[The curious information-for whatsoever else the world may think of it,
it will doubtless be acknowledged to be that--contained in the article
that follows, merits a few words of introduction. The details given in
it on the subject of what has always been considered as one of the
darkest and most strictly guarded of the mysteries of the initiation
into occultism--from the days of the Rishis until those of the
Theosophical Society--came to the knowledge of the author in a way that
would seem to the ordinary run of Europeans strange and supernatural.
He himself, however, we may assure the reader, is a most thorough
disbeliever in the Supernatural, though he has learned too much to limit
the capabilities of the natural as some do. Further, he has to make the
following confession of his own belief. It will be apparent, from a
careful perusal of the facts, that if the matter be really as stated
therein, the author cannot himself be an adept of high grade, as the
article in such a case would never have been written. Nor does he
pretend to be one. He is, or rather was, for a few years an humble
Chela. Hence, the converse must consequently be also true, that as
regards the higher stages of the mystery he can have no personal
experience, but speaks of it only as a close observer left to his own
surmises--and no more. He may, therefore, boldly state that during, and
notwithstanding, his unfortunately rather too short stay with some
adepts, he has by actual experiment and observation verified some of the
less transcendental or incipient parts of the "Course." And, though it
will be impossible for him to give positive testimony as to what lies
beyond, he may yet mention that all his own course of study, training
and experience, long, severe and dangerous as it has often been, leads
him to the conviction that everything is really as stated, save some
details purposely veiled. For causes which cannot be explained to the
public, he himself may he unable or unwilling to use the secret he has
gained access to. Still he is permitted by one to whom all his
reverential affection and gratitude are due--his last guru--to divulge
for the benefit of Science and Man, and specially for the good of those
who are courageous enough to personally make the experiment, the
following astounding particulars of the occult methods for prolonging
life to a period far beyond the common.--G.M.]
---------
* A. Chela is the pupil and disciple of an initiated Guru or
Master.--Ed.
---------
Probably one of the first considerations which move the worldly-minded
at present to solicit initiation into Theosophy is the belief, or hope,
that, immediately on joining, some extraordinary advantage over the rest
of mankind will be conferred upon the candidate. Some even think that
the ultimate result of their initiation will perhaps be exemption from
that dissolution which is called the common lot of mankind. The
traditions of the "Elixir of Life," said to be in the possession of
Kabalists and Alchemists, are still cherished by students of Medieval
Occultism--in Europe. The allegory of the Ab-e Hyat or Water of Life,
is still credited as a fact by the degraded remnants of the Asiatic
esoteric sects ignorant of the real GREAT SECRET. The "pungent and fiery
Essence," by which Zanoni renewed his existence, still fires the
imagination of modern visionaries as a possible scientific discovery of
the future.
Theosophically, though the fact is distinctly declared to be true, the
above-named conceptions of the mode of procedure leading to the
realization of the fact, are known to be false. The reader may or may
not believe it; but as a matter of fact, Theosophical Occultists claim
to have communication with (living) Intelligences possessing an
infinitely wider range of observation than is contemplated even by the
loftiest aspirations of modern science, all the present "Adepts" of
Europe and America--dabblers in the Kabala--notwithstanding. But far
even as those superior Intelligences have investigated (or, if
preferred, are alleged to have investigated), and remotely as they may
have searched by the help of inference and analogy, even They have
failed to discover in the Infinity anything permanent but--SPACE. ALL
IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE. Reflection, therefore, will easily suggest to the
reader the further logical inference that in a Universe which is
essentially impermanent in its conditions, nothing can confer
permanency. Therefore, no possible substance, even if drawn from the
depths of Infinity; no imaginable combination of drugs, whether of our
earth or any other, though compounded by even the Highest Intelligence;
no system of life or discipline though directed by the sternest
determination and skill, could possibly produce Immutability. For in
the universe of solar systems, wherever and however investigated,
Immutability necessitates "Non-Being" in the physical sense given it by
the Theists-Non-Being which is nothing in the narrow conceptions of
Western Religionists--a reductio ad absurdum. This is a gratuitous
insult even when applied to the pseudo-Christian or ecclesiastical
Jehovite idea of God.
Consequently, it will be seen that the common ideal conception of
"Immortality" is not only essentially wrong, but a physical and
metaphysical impossibility. The idea, whether cherished by Theosophists
or non-Theosophists, by Christians or Spiritualists, by Materialists or
Idealists, is a chimerical illusion. But the actual prolongation of
human life is possible for a time so long as to appear miraculous and
incredible to those who regard our span of existence as necessarily
limited to at most a couple of hundred years. We may break, as it were,
the shock of Death, and instead of dying, change a sudden plunge into
darkness to a transition into a brighter light. And this may be made so
gradual that the passage from one state of existence to another shall
have its friction minimized, so as to be practically imperceptible.
This is a very different matter, and quite within the reach of Occult
Science. In this, as in all other cases, means properly directed will
gain their ends, and causes produce effects. Of course, the only
question is, what are these causes, and how, in their turn, are they to
be produced. To lift, as far as may be allowed, the veil from this
aspect of Occultism, is the object of the present paper.
We must premise by reminding the reader of two Theosophic doctrines,
constantly inculcated in "Isis" and in other mystic works--namely, (a)
that ultimately the Kosmos is One--one under infinite variations and
manifestations, and (b) that the so-called man is a "compound being"--
composite not only in the exoteric scientific sense of being a congeries
of living so-called material Units, but also in the esoteric sense of
being a succession of seven forms or parts of itself, interblended with
each other. To put it more clearly we might say that the more ethereal
forms are but duplicates of the same aspect,--each finer one lying
within the inter-atomic spaces of the next grosser. We would have the
reader understand that these are no subtleties, no "spiritualities" at
all in the Christo-Spiritualistic sense. In the actual man reflected in
your mirror are really several men, or several parts of one composite
man; each the exact counterpart of the other, but the "atomic
conditions" (for want of a better word) of each of which are so arranged
that its atoms interpenetrate those of the next "grosser" form. It does
not, for our present purpose, matter how the Theosophists,
Spiritualists, Buddhists, Kabalists, or Vedantists, count, separate,
classify, arrange or name these, as that war of terms may be postponed
to another occasion. Neither does it matter what relation each of these
men has to the various "elements" of the Kosmos of which he forms a
part. This knowledge, though of vital importance in other respects, need
not be explained or discussed now. Nor does it much more concern us
that the Scientists deny the existence of such an arrangement, because
their instruments are inadequate to make their senses perceive it. We
will simply reply--"get better instruments and keener senses, and
eventually you will."
