Theosophical University Press Online Edition
What is it that makes of one man a Sage and Seer as contrasted with the great multitude of human beings? A Sage and Seer becomes such because of the evolutionary perfecting and refining of inner veils or sheaths enshrouding the Fundamental or Essential Self. When these sheaths, the inner veils or garments of greater or less luminosity, which enwrap and dim the light of the Spiritual Monad, through education, through aspiration, through proper initiatory training directed to this end, and also through the vast store of experience gained in many preceding earth-lives, are so largely dissolved, as it were, or rendered so fine that they become diaphanous to the radiation from the inner god, the Spiritual Monad above named, then the brain-mind of the Man is touched almost directly by the radiating light; and as this inner Radiation originates in a source which is cosmic in character, the man thereby himself becomes filled with Spiritual Wisdom, inwardly self-conscious on high intellectual and spiritual planes, and therefore can truly be called not only a Sage because of his wisdom, but a Seer because of his cosmic or quasi-cosmic Vision. Such are all the truly great Spiritual Teachers of the human race. Of course there are degrees or differences as regards inner development even among the Great Ones, for some are more highly evolved than others. The most highly evolved are those whom modern Theosophical philosophy calls the Buddhas. The very title means the Awakened One -- he who can see on inner planes, and who therefore is a Seer.(436)
From these, who stand highest on the hierarchical line of the true spiritual Seers, the scale runs steadily downwards, including, nevertheless, all those who because of either inner initiation or an awakened spiritual development are in greater or less intimate communion with the inner Fountain of Wisdom.
Forming a sharp contrast with the true spiritual Seers mentioned above, whose evolutionary status and characteristic development have been outlined at some length in previous chapters, there appear from time to time, and indeed quite frequently, in the religious history of the world, individuals of more or less erratic character or characteristics who may be rightly and properly designated as 'visionaries.' It is a matter of some importance to gain at least a brief knowledge of the nature and characteristics of these latter individuals, because such knowledge provides a protection for earnest seekers after Truth against philosophic or religious or mystical imposition, even if such imposition be not intentional but the result of delusion and self-deception on the part of such visionaries, as often actually is the case.
These visionaries may be men or women, usually of more or less mystical or religious or philosophical bent, but almost invariably of somewhat fanatic temperament, who promulgate with more or less success among the unthinking multitudes of mankind various sorts of teachings or doctrines which are based, as seems to be always claimed, on the doctrines and teachings of some already established great religion or some already widely and commonly recognised religious teacher; and these visionaries are very successful in wofully misinterpreting what they usually claim to be either a 'revelation' of the meaning of the teachings they adopt, or a 'revelation' claimed to be of higher and more spiritual character than the already established teaching, because, forsooth, it belongs to a later age.
These innovators, who are not by any means always impostors, because frequently genuinely self-deceived, always, or nearly always, claim to speak with spiritual, that is to say, religious authority; in rarer cases the claim is made of inspiration from 'God,' or from some allegedly high spiritual authority or angelic dignitary. They are extremely apt to ignore or to contemn natural truths or the verities and facts of nature as being comparatively insignificant or unimportant; or, if indeed such natural verities and facts are recognised and included in their respective 'revelations,' the visionaries commonly claim and teach explanations of them which have no other foundation of fact than their own personal views, or the quasi-mystical and incorrect interpretations of ancient religious and philosophical tenets which these innovators or would-be seers emit as dogmas of religious truth.
Semi-mystics or erratic religionists are very numerous in the history, religious and philosophic, of the world; and as concerns their qualifications, they cover all the ground from mere impostors to sincere and often very earnest, but always erratic and therefore unreliable, fanatics. Any thoughtful student of world-history in its religious and philosophic annals should have little or no difficulty in recognising them when he meets them in his studies or in knowing them for what they are. They lack all the insignia maiestatis or signs of majesty of the real Sage and Seer.
They see 'visions' indeed, but it may be said with small chance of error that the visions they see are false visions; and even when these visionaries are thoroughly sincere, their 'visions' are the pictures in their minds reflecting astral photographs in the Astral Light. Multitudes of men have frequently been led astray by such visionaries because the latter have neither the inner Vision nor the power to penetrate through the veils of the outward seeming into the Heart of Being, and therefore they can emit only that which their imaginations -- vagrant, wandering, unguided -- and their untaught intellects impel them to voice in the utterance of ideas which rarely are for the spiritual and intellectual good of mankind.
In order to understand how it comes about that sincere and honest visionaries themselves are misled into believing that they have entered into cognition of great truths of the Universe, it is necessary to know something about where their 'visions' come from and how they misinterpret these visions in their own minds. The honest and sincere but misguided visionary actually does 'see' something or some things, but what his vision thus encompasses and his understanding is misled by, is obviously not the Radiation from the god within, but the astral photographs and records which exist in incomprehensibly great numbers and bewildering confusion, stored up in Nature's automatic picture-gallery -- the Astral Light. Such visionaries as those just described are astral 'sensitives' -- i. e., individuals who are sensitive in the sense of receiving visionary impressions from the astral world which permeates the physical world much as electricity both permeates and surrounds an electrified body; or, to use a coarser figure of expression, as water will fill all the interstices of a sponge.
To understand this matter better, it is first to be understood that the Astral Light, so far as our Globe D, Earth, is concerned, and indeed, on a larger scale, so far as the solar system is concerned, is the astral repository of all things that ever have been, are, or will be. That is to say that the Astral Light is the receptacle or repository, taking our Earth as an example, of everything that has ever lived, lives, or will live, on Earth, and which makes a record of its existence, as all beings and entities and things actually do. Hence these lower regions of the Astral Light are called, quaintly enough, Nature's Picture-Gallery, for all the substance of those lower ranges or realms of the Astral Light has been indelibly impressed with the records or 'photographs' of whatever is or has ever been, whether being or thing, on Earth or elsewhere in the solar system.
We human beings are as individuals swimming in it, so to speak; we are perpetually bathed in it; it washes through our brains continuously and not only through our brains, but through every molecule of our body. Every thought that passes through the human brain: good, bad, or indifferent, high or low, strong or weak: the imaginings of the lunatic, the spiritual vision of the Seer, of the Mahatman -- all come by way of and through the Astral Light, yea, even the thought of every god or demi-god. For the Astral Light is a picture-gallery through which our human minds wander constantly so to speak and which thus, when sympathetic contact with astral records has been made, transport or bring over such record or picture into the brain; and, furthermore, each such astral picture or 'vision' of necessity receives the added energic impulse or characteristic impress or embroidery made on it by the brain through which it passes. Nor is this all. From the brains of men which have received such pictures, each picture passes again back into the Astral Light, with its added impress or embroidery stamped on it by the brain through which it had passed, and then some other human brain takes it up immediately or it may be after a hundred years or more, and that new brain does something to it or changes it, or shifts it, or gives it a new psychic impulse, or makes a new stamp upon it; and so forth indefinitely through time.
Thus it is that the Astral Light in its higher parts records the noblest thoughts and emotions and impulses that the human race has had as individuals; whereas the lower and lowest realms of the Astral Light, which are quasi-physical, are the particular picture-gallery or depositary of all the vile and loathsome emanations, pictures, passions, impulses, which low and degraded human beings have filled it with. Thus, evil-minded men and women will get pictures in and from the Astral Light, and by stamping them anew make them a little more evil or crooked. Then they flow forth again from such human brains and strike some other sensitive mind, which catches them and anew stamps them in accordance with its own characteristics, it may be immediately, or it may not be until some thousands of years afterwards.
The human brain could never think a thought, could never imagine anything, nor could the emotional apparatus be enslaved by its emotional movements, whether passional or otherwise, were not all these things already existent in the Astral Light and drawn from the Astral Light -- only to be returned to it. It must not be forgotten, however, that the Astral Light is likewise the intermediary plane or sphere between the physical world and the higher invisible spiritual worlds, and therefore as such is in a sense a channel of communication. Spiritual, lofty, high thoughts and emotions flash through the Astral Light, spurning what is unlike themselves; but all, good, bad, or indifferent, must pass through the Astral Light before reaching the human brain.
Every medium sees in the Astral Light to a greater extent or to a less; and every murderer in his evil act is at the time servile in his reception of its lower and evil deeps. The cubism and futurism of modern art, or the animal-pictures engraven on the tombs and temples of Ancient Egypt with their beast-heads, as instances in point, all come from the same cosmic picture-gallery. Even the symbolic art of the Chinese is affected strongly by the same source. In themselves all of these instances imbody symbolic ideas, deliberate attempts to suggest truths. These symbolic ideas are all more or less transformed by their passage through the Astral Light. In themselves they are creative thoughts, but they become clothed with astral characteristics because of their passing through the ranges of the Astral Light in order to reach the human brain, and then in the human brain become still further modified.
