Theosophy; The New Rock ‘n
Roll
Helena
Petrovna Blavatsky
1831
-1891
Theosophy
Megastar
______________________
Theories about Reincarnation and Spirits
By
H P Blavatsky
OVER and over
again the abstruse and mooted question of Rebirth or Reincarnation has crept
out during the first ten years of the Theosophical Society's existence. It has
been alleged on prima facie evidence, that a notable discrepancy was found
between statements made in
In
The charge was
answered then and there as every one who will turn to the Theosophist of
August, 1882, can see for himself.
Nevertheless,
the answer either failed to satisfy some readers or passed unnoticed. Leaving
aside the strangeness of the assertion that reincarnation--i.e., the serial and
periodical rebirth of every individual monad from pralaya to pralaya2 is denied
in the face of the fact that the doctrine is part and parcel and one of the
fundamental features of Hinduism and Buddhism, the charge amounted virtually to
this: the writer of the present, a professed admirer and student of Hindu
philosophy, and as professed a follower of Buddhism years before Isis was
written, by rejecting reincarnation must necessarily reject KARMA likewise! For
the latter is the very cornerstone of Esoteric philosophy and Eastern
religions; it is the grand and one pillar on which hangs the whole philosophy
of rebirths, and once the latter is denied, the whole doctrine of Karma falls
into meaningless verbiage.
Nevertheless,
the opponents without stopping to think of the evident "discrepancy"
between charge and fact, accused a Buddhist by profession of faith of denying
reincarnation hence also by implication--Karma. Adverse to wrangling with one
who was a friend, and undesirous at the time to enter upon a defence of details
and internal evidence--a loss of time indeed--the writer answered merely with a
few sentences. But it now becomes necessary to well define the doctrine.
Other critics
have taken the same line, and by misunderstanding the passages to that effect
in
To put an end
to such useless controversies, it is proposed to explain the doctrine more
clearly.
Although, in view
of the later more minute renderings of the esoteric doctrines, it is quite
immaterial what may have been written in
"incomplete,
chaotic, vague, perhaps clumsy, as are many more passages in that work, the
first literary production of a foreigner who even now can hardly boast of her
knowledge of the English language." Nevertheless it is quite correct so
far as that collateral feature of reincarnation is therein concerned.
I will now
give extracts from
Reincarnation
i.e., the appearance of the same individual, or rather of his astral monad,
twice on the same p1anet is not a rule in nature, it is an exception, like the
teratological phenomenon of a two-headed infant. It is preceded by a violation
of the laws of harmony of nature, and happens only when the latter seeking to
restore its disturbed equilibrium, violently throws back into earth-life the
astral monad which had been tossed out of the circle of necessity by crime or accident.
Thus in cases of abortion, of infants dying before a certain age, and of
congenital and incurable idiocy, nature's original design to produce a perfect
human being, has been interrupted.
Therefore,
while the gross matter of each of these several entities is suffered to
disperse itself at death, through the vast realm of being, the immortal spirit
and astral monad of the individual--the latter having been set apart to animate
a frame and the former to shed its divine light on the corporeal organization--must
try a second time to carry out the purpose of the creative intelligence. (Isis
I, 351.)
Here the
"astral monad" or body of the deceased personality--say of John or
Thomas--is meant. It is that which, in the teachings of the Esoteric philosophy
of Hinduism, is known under its name of bhoot; in the Greek philosophy is
called the simulacrum or umbra, and in all other philosophies worthy of the
name is said, as taught in the former, to disappear after a certain period more
or less prolonged in Kama-loka--the Limbus of the Roman Catholics, or Hades of
the Greeks.3 It is "a violation of the laws of harmony of nature,"
though it be so decreed by those of Karma--every time that the astral monad, or
the simulacrum of the personality--of John or Thomas--instead of running down
to the end of its natural period of time in a body--finds itself (a) violently
thrown out of it by whether early death or accident; or (b) is compelled in
consequence of its unfinished task to re-appear (i.e., the same astral body
wedded to the same immortal monad) on earth again, in order to complete the
unfinished task. Thus "it must try a second time to carry out the purpose
of creative intelligence" or law.
