THEOSOPHY – THE WORD

MAHAT

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As the highest Dhyan Chohan, however, can but bow in ignorance before the awful mystery of Absolute Being; and since, even in that culmination of conscious existence – “the merging of the individual in the universal consciousness” – to use a phrase of Fichte’s – the Finite cannot conceive the Infinite, nor can it apply to it its own standard of mental experiences, how can it be said that the “Unconscious” and the Absolute can have even an instinctive impulse or hope of attaining clear self-consciousness? A Vedantin would never admit this Hegelian idea; and the Occultist would say that it applies perfectly to the awakened MAHAT, the Universal Mind already projected into the phenomenal world as the first aspect of the changeless ABSOLUTE, but never to the latter. “Spirit and Matter, or Purusha and Prakriti are but the two primeval aspects of the One and Secondless,” we are taught.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p51]

The seemingly paradoxical use of the sentence “Seventh Eternity,” thus dividing the indivisible, is sanctified in esoteric philosophy. The latter divides boundless duration into unconditionally eternal and universal Time and a conditioned one (Khandakala). One is the abstraction or noumenon of infinite time (Kala); the other its phenomenon appearing periodically, as the effect of Mahat (the Universal Intelligence limited by Manvantaric duration). With some schools, Mahat is “the first-born” of Pradhana (undifferentiated substance, or the periodical aspect of Mulaprakriti, the root of Nature), which (Pradhana) is called Maya, the Illusion. In this respect, I believe, esoteric teaching differs from the Vedantin doctrines of both the Adwaita and the Visishtadwaita schools. For it says that, while Mulaprakriti, the noumenon, is self-existing and without any origin – is, in short, parentless, Anupadaka (as one with Brahmam) – Prakriti, its phenomenon, is periodical and no better than a phantasm of the former, so Mahat, with the Occultists, the first-born of Gnana (or gnosis) knowledge, wisdom or the Logos – is a phantasm reflected from the Absolute NIRGUNA (Parabrahm, the one reality, “devoid of attributes and qualities”; see Upanishads); while with some Vedantins Mahat is a manifestation of Prakriti, or Matter.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p62]

The Light is I, I am the Nous (the mind or Manu), I am thy God, and I am far older than the human principle which escapes from the shadow (“Darkness,” or the concealed Deity). I am the germ of thought, the resplendent Word, the Son of God. All that thus sees and hears in thee is the Verbum of the Master, it is the Thought (Mahat) which is God, the Father. The celestial Ocean, the Æther . . . . is the Breath of the Father, the life-giving principle, the Mother, the Holy Spirit, . . . . for these are not separated, and their union is LIFE.

Here we find the unmistakable echo of the Archaic Secret Doctrine, as now expounded. Only the latter does not place at the head and Evolution of Life “the Father,” who comes third and is the “Son of the Mother,” but the “Eternal and Ceaseless Breath of the ALL.” The Mahat (Understanding, Universal Mind, Thought, etc.), before it manifests itself as Brahmâ or Siva, appears as Vishnu, says Sankhya Sara; hence Mahat has several aspects, just as the logos has. Mahat is called the Lord, in the Primary Creation, and is, in this sense, Universal Cognition or Thought Divine; but, “That Mahat which was first produced is (afterwards) called Ego-ism, when it is born as “I,” that is said to be the second Creation”. And the translator (an able and learned Brahmin, not a European Orientalist) explains in a foot-note (6), “i.e., when Mahat develops into the feeling of Self-Consciousness – I – then it assumes the name of Egoism,” which, translated into our esoteric phraseology, means when Mahat is transformed into the human Manas (or even that of the finite gods), and becomes Aham-ship. Why it is called the Mahat of the Second creation (or the ninth, that of the Kaumara in Vishnu Purana) will be explained in Volume II.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p74-5]

The Astral Light, or the Ether, of the ancient pagans (for the name of Astral Light is quite modern) is Spirit-Matter. Beginning with the pure spiritual plane, it becomes grosser as it descends until it becomes the Maya or the tempting and deceitful serpent on our plane.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p74fn]

This “Consciousness” has no relation to our consciousness. The consciousness of the “One manifested,” if not absolute, is still unconditioned. Mahat (the Universal Mind) is the first production of the Brahmâ-Creator, but also of the Pradhana (undifferentiated matter).