Thus interpretation is an extremely important factor to bear in mind in this study. A number of people may see the same identic picture in the astral picture-gallery, but they may, as individuals, each interpret it with greater or minor differences of mental and emotional outline. It is just as when a number of people look at a landscape on earth: they all are looking at the same scene, but each individual sees it with his own eyes and with his own mental-emotional apparatus, and hence no two of these seeings are identical, for if they were, the two individuals thus seeing would have a seeing which would be identical, and this would mean that the two men were not twain but one, which is impossible. If one of the twain is an artist he will see much more in certain respects than the one who is not an artist. If one is musical in temperament he will 'see' or interpret musically. Another will see with the physical eye only, but he has his own interpretation nevertheless. Thus all these individuals interpret their respective seeings differently, each according to his own nature.
Herein, therefore, lies one of the main and most important factors of the unreliability always present in what semi-mystics and quasi-seers or visionaries often describe as 'visions of truth.' They can bring on to the physical plane only such pictures of the Astral Light as they happen to 'see' and then only through the vehicle of their own respective imaginations. Here is just where the great danger lies: the ascription wrongly of spiritual truth to their astral visionings, and hence the ascription to their visions of wrong names, wrong connexions, and consequent wrong interpretations. There is, therefore, no real or genuinely spiritual Seership about it; because the spiritual Seer knows thoroughly the dangers and distortions of the Astral Light, and sends his piercing gaze through it like a flash into the higher ethereal regions of the spirit, where he can envision truth and truths directly, and transmit them in greater or less perfection of lineament and magnitude to the waiting brain. The quasi-mystic or mere visionary, on the other hand, imagines, often sincerely, but erroneously, that what he 'sees' are the facts and workings of the 'spiritual world,' whereas all he actually experiences is a wandering of his erratic and untutored psycho-mental apparatus through the terribly deceptive and illusory picture-galleries of the Astral Light.
The spiritual Adept or true Seer, however, because of his training can wander if he so will in his consciousness through any one or through all of the chambers of the astral picture-gallery, and do so with perfect safety, and with a vision so clear and an understanding so strong that he knows precisely what he is doing and just what it is that he sees, or feels, and hence is in no danger whatsoever of experiencing self-deception, or of falling under the illusions or maya of this most deceptive of all Nature's planes. One may add in passing that probably the sole reason of an Adept's so acting, would be for the purpose of reading the records of the past, near or distant, for there in the Astral Light, as said above, everything that has ever taken place on earth, great or small, is recorded indelibly.
As regards ordinary human beings, who are neither visionaries on the one hand, nor Great Sages on the other, it may be said that such average men and women are unconsciously yet continuously affected by the Astral Light, which streams through their minds and emotional apparatus in unceasing flow. For instance: a man who tells a deliberate lie does so because he is at the moment servile to a crooked astral current to which his mind has become temporarily sensitive and subject. This does not mean that such a man is a mere moral imbecile, or that he is a 'moron,' or that his moral nature has no existence, for these three suppositions and others akin to them are highly absurd; the idea is that in such cases, the moral nature succumbs to temptation of thought and feeling, whereas it should react strongly against evil and crooked thought and feeling, and throw these off, and thus rise to higher inner realms. The man of weak, if not necessarily evil, emotional or mental type, commonly giving way in servile fashion to his thoughts and emotions, is simply one who has not strengthened his moral instincts and faculties, and therefore is a weakling, and hence is more or less enslaved to such crooked astral currents as may be at any time flowing through his mind.
Thus it is immediately seen how extremely needful it is to strengthen the moral sense: to believe in it and to come to love it and to rest upon it as the saving guide in life; for the man or woman who thus lives in the moral instincts can no more be affected by the vile emanations from the Astral Light than can the great rocks on the seashore be moved by even the winter storms. But the evil man, or weak man, morally speaking, is a victim, more or less continuously, of the filthinesses and vilenesses and impurities constantly floating around in the Astral Light; every thought that such a human being has comes through it and therefore from it. Such weak or evil individual does not realize and therefore does not understand that his mind has become, so to speak, a mere transmitter of often disgusting astral pictures or records. Thus the liar actually thinks his lies because he is weak and cannot throw them off, but the lies are simply pictures in and from the Astral Light to which his own unstable moral nature responded sympathetically.
The strong but evil mind will likewise see pictures in the cosmic astral picture-gallery, and, because of its own mental vigor evilly directed, will intensify the pictures mentally seen and received, put the colors on more thick, so to speak; and thus such a mind throws the whole picture into a current more crooked and more evil still; and other weak minds later 'contacting' this astral current then repeat what they see with the added distortions, possibly adding something of their own; and thus the whole evil train of cause and effect contributes to the load of karmic iniquity under which the Earth labors.
The sensitive person whose 'flesh creeps' when he or she goes into a haunted house, so called, or possibly even into a dark room, on occasion does 'see things.' It is wrong to imagine that such people when they tell of what they see or feel are always mere impostors or deceivers, or entirely self-deluded. The strong or even the average man, hearing the story of the sensitive, inwardly knows that the story is of inner pictures that the sensitive has seen, and hence the stronger or average individual is not particularly affected by them, no more affected than would be the average man by going into a rogues' gallery and seeing pictures of human faces which one could hardly call angelic. He would not be affected by them, because he knows they are only photographs; nor is he affected by them as a sensitive might be affected, because, knowing them for what they are he has no fear. But, as every person knows, it is not wholesome for any one of emotional or mentally sensitive temperament to enter into a 'gallery of horrors.' This is simply because of inner mental reactions; and the illustration is cited solely to point out that the inner or astral eye sees on the astral plane just as well and indeed far more clearly than does the physical eye see on the physical plane.(437)
The Astral Light in its lower region or realm is, really, simply the sub-plane next above the physical plane and only slightly more ethereal than the latter. These lower regions of the Astral Light interpenetrate physical matter much as the formerly popular 'ether' of science was supposed to be a substratum in which all physical matter exists, and which regions permeate it throughout. This 'ether' of science has now become 'suspect,' and is looked at askance by many if not all modern scientists; yet one may venture to predict that the time is coming when 'cosmic ether' will again come into its own and will then perhaps be recognised as being but one of a number of such cosmic ethers of varying and therefore differing degrees of ethereality, and each one possessing its own characteristics. The lower realms of the Astral Light are, therefore, the habitat or region which receives and holds as well as records all the vilest and filthiest emanations and effluvia of the Earth, including those particular evils of which the human race is the immediate cause. These lower astral regions in consequence are the habitation of the 'spooks' or so-called 'ghosts' of excarnate human beings, who, having ascended out of these lower regions after the death of the physical body, have nevertheless left behind them therein their astral eidola or kama-rupas -- the 'shades' of the ancients.
Hence, the kama-rupic shades and eidola of the astral world are around us everywhere and all the time. We breathe them in, or repel them, as the case may be; we pass through them or they pass through us with every motion made on either plane. These astral regions are a circumambient ethereal or inner astral atmosphere, like the air of Earth; thus it is that these kama-rupic forms, these astral shades or spooks, are wandering around in the lower regions of the Astral Light everywhere all the time, attracted hither and drawn yon, and, except for the Elementaries, they are mere astral shells, rapidly decomposing astral form-bodies, which, if left alone and not attracted by human psychic meddling, more or less rapidly dissolve into their component astral life-atoms, exactly as the physical corpse on earth decomposes into its component physical life-atoms -- and the former are just as unpleasant and malodorous and disgusting as is the decaying human corpse.
Left to themselves they have no power to harm any imbodied human being, except that when attracted by affinity to some human being because of that human being's characteristics, they actually can be sucked in to the human being's own astral model-body or linga-sarira and thus become automatic stimulants to the particular vice or foulness that the said human being may unhappily be addicted to. In themselves, these shades or kama-rupas are simply astral corpses, the decaying astral bodies temporarily held together until their dissolution comes, by elementals -- nature forces. One has to ascend a complete Cosmic Plane in order to encounter imbodied beings possessing will-power and consciousness resembling those of man imbodied on Earth; and the intermediate regions of the Astral Light are simply the transitional sub-planes between us and this higher Cosmic Plane.(438)
It is to be remembered that the Astral Light, as just stated, is divided into planes, and these planes again into subordinate or sub-planes. The lower regions of it present the picture of a perfect welter of involved and moving astral currents, filled with the flotsam and jetsam of the Astral Light, this flotsam and jetsam, so far as the Earth is concerned, being largely the effluvia of Earth as well as the human shells left behind therein. This welter of confusion may be represented probably pictorially as a mass of wriggling and squirming and interblending astral entities automatically wandering or drifting in all directions, apparently much as dust and leaves and other light things are driven around by the air-currents of Earth.
On the other hand, the highest regions of the Astral Light are pure Akasa, or what we may more clearly describe, perhaps, as spiritual substance. In fact, the Akasic records are the originals for the entire lower realms of the astral world. These lower realms hang from the former, so to speak. As said above, the lower astral realms are like an astral ocean or sea of swirling currents, possessing no stability, no steadiness; yet all these planes are comprised in the generalized phrase, the Astral Light, ranging from the higher Akasa down through all intermediate stages of the astral mud and dirt of the effluvia of Earth.
