The author of _Esoteric Buddhism_—which book ought to be consulted by
all students of Theosophy, since it was made from suggestions given by
some of the Adepts themselves—gave the name _Kama rupa_ to the fourth
principle of man’s constitution. The reason was that the word _Kama_ in
the Sanscrit language means “desire”, and as the idea intended to be
conveyed was that the fourth principle was the “body or mass of desires
and passions”, Mr. Sinnett added the Sanscrit word for body or form,
which is _Rupa_, thus making the compound word _Kamarupa_. I shall call
it by the English equivalent—passions and desires—because those terms
exactly express its nature. And I do this also in order to make the
sharp issue which actually exists between the psychology and mental
philosophy of the west and those of the east. The west divides man into
intellect, will, and feeling, but it is not understood whether the
passions and desires constitute a principle in themselves or are due
entirely to the body. Indeed, most people consider them as being the
result of the influence of the flesh, for they are designated often by
the terms “desires of the flesh” and “fleshly appetites”. The ancients,
however, and the Theosophists know them to be a principle in themselves
and not merely the impulses from the body. There is no help to be had
in this matter from the western psychology, now in its infancy and
wholly devoid of knowledge about the inner, which is the psychical,
nature of man, and from this point there is the greatest divergence
between it and Theosophy.
The passions and desires are not produced by the body, but, on the
contrary, the body is caused to be by the former. It is desire and
passion which caused us to be born, and will bring us to birth again
and again in this body or in some other. It is by passion and desire we
are made to evolve through the mansions of death called lives on earth.
It was by the arising of desire in the unknown first cause, the one
absolute existence, that the whole collection of worlds was manifested,
and by means of the influence of desire in the now manifested world is
the latter kept in existence.
This fourth principle is the balance principle of the whole seven. It
stands in the middle, and from it the ways go up or down. It is the
basis of action and the mover of the will. As the old Hermetists say:
“Behind will stands desire.” For whether we wish to do well or ill we
have to first arouse within us the desire for either course. The good
man who at last becomes even a sage had at one time in his many lives
to arouse the desire for the company of holy men and to keep his desire
for progress alive in order to continue on his way. Even a Buddha or a
Jesus had first to make a vow, which is a desire, in some life, that
he would save the world or some part of it, and to persevere with
the desire alive in his heart through countless lives. And equally
so, on the other hand, the bad man life after life took unto himself
low, selfish, wicked desires, thus debasing instead of purifying this
principle. On the material and scientific side of occultism,—the use of
the inner hidden powers of our nature—if this principle of desire be
not strong, the master power of imagination cannot do its work, because
though it makes a mould or matrix the will cannot act unless it is
moved, directed, and kept up to pitch by desire.
The desires and passions, therefore, have two aspects, the one being
low and the other high. The low is that shown by the constant placing
of the consciousness entirely below in the body and the astral body;
the high comes from the influence of and aspiration to the trinity
above, of Mind, Buddhi, and Spirit. This fourth principle is like the
sign Libra in the path of the Sun through the Zodiac; when the Sun (who
is the real man) reaches that sign he trembles in the balance. Should
he go back the worlds would be destroyed; he goes onward, and the whole
human race is lifted up to perfection.
During life the emplacement of the desires and passions is, as obtains
with the astral body, throughout the entire lower man, and like that
ethereal counterpart of our physical person it may be added to or
diminished, made weak or increased in strength, debased or purified.
At death it informs the astral body, which then becomes a mere shell;
for when a man dies his astral body and principle of passion and desire
leave the physical in company and coalesce. It is then that the term
_Kamarupa_ may be applied, as _Kamarupa_ is really made of astral body
and _Kama_ in conjunction, and this joining of the two makes a shape or
form which though ordinarily invisible is material and may be brought
into visibility. Although it is empty of mind and conscience, it has
powers of its own that can be exercised whenever the conditions permit.
These conditions are furnished by the medium of the spiritualists,
and in every _séance_ room the astral shells of deceased persons are
always present to delude the sitters, whose powers of discrimination
have been destroyed by wonderment. It is the “devil” of the Hindus, and
a worse enemy the poor medium could not have. For the astral spook—or
_Kamarupa_—is but the mass of the desires and passions abandoned by the
real person who has fled to “heaven” and has no concern with the people
left behind, least of all with _séances_ and mediums. Hence, being
devoid of the nobler soul, these desires and passions work only on the
very lowest part of the medium’s nature and stir up no good elements,
but always the lower leanings of the being. Therefore it is that even
the spiritualists themselves admit that in the ranks of the mediums
there is much fraud, and mediums have often confessed, “the spirits did
tempt me and I committed fraud at their wish.”
This _Kamarupa_ spook is also the enemy of our civilization, which
permits us to execute men for crimes committed and thus throw out into
the ether the mass of passion and desire free from the weight of the
body and liable at any moment to be attracted to any sensitive person.
