Chapter XVI: Part II: Symbols (3)

2. Its Vehicle—the _divine_ Soul—called the “Immortal Ego,” the “Divine monad,” etc. etc., which by accretions from _Manas_ in which burns the ever existing _Jiv_—the undying spark—adds to itself at the close of each incarnation the essence of that individuality _that was_, the aroma of the culled flower that is no more.

What is the _false_ personality? It is that bundle of desires, aspirations, affection and hatred, in short of _action_, manifested by a human being on this earth during one incarnation and under the form of one personality.[140] Certainly it is not all _this_, which as a fact for us, the deluded, material, and and materially thinking lot—is Mr. So and So, or Mrs. somebody else—that remains immortal, or is ever reborn.

All that bundle of _Egotism_ that apparent and evanescent “_I_” disappears after death, as the costume of the part he played disappears from the actor’s body, after he leaves the theatre and goes to bed. That actor re-becomes at once the same “John Smith” or Gray, he was from his birth and is no longer the Othello or Hamlet that he had represented for a few hours. Nothing remains now of that “bundle” to go to the next incarnation, except _the seed for future Karma_ that _Manas_ may have united to its immortal group, to form with it—the disembodied _Higher Self_ in “Devachan.” As to the four lower principles, that which becomes of them is found in most classics, from which we mean to quote at length for our defence. The doctrine of the _perisprit_ the “false personality,” or the remains of the deceased under their astral form—fading out to disappear in time, is terribly distasteful to the spiritualists, who insist upon confusing the temporary with the immortal EGO.

Unfortunately for them and happily for us, it is not the modern Occultists who have invented the doctrine. They are on their defense. And they prove what they say, _i.e._, that no “_personality_” has ever yet been “reincarnated” “on the same planet” (_our earth_, this once there is _no_ mistake) save in the three exceptional cases above cited. Adding to these a fourth case, _which is the deliberate, conscious act of adeptship_; and that such an _astral_ body belongs _neither to the body nor the soul_ still less to the immortal spirit of man, the following is brought forward and proofs cited.

Before one brings out on the strength of undeniable manifestations, theories as to _what_ produces them and claims at once on _prima facie_ evidence that it is the _spirits_ of the departed mortals that re-visit us, it behooves one to first study what antiquity has declared upon the subject. Ghosts and apparitions, materialized and semi-material “SPIRITS” have not originated with Allan Kardec, nor at Rochester. If those beings whose invariable habit it is to give themselves out for _souls_ and the phantoms of the dead, choose to do so and succeed, it is only because the cautious philosophy of old is now replaced by an _a priori_ conceit, and unproven assumptions. The first question is to be settled—“Have spirits any kind of substance to cloth themselves with?” _Answer_: That which is now called _perisprit_ in France, and a “materialized Form” in England and America, was called in days of old _peri-psyche_, and _peri-nous_, hence was well known to the old Greeks. Have they _a body_ whether gaseous, fluidic, etherial, material or semi-material? No; we say this on the authority of the occult teachings the world over. For with the Hindus _atma or spirit_ is _Arupa_ (bodiless,) and with the Greeks also. Even in the Roman Catholic Church the angels of Light as those of Darkness _are absolutely incorporeal_: “_meri spiritus, omnes corporis expertes_,” and in the words of the “SECRET DOCTRINE,” _primordial_. Emanations of the undifferentiated Principle, the Dhyan Chohans of the ONE (First) category or pure Spiritual Essence, are formed of the _Spirit of the one Element_; the second category of the second Emanation of the Soul of the Elements; the third have a “_mind_ body” to which they are not subject, but that they can assume and govern as a body, subject _to them_, pliant to their will in form and substance. Parting from this (third) category, they (the spirits, angels, Devas or Dhyan Chohans) have BODIES the first _rupa_ group of which is composed of one element _Ether_; the second, of two—ether and fire; the third, of three—Ether, fire and water; the fourth of four—Ether, air, fire and water. Then comes man, who, besides the four elements, has the fifth that predominates in him—Earth: therefore he suffers. Of the Angels, as said by St. Augustine and Peter Lombard, their bodies are made _to act_ not to suffer. It is earth and water, _humor et humus_, that gives an aptitude for suffering and passivity, _ad patientiam_, and _Ether_ and _Fire_ for action. The spirits or human _monads_, belonging to the first, or indifferentiated essence are thus incorporeal; but their third principle (or the human Fifth—_Manas_) can in conjunction with its vehicle become _Kama rupa_ and _Mayavi rupa_—body of desire or “illusion body.” After death, the best, noblest, purest qualities of _Manas_ or the _human_ soul ascending along with the divine Monad into Devachan whence no one emerges from or returns, except at the time of reincarnation—what is that then which appears under the double mask of the spiritual _Ego_ or soul of the departed individual? _The Kama rupa element with the help of elementals._ For we are taught that those spiritual beings that can assume a form at will and appear, _i.e._, make themselves objective and even tangible—are the angels alone (the Dhyan Chohans) and the _nirmanakaya_[141] of the adepts, whose spirits are clothed in sublime matter. The astral bodies—_the remnants_ and _dregs_ of a mortal being which has been disembodied, when they do appear, are not the individuals they claim to be, but only their simulachres. And such was the belief of the whole of antiquity, from Homer to Swedenborg; from the _third_ race down to our own day.

