Book: Five Years Of Theosophy

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II. Prakriti and Sakti. This is the Lingasariram, or astral body.

III. Sukti. This principle corresponds to your Kamarupa. This power or
force is placed by ancient occultists in the Nabhichakram. This power
can gather akasa or prakriti, and mould it into any desired shape. It
has very great sympathy with the fifth principle, and can be made to act
by its influence or control.

IV. Brahmam and Sakti, and Prakriti. This again corresponds to your
second principle, Jiva.

This power represents the universal life-principle which exists in
Nature. Its seat is the Anahatachakram (heart). It is a force or power
which constitutes what is called Jiva, or life. It is, as you say,
indestructible, and its activity is merely transferred at the time of
death to another set of atoms, to form another organism.

V. Brahma and Prakriti. This, in our Aryan philosophy, corresponds to
your fifth principle, called the physical intelligence. According to
our philosophers, this is the entity in which what is called mind has
its seat or basis. This is the most difficult principle of all to
explain, and the present discussion entirely turns upon the view we take
of it.

Now, what is mind? It is a mysterious something, which is considered to
be the seat of consciousness--of sensations, emotions, volitions, and
thoughts. Psychological analysis shows it to be apparently a congeries
of mental states, and possibilities of mental states, connected by what
is called memory, and considered to have a distinct existence apart from
any of its particular states or ideas. Now in what entity has this
mysterious something its potential or actual existence? Memory and
expectation, which form, as it were, the real foundation of what is
called individuality, or Ahankaram, must have their seat of existence
somewhere. Modern psychologists of Europe generally say that the
material substance of brain is the seat of mind; and that past
subjective experiences, which can he recalled by memory, and which in
their totality constitute what is called individuality, exist therein in
the shape of certain unintelligible mysterious impressions and changes
in the nerves and nerve-centres of the cerebral hemispheres.
Consequently, they say, the mind--the individual mind--is destroyed when
the body is destroyed; so there is no possible existence after death.

But there are a few facts among those admitted by these philosophers
which are sufficient for us to demolish their theory. In every portion
of the human body a constant change goes on without intermission. Every
tissue, every muscular fibre and nerve-tube, and every ganglionic centre
in the brain, is undergoing an incessant change. In the course of a
man's lifetime there may be a series of complete tranformations of the
substance of his brain. Nevertheless, the memory of his past mental
states remains unaltered. There may be additions of new subjective
experiences and some mental states may be altogether forgotten, but no
individual mental state is altered. The person's sense of personal
identity remains the same throughout these constant alterations in the
brain substance.* It is able to survive all these changes, and it can
survive also the complete destruction of the material substance of the
brain.

--------
* This is also sound Buddhist philosophy, the transformation in
question being known as the change of the skandhas.--Ed. Theos.
--------

This individuality arising from mental consciousness has its seat of
existence, according to our philosophers, in an occult power or force,
which keeps a registry, as it were, of all our mental impressions. The
power itself is indestructible, though by the operation of certain
antagonistic causes its impressions may in course of time be effaced, in
part or wholly.

I may mention in this connection that our philosophers have
associated seven occult powers with the seven principles or entities
above-mentioned. These seven occult powers in the microcosm correspond
with, or are the counterparts of, the occult powers in the macrocosm.
The mental and spiritual consciousness of the individual becomes the
general consciousness of Brahmam, when the barrier of individuality is
wholly removed, and when the seven powers in the microcosm are placed
en rapport with the seven powers in the macrocosm.

There is nothing very strange in a power, or force, or sakti, carrying
with it impressions of sensations, ideas, thoughts, or other subjective
experiences. It is now a well-known fact, that an electric or magnetic
current can convey in some mysterious manner impressions of sound or
speech, with all their individual peculiarities; similarly, I can
convey my thoughts to you by a transmission of energy or power.

Now, this fifth principle represents in our philosophy the mind, or, to
speak more correctly, the power or force above described, the
impressions of the mental states therein, and the notion of
self-identity or Ahankaram generated by their collective operation.
This principle is called merely physical intelligence in the
"Fragments." I do not know what is really meant by this expression. It
may be taken to mean that intelligence which exists in a very low state
of development in the lower animals. Mind may exist in different stages
of development, from the very lowest forms of organic life, where the
signs of its existence or operation can hardly be distinctly realized,
up to man, in whom it reaches its highest state of development.

