Chapter LVIII: Section LI: The “doctrine of the Eye” & the “doctrine of the Heart,” or (7)

How many impressions can a man receive simultaneously into his consciousness and record? The Westerns say one: Occultists say normally seven, and abnormally fourteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty‐one, up to forty‐nine, impressions can be simultaneously received. Occultism teaches that the consciousness always receives a sevenfold impression and stores it in the memory. You can prove it by striking at once the seven notes of the musical scale: the seven sounds reach the consciousness simultaneously, but the untrained ear can only recognize them one after another, and if you choose you can measure the intervals. The trained ear will hear the seven notes at once, simultaneously. And experiment has shown that in two or three weeks a man may be trained to receive seventeen or eighteen impressions of colour, the intervals decreasing with practice.

Memory is acquired for this life, and can be expanded. Genius is the greatest responsiveness of the brain and brain‐memory to the Higher Manas. Impressions on any sense are stored in the memory.

Before a physical sense is developed there is a mental feeling which proceeds to become a physical sense. Fishes who are blind, living in the deep sea, or subterranean waters, if they are put into a pond will in a few generations develop eyes. But in their previous state there is a sense of seeing, though no physical sight; how else should they in the darkness find their way, avoid dangers, etc.? The mind will take in and store all kinds of things mechanically and unconsciously, and will throw them into the memory as unconscious perceptions. If the attention is greatly engrossed in any way, the sense perception of any injury is not felt at the time, but later the suffering enters into consciousness. So, returning to our example of the seven notes struck simultaneously, we have one impression, but the ear is affected in succession by the notes one after another, so that they are stored in the brain‐mind in order, for the untrained consciousness cannot register them simultaneously. All depends on training and on attention. Thus the transference of a sensation passing from any organ to the consciousness is almost simultaneous if your attention is fixed on it, but if any noise distracts your attention, then it will take a fraction more of a second before it reaches your consciousness. The Occultist should train himself to receive and transmit along the line of the seven scales of his consciousness every impression, or impressions, simultaneously. He who reduces the intervals of physical time the most has made the most progress.

Consciousness, Its Seven Scales.

There are seven scales or shades of consciousness, of the Unit; _e.g._, in a moment of pleasure or pain; four lower and three higher.

1. Physical sense‐perception: Perception of the cell (if paralyzed, the sense is there, though _you_ do not feel it).

2. Self‐perception or apperception: _I.e._, self‐perception of cell.

3. Psychic apperception: Of astral double, döppelganger, carrying it higher to the:

4. Vital perception: Physical feeling, sensations of pleasure and pain, of quality.

These are the four lower scales, and belong to the psycho‐physiological man.

5. Mânasic discernment of the Mânasic self‐perception. Lower Manas:

6. Will perception: Volitional perception, the voluntary taking in of an idea; you can regard or disregard physical pain.

7. Spiritual, entirely conscious apperception: Because it reaches the Higher, self‐conscious Manas.

[Apperception means self‐perception, conscious action, not as with Leibnitz, but when attention is fixed on the perception.]

You can take these on any planes: _e.g._, bad news passes through the four lower stages before coming to the heart.

Or take Sound:

1. It strikes the ear.

2. Self‐perception of the ear.

3. On the psychic or mental, which carries it to

4. Vital (harsh, soft; strong, weak; etc.).

The Ego.

One of the best proofs that there is an Ego, a true Field of Consciousness, is the fact already mentioned, that a state of consciousness is never exactly reproduced, though you should live a hundred years, and pass through milliards and milliards. In an active day, how many states and substates there are; it would be impossible to have cells enough for all. This will help you to understand why some mental states and abstract things follow the Ego into Devachan, and why others merely scatter in space. That which touches the Entity has an affinity for it, as a noble action, is immortal and goes with it into Devachan, forming part and parcel of the biography of the personality which is disintegrating. A lofty emotion runs through the seven stages, and touches the Ego, the mind that plays its tunes in the mind‐cells. We can analyze the work of consciousness and describe it; but we cannot define consciousness unless we postulate a Subject.

Bhûrloka.

The Bhûrloka begins with the Lower Manas. Animals do not feel as do men. The dog thinks more of his master being angry than of the actual pain of the lash. The animal does not suffer in memory and in imagination, feeling past and future as well as actual present pain.

Pineal Gland.

The special physical organ of perception is the brain, and perception is located in the aura of the pineal gland. This aura answers in vibrations to any impressions, but it can only be sensed, not perceived, in the living man. During the process of thought manifesting in consciousness, a constant vibration occurs in the light of this aura, and a clairvoyant looking at the brain of a living man may almost count, see with the spiritual eye, the seven scales, the seven shades of light, passing from the dullest to the brightest. You touch your hand; before you touch it the vibration is already in the aura of the pineal gland, and has its own shade of colour. It is this aura which causes the wear and tear of the organ, by the vibrations it sets up. The brain, set vibrating, conveys the vibrations to the spinal cord, and so to the rest of the body. Happiness as well as sorrow sets up these strong vibrations, and so wears out the body. Powerful vibrations of joy or sorrow may thus kill.

The Heart.

The septenary disturbance and play of light around the pineal gland are reflected in the heart, or rather the aura of the heart, which vibrates and illumines the seven brains of the heart, just as does the aura round the pineal gland. This is the exoterically four‐ but Esoterically seven‐ leaved lotus, the Saptaparna, the cave of Buddha, with its seven compartments.

Astral And Ego.