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p216fn]

From INTELLIGENCE (called MAHAT in the Puranas), associated with IGNORANCE (Isvara as a personal deity), attended by its projective power, in which the quality of dullness (tamas, insensibility) predominates, proceeds Ether – from ether, air; from air, heat; from heat, water; and from water, earth with everything on it.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p330]

Intellect (Mahat). . . . the (unmanifested) gross elements inclusive, formed an egg . . . and . . . the lord of the universe . . . himself abided in it, in the character of Brahmâ . . . In that egg, O Brahmana, were the continents and seas and mountains, the planets and divisions of the universe, the gods, the demons and mankind.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p360]

“The three Creations beginning with Intelligence are elemental, but the six creations which proceed from the series of which Intellect is the first are the work of Brahmâ (Vâyu-Purâna), Here “creations” mean everywhere stages of Evolution, Mahat, “Intellect” or mind (which corresponds with Manas, the former being on the Cos, and the latter on the human plane) stands here, too, lower than Buddhi or Supra-divine Intelligence.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p454fn]

... (Mahat, or the universal intellivent Soul) ...

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p536]

Esoterically the teaching differs: The divine, purely Adi-Buddhic monad manifests as the universal Buddhi (the Maha-Buddhi or Mahat in Hindu philosophies) the spiritual, omniscient and omnipotent root of divine intelligence, the highest anima mundi or the Logos. This descends “like a flame spreading from the eternal Fire, immoveable, without increase or decrease, ever the same to the end” of the cycle of existence, and becomes universal life on the Mundane Plane. From this Plane of conscious Life shoot out, like seven fiery tongues, the Sons of Light (the logoi of Life); then the Dhyani-Buddhas of contemplation: the concrete forms of their formless Fathers – the Seven Sons of Light, still themselves, to whom may be applied the Brahmanical mystic phrase: “Thou art ‘THAT’ – Brahman.” It is from these Dhyani-Buddhas that emanate their chhayas (Shadows) the Bodhisattvas of the celestial realms, the prototypes of the super-terrestrial Bodhisattvas, and of the terrestrial Buddhas, and finally of men. The “Seven Sons of Light” are also called “Stars”.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p572]

..........

We find, in short, that the higher Angels had broken, countless aeons before, through the “Seven Circles,” and thus robbed them of the Sacred fire; which means in plain words, that they had assimilated during their past incarnations, in lower as well as in higher worlds, all the wisdom therefrom – the reflection of MAHAT in its various degrees of intensity. No Entity, whether angelic or human, can reach the state of Nirvana, or of absolute purity, except through aeons of suffering and the knowledge of EVIL as well as of good, as otherwise the latter remains incomprehensible.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.II, p80-1]

“The Sons of MAHAT are the quickeners of the human Plant. They are the Waters falling upon the arid soil of latent life,

and the Spark that vivifies the human animal. They are the Lords of Spiritual Life eternal . . . . “In the beginning (in the Second Race) some (of the Lords) only breathed of their essence into Manushyas (men); and some took in man their abode.”

This shows that not all men became incarnations of the “divine Rebels,” but only a few among them. The remainder had their fifth principle simply quickened by the spark thrown into it, which accounts for the great difference between the intellectual capacities of men and races. Had not the “sons of Mahat,” speaking allegorically, skipped the intermediate worlds, in their impulse toward intellectual freedom, the animal man would never have been able to reach upward from this earth, and attain through self-exertion his ultimate goal. The cyclic pilgrimage would have to be performed through all the planes of existence half unconsciously, if not entirely so, as in the case of the animals. It is owing to this rebellion of intellectual life against the morbid inactivity of pure spirit, that we are what we are – self-conscious, thinking men, with the capabilities and attributes of Gods in us, for good as much as for evil. Hence the REBELS are our saviours. Let the philosopher ponder well over this, and more than one mystery will become clear to him. It is only by the attractive force of the contrasts that the two opposites – Spirit and Matter – can be cemented on Earth, and, smelted in the fire of self-conscious experience and suffering, find themselves wedded in Eternity. This will reveal the meaning of many hitherto incomprehensible allegories, foolishly called “fables.”