In fact, from the first appearance of life* up to Tureeya Avastha, or
the state of Nirvana, the progress is, as it were, continuous.

--------
* In the Aryan doctrine, which blends Brahmam, Sakti, and Prakriti in
one, it is the fourth principle then, in the Buddhist esotericisms the
second in combination with the first.
--------

We ascend from that principle up to the seventh by almost imperceptible
gradations. 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
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.

IV. Brahmam and Sakti. This principle corresponds to your "spiritual
intelligence." It is, in fact, Buddhi (I use the word Buddhi not in the
ordinary sense, but in the sense in which it is used by our ancient
philosophers); in other words, it is the seat of Bodha or Atmabodha.
One who has Atmabodha in its completeness is a Buddha. Buddhists know
very well what this term signifies. This principle is described in the
"Fragments" as an entity coming into existence by the combination of
Brahmam and Prakriti. I do not again know in what particular sense the
word Prakriti is used in this connection. According to our philosophers
it is an entity arising from the union of Brahmam and Sakti. I have
already explained the connotation attached by our philosophers to the
words Prakriti and Sakti.

I stated that Prakriti in its primary state is Akasa.*

If Akasa be considered to be Sakti or power** then my statement as
regards the ultimate state of Prakriti is likely to give rise to
confusion and misapprehension unless I explain the distinction between
Akasa and Sakti. Akasa is not, properly speaking, the crown of the
astral light, nor does it by itself constitute any of the six primary
forces. But, generally speaking, whenever any phenomenal result is
produced, Sakti acts in conjunction with Akasa. And, moreover, Akasa
serves as a basis or Adhishthanum for the transmission of force currents
and for the formation or generation of force or power correlations.***

--------
* According to the Buddhists, in Akasa lies that eternal, potential
energy whose function it is to evolve all visible things out of
itself.--Ed. Theos.

** It was never so considered, as we have shown it. But as the
"Fragments" are written in English, a language lacking such an abundance
of metaphysical terms to express ever minute change of form, substance
and state as are found in the Sanskrit, it was deemed useless to confuse
the Western reader, untrained in the methods of Eastern expression, more
than is necessary, with a too nice distinctions of proper technical
terms. As "Prakriti in its primary state is Akasa," and Sakti "is an
attribute AKASA," it becomes evident that for the uninitiated it is all
one. Indeed, to speak of the "union of Brahmam and Prakriti" instead of
"Brahmam and Sakti" is no worse than for a theist to write that "That
man has come into existence by the combination of spirit and matter,"
whereas, his word, framed in an orthodox shape, ought to read "man is a
living soul was created by the power (or breath) of God over matter."

*** That is to say, the Aryan Akasa is another word for Buddhist SPACE
(in its metaphysical meaning).--Ed. Theos.
---------

In Mantrasastra the letter Ha represents Akasa, and you will find that
this syllable enters into most of the sacred formula intended to be used
in producing phenomenal results. But by itself it does not represent
any Sakti. You may, if you please, call Sakti an attribute of Akasa.

I do not think that, as regards the nature of this principle, there can
in reality exist any difference of opinion between the Buddhist and
Brahmanical philosophers.

Buddhist and Brahmanical initiates know very well that mysterious
circular mirror composed of two hemispheres which reflects as it were
the rays emanating from the "burning bush" and the blazing star--the
spiritual sun Shining in CHIDAKASAM.

The spiritual impressions constituting this principle have their
existence in an occult power associated with the entity in question.
The successive incarnations of Buddha, in fact, mean the successive
transfers of this mysterious power, or the impressions thereof. The
transfer is only possible when the Mahatma* who transfers it has
completely identified himself with his seventh principle, has
annihilated his Ahankaram, and reduced it to ashes in CHIDAGNIKUNDUM,
and has succeeded in making his thoughts correspond with the eternal
laws of Nature and in becoming a co-worker with Nature. Or, to put the
same thing in other words, when he has attained the state of Nirvana,
the condition of final negation, negation of individual, or separate
existence.**

---------
* The highest adept.