All we have to say is that if you are anxious to drink of the "Elixir of
Life," and live a thousand years or so, you must take our word for the
matter at present, and proceed on the assumption. For esoteric science
does not give the faintest possible hope that the desired end will ever
be attained by any other way; while modern, or so-called exact
science--laughs at it.
So, then, we have arrived at the point where we have determined--
literally, not metaphorically--to crack the outer shell known as the
mortal coil or body, and hatch out of it, clothed in our next. This
"next" is not spiritual, but only a more ethereal form. Having by a
long training and preparation adapted it for a life in this atmosphere,
during which time we have gradually made the outward shell to die off
through a certain process (hints of which will be found further on) we
have to prepare for this physiological transformation.
How are we to do it? In the first place we have the actual, visible,
material body--Man, so called; though, in fact, but his outer shell--to
deal with. Let us bear in mind that science teaches us that in about
every seven years we change skin as effectually as any serpent; and
this so gradually and imperceptibly that, had not science after years of
unremitting study and observation assured us of it, no one would have
had the slightest suspicion of the fact.
We see, moreover, that in process of time any cut or lesion upon the
body, however deep, has a tendency to repair the loss and reunite; a
piece of lost skin is very soon replaced by another. Hence, if a man,
partially flayed alive, may sometimes survive and be covered with a new
skin, so our astral, vital body--the fourth of the seven (having
attracted and assimilated to itself the second) and which is so much
more ethereal than the physical one--may be made to harden its particles
to the atmospheric changes. The whole secret is to succeed in evolving
it out, and separating it from the visible; and while its generally
invisible atoms proceed to concrete themselves into a compact mass, to
gradually get rid of the old particles of our visible frame so as to
make them die and disappear before the new set has had time to evolve
and replace them. We can say no more. The Magdalene is not the only
one who could be accused of having "seven spirits" in her, though men
who have a lesser number of spirits (what a misnomer that word!) in
them, are not few or exceptional; they are the frequent failures of
nature--the incomplete men and women.*
-----------
* This is not to be taken as meaning that such persons are thoroughly
destitute of some one or several of the seven principles--a man born
without an arm has still its ethereal counterpart; but that they are so
latent that they cannot be developed, and consequently are to be
considered as non-existing.--Ed. Theos.
----------
Each of these has in turn to survive the preceding and more dense one,
and then die. The exception is the sixth when absorbed into and blended
with the seventh. The "Phatu" * of the old Hindu physiologist had a
dual meaning, the esoteric side of which corresponds with the Tibetan
"Zung" (seven principles of the body).
We Asiatics, have a proverb, probably handed down to us, and by the
Hindus repeated ignorantly as to its esoteric meaning. It has been
known ever since the old Rishis mingled familiarly with the simple and
noble people they taught and led on. The Devas had whispered into every
man's ear--Thou only--if thou wilt--art "immortal." Combine with this
the saying of a Western author that if any man could just realize for an
instant, that he had to die some day, he would die that instant. The
Illuminated will perceive that between these two sayings, rightly
understood, stands revealed the whole secret of Longevity. We only die
when our will ceases to be strong enough to make us live. In the
majority of cases, death comes when the torture and vital exhaustion
accompanying a rapid change in our physical conditions becomes so
intense as to weaken, for one single instant, our "clutch on life," or
the tenacity of the will to exist. Till then, however severe may be the
disease, however sharp the pang, we are only sick or wounded, as the
case may be.
-----------
* Dhatu--the seven principal substances of the human body--chyle, flesh,
blood, fat, bones, marrow, semen.
-----------
This explains the cases of sudden deaths from joy, fright, pain, grief
or such other causes. The sense of a life-task consummated, of the
worthlessness of one's existence, if strongly realized, produced death
as surely as poison or a rifle-bullet. On the other hand, a stern
determination to continue to live, has, in fact, carried many through
the crises of the most severe diseases, in perfect safety.
First, then, must be the determination--the Will--the conviction of
certainty, to survive and continue.* Without that, all else is useless.
And to be efficient for the purpose, it must be, not only a passing
resolution of the moment, a single fierce desire of short duration, but
a settled and continued strain, as nearly as can be continued and
concentrated without one single moment's relaxation. In a word, the
would-be "Immortal" must be on his watch night and day, guarding self
against-himself. To live--to live--to live--must be his unswerving
resolve. He must as little as possible allow himself to be turned aside
from it. It may be said that this is the most concentrated form of
selfishness,--that it is utterly opposed to our Theosophic professions
of benevolence, and disinterestedness, and regard for the good of
humanity. Well, viewed in a short-sighted way, it is so. But to do
good, as in everything else, a man must have time and materials to work
with, and this is a necessary means to the acquirement of powers by
which infinitely more good can be done than without them.
----------
* Col. Olcott has epigrammatically explained the creative or rather the
re-creative power of the Will, in his "Buddhist Catechism." He there
shows--of course, speaking on behalf of the Southern Buddhists--that
this Will to live, if not extinguished in the present life, leaps over
the chasm of bodily death, and recombines the Skandhas, or groups of
qualities that made up the individual into a new personality. Man is,
therefore, reborn as the result of his own unsatisfied yearning for
objective existence. Col. Olcott puts it in this way:
Q. 123. What is that, in man, which gives him the impression of
having a permanent individuality?
A. Tanha, or the unsatisfied desire for existence. The being having
done that for which he must be rewarded or punished in future, and
having Tanha, will have a rebirth through the influence of Karma.
Q. 124. ....What is it that is reborn?
A. A new aggregation of Skandhas, or individuality, caused by the last
yearning of the dying person.
Q. 128. To what cause must we attribute the differences in the
combination of the Five Skandhas has which makes every individual
different from every other individual?
