The practical bearing of occult teaching on ordinary life is very
variously interpreted by different students of the subject. For many
Western readers of recent books on the esoteric doctrine, it even seems
doubtful whether the teaching has any bearing on practical life at all.
The proposal which it is supposed sometimes to convey, that all earnest
inquirers should put themselves under the severe ascetic regimen
followed by its regular Oriental disciples, is felt to embody a strain
on the habits of modern civilization which only a few enthusiasts will
be prepared to encounter. The mere intellectual charm of an intricate
philosophy may indeed be enough to recommend the study to some minds,
but a scheme of teaching that offers itself as a substitute for
religious faith of the usual kind will be expected to yield some
tangible results in regard to the future spiritual well-being of those
who adopt it. Has occult philosophy nothing to give except to those who
are in a position and willing to make a sacrifice in its behalf of all
other objects in life? In that case it would indeed be useless to bring
it out into the world. In reality the esoteric doctrine affords an
almost infinite variety of opportunities for spiritual development, and
no greater mistake could be made in connection with the present movement
than to suppose the teaching of the Adepts merely addressed to persons
capable of heroic self-devotion. Assuredly it does not discourage
efforts in the direction of the highest achievement of occult progress,
if any Western occultists may feel disposed to make them; but it is
important for us all to keep clearly in view the lower range of
possibilities connected with humbler aspirations.
I believe it to be absolutely true that even the slightest attention
seriously paid to the instructions now emanating from the Indian Adepts
will generate results within the spiritual principles of those who
render it--causes capable of producing appreciable consequences in a
future state of existence. Any one who has sufficiently examined the
doctrine of Devachan will readily follow the idea, for the nature of the
spiritual existence which in the ordinary course of things must succeed
each physical life, provides for the very considerable expansion of any
aspirations towards real knowledge that may be set going on earth. I
will recur to this point directly, when I have made clearer the general
drift of the argument I am trying to unfold. At the one end of the scale
of possibilities connected with occult study lies the supreme
development of Adeptship; an achievement which means that the person
reaching it has so violently stimulated his spiritual growth within a
short period, as to have anticipated processes on which Nature, in her
own deliberate way, would have spent a great procession of ages. At the
other end of the scale lies the small result to which I have just
alluded--a result which may rather be said to establish a tendency in
the direction of spiritual achievement than to embody such achievement.
But between these two widely different results there is no hard and fast
line that can be drawn at any place to make a distinct separation in the
character of the consequences ensuing from devotion to occult pursuits.
As the darkness of blackest night gives way by imperceptible degrees to
the illumination of the brightest sunrise, so the spiritual consequences
of emerging from the apathy either of pure materialism or of dull
acquiescence in unreasonable dogmas, brighten by imperceptible degrees
from the faintest traces of Devachanic improvement into the full blaze
of the highest perfection human nature can attain. Without assuming
that the course of Nature which prescribes for each human Ego successive
physical lives and successive periods of spiritual refreshment--without
supposing that this course is altered by such moderate devotion to
occult study as is compatible with the ordinary conditions of European
life, it will nevertheless be seen how vast the consequences may
ultimately be of impressing on that career of evolution a distinct
tendency in the direction of supreme enlightenment, of that result which
is described as the union of the individual soul with universal spirit.
The explanations of the esoteric doctrine which have been publicly
given, have shown that humanity in the mass has now attained a stage in
the great evolutionary cycle from which it has the opportunity of
growing upward towards final perfection. In the mass it is, of course,
unlikely that it will travel that road: final perfection is not a gift
to be bestowed upon all, but to be worked for by those who desire it.
It may be put within the theoretical reach of all; there may be no
human creature living at this moment, of whom it can be said that the
highest possibilities of Nature are impossible of attainment, but it
does not follow by any means that every individual will attain the
highest possibilities. Regarding each individual as one of the seeds of
a great flower which throws out thousands of seeds, it is manifest that
only a few, relatively to the great number, will become fully developed
flowers in their turn. No unjust neglect awaits the majority. For each
and every one the consequences of the remote future will be precisely
proportioned to the aptitudes he develops, but only those can reach the
goal who, with persistent effort carried out through a long series of
lives, differentiate themselves in a marked degree from the general
multitude. Now, that persistent effort must have a beginning, and
granted the beginning, the persistence is not improbable. Within our
own observation of ordinary life, good habits, even though they may not
be so readily formed as bad ones, are not difficult to maintain in
proportion to the difficulty of their commencement. For a moment it may
be asked how this may be applied to a succession of lives separate from
each other by a total oblivion of their details; but it really applies
as directly to the succession of lives as to the succession of days
within one life, which are separated from each other by as many nights.
