THEOSOPHY – THE WORD
CONSCIOUSNESS
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To render these ideas clearer to the general reader, let him set out with the postulate that there is one absolute Reality which antecedes all manifested, conditioned, being. This Infinite and Eternal Cause – dimly formulated in the “Unconscious” and “Unknowable” of current European philosophy – is the rootless root of “all that was, is, or ever shall be.” It is of course devoid of all attributes and is essentially without any relation to manifested, finite Being. It is “Be-ness” rather than Being (in Sanskrit, Sat), and is beyond all thought or speculation.
This “Be-ness” is symbolised in the Secret Doctrine under two aspects. On the one hand, absolute abstract Space, representing bare subjectivity, the one thing which no human mind can either exclude from any conception, or conceive of by itself. On the other, absolute Abstract Motion representing Unconditioned Consciousness.
[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p14]
Parabrahm (the One Reality, the Absolute) is the field of Absolute Consciousness, i.e., that Essence which is out of all relation to conditioned existence, and of which conscious existence is a conditioned symbol. But once that we pass in thought from this (to us) Absolute Negation, duality supervenes in the contrast of Spirit (or consciousness) and Matter, Subject and Object.
Spirit (or Consciousness) and Matter are, however, to be regarded, not as independent realities, but as the two facets or aspects of the Absolute (Parabrahm), which constitute the basis of conditioned Being whether subjective or objective.
Considering this metaphysical triad as the Root from which proceeds all manifestation, the great Breath assumes the character of precosmic Ideation. It is the fons et origo of force and of all individual consciousness, and supplies the guiding intelligence in the vast scheme of cosmic Evolution. On the other hand, precosmic root-substance (Mulaprakriti) is that aspect of the Absolute which underlies all the objective planes of Nature.
[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p15]
Time is only an illusion produced by the succession of our states of consciousness as we travel through eternal duration, and it does not exist where no consciousness exists in which the illusion can be produced; but “lies asleep.” The present is only a mathematical line which divides that part of eternal duration which we call the future, from that part which we call the past.
[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p37]
... we cannot cognise any such existence directly, so long as we have sense-instruments which bring only material existence into the field of our consciousness. Whatever plane our consciousness may be acting in, both we and the things belonging to that plane are, for the time being, our only realities. As we rise in the scale of development we perceive that during the stages through which we have passed we mistook shadows for realities, and the upward progress of the Ego is a series of progressive awakenings, each advance bringing with it the idea that now, at last, we have reached “reality;” but only when we shall have reached the absolute Consciousness, and blended our own with it, shall we be free from the delusions produced by Maya.
[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p40]
What is Time, for instance, but the panoramic succession of our states of consciousness? In the words of a Master, “I feel even irritated at having to use these three clumsy words – past, present, and future! Miserable concepts of the objective phases of the Subjective Whole, they are about as ill-adapted for the purpose as an axe for fine carving.”
[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p44]
Dreamless sleep is one of the seven states of consciousness known in Oriental esotericism. In each of these states a different portion of the mind comes into action; or as a Vedantin would express it, the individual is conscious in a different plane of his being. The term “dreamless sleep,” in this case is applied allegorically to the Universe to express a condition somewhat analogous to that state of consciousness in man, which, not being remembered in a waking state, seems a blank, just as the sleep of the mesmerised subject seems to him an unconscious blank when he returns to his normal condition, although he has been talking and acting as a conscious individual would.
[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p47]
Esoteric philosophy teaches that everything lives and is conscious, but not that all life and consciousness are similar to those of human or even animal beings.
[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p49]
To know itself or oneself, necessitates consciousness and perception (both limited faculties in relation to any subject except Parabrahm), to be cognized. Hence the “Eternal Breath which knows itself not.” Infinity cannot comprehend Finiteness. The Boundless can have no relation to the bounded and the conditioned. In the occult teachings, the Unknown and the Unknowable MOVER, or the Self-Existing, is the absolute divine Essence. And thus being Absolute Consciousness, and Absolute Motion – to the limited senses of those who describe this indescribable – it is unconsciousness and immovableness. Concrete consciousness cannot be predicated of abstract Consciousness, any more than the quality wet can be predicated of water – wetness being its own attribute and the cause of the wet quality in other things. Consciousness implies limitations and qualifications; something to be conscious of, and someone to be conscious of it. But Absolute Consciousness contains the cognizer, the thing cognized and the cognition, all three in itself and all three one.
[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p56]
Lead the life necessary for the acquisition of such knowledge and powers, and Wisdom will come to you naturally. Whenever you are able to attune your consciousness to any of the seven chords of ‘Universal Consciousness’, those chords that arun along the sounding board of Kosmos, vibrating from one Eternity to another;
[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p167]
Now the evolution of the external form or body around the astral is produced by the terrestrial forces, just as in the case of the lower kingdoms; but the evolution of the internal or real MAN is purely spiritual. It is now no more a passage of the impersonal Monad through many and various forms of matter – endowed at best with instinct and consciousness on quite a different plane – as in the case of external evolution, but a journey of the “pilgrim-soul” through various states of not only matter but Self-consciousness and self-perception, or of perception from apperception.
[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p175]
These are the four lower planes of Cosmic Consciousness, the three higher planes being inaccessible to human intellect as developed at present. The seven states of human consciousness pertain to quite another question.
[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p200fn]
It becomes the task of the fifth Hierarchy – the mysterious beings that preside over the constellation Capricornus, Makara, or “Crocodile” in India as in Egypt – to inform the empty and ethereal animal form and make of it the Rational Man. This is one of those subjects upon which very little may be said to the general public. It is a MYSTERY, truly, but only to him who is prepared to reject the existence of intellectual and conscious spiritual Beings in the Universe, limiting full Consciousness to man alone, and that only as a “function of the brain.
[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p233]
It is worse than useless to return to the question of implied atheism in that which is spirituality of a most refined character. To see in Nirvana annihilation amounts to saying of a man plunged in a sound dreamless sleep – one that leaves no impression on the physical memory and brain, because the sleeper’s Higher Self is in its original state of absolute consciousness during those hours – that he, too, is annihilated. The latter simile answers only to one side of the question – the most material; since re-absorption is by no means such a “dreamless sleep,” but, on the contrary, absolute existence, an unconditioned unity, or a state, to describe which human language is absolutely and hopelessly inadequate.
[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p266]
Everything in the Universe, throughout all its kingdoms, is CONSCIOUS: i.e., endowed with a consciousness of its own kind and on its own plane of perception. We men must remember that because we do not perceive any signs – which we can recognise – of consciousness, say, in stones, we have no right to say that no consciousness exists there. There is no such thing as either “dead” or “blind” matter, as there is no “Blind” or “Unconscious” Law. These find no place among the conceptions of Occult philosophy. The latter never stops at surface appearances, and for it the noumenal essences have more reality than their objective counterparts; it resembles therein the mediaeval Nominalists, for whom it was the Universals that were the realities and the particulars which existed only in name and human fancy.
[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p274]
The very fact that adaptations do occur, that the fittest do survive in the struggle for existence, shows that what is called “unconscious Nature”is in reality an aggregate of forces manipulated by semi-intelligent beings (Elementals) guided by High Planetary Spirits, (Dhyani-Chohans), whose collective aggregate forms the manifested verbum of the unmanifested LOGOS, and constitutes at one and the same time the MIND of the Universe and its immutable LAW.
[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p277-8]
Nature taken in its abstract sense, cannot be “unconscious,” as it is the emanation from, and thus an aspect (on the manifested plane) of the ABSOLUTE consciousness. Where is that daring man who would presume to deny to vegetation and even to minerals a consiousness of their own. All he can say is, that this consciousness is beyond his comprehension.
[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p277fn]
... the aggregate of the Dhyan-Chohans and the other forces.... They are dual in their character; being composed of (a) the irrational brute energy, inherent in matter, and (b) the intelligent soul or cosmic consciousness which directs and guides that energy, and which is the Dhyani-Chohanic thought reflecting the Ideation of the Universal mind.