A. To the Karma of the individual in the next preceding birth.
Q. 129. What is the force or energy that is at work, under the
guidance of Karma, to produce the new being?
A. Tanha--the "Will to Live."
----------
When these are once mastered, the opportunities to use them will arrive,
for there comes a moment when further watch and exertion are no longer
needed:--the moment when the turning-point is safely passed. For the
present as we deal with aspirants and not with advanced chelas, in the
first stage a determined, dogged resolution, and an enlightened
concentration of self on self, are all that is absolutely necessary. It
must not, however, be considered that the candidate is required to be
unhuman or brutal in his negligence of others. Such a recklessly
selfish course would be as injurious to him as the contrary one of
expending his vital energy on the gratification of his physical desires.
All that is required from him is a purely negative attitude. Until the
turning-point is reached, he must not "lay out" his energy in lavish or
fiery devotion to any cause, however noble, however "good," however
elevated.* Such, we can solemnly assure the reader, would bring its
reward in many ways--perhaps in another life, perhaps in this world, but
it would tend to shorten the existence it is desired to preserve, as
surely as self-indulgence and profligacy. That is why very few of the
truly great men of the world (of course, the unprincipled adventurers
who have applied great powers to bad uses are out of the question)--the
martyrs, the heroes, the founders of religions, the liberators of
nations, the leaders of reforms--ever became members of the long-lived
"Brotherhood of Adepts" who were by some and for long years accused of
selfishness. (And that is also why the Yogis, and the Fakirs of modern
India--most of whom are acting now but on the dead-letter tradition, are
required if they would be considered living up to the principles of
their profession--to appear entirely dead to every inward feeling or
emotion.) Notwithstanding the purity of their hearts, the greatness of
their aspirations, the disinterestedness of their self-sacrifice, they
could not live for they had missed the hour.
--------
* On page 151 of Mr. Sinnett's "Occult World," the author's much abused,
and still more doubted correspondent assures him that none yet of his
"degree are like the stern hero of Bulwer's" Zanoni.... "the heartless
morally dried up mummies some would fancy us to be" and adds that few of
them "would care to play the part in life of a desiccated pansy between
the leaves of a volume of solemn poetry." But our adept omits saying
that one or two degrees higher, and he will have to submit for a period
of years to such a mummifying process unless, indeed, he would
voluntarily give up a life-long labour and--Die.--Ed.
----------
They may at times have exercised powers which the world called
miraculous; they may have electrified man and subdued Nature by fiery
and self-devoted Will; they may have been possessed of a so-called
superhuman intelligence; they may have even had knowledge of, and
communion with, members of our own occult Brotherhood; but, having
deliberately resolved to devote their vital energy to the welfare of
others, rather than to themselves, they have surrendered life; and,
when perishing on the cross or the scaffold, or falling, sword in hand,
upon the battle-field, or sinking exhausted after a successful
consummation of the life-object, on death-beds in their chambers, they
have all alike had to cry out at last: "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani!"
So far so good. But, given the will to live, however powerful, we have
seen that, in the ordinary course of mundane life, the throes of
dissolution cannot be checked. The desperate, and again and again
renewed struggle of the Kosmic elements to proceed with a career of
change despite the will that is checking them, like a pair of runaway
horses struggling against the determined driver holding them in, are so
cumulatively powerful, that the utmost efforts of the untrained human
will acting within an unprepared body become ultimately useless. The
highest intrepidity of the bravest soldier; the interest desire of the
yearning lover; the hungry greed of the unsatisfied miser; the most
undoubting faith of the sternest fanatic; the practiced insensibility
to pain of the hardiest red Indian brave or half-trained Hindu Yogi;
the most deliberate philosophy of the calmest thinker--all alike fail at
last. Indeed, sceptics will allege in opposition to the verities of
this article that, as a matter of experience, it is often observed that
the mildest and most irresolute of minds and the weakest of physical
frames are often seen to resist "Death" longer than the powerful will of
the high-spirited and obstinately-egotistic man, and the iron frame of
the labourer, the warrior and the athlete. In reality, however, the key
to the secret of these apparently contradictory phenomena is the true
conception of the very thing we have already said. If the physical
development of the gross "outer shell" proceeds on parallel lines and at
an equal rate with that of the will, it stands to reason that no
advantage for the purpose of overcoming it, is attained by the latter.
The acquisition of improved breechloaders by one modern army confers no
absolute superiority if the enemy also becomes possessed of them.
Consequently it will be at once apparent, to those who think on the
subject, that much of the training by which what is known as "a powerful
and determined nature," perfects itself for its own purpose on the stage
of the visible world, necessitating and being useless without a parallel
development of the "gross" and so-called animal frame, is, in short,
neutralized, for the purpose at present treated of, by the fact that its
own action has armed the enemy with weapons equal to its own. The force
of the impulse to dissolution is rendered equal to the will to oppose
it; and being cumulative, subdues the will-power and triumphs at last.
On the other hand, it may happen that an apparently weak and vacillating
will-power residing in a weak and undeveloped physical frame, may be so
reinforced by some unsatisfied desire--the Ichcha (wish)--as it is
called by the Indian Occultists (for instance, a mother's heart-yearning
to remain and support her fatherless children)--as to keep down and
vanquish, for a short time, the physical throes of a body to which it
has become temporarily superior.
The whole rationale then, of the first condition of continued existence
in this world, is (a) the development of a Will so powerful as to
overcome the hereditary (in a Darwinian sense) tendencies of the atoms
composing the "gross" and palpable animal frame, to hurry on at a
particular period in a certain course of Kosmic change; and (b) to so
weaken the concrete action of that animal frame as to make it more
amenable to the power of the Will. To defeat an army, you must
demoralize and throw it into disorder.
