Theosophical University Press Online Edition
It will be seen from the line of study which was followed in the preceding chapter, that human beings are divisible into three general classes in whom the intermediate or psychological nature is more or less pellucid to the Inner Light. The first class as here enumerated comprises the vast majority of mankind; those in the second class are very few; and those in the third class are exceedingly few and appear in the human race in cyclical time-periods only. Let us then enumerate them as follows: I. Men and women in whom the intermediate or psychological nature is moderately pervious to the light and power of the inner god; II. Those in whom it is pervious in large measure, however much these individuals may differ as among themselves in this respect; III. Those in whom it is wholly pervious thereto. These three classes, beginning with the first or lowest, may be otherwise defined or described as follows: I. Ordinary men; II. Messengers and disciples of the Sages, and the Sages themselves; III. Avataras.
From what has gone before, it should be abundantly clear that in Class I the intermediate or psychological part of the human constitution is but imperfectly evolved and is therefore only moderately pervious to the supernal light and energy of the divine-spiritual Soul, or rather the Inmost Essential Self -- the Spiritual Monad -- and hence this intermediate portion is subject to manifold disturbances and disquiets as well as to various distortions of function which by their occurrence still more greatly interrupt or temporarily intercept the stream of spiritual consciousness emanating or flowing forth from the Monad or Inner Essential Self.
It is customary in the West to refer to conscience, or the so-called voice of conscience, as being a never-failing and indeed infallible guide for man to follow, and there is indeed much truth in this intuitive recognition of the really enormous part played by the conscience in human life when it is earnestly appealed to; yet the 'Voice of Conscience' cannot be considered a never-failing, utterly infallible, and therefore impeccably sure guide, because of the fact that although this 'Voice' originally emanates from the Spiritual Monad as its source, and is therefore an expression of the boundless wisdom and knowledge of the highest in us, it can function only by passing through or traversing the heavy veils and often distorted functioning of the imperfect psychological vehicle which is the intermediate nature of man, and hence its spiritual whisperings often fail to reach even the devoutly listening ear. Furthermore, and speaking now more technically and more accurately, the conscience is really the stored up Wisdom and Knowledge gained in all past lives, and therefore although emanating from its spiritual source obviously is not utterly infallible. Nevertheless it is a safe and sure guide for man to follow in so far as man is able to hear its admonitory whisperings and suggestions, albeit, as above said, it itself is not infallible.
From another standpoint, if our intermediate or psychological nature were fully developed or evolved to become a vehicle of transmission of the whisperings of the Monadic Spirit in us; if we were in other words perfect beings, or beings even relatively perfected; if our inner sheaths of consciousness were so pervious to the rays of the spiritual sun within us and at the core of each one of us that there were no dimming of that supernal inner Light: then indeed our Conscience would be a truly infallible guide because it would be the 'Voice' of the Spiritual Soul itself, and would in very truth likewise then be consciously recognised as such, and always followed faithfully. The Great Ones have become such relatively perfected human beings, and the consequence is that they enjoy more or less constant and uninterrupted communication and communion with the divinity within themselves; they know, each one, his inner god whom they call 'Father,' as Jesus the Avatara is said to have done, and in their cases the inner Voice or Guidance is always impeccably clear and unmistakable, and thus is virtually an infallible guide.
Compare these cases last cited with what the average man today is. All too often he considers as little more than fanciful imaginings the intimations and intuitions of truth and of beauty, of inner light and splendorous comprehension, those mysterious and often voiceless urges, which come to him from the spirit within. He has not been trained to know, nor has he been evolved to the point where he recognises, that these inner admonitions or intuitions are from the luminous divinity within himself; and his whole training from childhood has been unfortunately such as to make him intensely extraspective rather than combining a wise introspection or understanding of his inner self with the necessary extraspection or investigation of the universe around him which, when properly joined, make the Superior Man. The average man does not know that these monitions and admonitions are the Voice of the Spiritual within him reaching his ordinary consciousness with more or less clearness. Yet to one who has even once experienced this true inner initiation, the 'Voice' makes a startling contrast with the raucous voices of the lower nature, the appeal of which is often so gross and coarse.
Plato, although using another metaphor, discusses this same subject in his Phaedo:
Have we not already long ago said that the soul when using the body as an instrument for perceiving: that is, when using the sense of sight or of hearing or indeed one of the other senses -- for when we say that we perceive through the body we mean perceiving through the senses -- did we not say, I repeat, that the soul is then naturally pulled by the bodily attraction into the world of changing, shifting scenes, and therefore wanders and is confused: that the world whirls around her, and that she is then while under the influence of the senses, like a drunkard?
Very true, Socrates.
Yet, when she returns into herself she reflects clearly; and then she naturally passes into the world of purity, and into the everlasting and the undying and the unchanging, which are all her own nature; and with these she lives for aye when she is herself and is not attracted away or prevented; and then she ceases her wanderings; and from being in tune with the Unchanging is herself unchanging. Is not this state of the soul called Wisdom?
That is well said, Socrates, and very true. (430)
The voice of conscience alluded to above is usually considered to be an ethical or moral admonition only, but this is entirely erroneous and arises only because men are more accustomed to look for ethical guidance within than they are habituated to seek for inspiration or intuitive guidance from within. The truth of the matter is, that what are commonly called, in our human affairs, genius, or inspiration, or intuition, are all derivatives from the one spiritual source which is the Treasury of the Higher Self, from which, as above stated, what is commonly called conscience likewise flows. A man of genius is a man who through fortunate karmic destiny is enabled to tap, so to speak, and usually unknown to himself, the immense reservoir of the wisdom and knowledge garnered through manifold and myriad experiences of former lives, which flows into the brain-mind of his present life as impulses or it may be a more or less constant stream of intuitive perceptions and inspired thoughts.
Thus it is seen that genius is a collective name for the inspirations of a lifetime or the intuitions thereof; and all three: intuition, inspiration, and genius: are but three names for the activity of the spiritual part of his being of which conscience is likewise derivative. As Einstein has very truly phrased it (as quoted in the daily press):
I believe in intuition and inspiration. At times I feel certain I am right, while not knowing the reason. . . . It is strictly speaking a real factor in scientific research.
When our scientists as a body of more or less learned researchers into Nature's mysteries become self-consciously cognisant of the never-failing well of inspiration and intuition within each one of them, they will then begin to draw upon this unfailing source of wisdom and knowledge, therefore of guidance, in their work; and from being, as now most of them are more or less, blind wanderers in fields of mere speculation and often of doubt, they will become in very truth genuine Illuminati -- and become so the more as they in larger proportion learn to trust this inner fountain of Wisdom garnered in other lives.
When man learns to subordinate the lower or intermediate or psychological nature of his being to the streaming light always attempting to flow into it and to permeate it from above, then this psychological nature of his will be truly 'inspired.' For the lower nature 'inspires' (in the original Latin sense of this word) that is, it 'breathes in' by and through the intermediate channel of communication with the inner divinity by which we become at one with the Boundless All -- gaining thereby in proportion to our evolutionary unfoldment, all beauty, all harmony, all love, all loveliness, indeed, all the wondrous mystery of being.
