GOD DOES NOT EXIST (Subba Row explanation)

Subba Row was a very learned Brahmin and in this article he makes a dissertation, based on Hindu esoteric teachings, to explain the reasons why there is no God professed by Western religions.

 

 

PERSONAL AND IMPERSONAL GOD

 

At the outset I shall request my readers (such of them at least as are not acquainted with the Cosmological theories of the Idealistic thinkers of Europe) to examine John Stuart Mill’s Cosmological speculations as contained in his examination of Sir William Hamilton’s philosophy, before attempting to understand the Adwaita doctrine; and I beg to inform them beforehand that in explaining the main principles of the said doctrine, I am going to use, as far as it is convenient to do so, the phraseology adopted by English psychologists of the Idealistic school of thought.

 

In dealing with the phenomena of our present plane of existence John Stuart Mill ultimately came to the conclusion that matter, or the so- called external phenomena, are but the creation of our mind; they are the mere appearances of a particular phase of our subjective self, and of our thoughts, volitions, sensations and emotions which in their totality constitute the basis of that Ego. Matter then is the permanent possibility of sensations, and the so-called Laws of matter are, properly speaking, the Laws which govern the succession and coexistence of our states of consciousness. Mill further holds that properly speaking there is no noumenal Ego. The very idea of a mind existing separately as an entity, distinct from the states of consciousness which are supposed to inhere in it, is in his opinion illusory, as the idea of an external object, which is supposed to be perceived by our senses.

 

Thus the ideas of mind and matter, of subject and object, of the Ego and external world, are really evolved from the aggregation of our mental states which are the only realities so far as we are concerned.

 

The chain of our mental states or states of consciousness is “a double-headed monster”, according to Professor Bain, which has two distinct aspects, one objective and the other subjective. Mr. Mill has paused here, confessing that psychological analysis did not go any further; the mysterious link which connects together the train of our states of consciousness and gives rise to our Ahankaram (Ego) in this condition of existence, still remains an incomprehensible mystery to Western psychologists, though its existence is but dimly perceived in the subjective phenomena of memory and expectation.

 

On the other hand, the great physicists of Europe are gradually coming to the conclusion [see Tyndall’s Belfast Address] that mind is the product of matter, or that it is one of the attributes of matter in some of its conditions. It would appear, therefore, from the speculations of Western psychologists that matter is evolved from mind and that mind is evolved from matter.

 

These two propositions are apparently irreconcilable. Mill and Tyndall have admitted that Western science is yet unable to go deeper into the question. Nor is it likely to solve the mystery hereafter, unless it calls Eastern occult science to its aid and takes a more comprehensive view of the capabilities of the real subjective self of man and the various aspects of the great objective universe.

 

The great Adwaitee philosophers of ancient Aryavarta have examined the relationship between subject and object in every condition of existence in this solar system in which this differentiation is presented. Just as a human being is composed of seven principles, differentiated matter in the solar system exists in seven different conditions. These different states of matter do not all come within the range of our present objective consciousness. But they can be objectively perceived by the spiritual Ego in man.

 

To the liberated spiritual monad of man, or to the Dhyan-Chohans, every thing that is material in every condition of matter is an object of perception. Further, Pragna or the capacity of perception exists in seven different aspects corresponding to the seven conditions of matter. Strictly speaking, there are but six states of matter, the so-called seventh state being the aspect of cosmic matter in its original undifferentiated condition. Similarly there are six states of differentiated Pragna, the seventh state being a condition of perfect unconsciousness. By differentiated Pragna, I mean the condition in which Pragna is split up into various states of consciousness.

 

Thus we have six states of consciousness, either objective or subjective for the time being, as the case may be, and a perfect state of unconsciousness, which is the beginning and the end of all conceivable states of consciousness, corresponding to the states of differentiated matter and its original undifferentiated basis which is the beginning and the end of all cosmic evolutions. It will be easily seen that the existence of consciousness is necessary for the differentiation between subject and object.