Hence it is that psychics and sensitives, and other visionaries, who are all more or less subject or servile to the influences and currents emanating from the Astral Light, are like blind creatures in the astral ocean-deeps whither the solar rays penetrate but slightly and illumine only feebly; whereas normal and strong-minded human beings naturally and almost automatically spurn or repel these astral emanations or influxes or effluvia and more or less live in the relative 'sunlight' of the intermediate realms, just as the gods or Dhyani-Chohans have their consciousness placed in the Akasa.
It is thus easily seen why and how it is that the so-called 'visions' or so-called 'revelations' or 'inspirations' of the visionaries who form a part of the study of the present chapter, are so unreliable, and the reason for their being in no manner whatsoever safe as proper expositors of religious or philosophical verities. It is only rarely indeed, that a sensitive or visionary or psychic, because of his extremely pure life and spiritual instincts, is enabled to enter into communion with the Akasic realms of spirit; but even in these cases, because they are almost invariably unenlightened or untrained by initiation, their best is to be considered as suspect and needing the most rigid scrutiny, study, and checking with the teachings of the Great Sages and Seers.
It has been stated in a previous paragraph that the Mahatmans themselves can at will function in and therefore vision the occurrences and denizens and conditions of the Astral Light. This is true enough; but their consciousness in all cases -- unless by will deliberately directed to the lower regions of the Astral Light -- is in the higher or Akasic regions of the astral world, i. e., in the higher regions of the Aether, which is the same as saying in the causal regions of the inner worlds. It is only the noblest and best balanced minds of the highest possible calibre and quality and temper that can thus cast the percipient consciousness into the deceptive waves of the astral world, and therein retain perfect intellectual and spiritual balance, self-control, and command. The Seer, the Master of Life, the Mahatman, in his investigations, can vision the truths of the Universe in the higher or akasic regions of the Astral Light, or, to phrase the matter more accurately, in the sphere and on the plane of the Anima Mundi to which he chooses to direct his consciousness; on the rare occasions when for some lofty purpose or objective he sends his percipient consciousness into the lower realms of the Astral Light, he is perfectly cognisant of the welter and confusion that prevail there, but being very wise and immensely strong of will, and thoroughly well trained, he knows all the deceptive illusions or the mayavi occurrences therein found exactly for what they are, and in consequence he knows and can give the right and accurate interpretation of all that his consciousness envisions and grasps. It is obvious that the more highly developed a Seer is, the more and the better can he see clearly, and the farther ahead in time can he see, and the deeper does he go into the realities of the invisible worlds. Thus it is that he is able to prognosticate or 'prophesy,' to use a word familiar to Western ears; and thus at least in degree he is able to forecast the future.(439)
It is thus apparent that individuals of whatever grade can see in the Astral Light and interpret their visions all according to the degree in which as individuals they stand in the evolutionary scale. As above said, the Mahatman or Seer can see into the Astral Light at will or shut it out at will, and what he sees he can interpret accurately and discriminate between its illusions and truth itself; the visionary, on the other hand, because entirely untrained and more or less ignorant of what is happening in his case, does not either understand what he 'sees' nor is he able to interpret it with any degree whatsoever either of accuracy or of ability, or to discriminate between verity and illusion. Sincerity, while excellent in itself and a most highly commendable virtue, is no guarantee of truthful and accurate seership; and the visionaries -- those among them who are thoroughly sincere and honest at heart -- are ninety-nine times out of one hundred both self-deceived and laboring under the mayavi illusions of the Astral Light. Hence their 'visions' are virtually without value; at the best they furnish interesting pneumatological and psychological studies in human nature, and at the worst provide instances of people who, either self-deceived or not self-deceived, in any case often deceive others -- an act which becomes deliberate deception when the visionary's intellectual apparatus is sufficiently powerful to enable him to have at least an intellectual appreciation of the fact that his own mentality refuses to accept as verity what his psychic nature perceives or 'sees.'
There are many grades or types of visionaries, among them being the cases of those who through past karmic destiny are more or less mystical or semi-mystical in character. Such an untrained semi-mystic may indeed have at rare intervals glimpses or more or less distorted visions of spiritual realities, but he does not understand them, and in consequence cannot properly interpret them; he may see bits of truth, fleeting and imperfect glimpses of reality, but almost invariably his mind distorts these and therefore his brain misinterprets them. Take the case of the famous Swedish semi-mystic Emanuel Swedenborg. Among other things he stated that the inhabitants of certain other planets of the solar system are beings extremely alike unto earth-beings, men; and he 'visioned' or 'saw' these inhabitants of certain other planets clothed in the garments worn by Swedish peasants in his own day, as an example in point. This is obviously wrong. What he actually saw were pictures in the Astral Light. His mind added immediately its own creative embroidery to what he 'saw,' and the results of the psychological processes in his mind produced the statements which he made in his books. If Swedenborg had lived in Russia, he probably would have clothed his supposititious inhabitants of certain other planets in the clothing of the typical Russian muzhik, with the big boots, baggy trousers, long hair, and blouse. As it was, Swedenborg was born in Sweden, and in consequence clothed his mind-born 'children' with the habiliments that were familiar to him.
Such semi-mystics, simply because they are somewhat more psychically evolved than other human beings of inferior mental and psychical capacity, obviously belong to a higher plane than these latter: hence their actual functioning consciousness is higher than the mere medium's; and mediums, with rare exceptions, because of the striking dislocations in their psychological apparatus, are more often than not the playthings of the beings and pictures belonging to the lower realms of the Astral Light, and not infrequently these mediums sincerely think they are giving 'spiritual truths'; or, if they are sheer impostors, and although perhaps knowing that they are starting falsehoods, yet do not know that what they purport to impart to others comes from the lower realms of the Astral Light. Their very falsifications prove the origin of their statements. In these last cases there is a combination of subjection to the currents in the lower realms of the Astral Light, and the vacillations and timidities of weak moral character.
The higher the psychic or visionary is, in an ethical sense and in mental and spiritual vigor, the steadier he is in character and the more truthful are his 'visions,' although these last are always confused, and interpretations of them by the psychic or visionary are, in consequence, misunderstood and misinterpreted in equal degree. Such higher psychics or visionaries are not deliberate deceivers or cheats; unreliable of course they are, because they have not found the changeless center within, bringing about spiritual stability and the visioning of luminous truth flowing from the inner god of them. The very fact that such psychics or visionaries do sometimes read more or less truly what they see in the Astral Light is in itself a really dangerous thing, because not only they but others will take this occasional hitting upon the truth as a proof of regular and perfect seership; finding these occasional true visions to be verified, they will use these instances as a support for all other 'visions' that they may have.
The Mahatmans are enabled not only to read in the Astral Light, and to do so with accuracy and relative perfection, what has happened in the past, but, because of their highly trained and exercised spiritual faculties, they are enabled to foresee and therefore to prognosticate or prophesy -- at least to a certain extent -- what is to come in the future. The ordinary astral seers cannot do this. They are mere visionaries or psychics. Spiritual vision comes from the 'inmost center of us, where truth abides in fulness' as Browning says in substance; and the Mahamans of the highest type, those of the greatest standing and of the highest initiatory training, are those who can go inwards and upwards the farthest and thus are able to identify themselves with the Vision Sublime. They foresee what is coming to pass because through exercising their spiritual faculties they can send their percipient consciousness into the higher realms of the Anima Mundi, and hence of the Astral Light, and read therein what is preparing to be projected or precipitated in the near or distant future in human affairs and on earth.
This is not fatalism, because although the destiny of the Earth and of all beings and things on it is steadily following pathways of karmic necessity or Nemesis, yet any individual can at any moment use his free will in the direction in which he through self-choice determines to make it effective. For instance: As one grows through evolution from human animality upwards to human divinity, he is not doing something disconnected from the Universe surrounding him, nor is he, in thus climbing the evolutionary ladder, the mere plaything or hapless or helpless tool of an inscrutable fatality. This idea is absolutely wrong. The evolving human being is an inseparable part of the component forces or elements of the Universe; indeed he is a self-conscious and willing part of the universal mechanism -- if the word will be passed without too much protest; and hence, because all that is in him is part and parcel of the Great Mother, Universal Nature, his will and his own intellectual power bring him to take an active part in the Cosmic Labor. Thus the individual man at any time is in part impelled by the karman of the Universe in which he lives and moves and has his being, and in part also he employs his freedom of choice and his intellectual capacities to perform thus his portion of the Cosmic Labor in the manner in which he as an individual human being chooses to carry it out.
In this general connexion to thoughts germane to our study, there is something very interesting to be noted in the following observations: All that future manvantaras are to bring forth is already foreshadowed in, so to speak, or patterned after, the Astral Light that now is, which is the karmic resultant or the consequences of the Astral Light that was. As an instance, the Astral Light of the Moon produced the Earth and all that in it is, and the Astral Light of the present Earth -- meaning of course the planetary chain of Earth -- will produce the chain-child of this Earth in the new planetary chain to come in the distant future.(440)
So much then for the general teaching in regard to the Astral Light. There are a number of interesting facts connected with this subject, a few of which it may be interesting to chronicle. One is the curious fact that the higher one ascends above the surface of the Earth, the quieter and more peaceful and more steady the Astral Light is. Its currents and waves become steadily more agitated and confused the nearer one approaches the center of the Earth; its vibrations become ever more rapid and the currents more swirling and whirling, so that were a true Seer to reach the center of the Earth he would find the currents and waves of the Astral Light to be in a mad danse macabre.
