ENQ. You have given me a bird’s eye view of the seven principles; now

how do they account for our complete loss of any recollection of

having lived before?

THEO. Very easily. Since those “principles” which we call physical, and

none of which is denied by science, though it calls them by other

names,[32] are disintegrated after death with their constituent

elements, _memory_ along with its brain, this vanished memory of

a vanished personality, can neither remember nor record anything

in the subsequent re-incarnation of the EGO. Re-incarnation means

that this Ego will be furnished with a _new_ body, a _new_ brain,

and a _new_ memory. Therefore it would be as absurd to expect this

_memory_ to remember that which it has never recorded as it would

be idle to examine under a microscope a shirt never worn by a

murderer, and seek on it for the stains of blood which are to be

found only on the clothes he wore. It is not the clean shirt that

we have to question, but the clothes worn during the perpetration

of the crime; and if these are burnt and destroyed, how can you

get at them?

ENQ. Aye! how can you get at the certainty that the crime was ever

committed at all, or that the “man in the clean shirt” ever lived

before?

THEO. Not by physical processes, most assuredly; nor by relying on the

testimony of that which exists no longer. But there is such a

thing as circumstantial evidence, since our wise laws accept it,

more, perhaps, even than they should. To get convinced of the

fact of re-incarnation and past lives, one must put oneself in

_rapport_ with one’s real permanent Ego, not one’s evanescent

memory.

ENQ. But how can people believe in that which they _do not know_, nor

have ever seen, far less put themselves in _rapport_ with it?

THEO. If people, and the most learned, will believe in the Gravity,

Ether, Force, and what not of Science, abstractions “and working

hypotheses,” which they have neither seen, touched, smelt,

heard, nor tasted—why should not other people believe, on the

same principle, in one’s permanent Ego, a far more logical and

important “working hypothesis” than any other?

ENQ. What is, finally, this mysterious eternal principle? Can you

explain its nature so as to make it comprehensible to all?

THEO. The EGO which reincarnates, the _individual_ and

immortal—not personal—“I”; the vehicle, in short, of the

Atma-Buddhic MONAD, that which is rewarded in Devachan and

punished on earth, and that, finally, to which the reflection only

of the _Skandhas_, or attributes, of every incarnation attaches

itself.[33]

ENQ. What do you mean by _Skandhas_?

THEO. Just what I said: “attributes,” among which is _memory_, all of

which perish like a flower, leaving behind them only a feeble

perfume. Here is another paragraph from H. S. Olcott’s “Buddhist

Catechism”[34] which bears directly upon the subject. It deals

with the question as follows:—“The aged man remembers the

incidents of his youth, despite his being physically and mentally

changed. Why, then, is not the recollection of past lives brought

over by us from our last birth into the present birth? Because

memory is included within the Skandhas, and the Skandhas having

changed with the new existence, a memory, the record of that

particular existence, develops. Yet the record or reflection

of all the past lives must survive, for when Prince Siddhartha

became Buddha, the full sequence of His previous births were seen

by Him ... and any one who attains to the state of _Jhana_ can

thus retrospectively trace the line of his lives.” This proves to

you that while the undying qualities of the personality—such as

love, goodness, charity, etc.—attach themselves to the immortal

Ego, photographing on it, so to speak, a permanent image of the

divine aspect of the man who was, his material Skandhas (those

which generate the most marked Karmic effects) are as evanescent

as a flash of lightning, and cannot impress the new brain of the

new personality; yet their failing to do so impairs in no way the

identity of the reincarnating Ego.

ENQ. Do you mean to infer that that which survives is only the

Soul-memory, as you call it, that Soul or Ego being one and the

same, while nothing of the personality remains?

THEO. Not quite; something of each personality, unless the latter was

an _absolute_ materialist with not even a chink in his nature for

a spiritual ray to pass through, must survive, as it leaves its

eternal impress on the incarnating permanent Self or Spiritual

Ego.[35] (See On _post mortem_ and _post natal_ Consciousness.)

The personality with its Skandhas is ever changing with every new

birth. It is, as said before, only the part played by the actor

(the true Ego) for one night. This is why we preserve no memory on

the physical plane of our past lives, though the _real_ “Ego” has

lived them over and knows them all.

ENQ. Then how does it happen that the real or Spiritual man does not

impress his new personal “I” with this knowledge?

THEO. How is it that the servant-girls in a poor farm-house could speak

Hebrew and play the violin in their trance or somnambulic state,

and knew neither when in their normal condition? Because, as every

genuine psychologist of the old, not your modern, school, will

tell you, the Spiritual Ego can act only when the personal Ego is

paralysed. The Spiritual “I” in man is omniscient and has every

knowledge innate in it; while the personal self is the creature of

its environment and the slave of the physical memory. Could the

former manifest itself uninterruptedly, and without impediment,

there would be no longer men on earth, but we should all be gods.

ENQ. Still there ought to be exceptions, and some ought to remember.

THEO. And so there are. But who believes in their report? Such

sensitives are generally regarded as hallucinated hysteriacs, as

crack-brained enthusiasts, or humbugs, by modern materialism.

Let them read, however, works on this subject, pre-eminently

“Re-incarnation, a Study of Forgotten Truth” by E. D. Walker,

F.T.S., and see in it the mass of proofs which the able author

brings to bear on this vexed question. One speaks to people of

soul, and some ask “What is Soul?” “Have you ever proved its

existence?” Of course it is useless to argue with those who are

materialists. But even to them I would put the question: “Can you

remember what you were or did when a baby? Have you preserved

the smallest recollection of your life, thoughts, or deeds, or

that you lived at all during the first eighteen months or two

years of your existence? Then why not deny that you have ever

lived as a babe, on the same principle?” When to all this we add

that the reincarnating Ego, or _individuality_, retains during

the Devachanic period merely the essence of the experience of its

past earth-life or personality, the whole physical experience

involving into a state of _in potentia_, or being, so to speak,

translated into spiritual formulæ; when we remember further that

the term between two rebirths is said to extend from ten to

fifteen centuries, during which time the physical consciousness is

totally and absolutely inactive, having no organs to act through

and therefore _no existence_, the reason for the absence of all

remembrance in the purely physical memory is apparent.

ENQ. You just said that the SPIRITUAL EGO was omniscient. Where, then,

is that vaunted omniscience during his Devachanic life, as you call

it?

THEO. During that time it is latent and potential, because first of

all, the Spiritual Ego (the compound of Buddhi-Manas) is _not_ the

Higher SELF, which being one with the Universal Soul or Mind is

alone omniscient; and, secondly, because Devachan is the idealized

continuation of the terrestrial life just left behind, a period

of retributive adjustment, and a reward for unmerited wrongs

and sufferings undergone in that special life. It is omniscient

only _potentially_ in Devachan, and _de facto_ exclusively in

Nirvana, when the Ego is merged in the Universal Mind-Soul. Yet

it re-becomes _quasi_ omniscient during those hours on earth when

certain abnormal conditions and physiological changes in the body

make the _Ego_ free from the trammels of matter. Thus the examples

cited above of somnambulists, a poor servant speaking Hebrew, and

another playing the violin, give you an illustration of the case

in point. This does not mean that the explanations of these two

facts offered us by medical science have no truth in them, for

one girl had, years before, heard her master, a clergyman, read

Hebrew works aloud, and the other had heard an artist playing a

violin at their farm. But neither could have done so as perfectly

as they did had they not been ensouled by THAT which, owing to the

sameness of its nature with the Universal Mind, is omniscient.

Here the higher principle acted on the Skandhas and moved them;

in the other, the personality being paralysed, the individuality

manifested itself. Pray do not confuse the two.

ON INDIVIDUALITY AND PERSONALITY.[36]

ENQ. But what is the difference between the two? I confess that I am

still in the dark. Indeed it is just that difference, then, that

you cannot impress too much on our minds.

THEO. I try to; but alas, it is harder with some than to make them feel

a reverence for childish impossibilities, only because they

are _orthodox_, and because orthodoxy is respectable. To

understand the idea well, you have to first study the dual sets

of “principles”; the _spiritual_, or those which belong to the

imperishable Ego; and the _material_, or those principles which

make up the ever-changing bodies or the series of personalities of

that Ego. Let us fix permanent names to these, and say that:—

I. Atma, the “Higher Self,” is neither your Spirit nor mine, but

like sunlight shines on all. It is the universally diffused

“_divine principle_,” and is inseparable from its one and

absolute _Meta_-Spirit, as the sunbeam is inseparable from

sunlight.

II. _Buddhi_ (the spiritual soul) is only its vehicle. Neither each

separately, nor the two collectively, are of any more use

to the body of man, then sunlight and its beams are for a

mass of granite buried in the earth, _unless the divine Duad

is assimilated by, and reflected in_, some _consciousness_.

Neither Atma nor Buddhi are ever reached by Karma, because

the former is the highest aspect of Karma, _its working

agent_ of ITSELF in one aspect, and the other is unconscious

_on this plane_. This consciousness or mind is,

III. _Manas_,[37] the derivation or product in a reflected form of

_Ahamkara_, “the conception of I,” or EGO-SHIP. It is,

therefore, when inseparably united to the first two, called

the SPIRITUAL EGO, and _Taijasi_ (the radiant).

This is the real Individuality, or the divine man. It is this Ego

which—having originally incarnated in the _senseless_ human form

animated by, but unconscious (since it had no consciousness) of,

the presence in itself of the dual monad—made of that human-like

form _a real man_. It is that Ego, that “Causal Body,” which

overshadows every personality Karma forces it to incarnate into;

and this Ego which is held responsible for all the sins committed

through, and in, every new body or personality—the evanescent

masks which hide the true Individual through the long series of

rebirths.

ENQ. But is this just? Why should this EGO receive punishment as the

result of deeds which it has forgotten?

THEO. It has not forgotten them; it knows and remembers its misdeeds as

well as you remember what you have done yesterday. Is it because

the memory of that bundle of physical compounds called “body” does

not recollect what its predecessor (the personality _that was_)

did, that you imagine that the real Ego has forgotten them? As

well say it is unjust that the new boots on the feet of a boy, who

is flogged for stealing apples, should be punished for that which

they know nothing of.

ENQ. But are there no modes of communication between the Spiritual and

human consciousness or memory?

THEO. Of course there are; but they have never been recognised by your

scientific modern psychologists. To what do you attribute

intuition, the “voice of the conscience,” premonitions,

vague undefined reminiscences, etc., etc., if not to such

communications? Would that the majority of educated men, at least,

had the fine spiritual perceptions of Coleridge, who shows how

intuitional he is in some of his comments. Hear what he says with

respect to the probability that “all thoughts are in themselves

imperishable.” “If the intelligent faculty (sudden ‘revivals’

of memory) should be rendered more comprehensive, it would

require only a different and appropriate organization, the _body

celestial_ instead of the _body terrestrial_, to bring before

every human soul _the collective experience of its whole past

existence_ (_existences_, rather).” And this _body celestial_ is

our Manasic EGO.

ON THE REWARD AND PUNISHMENT OF THE EGO.

ENQ. I have heard you say that the _Ego_, whatever the life of the

person he incarnated in may have been on Earth, is never visited

with _post-mortem_ punishment.

THEO. Never, save in very exceptional and rare cases of which we will

not speak here, as the nature of the “punishment” in no way

approaches any of your theological conceptions of damnation.