[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p280]
When “the one becomes two”, it may then be referred to as Spirit and matter. To “Spirit” is referable every manifestation of consciousness, reflective or direct, and of unconscious purposiveness (to adopt a modern expression used in Western philosophy, so-called) as evidenced in the Vital Principle, and Nature’s submission to the majestic sequence of immutable law. “Matter” must be regarded as objectivity in its purest abstraction – self-existing basis whose septenary manvantaric differentiations constitute the objective reality underlying the phenomena of each phase of conscious existence. During the period of Universal Pralaya, Cosmic Ideation is non-existent; and the variously differentiated states of Cosmic Substance are resolved back again into the primary state of abstract potential objectivity.
[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p327-8]
Cosmic Ideation is said to be non-existent during Pralayic periods, for the simple reason that there is no one, and nothing, to perceive its effects. There can be no manifestation of Consciousness, semi-consciousness, or even “unconscious purposiveness,” except through the vehicle of matter; that is to say, on this our plane, wherein human consciousness in its normal state cannot soar beyond what is known as transcendental metaphysics, it is only through some molecular aggregation or fabric that Spirit wells up in a stream of individual or sub-conscious subjectivity. And as Matter existing apart from perception is a mere abstraction, both of these aspects of the ABSOLUTE – Cosmic Substance and Cosmic Ideation – are mutually inter-dependent.
[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p328-9]
From the stand-point of the highest metaphysics, the whole Universe, gods included, is an illusion; but the illusion of him who is in himself an illusion differs on every plane of consciousness; and we have no more right to dogmatise about the possible nature of the perceptive faculties of an Ego on, say, the sixth plane, than we have to identify our perceptions with, or make them a standard for, those of an ant, in its mode of consciousness. The pure object apart from consciousness is unknown to us, while living on the plane of our three-dimensional World; as we know only the mental states it excites in the perceiving Ego. And, so long as the contrast of Subject and Object endures – to wit, as long as we enjoy our five senses and no more, and do not know how to divorce our all-perceiving Ego (the Higher Self) from the thraldom of these senses – long will it be impossible for the personal Ego to break through the barrier which separates it from a knowledge of things in themselves (or Substance). That Ego, progressing in an arc of ascending subjectivity, must exhaust the experience of every plane. But not till the Unit is merged in the ALL, whether on this or any other plane, and Subject and Object alike vanish in the absolute negation of the Nirvanic State (negation, again, only from our plane), is scaled that peak of Omniscience – the Knowledge of things-in-themselves; and the solution of the yet more awful riddle approached, before which even the highest Dhyani-Chohan must bow in silence and ignorance – the unspeakable mystery of that which is called by the Vedantins, the PARABRAHMAN.
[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p329-30]
Cosmic Ideation focused in a principle or upadhi (basis) results as the consciousness of the individual Ego. Its manifestation varies with the degree of upadhi, e.g., through that known as Manas it wells up as Mind-Consciousness; through the more finely differentiated fabric (sixth state of matter) of Buddhi – resting on the experience of Manas as it basis – as a stream of spiritual INTUITION.
[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p329fn]
Ahamkara, as universal Self-Consciousness, has a triple aspect, as also Manas. For this conception of “I”, or one’s Ego, is either sattva, “pure quietude”, or appears as rajas, “active”, or remains tamas, “stagnant”, in darkness. It belongs to Heaven and Earth, and assumes the properties of either.
[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p335fn]
..........
In Devachan the higher element of the Manas is needed to make it a state of perception and consciousness for the disembodied Monad.
[The Secret Doctrine Vol.II, p57fn]
He who bears in mind that the principle MAHAT, or Intellect, the “Universal Mind” (literally “the great”), which esoteric philosophy explains as the “manifested Omniscience” – the “first product” of Pradhana (primordial matter) as Vishnu-Purana says, but the first Cosmic aspect of Parabrahman or the esoteric SAT, the Universal Soul, as Occultism teaches – is at the root of SELF-Consciousness, will understand the reason why. The so-called “Demons” – who are (esoterically) the Self-asserting and (intellectually) active Principle – are the positive poles of creation, so to say; hence, the first produced. This is in brief the process as narrated allegorically in the Puranas.
[The Secret Doctrine Vol.II, p58-9]
He had no middle principle to serve him as a medium between the highest and the lowest, the spiritual man and the physical brain, for he lacked Manas. The Monads which incarnated in those empty SHELLS, remained as unconscious as when separated from their previous incomplete forms and vehicles. There is no potentiality for creation, or self-Consciousness, in a pure Spirit on this our plane, unless its too homogeneous, perfect, because divine, nature is, so to say, mixed with, and strengthened by, an essence already differentiated. It is only the lower line of the Triangle – representing the first triad that emanates from the Universal MONAD – that can furnish this needed consciousness on the plane of differentiated Nature.
[The Secret Doctrine Vol.II, p90]
Differentiated matter existing in the Solar System (let us not touch the whole Kosmos) in seven different conditions, and Prajna, or the capacity of perception, existing likewise in seven different aspects corresponding to the seven conditions of matter, there must necessarily be seven states of consciousness in man; and according to the greater or smaller development of these states, the systems of religions and philosophies were schemed out.
[The Secret Doctrine Vol.II, p597fn]
In their opinion, a conscious God cannot be the origin of the Universe, as his Ego would be the effect of a previous cause, if the word conscious conveys but its ordinary meaning. They cannot admit that the grand total of all the states of consciousness in the Universe is their deity, as these states are constantly changing, and as cosmic ideation ceases during Pralaya. There is only one permanent condition in the Universe, which is the state of perfect unconsciousness, bare Chidakasa (the field of consciousness) in fact. When my readers once realize the fact that this grand universe is in reality but a huge aggregation of various states of consciousness, they will not be surprised to find that the ultimate state of unconsciousness is considered as Parabrahman by the Advaiti.
[The Secret Doctrine Vol.II, p598fn]
The latter [Tyndall] expresses the opinion of all the great men of science, as of the greatest thinkers of this and the past ages, in saying that “the passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of consciousness is unthinkable. ... Were our minds and senses so expanded, strengthened ... illuminated as to enable us to see and feel the very molecules of the brain; were we capable of following all their motions, all their groupings, all their electric discharges ... we should be as far as ever from the solution of the problem ...
[The Secret Doctrine Vol.II, p673]
The ordinary man has no experience of any state of consciousness other than that to which the physical senses link him. Men dream; they sleep the profound sleep which is too deep for dreams to impress the physical brain; and in these states there must still be conscious-ness. How, then, while these mysteries remain unexplored, can we hope to speculate with profit on the nature of globes which, in the economy of nature, must needs belong to states of consciousness other and quite different from any which man experiences here?
[The Secret Doctrine Vol.II, p701]
Since no single atom in the entire Kosmos is without life and consciousness, how much more then its mighty globes? – though they remain sealed books to us men who can hardly enter even into the consciousness of the forms of life nearest us?
We do not know ourselves, then how can we, if we have never been trained to it and initiated, fancy that we can penetrate the consciousness of the smallest of the animals around us?
[The Secret Doctrine Vol.II, p702fn]
Now the more these impediments are removed, in other words, the more the physical body is paralysed, as to its own independent activity and consciousness, as in deep sleep or deep trance, or, again in illness, the more fully can the inner Self manifest on this plane.
[The Key to Theosophy p29]
We call our “Father in heaven” that deific essence of which we are cognizant within us, in our heart and spiritual consciousness ...
[The Key to Theosophy p67]
Enq. ... Is there anything on our human plane that you could bring as an illustration of what you say ...
Theo. None, except perhaps that which for science would be rather a handy peg on which to hand a counter-argument. We have a different set of senses in dream-life, have we not? We feel, talk, hear, see, taste and function in general on a different plane; the change of state of our consciousness being evidenced by the fact that a series of acts and events embracing years, as we think, pass ideally through our mind in one instant. Well, that extreme rapidity of our mental operations in dreams, and the perfect naturalness, for the time being, of all the other functions, show us that we are on quite another plane. Our Philosophy teaches us that, as there are seven fundamental forces in nature, and seven planes of being, so there are seven states of consciousness in which man can live, think, remember and have his being. To enumerate these here is impossible, and for this one has to turn to the study of Eastern metaphysics. But in these two states – the waking and the dreaming – every ordinary mortal, from a learned philosopher down to a poor untutored savage, has a good proof that such states differ.