But this is not all of the pneumatological psychology contained in the secret of inspiration, or intuition, or genial guidance, that we have been studying. There is also to be taken into account the ever-present and unceasing urge or impulsing inherent in the very nature of the god within us in its attempts to guide us along life's devious ways. There is in very fact, wondrous mystery as it is, a continuous and unceasing effort of the inner god to lean downwards towards us, so to speak, in order to raise its 'lower self,' the human individual, up to higher planes towards a final consummation of self-conscious unity with itself. When the inner god thus leans from its highths and touches its lower brother-mind, there then instantaneously passes from the god a spiritual-electric fire into the being of the one thus divinely touched. When this happens the latter has at last found the Path, because he has found himself. When a man has found himself in even minor degree, then he has found the beginning of the Path. It is the Great Sages and Seers of the human race who through the ages teach their fellow-men to place their feet upon that pathway -- still, small, quiet, endless -- which is the Pathway to the gods themselves.
Class II: This, as said, is that of the Messengers and the advanced disciples of the Sages, and in its highest grades the Mahatmans themselves. This class of men and of women stands upon an entirely different footing from that of the previous Class. Whereas in Class I, the various phenomena appertaining to the 'absence' or dislocation of the intermediate or psychological apparatus are mostly involuntary, and beyond ordinary control, and in their evil and vicious ranges or occurrences are a great and positive affliction: in this Second Class, the 'absence' or disjunction of the intermediate or psychological apparatus is an exceedingly rare phenomenon. When it occurs, it is entirely under the control of the individual because it is voluntary, and takes place only when and if and as the individual so desires it, and only for the purposes of some noble objective of far-reaching benefit to mankind as a whole, and its results are always intellectually and morally healthful.
In this Class II, furthermore, the intermediate or psychological part of the human constitution is invariably highly evolved, and hence, as is clear from what has been set forth in former pages, is trained to respond to the stream of spiritual inspiration from above, and through this training and because of initiation successfully undergone, has become not only positively active but powerfully efficient because of its complete subservience to the spiritual will. Thus in the individuals of Class II, the Spiritual Will and Consciousness function easily and freely, and, whenever necessary, as above hinted, can so control and govern the intermediate or psychological apparatus as to set it aside temporarily, in order that the consciousness-stream flowing forth from the Spiritual Monad or Inner Spiritual Self may thus pass directly and without intermediary into the ordinary human or brain-mind consciousness.
When this last happens, the man is then a demigod in very truth, a man-god. Thus this last condition opens the path to the highest spiritual inspiration, uncolored by the personalized individuality of the intermediate nature -- however grandly trained this may be -- of the inner constitution of the man. When this occurs, as just stated, the man becomes in consciousness and power virtually an incarnate god. His consciousness is, for the time being, of universal range and vision, and this therefore includes what may be called temporary omniscience -- at least so far as our Solar System is concerned. A man in this condition is, for the time being, a Buddha, a Christ. Of course this condition is, even in the highest grades of Class II, one of rarity for reasons which it would be laborious to attempt to explain here because of their highly esoteric character; but it is extremely suggestive at least to state the fact. Buddhists could speak of this condition as that of the manifested 'inner Buddha'; Christian mystics could speak of it as that of the 'immanent Christ' in manifestation on earth; the philosophic Hindu might speak of it as the 'splendor of the Brahman in the heart,' manifesting itself in the human individual thus walking in glory.
Into the condition thus temporarily brought about of the intermediate nature, the Will and Thought and Consciousness of the Inner Essential Self or Spiritual Monad flows unhindered and uncolored by any shading of however great a personality and expresses itself through the personal lower vehicle or incarnated Man, and through him performs the work or gives the sublime teachings of Reality which the condition thus made was brought about to do.(431)
Such cases of 'setting aside' for however long or short a time of the intermediate or psychological apparatus of a human being, are infrequent and may perhaps be said to be of extreme rarity. Far more common are the cases of those glorious human beings who through long past ages of experience in the series of former earth-lives have come close to attaining Dhyan-Chohanship. In these last, evolution has wrought the wondrous magic of bringing the 'soul-nature' into willing and self-conscious union with the inner god, in greater or less degree depending upon the individual, so that in them there is no longer contrariety or struggle of the higher against the lower or vise versa, but relatively complete conformity of the lower with the higher.
It may be added in passing that the filling of the self-conscious human mind with the inner spiritual essence of the constitution cannot in any sense whatsoever injure the mind, or the body that the latter functions in, nor does it render the mind less fit for its normal activity; but, on the contrary, as should be obvious, all the results or consequences of such spiritual-intellectual permeation or filling are greatly for betterment. It must be obvious to anyone, that if the ordinary human being could feel his brain and psychological and emotional apparatus inspired and filled full with the presence of a divinity, it would be incomparably good for him, and would strengthen, in all higher senses of the word, the brain and emotional and mental apparatuses in an incomparable degree; and exactly the same remark therefore applies to one possessing what we may thus call quasi-divinity.
All the above may seem to be very strange and possibly vague to the average Westerner, and this only because he knows little or nothing about these marvelous mysteries in Pneumatology as well as in Psychology -- the latter the real Psychology that the Ancient Wisdom teaches. But in actual fact, could he penetrate behind the veils enshrouding the inner and secret life of the Great Ones of history, who are the towering human monuments of spiritual and intellectual capacity, and who therefore are true World-Teachers, he would immediately see that one or other of the conditions or states hereinbefore described is in these cases exemplified and proved.
Probably every World-Teacher, or really great Founder of a religion or of a dominant philosophical school, throughout human history, has been spoken of by his followers or disciples as having been, at least at times, illuminated; occasionally it has been said of them that they were infilled with a glory which even clothed the physical frame; so that it has been recorded of them that the face and the body of them shone with splendor; and indeed the ancient Greeks have left it on record in some of their religious and mystical philosophical literature, albeit expressed in guarded language, that such appearances of divinities or quasi-divine Beings -- the inner Spiritual Self or Monad -- manifesting through the body of some chosen one, were well-known facts of archaic Wisdom and Knowledge, and that it was during and after initiation that such an environing glory was especially noted.(432)
Usually this illumination or filling with glory came from at least temporary identification of the man's intermediate nature with his own Inner Spiritual Essence or Self; but sometimes, and these are cases of extreme rarity relatively speaking, it occurred because a great and lofty human being -- belonging to Class II above described -- became the vehicle or channel for the temporary manifestation of a Celestial Power, so called, when the man became filled with the splendor of an over-enlightening divinity.
To make the matter a little clearer, the former cases are they in which the neophyte becomes temporarily clothed with the spiritual and intellectual and vital efflux from the god within him, and this is the accompaniment of the higher stages or degrees of initiation; whereas the latter cases, of relatively extreme rarity as above described, are they in which the individual occupying one of the higher degrees of Class II gives himself up, for a life-time it may be, to become the utterly willing human vehicle in order to bring a divine influence into the world and to perform, because of this fact, a divine work therein.
All of the foregoing study which has been incorporated in the preceding paragraphs, may be summarized by saying that the secret lies in the soul-nature, otherwise called the intermediate or psychological apparatus. With due reservations made for the cases of the Avatara, all the other instances alluded to or hinted at are rendered possible because of the complete stilling or co-ordination with the Spiritual Monad of the ever-active, and commonly vagrant and impulsive, 'human soul' expressing itself as the psychological apparatus. This in all human beings is an organ that, however useful it may be in daily affairs, is, on account of its fevered and fretful activities, the greatest hindrance to the reception of the calming and refining spiritual influences flowing from the Monad or spiritual nature superior to it. Hence the idea of the teaching is most certainly not that the intermediate or psychological nature steps out of or abandons even temporarily, the constitution, for, as shown before, such an act would result in mere deep sleep or profound trance; but instead of that the meaning is that this intermediate or psychological nature is trained to be utterly still, to become perfectly quiet, to be as pellucid and clear as the waters of a mountain tarn, receiving and mirroring the rays of the golden sun.