More than one devoted spiritualist has hitherto quoted Paul as corroborating his claim that spirits do and can appear. “There is a natural and there is a spiritual body,” etc., etc., (1 Cor. xv, 44); but one has only to study closer the verses preceding and following the one quoted, to perceive that what St. Paul meant was quite different from the sense claimed for it. Surely there is a _spiritual_ body, but it is not identical with the _astral_ form contained in the “natural” man. The “spiritual” is formed only by our individuality _unclothed_ and _transformed after death_; for the apostle takes care to explain in Verses 51 and 52, “_Immut abimur sed non omnes_.” Behold, I tell you _a mystery_: we shall _not all sleep_ but we _shall all be changed_. This corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality.

But this is no proof except for the Christians. Let us see what the old Egyptians and the Neo-Platonists—both “_theurgists_” _par excellence_, thought on the subject: They divided man into three principal groups subdivided into principles as we do: pure immortal spirit; the “Spectral Soul” (_a luminous phantom_) and the gross material body. Apart from the latter which was considered as the terrestrial shell, these groups were divided into six principles; (1) _Kha_ “vital body”; (2) _Khaba_ “astral form,” or shadow, (3) _Khou_ “animal soul” (4) _Akh_ “terrestrial intelligence;” (5) _Sa_ “the divine soul” (_or Buddhi_;) and (6) _Sah_ or mummy, the functions of which began after death. _Osiris_ was the highest uncreated spirit, for it was, in one sense a generic name, every man becoming after his translation _Osirified_, _i. e._, absorbed into _Osiris_—_Sun_ or into the glorious divine state. It was _Khou_, with the lower portions of _Akh_ or _Kama rupa_ with the addition of the dregs of _Manas_ remaining all behind in the astral light of our atmosphere—that formed the counterparts of the terrible and so much dreaded _bhoots_ of the Hindus (our “elementaries.”) This is seen in the rendering made of the so-called “Harris. Papyrus on magic.” (_papyrus magique_, translated by Chabas) who calls them _Kouey_ or _Khou_, and explains that according to the hieroglyphics they were called _Khou_ or the “revivified dead,” the “resurrected shadows.”

When it was said of a person that he “_had a Khou_” it meant that he was possessed by a “Spirit.” There were two kinds of _Khous_—the justified ones,—who after living for a short time _a second life_ (_nam onh_) faded out, disappeared; and those _Khous_ who were condemned to wandering without rest in darkness _after dying for a second time_—_mut, em, nam_—and who were called the _H’ou-mêtr_ (“second time dead”) which did not prevent them from clinging to a vicarious life after the manner of Vampires. How dreaded they were is explained in our Appendices on Egyptian Magic and “Chinese Spirits” (_Secret Doctrine_.) They were exorcised by Egyptian priests as the evil spirit is exorcised by the Roman Catholic _curé_; or again the Chinese _houen_, identical with the _Khou_ and the “Elementary,” as also with the _lares_ or _larvæ_—a word derived from the former by _Festus_, the grammarian; who explains that they were “the shadows of the dead _who gave no rest in the house they were in_ either to the Masters or the servants.” These creatures when evoked during theurgic, and especially _necromantic_ rites, were regarded, and are so regarded still, in China—as neither the Spirit, Soul nor any thing belonging to the deceased personality they represented, but simply, as his reflection—_simmulacrum_.

“The human soul,” says Apuleius, “is an _immortal God_” (Buddhi) which nevertheless has his beginning. When death rids it (the Soul), from its earthly corporeal organism, it is called _lemure_. There are among the latter not a few which are beneficent, and which become the gods or demons of the family, _i. e._, its domestic gods: in which case they are called _lares_. But they are vilified and spoken of as _larvae_ when sentenced by fate to wander about, they spread around them evil and plagues. (_Inane terriculamentum, celerum noxium malis_;) or if their real nature is doubtful they are referred to as simply _manes_ (_Apuleius_. see—_Du Dieu de Socrate_, pp. 143-145. Edit. Niz.) Listen to Yamblichus, Proclus, Porphyry, Psellus and to dozens of other writers on these mystic subjects.

The Magi of Chaldea believed and _taught that the celestial or divine soul_ would participate in the bliss of eternal light, while the animal or _sensuous_ soul would, if good, rapidly dissolve, and if wicked, go on wandering about in the Earth’s sphere. In this case, “it (the soul) assumes at times the forms of various human phantoms and even those of animals.” The same was said of the _Eidôlon_ of the Greeks, and of their _Nephesh_ by the Rabbins: (See _Sciences Occultes_, Count de Resie. V. II) All the _Illuminati_ of the middle ages tell us of our _astral Soul_, the reflection of the dead or his _spectre_. At _Natal_ death (birth) the pure spirit remains attached to the _intermediate_ and _luminous_ body but as soon as its lower form (the physical body) is dead, the former ascends heavenward, and the latter descends into the nether worlds, or the _Kama loka_.

Homer shows us the body of Patroclus—the true image of the terrestrial body lying killed by Hector—rising in its spiritual form, and Lucretius shows old Ennius representing Homer himself, shedding bitter tears, amidst the _shadows and the human simulachres_ on the shores of Acherusia “_where live neither our bodies nor our souls_, but only our images.”