[The Key to Theosophy p89]
ENQ. You have just spoken of psuche running towards its entire annihilation if it attaches itself to Anoia.
THEO. The entire annihilation of the personal consciousness, as an exceptional and rare case, I think. The general and almost invariable rule is the merging of the personal into the individual or immortal consciousness of the Ego, a transformation or a divine transfiguration, and the entire annihilation only of the lower quaternary.
[The Key to Theosophy p94]
Here you have our doctrine, which shows man a septenary during life; a quintile just after death, in Kamaloka; and a threefold Ego, Spirit-Soul, and consciousness in Devachan. This separation, first in "the Meadows of Hades," as Plutarch calls the Kama-loka, then in Devachan, was part and parcel of the performances during the sacred Mysteries, when the candidates for initiation enacted the whole drama of death, and the resurrection as a glorified spirit, by which name we mean Consciousness.
[The Key to Theosophy p98]
The "principles," as already said, save the body, the life, and the astral eidolon, all of which disperse at death, are simply aspects and states of consciousness. There is but one real man, enduring through the cycle of life and immortal in essence, if not in form, and this is Manas, the Mind-man or embodied Consciousness. The objection made by the materialists, who deny the possibility of mind and consciousness acting without matter is worthless in our case. We do not deny the soundness of their argument; but we simply ask our opponents, "Are you acquainted with all the states of matter, you who knew hitherto but of three? And how do you know whether that which we refer to as ABSOLUTE CONSCIOUSNESS or Deity for ever invisible and unknowable, be not that which, though it eludes for ever our human finite conception, is still universal Spirit-matter or matter-Spirit in its absolute infinitude?" It is then one of the lowest, and in its manvantaric manifestations fractioned-aspects of this Spirit-matter, which is the conscious Ego that creates its own paradise, a fool's paradise, it may be, still a state of bliss.
[The Key to Theosophy p100]
Immortality is but one's unbroken consciousness; and the personal consciousness can hardly last longer than the personality itself, can it? And such consciousness, as I already told you, survives only throughout Devachan, after which it is reabsorbed, first, in the individual, and then in the universal consciousness.
[The Key to Theosophy p108]
Iswara is the collective consciousness of the manifested deity, Brahma, i. e., the collective consciousness of the Host of Dhyan Chohans (vide THE SECRET DOCTRINE); and Prajna is their individual wisdom.
Taijasi means the radiant in consequence of its union with Buddhi; i. e., Manas, the human soul, illuminated by the radiance of the divine soul. Therefore, Manas-taijasi may be described as radiant mind; the human reason lit by the light of the spirit; and Buddhi-Manas is the revelation of the divine plus human intellect and self-consciousness.
[The Key to Theosophy p159fn]
Say rather that Buddhi-Manas can neither die nor lose its compound self-consciousness in Eternity, nor the recollection of its previous incarnations in which the two – i.e., the spiritual and the human soul – had been closely linked together. But it is not so in the case of a materialist,...
[The Key to Theosophy p160]
ENQ. How so? Can my conscious terrestrial “I” perish not only for a time, like the consciousness of the materialist, but so entirely as to leave no trace behind?
THEOS. According to the teaching, it must so perish and in its fulness, all except the principle which, having united itself with the Monad, has thereby become a purely spiritual and indestructible essence, one with it in the Eternity.
[The Key to Theosophy p166]
The world in which blossom the transitory and evanescent flowers of personal lives is not the real permanent world; but that one in which we find the root of consciousness, that root which is beyond illusion and dwells in the eternity.
[The Key to Theosophy p180]
In each of the rounds he makes one of the principles develop fully. In the first round his consciousness on our earth is dull and but feeble and shadowy, something like that of an infant. When he reaches our earth in the second round he has become responsible in a degree, in the third he becomes so entirely. At every stage and every round his development keeps pace with the globe on which he is. The descending arc from A to our earth is called the shadowy, the ascending to Z the “luminous.”
[Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, Letter 67, Chronological Edition or Letter 185, Barker Numbering.]
Since the conscious perception of one’s personality on earth is but an evanescent dream, that sense will be equally that of a dream in the Devachan – only a hundred fold intensified. So much so, indeed, that the happy Ego is unable to see through the veil the evils, sorrows and woes to which those it loved on earth may be subjected. It lives in that sweet dream with its loved ones – whether gone before, or yet remaining on earth; it has them near itself, as happy, as blissful and as innocent as the disembodied dreamer himself;...
[Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, Letter 68, Chronological Edition or Letter 191, Barker Numbering.]
... H.P.B. explained to Mr. Hume that man’s sixth principle, as something purely spiritual could not exist, or have conscious being in the Devachan, unless it assimilated some of the more abstract and pure of the mental attributes of the fifth principle or animal Soul, its manas (mind) and memory.
[Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, Letter 68, Chronological Edition or Letter 192, Barker Numbering.]
The question is now sufficiently explained, I believe: the sixth and seventh principles apart from the rest constitute the eternal, imperishable, but also unconscious “Monad.” To awaken in it to life the latent consciousness, especially that of personal individuality, requires the monad plus the highest attributes of the fifth – the “animal Soul”; and it is that which makes the ethereal Ego that lives and enjoys bliss in the Devachan. Spirit, or the unalloyed emanations of the ONE – the latter forming with the seventh and sixth principles the highest triad – neither of the two emanations are capable of assimilating but that which is good, pure and holy; hence, no sensual, material or unholy recollection can follow the purified memory of the Ego to the region of Bliss.
[Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, Letter 68, Chronological Edition or Letter 194, Barker Numbering.]
Complete or true immortality, – which means an unlimited sentient existence, can have no breaks and stoppages, no arrest of Self-consciousness. And even the shells of those good men whose page will not be found missing in the great Book of Lives at the threshold of the Great Nirvana, even they will regain their remembrance and an appearance of Self-consciousness, only after the sixth and seventh principles with the essence of the 5th (the latter having to furnish the material for even that partial recollection of personality which is necessary for the object in Devachan) – have gone to their gestation period, not before....
Whether his stay in Kama Loka has to last but a few moments, hours, days, weeks, months or years; whether he died a natural or a violent death; whether it occurred in his young or old age, and, whether the Ego was good, bad or indifferent, – his consciousness leaves him as suddenly as the flame leaves the wick, when blown out. When life has retired from the last particle in the brain matter, his perceptive faculties become extinct forever, his spiritual powers of cogitation and volition – (all those faculties in short, which are neither inherent in, nor acquirable by organic matter) – for the time being.
[Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, Letter 70-C, Chronological Edition or Letter 210, Barker Numbering.]
Ask those who offer the objection, whether they know anything of “life” and “consciousness” beyond what they now feel on earth. What conception can they have – unless natural born seers – of the state and consciousness of one’s individuality after it has separated itself from gross earthy body? What is the good of the whole process of life on earth – you may ask them in your turn – if we are as good as “pure” unconscious entities before birth, during sleep, and, at the end of our career?
[Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, Letter 93-B, Chronological Edition or Letter 316, Barker Numbering.]
When the sixth and seventh principles are gone, carrying off with them the finer, spiritual portions of that which once was the personal consciousness of the fifth, then only does the shell gradually develop a kind of hazy consciousness of its own from what remains in the shadow of personality.
[Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, Letter 93-B, Chronological Edition or Letter 327, Barker Numbering.]
Reviving consciousness begins after the struggle in Kama-Loka at the door of Devachan, and only after the “gestation period”.
[Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, Letter 104, Chronological Edition or Letter 362, Barker Numbering.]
... “How then, can a man lose this divine light, in part or in whole, as a rule before death, if each minutest atom of the human body has its inherent latent spark of the divine light?” Italicizing some words, as above, but omitting to emphasize the one important word of the sentence, i.e., “latent,” which contains the key to the whole mystery. In the grain of sand, and each atom of the human material body, the spirit is latent, not active; hence, being but a correlation of the highest light, something concrete as compared with the purely abstract, the atom is vitalized and energized by spirit, without being endowed with distinct consciousness. A “grain of sand, as every minutest atom, is certainly “imbued with that vital principle called spirit.” So is every atom of the human body, whether physical or astral, and thus every atom of both, following the law of evolution, whether of objective or semi-concrete astral matter, will have to remain eternal throughout the endless cycles, indestructible in their primary, elementary constituents. But will “M. A. (Cantab.)” for all that, call a grain of sand, or a human nail-paring, consciously immortal? Does he mean us to understand him as believing that a fractional part, as a fraction, has the same attributes, capabilities, and limitations as the whole? Does he say that because the atoms in a nail-paring are indestructible as atoms, therefore the body, of which the nail formed a part, is of necessity, as a conscious whole, indestructible and immortal?
