Part 9

THEO. Most decidedly I can. Philo Judæus says (in “De Somniis,” p. 455): “The air is full of them (of souls); those which are nearest the earth, descending to be tied to mortal bodies, παλινδρομοῦσιν αὖθις _return to other bodies, being desirous to live in them_.” In the _Zohar_, the soul is made to plead her freedom before God: “Lord of the Universe! I am happy in this world, and do not wish to go into another world, where I shall be a handmaid, and be exposed to all kinds of pollutions.”[28] The doctrine of fatal necessity, the everlasting immutable law, is asserted in the answer of the Deity: “Against thy will thou becomest an embryo, and against thy will thou art born.”[29] Light would be incomprehensible without darkness to make it manifest by contrast; good would be no longer good without evil to show the priceless nature of the boon; and so personal virtue could claim no merit, unless it had passed through the furnace of temptation. Nothing is eternal and unchangeable, save the concealed Deity. Nothing that is finite—whether because it had a beginning, or must have an end—can remain stationary. It must either progress or recede; and a soul which thirsts after a reunion with its spirit, which alone confers upon it immortality, must purify itself through cyclic transmigrations onward toward the only land of bliss and eternal rest, called in the _Zohar_, “The Palace of Love,” היבל אחכה; in the Hindu religion, “Moksha”; among the Gnostics, “The Pleroma of Eternal Light”; and by the Buddhists, “Nirvana.” And all these states are temporary, not eternal.

ENQ. Yet there is no re-incarnation spoken of in all this.

THEO. A soul which pleads to be allowed to remain where she is, _must be pre-existent_, and not have been created for the occasion. In the _Zohar_ (vol. iii., p. 61), however, there is a still better proof. Speaking of the reincarnating _Egos_ (the _rational_ souls), those whose last personality has to fade out _entirely_, it is said: “All souls which have alienated themselves in heaven from the Holy One—blessed be His name—have thrown themselves into an abyss at their very existence, and have anticipated the time when they are to descend once more on earth.” “The Holy One” means here, esoterically, the Atman, or _Atma-Buddhi_.

ENQ. Moreover, it is very strange to find _Nirvana_ spoken of as something synonymous with the Kingdom of Heaven, or the Paradise, since according to every Orientalist of note Nirvana is a synonym of annihilation!

THEO. Taken literally, with regard to the personality and differentiated matter, not otherwise. These ideas on re-incarnation and the trinity of man were held by many of the early Christian Fathers. It is the jumble made by the translators of the New Testament and ancient philosophical treatises between soul and spirit, that has occasioned the many misunderstandings. It is also one of the many reasons why Buddha, Plotinus, and so many other Initiates are now accused of having longed for the total extinction of their souls: “absorption unto the Deity,” or “reunion with the universal soul,” meaning, according to modern ideas, annihilation. The personal soul must, of course, be disintegrated into its particles, before it is able to link its purer essence for ever with the immortal spirit. But the translators of both the _Acts_ and the _Epistles_, who laid the foundation of the _Kingdom of Heaven_, and the modern commentators on the Buddhist _Sutra of the Foundation of the Kingdom of Righteousness_, have muddled the sense of the great apostle of Christianity as of the great reformer of India. The former have smothered the word ψυχικος so that no reader imagines it to have any relation with _soul_; and with this confusion of _soul_ and _spirit_ together, _Bible_ readers get only a perverted sense of anything on the subject. On the other hand, the interpreters of Buddha have failed to understand the meaning and object of the Buddhist four degrees of Dhyâna. Ask the Pythagoreans, “Can that spirit, which gives life and motion and partakes of the nature of light, be reduced to nonentity?” “Can even that sensitive spirit in brutes which exercises memory, one of the rational faculties, die and become nothing?” observe the Occultists. In Buddhistic philosophy _annihilation_ means only a dispersion of matter, in whatever form or _semblance_ of form it may be, for everything that has form is temporary, and is, therefore, really an illusion. For in eternity the longest periods of time are as a wink of the eye. So with form. Before we have time to realize that we have seen it, it is gone like an instantaneous flash of lightning, and passed for ever. When the Spiritual _entity_ breaks loose for ever from every particle of matter, substance, or form, and re-becomes a Spiritual breath: then only does it enter upon the eternal and unchangeable _Nirvana_, lasting as long as the cycle of life has lasted—an eternity, truly. And then that Breath, existing _in Spirit_, is _nothing_ because it is _all_; as a form, a semblance, a shape, it is completely annihilated; as absolute Spirit it still is, for it has become _Be-ness_ itself. The very word used, “absorbed in the universal essence,” when spoken of the “Soul” as Spirit, means “_union with_.” It can never mean annihilation, as that would mean eternal separation.