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.II, p103]

Brahmâ is Mahat – the universal Mind – hence the too selfish among the Rakshasas showing the desire to become possessed of it all – to “devour” Mahat. The allegory is transparent.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.II, p163]

It does not mean that Monads [who entered the bodies of those who were ready] entered forms in which other Monads already were. They were “Essences,” “Intelligences,” and conscious spirits; entities seeking to become still more conscious by uniting with more developed matter. Their essence was too pure to be distinct from the universal essence; but their “Egos,” or Manas (since they are called Manasaputra, born of “Mahat,” or Brahmâ) had to pass through earthly human experiences to become all-wise, and be able to start on the returning ascending cycle. The Monads are not discrete principles, limited or conditioned, but rays from that one universal absolute Principle.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.II, p167]

Nor have the semi-esoteric dogmas of Puranic Hinduism failed to evolve very suggestive symbols and allegories concerning the rebellious and fallen gods. The Puranas teem with them; and we find a direct hint at the truth in the frequent allusions of Parasara (Vishnu Purana), to all those Rudras, Rishis, Asuras, Kumaras and Munis, having to be born in every age, to re-incarnate in every Manvantara. This (esoterically) is equivalent to saying that the FLAMES born of the Universal Mind (Mahat), owing to the mysterious workings of Karmic Will and an impulse of Evolutionary Law, had, as in Poimandres – without any gradual transition – landed on this Earth, having broken through the seven Circles of fire, or the seven intermediate Worlds, in short.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.II, p232]

... Mahat (intellectual understanding) ...

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.II, p378]

And now it stands proven that Satan, or the Red Fiery Dragon, the “Lord of Phosphorus” (brimstone was a theological improvement), and Lucifer, or “Light-Bearer,” is in us: it is our Mind – our tempter and Redeemer, our intelligent liberator and Saviour from pure animalism. Without this principle – the emanation of the very essence of the pure divine principle Mahat (Intelligence), which radiates direct from the Divine mind – we would be surely no better than animals.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.II, p514]

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MAHAT or the “Universal Mind” is the source of Manas. The latter is Mahat, i.e., mind, in man. Manas is also called Kshetrajna, “embodied Spirit”, because it is, according to our philosophy, the Manasa-putras, or “Sons of the Universal Mind”, who created, or rather produced, the thinking man, “manu”, by incarnating in the third Race mankind in our Round. It is manas, therefore, which is the real incarnating and permanent Spiritual Ego, the INDIVIDUALITY, and our various and numberless personalities only its external masks.

[The Key to Theosophy, p135-6fn]

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... the students of the Secret Doctrine designate it [the World-Soul] the third and last Logos, Brahmâ or Mahat. To this World-Soul is entrusted dominion over all that which is subject to change and motion.

[C.W.VI, p209]

Mahat, in the Esoteric interpretations, is in reality the Third Logos or the Synthesis of the Seven creative rays, the Seven Logoi. Out of the seven so-called Creations, Mahat is the third, for it is the Universal and Intelligent Soul, Divine Ideation, combining the ideal plans and prototypes of all things in the manifested objective as well as subjective world. In the Sankhya and Puranic doctrines Mahat is the first product of Pradhana, informed by Kshetrajna, “Spirit-Substance.” In Esoteric philosophy Kshetrajna is the name given to our informing EGOS.

[C.W.X, p313-4]

Q. With reference to the sloka under discussion, would not “cosmic mind” be a better term than “Universal mind”?

A. No; cosmic mind appears at the third stage, or degree, and is confined or limited to the manifested universe. In the Puranas Mahat (the “great” Principle of mind, or Intellect) appears only at the third of the Seven “Creations” or stages of evolution. Cosmic Mind is Mahat, or divine ideation in active (creative) operation, and thus only the periodical manifestation in time and in actu of the Eternal Universal Mind – in potentia. In strict truth, Universal Mind, being only another Name for the Absolute, out of time and Space, this Cosmic Ideation, or Mind, is not an evolution at all (least of all a “creation”), but simply one of the aspects of the former, which knows no change, which ever was, which is, and will be. Thus, I say again, the sloka implies that universal ideation was not, i.e., did not exist for perception, because there were no minds to perceive it, since Cosmic Mind was still latent, or a mere potentiality. As the stanzas speak of manifestation, we are compelled so to translate them, and not from any other standpoint.