 

Hence these two phases are presented in six different conditions, and in the last state there being no consciousness as above stated, the differentiation is question ceases to exist. The number of these various conditions is different in different systems of philosophy. But whatever may be the number of divisions, they all lie between perfect unconsciousness at one end of the line and our present state of consciousness or Bahirpragna at the other end.

 

To understand the real nature of these different states of consciousness, I shall request my readers to compare the consciousness of ordinary man with the consciousness of the astral man, and again compare the latter with the consciousness of the spiritual Ego in man.

 

In these three conditions the objective universe is not the same. But the difference between the Ego and the non-Ego is common to all these conditions. Consequently, admitting the correctness of Mill’s reasoning as regards the subject and object of our present plane of consciousness, the great Adwaitee thinkers of India have extended the same reasoning to other states of consciousness, and came to the conclusion that the various conditions of the Ego and the non-Ego were but the appearances of one and the same entity – the ultimate state of unconsciousness.

 

This entity is neither matter nor spirit; it is neither Ego nor non-Ego; and it is neither object nor subject. In the language of Hindu philosophers it is the original and eternal combination of Purusha and Prakriti. As the Adwaitees hold that an external object is merely the product of our mental states, Prakriti is nothing more than illusion, and Purush is the only reality; it is the one existence which remains eternal in this universe of Ideas. This entity then is the Parabrahmam of the Adwaitees.

 

Even if there were to be a personal God with anything like a material Upadhi (physical basis of whatever form), from the standpoint of an Adwaitee there will be as much reason to doubt his noumenal existence as there would be in the case of any other object. 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 states of consciousness in the universe is their deity, as these states are constantly changing and as cosmic idealism ceases during Pralaya. There is only one permanent condition in the universe which is the state of perfect unconsciousness, bare Chidakasam (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 Parabrahmam by the Adwaitees.

 

The idea of a God, Deity, Iswar, or an impersonal God (if consciousness is one of his attributes) involves the idea of Ego or non-Ego in some shape or other, and as every conceivable Ego or non-Ego is evolved from this primitive element (I use this word for want of a better one) the existence of an extra-cosmic god possessing such attributes prior to this condition is absolutely inconceivable.

 

Though I have been speaking of this element as the condition of unconsciousness, it is, properly speaking, the Chidakasam or Chinmatra of the Hindu philosophers which contains within itself the potentiality of every condition of “Pragna,” and which results as consciousness on the one hand and the objective universe on the other, by the operation of its latent Chichakti (the power which generates thought).

 

 

Before proceeding to discuss the nature of Parabrahmam. It is to be stated that in the opinion of Adwaitees, the Upanishads and the Brahmasutras fully support their views on the subject. It is distinctly affirmed in the Upanishads that Parabrahmam, which is but the bare potentiality of Pragna, [The power or the capacity that gives rise to perception] – is not an aspect of Pragna or Ego in any shape, and that it has neither life nor consciousness.

 

The reader will be able to ascertain that such is really the case on examining the Mundaka and Mandukya Upanishads. The language used here and there in the Upanishads is apt to mislead one into the belief that such language points to the existence of a conscious Iswar. But the necessity for such language will perhaps be rendered clear from the following considerations.

 

From a close examination of Mill’s cosmological theory the difficulty will be clearly seen referred to above, of satisfactorily accounting for the generation of conscious states in any human being from the stand- point of the said theory. It is generally stated that sensations arise in us from the action of external objects around us: they are the effects of impressions made on our senses by the objective world in which we exist. This is simple enough to the ordinary mind, however difficult it may be to account for the transformation of a cerebral nerve-current into a state of consciousness.

 

But from the standpoint of Mill’s theory we have no proof of the existence of any external object; even the objective existence of our own senses is not a matter of certainty to us. How, then, are we to account for and explain the origin of our mental states, if they are the only entities existing in this world?

 

No explanation is really given by saying that one mental state gives rise to another mental state, to a certain extent at all events, under the operation of the so-called psychological “Laws of Association”. Western psychology honestly admits that its analysis has not gone any further. It may be inferred, however, from the said theory that there would be no reason for saying that a material Upadhi (basis) is necessary for the existence of mind or states of consciousness.