Being thus attracted, the deplorable images of crimes committed and
also the picture of the execution and all the accompanying curses and
wishes for revenge are implanted in living persons, who, not seeing the
evil, are unable to throw it off. Thus crimes and new ideas of crimes
are wilfully propagated every day by those countries where capital
punishment prevails.
The astral shells together with the still living astral body of the
medium, helped by certain forces of nature which the Theosophists
call “elementals”, produce nearly all the phenomena of non-fraudulent
spiritualism. The medium’s astral body having the power of extension
and extrusion forms the framework for what are called “materialized
spirits”, makes objects move without physical contact, gives reports
from deceased relatives, none of them anything more than recollections
and pictures from the astral light, and in all this using and being
used by the shells of suicides, executed murderers, and all such spooks
as are naturally near to this plane of life. The number of cases in
which any communication comes from an actual spirit out of the body
is so small as to be countable almost on one hand. But the spirits of
living men sometimes, while their bodies are asleep, come to _séances_
and take part therein. But they cannot recollect it, do not know how
they do it, and are not distinguished by mediums from the mass of
astral corpses. The fact that such things can be done by the inner
man and not be recollected proves nothing against these theories, for
the child can see without knowing how the eye acts, and the savage who
has no knowledge of the complex machinery working in his body still
carries on the process of digestion perfectly. And that the latter is
unconscious with him is exactly in line with the theory, for these
acts and doings of the inner man are the unconscious actions of the
subconscious mind. These words “conscious” and “subconscious” are of
course used relatively, the unconsciousness being that of the brain
only. And hypnotic experiments have conclusively proved all these
theories, as on one day not far away will be fully admitted. Besides
this, the astral shells of suicides and executed criminals are the
most coherent, longest lived, and nearest to us of all the shades of
hades, and hence must, out of the necessity of the case, be the real
“controls” of the _séance_ room.
Passion and desire together with astral model-body are common to men
and animals, as also to the vegetable kingdom, though in the last but
faintly developed. And at one period in evolution no further material
principles had been developed, and all the three higher, of Mind, Soul,
and Spirit, were but latent. Up to this point man and animal were
equal, for the brute in us is made of the passions and the astral body.
The development of the germs of Mind made man because it constituted
the great differentiation. The God within begins with _Manas_ or mind,
and it is the struggle between this God and the brute below which
Theosophy speaks of and warns about. The lower principle is called bad
because by comparison with the higher it is so, but still it is the
basis of action. We cannot rise unless self first asserts itself in
the desire to do better. In this aspect it is called _rajas_ or the
active and bad quality, as distinguished from _tamas_, or the quality
of darkness and indifference. Rising is not possible unless _rajas_
is present to give the impulse, and by the use of this principle of
passion all the higher qualities are brought to at last so refine and
elevate our desires that they may be continually placed upon truth
and spirit. By this Theosophy does not teach that the passions are to
be pandered to or satiated, for a more pernicious doctrine was never
taught, but the injunction is to make use of the activity given by the
fourth principle so as to ever rise and not to fall under the dominion
of the dark quality that ends with annihilation, after having begun in
selfishness and indifference.
Having thus gone over the field and shown what are the lower
principles, we find Theosophy teaching that at the present point of
man’s evolution he is a fully developed quaternary with the higher
principles partly developed. Hence it is taught that to-day man
shows himself to be moved by passion and desire. This is proved by a
glance at the civilizations of the earth, for they are all moved by
this principle, and in countries like France, England, and America
a glorification of it is exhibited in the attention to display, to
sensuous art, to struggle for power and place, and in all the habits
and modes of living where the gratification of the senses is sometimes
esteemed the highest good. But as Mind is being evolved more and more
as we proceed in our course along the line of the race development,
there can be perceived underneath in all countries the beginning of
the transition from the animal possessed of the germ of real mind to
the man of mind complete. This day is therefore known to the Masters,
who have given out some of the old truths, as the “transition period”.
Proud science and prouder religion do not admit this, but think we are
as we always will be. But believing in his teacher, the theosophist
sees all around him the evidence that the race mind is changing by
enlargement, that the old days of dogmatism are gone and the “age of
inquiry” has come, that the inquiries will grow louder year by year
and the answers be required to satisfy the mind as it grows more and
more, until at last, all dogmatism being ended, the race will be ready
to face all problems, each man for himself, all working for the good
of the whole, and that the end will be the perfecting of those who
struggle to overcome the brute. For these reasons the old doctrines are
given out again, and Theosophy asks every one to reflect whether to
give way to the animal below or look up to and be governed by the God
within.
A fuller treatment of the fourth principle of our constitution would
compel us to consider all such questions as those presented by the
wonder workers of the east, by spiritualistic phenomena, hypnotism,
apparitions, insanity, and the like, but they must be reserved for
separate handling.