ENQ. But if it is punished in this life for the misdeeds committed in a

previous one, then it is this Ego that ought to be rewarded also,

whether here, or when disincarnated.

THEO. And so it is. If we do not admit of any punishment outside of

this earth, it is because the only state the Spiritual Self knows

of, hereafter, is that of unalloyed bliss.

ENQ. What do you mean?

THEO. Simply this: _crimes and sins committed on a plane of objectivity

and in a world of matter, cannot receive punishment in a world

of pure subjectivity_. We believe in no hell or paradise as

localities; in no objective hell-fires and worms that never die,

nor in any Jerusalems with streets paved with sapphires and

diamonds. What we believe in is a _post-mortem state_ or mental

condition, such as we are in during a vivid dream. We believe

in an immutable law of absolute Love, Justice, and Mercy. And

believing in it, we say: “Whatever the sin and dire results of the

original Karmic transgression of the now incarnated Egos[38] no

man (or the outer material and periodical form of the Spiritual

Entity) can be held, with any degree of justice, responsible for

the consequences of his birth. He does not ask to be born, nor can

he choose the parents that will give him life. In every respect he

is a victim to his environment, the child of circumstances over

which he has no control; and if each of his transgressions were

impartially investigated, there would be found nine out of every

ten cases when he was the one sinned against, rather than the

sinner. Life is at best a heartless play, a stormy sea to cross,

and a heavy burden often too difficult to bear. The greatest

philosophers have tried in vain to fathom and find out its _raison

d’être_, and have all failed except those who had the key to it,

namely, the Eastern sages. Life is, as Shakespeare describes it:—

... but a walking shadow—a poor player, That struts and frets his

hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told

by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing....”

Nothing in its separate parts, yet of the greatest importance in

its collectivity or series of lives. At any rate, almost every

individual life is, in its full development, a sorrow. And are we

to believe that poor, helpless men, after being tossed about like

a piece of rotten timber on the angry billows of life, is, if he

proves too weak to resist them, to be punished by a _sempiternity_

of damnation, or even a temporary punishment? Never! Whether a

great or an average sinner, good or bad, guilty or innocent, once

delivered of the burden of physical life, the tired and worn-out

_Manu_ (“thinking Ego”) has won the right to a period of absolute

rest and bliss. The same unerringly wise and just rather than

merciful Law, which inflicts upon the incarnated Ego the Karmic

punishment for every sin committed during the preceding life on

Earth, provided for the now disembodied Entity a long lease of

mental rest, _i.e._, the entire oblivion of every sad event, aye,

to the smallest painful thought, that took place in its last life

as a personality, leaving in the soul-memory but the reminiscence

of that which was bliss, or led to happiness. Plotinus, who said

that our body was the true river of Lethe, for “souls plunged into

it forget all,” meant more than he said. For, as our terrestrial

body is like Lethe, so is our _celestial body_ in Devachan, and

much more.

ENQ. Then am I to understand that the murderer, the transgressor of law

divine and human in every shape, is allowed to go unpunished?

THEO. Who ever said that? Our philosophy has a doctrine of punishment

as stern as that of the most rigid Calvinist, only far more

philosophical and consistent with absolute justice. No deed,

not even a sinful thought, will go unpunished; the latter more

severely even than the former, as a thought is far more potential

in creating evil results than even a deed.[39] We believe in an

unerring law of Retribution, called KARMA, which asserts itself in

a natural concatenation of causes and their unavoidable results.

ENQ. And how, or where, does it act?

THEO. Every labourer is worthy of his hire, saith Wisdom in the Gospel;

every action, good or bad, is a prolific parent, saith the Wisdom

of the Ages. Put the two together, and you will find the “why.”

After allowing the Soul, escaped from the pangs of personal life,

a sufficient, aye, a hundredfold compensation, Karma, with its

army of Skandhas, waits at the threshold of Devachan, whence the

_Ego_ re-emerges to assume a new incarnation. It is at this moment

that the future destiny of the now-rested Ego trembles in the

scales of just Retribution, as _it_ now falls once again under the

sway of active Karmic law. It is in this re-birth which is ready

for _it_, a re-birth selected and prepared by this mysterious,

inexorable, but in the equity and wisdom of its decrees infallible

LAW, that the sins of the previous life of the Ego are punished.

Only it is into no imaginary Hell, with theatrical flames and

ridiculous tailed and horned devils, that the Ego is cast, but

verily on to this earth, the plane and region of his sins, where

he will have to atone for every bad thought and deed. As he

has sown, so will he reap. Re-incarnation will gather around

him all those other Egos who have suffered, whether directly

or indirectly, at the hands, or even through the unconscious

instrumentality, of the past _personality_. They will be thrown

by Nemesis in the way of the _new_ man, concealing the _old_, the

eternal EGO, and ...

ENQ. But where is the equity you speak of, since these _new_

“personalities” are not aware of having sinned or been sinned

against?

THEO. Has the coat torn to shreds from the back of the man who stole

it, by another man who was robbed of it and recognises his

property, to be regarded as fairly dealt with? The new

“personality” is no better than a fresh suit of clothes with its

specific characteristics, colour, form and qualities; but the

_real_ man who wears it is the same culprit as of old. It is the

_individuality_ who suffers through his “personality.” And it is

this, and this alone, that can account for the terrible, still

only _apparent_, injustice in the distribution of lots in life

to man. When your modern philosophers will have succeeded in

showing to us a good reason, why so many apparently innocent and

good men are born only to suffer during a whole lifetime; why so

many are born poor unto starvation in the slums of great cities,

abandoned by fate and men; why, while these are born in the

gutter, others open their eyes to light in palaces; while a noble

birth and fortune seem often given to the worst of men and only

rarely to the worthy; while there are beggars whose _inner_ selves

are peers to the highest and noblest of men; when this, and much

more, is satisfactorily explained by either your philosophers or

theologians, then only, but not till then, you will have the right

to reject the theory of re-incarnation. The highest and grandest

of poets have dimly perceived this truth of truths. Shelley

believed in it, Shakespeare must have thought of it when writing

on the worthlessness of Birth. Remember his words:

“Why should my birth keep down my mounting spirit?

Are not all creatures subject unto time?

There’s legions now of beggars on the earth,

That their original did spring from Kings,

And many monarchs now, whose fathers were

The riff-raff of their age....”

Alter the word “fathers” into “Egos”—and you will have the truth.

FOOTNOTES:

[31] “The phantasy,” says Olympiodorus (in Platonis Phæd.) “is an

impediment to our intellectual conceptions; and hence, when we are

agitated by the inspiring influence of the Divinity, if the phantasy

intervenes, the enthusiastic energy ceases: for enthusiasm and the

ecstasy are contrary to each other. Should it be asked whether the soul

is able to energise without the phantasy, we reply, that its perception

of universals proves that it is able. It has perceptions, therefore,

independent of the phantasy; at the same time, however, the phantasy

attends in its energies, just as a storm pursues him who sails on the

sea.”

[32] Namely, the body, life, passional and animal instincts, and the

astral eidolon of every man (whether perceived in thought or our

mind’s eye, or objectively and separate from the physical body), which

principles we call _Sthula sarira_, _Pranâ_, _Kama rupa_, and _Linga

sarira_ (_vide supra_).

[33] There are five _Skandhas_ or attributes in the Buddhist teachings:

“_Rupa_ (form or body), material qualities; _Vedana_, sensation;

_Sanna_, abstract ideas; _Samkhara_, tendencies of mind; _Vinnana_,

mental powers. Of these we are formed; by them we are conscious of

existence; and through them communicate with the world about us.”

[34] By H. S. Olcott, President and Founder of the Theosophical

Society. The accuracy of the teaching is sanctioned by the Rev. H.

Sumangala, High Priest of the Sripada and Galle, and Principal of the

_Widyodaya Parivena_ (College) at Colombo, as being in agreement with

the Canon of the Southern Buddhist Church.

[35] Or the _Spiritual_, in contradistinction to the personal _Self_.

The student must not confuse this Spiritual Ego with the “HIGHER SELF”

which is _Atma_, the God within us, and inseparable from the Universal

Spirit.

[36] Even in his _Buddhist Cathechism_, Col. Olcott, forced to it by

the logic of Esoteric philosophy, found himself obliged to correct

the mistakes of previous Orientalists who made no such distinction,

and gives the reader his reason for it. Thus he says: “The successive

appearances upon the earth, or ‘descents into generation,’ of the

_tanhaically_ coherent parts (Skandhas) of a certain being are a

succession of personalities. In each birth the PERSONALITY differs

from that of a previous or next succeeding birth. Karma, the DEUS

EX MACHINA, masks (or shall we say reflects?) itself now in the

personality of a sage, again as an artisan, and so on throughout the

string of births. But though personalities ever shift, the one line of

life along which they are strung, like beads, runs unbroken; it is ever

that _particular line_, never any other. It is therefore individual, an

individual vital undulation, which began in Nirvana, or the subjective

side of nature, as the light or heat undulation through æther began

at its dynamic source; is careering through the objective side of

nature under the impulse of Karma and the creative direction of _Tanha_

(the unsatisfied desire for existence); and leads through many cyclic

changes back to Nirvana. Mr. Rhys-Davids calls that which passes from

personality to personality along the individual chain ‘character,’ or

‘doing.’ Since ‘character’ is not a mere metaphysical abstraction, but

the sum of one’s mental qualities and moral propensities, would it not

help to dispel what Mr. Rhys-Davids calls ‘the desperate expedient of

a mystery’ (_Buddhism_, p. 101) if we regarded the life-undulation as

individuality, and each of its series of natal manifestations as a

separate personality? The perfect individual, Buddhistically speaking,

is a Buddha, I should say; for Buddha is but the rare flower of

humanity, without the least supernatural admixture. And as countless

generations (‘four _asankheyyas_ and a hundred thousand cycles,’

Fausboll and Rhys-Davids’ BUDDHIST BIRTH STORIES, p. 13) are required

to develop a _man_ into a Buddha, and _the iron will to become one_

runs throughout all the successive births, what shall we call that

which thus wills and perseveres? Character? One’s individuality: an

individuality but partly manifested in any one birth, but built up of

fragments from all the births?” (_Bud. Cat., Appendix_ A. 137.)

[37] MAHAT or the “Universal Mind” is the source of Manas. The latter

is Mahat, _i.e._, mind, in man. Manas is also called _Kshetrajna_,

“embodied Spirit,” because it is, according to our philosophy, the

_Manasa-putras_, or “Sons of the Universal Mind,” who _created_, or

rather produced, the _thinking_ man, “_manu_,” by incarnating in the

_third Race_ mankind in our Round. It is Manas, therefore, which is the

real incarnating and permanent _Spiritual Ego_, the INDIVIDUALITY, and

our various and numberless personalities only its external masks.

[38] It is on this transgression that the cruel and illogical dogma of

the Fallen Angels has been built. It is explained in Vol. II. of the

_Secret Doctrine_. All our “Egos” are thinking and rational entities

(_Manasa-putras_) who had lived, whether under human or other forms,

in the precedent _life-cycle_ (Manvantara), and whose Karma it was to

incarnate in the _man_ of this one. It was taught in the MYSTERIES

that, having delayed to comply with this law (or having “refused to

create” as Hinduism says of the _Kumaras_ and Christian legend of the

Archangel Michael), _i.e._, having failed to incarnate in due time, the

bodies predestined for them got defiled (Vide Stanzas VIII. and IX.

in the “Slokas of Dzyan,” Vol. II. Secret Doctrine, pp. 19 and 20),

hence the original sin of the senseless forms and the punishment of

the _Egos_. That which is meant by the rebellious angels being hurled

down into Hell is simply explained by these pure Spirits or Egos being

imprisoned in bodies of unclean matter, flesh.