[C.W.X, p319]

Q. The fundamental conditions of the mind in the waking state are space and time: do these exist for the mind (Manas) during the sleep of the physical body?

A. Not as we know them. Moreover, the answer depends on which Manas you mean – the higher or the lower. It is only the latter which is susceptible of hallucinations about space and time; for instance, a man in the dreaming state may live in a few seconds the events of a life-time. For the perceptions and apprehensions of the Higher Ego there is neither space nor time.

[C.W.X, p324]

... the Point, emanates Chochmah and Binah, which two, are the synonym of Mahat,...

[C.W.X, p355]

“The seemingly paradoxical use of the sentence ‘Seventh Eternity,’ thus dividing the indivisible, is sanctified in esoteric philosophy. The latter divides boundless duration into unconditionally eternal and universal Time and a conditioned one (Khandakala). One is the abstraction or noumenon of infinite time (Kala); the other its phenomenon appearing periodically, as the effect of Mahat (the Universal Intelligence limited by Manvantaric duration).”

[C.W.X, p358]

For all you know Vaivasvata Manu may be an Avatar or a personification of MAHAT, commissioned by the Universal Mind to lead and guide thinking Humanity onwards.

[C.W.X, p364]

For, as Occultism teaches, if the Higher Mind-Entity – the permanent and the immortal – is of the divine homogeneous essence of “Alaya-Akasa,” or Mahat – its reflection, the Personal Mind, is, as a temporary “Principle,” of the Substance of the Astral Light. As a pure ray of the “Son of the Universal Mind,” it could perform no functions in the body, and would remain powerless over the turbulent organs of Matter. Thus, while its inner constitution is Manasic, its “body,” or rather functioning essence, is heterogeneous, and leavened with the Astral Light, the lowest element of Ether. It is a part of the mission of the Manasic Ray, to get gradually rid of the blind, deceptive element which, though it makes of it an active spiritual entity on this plane, still brings it into so close contact with matter as to entirely becloud its divine nature and stultify its intuitions.

[C.W.XII, p371]

[Brain-thought is inadmissable without a brain.] Precisely so; but then Occult philosophy reconciles the absurdity of postulating in the manifested Universe an active Mind without an organ, with that worse absurdity, an objective Universe evolved as everything else in it, by blind chance, by giving to this Universe an organ of thought, a “brain.” The latter, although not objective to our senses, is none the less existing; it is to be found in the Entity called KOSMOS (Adam Kadmon, in the Kabbalah). As in the Microcosm, MAN, so in the Macrocosm, or the Universe. Every “organ” in it is a sentient entity, and every particle of matter of substance, from the physical molecule up to the spiritual atom, is a cell, a nerve centre, which communicates with the brain-stuff or that substance on the plane of divine Thought in which the prime ideation is produced. Therefore, was man produced in the image of God – or Divine Nature. Every cell in the human organism mysteriously corresponds with a like “cell” in the divine organism or the manifested universe; only the latter “cell” assumes in the macrocosm the gigantic proportions of an intelligent unit in this or that “Hierarchy” of Beings. This, so far as the differentiated, divine Mind is concerned, on its plane of ideation. This eternal or ABSOLUTE THOUGHT – lies beyond and is, to us, inscrutable.

[Either it (our mind) has to regard all that which exists outside of itself as an illusion, or else the sentient existence of the Universe – the whole of that which is the “not-I” – must be as undeniable to it, as is its own existence.]

Vedantic philosophy explains and reconciles the difficulty in a most philosophical manner, by showing both the “I” and the universe an illusion. Naturally we cannot separate the two, both having to stand or fall together.

[. . . . our brain-mind discovering itself . . . . outside of itself, does so for the very reason that it, itself, is only a manifestation of the Higher or Universal Mind.]