If reason has
been so far developed as to become active and discriminative there is no4
(immediate) reincarnation on the earth, for the three parts of the triune man
have been united together, and he is capable of running the race. But when the
new being has not passed beyond the condition of Monad, or when, as in the idiot,
the trinity has not been completed on earth and therefore cannot be so after
death, the immortal spark which illuminates it has to re-enter on the earthly
plane as it was frustrated in its first attempt. Otherwise, the mortal or
astral, and the immortal or divine souls, could not progress in unison and pass
onward to the sphere above5 (Devachan).
Spirit follows
a line parallel with that of matter; and the spiritual evolution goes hand in
hand with the physical.
The Occult
Doctrine teaches that:
(1) There is
no immediate reincarnation on Earth for the Monad, as falsely taught by the
Reincarnationist Spiritists; nor is there any second incarnation at all for the
"personal" or false Ego--the perisprit--save the exceptional cases
mentioned. But that (a) there are rebirths, or periodical reincarnations for
the immortal Ego--("Ego" during the cycle of re-births, and non-Ego,
in Nirvana or Moksha when it becomes impersonal and absolute); for that Ego is
the root of every new incarnation, the string on which are threaded, one after
the other, the false personalities or illusive bodies called men, in which the
Monad-Ego incarnates itself during the cycle of births; and (b) that such
reincarnations take place not before 1,500, 2,000 and even 3,000 years of Devachanic
life.
(2) That
Manas--the seat of Jiv, that spark which runs the round of the cycle of birth
and rebirths with the Monad from the beginning to the end of a Manvantara--is
the real Ego. That (a) the Jiv follows the divine monad that gives it spiritual
life and immortality into Devachan--that therefore, it can neither be reborn
before its appointed period, nor reappear on Earth visibly or invisibly in the
interim; and (b) that, unless the fruition, the spiritual aroma of the Manas,
or all these highest aspirations and spiritual qualities and attributes that
constitute the higher SELF of man become united to its monad, the latter
becomes as Non existent; since it is in esse "impersonal" and per se
Ego-less, so to say, and gets its spiritual colouring or flavour of Ego-tism
only from each Manas during incarnation and after it is disembodied, and
separated from all its lower principles.
(3) That the
remaining four principles, or rather the 2½--as they are composed of the
terrestrial portion of Manas, of its Vehicle Kama-Rupa and Lingha Sarira--the
body dissolving immediately, and prana or the life principle along with
it--that these principles having belonged to the false personality are unfit
for Devachan. The latter is the state of Bliss, the reward for all the
undeserved miseries of life,6 and that which prompted man to sin, namely his
terrestrial passionate nature, can have no room in it.
Therefore the
reincarnating* principles are left behind in Kama-loka, firstly as a material
residue, then later on as a reflection on the mirror of Astral light.
Endowed with
illusive action, to the day when having gradually faded out they disappear,
what is it but the Greek Eidolon and the simulacrum of the Greek and Latin
poets and classics?
What reward or
punishment can there be in that sphere of disembodied human entities for a
fœtus or a human embryo which had not even time to breathe on this earth, still
less an opportunity to exercise the divine faculties of its spirit? Or, for an
irresponsible infant, whose senseless monad remaining dormant within the astral
and physical casket, could as little prevent him from burning himself as any
other person to death? Or again for one idiotic from birth, the number of whose
cerebral circumvolutions is only from twenty to thirty per cent of those of
sane persons, and who therefore is irresponsible for either his disposition,
acts, or for the imperfections of his vagrant, half developed intellect. (Isis
I, 352.)
These are,
then, the "exceptions" spoken of in
One of such is
on page 346, and another in connection with it and as a sequence on page 347.