ENQ. Do you not lay yourself open to the accusation of preaching annihilation by the language you yourself use? You have just spoken of the Soul of man returning to its primordial elements.

THEO. But you forget that I have given you the differences between the various meanings of the word “Soul,” and shown the loose way in which the term “Spirit” has been hitherto translated. We speak of an _animal_, a _human_, and a _spiritual_, Soul, and distinguish between them. Plato, for instance, calls “rational SOUL” that which we call _Buddhi_, adding to it the adjective of “spiritual,” however; but that which we call the reincarnating Ego, _Manas_, he calls Spirit, _Nous_, etc., whereas we apply the term _Spirit_, when standing alone and without any qualification, to Atma alone. Pythagoras repeats our archaic doctrine when stating that the _Ego_ (_Nous_) is eternal with Deity; that the soul only passed through various stages to arrive at divine excellence; while _thumos_ returned to the earth, and even the _phren_, the lower _Manas_, was eliminated. Again, Plato defines _Soul_ (Buddhi) as “the motion that is able to move itself.” “Soul,” he adds (Laws X.), “is the most ancient of all things, and the commencement of motion,” thus calling Atma-Buddhi “Soul,” and _Manas_ “Spirit,” which we do not.

“Soul was generated prior to body, and body is posterior and secondary, as being according to nature, ruled over by the ruling soul.” “The soul which administers all things that are moved in every way, administers likewise the heavens.”

“Soul then leads everything in heaven, and on earth, and in the sea, by its movements—the names of which are, to will, to consider, to take care of, to consult, to form opinions true and false, to be in a state of joy, sorrow, confidence, fear, hate, love, together with all such primary movements as are allied to these.... Being a goddess herself, she ever takes as an ally _Nous_, a god, and disciplines all things correctly and happily; but when with _Annoia_—not _nous_—it works out everything the contrary.”

In this language, as in the Buddhist texts, the negative is treated as essential existence. _Annihilation_ comes under a similar exegesis. The positive state is essential being, but no manifestation as such. When the spirit, in Buddhistic parlance, enters _Nirvana_, it loses objective existence, but retains subjective being. To objective minds this is becoming absolute “nothing”; to subjective, NO-THING, nothing to be displayed to sense. Thus, their Nirvana means the certitude of individual immortality _in Spirit_, not in Soul, which, though “the most ancient of all things,” is still—along with all the other _Gods_—a finite emanation, in _forms_ and individuality, if not in substance.

ENQ. I do not quite seize the idea yet, and would be thankful to have you explain this to me by some illustrations.

THEO. No doubt it is very difficult to understand, especially to one brought up in the regular orthodox ideas of the Christian Church. Moreover, I must tell you one thing; and this is that unless you have studied thoroughly well the separate functions assigned to all the human “principles” and the state of all these _after death_, you will hardly realize our Eastern philosophy.

ON THE VARIOUS “PRINCIPLES” IN MAN.

ENQ. I have heard a good deal about this constitution of the “inner man” as you call it, but could never make “head or tail on’t” as Gabalis expresses it.

THEO. Of course, it is most difficult, and, as you say, “puzzling” to understand correctly and distinguish between the various _aspects_, called by us, the “principles” of the real EGO. It is the more so as there exists a notable difference in the numbering of those principles by various Eastern schools, though at the bottom there is the same identical substratum of teaching.