There is a difference between the nature and the essence of the Astral Body and the Ego. The Astral Body is molecular, however etherealized it may be: the Ego is atomic, spiritual. The Atoms are spiritual, and are for ever invisible on this plane; molecules form around them, they remaining as the higher invisible principles of the molecules. The eyes are the most Occult of our senses: close them and you pass to the mental plane. Stop all the senses and you are entirely on another plane.

Individuality.

If twelve people are smoking together, the smoke of their cigarettes may mingle, but the molecules of the smoke from each have an affinity with each other, and they remain distinct for ever and ever, no matter how the whole mass may interblend. So a drop of water, though it fall into the ocean retains its individuality. It has become a drop with a life of its own, like a man, and cannot be annihilated. Any group of people would appear as a group in the Astral Light, but would not be permanent; but a group meeting to study Occultism would cohere, and the impression would be more permanent. The higher and the more spiritual the affinity, the more permanent the cohesion.

Lower Manas.

The Lower Manas is an emanation from the Higher Manas, and is of the same nature as the Higher. This nature can make no impression on this plane, nor receive any: an Archangel, having no experience, would be senseless on this plane, and could neither give nor receive impressions. So the Lower Manas clothes itself with the essence of the Astral Light; this astral envelope shuts it out from its Parent, except through the Antahkarana which is its only salvation. Break this and you become an animal.

Kâma.

Kâma is life, it is the essence of the blood. When this leaves the blood the latter congeals. Prâna is universal on this plane; it is in us the vital principle, Prânic, rather than Prâna.

Self‐Hood.

Qualities determine the properties of “Self‐hood.” As, for instance, two wolves placed in the same environment would probably not act differently.

The field of the consciousness of the Higher Ego is never reflected in the Astral Light. The Auric Envelope receives the impressions of both the Higher and the Lower Manas, and it is the latter impressions that are also reflected in the Astral Light. Whereas the essence of all things spiritual, all that which reaches, or is not rejected by, the Higher Ego is not reflected in the Astral Light, because it is on too low a plane. But during the life of a man, this essence, with a view to Karmic ends, is impressed on the Auric Envelope, and after death and the separation of the Principles is united with the Universal Mind (that is to say, those “impressions” which are superior to even the Devachanic Plane), to await there Karmically until the day when the Ego is to be reincarnated. [There are thus three sets of impressions, which we may call the Kâmic, Devachanic and Mânasic.] For the entities, no matter how high, must have their Karmic rewards and punishments on earth. These spiritual impressions are made more or less on the brain, otherwise the Lower Ego would not be responsible. There are some impressions, however, received through the brain, which are not of our previous experience. In the case of the Adept the brain is trained to retain these impressions.

The Reincarnating Ray may, for convenience, be separated into two aspects: the lower Kâmic Ego is scattered in Kâma Loka; the Mânasic part accomplishes its cycle and returns to the Higher Ego. It is, in reality, this Higher Ego which is, so to speak, punished, which suffers. This is the true crucifixion of the Christos—the most abstruse but yet the most important mystery of Occultism; all the cycle of our lives hangs on it. It is indeed the Higher Ego that is the sufferer; for remember that the abstract consciousness of the higher personal consciousness will remain impressed on the Ego, since it must be part and parcel of its eternity. All our grandest impressions are impressed on the Higher Ego, because they are of the same nature as itself.

Patriotism and great actions in national service are not altogether good, from the point of view of the highest. To benefit a portion of humanity is good; but to do so at the expense of the rest is bad. Therefore, in patriotism, etc., the venom is present with the good. For though the inner essence of the Higher Ego is unsoilable, the outer garment may be soiled. Thus both the bad and the good of such thoughts and actions are impressed on the Auric Envelope and the Karma of the bad is taken up by the Higher Ego, though it is perfectly guiltless of it. Thus both sets of impressions, after death, scatter in the Universal Mind, and at reincarnation the Ego sends out a Ray which is itself, into a new personality, and there suffers. It suffers in the Self‐consciousness that it has created by its own accumulated experiences.

Every one of our Egos has the Karma of past Manvantaras behind. There are seven Hierarchies of Egos, some of which, _e.g._, in inferior tribes, may be said to be only just beginning the present cycle. The Ego starts with Divine Consciousness; no past, no future, no separation. It is long before realizing that it is itself. Only after many births does it begin to discern, by this collectivity of experience, that it is individual. At the end of its cycle of reincarnation it is still the same Divine Consciousness, but it has now become individualized Self‐consciousness.

The feeling of responsibility is inspired by the presence of the Light of the Higher Ego. As the Ego in its cycle of re‐birth becomes more and more individualized, it learns more and more by suffering to recognize its own responsibility, by which it finally gains Self‐consciousness, the consciousness of all the Egos of the whole Universe. Absolute Being, to have the idea or sensation of all this, must pass through all experience individually, not universally, so that when it returns it should be of the same omniscience as the Universal Mind _plus_ the memory of all that it has passed through.

At the Day “Be with us” every Ego has to remember all the cycles of its past reincarnations for Manvantaras. The Ego comes in contact with this earth, all seven Principles become one, it sees all that it has done therein. It sees the stream of its past reincarnations by a certain divine light. It sees all humanity at once, but still there is ever, as it were, a stream which is always the “I.”

We should therefore always endeavour to accentuate our responsibility.

The Higher Ego is, as it were, a globe of pure divine light, a Unit from a higher plane, on which is no differentiation. Descending to a plane of differentiation it emanates a Ray, which it can only manifest through the personality which is already differentiated. A portion of this Ray, the Lower Manas, during life, may so crystallize itself and become one with Kâma that it will remain assimilated with Matter. That portion which retains its purity forms Antahkarana. The whole fate of an incarnation depends on whether Antahkarana will be able to restrain the Kâma‐Manas or not. After death the higher light (Antahkarana) which bears the impressions and memory of all good and noble aspirations, assimilates itself with the Higher Ego, the bad is dissociated in space, and comes back as bad Karma awaiting the personality.