This is one reason why, from time immemorial, it has been known that recluses and solitary students desiring places of undisturbed meditation seek refuge in the mountains or on the mountain-tops. Thus they are farther away from the most disturbing influences of the condensed waves of the Astral Light, and likewise breathe even a purer physical atmosphere.
Another fact of interest is that the great cities of the world, London, New York, Paris, Berlin, Rome, and all the others, are swirling whirlpools in the Astral Light; in another sense they may perhaps be called ganglia, nerve-centers, in the lower regions of the Astral Light.
Though the Masters will be found wherever their duties call them: in the crowded marts of men, in the desert places, at sea, on land, indeed anywhere, yet it is a fact that for much the same reason that astronomers go to higher parts of mountains in order to obtain a pure atmosphere and an air freer than usual from the heat-waves of the earth's surface, or as religious communities from the earliest times and in all countries choose quiet places in the mountains for their centers: so, are we told, do these our Elder Brothers select for their mystic seats certain parts of the Globe which are most untouched by the miasmic influences emanating from great cities, as a rule choosing them far from the thickly inhabited lands where are the soul-stupefying astral and physical influences which work against training in spiritual development.
There are associations of the Great Teachers in Asia Minor and in Egypt, in America and elsewhere; but the chief Seat, it is said, of the greatest among them is in a certain district of the less known part and least inhabited portion of Tibet the Inaccessible. There, far from the stifling atmosphere and the bustle of the heavy material life of our cities and thickly populated districts, they live, when not in actual physical intercourse with other men, for the working out of a part at least of their sublime and self-appointed task.(441)
One may well ask: Is there then no means of recognising who are Seers, and who visionaries? Is there in fact no test, which if not infallible at least may be helpful, by which one may judge the ones from the others? Indeed there is; in fact, there are several tests. There is one which is the easiest, and it is likewise infallible when one is wise enough or knowing enough to apply it, and it is the following: Does the innovator teach a system which is universal, comprehensive of all previous systems so far as basic or structural religious and philosophical principles are concerned? That is to say, is the new system proffered for acceptance one which not only includes all previous religious and philosophical systems, but throws new light upon them, elucidates them, and explains them without contradictions? If so, then the newcomer should be listened to with respect at least, and his proffered system be subjected to a searching examination. If not, then the presumption immediately is that he is a mere visionary, an astral seer, sincere or imposturous as the case may be; and in either such event, his teachings are, whether sincere or imposturous, naught but personal viewpoints and mental idiosyncrasies wandering widely from the majestic and eternal verities of the Universe. This is a simple test, and it never fails; and it should be kept constantly and earnestly in mind when examining the past history of former movements of religious and philosophical thought; for, in brief, it is the test of universality, and is therefore a spiritual test, in which the human spirit-soul is found speaking. It is perhaps the simplest and therefore the best test by which one may distinguish the great Sage from the mere psychic visionary.
Furthermore, although perhaps not so easily applicable as a test, the sincere human heart is a touchstone in itself. Never will it fail one, if its silent voice and unerring mandates are recognised. The brain vacillates constantly, and therefore is no sure and certain guide; but the true and unspoiled instincts of the human heart are virtually infallible. By the 'heart' as here used is not meant the emotions, for these last are by their very nature in continuous movement of agitation. What is meant is that subtil yet powerful and mighty instinct -- for lack of a better term -- having its seat in some part of our constitution which the run of men intuitively call the 'heart.'
Even taking this present thought after the manner of the man in the street, one may ask oneself: how can the man who is incapable of true impersonal love ever understand the love in some other man's heart: the compassion, the pity, that some other man may have for him? The way by which to recognise the genuine Teacher is to cultivate the genuine and true qualities within oneself. These thereafter become touchstones that enable one to 'feel' as by sympathetic vibration what other men are, or have, within them. The power to recognise and to know is all within a man himself, and it is simply a matter of training himself in the simplest, easiest, most natural way possible -- and a way which is unutterably safe. He risks naught, and he gains the Universe, because he gains his own spiritual soul, or rather his own Spiritual Self, which is the 'heart' of his being. When he succeeds in reaching this 'heart' of himself, then no one will ever, or can ever, deceive him; and infallibly he will know his Teacher when the time comes.
For today, as never before, false teachers do abound in the world, whether they be imposturous or sincere; and the student, pupil, disciple, or aspirant, should be constantly and for ever alert and on his guard. There is nothing to prevent any 'faker' from posing as a Teacher and claiming that his teaching comes from his alliance with his own Master within. This is precisely what a certain few of these visionaries make claims to be and to do; but the one who follows the two simple tests hereinbefore sketched, need never fear to be led astray. Let the student or searcher for truth seek first universality in teaching: something which includes all the most grand and sublime philosophical and religious thoughts of the world, and if he find it not in the new thoughts proffered for his acceptance let him reject the proffer and turn to the grand old verities which have stood unshaken through the ages, and which no new Teacher of genuine character will ever seek to overthrow, but will seek to elucidate and explain, and to show by the universality, i. e., the spirituality, of his own doctrine, that he teaches anew the same wisdom of the gods which the greatest of the ancients promulgated.
There are other faculties and interior powers possessed by the normal man that will aid one to discover truth and lead the earnest searcher to a genuine Teacher. For instance, hunger for truth, a hunger that will not be satisfied with anything that is not real, genuine, morally practical. This hunger alone will in time lead a man to a genuine Teacher. This very hunger may of course lead a man into camp after camp after camp of thought, of differing opinions; but the hunger will continuously be there, and finally will lead him out of a half-way camp into a greater camp, closer to the truth, and finally he will reach the fringes of truth, and then, his moral, and intellectual, and spiritual faculties being in greater or less degree awakened, he will see the way clearly before his feet and will reach his goal.
Therefore in this respect is the teaching: Let the hunger for truth live always in your heart. Nay, even cultivate it. Aspire always to know more, to be more, to think and to feel more grandly. Never be satisfied with what you get. Sursum corda: "Up hearts!" Be permanently satisfied with nothing under the sun: with nothing under the sun -- nothing less than the sun. Then when you reach the solar splendor, go beyond even it! Let that spiritual hunger for truth and light live in your heart for ever, for it is the voice of the inner god within you seeking its own. Love, together with this divine hunger for truth, will lead you to the Vision Sublime, to ineffable wisdom, and then to a vision of wisdom beyond these which is unspeakably sublimer still.
As already several times stated, visionaries are of many kinds or classes comprising varieties of mentality and temperament, and the following names are suggested as a few visionaries who belong to the class of the sincere, the earnest, the devoted, the good:
Pico di Mirandola
Cardinal de Cusa (both of Italy)
Kuppernigk (commonly called Copernicus)
Meister Eckhart
Tauler
Jakob Boehme (by far the greatest of the four from Germany)
Swedenborg, the Swede
Emerson, the American
Others of a somewhat different class or type may be instanced by the case of Muhhammed, the Arab.
These men, who of course did not all belong to the same spiritual and intellectual level, were all visionaries -- in the sense of the word as herein used -- of widely varying ability and power of insight; but every one of them was untaught by Masters of Wisdom; in other words, they were not initiates, but this does not mean, of course, that none of them had ever received help or aid from the Great Teachers, for when karman permits, even the simplest and most ordinary of human beings may receive such.
Socrates was another of still different and characteristic individuality; and it may be added here that this great but misfortunate Greek suffered the penalty of death at Athens not so much for the reasons publicly promulgated for the carrying out of his execution, but really because he had unwittingly betrayed the teachings of the Greek Mysteries, which in that age was a criminal offense punishable with death; and, apparently, when the matter had been called to his attention, Socrates refused to heed the warning. The great Plato was once accused of the same crime of 'impiety,' which in this sense meant divulgation of forbidden knowledge connected with the Mysteries, but Plato was unquestionably an Initiate; and he wisely fled his fatherland for a time, taking refuge in Sicily; and very similar to the case of Plato was the case of another eminent Greek, Diagoras.
The Ancients were very strict about this matter of the betrayal, witting or unwitting, of the secrets of the Mystery-Schools, and for very good reasons of their own, reasons founded upon eminent good sense; although it should be stated that Theosophists in all ages, even in those ages, strongly opposed the penalty of death imposed by the laws of ancient States upon the betrayers or degraders of the Mysteries.(442)
All the sincere but unguided and untaught -- which is equivalent to saying uninitiated -- seers, otherwise called visionaries, taught and teach ideas and theories evolved out of their own views and feelings or imagination, which usually differ very markedly when brought into juxtaposition and contrasted, the differences often involving complete contradictions. Usually there is to be seen in their teachings nothing at all of a universal or all-comprehensive nature; consequently, nothing at all that partakes of the characteristic of universality; they therefore lack the forces and qualities that unify mankind into a universal spiritual brotherhood of common thought and common feeling; they are not characterized by a logical, clear, consistent, and all-inclusive explanation or exposition of truths of Nature, nor of the great and absorbing themes of human and natural origins and their future respective destiny; and last, they contain no adequate explanation of life that satisfies in equal measures both the human mind and the human heart.