[C.W.I, p331]
They refuse to comprehend that a philosophical doctrine can teach that an atom imbued with divine light, or a portion of the great Spirit, in its latent stage of correlation, may, notwithstanding its reciprocal or corresponding similarity and relations to the one indivisible whole, be yet utterly deficient in self-consciousness. That it is only when this atom, magnetically drawn to its fellow atoms, which had served in a previous state to form with it some lower complex object, is transformed at last, after endless cycles of evolution, into MAN – the apex of perfected being, intellectually and physically, on our planet – in conjunction with them becomes, as a whole, a living soul, and reaches the state of intellectual self-consciousness.
[C.W.I, p334]
But four stages are recognized in the progress where the change is of a peculiar kind, and is such as to arrest an observer’s 11 attention. These four stages are as follows: –
(1) Where life (fourth principle) makes its appearance.
(2) Where the existence of mind becomes perceptible in conjunction with life.
(3) Where the highest state of mental abstraction ends, and spiritual consciousness commences.
(4) Where spiritual consciousness disappears, leaving the seventh principle in a complete state of Nirvana, or nakedness.
According to our philosophers, the fifth principle under consideration is intended to represent the mind in every possible state of development, from the second stage up to the third stage.
[C.W.III, p412]
For the love of the adept burns only for the highest of the highest – that perfect knowledge of Nature and its animating Principle, which includes in itself every quality of both sexes, and so can no more think as either man or woman, than the right or the left lobe of one’s brain can think of itself apart from the whole entity of which it is a component. Monosexual consciousness exists only on the lower levels of psychic development; up above, the individual becomes merged as to consciousness, in the Universal Principle; has “become Brahma.” But it was less a sin for our author to make his hero relinquish fortune and the world’s caresses to become a Chela, in the hope of passing aeons of bliss with the enfranchised soul of his beloved one, than to put into the mouth of Ram Lal, the adept “Brother” – apparently a prentice attempt to individualize Mr. Sinnett’s now world-famed trans-Himalayan correspondent – language about woman’s love and its effects that no adept would by any chance ever use.
[C.W.IV, p341]
It ought to have been said that immediately on the severance of “spirit” and “Spiritual soul” (its vehicle), from Manas and Kama-Rupa (fifth and fourth Principles), the spiritual consciousness (when left without its leaven or cement of personal consciousness subtracted by it from the Manas) ... ceases to exist until a new rebirth in a new personality, since pure Spirit can have no consciousness per se.
[C.W.IV, p546-7]
We are sorry to reply in the negative. That which maintains the consciousness of its individuality is the sixth principle in conjunction with the seventh and a portion of the fifth and its vehicle the fourth – the triad thus constituting the conscious monad. Life-atoms or “life principle” (the Jiv) that escapes at death has no consciousness in its disintegrated condition, nor has this any bearing upon the “grand purposes of creation.”
[C.W.IV, p560]
“The time will come, no doubt, but many steps higher on the ladder, when the Ego will regain its consciousness of all its past stages of existence ...”
[C.W.IV, p571]
What are the “producers” evoluted from this universal root-principle, Mula-prakriti or undifferentiated primeval cosmic matter, which evolves out of itself consciousness, and mind, and is generally called “Prakriti” and amulam mulam, “the rootless root,” and avyakta, the “unevolved evolver,” etc.? This primordial tattwa or “eternally existing ‘that’,” the unknown essence, is said to produce as a first producer (1) Buddhi – “intellect” – whether we apply the latter to the sixth macrocosmic or microcosmic principle. This first produced produces in its turn (or is the source of) (2) Ahankara, “self-consciousness” and Manas, “mind.” The reader will please always remember, that Mahat [is the] great source of these two internal faculties. “Buddhi” per se can have neither self-consciousness nor mind; viz., the sixth principle in man can preserve an essence of personal self-consciousness or “personal individuality” only by absorbing within itself its own waters, which have run through that finite faculty; for Ahankara – that is the perception of “I,” or the sense of one’s personal individuality, justly represented by the term “Egoism” – belongs to the second or rather the third production out of the seven, viz., to the fifth principle, or Manas. It is the latter which draws “as the web issues from the spider” along the thread of Prakriti, the “root principle,” the four following subtle elementary principles or particles, Tanmatras, out of which third class the Maha-bhutas or the gross elementary principles, or rather sariras and rupas, are evolved – the kama, linga, jiva and sthula-sarira.
[C.W.IV, p580-1]
The real philosopher studies the various natures of these invisible agencies in the full possession of his physical consciousness and senses, as much though not as well as in the still fuller consciousness of his spiritual senses, when he paralyses his body, with its deceptive suggestions, and puts it out of its power to impede the clearness of his spiritual sight.
[C.W.IV, p594]
Thus the higher human triad, drawn by its affinity to those triads it loved most, with Manas in its highest aspect of self-consciousness – (which is entirely disconnected with, and has no need as a channel of the internal organ of physical sense called antah-karana) – helping, it is ever associated with, and enjoys the presence of all those it loves – in death, as much as it did in life. The intercourse is real and genuine.
[C.W.V, p80]
A monad in Devachan has but one state of consciousness, and the contrast between a waking state and a dreamy state is never presented to it so long as it is in that condition.
[C.W.V, p82]
According to Esoteric Doctrine this evolution is not viewed as the extinguishment of individual consciousness but its infinite expansion. The entity is not obliterated, but united with the universal entity, and its consciousness becomes able not merely to recall the scenes of one of its earth-evolved Personalities, but of each of the entire series around the Kalpa, and then those of every other Personality. In short from being finite it becomes infinite consciousness.
[C.W.V, p93]
Moreover “Perfect Spirit” and “Eternal Principle” are synonyms and identical, and if both our esteemed correspondent and we are adducing proofs – one for the Existence (implying consciousness) and the other – for the Presence (implying unconsciousness or absolute consciousness, which is the same thing) it becomes a question between us to be decided by other and unbiased persons as to which of us is right and which wrong.
[C.W.V, p97]
During the struggle spoken of and when the spiritual monad striving to enter the Devachanic state is being subjected to the process of purification, what happens is this: personal consciousness, which alone constitutes the personal Ego, has to rid itself of every earthly speck of grossly material taint before it becomes capable of living “in spirit” and as a spirit. Therefore, while the upper consciousness with all its noblest higher feelings – such as undying love, goodness, and all the attributes of divinity in man, even in their latent state are [is] drawn by affinity towards, follow[s] and merge[s] into the monad, thus endowing it – which is part and parcel of universal consciousness and has therefore no consciousness of its own – with a personal self-consciousness, the dross of our earthly thoughts and cares, “the material tastes, emotions and proclivities” are left to lurk behind in the shell.
[C.W.VI, p328]
“We cannot,” said he [Temoora Hideyeri] paradoxically one day, “hope to live hereafter in the full enjoyment of our consciousness, unless we have built for it beforehand a firm and solid foundation of spirituality... Nay, laugh not, friend of no faith,” he meekly pleaded, “but rather think and reflect on this. One who has never taught himself to live in Spirit during his conscious and responsible life on earth, can hardly hope to enjoy a sentient existence after death, when, deprived of his body, he is limited to that Spirit alone.”
[C.W.VI, p363]
Seek communion and intercourse only with the God within your own soul; heed only the praise or blame of that deity which can never be separated from your true self, as it is verily that God itself: called the HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS.... For each one of you contains within the precincts of his inner tabernacle the Supreme Court – prosecutor, defence, jury and judge -- whose sentence is the only one without appeal; since none can know you better than you do yourself, when once you have learned to judge that Self by the never wavering light of the inner divinity – your higher Consciousness.