* In the words of Agatha in the "Maha-pari-Nirvana Sutra,"
"We reach a condition of rest
Beyond the limit of any human knowledge"
--Ed. Theos.
---------

VII. Atma.--The emanation from the absolute, corresponding to the
seventh principle. As regards this entity there exists positively no
real difference of opinion between the Tibetan Buddhist adepts and our
ancient Rishis.

We must now consider which of these entities can appear after the
individual's death in seance-rooms and produce the so-called
spiritualistic phenomena.

Now, the assertion of the Spiritualists, that the "disembodied spirits"
of particular human beings appear in seance-rooms, necessarily implies
that the entity that so appears bears the stamp of some particular
personality.

So, we have to ascertain beforehand in what entity or entities
personality has its seat of existence. Apparently it exists in the
person's particular formation of body, and in his subjective experiences
(called his mind in their totality). On the death of the individual his
body is destroyed; his lingasariram being decomposed, the power
associated with it becomes mingled in the current of the corresponding
power in the macrocosm. Similarly, the third and fourth principles are
mingled with their corresponding powers. These entities may again enter
into the composition of other organisms. As these entities bear no
impression of personality, the Spiritualists have no right to say that
the disembodied spirit of the human being has appeared in the
seance-room whenever any of these entities may appear there. In fact,
they have no means of ascertaining that they belonged to any particular
individual.

Therefore, we must only consider whether any of the last three entities
appear in seance-rooms to amuse or to instruct Spiritualists. Let us
take three particular examples of individuals, and see what becomes of
these three principles after death.

I. One in whom spiritual attachments have greater force than terrestrial
attachments.

II. One in whom spiritual aspirations do exist, but are merely of
secondary importance to him, his terrestrial interests occupying the
greater share of his attention.

III. One in whom there exists no spiritual aspirations whatsoever, one
whose spiritual Ego is dead or non-existent to his apprehension.

We need not consider the case of a complete adept in this connection.
In the first two cases, according to our supposition, spiritual and
mental experiences exist together; when spiritual consciousness exists,
the existence of the seventh principle being recognized, it maintains
its connection with the fifth and sixth principles. But the existence
of terrestrial attachments creates the necessity of Punarjanmam
(re-birth), the latter signifying the evolution of a new set of
objective and subjective experiences, constituting a new combination of
surrounding circumstances, or, in other words, a new world. The period
between death and the next subsequent birth is occupied with the
preparation required for the evolution of these new experiences. During
the period of incubation, as you call it, the spirit will never of its
own accord appear in this world, nor can it so appear.

There is a great law in this universe which consists in the reduction of
subjective experiences to objective phenomena, and the evolution of the
former from the latter. This is otherwise called "cyclic necessity."
Man is subjected to this law if he do not check and counterbalance the
usual destiny or fate, and he can only escape its control by subduing
all his terrestrial attachments completely. The new combination of
circumstances under which he will then be placed may be better or worse
than the terrestrial conditions under which he lived; but in his
progress to a new world, you may be sure he will never turn around to
have a look at his spiritualistic friends.

In the third of the above three cases there is, by our supposition, no
recognition of spiritual consciousness or of spirits; so they are
non-existing so far as he is concerned. The case is similar to that of
an organ or faculty which remains unused for a long time. It then
practically ceases to exist.

These entities, as it were, remain his, or in his possession, when they
are stamped with the stamp of recognition. When such is not the case,
the whole of his individuality is centred in his fifth principle. And
after death this fifth principle is the only representative of the
individual in question.

By itself it cannot evolve for itself a new set of objective
experiences, or, to say the same thing in other words, it has no
punarjanmam. It is such an entity that can appear in seance-rooms; but
it is absurd to call it a disembodied spirit.* It is merely a power or
force retaining the impressions of the thoughts or ideas of the
individual into whose composition it originally entered. It sometimes
summons to its aid the Kamarupa power, and creates for itself some
particular ethereal form (not necessarily human).