ENQ. Do you mean the Vedantins, as an instance? Don’t they divide your seven “principles” into five only?

THEO. They do; but though I would not presume to dispute the point with a learned Vedantin, I may yet state as my private opinion that they have an obvious reason for it. With them it is only that compound spiritual aggregate which consists of various mental aspects that is called _Man_ at all, the physical body being in their view something beneath contempt, and merely an _illusion_. Nor is the Vedanta the only philosophy to reckon in this manner. Lao-Tze, in his _Tao-te-King_, mentions only five principles, because he, like the Vedantins, omits to include two principles, namely, the spirit (Atma) and the physical body, the latter of which, moreover, he calls “the cadaver.” Then there is the _Taraka Rajà Yogà_ School. Its teaching recognises only three “principles” in fact; but then, in reality, their _Sthulopadi_, or the physical body, in its waking conscious state, their _Sukshmopadhi_, the same body in _Svapna_, or the dreaming state, and their _Karanopadhi_ or “causal body,” or that which passes from one incarnation to another, are all dual in their aspects, and thus make six. Add to this Atma, the impersonal divine principle or the immortal element in Man, undistinguished from the Universal Spirit, and you have the same seven again.[30] They are welcome to hold to their division; we hold to ours.

ENQ. Then it seems almost the same as the division made by the mystic Christians: body, soul and spirit?

THEO. Just the same. We could easily make of the body the vehicle of the “vital Double”; of the latter the vehicle of Life or _Pranâ_; of _Kama-rupa_, or (animal) soul, the vehicle of the _higher_ and the _lower_ mind, and make of this six principles, crowning the whole with the one immortal spirit. In Occultism every qualificative change in the state of our consciousness gives to man a new aspect, and if it prevails and becomes part of the living and acting Ego, it must be (and is) given a special name, to distinguish the man in that particular state from the man he is when he places himself in another state.

ENQ. It is just that which it is so difficult to understand.

THEO. It seems to me very easy, on the contrary, once that you have seized the main idea, _i.e._, that man acts on this or another plane of consciousness, in strict accordance with his mental and spiritual condition. But such is the materialism of the age that the more we explain the less people seem capable of understanding what we say. Divide the terrestrial being called man into three chief aspects, if you like, and unless you make of him a pure animal you cannot do less. Take his objective _body_; the thinking principle in him—which is only a little higher than the _instinctual_ element in the animal—or the vital conscious soul; and that which places him so immeasurably beyond and higher than the animal—_i.e._, his _reasoning_ soul or “spirit.” Well, if we take these three groups or representative entities, and subdivide them, according to the occult teaching, what do we get?

First of all, Spirit (in the sense of the Absolute, and therefore, indivisible ALL), or Atma. As this can neither be located nor limited in philosophy, being simply that which IS in Eternity, and which cannot be absent from even the tiniest geometrical or mathematical point of the universe of matter or substance, it ought not to be called, in truth, a “human” principle at all. Rather, and at best, it is in Metaphysics, that point in space which the human Monad and its vehicle man occupy for the period of every life. Now that point is as imaginary as man himself, and in reality is an illusion, a _maya_; but then for ourselves, as for other personal Egos, we are a reality during that fit of illusion called life, and we have to take ourselves into account, in our own fancy at any rate, if no one else does. To make it more conceivable to the human intellect, when first attempting the study of Occultism, and to solve the A B C of the mystery of man, Occultism calls this _seventh_ principle the synthesis of the sixth, and gives it for vehicle the _Spiritual_ Soul, _Buddhi_. Now the latter conceals a mystery, which is never given to any one, with the exception of irrevocably pledged _chelas_, or those, at any rate, who can be safely trusted. Of course, there would be less confusion, could it only be told; but, as this is directly concerned with the power of projecting one’s double consciously and at will, and as this gift, like the “ring of Gyges,” would prove very fatal to man at large and to the possessor of that faculty in particular, it is carefully guarded. But let us proceed with the “principles.” This divine soul, or Buddhi, then, is the vehicle of the Spirit. In conjunction, these two are one, impersonal and without any attributes (on this plane, of course), and make two spiritual “principles.” If we pass on to the _Human_ Soul, _Manas_ or _mens_, every one will agree that the intelligence of man is _dual_ to say the least: _e.g._, the high-minded man can hardly become low-minded; the very intellectual and spiritual-minded man is separated by an abyss from the obtuse, dull, and material, if not animal-minded man.