The feeling of responsibility is the beginning of Wisdom, a proof that Ahankâra is beginning to fade out, the beginning of losing the sense of separateness.

Kâma Rûpa.

The Kâma Rûpa eventually breaks up and goes into animals. All red‐blooded animals come from man. The cold‐blooded are from the matter of the past. The blood is the Kâma Rûpa.

The white corpuscles are the scavengers, “devourers”; they are oozed out of the Astral through the spleen, and are of the same essence as the Astral. They are the sweat‐born of the Chhâyâ. Kâma is everywhere in the body. The red cells are drops of electrical fluid, the perspiration of all the organs oozed out from every cell. They are the progeny of the Fohatic Principle.

Heart.

There are seven brains in the heart, the Upâdhis and symbols of the seven Hierarchies.

The Fires.

The fires are always playing round the pineal gland, but when Kundalinî illuminates them for a brief instant the whole universe is seen. Even in deep sleep the Third Eye opens. This is good for Manas, who profits by it, though we ourselves do not remember.

Perception.

In answer to a question on the seven stages of perception, H. P. B. said that thought should be centred on the highest, the seventh, and then an attempt to transcend this will prove that it is impossible to go beyond it on this plane. There is nothing in the brain to carry the thinker on, and if thought is to rise yet further it must be thought without a brain. Let the eyes be closed, the will set not to let the brain work, and then the point may be transcended and the student will pass to the next plane. All the seven stages of perception come before Antahkarana; if you can pass beyond them you are on the Mânasic Plane.

Try to imagine something which transcends your power of thought, say, the nature of the Dhyân Chohans. Then make the brain passive, and pass beyond; you will see a white radiant light, like silver, but opalescent as mother of pearl; then waves of colour will pass over it, beginning in the tenderest violet, and through bronze shades of green to indigo with metallic lustre, and that colour will remain. If you see this you are on another plane. You should pass through seven stages.

When a colour comes, glance at it, and if it is not good reject it. Let your attention be arrested only on the green, indigo and yellow. These are good colours. The eyes being connected with the brain, the colour you see most easily will be the colour of the personality. If you see red, it is merely physiological, and is to be disregarded. Green‐bronze is the Lower Manas, yellow‐bronze the Antahkarana, indigo‐bronze is Manas. These are to be observed, and when the yellow‐bronze merges into the indigo you are on the Mânasic Plane.

On the Mânasic Plane you see the Noumena, the essence of phenomena. You do not see people or other consciousnesses, but have enough to do to keep your own. The trained Seer can see Noumena always. The Adept sees the Noumena on this plane, the reality of things, so cannot be deceived.

In meditation the beginner may waver backwards and forwards between two planes. You hear the ticking of a clock on this plane, then on the astral—the soul of the ticking. When clocks are stopped here the ticking goes on on higher planes, in the astral, and then in the ether, until the last bit of the clock is gone. It is the same as with a dead body, which sends out emanations until the last molecule is disintegrated.

There is no time in meditation, because there is no succession of states of consciousness on this plane.

Violet is the colour of the Astral. You begin with it, but should not stay in it; try to pass on. When you see a sheet of violet, you are beginning unconsciously to form a Mâyâvi Rûpa. Fix your attention, and if you go away keep your consciousness firmly to the Mâyâvic Body; do not lose sight of it, hold on like grim death.

Consciousness.

The consciousness which is merely the animal consciousness is made up of the consciousness of all the cells in the body except those of the heart. The heart is the king, the most important organ in the body of man. Even if the head be severed from the body, the heart will continue to beat for thirty minutes. It will beat for some hours if wrapped in cotton wool and put in a warm place. The spot in the heart which is the last of all to die is the seat of life, the centre of all, Brahmâ, the first spot that lives in the fœtus and the last that dies. When a Yogî is buried in a trance it is this spot that lives, though the rest of the body be dead, and as long as this is alive the Yogî can be resurrected. This spot contains potentially mind, life, energy, and will. During life it radiates prismatic colours, fiery and opalescent. The heart is the centre of spiritual consciousness, as the brain is the centre of intellectual. But this consciousness cannot be guided by a person, nor its energy directed by him until he is at one with Buddhi‐Manas; until then it guides him—if it can. Hence the pangs of remorse, the prickings of conscience; they come from the heart, not the head. In the heart is the only manifested God, the other two are invisible, and it is this which represents the Triad, Âtmâ‐Buddhi‐Manas.

In reply to a question whether the consciousness might not be concentrated in the heart, and so the promptings of the Spirit caught, H. P. B. said that any one who could thus concentrate would be at one with Manas, would have united Kâma‐Manas to the Higher Manas. The Higher Manas could not directly guide man, it could only act through the Lower Manas.

There are three principal centres in man, Heart, Head, and Navel: any two of which may be + or ‐ to each other, according to the relative predominance of the centres.

The heart represents the Higher Triad; the liver and spleen represent the Quaternary. The solar plexus is the brain of the stomach.

H. P. B. was asked if the three centres above‐named would represent the Christos, crucified between two thieves; she said it might serve as an analogy, but these figures must not be over‐driven. It must never be forgotten that the Lower Manas is the same in its essence as the Higher, and may become one with it by rejecting Kâmic impulses. The crucifixion of the Christos represents the self‐sacrifice of the Higher Manas, the Father that sends his only begotten Son into the world to take upon him our sins: the Christ‐myth came from the Mysteries. So also did the life of Apollonius of Tyana; this was suppressed by the Fathers of the Church because of its striking similarity to the life of Christ.

