,
we have floated off. The process of incarnation, therefore, is
not fully described when we speak of an _alternate_ existence on
the physical and spiritual planes, and thus picture the soul as a
complete entity slipping entirely from the one state of existence
to the other. The more correct definitions of the process would
probably represent incarnation as taking place on this physical
plane of nature by reason of an efflux emanating from the soul.
The Spiritual realm would all the while be the proper habitat
of the Soul, which would never entirely quit it; _and that
non-materializable portion of the Soul which abides permanently
on the spiritual plane may fitly_, perhaps, be spoken of as the
HIGHER SELF.”

This “Higher Self” is ATMA, and of course it is
“non-materializable,” as Mr. Sinnett says. Even more, it can
never be “objective” under any circumstances, even to the
highest spiritual perception. For _Atman_ or the “Higher Self”
is really Brahma, the ABSOLUTE, and indistinguishable from it.
In hours of _Samadhi_, the higher spiritual consciousness of the
Initiate is entirely absorbed in the ONE essence, which is Atman,
and therefore, being one with the whole, there can be nothing
objective for it. Now some of our Theosophists have got into
the habit of using the words “Self” and “Ego” as synonymous, of
associating the term “Self” with only man’s higher individual
or even personal “Self” or _Ego_, whereas this term ought never
to be applied except _to the One universal Self_. Hence the
confusion. Speaking of Manas, the “causal body,” we may call
it—when connecting it with the Buddhic radiance—the “HIGHER EGO,”
never the “Higher Self.” For even Buddhi, the “Spiritual Soul,”
is not the SELF, but the vehicle only of SELF. All the other
“_Selves_”—such as the “Individual” self and “personal” self—ought
never to be spoken or written of without their qualifying and
characteristic adjectives.

Thus in this most excellent essay on the “Higher Self,” this term
is applied to the _sixth principle_ or _Buddhi_ (of course in
conjunction with Manas, as without such union there would be no
_thinking_ principle or element in the spiritual soul); and has
in consequence given rise to just such misunderstandings. The
statement that “a child does not acquire its _sixth_ principle—or
become a morally responsible being capable of generating
Karma—until seven years old,” proves what is meant therein by
the HIGHER SELF. Therefore, the able author is quite justified
in explaining that after the “Higher Self” has passed into the
human being and saturated the personality—in some of the finer
organizations only—with its consciousness “people with psychic
faculties may indeed perceive this Higher Self through their finer
senses from time to time.” But so are those, who limit the term
“Higher Self” to the Universal Divine Principle, “justified” in
misunderstanding him. For, when we read, without being prepared
for this shifting of metaphysical terms,[48] that while “fully
manifesting on the physical plane ... the Higher Self still
remains a conscious spiritual Ego on the corresponding plane of
Nature”—we are apt to see in the “Higher Self” of this sentence,
“Atma,” and in the spiritual Ego, “Manas,” or rather Buddhi-Manas,
and forthwith to criticise the whole thing as incorrect.

To avoid henceforth such misrepresentations, I propose to
translate literally from the Occult Eastern terms their
equivalents in English, and offer these for future use.

{ Atma, the inseparable ray of the Universal
THE HIGHER { and ONE SELF. It is the God _above_, more
SELF is { than within, us. Happy the man who succeeds
{ in saturating his _inner Ego_ with it!

THE SPIRITUAL { the Spiritual soul or _Buddhi_, in close union
_divine_ { with _Manas_, the mind-principle, without
EGO is { which it is no EGO at all, but only the Atmic
{ _Vehicle_.

{ _Manas_, the “Fifth” Principle, so called,
{ independently of Buddhi. The Mind-Principle
THE INNER, { is only the Spiritual Ego when merged
or HIGHER { _into one_ with Buddhi,—no materialist being
“Ego” is { supposed to have in him _such_ an Ego, however
{ great his intellectual capacities. It is
{ the permanent _Individuality_ or the “Reincarnating
{ Ego.”