ENQ. But why should not man be represented by two “principles” or two aspects, rather?

THEO. Every man has these two principles in him, one more active than the other, and in rare cases, one of these is entirely stunted in its growth, so to say, or paralysed by the strength and predominance of the other _aspect_, in whatever direction. These, then, are what we call the two principles or aspects of _Manas_, the higher and the lower; the former, the higher Manas, or the thinking, conscious EGO gravitating toward the spiritual Soul (Buddhi); and the latter, or its instinctual principle, attracted to _Kama_, the seat of animal desires and passions in man. Thus, we have _four_ “principles” justified; the last three being (1) the “Double,” which we have agreed to call Protean, or Plastic Soul; the vehicle of (2) the life _principle_; and (3) the physical body. Of course no physiologist or biologist will accept these principles, nor can he make head or tail of them. And this is why, perhaps, none of them understand to this day either the functions of the spleen, the physical vehicle of the Protean Double, or those of a certain organ on the right side of man, the seat of the above-mentioned desires, nor yet does he know anything of the pineal gland, which he describes as a horny gland with a little sand in it, which gland is in truth the very seat of the highest and divinest consciousness in man, his omniscient, spiritual and all-embracing mind. And this shows to you still more plainly that we have neither invented these seven principles, nor are they new in the world of philosophy, as we can easily prove.

ENQ. But what is it that reincarnates, in your belief?

THEO. The Spiritual thinking Ego, the permanent principle in man, or that which is the seat of _Manas_. It is not Atma, or even Atma-Buddhi, regarded as the dual _Monad_, which is the _individual_, or _divine_ man, but Manas; for Atman is the Universal ALL, and becomes the HIGHER-SELF of man only in conjunction with _Buddhi_, its vehicle, which links IT to the individuality (or divine man). For it is the Buddhi-Manas which is called the _Causal body_, (the United 5th and 6th Principles) and which is _Consciousness_, that connects it with every personality it inhabits on earth. Therefore, Soul being a generic term, there are in men three _aspects_ of soul—the terrestrial, or animal; the Human Soul; and the Spiritual Soul; these, strictly speaking, are one Soul in its three aspects. Now of the first aspect, nothing remains after death; of the second (_nous_ or Manas) only its divine essence _if left unsoiled_ survives, while the third in addition to being immortal becomes _consciously_ divine, by the assimilation of the higher Manas. But to make it clear, we have to say a few words first of all about Re-incarnation.

ENQ. You will do well, as it is against this doctrine that your enemies fight the most ferociously.

THEO. You mean the Spiritualists? I know; and many are the absurd objections laboriously spun by them over the pages of _Light_. So obtuse and malicious are some of them, that they will stop at nothing. One of them found recently a contradiction, which he gravely discusses in a letter to that journal, in two statements picked out of Mr. Sinnett’s lectures. He discovers that grave contradiction in these two sentences: “Premature returns to earth-life in the cases when they occur may be due to Karmic complication ...”; and “there is no _accident_ in the supreme act of divine justice guiding evolution.” So profound a thinker would surely see a contradiction of the law of gravitation if a man stretched out his hand to stop a falling stone from crushing the head of a child!

FOOTNOTES:

[25] In its generic sense, the word “rational” meaning something emanating from the Eternal Wisdom.

[26] _Irrational_ in the sense that as a _pure_ emanation of the Universal mind it can have no individual reason of its own on this plane of matter, but like the Moon, who borrows her light from the Sun and her life from the Earth, so _Buddhi_, receiving its light of Wisdom from Atma, gets its rational qualities from _Manas_. _Per se_, as something homogeneous, it is devoid of attributes.