The
discrepancy between the first portion of the statement and the last, ought to
have suggested the idea of an evident mistake. It is addressed to the
spiritists, reincarnationists who take the more than ambiguous words of
Apuleius as a passage that corroborates their claims for their
"spirits" and reincarnation. Let the reader judge7 whether Apuleius
does not justify rather our assertions. We are charged with denying
reincarnation and this is what we said there and then in
The philosophy
teaches that nature never leaves her work unfinished; if baffled at the first
attempt, she tries again. When she evolves a human embryo the intention is that
a man shall be perfected--physically, intellectually, and spiritually. His body
is to grow, mature, wear out, and die; his mind unfold, ripen, and be
harmoniously balanced; hisdivine spirit illuminate and blend easily with the
inner man. No human being completes its grand cycle, or the "circle of
necessity," until all these are accomplished. As the laggards in a race
struggle and plod in their first quarter while the victor darts past the goal,
so, in the race of immortality, some souls outspeed all the rest and reach the
end, while their myriad competitors are toiling under the load of matter, close
to the starting point. Some unfortunates fall out entirely and lose all chance
of the prize; some retrace their steps and begin again.
Clear enough
this, one should say. Nature baffled tries again. No one can pass
out of this
world (our earth) without becoming perfected "physically, morally, and
spiritually." How can this be done, unless there is a series of rebirths
required for the necessary perfection in each department--to evolute in the
"circle of necessity," can surely never be found in one human life?
and yet this sentence is followed without any break by the following
parenthetical statement:
"This is
what the Hindu dreads above all things--transmigration and reincarnation; only
on other and inferior planets, never on this one!!!"
The last
"sentence" is a fatal mistake and one to which the writer pleads
"not guilty." It is evidently the blunder of some "reader"
who had no idea of Hindu philosophy and who was led into a subsequent mistake
on the next page, wherein the unfortunate word "planet" is put for
cycle. Isis was hardly, if ever, looked into after its publication by its
writer, who had other work to do; otherwise there would have been an apology
and a page pointing to the errata and the sentence made to run: "The Hindu
dreads transmigration in other inferior forms, on this planet."
This would
have dove-tailed with the preceding sentence, and would show a fact, as the
Hindu exoteric views allow him to believe and fear the possibility of
reincarnation--human and animal in turn by jumps, from man to beast and even a
plant--and vice versa; whereas esoteric philosophy teaches that nature never proceeding
backward in her evolutionary progress, once that man has evoluted from every
kind of lower forms--the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms--into the
human form, he can never become an animal except morally,
hence--metaphorically. Human incarnation is a cyclic necessity, and law; and no
Hindu dreads it--however much he may deplore the necessity. And this law and
the periodical recurrence of man's rebirth is shown on the same page (346) and
in the same unbroken paragraph, where it is closed by saying that:
But there is a
way to avoid it. Buddha taught it in his doctrine of poverty, restriction of
the senses, perfect indifference to the objects of this earthly vale of tears,
freedom from passion, and frequent intercommunication with the Atma--soul-contemplation.
The cause of reincarnation8 is ignorance of our senses, and the idea that there
is any reality in the world, anything except abstract existence. From the
organs of sense comes the "hallucination" we call contact; "from
contact, desire; from desire, sensation (which also is a deception of our
body); from sensation, the cleaving to existing bodies from this cleaving,
reproduction; and from reproduction, disease, decay and death."
This ought to
settle the question and show there must have been some carelessly unnoticed
mistake, and if this is not sufficient, there is something else to demonstrate
it, for it is further on:
Thus, like the
revolutions of a wheel, there is a regular succession of death and birth, the
moral cause of which is the cleaving to existing objects, while the
instrumental cause is Karma (the power which controls the universe, prompting
it to activity), merit and demerit. It is therefore the greatest desire of all
beings who would be released from the sorrows of successive birth, to seek the
destruction of the moral cause, the cleaving to existing objects, or evil
desire.
They in whom
evil desire is entirely destroyed are called Arhats. Freedom from evil desire
insures the possession of a miraculous power. At his death the Arhat is never
reincarnated; he invariably attains nirvana--a word, by the by, falsely
interpreted by the Christian scholar and skeptical commentators.