[39] “Verily, I say unto you, that whosoever looketh at a woman to lust

after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”

(Matt. v., 28.)

IX. ON THE KAMA-LOKA AND DEVACHAN.

ON THE FATE OF THE LOWER “PRINCIPLES.”

ENQ. You spoke of _Kama-loka_, what is it?

THEO. When the man dies, his lower three principles leave him for ever;

_i.e._, body, life, and the vehicle of the latter, the astral

body or the double of the _living_ man. And then, his four

principles—the central or middle principle, the animal soul or

_Kama-rupa_, with what it has assimilated from the lower Manas,

and the higher triad find themselves in _Kama-loka_. The latter

is an astral locality, the _limbus_ of scholastic theology, the

_Hades_ of the ancients, and, strictly speaking, a _locality_

only in a relative sense. It has neither a definite area nor

boundary, but exists _within_ subjective space; _i.e._, is beyond

our sensuous perceptions. Still it exists, and it is there

that the astral _eidolons_ of all the beings that have lived,

animals included, await their _second death_. For the animals

it comes with the disintegration and the entire fading out of

their _astral_ particles to the last. For the human _eidolon_ it

begins when the Atma-Buddhi-Manasic triad is said to “separate”

itself from its lower principles, or the reflection of the

_ex-personality_, by falling into the Devachanic state.

ENQ. And what happens after this?

THEO. Then the _Kama-rupic_ phantom, remaining bereft of its informing

thinking principle, the higher _Manas_, and the lower aspect of

the latter, the animal intelligence, no longer receiving light

from the higher mind, and no longer having a physical brain to

work through, collapses.

ENQ. In what way?

THEO. Well, it falls into the state of the frog when certain portions

of its brain are taken out by the vivisector. It can think no

more, even on the lowest animal plane. Henceforth it is no longer

even the lower Manas, since this “lower” is nothing without the

“higher.”

ENQ. And is it _this_ nonentity which we find materializing in Séance

rooms with Mediums?

THEO. It is this nonentity. A true nonentity, however, only as to

reasoning or cogitating powers, still an _Entity_, however

astral and fluidic, as shown in certain cases when, having been

magnetically and unconsciously drawn toward a medium, it is

revived for a time and lives in him by _proxy_, so to speak. This

“spook,” or the Kama-rupa, may be compared with the _jelly-fish_,

which has an ethereal gelatinous appearance so long as it is in

its own element, or water (the _medium’s specific AURA_), but

which, no sooner is it thrown out of it, than it dissolves in the

hand or on the sand, especially in sunlight. In the medium’s Aura,

it lives a kind of vicarious life and reasons and speaks either

through the medium’s brain or those of other persons present.

But this would lead us too far, and upon other people’s grounds,

whereon I have no desire to trespass. Let us keep to the subject

of re-incarnation.

ENQ. What of the latter? How long does the incarnating _Ego_ remain in

the Devachanic state?

THEO. This, we are taught, depends on the degree of spirituality and

the merit or demerit of the last incarnation. The average time is

from ten to fifteen centuries, as I already told you.

ENQ. But why could not this Ego manifest and communicate with mortals

as Spiritualists will have it? What is there to prevent a mother

from communicating with the children she left on earth, a husband

with his wife, and so on? It is a most consoling belief, I must

confess; nor do I wonder that those who believe in it are so

averse to give it up.

THEO. Nor are they forced to, unless they happen to prefer truth to

fiction, however “consoling.” Uncongenial our doctrines may be to

Spiritualists; yet, nothing of what we believe in and teach is

half as selfish and cruel as what they preach.

ENQ. I do not understand you. What is selfish?

THEO. Their doctrine of the return of Spirits, the real “personalities”

as they say; and I will tell you why. If _Devachan_—call it

“paradise” if you like, a “place of bliss and of supreme

felicity,” if it is anything—is such a place (or say _state_),

logic tells us that no sorrow or even a shade of pain can be

experienced therein. “God shall wipe away all the tears from the

eyes” of those in paradise, we read in the book of many promises.

And if the “Spirits of the dead” are enabled to return and see all

that is going on on earth, and especially _in their homes_, what

kind of bliss can be in store for them?

WHY THEOSOPHISTS DO NOT BELIEVE IN THE RETURN OF PURE “SPIRITS.”

ENQ. What do you mean? Why should this interfere with their bliss?

THEO. Simply this; and here is an instance. A mother dies, leaving

behind her little helpless children—orphans whom she

adores—perhaps a beloved husband also. We say that her “_Spirit_”

or _Ego_—that individuality which is now all impregnated, for the

entire Devachanic period, with the noblest feelings held by its

late _personality_, _i.e._, love for her children, pity for those

who suffer, and so on—we say that it is now entirely separated

from the “vale of tears,” that its future bliss consists in that

blessed ignorance of all the woes it left behind. Spiritualists

say, on the contrary, that it is as vividly aware of them, _and

more so than before_, for “Spirits see more than mortals in the

flesh do.” We say that the bliss of the _Devachanee_ consists in

its complete conviction that it has never left the earth, and that

there is no such thing as death at all; that the _post-mortem_

spiritual _consciousness_ of the mother will represent to her that

she lives surrounded by her children and all those whom she loved;

that no gap, no link, will be missing to make her disembodied

state the most perfect and absolute happiness. The Spiritualists

deny this point blank. According to their doctrine, unfortunate

man is not liberated even by death from the sorrows of this life.

Not a drop from the life-cup of pain and suffering will miss his

lips; and _nolens volens_, since he sees everything now, shall he

drink it to the bitter dregs. Thus, the loving wife, who during

her lifetime was ready to save her husband sorrow at the price of

her heart’s blood, is now doomed to see, in utter helplessness,

his despair, and to register every hot tear he sheds for her

loss. Worse than that, she may see the tears dry too soon, and

another beloved face shine on him, the father of her children;

find another woman replacing her in his affections; doomed to hear

her orphans giving the holy name of “mother” to one indifferent

to them, and to see those little children neglected, if not

ill-treated. According to this doctrine the “gentle wafting to

immortal life” becomes without any transition the way into a new

path of mental suffering! And yet, the columns of the “Banner of

Light,” the veteran journal of the American Spiritualists, are

filled with messages from the dead, the “dear departed ones,”

who all write to say how very _happy_ they are! Is such a state

of knowledge consistent with bliss? Then “bliss” stands in such

a case for the greatest curse, and orthodox damnation must be a

relief in comparison to it!

ENQ. But how does your theory avoid this? How can you reconcile the

theory of Soul’s omniscience with its blindness to that which is

taking place on earth?

THEO. Because such is the law of love and mercy. During every

Devachanic period the Ego, omniscient as it is _per se_, clothes

itself, so to say, with the _reflection_ of the “personality”

that was. I have just told you that the _ideal_ efflorescence

of all the abstract, therefore undying and eternal qualities

or attributes, such as love and mercy, the love of the good,

the true and the beautiful, that ever spoke in the heart of the

living “personality,” clung after death to the Ego, and therefore

followed it to Devachan. For the time being, then, the Ego becomes

the ideal reflection of the human being it was when last on earth,

and _that_ is not omniscient. Were it that, it would never be in

the state we call Devachan at all.

ENQ. What are your reasons for it?

THEO. If you want an answer on the strict lines of our philosophy, then

I will say that it is because everything is _illusion_ (_Maya_)

outside of eternal truth, which has neither form, colour, nor

limitation. He who has placed himself beyond the veil of maya—and

such are the highest Adepts and Initiates—can have no Devachan.

As to the ordinary mortal, his bliss in it is complete. It is

an _absolute_ oblivion of all that gave it pain or sorrow in

the past incarnation, and even oblivion of the fact that such

things as pain or sorrow exist at all. The _Devachanee_ lives

its intermediate cycle between two incarnations surrounded by

everything it had aspired to in vain, and in the companionship of

everyone it loved on earth. It has reached the fulfilment of all

its soul-yearnings. And thus it lives throughout long centuries

an existence of _unalloyed_ happiness, which is the reward for

its sufferings in earth-life. In short, it bathes in a sea of

uninterrupted felicity spanned only by events of still greater

felicity in degree.

ENQ. But this is more than simple delusion, it is an existence of

insane hallucinations!

THEO. From your standpoint it may be, not so from that of philosophy.

Besides which, is not our whole terrestrial life filled with such

delusions? Have you never met men and women living for years in a

fool’s paradise? And because you should happen to learn that the

husband of a wife, whom she adores and believes herself as beloved

by him, is untrue to her, would you go and break her heart and

beautiful dream by rudely awakening her to the reality? I think

not. I say it again, such oblivion and _hallucination_—if you call

it so—are only a merciful law of nature and strict justice. At

any rate, it is a far more fascinating prospect than the orthodox

golden harp with a pair of wings. The assurance that “the soul

that lives ascends frequently and runs familiarly through the

streets of the heavenly Jerusalem, visiting the patriarchs and

prophets, saluting the apostles, and admiring the army of martyrs”

may seem of a more pious character to some. Nevertheless, it is

a hallucination of a far more delusive character, since mothers

love their children with an immortal love, we all know, while the

personages mentioned in the “heavenly Jerusalem” are still of a

rather doubtful nature. But I would, still, rather accept the “new

Jerusalem,” with its streets paved like the show windows of a

jeweller’s shop, than find consolation in the heartless doctrine

of the Spiritualists. The idea alone that the _intellectual

conscious souls_ of one’s father, mother, daughter or brother find

their bliss in a “Summer land”—only a little more natural, but

just as ridiculous as the “New Jerusalem” in its description—would

be enough to make one lose every respect for one’s “departed

ones.” To believe that a pure spirit can feel happy while doomed

to witness the sins, mistakes, treachery, and, above all, the

sufferings of those from whom it is severed by death and whom it

loves best, without being able to help them, would be a maddening

thought.

ENQ. There is something in your argument. I confess to having never

seen it in this light.

THEO. Just so, and one must be selfish to the core and utterly devoid

of the sense of retributive justice, to have ever imagined such a

thing. We are with those whom we have lost in material form, and

far, far nearer to them now, than when they were alive. And it is

not only in the fancy of the _Devachanee_, as some may imagine,

but in reality. For pure divine love is not merely the blossom

of a human heart, but has its roots in eternity. Spiritual holy

love is immortal, and Karma brings sooner or later all those who

loved each other with such a spiritual affection to incarnate once

more in the same family group. Again we say that love beyond the

grave, illusion though you may call it, has a magic and divine

potency which reacts on the living. A mother’s _Ego_ filled with

love for the imaginary children it sees near itself, living a life

of happiness, as real to _it_ as when on earth—that love will

always be felt by the children in flesh. It will manifest in their

dreams, and often in various events—in _providential_ protections

and escapes, for love is a strong shield, and is not limited by

space or time. As with this Devachanic “mother,” so with the rest

of human relationships and attachments, save the purely selfish or

material. Analogy will suggest to you the rest.