{ the physical man in conjunction with his
{ _lower_ Self, _i.e._, animal instincts, passions,
THE LOWER, { desires, etc. It is called the “false personality,”
or PERSONAL { and consists of the _lower Manas_ combined
“Ego” is { with Kama-rupa, and operating
{ through the Physical body and its phantom
{ or “double.”

The remaining “Principle” “_Pranâ_,” or “Life,” is, strictly
speaking, the radiating force or Energy of Atma—as the Universal
Life and the ONE SELF,—ITS lower or rather (in its effects) more
physical, because manifesting, aspect. Pranâ or Life permeates the
whole being of the objective Universe; and is called a “principle”
only because it is an indispensable factor and the _deus ex
machinâ_ of the living man.

ENQ. This division being so much simplified in its combinations will
answer better, I believe. The other is much too metaphysical.

THEO. If outsiders as well as Theosophists would agree to it, it would
certainly make matters much more comprehensible.

FOOTNOTES:

[40] “Some things that I _do_ know of Spiritualism and some that I do _not_.”

[41] A few portions of this chapter and of the preceding were published in _Lucifer_ in the shape of a “Dialogue on the Mysteries of After Life,” in the January number, 1889. The article was unsigned, as if it were written by the editor, but it came from the pen of the author of the present volume.

[42] Iswara is the collective consciousness of the manifested deity, Brahma, _i.e._, the collective consciousness of the Host of Dhyan Chohans (_vide_ SECRET DOCTRINE); and Pragna is their individual wisdom.

[43] _Taijasi_ means the radiant in consequence of its union with Buddhi; _i.e._, Manas, the human soul, illuminated by the radiance of the divine soul. Therefore, Manas-taijasi may be described as radiant mind; the _human_ reason lit by the light of the spirit; and Buddhi-Manas is the revelation of the divine _plus_ human intellect and self-consciousness.

[44] Some Theosophists have taken exception to this phrase, but the words are those of Master, and the meaning attached to the word “unmerited” is that given above. In the T.P.S. pamphlet No. 6, a phrase, criticised subsequently in LUCIFER, was used which was intended to convey the same idea. In form, however, it was awkward and open to the criticism directed against it; but the essential idea was that men often suffer from the effects of the actions done by others, effects which thus do not strictly belong to their own Karma—and for these sufferings they of course deserve compensation.

[45] _Vide_ Transactions of the LONDON LODGE _of the Theos. Soc._, No. 7, Oct., 1885.

[46] The “reincarnating Ego,” or “Human Soul,” as he called it, the _Causal Body_ with the Hindus.

[47] The length of this “transfer” depends, however, on the degree of spirituality in the ex-personality of the disembodied Ego. For those whose lives were very spiritual this transfer, though gradual, is very rapid. The time becomes longer with the materialistically inclined.

[48] “Shifting of _Metaphysical terms_” applies here only to the shifting of their translated equivalents from the Eastern expressions; for to this day there never existed any such terms in English, every Theosophist having to coin his own terms to render his thought. It is nigh time then to settle on some definite nomenclature.

X. ON THE NATURE OF OUR THINKING PRINCIPLE.

THE MYSTERY OF THE EGO.

ENQ. I perceive in the quotation you brought forward a little while ago
from the _Buddhist Catechism_ a discrepancy that I would like
to hear explained. It is there stated that the Skandhas—memory
included—change with every new incarnation. And yet, it is
asserted that the reflection of the past lives, which, we are
told, are entirely made up of Skandhas, “must survive.” At the
present moment I am not quite clear in my mind as to what it is
precisely that survives, and I would like to have it explained.
What is it? Is it only that “reflection,” or those Skandhas, or
always that same Ego, the Manas?

THEO. I have just explained that the reincarnating Principle, or that
which we call the _divine_ man, is indestructible throughout
the life cycle: indestructible as a thinking _Entity_, and
even as an ethereal form. The “reflection” is only the
spiritualised _remembrance_, during the Devachanic period, of
the _ex-personality_, Mr. A. or Mrs. B.—with which the _Ego_
identifies itself during that period. Since the latter is but
the continuation of the earth-life, so to say, the very acme and
pitch, in an unbroken series, of the few happy moments in that
now past existence, the _Ego_ has to identify itself with the
_personal_ consciousness of that life, if anything shall remain of
it.