Nirvana is the
world of cause, in which all deceptive effects or delusions of our senses disappear.
Nirvana is the
highest attainable sphere. The pitris (the pre-Adamic spirits) are considered
as reincarnated by the Buddhistic philosopher, though in a degree far superior
to that of the man of earth. Do they not die in their turn? Do not their astral
bodies suffer and rejoice, and feel the same curse of illusionary feelings as
when embodied?
And just after
this we are again made to say of Buddha and his: Doctrine of "Merit and
Demerit," or Karma:
But this former
life believed in by the Buddhists, is not a life on this planet for, more than
any other people, the Buddhistical philosopher appreciated the great doctrine
of cycles.
Correct
"life on this planet" by "life in the same cycle," and you
will have the correct reading: for what would have appreciation of "the
great doctrine of cycles" to do with Buddha's philosophy, had the great
sage believed but in one short life on this Earth and in the same cycle. But to
return to the real theory of reincarnation as in the esoteric teaching and its
unlucky rendering in
Thus, what was
really meant therein, was that, the principle which does not reincarnate--save
the exceptions pointed out--is the false personality, the illusive human Entity
defined and individualized during this short life of ours, under some specific
form and name; but that which does and has to reincarnate nolens volens under
the unflinching, stern rule of Karmic law--is the real EGO.
This confusing
of the real immortal Ego in man, with the false and ephemeral personalities it
inhabits during its Manvantaric progress, lies at the root of every such
misunderstanding. Now what is the one, and what is the other? The
first group
is--
1. The
immortal Spirit--sexless, formless (arupa), an emanation from the One
universal
BREATH.
2. Its
Vehicle--the divine Soul--called the "Immortal Ego," the "Divine
monad," etc., etc., which by accretions from Manas in which burns the ever
existing Jiv--the undying spark--adds to itself at the close of each incarnation
the essence of that individuality that was, the aroma of the culled flower that
is no more.
What is the
false personality? It is that bundle of desires, aspirations, affection and
hatred, in short of action, manifested by a human being on this earth during
one incarnation and under the form of one personality.9 Certainly it is not all
this, which as a fact for us, the deluded, material, and materially thinking
lot--is Mr. So and So, or Mrs. somebody else--that remains
immortal, or
is ever reborn.
All that
bundle of Egotism, that apparent and evanescent "I" disappears after
death, as the costume of the part he played disappears from the actor's body,
after he leaves the theatre and goes to bed. That actor re-becomes at once the
same "John Smith" or Gray, he was from his birth and is no longer the
Othello or Hamlet that he had represented for a few hours. Nothing remains now
of that "bundle" to go to the next incarnation, except the seed for
future Karma that Manas may have united to its immortal group, to form with
it--the disembodied Higher Self in "Devachan." As to the four lower
principles, that which becomes of them is found in most classics, from which we
mean to quote at length for our defense. The doctrine of the perisprit, the
"false personality," or the remains of the deceased under their
astral form--fading out to disappear in time, is terribly distasteful to the
spiritualists, who insist upon confusing the temporary with the immortal EGO.
Unfortunately
for them and happily for us, it is not the modern Occultists who have invented
the doctrine. They are on their defense. And they prove what they say, i.e.,
that no "personality" has ever yet been "reincarnated"
"on the same planet" (our earth, this once there is no mistake) save
in the three exceptional cases above cited. Adding to these a fourth case,
which is the deliberate, conscious act of adeptship; and that such an astral
body belongs neither to the body nor the soul still less to the immortal spirit
of man, the following is brought forward and proofs cited.