“* * * Esse _Acherusia_ templa,
* * * Quo _neque_ permanent _animæ, neque corpora_ nostra,
_Sed quædam simulacra_ * *”

Virgil called it _imago_ “image” and in the Odyssey (I. XI) the author refers to it as the type, the model, and at the same time the copy of the body; since Telemachus will not recognize Ulyssus and seeks to drive him off by saying—“No thou are not my father; thou art a demon,—— trying to seduce me!” (_Odys._ I. XVI. _v._ 194.) “Latins do not lack significant proper names to designate the varieties of their demons; and thus they called them in turn, _lares_, _lemures_, _geni_ and _manes_.” Cicero, in translating Plato’s _Timaeus_ translates the word _daimones_ by _lares_; and Festus the grammarian, explains that the inferior or lower gods were the _souls_ of _men_, making a difference between the two as Homer did, and between _anima bruta_ and _anima divina_ (animal and divine souls). Plutarch (in _proble. Rom._) makes the lares preside and inhabit the (haunted) houses, and calls them, cruel, exacting, inquisitive, etc., etc. Festus thinks that there are good and bad ones among the lares. For he calls them at one time _præstites_ as they gave occasionally and watched over things carefully (_direct apports_,) and at another—_hostileos_.[142] “However it may be” says in his queer old French, Leloyer, “they are no better than our devils, who, if they do appear helping sometimes men, and presenting them with property, it is only to hurt them the better and the more later on. _Lemures_ are also devils and _larvæ_ for they appear at night in various human and animal forms, but still more frequently with features that THEY _borrow from dead men_.” (_Livre des Spectres_. V. IV p. 15 and 16).

After this little honour rendered to his Christian preconceptions, that see Satan everywhere, Leloyer speaks like an Occultist, and a very erudite one too.

“It is quite certain that the _genii_ and none other had mission to watch over every newly born man, and that they were called _genii_, as says Censorius, because they had in their charge our race, and not only they _presided_ over every mortal being but over whole generations and tribes, being the _genii of the people_.”

The idea of guardian angels of men, races, localities, cities, and nations, was taken by the Roman Catholics from the prechristian occultists and pagans. Symmachus (Epistol, I. X) writes: “As souls are given to those who are born, so _genii_ are distributed to the nations. Every city had its protecting genius, to whom the people sacrificed.” There is more than one inscription found that reads: _Genio civitates_—“to the genius of the city.”

Only the ancient profane, never seemed sure any more than the modern whether an apparition was the _eidolon_ of a relative or the genius of the locality. Enneus while celebrating the anniversary of the name of his father Anchises, seeing a serpent crawling on his tomb knew not whether that was the _genius_ of his father or the genius of the place (Virgil). “The _manes_[143] were numbered and divided between good and bad; those that were _sinister_, and that Virgil calls _numina larva_, were appeased by sacrifices that they should commit no mischief, such as sending bad dreams to those who despised them, etc:”

Tibullus shows by his line:—

_Ne tibi neglecti mittant insomnia manes._ (Eleg., 1. II.)

“Pagans thought that the _lower Souls_ were transformed after death into _diabolical aerial_ spirits.” (Leloyer p. 22.)

The term _Eteroprosopos_ when divided into its several compound words will yield a whole sentence, “an other than I under the features of my person.”

It is to this terrestrial principle, the _eidolon_, the _larva_, the _bhoot_—call it by whatever name—that reincarnation was refused in _Isis_.[144]

The doctrines of Theosophy are simply the faithful echoes of Antiquity. Man is a _Unity_ only at his origin and at his end. All the Spirits, all the Souls, gods and demons emanate from and have for their root-principle the SOUL OF THE UNIVERSE—says Porphyry (_De Sacrifice_). Not a philosopher of any notoriety who did not believe (1) in reincarnation (metempsychosis), (2) in the plurality of principles in man, or that man had _two_ Souls of separate and quite different natures; one perishable, the _Astral Soul_, the other incorruptible and immortal; and (3) that the former was not the man whom it represented—“neither his spirit nor his body, but his _reflection_, at best.” This was taught by Brahmins, Buddhists, Hebrews, Greeks, Egyptians, and Chaldeans; by the post-diluvian heirs of the prediluvian Wisdom, by Pythagoras and Socrates, Clemens Alexandrinus, Synesius, and Origen. the oldest Greek poets as much as the Gnostics, whom Gibbon shows as the most refined, learned and enlightened men of all ages (“See Decline and Fall,” etc.). But the rabble was the same in every age: superstitious, self-opinionated, materializing every most spiritual and noble idealistic conception and dragging it down to its own low level, and—ever adverse to philosophy.

But all this does not interfere with that fact, that our “fifth Race” man, analyzed esoterically as a septenary creature, was ever _exoterically_ recognized as mundane, sub-mundane, terrestrial and supra mundane, Ovid graphically describing him as—

“Bis duo sunt hominis; _manes_, _caro_, _spiritus_, _umbra_
Quatuor ista loca bis duo suscipiunt.
Terra tegit carnem, tumulum circumvolat umbra,
Orcus habet manes, spiritus astra petit.”

OSTENDE, _Oct., 1886_.

POETICAL OCCULTISM.

SOME ROUGH STUDIES OF THE OCCULT LEANINGS OF THE POETS.

II.

Perhaps no passage in _Light on the Path_ is more forcible than that which warns the disciple against allowing the idea of separateness from any evil thing or person to grow up within him. He is bidden to, “be wary, lest too soon you fancy yourself a thing apart from the mass.” The Bagavad-Gita utters the same truth in other words by picturing man as led astray by the pride of self-sufficiency and the great danger underlying the desires and passions of the individual soul. Throughout life the student of occultism daily renews the struggle of soul against flesh, of faith against desire. This combat is finely pictured in Tennyson’s _Palace of Art_. It is truly an occult palace. Four courts are made, east, west, south and north, with a squared lawn in each, and four great fountains “stream in misty folds.” Here we are reminded of the Garden of Eden with its four rivers, of which Eliphas Levi says: “this description of the terrestrial paradise is resumed in the figure of a perfect pentacle. It is circular or square, since it is equally watered by four rivers disposed in a cross.” The square, answering to the number four was indeed the great kabbalistic figure, representing the Trinity in Unity. Nor is the mystic circle wanting in our occult palace, for there are “cool rows of circling cloisters” about the squares, and a gilded gallery that “lent broad verge to distant lands,” and “incense streaming from a golden cup,” another mystic symbol, representing the passive or negative side of nature. Full of sumptuousness was this palace, built for the soul that she might dwell in sensuous luxury, remote from the struggling world. Then the poet shows us further into the recesses of his sweet thought, and we see in the pictures with which the palace was hung, a portrayal of the various life experiences of the soul as it passes from phase to phase, from room to room of this great palace which is human life.