To do this then, is the real object of all the rites, ceremonies, fasts,
"prayers," meditations, initiations and procedures of self-discipline
enjoined by various esoteric Eastern sects, from that course of pure and
elevated aspiration which leads to the higher phases of Adeptism Real,
down to the fearful and disgusting ordeals which the adherent of the
"Left-hand-Road" has to pass through, all the time maintaining his
equilibrium. The procedures have their merits and their demerits, their
separate uses and abuses, their essential and non-essential parts, their
various veils, mummeries, and labyrinths. But in all, the result aimed
at is reached, if by different processes. The Will is strengthened,
encouraged and directed, and the elements opposing its action are
demoralized. Now, to any one who has thought out and connected the
various evolution theories, as taken, not from any occult source, but
from the ordinary scientific manual accessible to all--from the
hypothesis of the latest variation in the habits of species--say, the
acquisition of carnivorous habits by the New Zealand parrot, for
instance--to the farthest glimpses backwards into Space and Eternity
afforded by the "Fire Mist" doctrine, it will be apparent that they all
rest on one basis. That basis is, that the impulse once given to a
hypothetical Unit has a tendency to continue; and consequently, that
anything "done" by something at a certain time and certain place tends
to repeat itself at other times and places.
Such is the admitted rationale of heredity and atavism. That the same
things apply to our ordinary conduct is apparent from the notorious ease
with which "habits,"--bad or good, as the case may be--are acquired, and
it will not be questioned that this applies, as a rule, as much to the
moral and intellectual, as to the physical world.
Furthermore, History and Science teach us plainly that certain physical
habits conduce to certain moral and intellectual results. There never
yet was a conquering nation of vegetarians. Even in the old Aryan times,
we do not learn that the very Rishis, from whose lore and practice we
gain the knowledge of Occultism, ever interdicted the Kshetriya
(military) caste from hunting or a carnivorous diet. Filling, as they
did, a certain place in the body politic in the actual condition of the
world, the Rishis as little thought of interfering with them, as of
restraining the tigers of the jungle from their habits. That did not
affect what the Rishis did themselves.
The aspirant to longevity then must be on his guard against two dangers.
He must beware especially of impure and animal* thoughts. For Science
shows that thought is dynamic, and the thought-force evolved by nervous
action expanding outwardly, must affect the molecular relations of the
physical man. The inner men,** however sublimated their organism may
be, are still composed of actual, not hypothetical, particles, and are
still subject to the law that an "action" has a tendency to repeat
itself; a tendency to set up analogous action in the grosser "shell"
they are in contact with, and concealed within.
----------
* In other words, the thought tends to provoke the deed.--G.M.
** We use the word in the plural, reminding the reader that, according
to our doctrine, man is septenary.--G.M.
----------
And, on the other hand, certain actions have a tendency to produce
actual physical conditions unfavourable to pure thoughts, hence to the
state required for developing the supremacy of the inner man.
To return to the practical process. A normally healthy mind, in a
normally healthy body, is a good starting-point. Though exceptionally
powerful and self-devoted natures may sometimes recover the ground lost
by mental degradation or physical misuse, by employing proper means,
under the direction of unswerving resolution, yet often things may have
gone so far that there is no longer stamina enough to sustain the
conflict sufficiently long to perpetuate this life; though what in
Eastern parlance is called the "merit" of the effort will help to
ameliorate conditions and improve matters in another.
However this may be, the prescribed course of self-discipline commences
here. It may be stated briefly that its essence is a course of moral,
mental, and physical development, carried on in parallel lines--one
being useless without the other. The physical man must be rendered more
ethereal and sensitive; the mental man more penetrating and profound;
the moral man more self-denying and philosophical. And it may be
mentioned that all sense of restraint--even if self-imposed--is useless.
Not only is all "goodness" that results from the compulsion of physical
force, threats, or bribes (whether of a physical or so-called
"spiritual" nature) absolutely useless to the person who exhibits it,
its hypocrisy tending to poison the moral atmosphere of the world, but
the desire to be "good" or "pure," to be efficacious must be
spontaneous. It must be a self-impulse from within, a real preference
for something higher, not an abstention from vice because of fear of the
law: not a chastity enforced by the dread of Public Opinion; not a
benevolence exercised through love of praise or dread of consequences in
a hypothetical Future Life.*
----------
* Col. Olcott clearly and succinctly explains the Buddhist doctrine of
Merit or Karma, in his "Buddhist Catechism."
(Question 83).--G.M.
----------
It will be seen now in connection with the doctrine of the tendency
to the renewal of action, before discussed, that the course of
self-discipline recommended as the only road to Longevity by Occultism
is not a "visionary" theory dealing with vague "ideas," but actually a
scientifically devised system of drill. It is a system by which each
particle of the several men composing the septenary individual receives
an impulse, and a habit of doing what is necessary for certain purposes
of its own free-will and with "pleasure." Every one must be practiced
and perfect in a thing to do it with pleasure. This rule especially
applies to the case of the development of Man. "Virtue" may be very
good in its way--it may lead to the grandest results. But to become
efficacious it has to be practiced cheerfully not with reluctance or
pain. As a consequence of the above consideration the candidate for
Longevity at the commencement of his career must begin to eschew his
physical desires, not from any sentimental theory of right or wrong, but
for the following good reason. As, according to a well-known and now
established scientific theory, his visible material frame is always
renewing its particles; he will, while abstaining from the
gratification of his desires, reach the end of a certain period during
which those particles which composed the man of vice, and which were
given a bad predisposition, will have departed. At the same time, the
disuse of such functions will tend to obstruct the entry, in place of
the old particles, of new particles having a tendency to repeat the said
acts. And while this is the particular result as regards certain
"vices," the general result of an abstention from "gross" acts will be
(by a modification of the well-known Darwinian law of atrophy by
non-usage) to diminish what we may call the "relative" density and
coherence of the outer shell (as a result of its less-used molecules);
while the diminution in the quantity of its actual constituents will he
"made up" (if tried by scales and weights) by the increased admission of
more ethereal particles.
What physical desires are to be abandoned and in what order? First and
foremost, he must give up alcohol in all forms; for while it supplies
no nourishment, nor any direct pleasure (beyond such sweetness or
fragrance as may be gained in the taste of wine, &c., to which alcohol,
in itself, is non-essential) to even the grossest elements of the
"physical" frame, it induces a violence of action, a rush so to speak,
of life, the stress of which can only be sustained by very dull, gross,
and dense elements, and which, by the operation of the well-known law of
Re-action (in commercial phrase, "supply and demand") tends to summon
them from the surrounding universe, and therefore directly counteracts
the object we have in view.