ENQ. In no case, then, do you admit the possibility of the

communication of the living with the _disembodied_ spirit?

THEO. Yes, there is a case, and even two exceptions to the rule. The

first exception is during the few days that follow immediately the

death of a person and before the _Ego_ passes into the Devachanic

state. Whether any living mortal, save a few exceptional

cases—(when the intensity of the desire in the dying person to

return for some purpose forced the higher consciousness _to

remain awake_, and therefore it was really the _individuality_,

the “Spirit” that communicated)—has derived much benefit from

the return of the spirit into the _objective_ plane is another

question. The spirit is dazed after death and falls very soon

into what we call “_pre-devachanic_ unconsciousness.” The second

exception is found in the _Nirmanakayas_.

ENQ. What about them? And what does the name mean for you?

THEO. It is the name given to those who, though they have won the right

to Nirvana and cyclic rest—(_not_ “Devachan,” as the latter is

an illusion of our consciousness, a happy dream, and as those

who are fit for Nirvana must have lost entirely every desire or

possibility of the world’s illusions)—have out of pity for mankind

and those they left on earth renounced the Nirvanic state. Such

an adept, or Saint, or whatever you may call him, believing it

a selfish act to rest in bliss while mankind groans under the

burden of misery produced by ignorance, renounces Nirvana, and

determines to remain invisible _in spirit_ on this earth. They

have no material body, as they have left it behind; but otherwise

they remain with all their principles even _in astral life_ in our

sphere. And such can and do communicate with a few elect ones,

only surely not with _ordinary_ mediums.

ENQ. I have put you the question about _Nirmanakayas_ because I read in

some German and other works that it was the name given to the

terrestrial appearances or bodies assumed by Buddhas in the

Northern Buddhistic teachings.

THEO. So they are, only the Orientalists have confused this terrestrial

body by understanding it to be _objective_ and _physical_ instead

of purely astral and subjective.

ENQ. And what good can they do on earth?

THEO. Not much, as regards individuals, as they have no right to

interfere with Karma, and can only advise and inspire mortals for

the general good. Yet they do more beneficent actions than you

imagine.

ENQ. To this Science would never subscribe, not even modern psychology.

For them, no portion of intelligence can survive the physical

brain. What would you answer them?

THEO. I would not even go to the trouble of answering, but would simply

say, in the words given to “M.A. Oxon,” “Intelligence is

perpetuated after the body is dead. Though it is not a question

of the brain only.... It is reasonable to propound the

indestructibility of the human spirit from what we know” (_Spirit

Identity_, p. 69).

ENQ. But “M.A. Oxon” is a Spiritualist?

THEO. Quite so, and the only _true_ Spiritualist I know of, though we

may still disagree with him on many a minor question. Apart from

this, no Spiritualist comes nearer to the occult truths than he

does. Like any one of us he speaks incessantly “of the surface

dangers that beset the ill-equipped, feather-headed muddler

with the occult, who crosses the threshold without counting the

cost.”[40] Our only disagreement rests in the question of “Spirit

Identity.” Otherwise, I, for one, coincide almost entirely with

him, and accept the three propositions he embodied in his address

of July, 1884. It is this eminent Spiritualist, rather, who

disagrees with us, not we with him.

ENQ. What are these propositions?

THEO.

“1. That there is a life coincident with, and independent of the

physical life of the body.”

“2. That, as a necessary corollary, this life extends beyond the

life of the body” (we say it extends throughout Devachan).

“3. That there is communication between the denizens of that state

of existence and those of the world in which we now live.”

All depend, you see, on the minor and secondary aspects of these

fundamental propositions. Everything depends on the views we

take of Spirit and Soul, or _Individuality_ and _Personality_.

Spiritualists confuse the two “into one”; we separate them, and

say that, with the exceptions above enumerated, no _Spirit_ will

revisit the earth, though the animal Soul may. But let us return

once more to our direct subject, the Skandhas.

ENQ. I begin to understand better now. It is the Spirit, so to say, of

those Skandhas which are the most ennobling, which, attaching

themselves to the incarnating Ego, survive, and are added to

the stock of its angelic experiences. And it is the attributes

connected with the material Skandhas, with selfish and personal

motives, which, disappearing from the field of action between two

incarnations, reappear at the subsequent incarnation as Karmic

results to be atoned for; and therefore the Spirit will not leave

Devachan. Is it so?

THEO. Very nearly so. If you add to this that the law of retribution,

or Karma, rewarding the highest and most spiritual in Devachan,

never fails to reward them again on earth by giving them a further

development, and furnishing the Ego with a body fitted for it,

then you will be quite correct.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE SKANDHAS.

ENQ. What becomes of the other, the lower Skandhas of the personality,

after the death of the body? Are they quite destroyed?

THEO. They are and yet they are not—a fresh metaphysical and occult

mystery for you. They are destroyed as the working stock in hand

of the personality; they remain as _Karmic effects_, as germs,

hanging in the atmosphere of the terrestrial plane, ready to come

to life, as so many avenging fiends, to attach themselves to the

new personality of the Ego when it reincarnates.

ENQ. This really passes my comprehension, and is very difficult to

understand.

THEO. Not once that you have assimilated all the details. For then you

will see that for logic, consistency, profound philosophy, divine

mercy and equity, this doctrine of Re-incarnation has not its

equal on earth. It is a belief in a perpetual progress for each

incarnating Ego, or divine soul, in an evolution from the outward

into the inward, from the material to the Spiritual, arriving at

the end of each stage at absolute unity with the divine Principle.

From strength to strength, from beauty and perfection of one plane

to the greater beauty and perfection of another, with accessions

of new glory, of fresh knowledge and power in each cycle, such is

the destiny of every Ego, which thus becomes its own Saviour in

each world and incarnation.

ENQ. But Christianity teaches the same. It also preaches progression.

THEO. Yes, only with the addition of something else. It tells us of the

_impossibility_ of attaining Salvation without the aid of a

miraculous Saviour, and therefore dooms to perdition all those who

will not accept the dogma. This is just the difference between

Christian theology and Theosophy. The former enforces belief in

the Descent of the Spiritual Ego into the _Lower Self_ the latter

inculcates the necessity of endeavouring to elevate oneself to the

Christos, or Buddhi state.

ENQ. By teaching the annihilation of consciousness in case of failure,

however, don’t you think that it amounts to the annihilation of

_Self_, in the opinion of the non-metaphysical?

THEO. From the standpoint of those who believe in the resurrection of

the body _literally_, and insist that every bone, every artery and

atom of flesh will be raised bodily on the Judgment Day—of course

it does. If you still insist that it is the perishable form and

finite qualities that make up _immortal_ man, then we shall hardly

understand each other. And if you do not understand that, by

limiting the existence of every Ego to one life on earth, you make

of Deity an ever-drunken Indra of the Puranic dead letter, a cruel

Moloch, a god who makes an inextricable mess on Earth, and yet

claims thanks for it, then the sooner we drop the conversation the

better.

ENQ. But let us return, now that the subject of the Skandhas is

disposed of, to the question of the consciousness which survives

death. This is the point which interests most people. Do we

possess more knowledge in Devachan than we do in Earth life?

THEO. In one sense, we can acquire more knowledge; that is, we can

develop further any faculty which we loved and strove after during

life, provided it is concerned with abstract and ideal things,

such as music, painting, poetry, etc., since Devachan is merely an

idealized and subjective continuation of earth-life.

ENQ. But if in Devachan the Spirit is free from matter, why should it

not possess all knowledge?

THEO. Because, as I told you, the Ego is, so to say, wedded to the

memory of its last incarnation. Thus, if you think over what I

have said, and string all the facts together, you will realize

that the Devachanic state is not one of omniscience, but a

transcendental continuation of the personal life just terminated.

It is the rest of the soul from the toils of life.

ENQ. But the scientific materialists assert that after the death of man

nothing remains; that the human body simply disintegrates into

its component elements; and that what we call soul is merely a

temporary self-consciousness produced as a bye-product of organic

action, which will evaporate like steam. Is not theirs a strange

state of mind?

THEO. Not strange at all, that I see. If they say that

self-consciousness ceases with the body, then in their case they

simply utter an unconscious prophecy, for once they are firmly

convinced of what they assert, no conscious after-life is possible

for them. For there _are_ exceptions to every rule.

ON POST-MORTEM AND POST-NATAL CONSCIOUSNESS.[41]

ENQ. But if human self-consciousness survives death as a rule, why

should there be exceptions?

THEO. In the fundamental principles of the spiritual world no exception

is possible. But there are rules for those who see, and rules for

those who prefer to remain blind.

ENQ. Quite so, I understand. This is but an aberration of the blind

man, who denies the existence of the sun because he does not see

it. But after death his spiritual eyes will certainly compel him

to see. Is this what you mean?

THEO. He will not be compelled, nor will he see anything. Having

persistently denied during life the continuance of existence after

death, he will be unable to see it, because his spiritual capacity

having been stunted in life, it cannot develop after death, and

he will remain blind. By insisting that he _must_ see it, you

evidently mean one thing and I another. You speak of the spirit

from the spirit, or the flame from the flame—of Atma, in short—and

you confuse it with the human soul—Manas.... You do not understand

me; let me try to make it clear. The whole gist of your question

is to know whether, in the case of a downright materialist, the

complete loss of self-consciousness and self-perception after

death is possible? Isn’t it so? I answer, It is possible. Because,

believing firmly in our Esoteric Doctrine, which refers to the

_post-mortem_ period, or the interval between two lives or births

as merely a transitory state, I say, whether that interval between

two acts of the illusionary drama of life lasts one year or a

million, that _post-mortem_ state may, without any breach of the

fundamental law, prove to be just the same state as that of a man

who is in a dead faint.

ENQ. But since you have just said that the fundamental laws of the

after death state admit of no exceptions, how can this be?

THEO. Nor do I say that it does admit of an exception. But the

spiritual law of continuity applies only to things which are truly

real. To one who has read and understood Mundakya Upanishad and

Vedanta-Sara all this becomes very clear. I will say more: it is

sufficient to understand what we mean by Buddhi and the duality

of Manas to gain a clear perception why the materialist may fail

to have a self-conscious survival after death. Since Manas, in

its lower aspect, is the seat of the terrestrial mind, it can,

therefore, give only that perception of the Universe which is

based on the evidence of that mind; it cannot give spiritual

vision. It is said in the Eastern school, that between Buddhi and

Manas (the _Ego_), or Iswara and Pragna[42] there is in reality

no more difference than _between a forest and its trees, a lake

and its waters_, as the Mundakya teaches. One or hundreds of trees

dead from loss of vitality, or uprooted, are yet incapable of

preventing the forest from being still a forest.

ENQ. But, as I understand it, Buddhi represents in this simile the

forest, and Manas-taijasi[43] the trees. And if Buddhi is

immortal, how can that which is similar to it, _i.e._,

Manas-taijasi, entirely lose its consciousness till the day of its

new incarnation? I cannot understand it.