Here then is the main test, alluded to above, by which men, students in the University of Life, may know whether such or another propagandist, apostle, or preacher, is a Messenger, deriving his authority and systemic doctrine from the Great Brotherhood: Are his teachings those universal principles of Nature which every great religion and philosophy has comprised in its origin when first formulated by some great Sage or Seer, and which are therefore the same in all great world-religions and world-philosophies, however these last may differ each from each as regards time and method and manner of promulgation? If so, then any such teaching is worthy of careful and indeed sympathetic attention. In other words: If the doctrines that he teaches are the same that have always been taught by the great Sages and Seers, and are thus characterized by the same spiritual quality of universality, and elucidate and explain with equal adequacy, then may we know that his inspiration, in all probability, comes from the same lofty source; we may know that he has been taught and instructed by spiritual and intellectual authorities, and therefore can himself teach with power and judgment as well as with proper commission to do so. This is because he knows, and knows in accordance with Esoteric Law.
The reason why the test of universality is so conclusive and forceful, is that universality is but another way of stating that the facts and teachings promulgated are in strict accordance with the so-called 'laws' of the Universe, and with the facts of the Universal Life. The so-called 'laws' working in the Universe obviously must have been so working from infinite past time; and indeed, what a true Teacher gives is something which applies in its essentials not only on Earth but likewise on every other planet of our Sun's realms; which again is as true in our own Sun's realm as it is in that of Capella or in the kingdoms of the Polar Star. Otherwise phrased, the test of universality is so powerful a touchstone simply because universality is but another name for universal Truth.
Another test which is adequate and sufficient, but which is less forceful than that of universality, is that of inner virtue. Now virtue in the Latin sense of 'manhood,' virtus, and with the distinction that the ancients made when they spoke of 'virtue' as to be contrasted with mere ethics or mere morality, signifying by the two latter words mere custom or conventional procedures: virtue, otherwise true spiritual manhood or womanhood: virtue in these senses is a truly distinguishing mark of a genuine Teacher. Such virtue is not a mere sentimental thing, as the word is today too commonly misunderstood to be, but it is a collection of spiritual and intellectual as well as psychical qualities and faculties which make a man truly a Man, and include strength of character, indomitable will, penetrating intelligence, spiritual intuition -- the faculties, in short, that, making a man Man, therefore raise him above the beasts, because these faculties are the working and the exemplification of the Divine Fire which lives within him and which flows from out his 'heart.' Therefore, if the profferer or proponent of teachings has these qualities and at the same time teaches the age-old fundamental doctrines found over the globe and in all ages, and if one see all these and feel these and sense them as actualities, then with high probability can such a proponent of teaching be recognised as one to whom trust and confidence may be given.
Virtue has ever been sung in the great literatures of the ancient world as an attribute of the high-minded and truly great man. Sa'adi, a Sufi Mystic,(443) sings to the effect that it is the duty of the man of true religion to feel, and therefore to practise, universal forgiveness for injury and wrong done to him:
The virtuous man will aid and even benefit the one who has wronged him --
not merely on account of the peace of mind and happiness that accrue to him from the exercise of such self-control and such high-minded action, nor solely again on account of the strength and power and developed faculty that one's own character acquires by such spiritual exercise, valuable assets even in ordinary practical life as are all of these; but also, and more particularly, because it is a following of the spiritual instincts towards harmony and peace which such action represents, for only the man who is following the path upwards is capable of doing this. Such high-minded men have been the great religious and philosophical Sages of the world, who lived in their actions what they taught in words. Yes, in very truth, the virtuous man will aid and benefit the one who has wronged him; and this is no slobbering sentimentalism whatsoever, but the surging instinct, the chivalrous impulse, of the truly great man or of the noble-hearted woman.
Another Persian Sufi poet, Hhafiz, wrote as follows:
Learn from yon Orient shell to love thy foe,
And store with pearls the hand that brings thee woe.
Free, like yon rock, from base vindictive pride,
Adorn with gems the wrist that tears thy side.
Mark, when yon tree rewards the stormy shower
With fruit nectareous, or the fragrant flower,
All Nature calls aloud: "Shall men do less
Than heal the smiter, and the scornful bless?"
The philosophical rationale of all the above is briefly this: Nothing comes to us except through the Law of Action and its consequences -- Karman: all comes only as the fruits of actions in this or in a former life, or in former lives; and therefore logically are we alone to blame for whatever may happen to us. If we are overthrown or injured, or endure great suffering or grievous pain through the acts of another done upon us, or upon our place or fortune in life, that one in his turn shall not nor can he ever escape the due karmic retribution of natural law; but our suffering and our injury never could have come to us had we not planted seeds of present effects, as causes in the past. Hence the teaching of all the great Wise Ones of the world, that the way by which to obtain wisdom and peace and happiness is freeing the heart and the mind from the corrosive influences of hatred and revenge, and planting in their places the seeds of kindliness, love, and unswerving justice to all. Only strong men and women can follow this Path, alas; but the reward of following it is one past all ordinary human understanding, all ordinary comprehension, for it means definitely allying ourselves with the vast and invincible powers and beings of spiritual harmony and intellectual symmetry which inspirit and control the Universe. An intuition, at least, of this great truth must lie in the heart of everyone, for every normal man and woman must feel some light of this sublime truth in the heart.
"One man and God," as the Christian Saint Athanasius -- of otherwise unpleasant memory -- is stated to have said, "are a majority against the world." So it is; and such a man is in the majority because he has the countless spiritual and divine hierarchies of the Universe with him, working with him, backing him up, infilling him with their own power. All he has to do is to open himself, to cast out the personal, limited, small, and crippling yearnings and loves and hatreds and what not, and let the grand, beautiful things, the winds of eternity, so to speak, blow through him and wash him clean.
In India, perhaps the best-known mother-land of religions and philosophies, there is found the following beautiful injunction along the same general line:
The virtuous man, even at the moment of his destruction, if there be no safety to be found, should remember that his duty is not to hate his slayer, but to forgive him, and even to have the desire to benefit him, just as the fragrant sandal-wood tree at the time of its felling sheds fragrance on the very ax which lays it low.
There are those to whom the noble ethic so graphically portrayed above seems to be too lofty, too sublime, for their following. They are entirely wrong in this supposition; it is all a matter of practical psychology; it is all a matter of conviction. Let a man but try and it will be a marvel to him how much he can and will accomplish in whatever he may happen to put his mind and his will to doing. Yet for such human individuals who doubt their capacity to be the simplest best of their being, there are less minds, inferior, although beautiful, ethical luminaries, whose teachings are easily within the range of comprehension and imitative action of the most modest, or of those most doubtful of their own power. The great Frenchman, Victor Hugo, said: "In the night I accept the authority of the torches," although he as well as all other men knew that there is a sun in heaven. There are certain human minds and certain human hearts for whom the glorious sun is too high and too bright. They like the authority of the torches. They like the smaller lights, because the smaller lights seem to them to be more easy to follow, less glaringly penetrating and searching in brilliance, therefore more indulgent of favorite peccadilloes, and supposedly easier to understand. But some day they will walk out of the shadows where their only lights are the torches, out of the cave of our human half-light which Plato wrote of, wherein men see only the dancing shadows on the wall. They will walk out into the sunlight. Then the torches will be laid aside.
The genuine spiritual Teacher, the true Sage, whether teaching secretly or openly, does so with authority and power, for he knows exactly when and how to work because of his innate wisdom. He is an Initiate in the mysteries of the Universe, because he has been duly and properly initiated, that is to say taught in esoteric Universities -- institutions of learning and training far different from what the modern European understands by the term 'university.' Using the word initiation in its strict sense, it is not possible to pass through a genuine initiation other than by way of the systematic training given in such University. Yet for those to whom the glorious sunlight seems too brilliant and too powerful, and for whom initiation lies still in the future, there is even for them a way by which to gain wisdom: there is indeed even for them a way to gain light, a way to the Heart of the Universe, but it is the way of slow aeonic evolution or unfolding of inner faculty and power achieved through the passing of interminable ages, and without direct and immediate personal help, without similar direct and immediate encouragement, without such constant and intimate teaching as is employed in the preparing of candidates for initiation: it is the long and slow growth undergone in life after life after life after life, just like the slow development and unfolding of the monad of the stone towards the plant, of the monad of the plant towards the beast, of the monad of the beast towards becoming a man, and of the latter towards becoming a god. This is the way of the multitudes; yet constantly as the slow ages pass, one by one, individuals will be discovered by the Masters showing unmistakable signs in their thoughts and feelings and in consequent action of the birth of the Buddhic Splendor in them; and such individuals then and there become objects of the personal attention of the Great Teachers who do what they can under karmic law to stimulate a greater growth of the inner light in such individuals, and gently to lead them on towards the moment when they may become self-conscious chelas or disciples preparing for initiation.