 

As is already indicated, the Aryan psychologists have traced this current of mental states to its source – the eternal Chinmatra existing everywhere. When the time for evolution comes this germ of Pragna unfolds itself and results ultimately as Cosmic Ideation. Cosmic ideas are the conceptions of all the conditions of existence in the Cosmos existing in what may be called the universal mind (the demiurgic mind of the Western Kabalists).

 

This Chinmatra exists as it were at every geometrical point of the infinite Chidakasam. This principle then has two general aspects.

 

1)   Considered as something objective it is the eternal Asath – Mulaprakriti or Undifferentiated Cosmic matter.

2)   From a subjective point of view it may be looked upon in two ways. It is Chidakasam when considered as the field of Cosmic ideation; and it is Chinmatra when considered as the germ of Cosmic ideation.

 

These three aspects constitute the highest Trinity of the Aryan Adwaitee philosophers. It will be readily seen that the last-mentioned aspect of the principle in question is far more important to us than the other two aspects; for, when looked upon in this aspect the principle under consideration seems to embody within itself the great Law of Cosmic Evolution. And therefore the Adwaitee philosophers have chiefly considered it in this light, and explained their cosmogony from a subjective point of view. In doing so, however, they cannot avoid the necessity of speaking of a universal mind (and this is Brahma, the Creator) and its ideation.

 

But it ought not to be inferred there from that this universal mind necessarily belongs to an Omnipresent living conscious Creator, simply because in ordinary parlance a mind is always spoken of in connection with a particular living being. It cannot be contended that a material Upadhi is indispensable for the existence of mind or mental states when the objective universe itself is, so far as we are concerned, the result of our states of consciousness.

 

Expressions implying the existence of a conscious Iswar which are to be found here and there in the Upanishads should not therefore be literally construed.

 

 

It now remains to be seen how Adwaitees account for the origin of mental states in a particular individual. Apparently the mind of a particular human being is not the universal mind. Nevertheless Cosmic ideation is the real source of the states of consciousness in every individual. Cosmic ideation exists everywhere; but when placed under restrictions by a material Upadhi it results as the consciousness of the individual inhering in such Upadhi.

 

Strictly speaking, an Adwaitee will not admit the objective existence of this material Upadhi. From his stand-point it is Maya or illusion which exists as a necessary condition of Pragna. But to avoid confusion, I shall use the ordinary language; and to enable my readers to grasp my meaning clearly the following simile may be adopted.

 

Suppose a bright light is placed in the centre with a curtain around it. The nature of the light that penetrates through the curtain and becomes visible to a person standing outside depends upon the nature of the curtain. If several such curtains are thus successively placed around the light, it will have to penetrate through all of them; and a person standing outside will only perceive as much light as is not intercepted by all the curtains. The central light becomes dimmer and dimmer as curtain after curtain is placed before the observer; and as curtain after curtain is removed the light becomes brighter and brighter until it reaches its natural brilliancy.

 

Similarly, universal mind or Cosmic ideation becomes more and more limited and modified by the various Upadhis of which a human being is composed; and when the action or influence of these various Upadhis is successively controlled, the mind of the individual human being is placed en rapport with the universal mind and his ideation is lost in Cosmic ideation.

 

As I have already said, these Upadhis are strictly speaking the conditions of the gradual development or evolution of Bahipragna –or consciousness in the present plane of our existence– from the original and eternal Chinmatra which is the seventh principle in man, and the Parabrahmam of the Adwaitees.

 

This then is the purport of the Adwaitee philosophy on the subject under consideration, and it is, in my humble opinion, in harmony with the Arhat doctrine relating to the same subject. The latter doctrine postulates the existence of Cosmic matter in an undifferentiated condition throughout the infinite expanse of space. Space and time are but its aspects, and Purush, the seventh principle of the universe, has its latent life in this ocean of Cosmic matter. The doctrine in question explains Cosmogony from an objective point of view.

