The Theosophical Forum – September 1945

THE MYSTERY OF BEING (1)

Gradually the Mind develops. This is perceptible to all people. Gradually it takes on the nature of the environment, and either grows or is retarded as it finds food for growth or lack of it. How this can be is not questioned — because it is accepted from prima facie evidence.

Yet it is denied or disbelieved that the Mind has root in another dimension, or in anything but the physical form. How the Mind can be already operating in the infant is a question ignored as one of life's mysteries. Where it goes at death is another mystery. There are no answers from the scientist as yet as to what constitutes the Mind, and the average clergyman is content to speak vaguely of the "soul" and begs the question.

Those who consider the theory of reincarnation reasonable, and those who accept it, have no difficulty with the question, for they perceive the periodical birth and death of a being is an answer to the problem. That an infant arrives in the new body with the undisclosed faculties which (sooner or later) he will express, given proper opportunity, is surely evidence of a pre-existence somewhere in which the Mind received experience or training, and is an explanation of the difference in people. That the Mind departs once more on its appointed pathway, only to reappear again, seems a most reasonable theory, since all Nature follows this cyclic law.

It should be evident that Mind must come from the root of Being, or very near it, it must express in some degree the unseen, unheard, untouched heart of Being, call it by whatever name one chooses. No matter where one may consider that the heart of Being resides, or calls itself at home, or from whence it sends an adventurous tentacle into the world of matter, it must be conceded that the Mind is all we know of it objectively. It, the Mind, is the Interpreter, the Translator, the Mediator, and the Channel, between the two worlds — to simplify the Seven Dimensions for the time being.

We should regard the Mind, therefore, as the most important organ — though we cannot dissect or describe the organ, can only lay hands of exploration upon the brain, the nervous system, and the glands — which are the servants of the Mind itself. Mind can communicate through these channels, can control; but it, the Mind, is not the brain through which it manifests. Something intangible resides above and uses, speaks through, observes and experiences, by means of the physical senses.

This is the Mind, of which the East speaks, and which it calls Manas. It is the enveloping cloud or concentrated sphere of higher dimensional energy which surrounds the physical body and which pours down into the brain its commands and experiences, through which the intangible something still higher which is called Atma can contact the field of force we call the physical world.

Beyond the reach of proof or even of description, the Mind of man functions in its own dimension, and from that it descends into incarnation at intervals. It comes each time with some faint remembrance, which is usually dismissed as imagination by the time of maturity, so that it is the common impression that this life is the only one experienced. But this is not true — the Mind is merely concentrated upon the present, is concerned with the problems confronting it, and it has little time to remember other lessons. For this reason few people remember past lives; the exceptions have no credence in this age.

But there are lives behind and beyond. The Mind is deathless and eternal and immortal — growing through the ages into Wisdom and full Perfection.

FOOTNOTE:

1. Reprinted from The Golden Lotus, Vol. I, No 7. (return to text)



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