“Full of great rooms and small the palace stood,
All various, _each a perfect whole
From living nature_, fit for every mood
And change of my still soul.”

From high estate to low the soul thus passes, from a “glimmering land” to “iron coast and angry wave;” from uplands of toil and harvest, to the “high bleak crags of sorrow,” from Greece and Sicily to India or the North, until “every landscape, as fit for every mood was there, not less than truth designed,” a rich panorama of reincarnations. Amongst all these the soul moves joyful and feasting, “Lord of the senses five,” communing with herself that all these are her own in the “God-like isolation which is hers.”

“Then of the moral instinct would she prate,
And of the rising from the dead,
As hers by right of full-accomplished Fate,
And at the last she said:

I take possession of man’s mind and deed.
I care not what the sects may brawl.
I sit as God, holding no form of creed
But contemplating all.”

So three years she throve and prospered, but in the fourth year, (mark again the occult number of perfection,) a great dread came upon her, she was plagued in “the abyssmal deeps of personality” with a sore despair. The moment of choice, the turning point had come, that period of which Esoteric Buddhism speaks as occurring for the race in the fifth round but to which some exceptional personalities have forced themselves in this our fourth round. Many occultists will see their own experience mirrored in that of this tormented and lonely soul, contemplating her “palace of strength whereof the foundation stones were laid since her first memory,” only to see in its dark corners, “uncertain shapes, horrible nightmares, white-eyed phantasms and hollow shades enclosing hearts of flame.” Do we not seem to see all the elemental world, led on by the dread Dweller of the Threshold here confronting us? The struggle is even more powerfully depicted but the lesson is learned; the soul may retrieve herself by a lowly life; she throws aside her royal robes, and recognizing the need of mixing with her kind, begs for a “cottage in the vale.”

The poet reserves for his last verse the final lesson that only when we lead others to the heights and share these with our kind, can we ourselves stand steadfast there:

“Yet pull not down my palace towers, that are
So lightly, beautifully built;
Perchance I may return with others there
When I have purged my guilt.”

A footnote in the September PATH states:—“After all, the whole process of development is the process of _getting back the memory of the past_. And that too is the teaching found in pure Buddhism, etc.” Sometimes we are conscious of vague callings to do a certain thing, and critically regarding ourselves, we cannot see in this life any cause. It seems the bugle note of a past life blown almost in our face: it startles us; sometimes we are overthrown. These memories affect us like the shadows of passing clouds across our path, now tangible; then fading, only a cloud. Now they start before us like phantoms, or like a person behind you as you look at a mirror, it looks over the shoulder. If they are indeed reminiscences of other lives, although dead and past, they yet have a power. Hear what Lowell whispers in “_The Twilight_” of these mysterious moments:

“Sometimes a breath floats by me,
An odor from Dreamland sent,
Which makes the ghost seem nigh me
Of a something that came and went,
Of a life lived somewhere, I know not
In what diviner sphere:
Of mem’ries that come not and go not;
Like music once heard by an ear
That cannot forget or reclaim it;
A something so shy, it would shame it
To make it a show.
A something too vague, could I name it,
For others to know:
As though I had lived it and dreamed it,
As though I had acted and schemed it
Long ago.

And yet, could I live it over,
This Life which stirs in my brain;
Could I be both maiden and lover,
Moon and tide, bee and clover,
As I seem to have been, once again.
Could I but speak and show it.
This pleasure more sharp than pain.
Which baffles and lures me so!
The world would not lack a poet,
Such as it had
In the ages glad,
Long Ago.”

Emerson, who saw further into the world of nature than any poet of our race, gives us this:

“And as through dreams in watches of the night,
So through all creatures in their form and ways,
Some mystic hint accosts the vigilant,
Not clearly voiced, but waking a new sense,
Inviting to new knowledge, _one with old_.”

The hermetic maxim, “As above so below,” sends us indeed to nature for initiation, and the Gita follows up this nail with a hammer by saying: “The man, O Arjoona, who, from what passeth in his own breast, whether it be pain or pleasure, beholdeth the same in others, is esteemed a supreme Yogi.” Analogy, Harmony, Unity, these are the words traced over and over for us, the shining rays of the one Law. These are the thoughts in which the poets delight. Emerson speaks again with still clearer voice:

“Brother, sweeter is the Law
Than all the grace Love ever saw,
If the Law should thee forget.
More enamored serve it yet.

* * * * *

* * I found this;
That of goods I could not miss
If I fell within the line;
Once a member, all was mine:
Houses, banquets, gardens, fountains,
Fortune’s delectable mountains.
But if I would walk alone
Was neither cloak nor crumb my own.”

The Biblical verse:—“It is more blessed to give than to receive,” is a great occult teaching. As we strengthen the muscles by exercise, so we enlarge the intelligence and the heart by constantly dispensing our means, whether these be golden thoughts, or time, or affections, all along the line of Brotherhood. Not because of a sentiment, but because Life is made up of vibrations which our scientists, cautious as they are, admit may affect the farthest stars.

“Like warp and woof, all destinies
Are woven fast,
Linked in sympathy, like the keys
Of an organ vast.
Pluck but one thread, and the web ye mar;
Break but one of a thousand keys, and the paining jar
Through all will run.”