 

When the period of activity arrives, portions of the whole differentiate according to the latent law. When this differentiation has commenced, the concealed wisdom or latent Chichakti acts in the universal mind, and Cosmic energy or Fohat forms the manifested universe in accordance with the conceptions generated in the universal mind out of the differentiated principles of Cosmic matter.

 

This manifested universe constitutes a solar system. When the period of Pralaya comes, the process of differentiation stops and Cosmic ideation ceases to exist; and at the time of Brahmapralaya or Mahapralaya the particles of matter lose all differentiation, and the matter that exists in the solar system returns to its original undifferentiated condition. The latent design exists in the one unborn eternal atom, the centre which exists everywhere and nowhere; and this is the one life that exists everywhere.

 

Now, it will be easily seen that the undifferentiated Cosmic matter, Purush, and the ONE LIFE of the Arhat philosophers, are the Mulaprakriti, Chidakasam and Chinmatra of the Adwaitee philosophers.

 

As regards Cosmogony, the Arhat stand-point is objective, and the Adwaitee stand-point is subjective. The Arhat Cosmogony accounts for evolution of the manifested solar system from undifferentiated Cosmic matter, and Adwaitee Cosmogony accounts for the evolution of Bahipragna from the original Chinmatra. As the different conditions of differentiated Cosmic matter are but the different aspects of the various conditions of Pragna, the Adwaitee Cosmogony is but the complement of the Arhat Cosmogony. The eternal principle is precisely the same in both the systems, and they agree in denying the existence of an extra-Cosmic God.

 

The Arhats call themselves Atheists, and they are justified in doing so if theism inculcates the existence of a conscious God governing the universe by his will-power. Under such circumstance the Adwaitee will come under the same denomination. Atheism and theism are words of doubtful import, and until their meaning is definitely ascertained it would be better not to use them in connection with any system of philosophy.

 

 

(Five years of Theosophy, p.198-209; first published in Theosophist, February 1883, p,104-5 and March 1883, p.138-9)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE SEPTENARY STRUCTURE IN HINDUISM

By Blavatsky

 

 

THE SEPTENARY PRINCIPLE IN ESOTERICISM

 

Since the exposition of the Arhat esoteric doctrine was begun, many who had not acquainted themselves with the occult basis of Hindu philosophy have imagined that the two were in conflict. Some of the more bigoted have openly charged the Occultists of the Theosophical Society with propagating rank Buddhistic heresy; and have even gone to the length of affirming that the whole Theosophic movement was but a masked Buddhistic propaganda.

 

We were taunted by ignorant Brahmins and learned Europeans that our septenary divisions of Nature and everything in it, including man, are arbitrary and not endorsed by the oldest religious systems of the East. It is now proposed to throw a cursory glance at the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Law-Books of Manu, and especially the Vedanta, and show that they too support our position.

 

Even in their crude exotericism their affirmation of the sevenfold division is apparent. Passage after passage may be cited in proof. And not only can the mysterious number be found traced on every page of the oldest Aryan Sacred Scriptures, but in the oldest books of Zoroastrianism as well; in the rescued cylindrical tile records of old Babylonia and Chaldea, in the “Book of the Dead” and the Ritualism of ancient Egypt, and even in the Mosaic books — without mentioning the secret Jewish works, such as the Kabala.

 

The limited space at command forces us to allow a few brief quotations to stand as landmarks and not even attempt long explanations. It is no exaggeration to say that upon each of the few hints now given in the cited Slokas a thick volume might be written.

 

From the well-known hymn To Time, in the Atharva-Veda (xix. 53):

 

« Time, like a brilliant steed with seven rays,
Full of fecundity, bears all things onward.
. . . . . . .
Time, like a seven-wheeled, seven-naved car moves on,
His rolling wheels are all the worlds, his axle
Is immortality . . .»

 

 

 

The Manus

 

(Note: for a better understanding of what follows you need to know the doctrine of the rounds and the root races.)