THEO. You cannot, because you will mix up an abstract representation of

the whole with its casual changes of form. Remember that if it

can be said of Buddhi-Manas that it is unconditionally immortal,

the same cannot be said of the lower Manas, still less of

Taijasi, which is merely an attribute. Neither of these, neither

Manas nor Taijasi, can exist apart from Buddhi, the divine

soul, because the first (_Manas_) is, in its lower aspect, a

qualificative attribute of the terrestrial personality, and the

second (_Taijasi_) is identical with the first, because it is the

same Manas only with the light of Buddhi reflected on it. In its

turn, Buddhi would remain only an impersonal spirit without this

element which it borrows from the human soul, which conditions

and makes of it, in this illusive Universe, _as it were something

separate_ from the universal soul for the whole period of the

cycle of incarnation. Say rather that _Buddhi-Manas_ can neither

die nor lose its compound self-consciousness in Eternity, nor the

recollection of its previous incarnations in which the two—_i.e_,

the spiritual and the human soul—had been closely linked together.

But it is not so in the case of a materialist, whose human soul

not only receives nothing from the divine soul, but even refuses

to recognise its existence. You can hardly apply this axiom to the

attributes and qualifications of the human soul, for it would be

like saying that because your divine soul is immortal, therefore

the bloom on your cheek must also be immortal; whereas this bloom,

like Taijasi, is simply a transitory phenomenon.

ENQ. Do I understand you to say that we must not mix in our minds the

noumenon with the phenomenon, the cause with its effect?

THEO. I do say so, and repeat that, limited to Manas or the human soul

alone, the radiance of Taijasi itself becomes a mere question

of time; because both immortality and consciousness after death

become, for the terrestrial personality of man, simply conditioned

attributes, as they depend entirely on conditions and beliefs

created by the human soul itself during the life of its body.

Karma acts incessantly; we reap _in our after-life_ only the fruit

of that which we have ourselves sown in this.

ENQ. But if my Ego can, after the destruction of my body, become

plunged in a state of entire unconsciousness, then where can be

the punishment for the sins of my past life?

THEO. Our philosophy teaches that Karmic punishment reaches Ego only in

its next incarnation. After death it receives only the reward for

the unmerited sufferings endured during its past incarnation.[44]

The whole punishment after death, even for the materialist,

consists, therefore, in the absence of any reward, and the utter

loss of the consciousness of one’s bliss and rest. Karma is the

child of the terrestrial Ego, the fruit of the actions of the tree

which is the objective personality visible to all, as much as

the fruit of all the thoughts and even motives of the spiritual

“I”; but Karma is also the tender mother, who heals the wounds

inflicted by her during the preceding life, before she will begin

to torture this Ego by inflicting upon him new ones. If it may

be said that there is not a mental or physical suffering in the

life of a mortal which is not the direct fruit and consequence of

some sin in a preceding existence; on the other hand, since he

does not preserve the slightest recollection of it in his actual

life, and feels himself not deserving of such punishment, and

therefore thinks he suffers for no guilt of his own, this alone is

sufficient to entitle the human soul to the fullest consolation,

rest, and bliss in his _post-mortem_ existence. Death comes to

our spiritual selves ever as a deliverer and friend. For the

materialist, who, notwithstanding his materialism, was not a bad

man, the interval between the two lives will be like the unbroken

and placid sleep of a child, either entirely dreamless, or filled

with pictures of which he will have no definite perception; while

for the average mortal it will be a dream as vivid as life, and

full of realistic bliss and visions.

ENQ. Then the personal man must always go on suffering _blindly_ the

Karmic penalties which the Ego has incurred?

THEO. Not quite so. At the solemn moment of death every man, even when

death is sudden, sees the whole of his past life marshalled before

him, in its minutest details. For one short instant the _personal_

becomes one with the _individual_ and all-knowing _Ego_. But this

instant is enough to show to him the whole claim of causes which

have been at work during his life. He sees and now understands

himself as he is, unadorned by flattery or self-deception. He

reads his life, remaining as a spectator looking down into the

arena he is quitting; he feels and knows the justice of all the

suffering that has overtaken him.

ENQ. Does this happen to everyone?

THEO. Without any exception. Very good and holy men see, we are taught,

not only the life they are leaving, but even several preceding

lives in which were produced the causes that made them what they

were in the life just closing. They recognise the law of Karma in

all its majesty and justice.

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

THEO. There is. As the man at the moment of death has a retrospective

insight into the life he has led, so, at the moment he is reborn

on to earth, the _Ego_, awaking from the state of Devachan, has

a prospective vision of the life which awaits him, and realizes

all the causes that have led to it. He realizes them and sees

futurity, because it is between Devachan and re-birth that the

_Ego_ regains his full _manasic_ consciousness, and re-becomes for

a short time the god he was, before, in compliance with Karmic

law, he first descended into matter and incarnated in the first

man of flesh. The “golden thread” sees all its “pearls” and misses

not one of them.

WHAT IS REALLY MEANT BY ANNIHILATION.

ENQ. I have heard some Theosophists speak of a golden thread on which

their lives were strung. What do they mean by this?

THEO. In the Hindu Sacred books it is said that that which undergoes

periodical incarnation is the _Sutratma_, which means literally

the “Thread Soul.” It is a synonym of the reincarnating Ego—Manas

conjoined with _Buddhi_—which absorbs the Manasic recollections

of all our preceding lives. It is so called, because, like the

pearls on a thread, so is the long series of human lives strung

together on that one thread. In some Upanishad these recurrent

rebirths are likened to the life of a mortal which oscillates

periodically between sleep and waking.

ENQ. This, I must say, does not seem very clear, and I will tell you

why. For the man who awakes, another day commences, but that man

is the same in soul and body as he was the day before; whereas

at every incarnation a full change takes place not only of the

external envelope, sex, and personality, but even of the mental

and psychic capacities. The simile does not seem to me quite

correct. The man who arises from sleep remembers quite clearly

what he has done yesterday, the day before, and even months and

years ago. But none of us has the slightest recollection of a

preceding life or of any fact or event concerning it.... I may

forget in the morning what I have dreamt during the night, still I

know that I have slept and have the certainty that I lived during

sleep; but what recollection can I have of my past incarnation

until the moment of death? How do you reconcile this?

THEO. Some people do recollect their past incarnations during life; but

these are Buddhas and Initiates. This is what the Yogis call

Samma-Sambuddha, or the knowledge of the whole series of one’s

past incarnations.

ENQ. But we ordinary mortals who have not reached Samma-Sambuddha, how

are we to understand this simile?

THEO. By studying it and trying to understand more correctly the

characteristics and the three kinds of sleep. Sleep is a general

and immutable law for man as for beast, but there are different

kinds of sleep and still more different dreams and visions.

ENQ. But this takes us to another subject. Let us return to the

materialist who, while not denying dreams, which he could hardly

do, yet denies immortality in general and the survival of his own

individuality.

THEO. And the materialist, without knowing it, is right. One who has no

inner perception of, and faith in, the immortality of his soul,

in that man the soul can never become Buddhi-taijasi, but will

remain simply Manas, and for Manas alone there is no immortality

possible. In order to live in the world to come a conscious

life, one has to believe first of all in that life during the

terrestrial existence. On these two aphorisms of the Secret

Science all the philosophy about the _post-mortem_ consciousness

and the immortality of the soul is built. The Ego receives always

according to its deserts. After the dissolution of the body,

there commences for it a period of full awakened consciousness,

or a state of chaotic dreams, or an utterly dreamless sleep

undistinguishable from annihilation, and these are the three

kinds of sleep. If our physiologists find the cause of dreams and

visions in an unconscious preparation for them during the waking

hours, why cannot the same be admitted for the _post-mortem_

dreams? I repeat it: _death is sleep_. After death, before the

spiritual eyes of the soul, begins a performance according to

a programme learnt and very often unconsciously composed by

ourselves: the practical carrying out of _correct_ beliefs or of

illusions which have been created by ourselves. The Methodist will

be Methodist, the Mussulman a Mussulman, at least for some time—in

a perfect fool’s paradise of each man’s creation and making. These

are the _post-mortem_ fruits of the tree of life. Naturally, our

belief or unbelief in the fact of conscious immortality is unable

to influence the unconditioned reality of the fact itself, once

that it exists; but the belief or unbelief in that immortality

as the property of independent or separate entities, cannot fail

to give colour to that fact in its application to each of these

entities. Now do you begin to understand it?

ENQ. I think I do. The materialist, disbelieving in everything that

cannot be proven to him by his five senses, or by scientific

reasoning, based exclusively on the data furnished by these senses

in spite of their inadequacy, and rejecting every spiritual

manifestation, accepts life as the only conscious existence.

Therefore according to their beliefs so will it be unto them. They

will lose their personal Ego, and will plunge into a dreamless

sleep until a new awakening. Is it so?

THEO. Almost so. Remember the practically universal teaching of the two

kinds of conscious existence: the terrestrial and the spiritual.

The latter must be considered real from the very fact that it is

inhabited by the eternal, changeless and immortal Monad; whereas

the incarnating Ego dresses itself up in new garments entirely

different from those of its previous incarnations, and in which

all except its spiritual prototype is doomed to a change so

radical as to leave no trace behind.

ENQ. How so? Can my conscious terrestrial “I” perish not only for a

time, like the consciousness of the materialist, but so entirely

as to leave no trace behind?

THEO. According to the teaching, it must so perish and in its fullness,

all except the principle which, having united itself with the

Monad, has thereby become a purely spiritual and indestructible

essence, one with it in the Eternity. But in the case of an

out-and-out materialist, in whose personal “I” no Buddhi has ever

reflected itself, how can the latter carry away into the Eternity

one particle of that terrestrial personality? Your spiritual “I”

is immortal; but from your present self it can carry away into

Eternity that only which has become worthy of immortality, namely,

the aroma alone of the flower that has been mown by death.

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

THEO. The flower, as all past and future flowers which have blossomed

and will have to blossom on the mother bough, the _Sutratma_,

all children of one root or Buddhi—will return to dust. Your

present “I,” as you yourself know, is not the body now sitting

before me, nor yet is it what I would call Manas-Sutratma, but

Sutratma-Buddhi.

ENQ. But this does not explain to me, at all, why you call life after

death immortal, infinite and real, and the terrestrial life a

simple phantom or illusion; since even that _post-mortem_ life has

limits, however much wider they may be than those of terrestrial

life.

THEO. No doubt. The spiritual Ego of man moves in eternity like a

pendulum between the hours of birth and death. But if these hours,

marking the periods of life terrestrial and life spiritual, are

limited in their duration, and if the very number of such stages

in Eternity between sleep and awakening, illusion and reality,

has its beginning and its end, on the other hand, the spiritual

pilgrim is eternal. Therefore are the hours of his _post-mortem_

life, when, disembodied, he stands face to face with truth and

not the mirages of his transitory earthly existences, during

the period of that pilgrimage which we call “the cycle of

rebirths”—the only reality in our conception. Such intervals,

their limitation notwithstanding, do not prevent the Ego, while

ever perfecting itself, from following undeviatingly, though

gradually and slowly, the path to its last transformation, when

that Ego, having reached its goal, becomes a divine being. These

intervals and stages help towards this final result instead of

hindering it; and without such limited intervals the divine

Ego could never reach its ultimate goal. I have given you once

already a familiar illustration by comparing the _Ego_, or the

_individuality_, to an actor, and its numerous and various

incarnations to the parts it plays. Will you call these parts or

their costumes the individuality of the actor himself? Like that

actor, the Ego is forced to play during the cycle of necessity,

up to the very threshold of _Paranirvana_, many parts such as

may be unpleasant to it. But as the bee collects its honey from

every flower, leaving the rest as food for the earthly worms, so

does our spiritual individuality, whether we call it Sutratma or

Ego. Collecting from every terrestrial personality, into which

Karma forces it to incarnate, the nectar alone of the spiritual

qualities and self-consciousness, it unites all these into one

whole and emerges from its chrysalis as the glorified Dhyan

Chohan. So much the worse for those terrestrial personalities

from which it could collect nothing. Such personalities cannot

assuredly outlive consciously their terrestrial existence.