Initiation is the strait and narrow way, thorny and perilous, yet it is the short way, it is the way of the Teachers themselves, the way of self-renunciation to the service of the world; the way of personal self-forgetfulness; the relatively quick way of evolving forth the grandeur which lies latent within. "There is a road steep and thorny, but yet a road, and it leads to the heart of the Universe." Wondrous words are these of H. P. Blavatsky! Initiation is the way by which the evolutionary process of growth can be quickened greatly; but a man must have attained the qualifications therefor, and have learned to know how to give the 'right answers'; in other words, he must be ready for initiation before he may venture to attempt passing through its rites. All this involves very serious self-training, comprising a yearning for the Light, a being immensely hungry for it; and the possessing of an inflexible will to go ahead which nothing can daunt. In still other words, it means a man's becoming at-one with his inner higher constitution, with the higher part of himself: living in it and for it, and letting it prevail -- actively working in his daily life -- instead of doing, as the multitudes do, merely resting in quiescence, in somnolence, spiritually asleep, and indifferently allowing Nature's slow River of Time to carry him along on its tranquil and ever moving wave.
There are two ways to the Great Peace: one is on the bosom of the River of Time, as just stated, going along with it, occasionally running into some little cove or resting on a sandbank, it may be for ages, and then being caught in a little eddy and perhaps moving forwards a trifle; the other way is using one's intelligence and will and energy to construct the mystic inner 'vessel,' which way is the process of initiation; and being oneself that 'vessel,' it can carry one far more quickly to the goal, through the turbulent waters of life. Here is where one may see why true initiation and genuine Teachers and Initiators are necessary for the courageous and fearless disciple.
Those who have become Teachers, Masters of Life, once received the help of those who had reached the sublime Goal before themselves; but they themselves, the attainers, the advancers, the former chelas, now the Masters, had to climb the same steep and weary way, as it seems to us human individuals. It is in reality a way which is radiant with beauty: not only hedged with thorns according to human ideas, but in very truth filled with unspeakable hope and peace. Those who are now Masters did once receive help and guidance as even now they do from those still higher than they.
Here is a strange paradox which is noted in passing: Nothing in these mystic matters is given for nothing, for such is utterly contrary to esoteric law, because the disciple must himself become the Way before he can tread it; so that it is only when he himself gives that he receives the giving of others. The help which is given and the guidance which is tendered thus have the effect of arousing inner self-help and of stimulating the inner Light, of evoking the divine or Buddhic Splendor within one's own being; so that one sees his way along the path, as it were by the radiance or glory flowing forth from his own heart. One's own path is lighted and brilliantly lighted by the radiance that streams from the advancing pilgrim himself.
There are some who truly may be said to have attained a certain degree of inner light, and thus to have passed through a kind of self-given initiation; but this happens to them unconsciously to themselves. The reason is that their past karman is a fortunate one, and seeds of past thoughts and acts are now blossoming into becoming angelic aids and gentle monitors and guides. Yet even in these fortunate cases, the situation is that they wander more or less blindly in a half-light; they do not clearly see nor fully know where they are; they do not always know whether what they do is right or wrong. Obviously were they more evolved, then they would know, but were they more evolved they would by instinct and chosen action belong to the Masters' work. Yes, such people, fairly rare cases as they are, have indeed attained a certain degree of natural inner illumination; for they indeed have a certain minor Light; but they do not really know it, they do not know that the truth they have is the Truth, at least in part. They are alone, lonely, they have not spiritual companionship nor the help that such companionship gives; and they have no consciously recognised Teacher.
There is the case also of such men as Jakob Boehme, for instance, who has been mentioned in preceding paragraphs. Such men have attained a certain quasi-initiation, usually unconsciously to themselves; in most cases they have been initiated at least in minor degrees in other lives. Jakob Boehme's case was one of a singular kind. That man had been initiated in other lives, at least in minor degree, but he entered this life in a karmically afflicted psychological apparatus, and the Teachers, the Nirmanakayas, doing what they could for him, simply allowed him to live that life out, to work out that old karman formerly sown, now fruiting.
In connexion with this case, it illustrates what the Teachers have so often said: It is never right to prevent the working out of karman; let it come and be finished with it. This is infinitely better than damming it back, and then having it come out at some future time, when its appearance is truly distressing, as in the case of Jakob Boehme, when the man should have been self-consciously ascending towards the peaks. There have been many such cases in history, where the karman had at some time been dammed back, cast back as seeds of troubles to come in the future; and these seeds found their outlet for growth in later incarnations when they were much more difficult to handle and more greatly distressing, much more troublesome and heart-trying, than if they had not formerly been dammed back but had then come to their fruiting.
Therefore lies the injunction: Face your troubles bravely. Be men. If you are afflicted, for pity's sake, for your own sake, courageously let the trouble come out and exhaust its energy. Seek help of course; if it be a matter of illness, always seek good medical advice and profit by it! You are entitled as a human being to all the help that you can get; you are entitled to proper comfort, and to perfect cure if it can come; but do not dam the karmic trouble back by inner psychological processes of attempted suppression and by side-stepping the trouble, all which makes the matter only worse, and lays it up for future reaping in suffering and possible disability.
It is the individual's own human Buddhic Splendor when beginning to appear, or already evident, that the Masters are always looking for and striving to help. They work anywhere where they see even the faintest gleam of the Buddhic Splendor. They and their representatives are in all parts of the globe, and their envoys are likewise everywhere working, usually in the silence and unknown of the multitudes. They have their regular methods of examining, as it were, all the individual units of mankind, all the sons of man. Wherever they see even a spark of the Buddhic Splendor, there they work as best they can, by encouraging and fostering the spark so that it may in time become a living Flame. There are many instances of men who in all ages have received both direct and indirect help and encouragement from the great Brotherhood of the Teachers. This help and this encouragement usually have to be given by methods which are often entirely unknown to the recipients thereof. The time, however, will surely come when these recipients will become, self-consciously to themselves, genuine esoteric students, and then they will recognise and acknowledge at least to themselves the secret and invisible channels of communication that the Masters open between themselves and all spiritually aspiring human beings.
The instances, which one occasionally hears recounted, of 'angels' having appeared to some individual and having inspired him or her to high and extraordinary action, perhaps, are in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred instances of the appearance, not of 'angels' nor of 'spirits' but of highly evolved human beings, either the Mahatmans themselves or their chelas -- disciples -- who understand the nature and the working of the laws of the inner or spiritual worlds, as well as of the outer and visible world, and who can pass unseen and at will whenever they like, and wherever they like, or who can make themselves seen and at will whenever such seems to them good to do. These usually invisible envoys of the Great Brotherhood are always harbingers of spiritual good to mankind, protectors of human virtue, and guardians of the human race. They sometimes appear where the need is great and where and when the karman of the individual, or of the human group, or of the nation or race, allows this to be done. The one who is thus helped, if he is no esotericist, which is the same as saying if he does not know the truth of it, seeing what appears to be an extraordinary or noble visitant, even perhaps a brilliant human figure shining with light, might say, if he be one reared in the Christian belief and knows nothing else: "An angel hath appeared!" But because the visioner thinks or supposes that the apparition is an 'angel,' does not prove it in any wise to be an angel with wings or without wings after the Christian fashion. Joan of Arc was a well-known instance in point of this kind of visioner or visionary.
Sometimes, what actually takes place is the visible appearance under certain very rare and unusual conditions, and seen by unusual people in an unusual state of consciousness, of certain advanced beings of an ethereal character who are closely linked with the human race, both karmically and by reason of hierarchical affinity; and if those who see these extraordinary and unusual visitants perhaps give to them wings or clothe them with extraordinary and unusual habiliments, then it is usually the imagination of the visioner alone which is at work, but these last cases of 'appearances' are extraordinarily rare, although well-known in history, especially ancient history, yet usually regarded by our modern Sadducees or skeptics as being mere visions unfounded in fact. They are in truth the appearances of beings from other planes who because of convergence of extremely rare conditions involving both spacial and temporal states and karmic necessity, 'appear' to individuals as visitants from another sphere or world -- which in one sense is exactly what they are; but, as stated, these cases are of extremest rarity.
Sharply contrasted with the visitants just last mentioned, and concerning whom it is better to say nothing more here, are the more frequent but still rare 'appearances' of Nirmanakayas (of whom more has been said elsewhere in the present work) who belong to the members of the Great Brotherhood of the Mahatmans.