Next comes meat-eating, and for the very same reason, in a minor degree.
It increases the rapidity of life, the energy of action, the violence of
passions. It may be good for a hero who has to fight and die, but not
for a would-be sage who has to exist and....
Next in order come the sexual desires; for these, in addition to the
great diversion of energy (vital force) into other channels, in many
different ways, beyond the primary one (as, for instance, the waste of
energy in expectation, jealousy, &c.), are direct attractions to a
certain gross quality of the original matter of the Universe, simply
because the most pleasurable physical sensations are only possible at
that stage of density. Alongside with and extending beyond all these
and other gratifications of the senses (which include not only those
things usually known as "vicious," but all those which, though
ordinarily regarded as "innocent," have yet the disqualification of
ministering to the pleasures of the body--the most harmless to others
and the least "gross" being the criterion for those to be last abandoned
in each case)--must be carried on the moral purification.
Nor must it be imagined that "austerities" as commonly understood can,
in the majority of cases, avail much to hasten the "etherealizing"
process. That is the rock on which many of the Eastern esoteric sects
have foundered, and the reason why they have degenerated into degrading
superstitions. The Western monks and the Eastern Yogees, who think they
will reach the apex of powers by concentrating their thought on their
navel, or by standing on one leg, are practicing exercises which serve
no other purpose than to strengthen the willpower, which is sometimes
applied to the basest purposes. These are examples of this one-sided
and dwarf development. It is no use to fast as long as you require
food. The ceasing of desire for food without impairment of health is
the sign which indicates that it should be taken in lesser and ever
decreasing quantities until the extreme limit compatible with life is
reached. A stage will be finally attained where only water will be
required.
Nor is it of any use for this particular purpose of longevity to abstain
from immorality so long as you are craving for it in your heart; and so
on with all other unsatisfied inward cravings. To get rid of the inward
desire is the essential thing, and to mimic the real thing without it is
barefaced hypocrisy and useless slavery.
So it must be with the moral purification of the heart. The "basest"
inclinations must go first--then the others. First avarice, then fear,
then envy, worldly pride, uncharitableness, hatred; last of all
ambition and curiosity must be abandoned successively. The
strengthening of the more ethereal and so-called "spiritual" parts of
the man must go on at the same time. Reasoning from the known to the
unknown, meditation must be practiced and encouraged. Meditation is the
inexpressible yearning of the inner Man to "go out towards the
infinite," which in the olden time was the real meaning of adoration,
but which has now no synonym in the European languages, because the
thing no longer exists in the West, and its name has been vulgarized to
the make-believe shams known as prayer, glorification, and repentance.
Through all stages of training the equilibrium of the consciousness--the
assurance that all must be right in the Kosmos, and therefore with you a
portion of it--must be retained. The process of life must not be hurried
but retarded, if possible; to do otherwise may do good to others--
perhaps even to yourself in other spheres, but it will hasten your
dissolution in this.
Nor must the externals be neglected in this first stage. Remember that
an adept, though "existing" so as to convey to ordinary minds the idea
of his being immortal, is not also invulnerable to agencies from
without. The training to prolong life does not, in itself, secure one
from accidents. As far as any physical preparation goes, the sword may
still cut, the disease enter, the poison disarrange. This case is very
clearly and beautifully put in "Zanoni," and it is correctly put and
must be so, unless all "adeptism" is a baseless lie. The adept may be
more secure from ordinary dangers than the common mortal, but he is so
by virtue of the superior knowledge, calmness, coolness and penetration
which his lengthened existence and its necessary concomitants have
enabled him to acquire; not by virtue of any preservative power in the
process itself. He is secure as a man armed with a rifle is more secure
than a naked baboon; not secure in the sense in which the deva (god)
was supposed to be securer than a man.
If this is so in the case of the high adept, how much more necessary is
it that the neophyte should be not only protected but that he himself
should use all possible means to ensure for himself the necessary
duration of life to complete the process of mastering the phenomena we
call death! It may be said, why do not the higher adepts protect him?
Perhaps they do to some extent, but the child must learn to walk alone;
to make him independent of his own efforts in respect to safety, would
be destroying one element necessary to his development--the sense of
responsibility. What courage or conduct would be called for in a man
sent to fight when armed with irresistible weapons and clothed in
impenetrable armour? Hence the neophyte should endeavour, as far as
possible, to fulfill every true canon of sanitary law as laid down by
modern scientists. Pure air, pure water, pure food, gentle exercise,
regular hours, pleasant occupations and surroundings, are all, if not
indispensable, at least serviceable to his progress. It is to secure
these, at least as much as silence and solitude, that the Gods, Sages,
Occultists of all ages have retired as much as possible to the quiet of
the country, the cool cave, the depths of the forest, the expanse of the
desert, or the heights of the mountains. Is it not suggestive that the
Gods have always loved the "high places"; and that in the present day
the highest section of the Occult Brotherhood on earth inhabits the
highest mountain plateaux of the earth?*
---------
* The stern prohibition to the Jews to serve "their gods upon the high
mountains and upon the hills" is traced back to the unwillingness of
their ancient elders to allow people in most cases unfit for adeptship
to choose a life of celibacy and asceticism, or in other words, to
pursue adeptship. This prohibition had an esoteric meaning before it
became the prohibition, incomprehensible in its dead-letter sense: for
it is not India alone whose sons accorded divine honours to the Wise
Ones, but all nations regarded their adepts and initiates as divine.--
G.M.
---------
Nor must the beginner disdain the assistance of medicine and good
medical regimen. He is still an ordinary mortal, and he requires the
aid of an ordinary mortal.
"Suppose, however, all the conditions required, or which will be
understood as required (for the details and varieties of treatment
requisite, are too numerous to be detailed here), are fulfilled, what is
the next step?" the reader will ask. Well if there have been no
backslidings or remissness in the procedure indicated, the following
physical results will follow:--
First the neophyte will take more pleasure in things spiritual and pure.
Gradually gross and material occupations will become not only uncraved
for or forbidden, but simply and literally repulsive to him. He will
take more pleasure in the simple sensations of Nature--the sort of
feeling one can remember to have experienced as a child. He will feel
more light-hearted, confident, happy. Let him take care the sensation
of renewed youth does not mislead, or he will yet risk a fall into his
old baser life and even lower depths. "Action and Re-action are equal."