Before one
brings out on the strength of undeniable manifestations, theories as to what
produces them and claims at once on prima facie evidence that it is the spirits
of the departed mortals that revisit us, it behooves one to first study what
antiquity has declared upon the subject. Ghosts and apparitions, materialized
and semi-material "SPIRITS" have not originated with Allan Kardec,
nor at
That which is
now called perisprit in
occult
teachings the world over. For with the Hindus atma or spirit is Arupa,
bodiless, and with the Greeks also. Even in the Roman Catholic Church the
angels of Light as those of Darkness are absolutely incorporeal: "meri
spiritus, omnes corporis expertes," and in the words of The Secret
Doctrine, primordial.
Emanations of
the undifferentiated Principle, the Dhyan Chohans of the ONE (First) category
or pure Spiritual Essence, are formed of the Spirit of the one Element; the
second category, of the second Emanation of the Soul of the Elements; the third
have a "mind body" to which they are not subject, but that they can
assume and govern as a body, subject to them, pliant to their will in form and
substance. Parting from this (third) category, they (the spirits, angels, Devas
or Dhyan Chohans) have BODIES, the first rupa group of which is composed of one
element Ether; the second, of two--ether and fire; the third, of three--Ether,
fire and water; the fourth, of four--Ether, air, fire and water.
Then comes
man, who, besides the four elements, has the fifth that predominates in
him--Earth: therefore he suffers. Of the Angels, as said by
After death,
the best, noblest, purest qualities of Manas or the human soul ascending along
with the divine Monad into Devachan whence no one emerges from or returns,
except at the time of reincarnation--what is that then which appears under the
double mask of the spiritual Ego or soul of the departed individual?
The
More than one
devoted spiritualist has hitherto quoted Paul as corroborating his claim that
spirits do and can appear. "There is a natural and there is a spiritual
body," etc., etc., (I Cor. xv:44); but one has only to study closer the
verses preceding and following the one quoted, to perceive that what St. Paul
meant was quite different from the sense claimed for it. Surely there is a
spiritual body, but it is not identical with the astral form contained in the
"natural" man. The "spiritual" is formed only by our
individuality unclothed and transformed after death; for the apostle takes care
to explain in Verses 51 and 52, "Immut abimur sed non omnes." Behold,
I tell you a mystery: we shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed. This
corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality.
But this is no
proof except for the Christians. Let us see what the old Egyptians and the
Neo-Platonists--both "theurgists" par excellence, thought on the
subject: They divided man into three principal groups subdivided into
principles as we do: pure immortal spirit; the "Spectral Soul" (a
luminous phantom) and the gross material body. Apart from the latter, which was
considered as the terrestrial shell, these groups were divided into six
principles; (1) Kha "vital body"; (2) Khaba "astral form,"
or shadow; (3) Khou "animal soul"; (4) Akh "terrestrial
intelligence"; (5) Sa "the divine soul" (or Buddhi); and (6) Sah
or mummy, the functions of which began after death. Osiris was the highest
uncreated spirit, for it was, in one sense, a generic name, every man becoming
after his translation Osirified, i.e., absorbed into Osiris-Sun or into the
glorious divine state. It was Khou, with the lower portions of Akh or Kama rupa
with the addition of the dregs of Manas remaining all behind in the astral
light of our atmosphere--that formed the counterparts of the terrible and so
much dreaded bhoots of the Hindus (our "elementaries").
This is seen
in the rendering made of the so-called "Harris Papyrus on magic"
(papyrus magique, translated by Chabas) who calls them Kouey or Khou, and
explains that according to the hieroglyphics they were called Khou or the
"revivified dead," the "resurrected shadows." 11
When it was
said of a person that he "had a Khou" it meant that he was possessed
by a "Spirit." There were two kinds of Khous--the justified ones--who
after living for a short time a second life (nam onh) faded out, disappeared;
and those Khous who were condemned to wandering without rest in darkness after
dying for a second time--mut, em, nam--and who were called the H'ou--métre
("second time dead") which did not prevent them from clinging to a
vicarious life after the manner of Vampires.