--------
* It is especially on this point that the Aryan and Arahat doctrines
quite agree. The teaching and argument that follow are in every respect
those of the Buddhist Himalayan Brotherhood.--Ed. Theos.
--------

Its tendencies of action will be similar to those of the individual's
mind when he was living. This entity maintains its existence so long as
the impressions on the power associated with the fifth principle remain
intact. In course of time they are effaced, and the power in question
is then mixed up in the current of its corresponding power in the
MACROCOSM, as the river loses itself in the sea. Entities like these
may afford signs of there having been considerable intellectual power in
the individuals to which they belonged; because very high intellectual
power may co-exist with utter absence of spiritual consciousness. But
from this circumstance it cannot be argued that either the spirits or
the spiritual Egos of deceased individuals appear in seance-rooms.

There are some people in India who have thoroughly studied the nature of
such entities (called Pisacham). I do not know much about them
experimentally, as I have never meddled with this disgusting,
profitless, and dangerous branch of investigation.

The Spiritualists do not know what they are really doing. Their
investigations are likely to result in course of time either in wicked
sorcery or in the utter spiritual ruin of thousands of men and women.*

--------
* We share entirely in this idea.--Ed. Theos.
--------

The views I have herein expressed have been often illustrated by our
ancient writers by comparing the course of a man's life or existence to
the orbital motion of a planet round the sun. Centripetal force is
spiritual attraction, and centrifugal terrestrial attraction. As the
centripetal force increases in magnitude in comparison with the
centrifugal force, the planet approaches the sun--the individual reaches
a higher plane of existence. If, on the other hand, the centrifugal
force becomes greater than the centripetal force, the planet is removed
to a greater distance from the sun, and moves in a new orbit at that
distance--the individual comes to a lower level of existence. These are
illustrated in the first two instances I have noticed above.

We have only to consider the two extreme cases.

When the planet in its approach to the sun passes over the line where
the centripetal and centrifugal force completely neutralize each other,
and is only acted on by the centripetal force, it rushes towards the sun
with a gradually increasing velocity, and is finally mixed up with the
mass of the sun's body. This is the case of a complete adept.

Again, when the planet in its retreat from the sun reaches a point where
the centrifugal force becomes all-powerful, it flies off in a tangential
direction from its orbit, and goes into the depths of void space. When
it ceases to be under the control of the sun, it gradually gives up its
generative heat, and the creative energy that it originally derived from
the sun, and remains a cold mass of material particles wandering through
space until the mass is completely decomposed into atoms. This cold
mass is compared to the fifth principle under the conditions above
noticed, and the heat, light, and energy that left it are compared to
the sixth and seventh principles.

Either after assuming a new orbit or in its course of deviation from the
old orbit to the new, the planet can never go back to any point in its
old orbit, as the various orbits lying in different planes never
intersect each other.

This figurative representation correctly explains the ancient
Brahmanical theory on the subject. It is merely a branch of what is
called the Great Law of the Universe by the ancient mystics.

--T. Subba Row



Appendix


Note I.