ENQ. Thus, then, it seems that, for the terrestrial personality,

immortality is still conditional. Is, then, immortality itself

_not_ unconditional?

THEO. Not at all. But immortality cannot touch the _non-existent_: for

all that which exists as SAT, or emanates from SAT, immortality

and Eternity are absolute. Matter is the opposite pole of spirit,

and yet the two are one. The essence of all this, _i.e._, Spirit,

Force and Matter, or the three in one, is as endless as it is

beginningless; but the form acquired by this triple unity during

its incarnations, its externality, is certainly only the illusion

of our personal conceptions. Therefore do we call Nirvana and the

Universal life alone a reality, while relegating the terrestrial

life, its terrestrial personality included, and even its

Devachanic existence, to the phantom realm of illusion.

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

illusion?

THEO. It is simply a comparison made to facilitate the grasping of the

subject, and from the standpoint of terrestrial conceptions it is

a very correct one.

ENQ. And still I cannot understand, if the life to come is based on

justice and the merited retribution for all our terrestrial

suffering, how in the case of materialists, many of whom are

really honest and charitable men, there should remain of their

personality nothing but the refuse of a faded flower.

THEO. No one ever said such a thing. No materialist, however

unbelieving, can die for ever in the fulness of his spiritual

individuality. What was said is that consciousness can disappear

either fully or partially in the case of a materialist, so that no

conscious remains of his personality survive.

ENQ. But surely this is annihilation?

THEO. Certainly not. One can sleep a dead sleep and miss several

stations during a long railway journey, without the slightest

recollection or consciousness, and awake at another station and

continue the journey past innumerable other halting-places till

the end of the journey or the goal is reached. Three kinds of

sleep were mentioned to you: the dreamless, the chaotic, and

the one which is so real, that to the sleeping man his dreams

become full realities. If you believe in the latter why can’t you

believe in the former; according to the after life a man has

believed in and expected, such is the life he will have. He who

expected no life to come will have an absolute blank, amounting

to annihilation, in the interval between the two rebirths.

This is just the carrying out of the programme we spoke of, a

programme created by the materialists themselves. But there are

various kinds of materialists, as you say. A selfish, wicked

Egoist, one who never shed a tear for anyone but himself, thus

adding entire indifference to the whole world to his unbelief,

must, at the threshold of death, drop his personality for ever.

This personality having no tendrils of sympathy for the world

around and hence nothing to hook on to Sutratma, it follows that

with the last breath every connection between the two is broken.

There being no Devachan for such a materialist, the Sutratma will

reincarnate almost immediately. But those materialists who erred

in nothing but their disbelief will oversleep but one station. And

the time will come when that ex-materialist will perceive himself

in the Eternity and perhaps repent that he lost even one day, one

station, from the life eternal.

ENQ. Still, would it not be more correct to say that death is birth

into a new life, or a return once more into eternity?

THEO. You may if you like. Only remember that births differ, and that

there are births of “still-born” beings, which are _failures_ of

nature. Moreover, with your Western fixed ideas about material

life, the words “living” and “being” are quite inapplicable to

the pure subjective state of _post-mortem_ existence. It is just

because, save in a few philosophers who are not read by the many,

and who themselves are too confused to present a distinct picture

of it, it is just because your Western ideas of life and death

have finally become so narrow, that on the one hand they have

led to crass materialism, and on the other, to the still more

material conception of the other life, which the spiritualists

have formulated in their Summer-land. There the souls of men eat,

drink, marry, and live in a paradise quite as sensual as that

of Mohammed, but even less philosophical. Nor are the average

conceptions of the uneducated Christians any better, being if

possible still more material. What between truncated angels, brass

trumpets, golden harps, and material hell-fires, the Christian

heaven seems like a fairy scene at a Christmas pantomime.

It is because of these narrow conceptions that you find such

difficulty in understanding. It is just because the life of the

disembodied soul, while possessing all the vividness of reality,

as in certain dreams, is devoid of every grossly objective form of

terrestrial life, that the Eastern philosophers have compared it

with visions during sleep.

DEFINITE WORDS FOR DEFINITE THINGS.

ENQ. Don’t you think it is because there are no definite and fixed

terms to indicate each “Principle” in man, that such a confusion

of ideas arises in our minds with respect to the respective

functions of these “Principles”?

THEO. I have thought of it myself. The whole trouble has arisen from

this: we have started our expositions of, and discussion about,

the “Principles” using their Sanskrit names instead of coining

immediately, for the use of Theosophists, their equivalents in

English. We must try and remedy this now.

ENQ. You will do well, as it may avoid further confusion; no two

theosophical writers, it seems to me, have hitherto agreed to call

the same “Principle” by the same name.

THEO. The confusion is more apparent than real, however. I have heard

some of our Theosophists express surprise at, and criticize

several essays speaking of these “principles”; but, when examined,

there was no worse mistake in them than that of using the word

“Soul” to cover the three principles without specifying the

distinctions. The first, as positively the clearest of our

Theosophical writers, Mr. A. P. Sinnett, has some comprehensive

and admirably-written passages on the “Higher Self.”[45] His real

idea has also been misconceived by some, owing to his using the

word “Soul” in a general sense. Yet here are a few passages which

will show to you how clear and comprehensive is all that he writes

on the subject:—

... “The human soul, once launched on the streams of evolution

as a human individuality,[46] passes through alternate periods of

physical and relatively spiritual existence. It passes from the

one plane, or stratum, or condition of nature to the other under

the guidance of its Karmic affinities; living in incarnations the

life which its Karma has pre-ordained; modifying its progress

within the limitations of circumstances, and,—developing fresh

Karma by its use or abuse of opportunities,—it returns to

spiritual existence (Devachan) after each physical life,—through

the intervening region of Kamaloca—for rest and refreshment and

for the gradual absorption into its essence, as so much cosmic

progress, of the life’s experience gained ‘on earth’ or during

physical existence. This view of the matter will, moreover, have

suggested many collateral inferences to anyone thinking over the

subject; for instance, that the transfer of consciousness from

the Kamaloca to the Devachanic stage of this progression would

necessarily be gradual[47]; that in truth, no hard-and-fast line

separates the varieties of spiritual conditions; that even the

spiritual and physical planes, as psychic faculties in living

people show, are not so hopelessly walled off from one another

as materialistic theories would suggest; that all states of

nature are all around us simultaneously, and appeal to different

perceptive faculties; and so on.... It is clear that during

physical existence people who possess psychic faculties remain in

connection with the planes of superphysical consciousness; and

although most people may not be endowed with such faculties, we

all, as the phenomena of sleep, even, and especially ... those

of somnambulism or mesmerism, show, are capable of entering into

conditions of consciousness that the five physical senses have

nothing to do with. We—the souls within us—are not as it were

altogether adrift in the ocean of matter. We clearly retain some

surviving interest or rights in the shore from which, for a time,

we have floated off. The process of incarnation, therefore, is

not fully described when we speak of an _alternate_ existence on

the physical and spiritual planes, and thus picture the soul as a

complete entity slipping entirely from the one state of existence

to the other. The more correct definitions of the process would

probably represent incarnation as taking place on this physical

plane of nature by reason of an efflux emanating from the soul.

The Spiritual realm would all the while be the proper habitat

of the Soul, which would never entirely quit it; _and that

non-materializable portion of the Soul which abides permanently

on the spiritual plane may fitly_, perhaps, be spoken of as the

HIGHER SELF.”

This “Higher Self” is ATMA, and of course it is

“non-materializable,” as Mr. Sinnett says. Even more, it can

never be “objective” under any circumstances, even to the

highest spiritual perception. For _Atman_ or the “Higher Self”

is really Brahma, the ABSOLUTE, and indistinguishable from it.

In hours of _Samadhi_, the higher spiritual consciousness of the

Initiate is entirely absorbed in the ONE essence, which is Atman,

and therefore, being one with the whole, there can be nothing

objective for it. Now some of our Theosophists have got into

the habit of using the words “Self” and “Ego” as synonymous, of

associating the term “Self” with only man’s higher individual

or even personal “Self” or _Ego_, whereas this term ought never

to be applied except _to the One universal Self_. Hence the

confusion. Speaking of Manas, the “causal body,” we may call

it—when connecting it with the Buddhic radiance—the “HIGHER EGO,”

never the “Higher Self.” For even Buddhi, the “Spiritual Soul,”

is not the SELF, but the vehicle only of SELF. All the other

“_Selves_”—such as the “Individual” self and “personal” self—ought

never to be spoken or written of without their qualifying and

characteristic adjectives.

Thus in this most excellent essay on the “Higher Self,” this term

is applied to the _sixth principle_ or _Buddhi_ (of course in

conjunction with Manas, as without such union there would be no

_thinking_ principle or element in the spiritual soul); and has

in consequence given rise to just such misunderstandings. The

statement that “a child does not acquire its _sixth_ principle—or

become a morally responsible being capable of generating

Karma—until seven years old,” proves what is meant therein by

the HIGHER SELF. Therefore, the able author is quite justified

in explaining that after the “Higher Self” has passed into the

human being and saturated the personality—in some of the finer

organizations only—with its consciousness “people with psychic

faculties may indeed perceive this Higher Self through their finer

senses from time to time.” But so are those, who limit the term

“Higher Self” to the Universal Divine Principle, “justified” in

misunderstanding him. For, when we read, without being prepared

for this shifting of metaphysical terms,[48] that while “fully

manifesting on the physical plane ... the Higher Self still

remains a conscious spiritual Ego on the corresponding plane of

Nature”—we are apt to see in the “Higher Self” of this sentence,

“Atma,” and in the spiritual Ego, “Manas,” or rather Buddhi-Manas,

and forthwith to criticise the whole thing as incorrect.

To avoid henceforth such misrepresentations, I propose to

translate literally from the Occult Eastern terms their

equivalents in English, and offer these for future use.

{ Atma, the inseparable ray of the Universal

THE HIGHER { and ONE SELF. It is the God _above_, more

SELF is { than within, us. Happy the man who succeeds

{ in saturating his _inner Ego_ with it!

THE SPIRITUAL { the Spiritual soul or _Buddhi_, in close union

_divine_ { with _Manas_, the mind-principle, without

EGO is { which it is no EGO at all, but only the Atmic

{ _Vehicle_.

{ _Manas_, the “Fifth” Principle, so called,

{ independently of Buddhi. The Mind-Principle

THE INNER, { is only the Spiritual Ego when merged

or HIGHER { _into one_ with Buddhi,—no materialist being

“Ego” is { supposed to have in him _such_ an Ego, however

{ great his intellectual capacities. It is

{ the permanent _Individuality_ or the “Reincarnating

{ Ego.”

{ the physical man in conjunction with his

{ _lower_ Self, _i.e._, animal instincts, passions,

THE LOWER, { desires, etc. It is called the “false personality,”

or PERSONAL { and consists of the _lower Manas_ combined

“Ego” is { with Kama-rupa, and operating

{ through the Physical body and its phantom

{ or “double.”