However, a fact still grander and more sublime than that of the help rendered unto men by the Masters of Wisdom and Compassion and Peace, as just sketched, is the fact of the living reality and ever-constant inspiration of the individual god within each one of us, and the source of the very being of each one of us. So many men on earth, so many gods in 'heaven.' This bright and flaming divinity which for each one of us is his inner god is the link of each individual human not only with the Cosmic Divinity or Hierarch, but, through the latter, with the boundless divinity of the Kosmic Universe. This inner god, this flaming spiritual fire of love and wisdom and intelligence, which is at the very heart and indeed is the very heart of each one of us, is robed in the essence of the Cosmic Spirit, and its essential nature is that which it manifests: love and wisdom and harmony. More often than not, the appearance of so-called 'angels' is connected with psychological mysteries belonging to the visioner's own inner self. Anyone who has studied modern psychology and knows something of its more or less erratic teachings, will realize that the phenomena of exteriorization, as it is sometimes called, make sometimes one's own thoughts appear to stand as objective or exterior to the observing subject himself. There are instances, and in history there are many of them, when men and women have been simply raised out of themselves, out of their ordinary selfhood, and have become filled full with the holy fire and flame, wisdom, intelligence, and love, of the divinity within, and have thereupon acted like heroes, almost like human gods. It has been the 'angel' within that has done this -- more accurately, the god within. Look for a moment at the martyrs for what they call truth through the ages, singing even as they died, whether on the stake, or on the sinking ship, or at the cannon's mouth. These are instances where the spirit rose supreme over flesh and its weaknesses. Within the inmost heart of every human being is compassion absolute, and the Great Silence, the infinite quiet, where ineffable strength and wisdom abide.
However, while it is wholly and absolutely true that the loftiest and highest and safest Teacher for each individual human being is his own Higher Self, the god within, and also true that the Higher Self is the court of last resort, so to say, in all actions, nevertheless it is equally true that it is necessary for every aspirant to the Wisdom of the Gods to have a Teacher in the beginning of the aspirant's following of the Path, a Teacher who is spiritually and intellectually capable and able to guide him thereto, i. e., to acquaint the disciple with the god within the disciple's own being. It has been shown in preceding paragraphs that the mere visionary, of whatever class, is not capable of self-consciously coming into this communion with and similitude to his own inner divinity, because an Initiator is always needed; and because the visionary would not be able alone and at first to link his self-conscious mentality with his own inner god, the visionary is therefore no true teacher himself, and is even more apt to mislead himself than others to whom in his still latent egoism he offers himself as guide and instructor.
The real Seers, the great Teachers of mankind, are sure and relatively infallible guides as far as their own awakened spiritual and intellectual faculties and attributes go, because they have penetrated into the deepest arcana of spirit and matter in two ways or manners, and thereafter register their relatively infallible knowledge for the benefit of their less evolved fellows of the human race. The first way or manner is by examining the indelible records of the Astral Light, which contain the portrayal of all evolution from the very dawn of time; and the second way or manner is through initiation, by which, in the highest initiations at least, one comes face to face with one's own inner god, recognises the duality merging into self-conscious unity or identity, and thereafter, in degree corresponding with the Master's own awakened abilities, becomes a relatively perfect and impeccable exponent or Voice of the god within him. Divine Wisdom and all possible human knowledge are wrapped up in and a part of the consciousness of the inner divinity, which in turn is an inseparable monadic part and individualized function of the Divine Essence of Nature herself; and thus knowledge is drawn upon at will at initiation, and in somewhat less degree thereafter.
Thus then, the sources of the high power and wisdom of the Seers and Sages, or higher Mahatmans, are two: first from within: from the inner power and wisdom gained through ages passed in many former human incarnations in various parts of the world, awakening the Human Ego to self-cognitive union with the inner god; and, second, from 'without,' if we may so phrase it -- although the word 'without' is subject to severe criticism: by means of initiation combined with an ever enlarging degree of receptivity as members of the Great Brotherhood of high initiates. Thus it is that Nature's most secret mysteries are opened, and opened in progressively enlarging measure, to those who have once attained to the status and spiritual stature of mahatmanship.
But the visionaries know not any of these wondrous mysteries of Nature, the Great Mother; hence, how can they teach them? Untaught themselves, uninstructed themselves, how can they give teaching or instruction and therefore real inspiration and Truth to others? However sincere they may be, or earnest, or devoted, or devout, matters nothing to the point. One must have knowledge, knowledge self-consciously won through many lives of self-directed effort, founded on self-conquest, and this knowledge must be based on the Great Mother -- the all-encompassing Essence of things -- Nature, that incomprehensibly great invisible and inner aggregate of all.
The Great Seers have evolved to the spiritual state in which Nature's secrets lie more or less open to their now piercing gaze; and coincidently they have developed within themselves spiritual, intellectual, and psychical as well as physical powers over Nature and natural forces and substances, which enable them, at will and solely for altruistic and impersonal purposes, to work what would seem to the average man to be wonders or marvels. But such marvels or wonders those great Seers or Sages very, very rarely do, and never for purely personal or selfish aims or objectives; for selfishness has long since been washed clean out of their nature. Their main duty and sublime occupation, inexpressibly beautiful as it is, is guiding humanity along life's difficult pathway, towards that sublime and ultimate goal which the human race some day is destined to reach as a great Family: the unfolding of the Dhyan-Chohanhood latent in every human individual. This consummation of human evolution will be reached towards the end of the Seventh Root-Race in the Seventh Round in our present planetary chain. But this grand consummation is no final ending. It is merely a reaching, so to speak, a sublime peak, beyond which will be then already distinctly visible still grander and loftier highths of spiritual achievement to climb, peaks on the distant spiritual horizon suffused with the dawn of a day still more glorious. Such is the Destiny awaiting our coming.
FOOTNOTES:
436. The reader may perhaps ask why the Christs previously spoken of are not mentioned in the text above in connexion with the Buddhas, and the question is a natural and a pertinent one. The reason is that the Buddhas are Men who have become relatively perfect, or perfected, through long ages of evolution in the series of earth-lives through which they have passed, and in each of which, especially in those immediately preceding the attaining of Buddhahood, the evolving Human Monad has made strenuous and continued efforts to attain a larger growth or unfolding of inner spiritual and intellectual attributes and powers. Thus they are the products of evolution, largely brought about by self-devised efforts to attain the sublime spiritual stature of Buddhahood.
Thus a Buddha is one who has become self-consciously united with his own inner Dhyani-Buddha or Spiritual Monad, which last in the West is signified by the term Christ or Christhood. Hence every Buddha is likewise a Christ or has attained Christhood because of such self-conscious union (brought about by past ages of reincarnational striving upwards towards the spirit) with the inner Dhyani-Buddha, the Dhyani-Buddha itself being a Ray from its 'Father in Heaven,' Adi-Buddha.
But not every Christ, however, is a Buddha; this is explained by the fact that Christs are divisible into two classes: (a) Buddhas, as above explained, and (b) Avataras as hereinbefore explained. From the foregoing it is clear that while every Buddha, i. e., Manushya-Buddha, is a Christ because of his self-conscious assimilation of the Dhyani-Buddha within him, not every Christ is a Buddha because one class of the Christs is formed of Avataras as stated -- beings who have no past karman, nor will they have any future karman: at least, not in any other than in a very mystical cosmical sense.
Thus Buddhahood is attained by evolving and highly evolved human beings who have both past and future karman and who therefore retain their Buddhahood into the future; whereas Christhood is a condition or state brought about by the imbodiment, either temporary or permanent, of a spiritual-divine Principle or Element-Principle. The permanent cases of imbodiment are those of the Buddhas; the temporary cases of the imbodiment of a spiritual-divine Element-Principle are the Avataras, and each is the consequence or result of a supreme act of what in the Esoteric Philosophy is technically called white magic -- performed for special purposes at certain cyclical periods for a great spiritual end or objective. Thus the Avataras manifest for special work as specially and magically 'created' beings -- marvelously strange as this last statement may sound to those who do not understand the profound Mystery it signifies or the recondite philosophy involved. One cannot enlarge this teaching here. (return to text)
437. It may be said in passing that photographs purporting to be pictures from the astral world may or may not be genuine; even if not genuine, the mere fact that they could have been offered or presented as genuine 'astrals,' in itself proves that the offerer is in a current of the Astral Light urging him to deceive.
It should be borne in mind that the photographic plate will not normally register anything except a material object, but on the other hand, it must not be forgotten that many astral things can, under certain conditions, become quasi-material, quasi-astral. Even though the eye may not be able to see them, they nevertheless in this last case are more or less condensed matter like gas; and if this gas have a certain color or form or substance, even though the eye cannot see it, and although it originates from the astral world, there is the possibility that the photographic plate can catch it.
Yet let it be said with all possible emphasis that no photographic plate can ever 'catch' a spirit, because a spirit is essentially arupa, i. e., formless, and utterly non-material, and consequently is entirely outside of this physical plane. The vibrations of spirit are utterly different from the vibrations of physical matter, although of course all physical matter is but the dregs or lees of what in essence is spirit. Hence, what the camera may have caught, in the possible instance just pointed out, would be an image, what the Greeks call an eidolon -- in this case a quasi-astral image. No photographic plate, as said, can ever catch any image except one which is more or less material or concreted, condensed, even though it is possible that the eye cannot see it. Thus does the photographic plate that the astronomers use in photographing the deeps of interstellar space. What the human eye cannot see through the telescope or at best see only very dimly, the photographic plate will catch through exposure of greater or less length: such as the filmy translucent nebulae. This shows that they are material, although they are very ethereal matter, and, it may as well be said here, they are often celestial bodies not belonging to this plane, and are caught only because of the combination of long exposure and the immense spacial depth or spread of ethereal substance -- matter extremely difficult to explain in a few words. (return to text)
438. The sole normal exception to what is stated in the text above, is, as therein hinted, the Elementaries, who are really the disimbodied astral souls of depraved humans, who before death have through lives of deliberate living in evil broken their link with the Spiritual Monad, and thus have lost their chance for continued existence. Nevertheless these Elementaries for the time being are astral human souls filled with evil passions and impulses, and are a distinct menace to all human beings whatsoever who have not by lives of purity and spiritual aspiration clothed themselves with an akasic veil which no Elementary can ever penetrate.