The truth, therefore, is that when the psychological condition, or conditions, which it has been attempted to outline, is described by the phrase 'temporary disjunction' or by the term 'dislocation' or 'absence,' it is so phrased in human language only because strictly accurate and exact terms do not exist in European tongues by which this condition or state can be described with accuracy and lucidity. It must not be understood that the intermediate or psychological nature is disrupted or broken away from the rest of the constitution, but, on the contrary, that it there still remains, but in a state of undisturbed and wonderful receptivity. In fact, the condition or state is not different in principle or in fact from what occurs in vastly minor degree to every human being almost every day, when such a human being feels himself, as the saying runs, 'in the mood' to receive a new and illuminating idea. It is solely a distinction or difference of degree.
This subordination of the personality to the inner divinity is one of the most mysterious facts in human history, and it has always furnished one of the greatest problems even to the most intuitive historians. They sense in their studies of the life and work of the Great Ones who have lived in the past a presence of spiritual and intellectual splendor; they perceive the workings of an illumination which dazzles, in the life and teachings of this or some other World-Figure; and puzzled by the phenomenon, and perhaps even more so by its different appearances or recurrences, the causes of which they fail to understand, they not infrequently feel that the individuals whom they are studying are Figures of history the causes of whose appearance among mankind are inexplicable.
Class III is that of the Avataras, and because of the Mystery which brings about their being or existence, it is quite different from the individuals here gathered under Classes I and II. Nevertheless this third Class of Men, all supremely holy Men -- though in strictly true sense they are as individuals each one the imbodiment of or rather the vehicle for a divine Ray -- fall within the general subject of pneumatological psychology which we have seen studying in the present and in the preceding chapter. For it is true that while the Avataras, because of the mystery herinbefore stated, fall in a distinct class by themselves, there are yet spiritual-psychological facts connected with their appearances which are closely similar to, if not exactly identic with, the facts grouped under Classes I and II as already outlined.
The great difference which distinguishes the Avataras from the individuals of Class II, and which equally distinguishes them from the individuals of Class I, lies in the following fact, which is so strange, so mysterious, that it very likely will be startling to the average reader: In the case of the Avataras, there is no karmically natural personal intermediate or psychological vehicle which is their own as coming to them from former earth-lives; indeed, their intermediate part, forming the psychological link between Spirit and the vital-astral physical body, comes to them from elsewhere. In other words, the Avataras are human individuals, each one imbodying and expressing a Divine Ray, who have had no past and will have no future, i. e., no past incarnations in earth-life, and no future incarnations either. In fact, they are beings of extraordinary spiritual and intellectual and psychical powers and attributes who have no past karman and will have no future karman, for their appearance among men is unique; and this is because they are not the reimbodiments of a human soul unfolding steadily through evolutionary development by means of birth after birth into earth-life and by repeated imbodiments elsewhere on other planes, as all other human beings are. This is a fact so startling as to appear virtually incredible upon its first presentation. In fact, although they are men because working through a human body brought into existence in the usual fashion, they possess or rather are no 'human soul' of their own as individuals, but are 'created' by a supreme effort of what may be called divine White Magic. Their appearance or rather their production among mankind is for the express purpose of bringing into action the spiritual influence of a Divine Ray in human history. In order to achieve this, the intermediate or psychological apparatus is temporarily 'given' or loaned to the production in order to furnish the necessary intermediate vehicle or 'carrier' between the astral-vital-physical human body and the Ray from the waiting divinity.
This entire Class of Men known as the Avataras, are brought into being by means of a process so extraordinary, and have a history so marvelous, so different from anything that ordinary human beings know anything about, that without years of study directed to the specific purpose of understanding it, it is almost impossible to give explanation of it which will be even moderately satisfactory to the untrained reader; yet it is impossible to leave this third Class out of the theme of the present chapter without incurring the just charge of presenting an incomplete outline or an inadequate presentation of the subject under discussion.
The word 'Avatara' itself is of course a Sanskrit compound, and may be translated as 'passing down,' the significance of which is the passing into lower or inferior planes of a celestial Energy or Ray, or what comes to the same thing, of an individualized complex of spiritual force-substance, which is equivalent to saying a divine or celestial being, for the purpose of overshadowing and illuminating a human vehicle -- but a human vehicle which during the time of such connexion of 'heaven with earth,' of divinity with matter, possesses no karmically intermediate or connecting psychological link between the spiritual Ray and the physical body; in other words, no human soul born in that body and karmically destined to be the inner master of the body thus born.
What, then, is it which furnishes the absolutely necessary intermediate link or highly evolved psychological link in the Avatara's being, so that the Avatara to be, may have the intermediate human apparatus sufficiently evolved and fit to carry and to 'step down' the power and splendor of the celestial 'descent'? This intermediate or psychological or human link in the cases of the Avataras is supplied by the deliberate and voluntary entrance into or rather overshadowing of the unborn child -- to be followed at a later date with the overshadowing or over-enlightening by the celestial power -- of the psychological or intermediate or human principle of one of the Greater Ones, one possessing the status of Buddhahood, who thus completes the constitution of the Avatara enabling it to be henceforth the sublimely rare and lofty human channel through which the 'descending' Ray of the Divinity may manifest itself, finding in this high psychological part, thus 'loaned' or temporarily 'given,' a properly evolved human link enabling that divinity to express itself in human form, that is as a Man, upon earth.
All this is a Mystery, in the ancient Greek sense of the word, as has been before stated, greater even than the various other mysteries appertaining to any individual of Class II; and the reasons should be sufficiently obvious to any thoughtful mind why the development or elaboration of this strange and mysterious teaching would be out of place in a published work.
The three Classes of beings described in the preceding paragraphs of course are obviously divisible, each one, into various grades or stages, from the less great to the greatest. Thus, in ordinary humanity as comprised in Class I, there are the inferior men in the lower ranks, running up through various subordinate grades to the highest stage of Class I, which highest stage we may call that of men of genius and quasi-great men.
So also, in Class II, there are the disciples or chelas belonging to various grades and ranging from the lowest, or the neophyte in Esoteric Wisdom and training, through the chosen Messenger, to the Mahatmans or the great Sages and Seers themselves.
Again, in Class III or that of the Avataras, although this Class contains very few examples -- very few indeed -- in human history, by which we may judge of their various degrees, yet, as already hinted, the Avataras are not all of precisely equal spiritual rank and intellectual grandeur.