The remaining “Principle” “_Pranâ_,” or “Life,” is, strictly

speaking, the radiating force or Energy of Atma—as the Universal

Life and the ONE SELF,—ITS lower or rather (in its effects) more

physical, because manifesting, aspect. Pranâ or Life permeates the

whole being of the objective Universe; and is called a “principle”

only because it is an indispensable factor and the _deus ex

machinâ_ of the living man.

ENQ. This division being so much simplified in its combinations will

answer better, I believe. The other is much too metaphysical.

THEO. If outsiders as well as Theosophists would agree to it, it would

certainly make matters much more comprehensible.

FOOTNOTES:

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

_not_.”

[41] A few portions of this chapter and of the preceding were

published in _Lucifer_ in the shape of a “Dialogue on the Mysteries of

After Life,” in the January number, 1889. The article was unsigned,

as if it were written by the editor, but it came from the pen of the

author of the present volume.

[42] Iswara is the collective consciousness of the manifested deity,

Brahma, _i.e._, the collective consciousness of the Host of Dhyan

Chohans (_vide_ SECRET DOCTRINE); and Pragna is their individual wisdom.

[43] _Taijasi_ means the radiant in consequence of its union with

Buddhi; _i.e._, Manas, the human soul, illuminated by the radiance

of the divine soul. Therefore, Manas-taijasi may be described as

radiant mind; the _human_ reason lit by the light of the spirit; and

Buddhi-Manas is the revelation of the divine _plus_ human intellect and

self-consciousness.

[44] Some Theosophists have taken exception to this phrase, but the

words are those of Master, and the meaning attached to the word

“unmerited” is that given above. In the T.P.S. pamphlet No. 6, a

phrase, criticised subsequently in LUCIFER, was used which was intended

to convey the same idea. In form, however, it was awkward and open to

the criticism directed against it; but the essential idea was that men

often suffer from the effects of the actions done by others, effects

which thus do not strictly belong to their own Karma—and for these

sufferings they of course deserve compensation.

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

7, Oct., 1885.

[46] The “reincarnating Ego,” or “Human Soul,” as he called it, the

_Causal Body_ with the Hindus.

[47] The length of this “transfer” depends, however, on the degree of

spirituality in the ex-personality of the disembodied Ego. For those

whose lives were very spiritual this transfer, though gradual, is very

rapid. The time becomes longer with the materialistically inclined.

[48] “Shifting of _Metaphysical terms_” applies here only to the

shifting of their translated equivalents from the Eastern expressions;

for to this day there never existed any such terms in English, every

Theosophist having to coin his own terms to render his thought. It is

nigh time then to settle on some definite nomenclature.

X. ON THE NATURE OF OUR THINKING PRINCIPLE.

THE MYSTERY OF THE EGO.

ENQ. I perceive in the quotation you brought forward a little while ago

from the _Buddhist Catechism_ a discrepancy that I would like

to hear explained. It is there stated that the Skandhas—memory

included—change with every new incarnation. And yet, it is

asserted that the reflection of the past lives, which, we are

told, are entirely made up of Skandhas, “must survive.” At the

present moment I am not quite clear in my mind as to what it is

precisely that survives, and I would like to have it explained.

What is it? Is it only that “reflection,” or those Skandhas, or

always that same Ego, the Manas?

THEO. I have just explained that the reincarnating Principle, or that

which we call the _divine_ man, is indestructible throughout

the life cycle: indestructible as a thinking _Entity_, and

even as an ethereal form. The “reflection” is only the

spiritualised _remembrance_, during the Devachanic period, of

the _ex-personality_, Mr. A. or Mrs. B.—with which the _Ego_

identifies itself during that period. Since the latter is but

the continuation of the earth-life, so to say, the very acme and

pitch, in an unbroken series, of the few happy moments in that

now past existence, the _Ego_ has to identify itself with the

_personal_ consciousness of that life, if anything shall remain of

it.

ENQ. This means that the _Ego_, notwithstanding its divine nature,

passes every such period between two incarnations in a state of

mental obscuration, or temporary insanity.

THEO. You may regard it as you like. Believing that, outside the ONE

Reality, nothing is better than a passing illusion—the whole

Universe included—we do not view it as insanity, but as a very

natural sequence or development of the terrestrial life. What

is life? A bundle of the most varied experiences, of daily

changing ideas, emotions, and opinions. In our youth we are often

enthusiastically devoted to an ideal, to some hero or heroine whom

we try to follow and revive; a few years later, when the freshness

of our youthful feelings has faded out and sobered down, we are

the first to laugh at our fancies. And yet there was a day when

we had so thoroughly identified our own personality with that

of the ideal in our mind—especially if it was that of a living

being—that the former was entirely merged and lost in the latter.

Can it be said of a man of fifty that he is the same being that

he was at twenty? The _inner_ man is the same; the outward living

personality is completely transformed and changed. Would you also

call these changes in the human mental states insanity?

ENQ. How would _you_ name them, and especially how would you explain

the permanence of one and the evanescence of the other?

THEO. We have our own doctrine ready, and to us it offers no

difficulty. The clue lies in the double consciousness of our mind,

and also, in the dual nature of the mental “principle.” There is a

spiritual consciousness, the Manasic mind illumined by the light

of Buddhi, that which subjectively perceives abstractions; and the

sentient consciousness (the lower _Manasic_ light), inseparable

from our physical brain and senses. This latter consciousness is

held in subjection by the brain and physical senses, and, being

in its turn equally dependent on them, must of course fade out

and finally die with the disappearance of the brain and physical

senses. It is only the former kind of consciousness, whose root

lies in eternity, which survives and lives for ever, and may,

therefore, be regarded as immortal. Everything else belongs to

passing illusions.

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

THEO. It is very well described in the just-mentioned essay on “The

Higher Self.” Says its author:

“The theory we are considering (the interchange of ideas

between the _Higher Ego_ and the lower self) harmonizes very

well with the treatment of this world in which we live as a

phenomenal world of illusion, the spiritual plans of nature

being on the other hand the noumenal world or plane of reality.

That region of nature in which, so to speak, the permanent

soul is rooted is more real than that in which its transitory

blossoms appear for a brief space to wither and fall to pieces,

while the plant recovers energy for sending forth a fresh

flower. Supposing flowers only were perceptible to ordinary

senses, and their roots existed in a state of Nature intangible

and invisible to us, philosophers in such a world who divined

that there were such things as roots in another plane of

existence would be apt to say of the flowers, These are not

the real plants; they are of no relative importance, merely

illusive phenomena of the moment.”

This is what I mean. The world in which blossom the transitory and

evanescent flowers of personal lives is not the real permanent

world; but that one in which we find the root of consciousness,

that root which is beyond illusion and dwells in the eternity.

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

THEO. I mean by this root the thinking entity, the Ego which

incarnates, whether we regard it as an “Angel,” “Spirit,” or

a Force. Of that which falls under our sensuous perceptions

only what grows directly from, or is attached to this invisible

root above, can partake of its immortal life. Hence every noble

thought, idea and aspiration of the personality it informs,

proceeding from and fed by this root, must become permanent. As

to the physical consciousness, as it is a quality of the sentient

but lower “principle,” (Kama-rupa or animal instinct, illuminated

by the lower _manasic_ reflection), or the human Soul—it must

disappear. That which displays activity, while the body is

asleep or paralysed, is the higher consciousness, our memory

registering but feebly and inaccurately—because automatically—such

experiences, and often failing to be even slightly impressed by

them.

ENQ. But how is it that MANAS, although you call it _Nous_, a “God,” is

so weak during its incarnations, as to be actually conquered and

fettered by its body?

THEO. I might retort with the same question and ask: “How is it that

he, whom you regard as ‘the God of Gods’ and the One living God,

_is so weak_ as to allow evil (or the Devil) to have the best of

_him_ as much as of all his creatures, whether while he remains

in Heaven, or during the time he was incarnated on this earth?”

You are sure to reply again: “This is a Mystery; and we are

forbidden to pry into the mysteries of God.” Not being forbidden

to do so by our religious philosophy, I answer your question that,

unless a God descends as an _Avatar_, no divine principle can be

otherwise than cramped and paralysed by turbulent, animal matter.

Heterogeneity will always have the upper hand over homogeneity,

on this plane of illusions, and the nearer an essence is to its

root-principle, Primordial Homogeneity, the more difficult it is

for the latter to assert itself on earth. Spiritual and divine

powers lie dormant in every human Being; and the wider the sweep

of his spiritual vision the mightier will be the God within him.

But as few men can feel that God, and since, as an average rule,

deity is always bound and limited in our thought by earlier

conceptions, those ideas that are inculcated in us from childhood,

therefore, it is so difficult for you to understand our philosophy.

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

THEO. Not at all; “_A_ God” is not the universal deity, but only a

spark from the one ocean of Divine Fire. Our God _within_ us, or

“our Father in Secret” is what we call the “HIGHER SELF,” _Atma_.

Our incarnating Ego was a God in its origin, as were all the

primeval emanations of the One Unknown Principle. But since its

“fall into Matter,” having to incarnate throughout the cycle, in

succession, from first to last, it is no longer a free and happy

god, but a poor pilgrim on his way to regain that which he has

lost. I can answer your more fully by repeating what is said of

the INNER MAN in ISIS UNVEILED (Vol. II. 593):—

“From the remotest antiquity _mankind_ as a whole _have

always been convinced of the existence of a personal

spiritual entity within the personal physical man_. This

inner entity was more or less divine, according to its

proximity to the _crown_. The closer the union the more

serene man’s destiny, the less dangerous the external

conditions. This belief is neither bigotry nor superstition,

only an ever-present, instinctive feeling of the proximity

of another spiritual and invisible world, which, though it

be subjective to the senses of the outward man, is perfectly

objective to the inner ego. Furthermore, they believed that

_there are external and internal conditions which affect the

determination of our will upon our actions_. They rejected

fatalism, for fatalism implies a blind course of some still

blinder power. But they believed in _destiny_ or _Karma_,

which from birth to death every man is weaving thread by

thread around himself, as a spider does his cobweb; and

this destiny is guided by that presence termed by some the

guardian angel, or our more intimate astral inner man, who

is but too often the evil genius of the man of flesh or

the _personality_. Both these lead on MAN, but one of them

must prevail; and from the very beginning of the invisible

affray the stern and implacable _law of compensation and

retribution_ steps in and takes its course, following

faithfully the fluctuations of the conflict. When the last

strand is woven, and man is seemingly enwrapped in the

network of his own doing, then he finds himself completely

under the empire of this _self-made_ destiny. It then either

fixes him like the inert shell against the immovable rock, or

like a feather carries him away in a whirlwind raised by his

own actions.”

Such is the destiny of the MAN—the true Ego, not the Automaton,

the _shell_ that goes by that name. It is for him to become the

conqueror over matter.

THE COMPLEX NATURE OF MANAS.

ENQ. But you wanted to tell me something of the essential nature of

Manas, and of the relation in which the Skandhas of physical man

stand to it?