Precisely so; and therefore, Occult philosophy teaches us that the human mind (or lower Manas) is a direct ray or reflection of the Higher Principle, the Noëtic Mind. The latter is the reincarnating Ego which old Aryan philosophers call Manasaputra, the “Sons of Mind” or of Mahat, the Universal Cosmic Mind. In the Hindu Puranas (see Vishnu Purana) Mahat is identical with Brahmâ, the creative God, the first in the trinitarian group (Trimurti) of Brahmâ, Vishnu and Siva.

[C.W.XII, p410-1]

The Vedanta philosophy steps out of this “magic circle” by teaching that both our own mind and the Universal Mind (Mahat) – the latter in its acts of differentiation and limited creations – are both illusions. For as our minds are but the product of the Universal Mind, so is the latter but a differentiated ray of the absolute Mind or No-Mind. The ONE, or Absoluteness, is the only eternal reality.

[C.W.XII, p412]

Remember that our Egos, the Principles which reincarnates, are called in The Secret Doctrine the Manasaputras, “Sons of Manas” (or Mahat), or Intelligence, Wisdom.

[C.W.XII, p607fn]

Nor can anything endure of that which lives and breathes and has its being in the seething waves of the world, or plane of differentiation. Thus, Buddhi and Manas being both primordial rays of the One Flame -- the former the vehicle (upadhi or vahana), of the one eternal Essence, the latter the vehicle of Mahat or Divine Ideation (Maha-Buddhi in the Puranas), the Universal Intelligent Soul – neither of them, as such, can become extinct or be annihilated, either in essence or consciousness. But the physical personality, with its Linga-Sarira and the animal soul with its Kama,* can and do become so. They are born in the realm of illusion, and must vanish like a fleecy cloud from the blue and eternal sky.

* Kama-rupa, the vehicle of Lower Manas, is said to dwell in the physical brain, in the five physical senses and in all the sense organs of the physical body.

[C.W.XII, p629]

What again is Manas and its functions? In its purely metaphysical aspect, Manas, being again one remove (on the downward plane) from Buddhi, is still so immeasurably higher than the physical man, that it cannot enter into direct relation with the personality, except through its reflection, the lower mind. Manas is Spiritual Self-Consciousness, in itself, and Divine Consciousness when united with Buddhi, which is the true “producer” of that “production” (vikara), or Self Consciousness, through Mahat. Buddhi-Manas, therefore, is entirely unfit to manifest during its periodical incarnations, except through the human mind, or lower Manas. Both are linked together and are inseparable, and can have as little to do with the lower Tanmatras* (rudimentary atoms) as the homogeneous with the heterogeneous. It is, therefore, the task of the lower Manas, or thinking personality, if it would blend itself with its God, the divine Ego, to dissipate and paralyze the Tanmatras, or properties of the material form. Therefore, Manas is shown double, as the Ego and Mind of Man. It is Kama-Manas, or the lower Ego, which, deluded into a notion of independent existence, as the “producer” in its turn and the Sovereign of the five Tanmatras, becomes Ego-ism, the selfish Self, in which case it has to be considered as Mahabhutic and finite, in the sense of its being connected with Ahamkara, the personal “I-creating” faculty. Hence “Manas has to be regarded as eternal and non-eternal; eternal in its atomic nature (paramanu-rupa), as eternal substance (dravya), finite (karya-rupa), when linked as a duad with Kaâma (animal desire or human egoistic volition), a lower production, in short.”

* Tanmatra means subtile and rudimentary form, the gross type of the finer elements. The five Tanmatras are really the characteristic properties or qualities of matter, as of all the elements; the real spirit of the word is “something” or “merely transcendental”, in the sense of properties or qualities.

[C.W.XII, p631]

... they traced the Cause of Sorrow to Ignorance, and to remove this, pointed out the Path to Self-knowledge. The Mind was to instruct the Mind: “self-analyzin reflection” was to be the Way. The Material Mind (Kama-Manas) was to be purified and so become one with the Spiritual Mind (Buddhi-Manas).

[C.W.XIII, p40]

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