This from Whittier reminds us of the lines on Karma in _Light on the Path_. “Remember that the threads are living,—are like electric wires, more, are like quivering nerves. How far, then, must the stain, the drag awry, be communicated.” Yes, the communion of saints is a living fact. We all commune, not alone with one another; with those above us and with those below, but essentially with our time. Not one of us can escape its influence: we oppose its conclusions, deny its powers, and meanwhile it speaks through us, without our knowledge, the passwords we do not yet understand. This “dark age” is still the birth-place of spiritual development, of an awakening belief in the supernatural, or that which overshadows nature. We have had no more safe, practical sober poet than Whittier, who sweetly sings the life of every day, when he is not stirred by the fret of the times, to Freedoms larger issues. Yet hear him describing the power of a “wizard:”

“All the subtle spirits hiding
Under earth or wave; abiding
In the caverned rock, or riding
Misty clouds, or morning breeze.
Every dark intelligence,
Secret soul, and influence
Of all things, which outward sense
Feels, or hears, or sees,—
These the wizard’s skill confessed.—”

Is not here an “outward sense” of Professor Denton’s discoveries of the “soul of things?” But hear further the poet’s confession of faith in the occult power of will:

“Not untrue that tale of old!
Now as then, the wise and bold
All the powers of nature hold,
Subject to their kingly will.

* * * * *

Still to such, life’s elements,
With their sterner laws dispense,
_And the chain of consequence_
_Broken in their pathway lies_.
To his aid the strong reverses,
Hidden powers and giant forces,
And the high stars in their courses,
Mingle in his strife.”

The italicized lines are almost an echo of the words of an Adept when speaking of the possibility for the disciple, of an ultimate escape from the laws of Karma, which give him the right to demand the secrets of nature. “He obtains this right by having escaped from the limits of nature, and by having freed himself from the rules which govern human life.” So does Whittier’s initiate. For every one of us there looms a danger in our being prone to mistake desire for will. The paradox of Levi is sound and true: “The will obtains all that it does not desire.” Meditation in this direction will reveal some deep and useful truths to the practical occultist.

But to return to our poets. There are many butterfly hints to be found fluttering through their lines. Time has spared us this one from Marvel:

“At some fruit-tree’s mossy root,
Casting the body’s vest aside
My soul into the bows does glide;
There, like a bird, it sits and sings.”

And Matthew Arnold, turned dreamer for the nonce, has netted us one, more meaty than diaphanous, in which we find hints of periodic Devachanic sleep, between every period of earth struggle, of man’s threefold nature which serves to hide the memory of his other lives, and a touch of Karma as well:

“The Guide of our dark steps a triple veil
Betwixt our senses and our sorrow keeps;
Hath sown with cloudless passages the tale
Of grief, and eased us with a thousand sleeps.”

It would sometimes seem, as in the above quotation, that the poet himself was scarcely conscious of the full bearing of what he wrote, as if that dim something from another life of which Lowell spoke, had brushed him with its wing unawares. Often the higher Self speaks out from a man’s work, to other men whose consciousness has a higher development than his own, while it has not as yet revealed itself to him. How many men tremble thus on the borders of the unseen. Let us beware whom we set down as remote from our communion, “for in an instant a veil may fall down from his spirit, and he will be far ahead of us all.” There is an occult verse from Goethe which has been quoted by Tyndall in one of those sad and baffled paragraphs which darkle through the works of our scientists, shadowy witnesses that these distinguished materialists and physicists are often nearer our path than they or we suspect. Through such they seem to call for deliverance. We give the verse in its setting, leaving Tyndall’s prose to point its poetic meaning.

“As regards knowledge, physical science is polar. In one sense it knows, or is destined to know everything. In another sense it knows nothing. Science understands much of this intermediate phase of things that we call nature, of which it is the product; but science knows nothing of the origin or destiny of nature. Who or what made the sun, and gave his rays their alleged power? Who or what made and bestowed upon the ultimate particles of matter their wondrous power of varied interaction? Science does not know: the mystery, though pushed back, remains unaltered. To many of us who feel that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in the present philosophy of science, but who have been also taught by baffled efforts, how vain is the attempt to grapple with the Inscrutable, the ultimate frame of mind is that of Goethe:”

“Who dares to name His name,
Or belief in him proclaim,
Veiled in mystery as He is, the All-enfolder?
Gleams across the mind His light,
Feels the lifted soul His might;
Dare it then deny His reign, the All-upholder?”
JULIUS.

HINDU SYMBOLISM.

II.

This figure represents Brahma-Maya or Mahat-Maya, Brahma Viraj, or the great Illusion.

The androgene or male-female, the Great Appearance, the first revelation of the Being or Brahman (neuter), under the form of the double-sexed first emanation. The neuter, became male and female, by separation into the male, positive, forming the spiritual—the entities or the noumena, and his sakti or female, the negative, or plastic, matter, the illusionary or phenomenal existence. The sakti, is his developing energy, force or potentiality. This symbol, the divine type of the first male and female, which can be compared with the terrestrial Adam before the final separation of Eve, is really in consonance with this Adam’s perfect ideal, the Adam Kadmon or Heavenly Adam of the Kabbalah. The Brahma-half is on the right side, the good side, man’s, the Maya-half is on the left, the evil side, the woman’s. So according to the Hebrew sacred writings, through Eve the woman, evil was brought into the world. Compare with this the Greek myth of Pandora. Issuing from the linga-yoni is the pearl chain, or connected circle of the existences, looked upon as united atoms, and the symbol of all the existing. It is held up by the hand on the male side.