How dreaded
they were is explained in our Appendices on Egyptian Magic and "Chinese
Spirits" (Secret Doctrine). They were exorcised by Egyptian priests as the
evil spirit is exorcised by the Roman Catholic curé; or again the Chinese
houen, identical with the Khou and the "Elementary," as also with the
lares or larvæ--a word derived from the former by Festus, the grammarian; who
explains that they were "the shadows of the dead who gave no rest in the
house they were in either to the Masters or the servants." These creatures
when evoked during theurgic, and especially necromantic rites, were regarded,
and are so regarded still, in China--as neither the Spirit, Soul nor anything
belonging to the deceased personality they represented, but simply, as his
reflection--simulacrum.
"The
human soul," says Apuleius, "is an immortal God" (Buddhi) which
nevertheless has his beginning. When death rids it (the Soul), from its earthly
corporeal organism, it is called lemure. There are among the latter not a few
which are beneficent, and which become the gods or demons of the family, i.e.,
its domestic gods: in which case they are called lares. But they are vilified
and spoken of as larvæ when sentenced by fate to wander about, they spread around
them evil and plagues. (Inane terriculamentum, ceterum noxium
subjects.
The Magi of
At
". . . Esse Acherusia templa,
. . . Quo neque permanent animæ, neque
corpora nostra,
Sed quædam
simulacra. . . ."
Virgil called
it imago "image" and in the Odyssey (I. XI) the author refers to it
as the type, the model, and at the same time the copy of the body; since
Telemachus will not recognize Ulysses and seeks to drive him off by
saying--"No thou art not my father; thou art a demon,--trying to seduce
me!" (Odys. 1. XVI. v. 194.)
"Latins
do not lack significant proper names to designate the varieties of their
demons; and thus they called them in turn, lares, lemures, genii and
manes." Cicero, in translating Plato's Timæus, translates the word
daimones by lares; and Festus the grammarian, explains that the inferior or
lower gods were the souls of men, making a difference between the two as Homer
did, and between anima bruta and anima divina (animal and divine souls).
Plutarch (in Proble.
After this
little honour rendered to his Christian preconceptions, that see Satan
everywhere, Leloyer speaks like an Occultist, and a very erudite one too.
"It is
quite certain that the genii and none other had mission to watch over every
newly born man, and that they were called genii, as says Censorius, because
they had in their charge our race, and not only they presided over every mortal
being but over whole generations and tribes, being the genii of the
people."
The idea of
guardian angels of men, races, localities, cities, and nations, was taken by
the Roman Catholics from the pre-christian occultists and pagans. Symmachus
(Epistol, 1. X) writes: "As souls are given to those who are born, so
genii are distributed to the nations. Every city had its protecting genius, to
whom the people sacrificed." There is more than one inscription found that
reads: Genio civitates--"to the genius of the city."
Only the
ancient profane, never seemed sure any more than the modern whether an
apparition was the eidolon of a relative or the genius of the locality. Enneus
while celebrating the anniversary of the name of his father Anchises, seeing a
serpent crawling on his tomb knew not whether that was the genius of his father
or the genius of the place (Virgil). "The manes"13 were numbered and
divided between good and bad; those that were sinister, and that Virgil calls
numina larva, were appeased by sacrifices that they should commit no mischief,
such as sending bad dreams to those who despised them, etc. Tibullus shows by
his line:
Ne tibi
neglecti mittant insomnia manes. (Eleg., I, II.)
"Pagans
thought that the lower Souls were transformed after death into diabolical
aerial spirits." (Leloyer, p. 22.)
The term
Eteroprosopos when divided into its several compound words will yield a whole
sentence, "an other than I under the features of my person."