[C.W.VII, p173-4]
“Four principles associated with four upadhis, which are further associated in their turn with four distinct states of consciousness”.
[C.W.VII, p289]
Man in incarnation is certainly made up of seven principles, if we so term the seven states of his material, astral, and spiritual framework, which are all on different planes. But if we classify the principles according to the seat of the four degrees of consciousness, these upadhis may be reduced to four groups. Thus his consciousness, never being centred in the second or third principles – both of which are composed of states of matter (or rather of “substance”) on different planes, each corresponding to one of the planes and principles in Kosmos – is necessary to form links between the first, fourth, and fifth principles, as well as subserving certain vital and psychic phenomena.
[C.W.VII, p290]
Mr. Herbert Spencer knows, it appears, of but one grade of subjectivity, and has no idea of the occult (Yogic) teaching, of the existence of other and higher planes of consciousness, vision or perception, than those of Mind; of the existence, in short, of the “Transcendental Ego” or true self (Buddhi) – a spark from the radiant essence of the Universal Spirit. Consequently, to the query of Mr. Spencer – “If it is the true self which thinks, what other self can it be that is thought of?” (ibid.) we reply. The true Self is per se, impersonal; the personal or brain-consciousness being but an illusory reflection in incarnated existence. Western Psychology errs in regarding this personal ego as the only factor to be considered in its researches. The argument, therefore, as to the inconceivability of the Subject perceiving itself – which, if we limit subject to Mind (Manas) is absolutely valid – collapses the moment we assert with Kant and his modern exponents, the existence of a Higher Self or “Transcendental subject.” For, in the act of self-analysis, the Mind becomes in its turn an object to the spiritual consciousness. It is the overshadowing of the Mind by Buddhi which results in the ultimate realization of existence – i.e., self-consciousness in its purest form. But it must at the same time be borne in mind that the full realization of the spiritual Self is impossible for an incarnated 4th Rounder. The Spiritual ego reflects no varying states of consciousness; is independent of all sensation (experience); it does not think – it KNOWS, by an intuitive process only faintly conceivable by the average man. “The subject that perceives” Mind, as an attribute of itself, is this Transcendental or spiritual Ego (Buddhi).
[C.W.VIII, p96-7]
The first necessity for obtaining self-knowledge is to become profoundly conscious of ignorance; to feel with every fibre of the heart that one is ceaselessly self-deceived.
The second requisite is the still deeper conviction that such knowledge – such intuitive and certain knowledge – can be obtained by effort.
The third and most important is an indomitable determination to obtain and face that knowledge.
Self-knowledge of this kind is unattainable by what men usually call “self-analysis.” It is not reached by reasoning or any brain process; for it is the awakening to consciousness of the Divine nature of man.
To obtain this knowledge is a greater achievement than to command the elements or to know the future.
[C.W.VIII, p108]
While Buddha’s philosophy points, in its dead-letter meaning, only to the dark side of things on this illusive plane; its esotericism, the hidden soul of it, draws the veil aside and reveals to the Arhat all the glories of LIFE ETERNAL in all the Homogeneousness of Consciousness and Being.
[C.W.VIII, p112]
This brain-consciousness or personality is mortal, being but a distorted reflection through a physical basis of the m~nasic self. It is an instrument for harvesting experience for the Buddhi-Manas or monad, and saturating it with the aroma of consciously-acquired experience. But for all that the “brain-self” is real while it lasts, and weaves its Karma as a responsible entity. Esoterically explained it is the consciousness inhering in that lower portion of the Manas which is correlated with the physical brain.
[C.W.VIII, p339-40]
Man has to know himself, i.e., acquire the inner perceptions which never deceive, before he can master any absolute truth. Absolute truth is the symbol of Eternity, and no finite mind can ever grasp the eternal, hence, no truth in its fulness can ever dawn upon it. To reach the state during which man sees and senses it, we have to paralyze the senses of the external man of clay. This is a difficult task, we may be told, and most people will, at this rate, prefer to remain satisfied with relative truths, no doubt. But to approach even terrestrial truths requires, first of all, love of truth for its own sake, for otherwise no recognition of it will follow. And who loves truth in this age for its own sake? How many of us are prepared to search for, accept, and carry it out, in the midst of a society in which anything that would achieve success has to be built on appearances, not on reality, on self-assertion, not on intrinsic value? We are fully aware of the difficulties in the way of receiving truth. The fair heavenly maiden descends only on a (to her) congenial soil – the soil of an impartial, unprejudiced mind, illuminated by pure Spiritual Consciousness; and both are truly rare dwellers in civilized lands.
[C.W.IX, p34]
Theosophical truths, when they transcend a certain limit of speculation, had better remain concealed from public view, for the “evidence of things not seen” is no evidence save to him who sees, hears, and senses it. It is not to be dragged outside the “Holy of Holies,” the temple of the impersonal divine Ego, or the indwelling SELF. For, while every fact outside its perception can, as we have shown, be, at best, only a relative truth, a ray from the absolute truth can reflect itself only in the pure mirror of its own flame – highest SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS. And how can the darkness (of illusion) comprehend the LIGHT that shineth in it?
[C.W.IX, p42]
[is there aught beyond consciousness?] Most decidedly not. “There is naught beyond consciousness,” a Vedantin and a Theosophist would say, because Absolute Consciousness is infinite and limitless, and there is nothing that can be said to be “beyond” that which is ALL, the self-container, containing all. But the Hylo-Idealists deny the Vedantic idea of non-separateness, they deny that we are but parts of the whole; deny, in common parlance, “God,” Soul and Spirit, and yet they will talk of “apprehension” and intuition—the function and attribute of man’s immortal Ego, and make of it a function of matter. Thus they vitiate every one of their arguments.
[let “I am” = consciousness—or “sensation” or any other word ... so that it includes all thought ... . all connected with the ego in itself] In this paragraph we find the old crux of philosophy – question as to whether there is any “external reality” in nature – popping up again. The solution offered is a pure assumption, reached by ignoring one of the fundamental facts of human consciousness, the feeling that the cause of sensation, etc., lies outside the limited, human self. Mr. Courtney, we believe, aims at expressing a conception identical with that of the Adwaita Vedantins of India. But his language is inaccurate and misleading to those who understand his words in their usual sense, e.g., when he speaks of the “I am” outside of which nothing can exist, he is stating a purely Vedantin tenet; but then the “I” in question is not the “I” which acts, feels or thinks, but that absolute consciousness which is no consciousness.
[C.W.IX, p138-9]
Daily experience shows him that things do enter consciousness and, in some sense, become part of himself – but where and what were they, before entering his consciousness? Let him study the doctrine of limitation and “reflected” centres of consciousness, and he will understand himself more clearly.
[upon the fact of its own existence the ego cannot reason] A Mystic would take exception to this statement, at least if the word “reason” is used by Mr. Courtney in the sense of “know”:– for his great achievement is “Self”-knowledge, meaning not only the analytical knowledge of his own limited personality, but the synthetical knowledge of “ONE” EGO from which that passing personality sprang
[C.W.IX, p140]
.Q. But what is a dream?
A. That depends on the meaning of the term. You may “dream,” or, as we say, sleep visions, awake or asleep. If the Astral Light is collected in a cup or metal vessel by will-power, and the eyes fixed on some point in it with a strong will to see, a waking vision or “dream” is the result, if the person is at all sensitive. The reflections in the Astral Light are seen better with closed eyes, and, in sleep, still more distinctly. From a lucid state, vision becomes translucid; from normal organic consciousness it rises to a transcendental state of consciousness.
[C.W.X, p257]
Occultism teaches that physical man is one, but the thinking man septenary, thinking, acting, feeling, and living on seven different states of being or planes of consciousness, and that for all these states and planes the permanent Ego (not the false personality) has a distinct set of senses.
[C.W.X, p259]
Man is the microcosm of the macrocosm; the god on earth is built on the pattern of the god in nature. But the universal consciousness of the real Ego transcends a millionfold the self-consciousness of the personal or false Ego.