ENQ. This means that the _Ego_, notwithstanding its divine nature,
passes every such period between two incarnations in a state of
mental obscuration, or temporary insanity.

THEO. You may regard it as you like. Believing that, outside the ONE
Reality, nothing is better than a passing illusion—the whole
Universe included—we do not view it as insanity, but as a very
natural sequence or development of the terrestrial life. What
is life? A bundle of the most varied experiences, of daily
changing ideas, emotions, and opinions. In our youth we are often
enthusiastically devoted to an ideal, to some hero or heroine whom
we try to follow and revive; a few years later, when the freshness
of our youthful feelings has faded out and sobered down, we are
the first to laugh at our fancies. And yet there was a day when
we had so thoroughly identified our own personality with that
of the ideal in our mind—especially if it was that of a living
being—that the former was entirely merged and lost in the latter.
Can it be said of a man of fifty that he is the same being that
he was at twenty? The _inner_ man is the same; the outward living
personality is completely transformed and changed. Would you also
call these changes in the human mental states insanity?

ENQ. How would _you_ name them, and especially how would you explain
the permanence of one and the evanescence of the other?

THEO. We have our own doctrine ready, and to us it offers no
difficulty. The clue lies in the double consciousness of our mind,
and also, in the dual nature of the mental “principle.” There is a
spiritual consciousness, the Manasic mind illumined by the light
of Buddhi, that which subjectively perceives abstractions; and the
sentient consciousness (the lower _Manasic_ light), inseparable
from our physical brain and senses. This latter consciousness is
held in subjection by the brain and physical senses, and, being
in its turn equally dependent on them, must of course fade out
and finally die with the disappearance of the brain and physical
senses. It is only the former kind of consciousness, whose root
lies in eternity, which survives and lives for ever, and may,
therefore, be regarded as immortal. Everything else belongs to
passing illusions.

ENQ. What do you really understand by illusion in this case?

THEO. It is very well described in the just-mentioned essay on “The
Higher Self.” Says its author:

“The theory we are considering (the interchange of ideas
between the _Higher Ego_ and the lower self) harmonizes very
well with the treatment of this world in which we live as a
phenomenal world of illusion, the spiritual plans of nature
being on the other hand the noumenal world or plane of reality.
That region of nature in which, so to speak, the permanent
soul is rooted is more real than that in which its transitory
blossoms appear for a brief space to wither and fall to pieces,
while the plant recovers energy for sending forth a fresh
flower. Supposing flowers only were perceptible to ordinary
senses, and their roots existed in a state of Nature intangible
and invisible to us, philosophers in such a world who divined
that there were such things as roots in another plane of
existence would be apt to say of the flowers, These are not
the real plants; they are of no relative importance, merely
illusive phenomena of the moment.”

This is what I mean. The world in which blossom the transitory and
evanescent flowers of personal lives is not the real permanent
world; but that one in which we find the root of consciousness,
that root which is beyond illusion and dwells in the eternity.

ENQ. What do you mean by the root dwelling in eternity?

THEO. I mean by this root the thinking entity, the Ego which
incarnates, whether we regard it as an “Angel,” “Spirit,” or
a Force. Of that which falls under our sensuous perceptions
only what grows directly from, or is attached to this invisible
root above, can partake of its immortal life. Hence every noble
thought, idea and aspiration of the personality it informs,
proceeding from and fed by this root, must become permanent. As
to the physical consciousness, as it is a quality of the sentient
but lower “principle,” (Kama-rupa or animal instinct, illuminated
by the lower _manasic_ reflection), or the human Soul—it must
disappear. That which displays activity, while the body is
asleep or paralysed, is the higher consciousness, our memory
registering but feebly and inaccurately—because automatically—such
experiences, and often failing to be even slightly impressed by
them.

ENQ. But how is it that MANAS, although you call it _Nous_, a “God,” is
so weak during its incarnations, as to be actually conquered and
fettered by its body?