Now the desire for food will begin to cease. Let it be left off
gradually--no fasting is required. Take what you feel you require. The
food craved for will be the most innocent and simple. Fruit and milk
will usually be the best. Then as till now, you have been simplifying
the quality of your food, gradually--very gradually--as you feel capable
of it diminish the quantity. You will ask: "Can a man exist without
food?" No, but before you mock, consider the character of the process
alluded to. It is a notorious fact that many of the lowest and simplest
organisms have no excretions. The common guinea-worm is a very good
instance. It has rather a complicated organism, but it has no
ejaculatory duct. All it consumes--the poorest essences of the human
body--is applied to its growth and propagation. Living as it does in
human tissue, it passes no digested food away. The human neophyte, at a
certain stage of his development, is in a somewhat analogous condition,
with this difference or differences, that he does excrete, but it is
through the pores of his skin, and by those too enter other etherealized
particles of matter to contribute towards his support.* Otherwise, all
the food and drink is sufficient only to keep in equilibrium those
"gross" parts of his physical body which still remain to repair their
cuticle-waste through the medium of the blood. Later on, the process of
cell-development in his frame will undergo a change; a change for the
better, the opposite of that in disease for the worse--he will become
all living and sensitive, and will derive nourishment from the Ether
(Akas). But that epoch for our neophyte is yet far distant.
---------
* He is in a state similar to the physical state of a fetus
before birth into the world.--G.M.
---------
Probably, long before that period has arrived, other results, no less
surprising than incredible to the uninitiated will have ensued to give
our neophyte courage and consolation in his difficult task. It would be
but a truism to repeat what has been again alleged (in ignorance of its
real rationale) by hundreds and hundreds of writers as to the happiness
and content conferred by a life of innocence and purity. But often at
the very commencement of the process some real physical result,
unexpected and unthought of by the neophyte, occurs. Some lingering
disease, hitherto deemed hopeless, may take a favourable turn; or he may
develop healing mesmeric powers himself; or some hitherto unknown
sharpening of his senses may delight him. The rationale of these things
is, as we have said, neither miraculous nor difficult of comprehension.
In the first place, the sudden change in the direction of the vital
energy (which, whatever view we take of it and its origin, is
acknowledged by all schools of philosophy as most recondite, and as the
motive power) must produce results of some kind. In the second,
Theosophy shows, as we said before, that a man consists of several men
pervading each other, and on this view (although it is very difficult to
express the idea in language) it is but natural that the progressive
etherealization of the densest and most gross of all should leave the
others literally more at liberty. A troop of horses may be blocked by a
mob and have much difficulty in fighting its way through; but if every
one of the mob could be changed suddenly into a ghost, there would be
little to retard it. And as each interior entity is more rare, active,
and volatile than the outer and as each has relation with different
elements, spaces, and properties of the Kosmos which are treated of in
other articles on Occultism, the mind of the reader may conceive--though
the pen of the writer could not express it in a dozen volumes--the
magnificent possibilities gradually unfolded to the neophyte.
Many of the opportunities thus suggested may be taken advantage of by
the neophyte for his own safety, amusement, and the good of those around
him; but the way in which he does this is one adapted to his fitness--a
part of the ordeal he has to pass through, and misuse of these powers
will certainly entail the loss of them as a natural result. The Itchcha
(or desire) evoked anew by the vistas they open up will retard or throw
back his progress.
But there is another portion of the Great Secret to which we must
allude, and which is now, for the first, in a long series of ages,
allowed to be given out to the world, as the hour for it is come.
The educated reader need not be reminded again that one of the great
discoveries which has immortalized the name of Darwin is the law that an
organism has always a tendency to repeat, at an analogous period in its
life, the action of its progenitors, the more surely and completely in
proportion to their proximity in the scale of life. One result of this
is, that, in general, organized beings usually die at a period (on an
average) the same as that of their progenitors. It is true that there
is a great difference between the actual ages at which individuals of
any species die. Disease, accidents and famine are the main agents in
causing this. But there is, in each species, a well-known limit within
which the Race-life lies, and none are known to survive beyond it. This
applies to the human species as well as any other. Now, supposing that
every possible sanitary condition had been complied with, and every
accident and disease avoided by a man of ordinary frame, in some
particular case there would still, as is known to medical men, come a
time when the particles of the body would feel the hereditary tendency
to do that which leads inevitably to dissolution, and would obey it. It
must be obvious to any reflecting man that, if by any procedure this
critical climacteric could be once thoroughly passed over, the
subsequent danger of "Death" would be proportionally less as the years
progressed. Now this, which no ordinary and unprepared mind and body
can do, is possible sometimes for the will and the frame of one who has
been specially prepared. There are fewer of the grosser particles
present to feel the hereditary bias--there is the assistance of the
reinforced "interior men" (whose normal duration is always greater even
in natural death) to the visible outer shell, and there is the drilled
and indomitable Will to direct and wield the whole.*
-----------
* In this connection we may as well show what modern science, and
especially physiology has to say as to the power of the human will.
"The force of will is a potent element in determining longevity. This
single point must be granted without argument, that of two men every way
alike and similarly circumstanced, the one who has the greater courage
and grit will be longer-lived. One does not need to practice medicine
long to learn that men die who might just as well live if they resolved
to live, and that myriads who are invalids could become strong if they
had the native or acquired will to vow they would do so. Those who have
no other quality favourable to life, whose bodily organs are nearly
all diseased, to whom each day is a day of pain, who are beset by
life-shortening influences, yet do live by will alone."
--Dr. George M. Beard.
-------------
From that time forward the course of the aspirant is clearer. He has
conquered "the Dweller of the Threshold"--the hereditary enemy of his
race, and, though still exposed to ever-new dangers in his progress
towards Nirvana, he is flushed with victory, and with new confidence and
new powers to second it, can press onwards to perfection.