Brahman (neuter), appears here as manifested in the male in union with the female sakti, of the preformatory imagination, as the ante creative monarch and Pearl King, richly decorated with the circles of the soul-monads and atoms. On his head is the world egg cap. The veil of the existences, upon which are woven the ideas or models of the to-be-emanated existences, flows from the linga-yoni to the highest part of the head and thence down the right side. He as the male, has a tendency to twist himself upon himself and his face bears the stamp of deep meditation. The aureole of fire is on the male side and from it scintillate sparks upon the veil of Maya. On the Maya side, the attitude is that of joy or dancing; the hand raised as if in play, holds up the veil, bells are hanging on her robe and singularly the Egyptian hieroglyphic for the water of life is shown; while the bust is developed. Portrayed upon the veil are the prototypes of the creatures. Compare the symbolism of the girdle of Aphrodite and that of Venus.

As the double spouse of Brahman (neuter) considered apart and in opposition to It. The Brahma-Maya is the life in nature, of which, Brahman (neuter) is the soul. The Brahma-Maya is that blind energy and force, potential and powerful, and eternally fecund, which is incessantly producing under forms which are without cessation renewed; and which is adored in India to-day, as the Great Mother, the Universal Mother, in other words all nature deified. Maya is the mother of Love or Desire, the first principle or affinity of all affection, creation, matter. She is even matter itself, but the primitive subtile matter co-existing with God (Brahman, neuter) from all eternity, contained in It, and symbolized by the three colors, red, white, black; the three qualities or powers of creation, preservation and destruction, consequently the Trimurti, and also the three _gunas_ (qualities), Truth, Action, and Indifference, of the Bhagavadgitâ.[145] It is Maya, who through the attraction of her beauty, causes the Most High, from the bosom of Its ineffable profoundity, forgetting Itself, to unite Itself, in the intoxication of desire with that divine enchantress.

The mysterious veil, which she had woven with her hands, received entirely from both, and the thought of the Eternal Almighty became fecundated, and fell into Time. The innumerable forms of the creatures, represent the perfect ideals woven upon the magic tissue, the woven warp and woof of all existence, with which veil Maya[146] envelops her spouse and causes the recurrence of the gift of life. ISAAC MYER.

TEACHINGS OF THE MASTER.

RECORDED BY ONE OF THE AUTHORS OF “MAN: FRAGMENTS OF FORGOTTEN HISTORY.”

(_Copyrighted._)

THE JOURNEY.

The Master stood on a great ledge of rock extending far out over a precipice that seemed miles below. With his face lighted by the first rays of the coming day that shot across the peaks above him and with his hands clasped behind him he waited in silence for the coming of the pupil to whom he had signalled. A Brother lying on the grass not far removed from the natural platform upon which he stood, questioned kindly the possibility of so long a journey by so feeble a student—but the Master waited looking piercingly across the distance. His eyes gazed intently before him turning neither to the right nor to the left, and when in the far azure of the clouds he saw approaching the soul that had projected itself at his bidding, he impelled his thought to his Brother who instantly recognized the approaching visitant. The Soul gaining in velocity every moment was in the presence of the Master before the twinkling of an eye could be noted—and prostrate before him could only articulate: “Master! Master!”

A touch of the purified hand pacified the terrible emotions of the new comer, who in suppliant attitude awaited the command of the Beloved Guru. “Rise my child,” came from the lips of the Teacher; who, when he was obeyed continued:

“Your progress is clogged by your indifference to duty. There can be no relations between us unless you disembody your desires and spiritualize every thought. Imprison the latter when they wander, and live to teach the lessons so often inculcated in your higher mind. Help your fellow-beings to better comprehend the capabilities of the inner, living Self.

“By the known laws of attraction and repulsion illustrate to them the impossibility of a higher life on earth for any but clean souls. There can be no mutuality of thought between clean and unclean natures—and the only hope of advancement is by casting off the latter and enveloping the real self in the shelter of noble thoughts. Teach that it is matter that is illusionary—life that is a transitory vision—earthly vanities that blind the eyes of the world.

“Try to speak of these secret things to the lowly and the burdened who are often endowed with a wisdom not to be found among the other and opposite classes. Tell them that the Spirit does have a real existence here in matter—does exercise absolute philanthropy, divine goodness—supreme self sacrifice; does know the power it possesses. Return to your duty refreshed. Let the sunlight now breaking over the hills and the mountains of Himavat radiate through your transparent spirit. Drink of the dew of the morning and feed upon the honey of wisdom that flows in upon your hungry Soul. Thus will you be strengthened to meet the conflict in the plain of action wherein you are constrained by your weakness to work. Thus will you escape from it and find in the mountain the repose and intuition for which you are yearning.”

The Brother whose form had lain in repose on the grass now approached and looking intently at the disciple entranced with delight and gratitude—said in stronger tones than the Beloved Master:

“In the land where your body lies secure from an intrusion that would result in your absolute separation from it—the great conflict is about to be fought. All the preliminary preparations have been made. A people freed from many chains—fast sinking into a materialism only recognized absolutely when some momentary impulse to generosity moves them—is to rise or fall with this closing cycle. To such a Babe as you is revealed a fact not perceived by the best minds among them. Go back there to work! Obey the impulse to throw aside every barrier—to do away with subterfuges deemed best for the personality, and go the rugged way lone and alone. In the time of greatest need we will comfort you and send the comforter to those whose Karma leads them to do battle in the same field. To you the sustaining force of our Fraternity will be contributed so long as the battle is waged for the race: the conquered rescued from their low estate and the Light of the Logos offered to every one who walks in the night of earth-life without guide and compass.”—Then there was silence.

The Beloved Master touching the speaker’s uplifted head said in softest accents: “Go now. If ye love me keep these commands.”

THE LESSONS.