 

— down to Manu, “the first and the seventh man,” the Vedas, the Upanishads, and all the later systems of philosophy teem with allusions to this number. Who was Manu, the son of Swayambhuva?

 

The secret doctrine tells us that this Manu was no man, but the representation of the first human races evolved with the help of the Dhyan-Chohans (Devas) at the beginning of the first Round. But we are told in his Laws (Book 1. 80) that there are fourteen Manus for every Kalpa or “interval from creation to creation” (read interval from one minor “Pralaya” to another) and that “in the present divine age there have been as yet seven Manus.”

 

Those who know that there are seven Rounds, of which we have passed three, and are now in the fourth; and who are taught that there are seven dawns and seven twilights, or fourteen Manvantaras; that at the beginning of every Round and at the end, and on and between the planets, there is “an awakening to illusive life,” and “an awakening to real life,” and that, moreover, there are “root-Manus,” and what we have to clumsily translate as the “seed-Manus” — the seeds for the human races of the forthcoming Round (a mystery divulged but to those who have passed the 3rd degree in initiation); those who have learned all that, will be better prepared to understand the meaning of the following. We are told in the Sacred Hindu Scriptures that “the first Manu produced six other Manus (seven primary Manus in all), and these produced in their turn each seven other Manus” (Bhrigu 1. 61-63) ⁽¹⁾, the production of the latter standing in the occult treatises as 7x7.

 

Thus it becomes clear that Manu —the last one, the progenitor of our Fourth Round Humanity— must be the seventh, since we are on our fourth Round, and that there is a root-Manu on globe A and a seed-Manu on globe G. Just as each planetary Round commences with the appearance of a “Root-Manu” (Dhyan-Chohan) and closes with a “Seed-Manu,” so a root- and a seed-Manu appear respectively at the beginning and the termination of the human period on any particular planet. It will be easily seen from the foregoing statement that a Manu-antaric period means, as the term implies, the time between the appearance of two Manus or Dhyan-Chohans: and hence a minor Manu-antara is the duration of the seven races on any particular planet, and a major Manu-antara is the period of one human round along the planetary chain.

 

Moreover, that, as it is said that each of the seven Manus creates 7x7 Manus, and that there are 49 root-races on the seven planets during each Round, then every root-race has its Manu.

 

The present seventh Manu is called “Vaivasvata,” and stands in the exoteric texts for that Manu who represents in India the Babylonian Xisusthrus and the Jewish Noah. But in the esoteric books we are told that Manu Vaivasvata, the progenitor of our fifth race —who saved it from the flood that nearly exterminated the fourth (Atlantean)— is not the seventh Manu, mentioned in the nomenclature of the Root, or primitive Manus, but one of the 49 “emanated from this ‘root’-Manu.”

 

For clearer comprehension we here give the names of the 14 Manus in their respective order and relation to each Round:

 

1st Round.

1st (Root) Manu on Planet A.—Swayambhuva.

1st (Seed) Manu on Planet G.—Swarochi (or) Swarotisha.

2nd Round.

2nd (Root) Manu on Planet A.—Uttama.

2nd (Seed) Manu on Planet G.—Thamasa.

3rd Round.

3rd (Root) Manu on Planet A.—Raivata.

3rd (Seed) Manu on Planet G.—Chackchuska.

4th Round.

4th (Root) Manu on Planet A.—Vaivasvata (our progenitor).

4th (Seed) Manu on Planet G.—Savarni.

5th Round.

5th (Root) Manu on Planet A.—Daksha Savarni.

5th (Seed) Manu on Planet G.—Brahma Savarni.

6th Round.

6th (Root) Manu on Planet A.—Dharma Savarni.

6th (Seed) Manu on Planet G.—Rudra Savarni.

7th Round.

7th (Root) Manu on Planet A.—Rouchya.

7th (Seed) Manu on Planet G.—Bhoutya.

 

Vaivasvata thus, though seventh in the order given, is the primitive Root-Mann of our fourth Human Wave [the reader must always remember that Manu is not a man but collective humanity], while our Vaivasvata was but one of the seven Minor Manus who are made to preside over the seven races of this our planet.