The psycho‐intellectual man is all in the head with its seven gateways; the spiritual man is in the heart. The convolutions are formed by thought.

The third ventricle in life is filled with light, and not with a liquid as after death.

There are seven cavities in the brain which are quite empty during life, and it is in these that visions must be reflected if they are to remain in the memory. These centres are, in Occultism, called the seven harmonies, the scale of the divine harmonies. They are filled with Âkâsha, each with its own colour, according to the state of consciousness in which you are. The sixth is the pineal gland, which is hollow and empty during life; the seventh is the whole; the fifth is the third ventricle; the fourth the pituitary body. When Manas is united to Âtmâ‐Buddhi, or when Âtmâ‐Buddhi is centred in Manas, it acts in the three higher cavities, radiating, sending forth a halo of light, and this is visible in the case of a very holy person.

The cerebellum is the centre, the storehouse, of all the forces; it is the Kâma of the head. The pineal gland corresponds to the uterus; its peduncles to the Fallopian tubes. The pituitary body is only its servant, its torch‐bearer, like the servants bearing lights that used to run before the carriage of a princess. Man is thus androgyne so far as his head is concerned.

Man contains in himself every element that is found in the Universe. There is nothing in the Macrocosm that is not in the Microcosm. The pineal gland, as was said, is quite empty during life; the pituitary contains various essences. The granules in the pineal gland are precipitated after death within the cavity.

The cerebellum furnishes the materials for ideation; the frontal lobes of the cerebrum are the finishers and polishers of the materials, but they cannot create of themselves.

Clairvoyant perception is the consciousness of touch: thus reading letters, psychometrizing substances, etc., may be done at the pit of the stomach. Every sense has its consciousness, and you can have consciousness through every sense. There may be consciousness on the plane of sight, though the brain be paralyzed; the eyes of a paralyzed person will show terror. So with the sense of hearing. Those who are physically blind, deaf or dumb, are still possessed of the psychic counterparts of these senses.

Will And Desire.

Eros in man is the will of the genius to create great pictures, great music, things that will live and serve the race. It has nothing in common with the animal desire to create. Will is of the Higher Manas. It is the universal harmonious tendency acting by the Higher Manas. Desire is the outcome of separateness, aiming at the satisfaction of Self in Matter. The path opened between the Higher Ego and the Lower enables the Ego to act on the personal self.

Conversion.

It is not true that a man powerful in evil can suddenly be converted and become as powerful for good. His vehicle is too defiled, and he can at best but neutralize the evil, balancing up the bad Karmic causes he has set in motion, at any rate for this incarnation. You cannot take a herring barrel and use it for attar of roses: the wood is too soaked through with the drippings. When evil impulses and tendencies have become impressed on the physical nature, they cannot at once be reversed. The molecules of the body have been set in a Kâmic direction, and though they have sufficient intelligence to discern between things on their own plane, _i.e._, to avoid things harmful to themselves, they cannot understand a change of direction, the impulse to which is from another plane. If they are forced too violently, disease, madness or death will result.

Origines.

Absolute eternal motion, Parabrahman, which is nothing and everything, motion inconceivably rapid, in this motion throws off a film, which is Energy, Eros. It thus transforms itself to Mûlaprakriti, primordial Substance which is still Energy. This Energy, still transforming itself in its ceaseless and inconceivable motion, becomes the Atom, or rather the germ of the Atom, and then it is on the Third Plane.

Our Manas is a Ray from the World‐Soul and is withdrawn at Pralaya; “it is perhaps the Lower Manas of Parabrahman,” that is, of the Parabrahman of the manifested Universe. The first film is Energy, or motion on the manifested plane; Alaya is the Third Logos, Mahâ‐Buddhi, Mahat. We always begin on the Third Plane; beyond that all is inconceivable. Âtmâ is focussed in Buddhi, but is embodied only in Manas, these being the Spirit, Soul and Body of the Universe.

Dreams.

We may have evil experiences in dreams as well as good. We should, therefore, train ourselves so as to awaken directly we tend to do wrong.

The Lower Manas is asleep in sense‐dreams, the animal consciousness being then guided towards the Astral Light by Kâma; the tendency of such sense‐ dreams is always towards the animal.

If we could remember our dreams in deep sleep, then we should be able to remember all our past incarnations.

Nidânas.

There are twelve Nidânas, exoteric and Esoteric, the fundamental doctrine of Buddhism.

So also there are twelve exoteric Buddhist Sûttas called Nidânas, each giving one Nidâna.

The Nidânas have a dual meaning. They are:

(1) The twelve causes of sentient existence, through the twelve links of subjective with objective Nature, or between the subjective and objective Natures.

(2) A concatenation of causes and effects.

Every cause produces an effect, and this effect becomes in its turn a cause. Each of these has as Upâdhi (basis), one of the sub‐divisions of one of the Nidânas, and also an effect or consequence.

Both bases and effects belong to one or another Nidâna, each having from three to seventeen, eighteen and twenty‐one sub‐divisions.

The names of the twelve Nidânas are:

(1) Jarâmarana. (2) Jâti. (3) Bhava. (4) Upâdâna. (5) Trishnâ. (6) Vedanâ. (7) Sparsha. (8) Chadayâtana. (9) Nâmarûpa. (10) Vignâna. (11) Samskâra. (12) Avidyâ.(859)

(1) JARÂMARANA, lit. death in consequence of decrepitude. Notice that death and not life comes as the first of the Nidânas. This is the first fundamental in Buddhist Philosophy; every Atom, at every moment, as soon as it is born begins dying.