THEO. I might retort with the same question and ask: “How is it that
he, whom you regard as ‘the God of Gods’ and the One living God,
_is so weak_ as to allow evil (or the Devil) to have the best of
_him_ as much as of all his creatures, whether while he remains
in Heaven, or during the time he was incarnated on this earth?”
You are sure to reply again: “This is a Mystery; and we are
forbidden to pry into the mysteries of God.” Not being forbidden
to do so by our religious philosophy, I answer your question that,
unless a God descends as an _Avatar_, no divine principle can be
otherwise than cramped and paralysed by turbulent, animal matter.
Heterogeneity will always have the upper hand over homogeneity,
on this plane of illusions, and the nearer an essence is to its
root-principle, Primordial Homogeneity, the more difficult it is
for the latter to assert itself on earth. Spiritual and divine
powers lie dormant in every human Being; and the wider the sweep
of his spiritual vision the mightier will be the God within him.
But as few men can feel that God, and since, as an average rule,
deity is always bound and limited in our thought by earlier
conceptions, those ideas that are inculcated in us from childhood,
therefore, it is so difficult for you to understand our philosophy.

ENQ. And is it this Ego of ours which is our God?

THEO. Not at all; “_A_ God” is not the universal deity, but only a
spark from the one ocean of Divine Fire. Our God _within_ us, or
“our Father in Secret” is what we call the “HIGHER SELF,” _Atma_.
Our incarnating Ego was a God in its origin, as were all the
primeval emanations of the One Unknown Principle. But since its
“fall into Matter,” having to incarnate throughout the cycle, in
succession, from first to last, it is no longer a free and happy
god, but a poor pilgrim on his way to regain that which he has
lost. I can answer your more fully by repeating what is said of
the INNER MAN in ISIS UNVEILED (Vol. II. 593):—

“From the remotest antiquity _mankind_ as a whole _have
always been convinced of the existence of a personal
spiritual entity within the personal physical man_. This
inner entity was more or less divine, according to its
proximity to the _crown_. The closer the union the more
serene man’s destiny, the less dangerous the external
conditions. This belief is neither bigotry nor superstition,
only an ever-present, instinctive feeling of the proximity
of another spiritual and invisible world, which, though it
be subjective to the senses of the outward man, is perfectly
objective to the inner ego. Furthermore, they believed that
_there are external and internal conditions which affect the
determination of our will upon our actions_. They rejected
fatalism, for fatalism implies a blind course of some still
blinder power. But they believed in _destiny_ or _Karma_,
which from birth to death every man is weaving thread by
thread around himself, as a spider does his cobweb; and
this destiny is guided by that presence termed by some the
guardian angel, or our more intimate astral inner man, who
is but too often the evil genius of the man of flesh or
the _personality_. Both these lead on MAN, but one of them
must prevail; and from the very beginning of the invisible
affray the stern and implacable _law of compensation and
retribution_ steps in and takes its course, following
faithfully the fluctuations of the conflict. When the last
strand is woven, and man is seemingly enwrapped in the
network of his own doing, then he finds himself completely
under the empire of this _self-made_ destiny. It then either
fixes him like the inert shell against the immovable rock, or
like a feather carries him away in a whirlwind raised by his
own actions.”

Such is the destiny of the MAN—the true Ego, not the Automaton,
the _shell_ that goes by that name. It is for him to become the
conqueror over matter.

THE COMPLEX NATURE OF MANAS.

ENQ. But you wanted to tell me something of the essential nature of
Manas, and of the relation in which the Skandhas of physical man
stand to it?

THEO. It is this nature, mysterious, Protean, beyond any grasp, and
almost shadowy in its correlations with the other principles, that
is most difficult to realise, and still more so to explain. Manas
is a “principle,” and yet it is an “Entity” and individuality or
Ego. He is a “God,” and yet he is doomed to an endless cycle of
incarnations, for each of which he is made responsible, and for
each of which he has to suffer. All this seems as contradictory as
it is puzzling; nevertheless, there are hundreds of people, even
in Europe, who realise all this perfectly, for they comprehend the
Ego not only in its integrity but in its many aspects. Finally, if
I would make myself comprehensible, I must begin by the beginning
and give you the genealogy of this Ego in a few lines.