 

Each of these has to become the witness of one of the periodical and ever-recurring cataclysms (by fire and water in turn) that close the cycle of every root-race. And it is this Vaivasvata—the Hindu ideal embodiment called respectively Xisusthrus, Deukalion, Noah, and by other names—who is the allegorical man who rescued our race when nearly the whole population of one hemisphere perished by water, while the other hemisphere was awakening from its temporary obscuration.

 

 

 

The Deluge

 

The number seven stands prominently conspicuous in even a cursory comparison of the 11th Tablet of the Izdhubar Legends of the Chaldean account of the Deluge and the so-called Mosaic books. In both the number seven plays a most prominent part. The clean beasts are taken by sevens, the fowls by sevens also; in seven days, it is promised Noah, to rain upon the earth; thus he stays “yet other seven days,” and again seven days; while in the Chaldean account of the Deluge, on the seventh day the rain abated. On the seventh day the dove is sent out; by sevens, Xisusthrus takes “jugs of wine” for the altar, etc.

 

Why such coincidence?

 

And yet we are told by, and bound to believe in, the European Orientalists, when passing judgment alike upon the Babylonian and Aryan chronology they call them “extravagant and fanciful!” Nevertheless, while they give us no explanation of, nor have they ever noticed, as far as we know, the strange identity in the totals of the Semitic, Chaldean, and Aryan Hindu chronology, the students of Occult Philosophy find the following fact extremely suggestive.

 

While the period of the reign of the 10 Babylonian antediluvian kings is given as 432,000 years ⁽²⁾, the duration of the postdiluvian Kali-yug is also given as 432,000, while the four ages or the divine Maha-yug, yield in their totality 4,320,000 years.

 

Why should they, if fanciful and “extravagant,” give the identical figures, when neither the Aryans nor the Babylonians have surely borrowed anything from each other! We invite the attention of our occultists to the three figures given — 4 standing for the perfect square, 3 for the triad (the seven universal and the seven individual principles), and 2 the symbol of our illusionary world, a figure ignored and rejected by Pythagoras.

 

 

 

The sevenfold composition of the macrocosm and man

 

It is in the Upanishads and the Vedanta though, that we have to look for the best corroborations of the occult teachings. In the mystical doctrine the Rahasya, or the Upanishads — “the only Veda of all thoughtful Hindus in the present day,” as Monier Williams is made to confess, every word, as its very name implies ⁽³⁾, has a secret meaning underlying it. This meaning can be fully realized only by him who has a full knowledge of Prána, the ONE LIFE, “the nave to which are attached the seven spokes of the Universal Wheel.” (Hymn to Prána, Atharva-Veda, XI. 4.)

 

Even European Orientalists agree that all the systems in India assign to the human body: (a) an exterior or gross body (sthula-sarira); (b) an inner or shadowy body (sukshma), or linga-sarira (the vehicle), the two cemented with — (c), life (jiv or Karana sarira, “causal body”). ⁽⁴⁾

 

These the occult system or esotericism divides into seven, farther adding to these — kama, manas, buddhi and atman.

 

The Nyaya philosophy when treating of Prameyas (by which the objects and subjects of Praman are to be correctly understood) includes among the 12 the seven “root principles.” (see IXth Sutra), which are:

 

1, soul (atman), and 2, its superior spirit Jivatman; 3, body (sarira); 4, senses (indriya); 5, activity or will (pravritti); 6, mind (manas); 7, Intellection (Buddhi).

 

The seven Padarthas (inquiries or predicates of existing things) of Kanada in the Vaiseshikas, refer in the occult doctrine to the seven qualities or attributes of the seven principles.

 

Thus: 1, substance (dravya) refers to body or sthula-sarira, 2, quality or property (guna) to the life principle, jiv; 3, action or act (karman) to the Linga, sarira; 4, Community or commingling of properties (Samanya) to Kamarupa; 5, personality or conscious individuality (Visesha) to Manas; 6, co-inherence or perpetual intimate relation (Samuvuya) to Buddhi, the inseparable vehicle of Atman; 7, non-existence or non-being in the sense of, and as separate from, objectivity or substance (abhava) — to the highest monad or Atman.