The certain operation of those affinities in the individual Ego which
are collectively described in the esoteric doctrine by the word Karma,
must operate to pick up the old habits of character and thought, as life
after life comes round, with the same certainty that the thread of
memory in a living brain recovers, day after day, the impressions of
those that have gone before. Whether a moral habit is thus deliberately
engendered by an occult student in order that it may propagate itself
through future ages, or whether it merely arises from unintelligent
aspirations towards good, which happily for mankind are more widely
spread than occult study as yet, the way it works in each case is the
same. The unintelligent aspiration towards goodness propagates itself
and leads to good lives in the future; the intelligent aspiration
propagates itself in the same way plus the propagation of intelligence;
and this distinction shows the gulf of difference which may exist
between the growth of a human soul which merely drifts along the stream
of time, and that of one which is consciously steered by an intelligent
purpose throughout. The human Ego which acquires the habit of seeking
for knowledge becomes invested, life after life, with the qualifications
which ensure the success of such a search, until the final success,
achieved at some critical period of its existence, carries it right up
into the company of those perfected Egos which are the fully developed
flowers only expected, according to our first metaphor, from a few of
the thousand seeds. Now, it is clear that a slight impulse in a given
direction, even on the physical plane does not produce the same effect
as a stronger one; so, exactly in this matter of engendering habits
required to persist in their operation through a succession of lives, it
is quite obvious that the strong impulse of a very ardent aspiration
towards knowledge will be more likely than a weaker one to triumph over
the so called accidents of Nature.
This consideration brings us to the question of those habits in life
which are more immediately associated in the popular views of the matter
with the pursuit of occult science. It will be quite plain that the
generation within his own nature by an occult student of affinities in
the direction of spiritual progress, is a matter which has little if
anything to do with the outer circumstances of his daily life. It
cannot be dissociated from what may be called the outer circumstances of
his moral life, for an occult student, whose moral nature is consciously
ignoble, and who combines the pursuit of knowledge with the practice of
wrong, becomes by that condition of things a student of sorcery rather
than of true occultism--a candidate for satanic evolution instead of
perfection. But at the same time the physical habits of life may be
quite the reverse of ascetic, while all the while the thinking processes
of the intellectual life are developing affinities which cannot fail in
the results just seen to produce large ulterior consequences. Some
misconception is very apt to arise here from the way in which frequent
reference is made to the ascetic habits of those who purpose to become
the regular chelas of Oriental Adepts. It is supposed that what is
practiced by the Master is necessarily recommended for all his pupils.
Now this is far from being the case as regards the miscellaneous pupils
who are gathering round the occult teachers lately become known to
public report. Certainly even in reference to their miscellaneous pupils
the Adepts would not discountenance asceticism. As we saw just now,
there is no hard line drawn across the scale on which are defined the
varying consequences of occult study in all its varying degrees of
intensity--so with ascetic practice, from the slightest habits of
self-denial, which may engender a preference for spiritual over material
gratification, up to the very largest developments of asceticism
required as a passport to chelaship, no such practices can be quite
without their consequences in the all-embracing records of Karma. But,
broadly speaking, asceticism belongs to that species of effort which
aims at personal chelaship, and that which contemplates the patient
development of spiritual growth along the slow track of natural
evolution claims no more, broadly speaking, than intellectual
application. All that is asserted in regard to the opening now offered
to those who have taken notice of the present opportunity, is, that they
may now give their own evolution an impulse which they may not again
have an opportunity of giving it with the same advantage to themselves
if the present opportunity is thrown aside. True, it is most unlikely
that any one advancing through Nature, life after life, under the
direction of a fairly creditable Karma, will go on always without
meeting sooner or later with the ideas that occult study implants. So
that the occultist does not threaten those who turn aside from his
teachings with any consequences that must necessarily be disastrous.
He only says that those who listen to them must necessarily derive
advantage from so doing in exact proportion to the zeal with which they
undertake the study and the purity of motive with which they promote it
in others.
Nor must it be supposed that those which have here been described as the
lower range of possibilities in connection with occult study, are a mere
fringe upon the higher possibilities, to be regarded as a relatively
poor compensation accorded to those who do not feel equal to offering
themselves for probation as regular chelas. It would be a grave
misconception of the purpose with which the present stream of occult
teaching has been poured into the world, if we were to think it a
universal incitement to that course of action. It may be hazardous for
any of us who are not initiates to speak with entire confidence of the
intention of the Adepts, but all the external facts concerned with the
growth and development of the Theosophical Society, show its purpose to
be more directly related to the cultivation of spiritual aspirations
over a wide area, than to the excitement of these with supreme intensity
in individuals. There are considerations, indeed, which may almost be
said to debar the Adepts from ever doing anything to encourage persons
in whom this supreme intensity of excitement is possible, to take the
very serious step of offering themselves as chelas. Directly that by
doing this a man renders himself a candidate for something more than the
maximum advantages that can flow to him through the operation of natural
laws--directly that in this way he claims to anticipate the most
favourable course of Nature and to approach high perfection by violent
and artificial processes, he at once puts himself in presence of many
dangers which would never beset him if he contented himself with a
favourable natural growth. It appears to be always a matter of grave
consideration with the Adepts whether they will take the responsibility
of encouraging any person who may not have it in him to succeed, to
expose himself to these dangers. For any one who is determined to face
them and is permitted to do so, the considerations put forward above in
regard to the optional character of personal physical training fall to
the ground. Those ascetic practices which a candidate for nothing more
than the best natural evolution may undertake if he chooses, with the
view of emphasizing his spiritual Karma to the utmost, become a sine qua
non in regard to the very first step of his progress. But with such
progress the present explanation is not specially concerned. Its
purpose has been to show the beneficial effects which may flow to
ordinary people living ordinary lives, from even that moderate devotion
to occult philosophy which is compatible with such ordinary lives, and
to guard against the very erroneous belief that occult science is a
pursuit in which it is not worth while to engage, unless Adeptship is
held out to the student as its ultimate result.
--Lay Chela