It may be of interest to name a few avataric figures in known human history, which will by suggestion allow the reader himself to make his own adjustments of the respective place held by each in the avataric hierarchy. Sankaracharya of India may be instanced as the case of a true Avatara, without attempting to define his particular grade among the individuals of his class. He lived some few generations after the date of the passing of Gautama the Buddha out of physical existence in order to become a Nirmanakaya. Sankaracharya was a native of Southern India according to the records that still remain extant of his life and work, and from earliest childhood to the day of his death, he manifested transcendent capacity in spiritual and intellectual as well as in psychical lines. He was one of the most noted reformers of much of what was then current in orthodox Indian religious philosophy, and he has been universally accepted in India as the founder of the great Adwaita-School of the Vedanta -- the non-dualistic School thereof -- which flourishes all over the great Peninsula even to this day, and which, perhaps, may be called the most widely accepted and popular School of modern philosophical Hinduism -- and perhaps the noblest because the most spiritual also. There is a great deal of mystery and an abundance of strange facts connected with the life of this great Hindu teacher. Many legends, doubtless having some foundation of fact, are current regarding his life and his work; and the student who is interested in this remarkable man will have little difficulty in discovering these if he care to go to the proper sources of literary information.
Leaving aside all matters of legend or myth, however interesting these may be in themselves, the reader is requested to remember the main facts concerning the nature of an Avatara, and his entrance into the sphere of human history. These main facts may be summarized as follows: (a) the Avatara is composed or formed of three parts or portions each of a distinct derivation but united to form the avataric being. There is, first, the spiritual-divine part; second, the loaned intermediate or psychological or 'soul'-nature; third, a karmically pure human astral-vital-physical vehicle; (b) the Avatara is a production -- for lack of a better word -- brought about at certain cyclical points in human history for the express purpose of introducing a direct and unimpeded spiritual influence into human affairs; (c) the Avatara has no karman; is, in consequence, no karmic production in the sense of a reincarnation of a Reimbodying Ego, and hence has had no past as an individual and will have no future as an individual. The spiritual-divine part or the Ray making the celestial 'descent' has of course no human karman, because this Ray is not of human origin, and hence there is no individual or natural or racial karman attracting it into the human sphere. The appearance of an Avatara is, nevertheless, governed by karman of a cosmic character -- or better, perhaps, of a world-character, 'world' as here used meaning this Globe of our Planetary Chain.
The second instance which may be given by way of illustration of an Avatara is that of Jesus, the great Syrian Sage; and, precisely like all of his Class, he had no merely human karman, except perhaps in the very minor sense in which the physical body may have its own karmic attributes, which, however, were of short duration.
There is a point of genuine interest in connexion with Jesus the Avatara which may be displeasing to many devout or rather pious Western minds, more or less still under the sway of Christian psychology, but which point nevertheless may likewise be extremely suggestive of thought to other minds of more religiously and philosophically catholic, i. e., universal, type. This point is that the Esoteric Philosophy shows us that the psychological or 'loaned' part of Jesus the Avatara, was almost certainly the same psychological entity or psychological individuality which had furnished the intermediate or psychologically human part in the constitution of the preceding Avatara, Sankaracharya; and, furthermore, this same intermediate psychological entity which had been 'loaned' in both these cases is traceable directly back to the noblest Sage and Seer that recorded history knows -- Gautama the Buddha.
It is not the intention of the author of the present work to elaborate this point, but he would like to suggest to those who may be interested in it to undertake a critical examination of the religious and philosophical teachings both of Sankaracharya and of Jesus called the Christ. It is probable that he will discover marks of intellectual identity in the two Avataras mentioned which will reveal more than any amount of writing on the subject could suggest. Unquestionably each of the twain had his own avataric work to do among men, and each did it grandly; and in consequence there are differences; but this is only what one would expect. It is the points of strong similarity, it is the identities, it is the identic intellectual atmosphere in both cases which forms the point of suggestive interest above stated.
Although it may not be evident to the cursory reader or relatively inattentive student, it should be noted, before finally leaving an examination of the cases of the Avataras, comprised under Class III, that there are points of contact and certain similarities of constitutional functioning between the Avataras and exceptional individuals which otherwise and apart from these points of contact belong to Class II. These 'points of contact' themselves comprise a minor Mystery, which, like all such 'Mysteries' are not easy either of simple elucidation or of elaboration outside of the circle of strictly esoteric study. Nevertheless, in order to make the content of this chapter complete, at least in outline of framework, it is necessary to mention these specific cases with at least a few words of explanatory matter.
The truth is, then, that there are what one might call 'minor avataras.' These do not belong strictly to Class III, but yet, because of certain very definite psychological changes that are brought about in the constitution of the exceptional individuals mentioned as belonging to Class II, these exceptional individuals partake in greater or less degree, according to the individual, of the characteristics which when fully complete and in perfect functional order make the true Avatara. It is to be remembered what an Avatara is, as hereinbefore explained: (a) a Divine or Spiritual Ray, working through (b) a 'loaned' psychological or psycho-mental apparatus, and these two in conjoined activity expressing themselves through (c) a highly trained human vital-astral-physical body.
Now the 'minor avataras' may be exemplified by what are in modern Theosophical teaching called Messengers, i. e., certain individuals selected by the Great Brotherhood to go into the world as greater or minor representatives of the Brotherhood in order to do certain labors or work, mainly comprising teaching and the founding of spiritual-intellectual movements among men. This of course obviously does not mean that every individual who starts a society or an association or a 'group' or a 'movement' is such an envoy of the Mahatmans, for this idea is ludicrous in the extreme, as human history is overfull of the cases of cranks and apostles of foolishness beginning or starting movements of their own which after attaining more or less notoriety usually disappear or fall into innocuous desuetude.
Reference is here made to actual and true Messengers such as was H. P. Blavatsky. Such minor avataras are properly so named because of one sole fact, to wit, that the psychological apparatus or psycho-mental being of these individuals is trained at times willingly and voluntarily to step aside, so to speak, in order to allow its own normal, natural, place to be taken by the projected will and intelligence of one of the Great Teachers, who thus, for the time being, becomes a 'psychological apparatus' working in the otherwise perfectly normal constitution of the Messenger. They are 'minor' in the sense used above because it is only the psychological apparatus of the constitution of such a Messenger which is identic with the cases of the true Avatara; but they nevertheless partake of an avataric character on account of the fact, as just stated, that the intermediate nature or psychological apparatus working through the Messenger is at times not his or her own, but on these occasions is, so to say, the 'Voice' or 'Mind' of the Teacher. Otherwise the constitution of the Messenger is unaffected and consists, as is obvious, of the inner Spiritual Monad and the astral-vital-physical part, both of which are untouched and function as usual.
It is precisely because the Messenger on these occasions of inner 'inspiration' by his or her Teacher becomes infilled with the holy spiritual fire of a greater Soul, that the Messenger is de facto an Avatara of a kind. There is of course more, and a good deal more, that might be said about this mystery, but it is neither convenient nor would it be wise to trench upon purely esoteric teaching here, and thus arouse the mere speculative interest of the otherwise indifferent or simply curious.
To instance the matter again by the case of the main founder of the Theosophical Society in modern times, H. P. Blavatsky. Ordinarily she was herself, in every sense of the word, and in full possession of all the attributes and qualities and powers and faculties of her normal constitution, highly trained as that was. But at times, the inner and higher spiritual-intellectual Flame of the far-greater mind of her Teacher worked through her, impressing her brain-mind -- and then she spoke like an ancient pythoness, like a prophetess, like the ancient oracle at Delphi; and there were times when, because of her training to this specific end, she would by a supreme effort of the will ally her own psychological or psycho-mental or intermediate nature with the inner Ray from her own divinity or Spiritual Monad, and the effect was similar but not identic with the other case of 'inspiration' as just stated.