[27] _Vide_ “_Secret Doctrine_,” Vol. II., stanzas.

[28] “_Zohar_,” Vol. II., p. 96.

[29] “_Mishna_,” “Aboth,” Vol. IV., p. 29.

[30] See “Secret Doctrine” for a clearer explanation. Vol. I., p. 157.

VIII. ON RE-INCARNATION OR REBIRTH.

WHAT IS MEMORY ACCORDING TO THEOSOPHICAL TEACHING?

ENQ. The most difficult thing for you to do, will be to explain and give reasonable grounds for such a belief. No Theosophist has ever yet succeeded in bringing forward a single valid proof to shake my scepticism. First of all, you have against this theory of re-incarnation, the fact that no single man has yet been found to remember that he has lived, least of all who he was, during his previous life.

THEO. Your argument, I see, tends to the same old objection; the loss of memory in each of us of our previous incarnation. You think it invalidates our doctrine? My answer is that it does not, and that at any rate such an objection cannot be final.

ENQ. I would like to hear your arguments.

THEO. They are short and few. Yet when you take into consideration (_a_) the utter inability of the best modern psychologists to explain to the world the nature of _mind_; and (_b_) their complete ignorance of its potentialities, and higher states, you have to admit that this objection is based on an _a priori_ conclusion drawn from _primâ facie_ and circumstantial evidence more than anything else. Now what is “memory” in your conception, pray?

ENQ. That which is generally accepted: the faculty in our mind of remembering and of retaining the knowledge of previous thoughts, deeds and events.

THEO. Please add to it that there is a great difference between the three accepted forms of memory. Besides memory in general you have _Remembrance_, _Recollection_ and _Reminiscence_, have you not? Have you ever thought over the difference? Memory, remember, is a generic name.

ENQ. Yet, all these are only synonyms.

THEO. Indeed, they are not—not in philosophy, at all events. Memory is simply an innate power in thinking beings, and even in animals, of reproducing past impressions by an association of ideas principally suggested by objective things or by some action on our external sensory organs. Memory is a faculty depending entirely on the more or less healthy and normal functioning of our _physical_ brain; and _remembrance_ and _recollection_ are the attributes and handmaidens of that memory. But _reminiscence_ is an entirely different thing. “Reminiscence” is defined by the modern psychologist as something intermediate between _remembrance_ and _recollection_, or “a conscious process of recalling past occurrences, but _without that full and varied reference_ to

## particular things which characterises _recollection_.” Locke,

speaking of recollection and remembrance, says: “When an _idea again_ recurs without the operation of the like object on the external sensory, it is _remembrance_; if it be sought after by the mind, and with pain and endeavour found and brought again into view, it is _recollection_.” But even Locke leaves _reminiscence_ without any clear definition, because it is no faculty or attribute of our _physical_ memory, but an intuitional perception apart from and outside our physical brain; a perception which, covering as it does (being called into action by the ever-present knowledge of our spiritual Ego) all those visions in man which are regarded as _abnormal_—from the pictures suggested by genius to the _ravings_ of fever and even madness—are classed by science as having no _existence_ outside of our fancy. Occultism and Theosophy, however, regard _reminiscence_ in an entirely different light. For us, while _memory_ is physical and evanescent and depends on the physiological conditions of the brain—a fundamental proposition with all teachers of mnemonics, who have the researches of modern scientific psychologists to back them—we call _reminiscence_ the _memory of the soul_. And it is _this_ memory which gives the assurance to almost every human being, whether he understands it or not, of his having lived before and having to live again. Indeed, as Wordsworth has it:

“Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting, The soul that rises with us, our life’s star, Hath elsewhere had its setting, And cometh from afar.”

ENQ. If it is on this kind of memory—poetry and abnormal fancies, on your own confession—that you base your doctrine, then you will convince very few, I am afraid.