It is to this
terrestrial principle, the eidolon, the larva, the bhoot--call it by whatever
name--that reincarnation was refused in Isis.14
The doctrines
of Theosophy are simply the faithful echoes of Antiquity. Man is a Unity only
at his origin and at his end. All the Spirits, all the Souls, gods and demons
emanate from and have for their root-principle the SOUL OF THE UNIVERSE--says
Porphyry (De Sacrifice). Not a philosopher of any notoriety who did not believe
(1) in reincarnation (metempsychosis), (2) in the plurality of principles in
man, or that man had two Souls of separate and quite different natures; one
perishable, the Astral Soul, the other incorruptible and immortal; and (3) that
the former was not the man whom it represented--"neither his spirit nor
his body, but his reflection at best." This was taught by Brahmins,
Buddhists, Hebrews, Greeks, Egyptians and Chaldeans; by the post-diluvian heirs
of the prediluvian Wisdom, by Pythagoras and Socrates, Clemens Alexandrinus,
Synesius, and Origen, the oldest Greek poets as much as the Gnostics, whom
Gibbon shows as the most refined, learned and enlightened men of all ages (See
"Decline and Fall," etc.). But the rabble was the same in every age:
superstitious self-opinionated, materializing every most spiritual and noble
idealistic conception and dragging it down to its own low level, and--ever
adverse to philosophy.
But all this
does not interfere with that fact, that our "fifth Race" man,
analyzed esoterically as a septenary creature, was ever exoterically recognized
as mundane, sub-mundane, terrestrial and supra mundane, Ovid graphically
describing him as—
Bis duo sunt
hominis;
manes, caro,
spiritus, umbra
Quatuor ista
loca bis duo suscipiunt.
Terra tegit
carnem, tumulum circumvolat umbra,
Orcus habet
manes, spiritus estra petit.
Ostende, Oct.,
1886.
Path,
November, 1886
l See charge
and answer, in Theosophist, August, 1882.
2The cycle of
existence during the manvantara--period before and after the beginning and
completion of which every such "monad" is absorbed and reabsorbed in
the ONE soul, anima mundi.
3 Hades has
surely never been meant for Hell It was always the abode of the sorrowing
shadows of astral bodies of the dead personalities. Western readers should
remember Kama-loka is not Karma-loka, for
does not.
4 Had this
word "immediate" been put at the time of publishing
5 By
"sphere above," of course "Devachan" was meant.
6 The reader
must bear in mind that the esoteric teaching maintains that save in cases of
wickedness when man's nature attains the acme of Evil, and human terrestrial sin
reaches Satanic universal character, so to say as some Sorcerers do there is no
punishment hr the majority of mankind after death. The law of retribution as
Karma awaits man at the threshold of his new incarnation. Mall is at best a
wretched tool of evil, unceasingly forming new causes and circumstances. He is
not always (if ever) responsible. Hence a period of rest and bliss in Devachan,
with an utter temporary oblivion of all the miseries and sorrows of life.
Avitchi is a spiritual state of the greatest misery and is only in store for
those who have devoted consciously their lives to doing injury to others and
have thus reached its highest spirituality of EVIL.
* The
following "Important Correction," by Mme. Blavatsky, and editorial
note by Mr. Judge, appeared in the Path for January, 1887.
TO ALL THE
READERS OF THE PATH:
In the
November number of Path in my article "Theories about Reincarnation and
Spirits," the entire batch of elaborate arguments is upset and made to
fall flat owing to the mistake of either copyist or printer. On page 235, the
last paragraph is made to begin with these words: "Therefore the
reincarnating principles are left behind in Kama-loka, etc.," whereas it
ought to read "Therefore the NON-reincarnating principles (the false personality)
are left behind in Kama-loka, etc.," a statement fully corroborated by
what follows, since it is stated that those principles fade out and disappear.
There seems to
be some fatality attending this question. The spiritualists will not fail to see
in it the guiding hand of their dear departed ones from "Summerland",
and I am inclined to share that belief with them in so far that there must be
some mischievous spook between me and the printing of my articles, Unless
immediately corrected and attention drawn to it, this error is one which is
sure to be quoted some day against me and called a contradiction.