H. P. Blavatsky herself commonly made a distinction between these two latter parts of herself, although they were very few indeed at the time who recognised this distinction, and the really sublime mystery which it pointed to: as for instance, she made a distinct difference between what she herself called 'H. P. B.' and 'H. P. Blavatsky' or less commonly 'the widow Blavatsky.'
Before leaving this matter of the great Theosophist and founder of the modern Theosophical Movement, one may point to still another remarkable thing in her case which can only be designated here and intentionally left without elaboration. That is, that in order to form what she herself at times called 'the astral telegraph,' a certain portion of her intermediate constitution was from the time of the beginning of her public work, and from a period even somewhat preceding this time, 'resident' apart from the actual local framework of her being or constitution, the said portion being actually with the Teachers and obviously most carefully guarded by them, and safe from either injury or exterior contact. Is this strange fact clear?
How many Mysteries, indeed, are there not in the history of esoteric movements, which for the most part are not even hinted at and therefore are to the world truly unknown! Many people marveled at what they called the 'contrarieties,' 'contradictions,' of her character, which certainly existed, but simply because of the fact that has just last been hinted at.
The case of H. P. Blavatsky, as thus elucidated and very briefly and imperfectly elaborated from the psychological esoteric standpoint, will likewise illustrate clearly enough the sharp distinction that is made in the Esoteric Philosophy between a mere medium -- a hapless and helpless tool of erratic and vagrant astral forces -- and a Mediator, which last is a wholly voluntary and fully acquiescent, willing, and self-conscious, intermediary between the Great Brotherhood of the World-Teachers and the mass of humanity consisting of ordinary human beings.
A Mediator or Intermediary is thus a highly evolved and specially trained human being, man or woman, as the case may be: always possessing, and functioning in full and in every sense of the word as, a strong and vigorously active spiritual-intellectual individuality, and usually working through a forceful and positive personality. Thus such a Mediator can likewise be termed a Transmitter, and is worlds apart, almost infinitely different, from the poor and helpless medium who is an ordinary human being with a more or less dislocated psychological apparatus, as described in previous paragraphs, the sometimes partly conscious, but usually unconscious, prey or victim of almost every astral current of energy that may happen to flow towards the medium. A medium, in fact, is one, the principles of whose constitution are not under the control of the higher spiritual will and mind, or only partially so; and such partial subordination to the mandates of the inner god, or such lack of subservience to the stream of inspiration flowing from one's inner god, render the lower parts of the medium's constitution erratic, easily swayed by the thoughts and wills of others, and therefore, in short, affected by outside influences in greater or less degree depending upon the individual.
The mediator is in all cases a highly trained spiritual and intellectual being, a free agent so far as the will native in the mediator is concerned, and is one in whom the spiritual stream from the inner Monad is more or less constantly at work and always master in its own household.
From the foregoing it should be abundantly clear that the cases of the Mediators or Intermediaries, or Messengers, are in no sense whatsoever individuals suffering from self-psychologization or autop-sychologization, nor again hetero-psychologization -- or servile subjection to the will of any other, any of which three conditions would utterly unfit the individual to be a mediator. We repeat: Such a condition would utterly unfit one to be a chela or disciple, and a fortiori, a Messenger of the Great Sages and Seers, or their Mediator or Intermediary, for such an individual would be unfitted for the work that has to be done, and such a condition furthermore would involve a running strongly counter, and in fact in direct opposition, to not only all the teachings of the Esoteric Philosophy, but the moral rules and wisdom of the Great Brotherhood. What the Great Brotherhood desires above everything else is the strengthening of the higher or superior elements in the constitution of all men, and this is particularly applicable to the cases of the Mediators or Messengers whom the Brotherhood itself chooses to do the work which from time to time they know to be needful in the world.
Let us now turn to more general observations or reflexions treating of the theme of this chapter as well as of the one preceding it, but in a less technical and detailed manner.
In the Katha-Upanishad, one of the sacred books of Brahmanism, there occurs in the original Sanskrit a graphic and beautiful passage describing the Spiritual Self as the Heart of Things, and as being likewise the core or heart of every being or entity, and especially so in man, because man on this earth stands at the crown, at the apex, of the ladder of evolution -- that is to say, as far as the human race has climbed in its developmental progress to the present time. This passage runs as follows:
The knowing Self is not born, nor does it ever die; from no thing did it ever spring, for all things spring from it. This Ancient of Days is unborn, eternal, everlasting; it never is killed, though the body is killed.
If the killer thinks that he kills, or if the killed imagine that he is killed, neither of the twain understands; for the one does not kill, nor is the other killed, in reality.
The Self, smaller than the smallest, greater than the greatest, is hid in the core of every creature. The man who is free from desires and free from sorrow, sees the majesty of the Self through the tranquillity of the mind and the senses.
Such a man though sitting still, yet goes far; though lying down, he travels everywhere he will. . . .
The Sage who knows the Self as bodiless within all bodies, and unchanging among changing things, as greatest of all, and omnipresent, does never grieve at all.
The Self cannot be gained by [mere study of] the sacred writings, nor by mere thought, nor by much learning. He whom the Self chooses as its own, by him the Self is known. The Self chooses him as its own.(433)
Thus far the quotation: the idea of the teaching here being exceedingly clearly given that the man who merges his own personal egoity, his limited self, in the Universal Self or Paramatman, is all this. He is then and thus conscious of what men call 'immortality' even while he lives, for he has become at one with the Consciousness Universal in Nature.
In the same Upanishad, there occurs the following, likewise a beautiful thing:
It, the Self, the Individual of individuals, who is fully awake while we sleep making one lovely vision after another, that indeed is the Light [the Self], that is Brahman; that only is called Immortal. All worlds are contained in It, and beyond it there is no beyond. It is the Invisible Universe.(434)
The idea here is that this Cosmic Self is not only the immortal fountain of our inmost being, our own inmost source, but the essence itself of our own spiritual consciousness. From it we come; we are through eternity as individuals inseparable parts of it. It is impossible to divide or to separate us from it. As we grow through evolution greater, always we bring more largely into perfected operation the intermediate and lower instrument through which this Self may manifest -- and in the future will so manifest in ever-increasing measure of attainment.
But this Heart of Things, this Universal Self, abides in the heart of every man and woman and whispers: "I AM"; and this cognition, this recognition, this instinct, this consciousness of pure individual being, is the same in all beings and creatures; for it is the whispering within us of the Universal Spirit -- our own inmost heart: whisperings indeed, and yet, as all mystical seers and true religious teachers have always told us, nevertheless they are tones thunderous to the inner ear and commanding the whole attention of the inner hearer; and one may add that once heard and understood there is no withstanding their appeal and their power. What prevents us from immediately understanding, is that other and lower part of our nature, the intermediate psychological nature, the human ego, which says, not "I AM" but the egoistic "I AM I." Immediately this lower voice is sensed or heard, and attention paid to it, one loses the spiritual consciousness of universality, and exchanges it for the personal, limited, egoic sense; and as this happens with all of us, the general result is the conflict of human interests which is such common knowledge among us, rather than the spiritually instinctual recognition of common spiritual selfhood, identic in us all.