ENQ. Say on.

THEO. Try to imagine a “Spirit,” a celestial Being, whether we call it
by one name or another, divine in its essential nature, yet
not pure enough to be _one with the_ ALL, and having, in order
to achieve this, to so purify its nature as to finally gain
that goal. It can do so only by passing _individually_ and
_personally_, _i.e._, spiritually and physically, through
every experience and feeling that exists in the manifold or
differentiated Universe. It has, therefore, after having gained
such experience in the lower kingdoms, and having ascended higher
and still higher with every rung on the ladder of being, to pass
through every experience on the human planes. In its very essence
it is THOUGHT, and is, therefore, called in its plurality _Manasa
putra_, “the Sons of the (Universal) mind.” This _individualised_
“Thought” is what we Theosophists call the _real_ human EGO, the
thinking Entity imprisoned in a case of flesh and bones. This
is surely a Spiritual Entity, not _Matter_, and such Entities
are the incarnating EGOS that inform the bundle of animal matter
called mankind, and whose names are _Manasa_ or “Minds.” But
once imprisoned, or incarnate, their essence becomes dual: that
is to say, the _rays_ of the eternal divine Mind, considered as
individual entities, assume a two-fold attribute which is (_a_)
their _essential_ inherent characteristic, heaven-aspiring mind
(higher _Manas_) and (_b_) the human quality of thinking, or
animal cogitation, rationalised owing to the superiority of the
human brain, the Kama-tending or lower Manas. One gravitates
toward Buddhi, the other, tending downward, to the seat of
passions and animal desires. The latter have no room in Devachan,
nor can they associate with the divine triad which ascends as ONE
into mental bliss. Yet it is the Ego, the Manasic Entity, which is
held responsible for all the sins of the lower attributes, just
as a parent is answerable for the transgressions of his child, so
long as the latter remains irresponsible.

ENQ. Is this “child” the “personality”?

THEO. It is. When, therefore, it is stated that the “personality” dies
with the body it does not state all. The body, which was only the
objective symbol of Mr. A. or Mrs. B., fades away with all its
material Skandhas, which are the visible expressions thereof. But
all that which constituted during life the _spiritual_ bundle of
experiences, the noblest aspirations, undying affections, and
_unselfish_ nature of Mr. A. or Mrs. B. clings for the time of
the Devachanic period to the EGO, which is identified with the
spiritual portion of that terrestrial Entity, now passed away out
of sight. The ACTOR is so imbued with the _rôle_ just played by
him that he dreams of it during the whole Devachanic night, which
_vision_ continues till the hour strikes for him to return to the
stage of life to enact another part.

ENQ. But how is it that this doctrine, which you say is as old as
thinking men, has found no room, say, in Christian theology?

THEO. You are mistaken, it has; only theology has disfigured it out of
all recognition, as it has many other doctrines. Theology calls
the EGO the Angel that God gives us at the moment of our birth,
_to take care of our Soul_. Instead of holding that “Angel”
responsible for the transgressions of the poor helpless “Soul,” it
is the latter which, according to theological logic, is punished
for all the sins of both flesh and mind! It is the Soul, the
immaterial _breath_ of God and his _alleged creation_, which, by
some most amazing intellectual jugglery, is doomed to burn in a
material hell without ever being consumed,[49] while the “Angel”
escapes scot free after folding his white pinions and wetting them
with a few tears. Aye, these are our “ministering Spirits,” the
“messengers of mercy” who are sent, Bishop Mant tells us—

“.... to fulfil
Good for Salvation’s heirs, for us they still
Grieve when we sin, rejoice when we repent;”

Yet it becomes evident that if all the Bishops the world over
were asked to define once for all what they mean by _Soul_ and
its functions, they would be as unable to do so as to show us any
shadow of logic in the orthodox belief!

THE DOCTRINE IS TAUGHT IN ST. JOHN’S GOSPEL.

ENQ. To this the adherents to this belief might answer, that if even
the orthodox dogma does promise the impenitent sinner and
materialist a bad time of it in a rather too realistic Inferno, it
gives them, on the other hand, a chance for repentance to the last
minute. Nor do they teach annihilation, or loss of personality,
which is all the same.