THEO. It is this nature, mysterious, Protean, beyond any grasp, and

almost shadowy in its correlations with the other principles, that

is most difficult to realise, and still more so to explain. Manas

is a “principle,” and yet it is an “Entity” and individuality or

Ego. He is a “God,” and yet he is doomed to an endless cycle of

incarnations, for each of which he is made responsible, and for

each of which he has to suffer. All this seems as contradictory as

it is puzzling; nevertheless, there are hundreds of people, even

in Europe, who realise all this perfectly, for they comprehend the

Ego not only in its integrity but in its many aspects. Finally, if

I would make myself comprehensible, I must begin by the beginning

and give you the genealogy of this Ego in a few lines.

ENQ. Say on.

THEO. Try to imagine a “Spirit,” a celestial Being, whether we call it

by one name or another, divine in its essential nature, yet

not pure enough to be _one with the_ ALL, and having, in order

to achieve this, to so purify its nature as to finally gain

that goal. It can do so only by passing _individually_ and

_personally_, _i.e._, spiritually and physically, through

every experience and feeling that exists in the manifold or

differentiated Universe. It has, therefore, after having gained

such experience in the lower kingdoms, and having ascended higher

and still higher with every rung on the ladder of being, to pass

through every experience on the human planes. In its very essence

it is THOUGHT, and is, therefore, called in its plurality _Manasa

putra_, “the Sons of the (Universal) mind.” This _individualised_

“Thought” is what we Theosophists call the _real_ human EGO, the

thinking Entity imprisoned in a case of flesh and bones. This

is surely a Spiritual Entity, not _Matter_, and such Entities

are the incarnating EGOS that inform the bundle of animal matter

called mankind, and whose names are _Manasa_ or “Minds.” But

once imprisoned, or incarnate, their essence becomes dual: that

is to say, the _rays_ of the eternal divine Mind, considered as

individual entities, assume a two-fold attribute which is (_a_)

their _essential_ inherent characteristic, heaven-aspiring mind

(higher _Manas_) and (_b_) the human quality of thinking, or

animal cogitation, rationalised owing to the superiority of the

human brain, the Kama-tending or lower Manas. One gravitates

toward Buddhi, the other, tending downward, to the seat of

passions and animal desires. The latter have no room in Devachan,

nor can they associate with the divine triad which ascends as ONE

into mental bliss. Yet it is the Ego, the Manasic Entity, which is

held responsible for all the sins of the lower attributes, just

as a parent is answerable for the transgressions of his child, so

long as the latter remains irresponsible.

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

THEO. It is. When, therefore, it is stated that the “personality” dies

with the body it does not state all. The body, which was only the

objective symbol of Mr. A. or Mrs. B., fades away with all its

material Skandhas, which are the visible expressions thereof. But

all that which constituted during life the _spiritual_ bundle of

experiences, the noblest aspirations, undying affections, and

_unselfish_ nature of Mr. A. or Mrs. B. clings for the time of

the Devachanic period to the EGO, which is identified with the

spiritual portion of that terrestrial Entity, now passed away out

of sight. The ACTOR is so imbued with the _rôle_ just played by

him that he dreams of it during the whole Devachanic night, which

_vision_ continues till the hour strikes for him to return to the

stage of life to enact another part.

ENQ. But how is it that this doctrine, which you say is as old as

thinking men, has found no room, say, in Christian theology?

THEO. You are mistaken, it has; only theology has disfigured it out of

all recognition, as it has many other doctrines. Theology calls

the EGO the Angel that God gives us at the moment of our birth,

_to take care of our Soul_. Instead of holding that “Angel”

responsible for the transgressions of the poor helpless “Soul,” it

is the latter which, according to theological logic, is punished

for all the sins of both flesh and mind! It is the Soul, the

immaterial _breath_ of God and his _alleged creation_, which, by

some most amazing intellectual jugglery, is doomed to burn in a

material hell without ever being consumed,[49] while the “Angel”

escapes scot free after folding his white pinions and wetting them

with a few tears. Aye, these are our “ministering Spirits,” the

“messengers of mercy” who are sent, Bishop Mant tells us—

“.... to fulfil

Good for Salvation’s heirs, for us they still

Grieve when we sin, rejoice when we repent;”

Yet it becomes evident that if all the Bishops the world over

were asked to define once for all what they mean by _Soul_ and

its functions, they would be as unable to do so as to show us any

shadow of logic in the orthodox belief!

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

ENQ. To this the adherents to this belief might answer, that if even

the orthodox dogma does promise the impenitent sinner and

materialist a bad time of it in a rather too realistic Inferno, it

gives them, on the other hand, a chance for repentance to the last

minute. Nor do they teach annihilation, or loss of personality,

which is all the same.

THEO. If the Church teaches nothing of the kind, on the other hand,

Jesus does; and that is something to those, at least, who place

Christ higher than Christianity.

ENQ. Does Christ teach anything of the sort?

THEO. He does; and every well-informed Occultist and even Kabalist will

tell you so. Christ, or the fourth Gospel at any rate, teaches

re-incarnation as also the annihilation of the personality, if

you but forget the dead letter and hold to the esoteric Spirit.

Remember verses 1 and 2 in chapter xv. of St. John. What does the

parable speak about if not of the _upper triad_ in man? _Atma_

is the Husbandman—the Spiritual Ego or _Buddhi_ (Christos) the

Vine, while the animal and vital Soul, the _personality_, is the

“branch.” “I am the _true_ vine, and my Father is the Husbandman.

Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away.... As

the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the

vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the Vine—ye

are the branches. If a man abide not in me he is cast forth as a

branch, and is _withered_ and cast into the fire and burned.”

Now we explain it in this way. Disbelieving in the hell-fires

which theology discovers as underlying the threat to the

_branches_, we say that the “Husbandman” means Atma, the Symbol

for the infinite, impersonal Principle,[50] while the Vine stands

for the Spiritual Soul, _Christos_, and each “branch” represents a

new incarnation.

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

interpretation?

THEO. Universal symbology is a warrant for its correctness and that it

is not arbitrary. Hermas says of “God” that he “planted the

Vineyard,” _i.e._, he created mankind. In the _Kabala_, it is

shown that the Aged of the Aged, or the “Long Face,” plants a

vineyard, the latter typifying mankind; and a vine, meaning Life.

The Spirit of “_King_ Messiah” is, therefore, shown as washing

his garments in _the wine_ from above, from the creation of the

world.[51] And King _Messiah_ is the EGO purified _by washing his

garments_ (_i.e._, his personalities in re-birth), in the _wine

from_ above, or BUDDHI. Adam, or A-Dam, is “blood.” The Life of

the flesh is in the blood (nephesh—soul), _Leviticus_ xvii. And

Adam-Kadmon is the Only-Begotten. Noah also plants a vineyard—the

allegorical hot-bed of future humanity. As a consequence of the

adoption of the same allegory, we find it reproduced in the

Nazarene _Codex_. Seven vines are procreated—which seven vines

are our Seven Races with their seven Saviours or _Buddhas_—which

spring from Iukabar Zivo, and Ferho (or Parcha) Raba waters

them.[52] When the blessed will ascend among the creatures of

Light, they shall see Iavar-Xivo, _Lord of_ LIFE, and the FIRST

VINE.[53] These kabalistic metaphors are thus naturally repeated

in the _Gospel according to St. John_ (xv., 1).

Let us not forget that in the human system—even according to

those philosophies which ignore our septenary division—the EGO

or _thinking man_ is called the _Logos_, or the Son of Soul

and Spirit. “Manas is the adopted Son of King —— and Queen ——”

(esoteric equivalents for Atma and Buddhi), says an occult work.

He is the “man-god” of Plato, who crucifies himself in _Space_

(or the duration of the life cycle) for the redemption of MATTER.

This he does by incarnating over and over again, thus leading

mankind onward to perfection, and making thereby room for lower

forms to develop into higher. Not for one life does he cease

progressing himself and helping all physical nature to progress;

even the occasional, very rare event of his losing one of his

personalities, in the case of the latter being entirely devoid of

even a spark of spirituality, helps toward his individual progress.

ENQ. But surely, if the _Ego_ is held responsible for the

transgressions of its personalities, it has to answer also for the

loss, or rather the complete annihilation, of one of such.

THEO. Not at all, unless it has done nothing to avert this dire fate.

But if, all its efforts notwithstanding, its voice, _that of our

conscience_, was unable to penetrate through the wall of matter,

then the obtuseness of the latter proceeding from the imperfect

nature of the material is classed with other failures of nature.

The Ego is sufficiently punished by the loss of Devachan, and

especially by having to incarnate almost immediately.

ENQ. This doctrine of the possibility of losing one’s soul—or

personality, do you call it?—militates against the ideal theories

of both Christians and Spiritualists, though Swedenborg adopts it

to a certain extent, in what he calls _Spiritual death_. They will

never accept it.

THEO. This can in no way alter a fact in nature, if it be a fact, or

prevent such a thing occasionally taking place. The universe and

everything in it, moral, mental, physical, psychic, or Spiritual,

is built on a perfect law of equilibrium and harmony. As said

before (_vide Isis Unveiled_), the centripetal force could not

manifest itself without the centrifugal in the harmonious

revolutions of the spheres, and all forms and their progress

are the products of this dual force in nature. Now the Spirit

(or _Buddhi_) is the centrifugal and the soul (_Manas_) the

centripetal spiritual energy; and to produce one result they

have to be in perfect union and harmony. Break or damage the

centripetal motion of the earthly soul tending toward the centre

which attracts it; arrest its progress by clogging it with a

heavier weight of matter than it can bear, or than is fit for the

Devachanic state, and the harmony of the whole will be destroyed.

Personal life, or perhaps rather its ideal reflection, can only

be continued if sustained by the two-fold force, that is by the

close union of _Buddhi_ and _Manas_ in every re-birth or personal

life. The least deviation from harmony damages it; and when it is

destroyed beyond redemption the two forces separate at the moment

of death. During a brief interval the _personal_ form (called

indifferently _Kama rupa_ and _Mayavi rupa_), the spiritual

efflorescence of which, attaching itself to the Ego, follows it

into Devachan and gives to the permanent _individuality_ its

_personal_ colouring (_pro tem._, so to speak), is carried off

to remain in _Kama-loka_ and to be gradually annihilated. For

it is after the death of the utterly depraved, the unspiritual

and the wicked beyond redemption, that arrives the critical and

supreme moment. If during life the ultimate and desperate effort

of the INNER SELF (_Manas_), to unite something of the personality

with itself and the high glimmering ray of the divine Buddhi is

thwarted; if this ray is allowed to be more and more shut out

from the ever-thickening crust of physical brain, the Spiritual

EGO or Manas, once freed from the body, remains severed entirely

from the ethereal relic of the personality; and the latter, or

_Kama rupa_, following its earthly attractions, is drawn into

and remains in Hades, which we call the _Kama-loka_. These are

“the withered branches” mentioned by Jesus as being cut off

from the _Vine_. Annihilation, however, is never instantaneous,

and may require centuries sometimes for its accomplishment.

But there the personality remains along with the _remnants_

of other more fortunate personal Egos, and becomes with them

a _shell_ and an _Elementary_. As said in _Isis_, it is these

two classes of “Spirits,” the _shells_ and the _Elementaries_,

which are the leading “Stars” on the great spiritual stage of

“materialisations.” And you may be sure of it, it is not they

who incarnate; and, therefore, so few of these “dear departed

ones” know anything of re-incarnation, misleading thereby the

Spiritualists.

ENQ. But does not the author of “_Isis Unveiled_” stand accused of

having preached against re-incarnation?