But it should not be supposed from the above that the 'I am I' consciousness, the intermediate part of the nature, is brought into being by evolution in order finally to perish as an unworthy thing, or an unfit instrument; such a conception of the evolutionary work would be monstrous, because untrue. There is a sublime destiny awaiting this human ego if it run its evolutionary career successfully, and this successful running of its career is that it itself must come to a progressively greater union with the Universal within. The working of the material propensities in us, and the whole evolutionary course, are really nothing, considered abstractly, but a course of experience or growth in spiritual power, provided, however, that the material propensities are not killed but turned upwards, and that their energies go forwards into transmutation into Spirit instead of backwards and downwards into identification with matter.
It is just this Cosmic Self, or Universal Essence of Life-Consciousness-Intelligence-Substance, which is the Source, because the Root, of everything that is comprised within the hierarchical structure and encompassing magnitude flowing forth from this Root of Being, and hence every individual in such hierarchical Universe is in the last analysis a derivative from this Cosmic Selfhood, the Heart of all beings and things. Thus it is that pneumatological studies are of the first importance, and this is so from whatever standpoint we may envision Life and its many and intricate relations; whereas the psychological, whether of the Universe or of man or of any other being or entity, is what pertains to the intermediate degrees or ranges or steps of the hierarchical structure. Indeed, it is no exaggeration whatsoever to aver that an accurate comprehensive psychology of man, as an instance in point, is utterly impossible of attaining outside of a general substratum of pneumatological knowledge, for the simple reason that the intermediate or psychological is an evolutionary unfoldment or derivative from its Parent and Superior and pneumatological elements in man -- otherwise his Spiritual Monad. It is for this very reason also that the intermediate nature of man has the power finally to reunite with the higher; for its fundamental essence is one with it.
Man's nature is brought into being or unfolded or unwrapped during the peregrinations of the Monad through space and time from above, i. e., from the Spiritual Monad, just as in similar fashion the Universe and all of it, on all its planes visible and invisible, is the evolutionary unfolding or unwrapping of what emanates or flows forth from its pneumatological Summit or Cosmic Hierarch, very much as the school of the ancient Stoics explained it.(435)
The evolutionary progress and emanational unfolding, therefore, of the Monad in its peregrinations through space and time consists in two distinct stages: (a) the unfolding or unwrapping from within outwards, through half the period of the Cosmic Manvantara or cosmic time-period, of the manifested universe in all its myriad degrees or stages, visible and invisible, thus forming a Ladder of Life, so to speak, every distinct degree or step or stage downwards being the product or offspring or child or unfolding or unwrapping of its immediate superior; and (b) of an inverse order or converse process during the second and latter half of the cosmic time-period, during which everything is again ingathered or infolded or involved, so that the material spheres which were the final unfolding during the first part of the cosmic time-period are the first in the reverse process to be infolded.
The lower nature of man, therefore, and following the above picture, is with its lowest 'carrier' or vehicle, the astral-vital-physical body, the final expression of the indwelling pneumatological attributes and characteristics transmitted to the man of earth through the several intermediate vehicles or bodies which are collectively called the psychological or psycho-mental or intermediate nature. It is this psychological part of man which really is the Human Ego, but which by comparison with its Spiritual Parent or Source, the Spiritual Monad, is frequently called the lower consciousness of the human constitution.
It is this lower consciousness which must itself link itself, first with its own inner god or Spiritual Monad, and then at the end of the Cosmic Manvantara or vast time-period of the Universe, conjoin itself anew with the Universal Consciousness, with the Universal Life; but ages before this final consummation of the evolutionary process in any single Cosmic Manvantara, there will be hosts of beings, once men, who through inner unfolding or raising of the intermediate nature into union with the spiritual nature will become imbodied Dhynis, or Dhyani-Chohans, and in proportion as they will attain, as individuals, self-conscious union or reunion with the Cosmic Self, in the same degree will the Universal Life play through these formerly limited egoic consciousnesses much as the atmosphere of our earth is permeated throughout with the living presence and active functioning of cosmic electricity.
How is this work of union with the divinity within or with the inner god to be begun and continued to a final consummation of identification therewith? Bernard of Clairvaux, a mediaeval mystic, puts it in this wise:
To lose thyself as it were, as if thou thyself wert not, and to have no consciousness at all of thyself -- to empty out thyself almost to nothingness -- such is the heavenly intercourse. . . . To achieve this, is to become the Divine: God.
If we could indeed 'empty out ourselves' -- i. e., empty out these petty, weak, striving, suffering, hurt, hurting, little selves of us and enter into the self-consciousness of impersonal spirituality, we should then indeed be like gods walking on earth, because we would then have become diaphanous channels, translucent mirrors through which the inner divine light and wisdom and knowledge could forever play unhindered and unimpaired. This self-forgetfulness means progressively greater allying oneself with the Universal Consciousness-Life. It means forgetting our little selves and therefore rising above and outside of our limitations, limitations always brought about by centering our attention and our affections on the little self of us; it means throwing off the shells of our personal restrictions, living in the sublime and the grand, living in the impersonal, and giving the cosmic love within our hearts free passage outwards to our fellows -- indeed, to all that is. It means aspiring, yearning always to grow better, to think more grandly and to have continuously more kind and gentle feelings for others. Self-forgetfulness, in short, means letting the inner Splendor out, letting the beauty within us shed its radiance on all around us, letting the love impersonal in our hearts flow forth without barriers to all that is, always and everywhere.
As long as we are not self-forgetful we are then obviously self-seeking. Self-seeking, as is clear enough, means constriction, limitation, therefore smallness; it means building around ourselves etheric, even Akasic, bodies, sheaths, veils, of the lower selfhood. Self-forgetfulness, therefore, brings in its train ever greater service to mankind, indeed to all others, and hence it is the true disciple's Path; and at the end of that Path is found reunion with one's own individual inner god.
One is often asked by those who have heard something of the methods of esoteric training, and who desire enlightenment on the subject, whether the practice of concentration and meditation is useful and of profit in the winning of the Greater Self. The answer is that of course it is very useful and of great profit; but it should be meditation of the proper kind: that kind of meditation which is forgetfulness of self and emphatically not a concentration upon the self; it should be a concentration of all the attention of the mind and of the affections of the heart to become one-pointed in thought, pressing upwards through all the personalized veils of consciousness and feeling to reach the inner divinity, the Spiritual Flame within which, when all is said, is the essence of the Spiritual Monad.
Concentration in meditation requires no extrinsic, nor factitious, nor artificial, nor conventional aids or props of any kind; for, despite what the practisers of the lower forms of Yoga which are so popular today may have to say, all such exterior and factitious aids are more of a detriment than a help, more of a hindrance than an aid, for the simple reason that they distract the attention outwards to themselves, instead of focussing it one-pointedly as above described, and thus really tend to defeat the end in view.
True meditation in the sense in which it is hereinbefore briefly described cannot ever be practised successfully by the innately selfish man, or the mere self-seeker for powers; for in him the basis itself of spiritual meditation is lacking, and he starts from an entirely wrong foundation of effort. It may be said by many that meditation as above described is too difficult for the average man to undertake with any hope of success, but such an idea is utterly wrong, and arises solely in the wish to attain at a single leap what is attainable only as the fruit of long and arduous effort. True concentration in meditation, like everything else that is worth while, takes time and long effort, but every single effort made, if constantly renewed, builds up an accumulation or storehouse, so to speak, of spiritual force, making the true practice of meditation more and more easy and efficient as time passes. Rome was not builded in a day, nor is the Mahatman the product of a single lifetime.