As a matter of fact, there is a sub-class of these Elementaries, which, though not as essentially evil as the ones just spoken of, are nevertheless almost equally dangerous, and this latter or sub-class are those particular kama-rupas or astral shades which are filled with almost equally strong evil impulses and desires as those of the true Elementaries just spoken of. These latter Elementaries are, therefore, the kama-rupic shades left behind in the lower regions of the Astral Light by human souls which have still enough spiritual life in them to be able to throw off these kama-rupic shells and experience at least a short Devachan. This latter or sub-class are distinct kama-rupic shells, but shells of particularly gross appetitive and materialistic type. They invariably drift to places like themselves. (return to text)
439. It is from the Astral Light that flow forth what are experienced on Earth as effects of the astral causes producing such terrestrial phenomena as outbreaks of either epidemic or pandemic disturbances; whether these be diseases, or affections in human psychology. Thus such matters as storms, wars, local or widespread outbreaks of disease, blights on crops, etc., etc., all have their causal origins in the cyclicly recurring movements of the Astral Light; yet this must not be misunderstood to mean that it is in the Astral Light alone that these originating causes arise. The more accurate statement of the facts is that all such terrestrial phenomena as above instanced, and most and perhaps all others which might be stated, while originating in the Astral Light from mediate causes therein arising, have their primary -- or ultimate -- causes in cosmic spheres; that is to say, that the Sun and Moon and the so-called Seven Sacred Planets are the original and potent fields wherein the primal causes arise, and these latter affect and work through the mediate or effectual causes aroused in the regions of the Astral Light.
This branch of knowledge is a very mysterious one, and belongs to the 'starry science' which was studied to perfection in the ancient Mystery-Schools under the guidance and direction of Initiate-Teachers; and this 'starry science' was the real and genuine astrology of which its modern representative is but a feeble and distorted echo.
The statement made in this footnote to the effect that the two 'luminaries' and the seven sacred planets are the causative agents in the production of effects on Earth, while perfectly true, must not be misunderstood to mean that human beings are but hapless and irresponsible victims of cosmic fatality, for this is emphatically not the teaching. The Human Family or Host, considered either collectively or distributively as individuals, itself arouses these efficient causes, and in a manner which is largely impossible of descriptive elaboration here. Suffice it to say, therefore, to employ the old astrological phrasing, stellae agunt non cogunt -- i.e., the stars impel but do not compel; the meaning of which is, otherwise stated, that any human being, because possessing the divine inherent Principle or faculty of free will in whatever manner or degree, can at any moment direct his own life to right or to left or forwards or backwards, and can, in proportion to the development in him of his spiritual intellect, rise superior to the cosmic karmic urges or impulses brought about by the influences of the celestial bodies. The Divine Spirit in man's breast is incomparably superior even to any cosmic force that can bring about results on Earth; and while a human being can at no time escape his karman or the karmic consequences of his former thoughts and deeds, he can at every instant of his life modify for the better and change to the good all new situations in which he may be placed. Thus it is that little by little, by so following the inner Light, he can build up a store of karmic consequences which when they reach him in future ages will be like incoming angels of light and mercy. (return to text)
440. Here one may as well state plainly that the term in Theosophical literature, Lunar Pitris, so commonly used, means far more than it is generally by superficial students supposed to mean. It can be and often is used as a generalizing name. It means in this most general sense the 'lunar Fathers' -- hence everything that comes from the Moon: the three kingdoms of the elementals, minerals, vegetables, beasts, humans, Dyani-Chohans -- all were 'Fathers' from the Moon, the Lunar Ancestors; although of course it is true that in a strictly technical sense the phrase Lunar Pitris is usually restricted to mean those classes of Lunar Monads who became the various human and more-than-human groups now on Earth. This point has importance, and should not be forgotten. (return to text)
441. A number of the paragraphs in the text deal more or less succinctly with what are the really difficult and in certain respects almost indescribable characteristics of the Astral Light; yet it is no exaggeration to say that a dozen thick volumes could be written on the Astral Light alone, and not exhaust the topic. The reader who is interested in the subject may be referred to the many passages in H. P. Blavatsky's writings, passim, for authentic and authoritative hints of great value regarding the nature as well as the denizens of that plane just above or slightly more ethereal than our own physical plane which in modern times since the introduction of exoteric Theosophical literature it has been customary to call the Astral Light, but which the ancients, as for instance, of Greece and Rome, Syria, Mesopotamia and Egypt, called the Underworld.
The following further observations on the Astral Light are taken from the author's Occult Glossary, sub voce Astral Light, pp. 20-1:
"The Astral Light corresponds in the case of our Globe, and analogically in the case of our Solar System, to what the Linga-sarira is in the case of an individual man; and just as in man the Linga-sarira or Astral body is the vehicle or carrier of Prana or life-energy, so is the Astral Light the carrier of the cosmic Jiva or cosmic life-energy. To us humans it is an invisible region surrounding our Earth, as H. P. Blavatsky expresses it, as indeed it surrounds every other physical Globe; and among the seven Kosmic Principles it is the most material excepting one, our physical universe.
"The Astral Light therefore is on the one hand the storehouse or repository of all the energies of the Kosmos on their way downwards to manifest in the material spheres -- of our Solar System in general as well as of our Globe in particular; and, on the other hand, it is the receptacle or magazine of whatever passes out of the physical sphere on its upward way.
"Thirdly, it is a Kosmic 'picture-gallery' or indelible record of whatever takes place on the astral and physical planes, and it is this last phase of the functions of the Astral Light which has occupied the attention of most Theosophical Occultists. This third phase, however, is the least in importance and real interest of its activities. The Astral Light of our Globe, and analogically of any other physical globe, is the region of the Kama-loka, at least as concerns the intermediate and lower parts of the Kama-loka; and all entities that die pass through the Astral Light on their way upwards, and in the Astral Light throw off or shed the Kama-rupa at the time of the Second Death.
"The Solar System has its own Astral Light in general, just as every Globe in the universal Solar System has its Astral Light in particular, in each of these last cases being a thickening, or materializing, or concreting, around the Globe of the general astral substance forming the Astral Light of the Solar System. The Astral Light, strictly speaking, is simply the lees or dregs of Akasa and exists in steps or stages of increasing ethereality. The more closely it surrounds any Globe, the grosser and more material it is. It is the receptacle of all the vile and horrible emanations from Earth and earth-beings, and is therefore in parts filled with earthly pollutions. There is a constant interchange, unceasing throughout the solar manvantara, between the Astral Light on the one hand, and our Globe Earth, each giving and returning to the other.
"Finally the Astral Light is with regard to the material realms of the Solar System the copy or reflexion of what the Akasa is in the spiritual realms. The Astral Light is the mother of the physical, just as the Spirit is the mother of the Akasa or, inversely, the physical is merely the concretion of the astral, just as the Akasa is the veil or concretion of the highest Spiritual. Indeed, the astral and physical are one, just as the akasic and the spiritual are one." (return to text)
442. The statement in the text involves a mystery within a mystery; and the matter may perhaps briefly be explained by stating that in the earliest times, before degeneration had set in in the Mystery-Schools, the 'death penalty' meant originally the natural karmic inner spiritual and intellectual reaction taking place in the betrayer's own soul, leading ultimately to the 'death of the soul.' In later times, hereinbefore called 'degenerate,' when the intense convictions based upon adequate knowledge of the early ages had given way merely to religious and philosophical beliefs or speculations, such inner soul-loss, rarely if ever occurred, and the State undertook to punish divulgation of the secrets of the Mysteries by penalties adequate to the various degrees of guilt or of offense; and in still later times, the State dropped even these distinctions and punished capitally any degree of betrayal of the Mysteries, whether it were deliberate or not -- the case of Socrates belonging to this latter class.
There were, of course, men who even in the late and degenerate days attempted to mitigate the extreme penalty of death by various legal devices, as for instance, commuting the death-penalty into ostracism or banishment in cases where the offense was neither flagrant nor productive of what was considered to be irreparable damage to the institution of the Mysteries, which for ages had been a State-function.
For further observations upon this interesting topic, the reader is referred to chapter xxxvi, 'Some Misunderstood Teachings of the Mysteries.' (return to text)
443. It might be said in passing that the Sufis may rightly be called the Theosophists of the Muhhammedan religion, and especially does this apply to the Persian branch of Sufiism, which actually represents a revolt against the rigid narrowness of view of orthodox Muhhammedanism and a return towards the essential teachings of the archaic religion of that formerly noble race. (return to text)