The five Skandhas are founded on it; they are its effects or product. Moreover, in its turn, it is based on the five Skandhas. They are mutual things, one gives to the other.

(2) JÂTI, lit. Birth.

That is to say, Birth according to one of the four modes of Chaturyoni (the four wombs), _viz._:

(i) Through the womb, like Mammalia.

(ii) Through Eggs.

(iii) Ethereal or liquid Germs—fish spawn, pollen, insects, etc.

(iv) Anupâdaka—Nirmânakâyas, Gods, etc.

That is to say that birth takes place by one of these modes. You must be born in one of the six objective modes of existence, or in the seventh which is subjective. These four are within six modes of existence, _viz._:

_Exoterically_:—

(i) Devas; (ii) Men; (iii) Asuras; (iv) Men in Hell; (v) Pretas, devouring demons on earth; (vi) animals.

_Esoterically_:—

(i) Higher Gods; (ii) Devas or Pitris (all classes); (iii) Nirmânakâyas; (iv) Bodhisattvas; (v) Men in Myalba; (vi) Kâma Rûpic existences, whether of men or animals, in Kâma Loka or the Astral Light; (vii) Elementals (Subjective Existences).

(3) BHAVA = Karmic existence, not life existence, but as a moral agent which determines _where_ you will be born, _i.e._, in which of the Triloka, Bhûr, Bhuvar or Svar (seven Lokas in reality).

The cause or Nidâna of Bhava is Upâdâna, that is, the clinging to existence, that which makes us desire life in whatever form.

Its effect is Jâti in one or another of the Triloka and under whatever conditions.

Nidânas are the detailed expression of the law of Karma under twelve aspects; or we might say the law of Karma under twelve Nidânic aspects.

Skandhas.

Skandhas are the germs of life on all the seven planes of Being, and make up the totality of the subjective and objective man. Every vibration we have made is a Skandha. The Skandhas are closely united to the pictures in the Astral Light, which is the medium of impressions, and the Skandhas, or vibrations, connected with subjective or objective man, are the links which attract the Reincarnating Ego, the germs left behind when it went into Devachan which have to be picked up again and exhausted by a new personality. The exoteric Skandhas have to do with the physical atoms and vibrations, or objective man; the Esoteric with the internal and subjective man.

A mental change, or a glimpse of spiritual truth, may make a man suddenly change to the truth even at his death, thus creating good Skandhas for the next life. The last acts or thoughts of a man have an enormous effect upon his future life, but he would still have to suffer for his misdeeds, and this is the basis of the idea of a death‐bed repentance. But the Karmic effects of the past life must follow, for the man in his next birth must pick up the Skandhas or vibratory impressions that he left in the Astral Light, since nothing comes from nothing in Occultism, and there must be a link between the lives. New Skandhas are born from their old parents.

It is wrong to speak of Tanhâs in the plural; there is only one Tanhâ, _the desire to live_. This develops into a multitude or one might say a congeries of ideas. The Skandhas are Karmic and non‐Karmic. Skandhas may produce Elementals by unconscious Kriyâshakti. Every Elemental that is thrown out by man must return to him sooner or later, since it is his own vibration. They thus become his Frankenstein. Elementals are simply effects producing effects. They are disembodied thoughts, good and bad. They remain crystallized in the Astral Light and are attracted by affinity and galvanized back into life again, when their originator returns to earth‐life. You can paralyze them by reverse effects. Elementals are caught like a disease and hence are dangerous to ourselves and to others. This is why it is dangerous to influence others. The Elementals which live after your death are those which you implant in others: the rest remain latent till you are reincarnated, when they come to life in you. “Thus,” H. P. B. said, “if you are badly taught by me or incited thereby to do something wrong, you would go on after my death and sin through me, but I should have to bear the Karma. Calvin, for instance, will have to suffer for all the wrong teaching he has given, though he gave it with good intentions. The worst * * * * does is to arrest the progress of truth. Even Buddha made mistakes. He applied his teaching to people who were not ready; and this has produced Nidânas.”

Subtle Bodies.

When a man visits another in his Astral Body, it is the Linga Sharîra which goes, but this cannot happen at any great distance. When a man _thinks_ of another at a distance very intently, he sometimes appears to that person.

In this case it is the Mâyâvi Rûpa, which is created by unconscious Kriyâshakti, and the man himself is not conscious of appearing. If he were, and projected his Mâyâvi Rûpa consciously, he would be an Adept.(860) No two persons can be simultaneously conscious of one another’s presence, unless one be an Adept. Dugpas use the Mâyâvi Rûpa and sorcerers also. Dugpas work on the Linga Sharîra of other people.

The Linga Sharîra in the spleen is the perfect picture of the man, and is good or bad, according to his own nature. The Astral Body is the subjective image of the man which is to be, the first germ in the matrix, the model of the physical body in which the child is formed and developed. The Linga Sharîra may be hurt by a sharp instrument, and would not face a sword or bayonet, although it would easily pass through a table or other piece of furniture.

Nothing however can hurt the Mâyâvi Rûpa or thought‐body, since it is purely subjective. When swords are struck at shades, it is the sword itself, not its Linga Sharîra or Astral that cuts. Sharp instruments alone can penetrate Astrals, _e.g._, under water, a blow will not affect you, but a cut will.

The projection of the Astral Body should not be attempted, but the power of Kriyâshakti should be exercised in the projection of the Mâyâvi Rûpa.

Fire.