[C.W.X, p260]
Q. What, then, are the seven layers of Space, for in the “Proem” we read about the “Seven-skinned Mother-Father”?
A. Plato and Hermes Trismegistus would have regarded this as the Divine Thought, and Aristotle would have viewed this “Mother-Father” as the “privation” of matter. It is that which will become the seven planes of being, commencing with the spiritual and passing through the psychic to the material plane. The seven planes of thought or the seven states of consciousness correspond to these planes. All these septenaries are symbolized by the seven Skins.
[C.W.X, p304]
Thus finding on our own plane – if we credit the teachings of Occultism – so many and such varied states of consciousness and intelligence, we have no right to take into consideration and account only our own human consciousness, as though no other existed outside of it. And if we cannot presume to decide how far insect consciousness goes, how can we limit consciousness, of which Science knows nothing, to this plane.
[C.W.X, p312]
Q. With reference to the following passage, what is the consciousness which takes cognizance of time? Is the consciousness of time limited to the plane of waking physical consciousness or does it exist on higher planes? In “The Secret Doctrine,” I, 37, it is said that: – “Time is only an illusion produced by the succession of our states of consciousness as we travel through eternal duration, and it does not exist where no consciousness exists... .”
A. Here consciousness only on our plane is meant, not the eternal divine Consciousness which we call the Absolute. The consciousness of time, in the present sense of the word, does not exist even in sleep; much less, therefore, can it exist in the essentially absolute. Can the sea be said to have a conception of time in its rhythmical striking on the shore, or in the movement of its waves? The Absolute cannot be said to have a consciousness, or, at any rate, a consciousness such as we have here. It has neither consciousness, nor desire, nor wish, nor thought, because it is absolute thought, absolute desire, absolute consciousness, absolute “all.”
[C.W.X, p314-5]
Q. But are they not conscious agents in the work?
A. Conscious in as far as they act within the universal consciousness. But the consciousness of the Manasa-putra on the third plane is quite different. It is only then that they become Thinkers. Besides, Occultism, unlike modern Science, maintains that every atom of matter, when once differentiated, becomes endowed with its own kind of Consciousness. Every cell in the human body (as in every animal) is endowed with its own peculiar discrimination, instinct, and, speaking relatively, with intelligence.
[C.W.X, p322]
Q. ... Can there be Consciousness without Mind?
A. Not on this plane of matter. But why not on some other and higher plane? Once we postulate a Universal Mind, both the brain, the mind’s vehicle, and Consciousness, its faculty, must be quite different on a higher plane from what they are here. They are nearer to the Absolute ALL, and must therefore be represented by a substance infinitely more homogeneous; something sui generis, and entirely beyond the reach of our intellectual perceptions. Let us call or imagine it an incipient and incognizable state of primeval differentiation. On that higher plane, as it seems to me, Mahat – the great Manvantaric Principle of Intelligence – acts as a Brain, through which the Universal and Eternal Mind radiates the Ah-hi, representing the resultant consciousness or ideation. As the shadow of this primordial triangle falls lower and lower through the descending planes, it becomes with every stage more material.
Q. It becomes the plane on which Consciousness perceives objective manifestations. Is it so?
A. Yes. But here we come face to face with the great problem of Consciousness, and shall have to fight Materialism. For what is Consciousness? According to modern Science it is a faculty of the Mind like volition. We say so too; but add that while Consciousness is not a thing per se, Mind is distinctly – in its Manvantaric functions at least – an Entity. Such is the opinion of all the Eastern Idealists.
[C.W.X, p325]
Q. But does the cerebellum ever cease functioning?
A. No; but it is lost in the functions of the cerebrum.
Q. That is to say that the stimuli which proceed from the cerebellum during waking life fall below the threshold of waking consciousness, the field of consciousness being entirely occupied by the cerebrum, and this continues till sleep supervenes, when the stimuli from the cerebellum begin in their turn to form the field of consciousness. It is not, therefore, correct-to say that the cerebrum is the only seat of consciousness.
A. Quite so; the function of the cerebrum is to polish, perfect, or co-ordinate ideas, whereas that of the cerebellum produces conscious desires, and so on.
Q. Evidently we have to extend our idea of consciousness. For instance, there is no reason why a sensitive plant should not have consciousness. Du Prel, in his “Philosophie der Mystik,” cites some very curious experiments showing a kind of local consciousness, perhaps a kind of reflex connection. He even goes further than this, demonstrating, from a large number of well authenticated cases, such as those of clairvoyants, who can perceive by the pit of the stomach, that the threshold of consciousness is capable of a very wide extension, far wider than we are accustomed to give to it, both upwards and downwards.
A. We may congratulate ourselves on the experiments of Du Prel as an antidote to the theories of Professor Huxley, which are absolutely irreconcilable with the teachings of occultism.
[C.W.X, p330]
The Astral Light is that which mirrors the three higher planes of consciousness, and is above the lower, or terrestrial plane; therefore it does not extend beyond the fourth plane, where, one may say, the Akasa begins.
[C.W.X, p360]
Q. Is Manu a unity also of human consciousness personified, or it is the individualization of the Thought Divine for manvantaric purposes?
A. Of both, since “human consciousness” is but a Ray of the divine. Our Manas, or Ego, proceeds from, and is the Son (figurately) of Mahat
[C.W.X, p363]
Q . Is it possible to say that Manu is an individuality?
A. In the abstract sense certainly not, but it is possible to apply an analogy. Manu is the synthesis perhaps of the Manasa, and he is a single consciousness in the same sense that while all the different cells of which the human body is composed are different and varying consciousnesses, there is still a unit of consciousness which is the man. But this unit, so to say, is not a single consciousness: it is a reflection of thousands and millions of consciousnesses which a man has absorbed.
[C.W.X, p364]
Taking the facts as stated, would they not induce one to believe that the somnambulic personage possesses an intelligence and memory of its own apart from the physical memory of the waking lower Self; and that it is the former which remembers in articulo mortis, the body and physical senses in the latter case ceasing to function, and the intelligence gradually making its final escape through the avenue of psychic, and last of all of spiritual consciousness?... The fact is that the human brain is simply the canal between two planes – the psycho-spiritual and the material – through which every abstract and metaphysical idea filters from the Manasic down to the lower human consciousness. Therefore, the ideas about the infinite and the absolute are not, nor can they be, within our brain capacities. They can be faithfully mirrored only by our Spiritual consciousness, thence to be more or less faintly projected onto the tables of our perceptions on this plane. Thus while the records of even important events are often obliterated from our memory, not the most trifling action of our lives can disappear from the “Soul’s” memory, because it is no MEMORY for it, but an ever present reality on the plane which lies outside our conceptions of space and time.
[C.W.XI, p451]
Yet while physical memory in a healthy living man is often obscured, one fact crowding out another weaker one, at the moment of the great change that man calls death – that which we call “memory” seems to return to us in all its vigour and freshness.
May this not be due as just said, simply to the fact that, for a few seconds at least, our two memories (or rather the two states, the highest and the lowest state, of consciousness) blend together, thus forming one, and that the dying finds himself on a plane wherein there is neither past nor future, but all is one present?
[C.W.XI, p452-3]
That which remains during pralaya is the eternal potentiality of every condition of Prajna (consciousness) contained in that plane or field of consciousness, which the Adwaita calls Chidakasa and Chinmatra (abstract consciousness), which, being absolute, is therefore perfect unconsciousness – as a true Vedantin would say.
[C.W.XI, p476]
Now to lay at rest once for all in the minds of Theosophists this vexed question, we intend to prove that modern science, owing to physiology, is itself on the eve of discovering that consciousness is universal...
[C.W.XII, p135]
It would be folly in us to expect to be ever able to discover, with the assistance only of our external senses, in animate nature that something which we are unable to find in the inanimate.
And forthwith the lecturer adds that man being endowed “in addition to his physical senses with an inner sense,” a perception which gives him the possibility of observing the states and phenomena of his own consciousness, “he has to use that in dealing with animate nature” – a profession of faith verging suspiciously on the borders of Occultism. He denies, moreover, the assumption, that the states and phenomena of consciousness represent in substance the same manifestations of motion as in the external world, and bases his denial by the reminder that not all of such states and manifestations have necessarily a spatial extension. According to him that only is connected with our conception of space which has reached our consciousness through sight, touch, and the muscular sense, while all the other senses, all the effects, tendencies, as all the interminable series of representations, have no extension in space but only in time.