There are few things more useful and helpful than true spiritual meditation, which begins first of all and as a basis, with an impersonal love for all that is and a strong dislike of indulging one's merely personal propensities, appetites, psycho-physical yearnings, and similar things. Strive to cultivate impersonality, therefore, which does not mean indifference to the world and its heavy burthen of sorrow, but does mean a growing indifference to one's own small desires and wishes and yearnings, in order to become an ever fitter and stronger power in the atmosphere of the world to raise human standards on all lines, and thus to do one's part to alleviate its sorrows and to assuage its sufferings.
A man may meditate anywhere, and at any time, and do so in the most effective and fruitful manner; whether he be sitting in his armchair or lying in his bed, or walking the streets of a busy city, he can with practice abstract his mind to things of the spirit, and yet be fully alive and self-conscious of what is going on around him. Such are the first stages of meditation or concentration in meditation. The later stages, however, are characterized by their own rules or laws, and when the student has progressed so far that he has entered into these later stages of meditation, he will then find it needful for his meditating hours to seek a place of quiet, where, in utter seclusion and peace, he can at least at times enter into that ineffably glorious inner communion with the god within which in its highest forms makes him virtually to be an incarnate divinity himself. But these last are the final stages of this state of consciousness and are attainable only by the highest of men.
Bernard of Clairvaux says again:
As a tiny drop of water poured into a large measure of wine seems to lose itself entirely and to assume both the taste and the color of the wine; or as iron heated white-hot loses its own appearance and shines like fire; or as air transfused with sunlight is transformed into the same splendor so that it no longer appears to be illuminated but to have become itself true light; so ought all merely human feeling towards the Holy One be self-dissolved in ineffable fashion, and wholly transfused into the divine Will. For how may God be all in all if anything human remains in men? The substantial basis will indeed remain, but raised to another form, to another splendor, to another power.
The average man thinks it is something 'simply awful' to be rid of himself. He is so afraid of himself, and yet, paradoxically, at the same time he is so afraid of losing himself, that this contradictory fear becomes a terror which amounts at times nearly to insanity. In consequence, he hunts for distractions here and there and everywhere. Anything is better, he thinks, than to be alone, to be himself! If he could but exchange the pains and fears and wretchednesses and miseries of the limited personal life for the strength, faculty, power, wisdom, knowledge, impersonal love, of the Spirit within him, then he would achieve that expansion of consciousness whereby the personal becomes impersonal, the small becomes the great; the human sinks himself like a dew-drop in the ocean of infinity! Then, in fact, the 'dew-drop' becomes the All -- yet in these progressed human beings without annihilation of their self-consciousness which becomes so purified and so expanded that it becomes consciously co-extensive with the spirit of the solar system.
Let a man learn to grow towards this Divine within himself, and he will begin to Know. He becomes the understander then, because his own understanding has been fired into awakening, has been stimulated to awakening under the touch of the divine Ray of his own inner god. He will indeed learn from the Universe outside; he will study the stars and the atoms; he will study with fascinated interest the world around him, the growing grass in the fields and the budding flowers and the burgeoning trees, and all else. Everywhere he will learn lessons of invaluable worth for his growth. He will read the sacred literatures of the world and profit greatly by them. Yet despite all the knowledge that he will ingather from his studies of beings and things around him, one of his first discoveries will be that the greatest and holiest and dearest teacher is the Master within himself -- his spiritual nature: deathless, undying, inexhaustible in its wisdom, for this his Spiritual Nature or Monad is in essence one with the Heart of the Universe.
During his moments of self-conscious union and communion with his inner god he will come to know that there are no mysteries, whether within himself or 'outside' of himself, that are unsolvable: that there are no retreats or reaches or realms or spaces of the infinitely numerous Universes sprinkled over the boundless fields of Space like Flowers of Eternity, which cannot be entered into and be understood, for in very truth, they are in their own essence all within man's highest being. Yes, the mightiest god in highest heaven, could he come to earth and teach, could not make a man to understand, had the man himself not that Master within whose habitat is the solar Universe.
If the average man, even if he be no consecrated and partially initiated disciple, could but grow to a conviction of this wondrous truth of man's spiritual identity with the Spirit of the Universe, then in times of sorrow and stress, when pain and affliction rend the heart, and the mind seems to pass out of one's control and even, in highly afflicted moments, over the frontiers into unreason, there would always be present the blessed remembrance that within: always ready, always there, ever waiting only for the man to turn and see and make it his own inspirer and helper in self-conscious realization: is the inner god, the fountain and source of his most real selfhood and indeed of his composite being on all planes.
The more this truth becomes a self-conscious realization, the wider becomes the man's vision and the larger becomes his self-conscious identification of himself with the Universal; and with the practice of this, in future ages of time he will blossom forth as a relatively fully self-conscious imbodiment of the divinity within him, in its turn a Ray of the Universal Consciousness; and he will then retain for ever in a spiritual form his own now relatively fully-blown spiritual egohood. This statement imbodies one of the most wonderful and consoling mysteries of the Cosmos -- to wit, how developed human Spiritual egoity can self-consciously recognise its oneness with the universality of the Cosmic Spirit and yet retain its own individuality. Individuality emphatically does not mean 'individualism.' Individualism is usually sheer egoism; whereas individuality is one of the names given to the undying Spiritual Center within us, the essential Selfhood of the Monad which is the source of a man's whole being.
To find this essential divinity self-consciously is to find the pathway leading to a peace and a calm, a vision, and a consciousness of strength and sense of power, which all are unspeakably sublime. Here in this consciousness there is no room for pain, nor is there any distress; there is no suffering, and there is no fear, for these long agone have been surpassed and have died within him.
When the 'I am I' becomes through unfolding evolutionary growth the spiritual understanding and consciousness of the 'I AM': that is, when the personal has expanded to become the consciousness of the Impersonal: when the personal self disappears therefore because of its evolving in growth and becomes fully self-conscious of the divinity within itself -- then indeed we shall have a race of Buddhas and Christs on earth. When this divine event occurs, then man will know, instead of speculating, as now he does, because he will be: his understanding of the personal will have become a self-conscious recognition of the Universal in himself as his Self.
FOOTNOTES:
430. Section 79. (return to text)
431. There is a subtil point of genuine psychology which is to be noted here. The statement in the text of course does not intend to imply that the swabhavic or inherently characteristic colorful quality or egoic individuality of the intermediate nature is entirely abolished or wiped out in every case of the higher representatives of this Class II, for such is not the fact.
There are in reality two distinct things involved in the general statement above in the text which it may be well to attempt briefly to clarify here. We have on the one hand, then, cases in which the intermediate nature of highly evolved human beings, or Mahatmans, is or may be set aside for a greater or less time-period, mayhap even for the duration of the entire incarnation, and this is always done for the purpose of bringing into manifestation on Earth a purely deific or divine power uncolored by human intermediary; yet even in this first case for the deific or divine power to act directly on the brain-mind of the human individual, because of the gap thus existing between the twain, such gap is filled for this temporary purpose by a highly spiritualized psychological apparatus or intermediate nature of a Buddha completely subservient to, and willingly acceding in, the conditions thus brought about. This is the case of an Avatara, technically speaking, and an Avatara will be later spoken of under the observations collected together in Class III.