Fire is not an Element but a divine thing. The physical flame is the objective vehicle of the highest Spirit. The Fire Elementals are the highest. Everything in this world has its Aura and its Spirit. The flame you apply to the candle has nothing to do with the candle itself. The Aura of the object comes into conjunction with the lowest part of the other. Granite cannot burn because its Aura is Fire. Fire Elementals have no consciousness on this plane, they are too high, reflecting the divinity of their own source. Other Elementals have consciousness on this plane as they reflect man and his nature. There is a very great difference between the mineral and vegetable kingdoms. The wick of the lamp, for instance, is negative. It is made positive by fire, the oil being the medium. Æther is Fire. The lowest part of Æther is the flame which you see. Fire is Divinity in its subjective presence throughout the universe. Under other conditions, this Universal Fire manifests as water, air and earth. It is the one Element in our visible Universe which is the Kriyâshakti of all forms of life. It is that which gives light, heat, death, life, etc. It is even the blood. In all its various manifestations it is essentially _one_.

It is the “seven Cosmocratores.”

Evidence of the esteem in which Fire was held are to be found in the _Old Testament_. The Pillar of Fire, the Burning Bush, the Shining Face of Moses—all Fire. Fire is like a looking‐glass in its nature, and reflects the beams of the first order of subjective manifestations which are supposed to be thrown on to the screen of the first outlines of the created universe; in their lower aspect these are the creations of Fire.

Fire in the grossest aspect of its essence is the first form and reflects the lower forms of the first subjective beings which are in the universe. The first divine chaotic thoughts are the Fire Elementals. When on earth they take form and come flitting in the flame in the form of the Salamanders or lower Fire Elementals. In the air you have millions of living and conscious beings, besides our thoughts which they catch up. The Fire Elementals are related to the sense of sight and absorb the Elementals of all the other senses. Thus through sight you can have the consciousness of feeling, hearing, tasting, etc., since all are included in the sense of sight.

Hints On The Future.

As time passes on there will be more and more ether in the air. When ether fills the air, then will be born children without fathers. In Virginia there is an apple tree of a special kind. It does not blossom but bears fruit from a kind of berry without any seeds. This will gradually extend to animals and then to men. Women will bear children without impregnation, and in the Seventh Round there will appear men who can reproduce themselves. In the Seventh Race of the Fourth Round, men will change their skins every year and will have new toe and finger nails. People will become more psychic, then spiritual. Last of all in the Seventh Round, Buddhas will be born without sin. The Fourth Round is the longest in the Kali Yuga, then the Fifth, then the Sixth, and the Seventh Round will be very short.

The Egos.

On the separation of the Principles at death the Higher Ego may be said to go to Devachan by reason of the experiences of the Lower. The Higher Ego in its own plane is the Kumâra.

The Lower Quaternary dissolves; the body rots, the Linga Sharîra fades out.

At reincarnation the Higher Ego shoots out a Ray, the Lower Ego. Its energies are upward and downward. The upward tendencies become its Devachanic experiences; the lower are Kâmic. The Higher Manas stands to Buddhi as the Lower Manas to the Higher.

As to the question of responsibility, it may be understood by an example. If you take the form of Jack the Ripper, you must suffer for its misdeeds, for the law will punish the murderer and hold him responsible. You are the sacrificial victim. In the same way the Higher Ego is the Christos, the sacrificial victim for the Lower Manas. The Ego takes the responsibility of every body it informs.

You borrow some money to lend it to another; the other runs away, but it is you who are responsible. The mission of the Higher Ego is to shoot out a Ray to be a Soul in a child.

Thus the Ego incarnates in a thousand bodies, taking upon itself the sins and responsibilities of each body. At every incarnation a new Ray is emitted, and yet it is the same Ray in essence, the same in you and me and every one. The dross of the incarnation disintegrates, the good goes to Devachan.

The Flame is eternal. From the Flame of the Higher Ego, the Lower is lighted, and from this a lower vehicle, and so on.

And yet the Lower Manas is such as it makes itself. It is possible for it to act differently in like conditions, for it has reason and self‐ conscious knowledge of right and wrong, and good and evil, given to it. It is in fact endowed with all the attributes of the Divine Soul. In this the Ray is the Higher Manas, the speck of responsibility on earth.

The part of the essence is the essence, but while it is out of itself, so to say, it can get soiled and polluted. The Ray can be manifested on this earth because it can send forth its Mâyâvi Rûpa. But the Higher cannot, so it has to send forth a Ray. We may look upon the Higher Ego as the Sun, and the personal Manases as its Rays. If we take away the surrounding air and light the Ray may be said to return to the Sun, so with the Lower Manas and Lower Quaternary.

The Higher Ego can only manifest through its attributes.

In cases of sudden death, the Lower Manas no more disappears than does the Kâma Rûpa after death. After the severance the Ray may be said to snap or be dropped. After death such a man cannot go to Devachan, nor yet remain in Kâma Loka; his fate is to reincarnate immediately. Such an entity is then an animal Soul _plus_ the intelligence of the severed Ray. The manifestation of this intelligence in the next birth will depend entirely on the physical formation of the brain and on education.

Such a Soul may be re‐united with its Higher Ego in the next birth, if the environment is such as to give it a chance of aspiration (this is the “grace” of the Christians); or it may go on for two or three incarnations, the Ray becoming weaker and weaker, and gradually dissipating, until it is born a congenital idiot and then finally dissipated in lower forms.

There are enormous mysteries connected with the Lower Manas.

With regard to some intellectual giants, they are in somewhat the same condition as smaller men, for their Higher Ego is paralyzed, that is to say, their spiritual nature is atrophied.

The Manas can pass its essence to several vehicles, _e.g._, the Mâyâvi Rûpa, etc., and even to Elementals which it can ensoul, as the Rosicrucians taught.