[C.W.XII, p140]
I maintain that the more our experiments and observations are exact and many-sided, the deeper we penetrate into facts, the more we try to fathom and speculate on the phenomena of life, the more we acquire the conviction, that even those phenomena that we had hoped to be already able to explain by physical and chemical laws, are in reality unfathomable. They are vastly more complicated, in fact; and as we stand at present, they will not yield to any mechanical explanation.
This is a terrible blow at the puffed-up bladder known as Materialism, which is as empty as it is dilated. A Judas in the camp of the apostles of negation – the “animalists”! But the Basel professor is no solitary exception, as we have just shown; and there are several physiologists who are of his way of thinking; indeed some of them going so far as to almost accept free will and consciousness, in the simplest monadic protoplasms!
[C.W.XII, p141]
The way of acting of these monads [amoebas] during their search for and reception of food, is so amazing that one is almost inclined to see in them consciously acting beings!
[C.W.XII, p142]
Indeed, if the Vampyrella recognizes its much beloved Spirogyra, among hundreds of other plants as shown above, why should not the epithelium cell, sense, choose, and select its favoUrite drop of fat from a pigmental grain? But we will be told that “sensing, choosing, and selecting” pertain only to reasoning beings, at least to the instinct of more structural animals than is the protoplasmic cell outside or inside man. Agreed: but as we translate from the lecture of a learned physiologist and the works of other learned naturalists, we can only say that these learned gentlemen must know what they are talking about; though they are probably ignorant of the fact that their scientific prose is but one degree removed from the ignorant, superstitious, but rather poetical “twaddle” of the Hindu Yogis and Tantrikas.
[C.W.XII, p145]
And the Occultist asserts that no materialist – a prejudiced and one-sided witness at best – can claim any authority in the question of mental physiology, or that which is now called by him the physiology of the soul. No such noun can be applied to the word “soul,” unless, indeed, by soul only the lower, psychic mind is meant, or that which develops in man (proportionally with the perfection of his brain) into intellect, and in the animal into a higher instinct....
The study of the “Physiology” of the Soul, of the Will in man and of his higher Consciousness from the standpoint of genius and its manifesting faculties, can never be summarized into a system of general ideas represented by brief formulae; no more than the psychology of material nature can have its manifold mysteries solved by the mere analysis of its physical phenomena. There is no special organ of will, any more than there is a physical basis for the activities of self-consciousness.
Thus, the whole conclave of psycho-physiologists may be challenged to correctly define Consciousness, and they are sure to fail because Self-consciousness belongs alone to man and proceeds from the SELF, the higher Manas. Only, whereas the psychic element (or Kama-manas) is common to both the animal and the human being – the far higher degree of its development in the latter resting merely on the great perfection and sensitiveness of his cerebral cells – no physiologist, not even the cleverest, will ever be able to solve the mystery of the human mind, in its highest spiritual manifestation, or in its dual aspect of the psychic and the noëtic (or the manasic), or even to comprehend the intricacies of the former on the purely material plane – unless he knows something of, and is prepared to admit the presence of this dual element. This means that he would have to admit a lower (animal), and a higher (or divine) mind in man, or what is known in Occultism as the “personal” and the “impersonal” Egos. For, between the psychic and the noetic, between the Personality and the Individuality, there exists the same abyss as between a “Jack the Ripper,” and a holy Buddha. Unless the physiologist accepts all this, we say, he will ever be led into a quagmire. We intend to prove it.
[C.W.XII, p352-3]
But what has this to do with a free will? That every phenomenon in the visible Universe has its genesis in motion, is an old axiom in Occultism; nor do we doubt that the psycho-physiologist would place himself at loggerheads with the whole conclave of exact scientists were he to allow the idea that at a given moment a whole series of physical phenomena may disappear in the vacuum. Therefore, when the author of the work cited maintains that the said force does not disappear upon reaching the highest nervous centres, but that it is forthwith transformed into another series, viz., that of psychic manifestations, into thought, feeling, and consciousness, just as this same psychic force when applied to produce some work of a physical (e.g., muscular) character gets transformed into the latter – Occultism supports him, for it is the first to say that all psychic activity, from its lowest to its highest manifestations, is “nothing but – motion.”
[C.W.XII, p354-5]
Occultism regards every atom* as an “independent entity” and every cell as a “conscious unit.” It explains that no sooner do such atoms group to form cells, than the latter become endowed with consciousness, each of its own kind, and with free will to act within the limits of law. Nor are we entirely deprived of scientific evidence for such statements as the two above named editorials well prove. More than one learned physiologist of the golden minority, in our own day, moreover, is rapidly coming to the conviction, that memory has no seat, no special organ of its own in the human brain, but that it has seats in every organ of the body.
“No good ground exists for speaking of any special organ, or seat of memory,” writes Professor G. T. Ladd. “Every organ – indeed, every area, and every element – of the nervous system has its own memory” (op. cit., p. 553).
The seat of memory, then, is assuredly neither here nor there, but everywhere throughout the human body. To locate its organ in the brain is to limit and dwarf the Universal Mind and its countless Rays (the Manasaputra) which inform every rational mortal.
* One of the names of Brahmâ is anu or “atom”.
[C.W.XII, p365]
Now, since the metaphysics of Occult physiology and psychology postulate within mortal man an immortal entity, “divine Mind,” or Nous, whose pale and too often distorted reflection is that which we call “Mind” and intellect in men – virtually an entity apart from the former during the period of every incarnation – we say that the two sources of “memory” are in these two “principles.” These two we distinguish as the Higher Manas (Mind or Ego), and the Kama-Manas, i.e., the rational, but earthly or physical intellect of man, incased in, and bound by, matter, therefore subject to the influence of the latter: the all-conscious SELF, that which reincarnates periodically – verily the WORD made flesh! – and which is always the same, while its reflected “Double,” changing with every new incarnation and personality, is, therefore, conscious but for a life period.... The former, we term INDIVIDUALITY, the latter Personality. From the first Proceeds all the noetic element, from the second, the psychic, i.e., “terrestrial wisdom” at best, as it is influenced by all the chaotic stimuli of the human or rather animal passions of the living body.
The “Higher Ego” cannot act directly on the body, as its consciousness belongs to quite another plane and planes of ideation: the “lower” Self does: and its action and behaviour depend on its free will and choice as to whether it will gravitate more towards its parent (“the Father in Heaven”) or the “animal” which it informs, the man of flesh. The “Higher Ego,” as part of the essence of the UNIVERSAL MIND, is unconditionally omniscient on its own plane, and only potentially so in our terrestrial sphere, as it has to act solely through its alter ego – the Personal Self. Now, although the former is the vehicle of all knowledge of the past, the present, and the future, and although it is from this fountainhead that its “double” catches occasional glimpses of that which is beyond the senses of man, and transmits them to certain brain cells (unknown to science in their functions), thus making of man a Seer, a soothsayer, and a prophet; yet the memory of bygone events – especially of the earth, earthy – has its seat in the Personal Ego alone.... It is only the higher forms of the latter, the superconscious mental experiences, that can correlate with the cerebral and cardiac centres. The memories of physical and selfish (or personal) deeds, on the other hand, together with the mental experiences of a terrestrial nature, and of earthly biological functions, can, of necessity, only be correlated with the molecular constitution of various Kamic organs, and the “dynamical association” of the elements of the nervous system in each particular organ.
[C.W.XII, p366-7]
And so with all the organs of the body. It is they which originate according to their animal needs and desires the electro-vital sparks that illuminate the field of consciousness in the Lower Ego; and it is these sparks which in their turn awaken to function the reminiscences in it. The whole human body is, as said, a vast sounding board, in which each cell bears a long record of impressions connected with its parent organ, and each cell has a memory and a consciousness of its kind, or call it instinct if you will. These impressions are, according to the nature of the organ, physical, psychic, or mental, as they relate to this or another plane. They may be called “states of consciousness” only for the want of a better expression – as there are states of instinctual, mental, and purely abstract, or spiritual consciousness.