Yours truly,
H. P.BLAVATSKY
NOTE.--The MS.
for the article referred to was written out by some one for Mme. Blavatsky and
forwarded to us as it was printed, and it is quite evident that the error was
the copyist's, and not ours nor Madame's; besides that, the remainder of the
paragraph clearly shows a mistake. We did not feel justified in making such an
important change on our own responsibility, but are now glad to have the author
do it herself. Other minor errors probably also can be found in consequence of
the peculiar writing of the amanuensis, but they are very trivial in their
nature.--[ED. Path]
7 Says
Apuleius: "The soul is born in this world upon leaving the soul of the
world (anima mundi) in which her existence precedes the one we all know (on
earth). Thus, the Gods who consider her proceedings in all the phases of
various existences and as a whole, punish her sometimes for sins committed
during an anterior life. She dies when she separates herself from a body in
which she crossed this life as in a frail bark. And this is, if I mistake not,
the secret meaning of the tumulary inscription, so simple for the initiate:
"To the Gods manes who lived." But this kind of death does not
annihilate the soul, it only transforms (one portion of it) it into a lemure.
"Lemures" are the manes. or ghosts, which we know under the name
lares.
When they keep
away and shows a beneficent protection, we honour in them the protecting
divinities of the family hearth; but if their crimes sentence them to err, we
call them 1arvæ. They become a plague for the wicked, and the vain terror of
the good." ("Du Dieu de Socrate" Apul. class, pp. 143-145.)
8 "The
cause of reincarnation is ignorance"--therefore there is
"reincarnation"
once the
writer explained the causes of it.
9 A proof of
how our theosophical teachings have taken root in every class of Society and
even in English literature may be seen by reading Mr. Norman Pearson's article
"Before Birth" in the Nineteenth Century for August, 1886.
Therein,
theosophical ideas and teachings are speculated upon without acknowledgement or
the smallest reference to theosophy, and among others, we see with regard to
the author's theories on the Ego the following: "How much of the
individual personality is supposed to go to heaven or hell? Does the whole of
the mental equipment, good and bad, noble qualities and unholy passions, follow
the soul to its hereafter? Surely not. But if not, and something has to be
stripped off, how and when are we to draw the line? If, on the other hand, the
Soul is something distinct from all our mental equipment, except the sense of
self, are we not confronted by the incomprehensible notion of a personality
without any attributes?"
To this query
the author answers as any true theosophist would: "The difficulties of the
question ready spring from a misconception of the true nature of these
attributes. The components of our mental equipment--appetites, aversions,
feelings, tastes and qualities generally--are not absolute but relative
existences. Hunger and thirst for instance are states of consciousness which
arise in response to the stimuli of physical necessities. They are not inherent
elements of the soul and will disappear or become modified, etc." (pp. 356
and 357). In other words, the theosophical doctrine is adopted, Atma and Buddhi
having culled off the Manas the aroma of the personality or human soul--go into
Devachan; while the lower principles, the astral simulacrum or false
personality void of its Divine monad or spirit, will remain in the
Kamaloka--the "Summerland."
10 Nirmanakaya
is the name given to the astral forms (in their completeness) of adepts, who
have progressed too high on the path of knowledge and absolute truth, to go
into the state of Devachan: and have, on the other hand, deliberately refused
the bliss of nirvana, in order to help Humanity by invisibly guiding and
helping on the same path of progress elect men. But these astrals are not empty
shells, but complete monads made up of the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th
principles. There is another order of nirmanakaya, however, of
which much
will be said in the Secret Doctrine.--H.P.B.
11 Placing
these parallel with the division in esoteric teaching we see that (1)
Osiris is
Atma; (2) Sa is Buddhi; (3) Akh is Manas; (4) Khou is Kama-rupa, the
seat of
terrestrial desires; (5) Khaba is Lingha Sarira; (6) Kha is Pranatma
(vital
principle); (7) Sah is mummy or body.
12 Because
they drove the enemies away.
13 From
manus--"good," an antiphrasis, as Festus explains.
14 Page 12,
Vol. 1, of
the very
beginning, as forming part and parcel of universal beliefs.
"Metempsychosis"
(or transmigration of souls) and reincarnation being after all
the same
thing.
___________________
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