The Mâyâvi Rûpa may be sometimes so vitalized that it goes on to another plane and unites with the beings of that plane and so ensouls them.

People who bestow great affection upon animal pets are ensouling them to a certain extent, and such animal Souls progress very rapidly; in return such persons get back the animal vitality and magnetism. It is, however, against Nature to thus accentuate animal evolution, and on the whole is bad.

Monadic Evolution.

The Kumâras do not direct the evolution of the Lunar Pitris. To understand the latter, we might take the analogy of the blood.

The blood may be compared to the universal Life Principle, the corpuscles to the Monads. The different kinds of corpuscles are the same as the various classes of Monads and various kingdoms, not, however, because of their essence being different, but because of the environment in which they are. The Chhâyâ is the permanent seed, and Weissmann in his hereditary germ theory is very near truth.

H. P. B. was asked whether there was one Ego to one permanent Chhâyâ seed, oversouling it in a series of incarnations; her answer was: “No, it is Heaven and Earth kissing each other.”

The animal Souls are in temporary forms and shells in which they gain experience, and in which they prepare materials for higher evolution.

Until the age of seven the astral atavic germ forms and moulds the body; after that the body forms the Astral.

The Astral and the Mind mutually react on each other.

The meaning of the passage in the _Upanishads_, where it says that the Gods feed on men, is that the Higher Ego obtains its earth experience through the Lower.

Astral Body.

The Astral can get out unconsciously to the person and wander about.

The Chhâyâ is the same as the Astral Body.

The germ or life essence of it is in the spleen.

“The Chhâyâ is coiled up in the spleen.” It is from this that the Astral is formed; it evolves in a shadowy curling or gyrating essence like smoke, gradually taking form as it grows. But it is not projected from the physical, atom for atom. This latter intermolecular form is the Kâma Rûpa. At death every cell and molecule gives out its essence, and from it is formed the Astral of the Kâma Rûpa; but this can never come out during life.

The Chhâyâ in order to become visible draws upon the surrounding atmosphere, attracting the atoms to itself; the Linga Sharîra could not form _in vacuo_. The fact of the Astral Body accounts for the Arabian and Eastern tales of Djins and bottle imps, etc.

In spiritualistic phenomena, the resemblance to deceased persons is mostly caused by the imagination. The clothing of such phantoms is formed from the living atoms of the medium, and is no real clothing, and has nothing to do with the clothing of the medium. “All the clothing of a materialization has been paid for.”

The Astral supports life; it is the reservoir or sponge of life, gathering it up from all the natural kingdoms around, and is the intermediary between the kingdoms of Prânic and physical life.

Life cannot come immediately from the subjective to the objective, for Nature goes gradually through each sphere. Therefore the Linga Sharîra is the intermediary between Prâna and our physical body, and pumps in the life.

The spleen is consequently a very delicate organ, but the physical spleen is only a cover for the real spleen.

Now Life is in reality Divinity, Parabrahman. But in order to manifest on the Physical Plane it must be assimilated; and as the purely physical is too gross, it must have a medium, _viz._, the Astral. Astral matter is not homogeneous, and the Astral Light is nothing but the shadow of the real Divine Light; it is however not molecular.

Those (Kâmarûpic) entities which are below the Devachanic Plane are in Kâma Loka and only possess intelligence like monkeys. There are no entities in the four lower kingdoms possessing intelligence which can communicate with men, but the Elementals have instincts like animals. It is, however, possible for the Sylphs (the Air Elementals, the wickedest things in the world) to communicate, but they require to be propitiated.

Spooks (Kâmarûpic entities) can only give the information they see immediately before them. They see things in the Aura of people, although the people may not be aware of them themselves.

Earth‐bound spirits are Kâmalokic entities that have been so materialistic that they cannot be dissolved for a long time. They have only a glimmering of consciousness and do not know why they are held, some sleep, some preserve a glimmering of consciousness and suffer torture.

In the case of people who have very little Devachan, the greater part of the consciousness remains in Kâma Loka, and may last far beyond the normal period of one hundred and fifty years and remain over until the next reincarnation of the Spirit. This then becomes the Dweller on the Threshold and fights with the new Astral.

The acme of Kâma is the sexual instinct, _e.g._, idiots have such desires and also food appetites, etc., and nothing else.

Devachan is a state on a plane of spiritual consciousness; Kâma Loka is a place of physical consciousness. It is the shadow of the animal world and that of instinctual feelings. When the consciousness thinks of spiritual things, it is on a spiritual plane.

If one’s thoughts are of nature, flowers, etc., then the consciousness is on the material plane.

But if thoughts are about eating, drinking, etc., and the passions, then the consciousness is in the Kâmalokic plane, which is the plane of animal instincts pure and simple.

[Transcriber’s Note: Obvious printer’s errors have been corrected.]

FOOTNOTES

1 The majority of the Pandits know nothing of the Esoteric Philosophy
now, because they have lost the key to it; yet not one of these, if
honest, would deny that the _Upanishads_, and especially the
_Purânas_, are allegorical and symbolical; nor that there still
remain in India a few great scholars who could, if they would, give
them the key to such interpretations. Nor do they reject the actual
existence of Mahâtmâs—initiated Yogis and Adepts—even in this age of
Kali Yuga.

2 This assertion is clearly corroborated by Plato himself, who writes:
“You say that in my former discourse I have not sufficiently
explained to you the nature of the First. I purposely spoke
enigmatically, that in case the tablet should have happened with any
accident, either by sea or land, a person without some previous
knowledge of the subject might not be able to understand its
contents.” (Plato, _Ep._, ii. 312; Cory, _Ancient Fragments_, p.
304.)

3 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 287, 288.

