Let us look at this a little more closely, with its appropriate
methods. The path on which the faculty of Buddhi is used predominantly
is, as just said, the path of the metaphysician. It is the path of the
philosopher. He turns inwards, ever seeking to find the Self by diving
into the recesses of his own nature. Knowing that the Self is within
him, he tries to strip away vesture after vesture, envelope after
envelope, and by a process of rejecting them he reaches the glory of
the unveiled Self. To begin this, he must give up concrete thinking and
dwell amidst abstractions. His method, then, must be strenuous,
long-sustained, patient meditation. Nothing else will serve his end;
strenuous, hard thinking, by which he rises away from the concrete into
the abstract regions of the mind; strenuous, hard thinking, further
continued, by which he reaches from the abstract region of the mind up
to the region of Buddhi, where unity is sensed; still by strenuous
thinking, climbing yet further, until Buddhi as it were opens out into
Atma, until the Self is seen in his splendour, with only a film of
atmic matter, the envelope of Atma in the manifested fivefold world. It
is along that difficult and strenuous path that the Self must be found
by way of the Self.
Such a man must utterly disregard the Not-Self. He must shut his senses
against the outside world. The world must no longer be able to touch
him. The senses must be closed against all the vibrations that come
from without, and he must turn a deaf ear, a blind eye, to all the
allurements of matter, to all the diversity of objects, which make up
the universe of the Not-Self. Seclusion will help him, until he is
strong enough to close himself against the outer stimuli or
allurements. The contemplative orders in the Roman Catholic Church
offer a good environment for this path. They put the outer world away,
as far away as possible. It is a snare, a temptation, a hindrance.
Always turning away from the world, the Yogi must fix his thought, his
attention, upon the Self. Hence for those who walk along this road,
what are called the Siddhis are direct obstacles, and not helps. But
that statement that you find so often, that the Siddhis are things to
be avoided, is far more sweeping than some of our modern Theosophists
are apt to imagine. They declare that the Siddhis are to be avoided,
but forget that the Indian who says this also avoids the use of the
physical senses. He closes physical eyes and ears as hindrances. But
some Theosophists urge avoidance of all use of the astral senses and
mental senses, but they do not object to the free use of the physical
senses, or dream that they are hindrances. Why not? If the senses are
obstacles in their finer forms, they are also obstacles in their
grosser manifestations. To the man who would find the Self by the Self,
every sense is a hindrance and an obstacle, and there is no logic, no
reason, in denouncing the subtler senses only, while forgetting the
temptations of the physical senses, impediments as much as the other.
No such division exists for the man who tries to understand the
universe in which he is. In the search for the Self by the Self, all
that is not Self is an obstacle. Your eyes, your ears, everything that
puts you into contact with the outer world, is just as much an obstacle
as the subtler forms of the same senses which put you into touch with
the subtler worlds of matter, which you call astral and mental. This
exaggerated fear of the Siddhis is only a passing reaction, not based
on understanding but on lack of understanding; and those who denounce
the Siddhis should rise to the logical position of the Hindu Yogi, or
of the Roman Catholic recluse, who denounces all the senses, and all
the objects of the senses, as obstacles in the way. Many Theosophists
here, and more in the West, think that much is gained by acuteness of
the physical senses, and of the other faculties in the physical brain;
but the moment the senses are acute enough to be astral, or the
faculties begin to work in astral matter, they treat them as objects of
denunciation. That is not rational. It is not logical. Obstacles, then,
are all the senses, whether you call them Siddhis or not, in the search
for the Self by turning away from the Not-Self.
It is necessary for the man who seeks the Self by the Self to have the
quality which is called “faith,” in the sense in which I defined it
before—the profound, intense conviction, that nothing can shake, of the
reality of the Self within you. That is the one thing that is worthy to
be dignified by the name of faith. Truly it is beyond reason, for not
by reason may the Self be known as real. Truly it is not based on
argument, for not by reasoning may the Self be discovered. It is the
witness of the Self within you to his own supreme reality, and that
unshakable conviction, which is shraddha, is necessary for the treading
of this path. It is necessary, because without it the human mind would
fail, the human courage would be daunted, the human perseverance would
break, with the difficulties of the seeking for the Self. Only that
imperious conviction that the Self is, only that can cheer the pilgrim
in the darkness that comes down upon him, in the void that he must
cross before—the life of the lower being thrown away—the life of the
higher is realised. This imperious faith is to the Yogi on this path
what experience and knowledge are to the Yogi on the other.