The path of Wisdom is the path of duty. They are not separate roads as many erroneously conclude. Men fail to associate wisdom with duty—they consider them as apart. The disciple performs the action (duty), and in so doing finds wisdom.

There is, in each incarnation, but one birth, one life, one death. It is folly to duplicate these by persistent regrets for the past—by present cowardice or fear of the future. There is no time—it is eternity’s Now that man mistakes for past, present and future.

The forging of earthly chains is the occupation of the indifferent, the awful duty of unloosing them through the sorrows of the heart is also their occupation. Both are foolish sacrifices.

As mortal conscience is within, so also is the evidence of the spirit’s omnipotence. The soul of man is a tangible proof to his _bodily_ senses that he is immortal. The existence of soul is not susceptible of proof on any but its own plane.

Compromise in the service of the weak. The starving must have food suited to the limitations of the irritated system—but be thou firm in thine own place of duty.

Liberate thyself from evil actions by good actions. The man accustomed to actions cannot at once become a Muni; he must work out his action-impelling qualities, and thus he transforms them into higher energies.

Meditation is but a name to the bewildered; the word is not understood until it is translated by the hungry spirit.

Fight the unknown force within you—it is evil. The good that is in you is written without, and is apparent.

Inquire of the stranger the earthly road you seek, but ask your higher self for the torch that will light you on your way. In the silence of one’s own being, is lighted the candle of will and aspiration. No wind can put it out, no heat can melt it. The flame is of the spirit’s quality—pure and of even temperature.

There is no vacillation in the mind of the initiated. Half-knowledge is the pitfall of the student.

Do not run aimlessly about saying lo, here is the light—lo, there is the truth. The light that illuminates the Atma is kindled in the mountain heights. It is the symbol of divine truth.

Wait in the morning for inspiration, at noon for guidance, and in the evening for a full understanding of the road thou hast travelled.

Man’s higher nature is invisible or rather the Divine Principle is. The individual human soul is universal: a right comprehension of where there is difference and where identity between the _6th and 7th_ Principles in man will free the subject of much confusion and misapprehension.

There is real affiliation as well as an occult connection existing between the seven principles in man and the seven classes of minerals under the earth. There are truths connected with the properties of the latter which man may find out by learning the constitution of his own sevenfold nature.

The law of embodied principles is to follow magnets. Is this not also true of the higher nature? We draw to us the attention of the Mahatma by a purified heart and a right development of will. From his heights he sees the valleys below and reaches out to give to him who is straining every faculty to receive.

Agitation that comes from mortal qualities affects the physical body alone: this deep unrest is not felt by the Atma, for the Atma is Spirit or pure bliss. But the ocean of matter, which includes the Soul, feels these waves of trouble and thus is the soul bewildered, ignorantly imagining that the spirit is affected. Learn to know the distinction and to realize that the spirit is eternally unaffected.

Life is a compromise—hasten to acquit yourself of the debt contracted in a former life, and remove its oppressing influence in this sphere.

When you re-enter the world of mortals again, let it be without the three disqualifications for enlightenment, fear, passion and selfishness: the sea of rebirths is half crossed already by the man who has overcome these three drawbacks.

Meat for the thoughtless, wine for the weak, but devotion for him who has overcome the appetites.

To be lord of self is to be selfless, a condition of perfect tranquility.

Forget not this lesson—that every one is so placed in this world as to exhibit his worst qualities. The purpose of this life is to strengthen the weak places of the spiritual man. His external life is for this only, therefore, all are seen at a disadvantage.

A lesson in meekness may be learned of the little child. It has come so recently from its previous field of life that it walks with the air of a stranger in a strange country and as one who must be led.

The divine quality is charity. Whenever it has been attained, the remainder of the spirit’s work with the lower nature, is to acquire a contrite heart.

(_To be continued._)

* * * * *

“Alas we reap what seed we sow; the hands that smite us are our own.”

OM.

FOOTNOTES:

[130] _I. e._, the present age of spiritual blindness.

[131] See “Transactions of the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society,” No. 5.

[132] See charge and answer, in _Theosophist_, August, 1882.

[133] The cycle of existence during the manvantara—period before and after the beginning and completion of which every such “monad” is absorbed and reabsorbed in the ONE soul, _anima mundi_.

[134] Hades has surely never been meant for _Hell_. It was always the abode of the sorrowing _shadows_ of astral bodies of the dead personalities. Western readers should remember Kama-loka is not _Karma_-loka, for Kama means _desire_, and Karma does not.

[135] Had this word “immediate” been put at the time of publishing _Isis_ between the two words “no” and “reincarnation” there would have been less room for dispute and controversy.

[136] By “sphere above,” of course “Devachan” was meant.

[137] The reader must bear in mind that the esoteric teaching maintains that save in cases of wickedness when man’s nature attains the acme of Evil, and human terrestrial sin reaches _Satanic_ universal character, so to say _as some Sorcerers_ do—there is no punishment for the majority of mankind after death. The law of retribution as _Karma_, waits man at the threshold of his new incarnation. Man is at best a wretched tool of evil, unceasingly forming new causes and circumstances. He is not always (if ever) responsible. Hence a period of rest and bliss in Devachan, with an utter temporary oblivion of all the miseries and sorrows of life. _Avitchi_ is a _spiritual_ state of the greatest misery and is only in store for those who have devoted _consciously_ their lives to doing injury to others and have thus reached its highest spirituality of EVIL.