On the other hand, there are the cases, much more numerous than the foregoing, which are extremely rare nevertheless, relatively speaking, of the highly evolved individuals whose entire constitution has been brought into spiritual line and whose intermediate psychological apparatus functions in entire co-ordination with and subservience to the spiritual stream flowing into it from above. These are the cases first of the Buddhas, and Bodhisattvas, and of the higher classes of the Mahatmans. They are, in other words, the most highly evolved human beings who appear at any time on Earth, and in whom, therefore, there is no dislocation or disjunction or setting aside of the intermediate or psychological apparatus, because this last through evolution has become, as above stated, utterly responsive and entirely co-ordinated with the inner god. These indeed are the forerunners of what the entire human race will one day become when mankind shall have passed out of mere humanity into the state of Dhyan-Chohanhood.
The reader is requested to try to keep these two sub-classes of Class II clearly in mind. The Buddhas evolve to grandeur; the Avataras are 'created.'(return to text)
432. For a somewhat different treatment of the degrees of divine illuminative inspiration and self-identification which the neophyte experiences in initiation, the reader is referred to the author's Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy.(return to text)
433. Ch. i, sec. 2, vv. 18-23.(return to text)
434. Katha-Upanishad, ch. ii, sec. 5, v. 8.(return to text)
435. While the matter of the emanational unfolding, or emanational evolution, of the Universe -- and equally so of man in his own smaller hierarchical sphere -- has been explained elsewhere in the course of the present work, the observations imbodied in the present footnote may be both helpful and suggestive.
The teaching of the Stoics as regards such progressive unwrapping or emanational evolutionary unfolding of all the constitution and structure of the Universe from the Cosmic Divine Monad, is virtually identical with the teaching of the Esoteric Philosophy on the same subject, although of course it is obvious that the Stoics phrased the doctrine after their own manner and with their own particular choice or selection of words. The main point in this wonderful teaching to be kept in mind is, that the Cosmic Divine Monad, as the Source or Root of the Universe which flows forth from it, is considered to contain within itself as latent germinal Seeds or Element-Principles the hierarchical planes and Families of beings and entities which during the course of the building of the Universe later flow forth from it. Furthermore, each such later or subsequent stage of emanational unfolding contains within itself its own particular or individual characteristic or swabhava as its dominating energy-substance, but nevertheless equally contains within itself not only the effluxes from the preceding evolved plane, but likewise the germinal Seeds of what will flow forth from itself as its own offspring.
Thus from the Cosmic Divine Monad, in the origin of things, there first emanates or evolves forth or unfolds what may be called the Cosmic Spiritual Monad, which imbodies not only its own particular characteristic of individuality, but likewise the stream from its Parent Cosmic Divine Monad; next there flows forth from the Cosmic Spiritual Monad the Cosmic Intellectual Monad or Mahat, containing in itself not only, its own individual swabhavic characteristic, but likewise the two characteristics flowing into it from its Parent, the Cosmic Spiritual Monad, and from its grandparent, the Cosmic Divine Monad, and likewise there are in it the germinal Seeds of the remaining four stages or planes or hierarchies which emanate from it in regular periodic order of emanational flow, thus finally building the invisible and visible structure of the vast Cosmic Entity.
Hence, from the foregoing, every one of the lower stages or planes contains not only its own individual swabhava, which is its dominant characteristic or Power, but likewise the essences of its ancestors and the germinal essences of its own offspring, later to flow forth from itself. When the last stage is reached, that of the physical universe, this, which is the general carrier of all the interior constitution and structure of the Universe, not only expresses its own particular characteristic but likewise is the container, the vessel, of the essences of all the hierarchical planes or stages which preceded it and of which it is the last and final expression. Hence the vast and wondrous varieties in Nature's realms.
The subjoined diagram may perhaps make the matter somewhat clearer to those whose minds are aided by schematic pictures.
A (A, b, c, d, e, f, g)
B (a1, B1, c1, d1, e1, f1, g1)
C (a2, b2, C2, d2, e2, f2, g2)
D (a3, b3, c3, D3, e3, f3, g3)
E (a4, b4, c4, d4, E4, f4, g4)
F (a5, b5, c5, d5, e5, F5, g5)
G (a6, b6, c6, d6, e6, f6, G6)
In the above schematic diagram, the reader will notice first that the bold-face capital letters A, B, C, D, E, F, G, at the left of the list represent the seven Element-principles of the Universe, which in the case of man, as commonly in exoteric Theosophical works, are the Atman, Buddhi, Manas, Kama, Prana, Linga-sarira, and Sthula-sarira: or, considering the hierarchical constitution of the different monads in the entity, these capital letters will stand for the different 'foci,' or 'knots' of consciousness -- otherwise the different monadic centers. Next, in the lines of letters which follow respectively each one of the capital letters, the swabhavic characteristic of each evolutionary stage of unfolding is marked by a smaller capital which shows the identity of the swabhava of this stage with its originating source; the italicized letters represent, in each stage of unfolding, the germinal seeds of succeeding hierarchies which lie latent in the parent, and which germinal seeds decrease regularly until G or the physical plane is reached, all the latent germinal essences then having been more or less unfolded or brought into manifestation. The numbers superscript are merely added as a mnemonic aid, and do not signify 'powers' in the mathematical sense.
Now the idea of this Cosmic "Procession from the Godhead," does not mean that the lowest cosmic plane, G, is superior to the divine plane A, merely because the physical plane G is the unfolded and final expression of the hierarchy, for this conception would be absurd. The diagram tells us only that the physical plane is the common carrier of all the elements and essences and principles of the Cosmic Hierarch which have preceded it in order and in time of unfolding, and it is obvious enough, it would seem, that the physical plane is inferior in all respects to the first or Divine plane, A.
The next point to be noted is that the Primordial or Divine plane, called above the Cosmic Divine Monad, contains in latency and involved in its bosom, wrapt in its bosom, all the later universe which will flow forth from it in the serial hierarchical stages as previously explained.
One of the most important points of this wonderful teaching of emanational evolution, is that every plane on the descent in emanational unfolding is itself septenary, and therefore a copy in the small of the sevenfold Universe itself, or, stated otherwise, every inferior plane, once that the sevenfold universe is unfolded, is a mirror in its own septenary nature of the septenary nature of the Divine Monad of which it is the descendent.
To apply this teaching to the case of man, and giving only a single aspect of the teaching here because space lacks to develop it in full: Every one of the element-principles in man, or equivalently every one of the different Monads in man, is itself septenary although a derivative or child of the Divine Monad in man -- the Atmic Monad. Thus as an illustration, the Manas in man is septenary -- and the idea may be represented as follows:
Atman -- (sevenfold)
Buddhi -- (sevenfold)
Manas -- (Atman-manas, Buddhi-manas, Manas-manas, Kama-manas, Prana-manas, Linga-sarira-manas, Sthula-sarira-manas)
etc.
One may venture the statement that if the teaching which is here outlined were studied faithfully with an attempt on the part of the student to grasp its manifold and intricate relations, he would possess a key unlocking for him many of the most recondite and abstruse mysteries, not only of the Universe but of man and man's constitution. In this teaching are likewise contained the secret of the growth in man, through initiation and training, of what it is popular to call 'powers' and the unfolding of interior faculties which in most men are latent.(return to text)