In this connection it will be well to draw the reader's attention to the
fact that the country called "Si-dzang" by the Chinese, and Tibet by
Western geographers, is mentioned in the oldest books preserved in the
province of Fo-kien (the headquarters of the aborigines of China) as the
great seat of occult learning in the archaic ages. According to these
records, it was inhabited by the "Teachers of Light," the "Sons of
Wisdom" and the "Brothers of the Sun." The Emperor Yu the "Great" (2207
B.C.), a pious mystic, is credited with having obtained his occult
wisdom and the system of theocracy established by him--for he was the
first one to unite in China ecclesiastical power with temporal
authority--from Si-dzang. That system was the same as with the old
Egyptians and the Chaldees; that which we know to have existed in the
Brahmanical period in India, and to exist now in Tibet--namely, all the
learning, power, the temporal as well as the secret wisdom were
concentrated within the hierarchy of the priests and limited to their
caste. Who were the aborigines of Tibet is a question which no
ethnographer is able to answer correctly at present. They practice the
Bhon religion, their sect is a pre-and anti-Buddhistic one, and they
are to be found mostly in the province of Kam. That is all that is
known of them. But even that would justify the supposition that they
are the greatly degenerated descendants of mighty and wise forefathers.
Their ethnical type shows that they are not pure Turanians, and their
rites--now those of sorcery, incantations, and Nature-worship--remind
one far more of the popular rites of the Babylonians, as found in the
records preserved on the excavated cylinders, than of the religious
practices of the Chinese sect of Tao-sse (a religion based upon pure
reason and spirituality), as alleged by some. Generally, little or no
difference is made, even by the Kyelang missionaries, who mix greatly
with these people on the borders of British Lahoul and ought to know
better, between the Bhons and the two rival Buddhist sects, the Yellow
Caps and the Red Caps. The latter of these have opposed the reform of
Tzong-ka-pa from the first, and have always adhered to old Buddhism, so
greatly mixed up now with the practices of the Bhons. Were our
Orientalists to know more of them, and compare the ancient Babylonian
Bel or Baal worship with the rites of the Bhons, they would find an
undeniable connection between the two. To begin an argument here,
proving the origin of the aborigines of Tibet as connected with one of
the three great races which superseded each other in Babylonia, whether
we call them the Akkadians (a name invented by F. Lenormant), or the
primitive Turanians, Chaldees, and Assyrians, is out of the question.
Be it as it may, there is reason to call the trans-Himalayan esoteric
doctrine Chaldeo-Tibetan. And when we remember that the Vedas came,
agreeably to all traditions, from the Mansarawara Lake in Tibet, and the
Brahmins themselves from the far North, we are justified in looking on
the esoteric doctrines of every people who once had or still has it, as
having proceeded from one and the same source; and to thus call it the
"Aryan-Chaldeo-Tibetan" doctrine, or Universal Wisdom-Religion. "Seek
for the Lost Word among the hierophants of Tartary, China, and Tibet,"
was the advice of Swedenborg the seer.

Note II.

Not necessarily, we say. The Vedas, Brahmanism, and along with these,
Sanskrit, were importations into what we now regard as India. They were
never indigenous to its soil. There was a time when the ancient nations
of the West included under the generic name of India many of the
countries of Asia now classified under other names. There was an Upper,
a Lower, and a Western India, even during the comparatively late period
of Alexander; and Persia (Iran) is called Western India in some ancient
classics. The countries now named Tibet, Mongolia, and Great Tartary
were considered by them as forming part of India. When we say,
therefore, that India has civilized the world, and was the Alma Mater of
the civilizations, arts, and sciences of all other nations (Babylonia,
and perhaps even Egypt, included), we mean archaic, pre-historic India,
India of the time when the great Gobi was a sea, and the lost "Atlantis"
formed part of an unbroken continent which began at the Himalayas and
ran down over Southern India, Ceylon, and Java, to far-away Tasmania.

Note III.

To ascertain such disputed questions, one has to look into and study
well the Chinese sacred and historical records--a people whose era
begins nearly 4,600 years back (2697 B.C.). A people so accurate, and
by whom some of the most important inventions of modern Europe and its
so much boasted modern science were anticipated--such as the compass,
gunpowder, porcelain, paper, printing, &c.--known and practiced
thousands of years before these were rediscovered by the Europeans,
ought to receive some trust for their records. And from Lao-tze down to
Hiouen-Thsang their literature is filled with allusions and references
to that island and the wisdom of the Himalayan adepts. In the "Catena
of Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese," by the Rev. Samuel Beal, there
is a chapter "On the TIAN-TA'I School of Buddhism" (pp. 244-258) which
our opponents ought to read. Translating the rules of that most
celebrated and holy school and sect in China founded by Chin-che-K'hae,
called Che-chay (the Wise One), in the year 575 of our era, when coming
to the sentence which reads "That which relates to the one garment
(seamless) worn by the GREAT TEACHERS OF THE SNOWY MOUNTAINS, the school
of the Haimavatas" (p. 256), the European translator places after the
last sentence a sign of interrogation, as well he may. The statistics
of the school of the "Haimavatas," or of our Himalayan Brotherhood, are
not to be found in the general census records of India. Further, Mr.
Beal translates a rule relating to "the great professors of the higher
order who live in mountain depths remote from men," the Aranyakas, or
hermits.

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