[138] Says Apuleius: “The soul is born in this world upon leaving the soul of the world (_anima mundi_) in which her existence precedes the one we all know (on earth). Thus, the Gods who consider her proceedings in all the phases of various existences and as a whole, punish her sometimes for sins committed during an _anterior_ life. _She dies_ when she separates herself from a body in which she crossed this life as in a frail bark. And this is, if I mistake not, the secret meaning of the tumulary inscription, so simple for the initiate: ”_To the Gods manes who lived._“ But this kind of death does not annihilate the soul, it only transforms (one portion of it) it into a _lemure_. ”_Lemures_“ are the _manes_, or ghosts, which we know under the name _tares_. When they keep away and _show us a beneficent protection_, we honour in them the protecting divinities of the family hearth; but if their crimes sentence them to err, we call them _larvæ_. They become a plague for the wicked, and the vain terror of the good.” (“Du Dieu de Socrate” Apul. class, pp., 143-145.)

[139] “The cause of reincarnation is ignorance”—therefore there is “reincarnation” once the writer explained the causes of it.

[140] A proof how our theosophical teachings have taken root in every class of Society and even in English literature may be seen by reading Mr. Norman Pearson’s article “Before Birth” in the “Nineteenth Century” for August, 1886. Therein, theosophical ideas and teachings are speculated upon without acknowledgment or the smallest reference to theosophy, and among others, we see with regard to the author’s theories on the _Ego_, the following: “How much of the _individual personality_ is supposed to go to heaven or hell? Does the whole of the mental equipment, good and bad, noble qualities and unholy passions, follow the soul to its hereafter? Surely not. But if not, and something has to be stripped off, how and when are we to draw the line? If, on the other hand, the Soul is something distinct from all our mental equipment, except the sense of self, are we not confronted by the incomprehensible notion of a personality without any attributes.”

To this query the author answers as any true theosophist would: “The difficulties of the question really spring from a misconception of the true nature of these attributes. The components of our mental equipment—appetites, aversions, feelings, tastes and qualities generally—are not absolute but relative existences. Hunger and thirst for instance are states of consciousness which arise in response to the stimuli of physical necessities. They are not inherent elements of the soul and _will disappear_ or become modified, etc.,” (pp. 356 and 357). In other words the theosophical doctrine is adopted, Atma and Buddhi having culled off the _Manas_ the aroma of the personality or _human soul_—go into Devachan: while the lower principles the astral _simulacrum_ or false personality void of its Divine monad or spirit will remain in the _Kama-loka_—the “Summerland.”

[141] _Nirmanakaya_ is the name given to the astral forms (_in their completeness_) of adepts, who have progressed too high on the path of _knowledge_ and absolute truth, to go into the state of Devachan; and have on the other hand, deliberately refused the bliss of nirvana, in order to help Humanity by invisibly guiding and helping on the same path of progress elect men. But these _astrals_ are not empty shells, but complete monads made up of the 3d, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th principles. There is another order of _nirmanakaya_, however, of which much will be said in the _Secret Doctrine_.—H. P. B.

Placing these parallel with the division in esoteric teaching we see that (1) _Osiris_ is Atma; (2) _Sa_ is Buddhi; (3) _Akh_ is Manas; (4) _Khou_ is Kama-rupa, the seat of terrestrial desires. (5) _Khaba_ is Lingha Sarira; (6) _Kha_ is Pranatma (vital principle) (7) _Sah_, is mummy or body.

[142] Because they drove the enemies away.

[143] From _manus_—“good,” an _antiphraris_, as Festus explains.

[144] Page 12. Vol I. of “_Isis Unveiled_” belief in reincarnation is asserted from the very beginning, as forming part and parcel of universal beliefs. “Metempsychosis” (or transmigration of souls) and reincarnation being after all the same thing.

[145] These three qualities are explained by Krishna in the _Bhagavadgitâ_, as _Satwa_ good or inactive being purely spiritual; _Rajas_ bad and active; and _Tamas_ inactive or indifferent and bad. They exist in every human mind and are mingled in greater or less proportions at all times, according to the individual and also according to his varying circumstances. His teaching in regard to the _Tamo guna_ is the same as that taught in the Christian Bible, for he says that for the indifferent man there is no salvation—he is as it were “ejected like a broken cloud;” and in I James v, 6, 7, the doubting man is declared incapable of obtaining anything, while in Rev. iii, 16, the Laodiceans are accused of being neither cold nor hot, that is of being indifferent, and they are condemned to be “spewed out of the mouth,” which is the same as the fate described as awaiting those in whom indifference predominates, Krishna declaring that they become more and more deluded at each succeeding generation until at last they reach the lowest round of the ladder in the shape of primordial matter. The difference between the two schools is, that Krishna’s allows the doctrines of Reincarnation and Karma, while the modern Christians, blind to their own Bible, reject these supremely important laws, or rather ignore them as yet. [ED.]

[146] _Maya_ is the sanscrit for _illusion_. [ED.]

AUM

When there was neither day nor night, neither earth or sky, neither light nor darkness: when there was nothing that could be seen or felt by the physical senses or the faculties of the mind, there existed the One Great Being—God.—_Vishnu Purana._

Resignation: the action of rendering good for evil; temperance; probity; purity; repression of the senses; knowledge of holy books, and of the Supreme Soul; truthfulness, and abstaining from anger: such are the ten virtues in which consists duty. * * Those who study these ten precepts of duty, and after having studied them conform their lives thereto, will reach to the Supreme Condition.—_Manu, Book_ vi, _sloka_ 92.

THE PATH.

VOL. I. DECEMBER, 1886. NO. 9.

_The Theosophical Society, as such, is not responsible for any opinion or declaration in this magazine, by whomsoever expressed, unless contained in an official document._

Where any article, or statement, has the author’s name attached, he alone is responsible, and for those which are unsigned, the Editor will be accountable.

“THE THEOSOPHICAL MAHATMAS.”