4 _The Dialogues of Plato_, translated by B. Jowett, Regius Professor
of Greek at the University of Oxford, iii. 523.

5 _Op. cit._, p. 561.

6 _Op. cit._, p. 591.

7 This definition places (unwittingly, of course), the ancient
“physical philosopher” many cubits higher than his modern “physical”
_confrère_, since the _ultima thule_ of the latter is to lead
mankind to believe that neither universe nor man have any cause at
all—not an intelligent one at all events—and that they have sprung
into existence owing to blind chance and a senseless whirling of
atoms. Which of the two hypotheses is the more rational and logical
is left to the impartial reader to decide.

8 Italics are mine. Every tyro in Eastern Philosophy, every Kabalist,
will see the reason for such an association of persons with ideas,
numbers, and geometrical figures. For number, says Philolaus, “is
the dominant and self‐produced bond of the eternal continuance of
things.” Alone the modern Scholar remains blind to the grand truth.

9 Here again the ancient Philosopher seems to be ahead of the modern.
For he only “confuses ... first and final causes” (which confusion
is denied by those who know the spirit of ancient scholarship),
whereas his modern successor is confessedly and absolutely ignorant
of both. Mr. Tyndall shows Science “powerless” to solve a single one
of the final problems of Nature and “disciplined [read, modern
materialistic], imagination retiring in bewilderment from the
contemplation of the problems” of the world of matter. He even
doubts whether the men of present Science possess “the intellectual
elements which would enable them to grapple with the ultimate
structural energies of Nature.” But for Plato and his disciples, the
lower types were but the concrete images of the higher abstract
ones; the immortal Soul has an arithmetical, as the body has a
geometrical, beginning. This beginning, as the reflection of the
great universal Archæus (_Anima Mundi_), is self‐moving, and from
the centre diffuses itself over the whole body of the Macrocosm.

10 _Op. cit._, p. 523.

11 Nowhere are the Neoplatonists guilty of such an absurdity. The
learned Professor of Greek must have been thinking of two spurious
works attributed by Eusebius and St. Jerome to Ammonius Saccas, who
wrote nothing; or must have confused the Neoplatonists with Philo
Judæus. But then Philo lived over 130 years before the birth of the
founder of Neoplatonism. He belonged to the School of Aristobulus
the Jew, who lived under Ptolemy Philometer (150 years B.C.), and is
credited with having inaugurated the movement which tended to prove
that Plato and even the Peripatetic Philosophy were derived from the
“revealed” Mosaic Books. Valckenaer tries to show that the author of
the _Commentaries on the Books of Moses_, was not Aristobulus, the
sycophant of Ptolemy. But whatever he was, he was not a
Neoplatonist, but lived before, or during the days of Philo Judæus,
since the latter seems to know his works and follow his methods.

12 Only Clemens Alexandrinus, a Christian Neoplatonist and a very
fantastic writer.

13 The labour of reconciling the different systems of religion.

14 _New Platonism and Alchemy_, by Alex. Wilder, M.D. pp. 7, 4.

15 It is well‐known that, though born of Christian parents, Ammonius
had renounced the tenets of the Church—Eusebius and Jerome
notwithstanding. Porphyry, the disciple of Plotinus, who had lived
with Ammonius for eleven years together, and who had no interest for
stating an untruth, positively declares that he had renounced
Christianity entirely. On the other hand, we know that Ammonius
believed in the bright Gods, Protectors, and that the Neoplatonic
Philosophy was as “pagan” as it was mystical. But Eusebius, the most
unscrupulous forger and falsifier of old texts, and St. Jerome, an
out‐and‐out fanatic, who had both an interest in denying the fact,
contradict Porphyry. We prefer to believe the latter, who has left
to posterity an unblemished name and a great reputation for honesty.

16 Two works are falsely attributed to Ammonius. One, now lost, called
_De Consensu Moysis et Jesu_, is mentioned by the same “trustworthy”
Eusebius, the Bishop of Cæsaræa, and the friend of the Christian
Emperor Constantine, who died, however, a heathen. All that is known
of this pseudo‐work is that Jerome bestows great praise upon it
(_Vir. Illust._, § 55; and Euseb., _H. E._, vi. 19). The other
spurious production is called the _Diatesseron_ (or the “Harmony of
the Gospels”). This is partially extant. But then, again, it exists
only in the Latin version of Victor, Bishop of Capua (sixth
century), who attributed it himself to Tatian, and as wrongly,
probably, as later scholars attributed the _Diatesseron_ to
Ammonius. Therefore no great reliance can be placed upon it, nor on
its “esoteric” interpretation of the Gospels. Is it this work, we
wonder, which led Prof. Jowett to regard the Neo‐platonic
interpretations as “absurdities”?

17 _Op. cit._, p. 7.

18 _Op. cit._, iii, 524.

19 “Imperfect knowledge” of what? That Plato was ignorant of many of
the modern “working hypotheses”—as ignorant as our immediate
posterity is sure to be of the said hypotheses when they in their
turn after exploding join the “great majority”—is perhaps a blessing
in disguise.

20 _Op. cit._, p. 524.

21 _Histoire Critique du Gnosticisme_, by M. J. Matter, Professor of
the Royal Academy of Strasburg, “It is in Pythagoras and Plato that
we find, in Greece, the first elements of [Oriental] Gnosticism,” he
says. (Vol. i, pp. 48 and 50.)

22 _Asiat. Trans._, i, 579.

23 _New Platonism and Alchemy_, p. 4.

24 This fact and others may be found in Chinese Missionary Reports, and
in a work by Monseigneur Delaplace, a Bishop in China. _Annales de
la Propagation de la Foi._