[C.W.XII, p370]
GENERAL NOTE: THE WHOLE CHAPTER (PP 350-374) IS IMPORTANT
My mind [Dr Priogov’s] does not accept the idea that the mere grouping of atoms into certain forms (e.g., the cerebral cells) could make them eo ipso capable of sensing, desiring and conceiving, unless the faculty of sensing and consciousness were already innate in such units.]
[C.W.XII, p408-9]
Whether science will ever be able to prove or not that thought, consciousness, etc., in short, the sensus internum has its seat in the brain, it is already demonstrated and beyond any doubt that under certain conditions our consciousness and even the whole batch of our senses, can act through other organs, e.g., the stomach, the soles of the feet, etc. The “sensing principle” in us is an entity capable of acting outside as inside its material body; and it is certainly independent of any organ in particular, in its actions, although during its incarnation it manifests itself through its physical organs.
[May not our I come from the outside, and may it not be universal Thought itself which finds and uses the brain as an apparatus.]
This is precisely what occult philosophy claims; our Ego is a ray of the Universal Mind, individualized for the space of a cosmic life-cycle, during which space of time it gets experience in almost numberless reincarnations or rebirths, after which it returns to its Parent-Source.
[C.W.XII, p414-5]
There are cells in our brain that receive and convey sensations and impressions, but this once done, their mission is accomplished. These cells of the supposed “organ of memory” are the receivers and conveyers of all the pictures and impressions of the past, not their retainers. Under various conditions and stimuli, they can receive instantaneously the reflection of these astral images back again, and this is called memory, recollection, remembrance; but they do not preserve them. When it is said that one has lost his memory, or that it is weakened, it is only a façon de parler; it is our memory-cells alone that are enfeebled or destroyed.... But the Universal Memory preserves every motion, the slightest wave and feeling that ripples the waves of differentiated nature, of man or of the Universe.
[C.W.XII, p415-6]
Each of our seven physical senses (two of which are still unknown to profane science), and also our seven states of consciousness – viz: (1) waking; (2) waking-dreaming; (3) natural sleeping; (4) induced or trance sleep; (5) psychic; (6) super-psychic; and (7) purely spiritual – corresponds with one of the seven cosmic planes, develops and uses one of the seven super-senses, and is connected directly, in its use on the terrestro-spiritual plane, with the cosmic and divine centre of force that gave it birth, and which is its direct creator. Each is also connected with, and under the direct influence of, one of the seven Sacred Planets.
[C.W.XII, p532]
The cycle of consciousness. It is argued that there cannot be more than one object of perception at a time before the soul because soul is a unit. Occultism teaches that simultaneously our conscious[ness] could receive no less than seven distinct impressions, and even pass them into memory. This can be proved by striking at the same time seven keys of the scale of an instrument – say a piano. The 7 sounds will reach consciousness simultaneously; though the untrained consciousness may not be capable of registering them the first second, their prolonged vibrations will strike the ear in 7 distinct sounds one higher than the other in its pitch. All depends on training and attention. Thus the transference of a sensation from any organ to consciousness is almost instantaneous if your attention is fixed upon it; but if any noise distracts your attention it will take a number of seconds before it reaches consciousness. The Occultist should train himself to receive and transmit along the line of the seven scales of his consciousness every impression or impressions simultaneously. He who reduces the intervals of physical time the most, has made the most progress.
The names and order of the 7 scales are.
1. Sense-perception;
2. Self-perception (or apperception)
3. Psychic apperception – which carries it to
4. Vital perception.
These are the four lower scales and belong to the psychophysical man. Then come
5. Manasic discernments;
6. Will perception and
7. Spiritual conscious apperception.
The special organ of consciousness is of course the brain, and is located in the aura of the pineal gland in the living man. During the process of mind or thought manifesting to consciousness, constant vibrations of light take place. If one could see clairvoyantly in the brain of a living man one could almost count (see with the eye) the seven shades of the successive scales of light, from the dullest to the brightest.
What consciousness is can never be defined psychologically. We can analyse and classify its work and effects – we cannot define it, unless we postulate an Ego distinct from the body. The septenary scale of states of consciousness is reflected in the heart, or rather its area, which vibrates and illumines the seven brains of the heart as it does the seven divisions or rays around the pineal gland.
This consc[iousness] shows to us the difference between the nature and essence of, say, astral body and Ego.
[C.W.XIII, p288-9]
The theory of rebirth must be set forth by Occultists, and then applied to special cases. The right comprehension of this psychic fact is based upon a correct view of that group of celestial Beings who are universally called the seven Primeval Gods or Angels – our Dhyani-Chohans – the “Seven Primeval Rays” or Powers, adopted later on by the Christian Religion as the “Seven Angels of the Presence.” Arupa, formless, at the upper rung of the ladder of Being, materializing more and more as they descend in the scale of objectivity and form, ending in the grossest and most imperfect of the Hierarchy, man – it is the former purely spiritual group that is pointed out to us, in our Occult teaching, as the nursery and fountainhead of human beings. Therein germinates that consciousness which is the earliest manifestation from causal Consciousness – the Alpha and Omega of divine being and life forever. And as it proceeds downward through every phase of existence descending through man, through animal and plant, it ends its descent only in the mineral.
[C.W.XIV, p379]
If asked: “When the change described as the passage of a Buddha or a Jivanmukta into Nirvana takes place, where does the original consciousness which animated the body continue to reside – in the Nirvani or in the subsequent reincarnations of the latter’s ‘remains’ (the Nirmanakaya)?” the answer is that imprisoned consciousness may be a “certain knowledge from observation and experience,” as Gibbon puts it, but disembodied consciousness is not an effect, but a cause. It is a part of the whole, or rather a Ray on the graduated scale of its manifested activity, of the one all-pervading, limitless Flame, the reflections of which alone can differentiate; and, as such, consciousness is ubiquitous, and can be neither localized nor centred on or in any particular subject, nor can it be limited. Its effects alone pertain to the region of matter, for thought is an energy that affects matter in various ways, but consciousness per se, as understood and explained by Occult philosophy, is the highest quality of the sentient spiritual principle in us, the Divine Soul (or Buddhi) and our Higher Ego, and does not belong to the plane of materiality. After the death of the physical man, if he be an Initiate, it becomes transformed from a human quality into the independent principle itself; the conscious Ego becoming Consciousness per se without any Ego, in the sense that the latter can no longer be limited or conditioned by the senses, or even by space or time. Therefore it is capable, without separating itself from or abandoning its possessor, Buddhi, of reflecting itself at the same time in its astral man that was, without being under any necessity for localizing itself. This is shown at a far lower stage in our dreams. For if consciousness can display activity during our visions, and while the body and its material brain are fast asleep – and if even during those visions it is all but ubiquitous – how much greater must be its power when entirely free from, and having no more connection with, our physical brain.
[C.W.XIV, p387]
Every objective manifestation, whether it be the motion of a living limb, or the movement of some inorganic body, requires two conditions: will and force – plus matter, or that which makes the object so moved visible to our eye; and these three are all convertible forces, or the force-correlation of the scientists. In their turn they are directed or rather overshadowed by the Divine intelligence which these men so studiously leave out of the account, but without which not even the crawling of the smallest earth-worm could ever take place. The simplest as the most common of all natural phenomena, – the rustling of the leaves which tremble under the gentle contact of the breeze – requires a constant exercise of these faculties. Scientists may well call them cosmic laws, immutable and unchangeable. Behind these laws we must search for the intelligent cause, which once having created and set these laws in motion, has infused into them the essence of its own consciousness. Whether we call this the first cause, the universal will, or God, it must always bear intelligence.
And now we may ask, how can a will manifest itself intelligently and unconsciously at the same time? It is difficult, if not impossible, to conceive of intellection apart from consciousness. By consciousness we do not necessarily imply physical or corporeal consciousness. Consciousness is a quality of the sentient principle, or, in other words, the soul; and the latter often displays activity even while the body is asleep or paralyzed. When we lift our arm mechanically, we may imagine that we do it unconsciously because our superficial senses cannot appreciate the interval between the formulation of the purpose and its execution.
[Isis Unveiled, p198-9]
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This document has been reproduced from Geoffrey Farthing's digital copy created in 2002, and currently in the archive material of The Blavatsky Trust.