For, it must be remembered, that nature everywhere acts by Law, and that
the process of purification we have been describing in the visible
material body, also takes place in those which are interior, and not
visible to the scientist by modifications of the same process. All is
on the change, and the metamorphoses of the more ethereal bodies
imitate, though in successively multiplied duration, the career of the
grosser, gaining an increasing wider range of relations with the
surrounding kosmos, till in Nirvana the most rarefied Individuality is
merged at last into the INFINITE TOTALITY.
From the above description of the process, it will be inferred why it is
that "Adepts" are so seldom seen in ordinary life; for, pari passu, with
the etherealization of their bodies and the development of their power,
grows an increasing distaste, and a so-to-speak, "contempt" for the
things of our ordinary mundane existence. Like the fugitive who
successively casts away in his flight those articles which incommode his
progress, beginning with the heaviest, so the aspirant eluding "Death"
abandons all on which the latter can take hold. In the progress of
Negation everything got rid of is a help. As we said before, the adept
does not become "immortal" as the word is ordinarily understood. By or
about the time when the Death-limit of his race is passed he is actually
dead, in the ordinary sense, that is to say, he has relieved himself of
all or nearly all such material particles as would have necessitated in
disruption the agony of dying. He has been dying gradually during the
whole period of his Initiation. The catastrophe cannot happen twice
over. He has only spread over a number of years the mild process of
dissolution which others endure from a brief moment to a few hours. The
highest Adept is, in fact, dead to, and absolutely unconscious of, the
world; he is oblivious of its pleasures, careless of its miseries, in
so far as sentimentalism goes, for the stern sense of DUTY never leaves
him blind to its very existence. For the new ethereal senses opening to
wider spheres are to ours much in the relation of ours to the Infinitely
Little. New desires and enjoyments, new dangers and new hindrances
arise, with new sensations and new perceptions; and far away down in
the mist--both literally and metaphorically--is our dirty little earth
left below by those who have virtually "gone to join the gods."
And from this account too, it will be perceptible how foolish it is for
people to ask the Theosophist to "procure for them communication with
the highest Adepts." It is with the utmost difficulty that one or two
can be induced, even by the throes of a world, to injure their own
progress by meddling with mundane affairs. The ordinary reader will
say: "This is not god-like. This is the acme of selfishness." .... But
let him realize that a very high Adept, undertaking to reform the world,
would necessarily have to once more submit to Incarnation. And is the
result of all that have gone before in that line sufficiently
encouraging to prompt a renewal of the attempt?
A deep consideration of all that we have written, will also give the
Theosophists an idea of what they demand when they ask to be put in the
way of gaining practically "higher powers." Well, there, as plainly as
words can put it, is the PATH .... can they tread it?
Nor must it be disguised that what to the ordinary mortal are unexpected
dangers, temptations and enemies also beset the way of the neophyte.
And that for no fanciful cause, but the simple reason that he is, in
fact, acquiring new senses, has yet no practice in their use, and has
never before seen the things he sees. A man born blind suddenly endowed
with vision would not at once master the meaning of perspective, but
would, like a baby, imagine in one case, the moon to be within his
reach, and, in the other, grasp a live coal with the most reckless
confidence.
And what, it may be asked, is to recompense this abnegation of all the
pleasures of life, this cold surrender of all mundane interests, this
stretching forward to an unknown goal which seems ever more
unattainable? For, unlike some of the anthropomorphic creeds, Occultism
offers to its votaries no eternally permanent heaven of material
pleasure, to be gained at once by one quick dash through the grave. As
has, in fact, often been the case many would be prepared willingly to
die now for the sake of the paradise hereafter. But Occultism gives no
such prospect of cheaply and immediately gained infinitude of pleasure,
wisdom and existence. It only promises extensions of these, stretching
in successive arches obscured by successive veils, in an unbroken series
up the long vista which leads to NIRVANA. And this too, qualified by
the necessity that new powers entail new responsibilities, and that the
capacity of increased pleasure entails the capacity of increased
sensibility to pain. To this, the only answer that can be given is
two-fold: (1st) the consciousness of Power is itself the most exquisite
of pleasures, and is unceasingly gratified in the progress onwards with
new means for its exercise and (2ndly) as has been already said--THIS is
the only road by which there is the faintest scientific likelihood that
"Death" can be avoided, perpetual memory secured, infinite wisdom
attained, and hence an immense helping of mankind made possible, once
that the adept has safely crossed the turning-point. Physical as well
as metaphysical logic requires and endorses the fact that only by
gradual absorption into infinity can the Part become acquainted with the
Whole, and that that which is now something can only feel, know, and
enjoy EVERYTHING when lost in Absolute Totality in the vortex of that
Unalterable Circle wherein our Knowledge becomes Ignorance, and the
Everything itself is identified with the NOTHING.
Is the Desire to "Live" Selfish?
The passage "to live, to live, to live must be the unswerving resolve,"
occurring in the article on the Elixir of Life, is often quoted by
superficial and unsympathetic readers as an argument that the teachings
of occultism are the most concentrated form of selfishness. In order to
determine whether the critics are right or wrong, the meaning of the
word "selfishness" must first be ascertained.
According to an established authority, selfishness is that "exclusive
regard to one's own interest or happiness; that supreme self-love or
self-preference which leads a person to direct his purposes to the
advancement of his own interest, power, or happiness, without regarding
those of others."
In short, an absolutely selfish individual is one who cares for himself
and none else, or, in other words, one who is so strongly imbued with a
sense of the importance of his own personality that to him it is the
crown of all thoughts, desires, and aspirations, and beyond which lies
the perfect blank. Now, can an occultist be then said to be "selfish"
when he desires to live in the sense in which that word is used by the
writer of the article on the Elixir of Life? It has been said over and
over again that the ultimate end of every aspirant after occult
knowledge is Nirvana or Mukti, when the individual, freed from all
Mayavic Upadhi, becomes one with Paramatma, or the Son identifies
himself with the Father in Christian phraseology. For that purpose,
every veil of illusion which creates a sense of personal isolation, a
feeling of separateness from THE ALL, must be torn asunder, or, in other
words, the aspirant must gradually discard all sense of selfishness with
which we are all more or less affected. A study of the Law of Kosmic
Evolution teaches us that the higher the evolution, the more does it
tend towards Unity. In fact, Unity is the ultimate possibility of
Nature, and those who through vanity and selfishness go against her
purposes, cannot but incur the punishment of annihilation. The
occultist thus recognizes that unselfishness and a feeling of universal
philanthropy are the inherent laws of our being, and all he does is to
attempt to destroy the chains of selfishness forged upon us all by Maya.