THEO. If the Church teaches nothing of the kind, on the other hand,
Jesus does; and that is something to those, at least, who place
Christ higher than Christianity.

ENQ. Does Christ teach anything of the sort?

THEO. He does; and every well-informed Occultist and even Kabalist will
tell you so. Christ, or the fourth Gospel at any rate, teaches
re-incarnation as also the annihilation of the personality, if
you but forget the dead letter and hold to the esoteric Spirit.
Remember verses 1 and 2 in chapter xv. of St. John. What does the
parable speak about if not of the _upper triad_ in man? _Atma_
is the Husbandman—the Spiritual Ego or _Buddhi_ (Christos) the
Vine, while the animal and vital Soul, the _personality_, is the
“branch.” “I am the _true_ vine, and my Father is the Husbandman.
Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away.... As
the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the
vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the Vine—ye
are the branches. If a man abide not in me he is cast forth as a
branch, and is _withered_ and cast into the fire and burned.”

Now we explain it in this way. Disbelieving in the hell-fires
which theology discovers as underlying the threat to the
_branches_, we say that the “Husbandman” means Atma, the Symbol
for the infinite, impersonal Principle,[50] while the Vine stands
for the Spiritual Soul, _Christos_, and each “branch” represents a
new incarnation.

ENQ. But what proofs have you to support such an arbitrary
interpretation?

THEO. Universal symbology is a warrant for its correctness and that it
is not arbitrary. Hermas says of “God” that he “planted the
Vineyard,” _i.e._, he created mankind. In the _Kabala_, it is
shown that the Aged of the Aged, or the “Long Face,” plants a
vineyard, the latter typifying mankind; and a vine, meaning Life.
The Spirit of “_King_ Messiah” is, therefore, shown as washing
his garments in _the wine_ from above, from the creation of the
world.[51] And King _Messiah_ is the EGO purified _by washing his
garments_ (_i.e._, his personalities in re-birth), in the _wine
from_ above, or BUDDHI. Adam, or A-Dam, is “blood.” The Life of
the flesh is in the blood (nephesh—soul), _Leviticus_ xvii. And
Adam-Kadmon is the Only-Begotten. Noah also plants a vineyard—the
allegorical hot-bed of future humanity. As a consequence of the
adoption of the same allegory, we find it reproduced in the
Nazarene _Codex_. Seven vines are procreated—which seven vines
are our Seven Races with their seven Saviours or _Buddhas_—which
spring from Iukabar Zivo, and Ferho (or Parcha) Raba waters
them.[52] When the blessed will ascend among the creatures of
Light, they shall see Iavar-Xivo, _Lord of_ LIFE, and the FIRST
VINE.[53] These kabalistic metaphors are thus naturally repeated
in the _Gospel according to St. John_ (xv., 1).

Let us not forget that in the human system—even according to
those philosophies which ignore our septenary division—the EGO
or _thinking man_ is called the _Logos_, or the Son of Soul
and Spirit. “Manas is the adopted Son of King —— and Queen ——”
(esoteric equivalents for Atma and Buddhi), says an occult work.
He is the “man-god” of Plato, who crucifies himself in _Space_
(or the duration of the life cycle) for the redemption of MATTER.
This he does by incarnating over and over again, thus leading
mankind onward to perfection, and making thereby room for lower
forms to develop into higher. Not for one life does he cease
progressing himself and helping all physical nature to progress;
even the occasional, very rare event of his losing one of his
personalities, in the case of the latter being entirely devoid of
even a spark of spirituality, helps toward his individual progress.

ENQ. But surely, if the _Ego_ is held responsible for the
transgressions of its personalities, it has to answer also for the
loss, or rather the complete annihilation, of one of such.

THEO. Not at all, unless it has done nothing to avert this dire fate.
But if, all its efforts notwithstanding, its voice, _that of our
conscience_, was unable to penetrate through the wall of matter,
then the obtuseness of the latter proceeding from the imperfect
nature of the material is classed with other failures of nature.
The Ego is sufficiently punished by the loss of Devachan, and
especially by having to incarnate almost immediately.