The struggle then between Good and Evil, God and Satan, Suras and
Asuras, Devas and Daityas, which is mentioned in the sacred books of all
the nations and races, symbolizes the battle between unselfish and
selfish impulses, which takes place in a man, who tries to follow the
higher purposes of Nature, until the lower animal tendencies, created by
selfishness, are completely conquered, and the enemy thoroughly routed
and annihilated. It has also been often put forth in various
Theosophical and other occult writings that the only difference between
an ordinary man who works along with Nature during the course of Kosmic
evolution and an occultist, is that the latter, by his superior
knowledge, adopts such methods of training and discipline as will hurry
on that process of evolution, and he thus reaches in a comparatively
short time the apex which the ordinary individual will take perhaps
billions of years to reach. In short, in a few thousand years he
approaches that type of evolution which ordinary humanity attains in the
sixth or seventh Round of the Manvantara, i.e., cyclic progression. It
is evident that an average man cannot become a MAHATMA in one life, or
rather in one incarnation. Now those, who have studied the occult
teachings concerning Devachan and our after-states, will remember that
between two incarnations there is a considerable period of subjective
existence. The greater the number of such Devachanic periods, the
greater is the number of years over which this evolution is extended.
The chief aim of the occultist is therefore to so control himself as to
be able to regulate his future states, and thereby gradually shorten the
duration of his Devachanic existence between two incarnations. In the
course of his progress, there comes a time when, between one physical
death and his next rebirth, there is no Devachan but a kind of spiritual
sleep, the shock of death, having, so to say, stunned him into a state
of unconsciousness from which he gradually recovers to find himself
reborn, to continue his purpose. The period of this sleep may vary from
twenty-five to two hundred years, depending upon the degree of his
advancement. But even this period may be said to be a waste of time,
and hence all his exertions are directed to shorten its duration so as
to gradually come to a point when the passage from one state of
existence into another is almost imperceptible. This is his last
incarnation, as it were, for the shock of death no more stuns him. This
is the idea the writer of the article on the Elixir of Life means to
convey when he says:
By or about the time when the Death-limit of his race is passed he is
actually dead, in the ordinary sense, that is to say, he has relieved
himself of all or nearly all such material particles as would have
necessitated in disruption the agony of dying. He has been dying
gradually during the whole period of his Initiation. The catastrophe
cannot happen twice over, he has only spread over a number of years the
mild process of dissolution which others endure from a brief moment to a
few hours. The highest Adept is, in fact, dead to, and absolutely
unconscious of, the World; he is oblivious of its pleasures, careless
of its miseries, in so far as sentimentalism goes, for the stern sense
of Duty never leaves him blind to its very existence....
The process of the emission and attraction of atoms, which the occultist
controls, has been discussed at length in that article and in other
writings. It is by these means that he gets rid gradually of all the
old gross particles of his body, substituting for them finer and more
ethereal ones, till at last the former sthula sarira is completely dead
and disintegrated, and he lives in a body entirely of his own creation,
suited to his work. That body is essential to his purposes; as the
Elixir of Life says:--
To do good, as in every thing else, a man most have time and materials
to Work with, and this is a necessary means to the acquirement of powers
by which infinitely more good can be done than without them. When these
are once mastered, the opportunities to use them will arrive....
Giving the practical instructions for that purpose, the same paper
continues:--
The physical man must be rendered more ethereal and sensitive; the
mental man more penetrating and profound; the moral man more
self-denying and philosophical.
Losing sight of the above important considerations, the following
passage is entirely misunderstood:--
And from this account too, it will be perceptible how foolish it is for
people to ask the Theosophist "to procure for them communication with
the highest Adepts." It is with the utmost difficulty that one or two
can be induced, even by the throes of a world, to injure their own
progress by meddling with mundane affairs. The ordinary reader will
say: "This is not god-like. This is the acme of selfishness." ....But
let him realize that a very high Adept, undertaking to reform the world,
would necessarily have to once more submit to Incarnation. And is the
result of all that have gone before in that line sufficiently
encouraging to prompt a renewal of the attempt?
Now, in condemning the above passage as inculcating selfishness,
superficial critics neglect many profound truths. In the first place,
they forget the other extracts already quoted which impose self-denial
as a necessary condition of success, and which say that, with progress,
new senses and new powers are acquired with which infinitely more good
can be done than without them. The more spiritual the Adept becomes the
less can he meddle with mundane gross affairs and the more he has to
confine himself to spiritual work. It has been repeated, times out of
number, that the work on the spiritual plane is as superior to the work
on the intellectual plane as the latter is superior to that on the
physical plane. The very high Adepts, therefore, do help humanity, but
only spiritually: they are constitutionally incapable of meddling with
worldly affairs. But this applies only to very high Adepts. There are
various degrees of Adept-ship, and those of each degree work for
humanity on the planes to which they may have risen. It is only the
chelas that can live in the world, until they rise to a certain degree.
And it is because the Adepts do care for the world that they make their
chelas live in and work for it, as many of those who study the subject
are aware. Each cycle produces its own occultists capable of working
for the humanity of the time on all the different planes; but when the
Adepts foresee that at a particular period humanity will he incapable of
producing occultists for work on particular planes, for such occasions
they do provide by either voluntarily giving up their further progress
and waiting until humanity reaches that period, or by refusing to enter
into Nirvana and submitting to re-incarnation so as to be ready for work
when the time comes. And although the world may not be aware of the
fact, yet there are even now certain Adepts who have preferred to remain
in statu quo and refuse to take the higher degrees, for the benefit of
the future generations of humanity. In short, as the Adepts work
harmoniously, since unity is the fundamental law of their being, they
have, as it were, made a division of labour, according to which each
works on the plane appropriate to himself for the spiritual elevation of
us all--and the process of longevity mentioned in the Elixir of Life is
only the means to the end which, far from being selfish, is the most
unselfish purpose for which a human being can labour.
(--H.P. Blavatsky)