ENQ. This doctrine of the possibility of losing one’s soul—or
personality, do you call it?—militates against the ideal theories
of both Christians and Spiritualists, though Swedenborg adopts it
to a certain extent, in what he calls _Spiritual death_. They will
never accept it.

THEO. This can in no way alter a fact in nature, if it be a fact, or
prevent such a thing occasionally taking place. The universe and
everything in it, moral, mental, physical, psychic, or Spiritual,
is built on a perfect law of equilibrium and harmony. As said
before (_vide Isis Unveiled_), the centripetal force could not
manifest itself without the centrifugal in the harmonious
revolutions of the spheres, and all forms and their progress
are the products of this dual force in nature. Now the Spirit
(or _Buddhi_) is the centrifugal and the soul (_Manas_) the
centripetal spiritual energy; and to produce one result they
have to be in perfect union and harmony. Break or damage the
centripetal motion of the earthly soul tending toward the centre
which attracts it; arrest its progress by clogging it with a
heavier weight of matter than it can bear, or than is fit for the
Devachanic state, and the harmony of the whole will be destroyed.
Personal life, or perhaps rather its ideal reflection, can only
be continued if sustained by the two-fold force, that is by the
close union of _Buddhi_ and _Manas_ in every re-birth or personal
life. The least deviation from harmony damages it; and when it is
destroyed beyond redemption the two forces separate at the moment
of death. During a brief interval the _personal_ form (called
indifferently _Kama rupa_ and _Mayavi rupa_), the spiritual
efflorescence of which, attaching itself to the Ego, follows it
into Devachan and gives to the permanent _individuality_ its
_personal_ colouring (_pro tem._, so to speak), is carried off
to remain in _Kama-loka_ and to be gradually annihilated. For
it is after the death of the utterly depraved, the unspiritual
and the wicked beyond redemption, that arrives the critical and
supreme moment. If during life the ultimate and desperate effort
of the INNER SELF (_Manas_), to unite something of the personality
with itself and the high glimmering ray of the divine Buddhi is
thwarted; if this ray is allowed to be more and more shut out
from the ever-thickening crust of physical brain, the Spiritual
EGO or Manas, once freed from the body, remains severed entirely
from the ethereal relic of the personality; and the latter, or
_Kama rupa_, following its earthly attractions, is drawn into
and remains in Hades, which we call the _Kama-loka_. These are
“the withered branches” mentioned by Jesus as being cut off
from the _Vine_. Annihilation, however, is never instantaneous,
and may require centuries sometimes for its accomplishment.
But there the personality remains along with the _remnants_
of other more fortunate personal Egos, and becomes with them
a _shell_ and an _Elementary_. As said in _Isis_, it is these
two classes of “Spirits,” the _shells_ and the _Elementaries_,
which are the leading “Stars” on the great spiritual stage of
“materialisations.” And you may be sure of it, it is not they
who incarnate; and, therefore, so few of these “dear departed
ones” know anything of re-incarnation, misleading thereby the
Spiritualists.

ENQ. But does not the author of “_Isis Unveiled_” stand accused of
having preached against re-incarnation?

THEO. By those who have misunderstood what was said, yes. At the
time that work was written, re-incarnation was not believed in
by any Spiritualists, either English or American, and what is
said there of _re-incarnation_ was directed against the French
Spiritists, whose theory is as unphilosophical and absurd as
the Eastern teaching is logical and self-evident in its truth.
The Re-incarnationists of the Allan Kardec School believe in an
arbitrary and immediate re-incarnation. With them, the dead father
can incarnate in his own unborn daughter, and so on. They have
neither Devachan, Karma, nor any philosophy that would warrant
or prove the necessity of consecutive rebirths. But how can the
author of “Isis” argue against _Karmic_ re-incarnation, at long
intervals varying between 1,000 and 1,500 years, when it is the
fundamental belief of both Buddhists and Hindus?

ENQ. Then you reject the theories of both the Spiritists and the
Spiritualists, in their entirety?