 

Thus, whether we view the ONE as the Vedic Purusha or Brahman (neuter) the “all-expanding essence;” or as the universal spirit, the “light of lights” (jyotisham jyotih) the TOTAL independent of all relation, of the Upanishads; or as the Paramatman of the Vedanta; or again as Kanada’s Adrishta, “the unseen Force,” or divine atom; or as Prakriti, the “eternally existing essence,” of Kapila — we find in all these impersonal universal Principles the latent capability of evolving out of themselves “six rays” (the evolver being the seventh).

 

The third aphorism of the Sankhya-Karika, which says of Prakriti that it is the “root and substance of all things,” and no production, but itself a producer of “seven things, which produced by it, become also producers,” has a purely occult meaning.

 

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 6th macrocosmic or microcosmic principle. This first produced produces in its turn (or is the source of) Ahankara, “self- consciousness” and manas “mind.”

 

The reader will please always remember that the Mahat or great source of these two internal faculties, “Buddhi” per se, can have neither self-consciousness nor mind; viz., the 6th 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 “Ego-ism,” belongs to the second, or rather the third, production out of the seven, viz., to the 5th 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 Mahabhutas or the gross elementary principles, or rather sarira and rupas, are evolved — the kama, linga, jiva and sthula-sarira.

 

The three gunas of “Prakriti” —the Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas (purity, passionate activity, and ignorance or darkness)— spun into a triple-stranded cord or “rope,” pass through the seven, or rather six, human principles.

 

It depends on the 5th —Manas or Ahankara, the “I”— to thin the guna, “rope,” into one thread — the sattwa; and thus by becoming one with the “unevolved evolver,” win immortality or eternal conscious existence. Otherwise it will be again resolved into its Mahabhautic essence; so long as the triple-stranded rope is left unstranded, the spirit (the divine monad) is bound by the presence of the gunas in the principles “like an animal” (purusha pasu).

 

The spirit, âtman or jivatman (the 7th and 6th principles), whether of the macro or microcosm, though bound by these gunas during the objective manifestation of universe or man, is yet nirguna — i.e., entirely free from them. Out of the three producers or evolvers, Prakriti, Buddhi and Ahankara, it is but the latter that can be caught (when man is concerned) and destroyed when personal.

 

The “divine monad” is aguna (devoid of qualities), while Prakriti, once that from passive Mula-prakriti it has become avyakta (an active evolver) is gunavat — endowed with qualities. With the latter, Purusha or Atman can have nought to do (of course being unable to perceive it in its gunavatic state); with the former —or Mula-prakriti or undifferentiated cosmic essence— it has, since it is one with it and identical.

 

 

The Atma Bodha, or “knowledge of soul,” a tract written by the great Sankaracharya, speaks distinctly of the seven principles in man (see 14th verse). They are called therein the five sheaths (panchakosa) in which is enclosed the divine monad—the Atman, and Buddhi, the 7th and 6th principles, or the individuated soul when made distinct (through avidya, maya and the gunas) from the supreme soul — Parabrahm.

 

The 1st sheath, called Ananda-maya —the “illusion of supreme bliss”— is the manas or fifth principle of the occultists, when united with Buddhi; the 2nd sheath is Vjnana-maya-kosa, the case or “envelope of self-delusion,” the manas when self-deluded into the belief of the personal “I,” or ego, with its vehicle. The 3rd, the Mano-maya sheath, composed of “illusionary mind” associated with the organs of action and will, is the Kamarupa and Linga-sarira combined, producing an illusive “I” or Mayavi-rupa. The 4th sheath is called Prana-maya, illusionary life,” our second life principle or jiv, wherein resides life, the “breathing” sheath. The 5th kosa is called Anna-maya, or the sheath supported by food—our gross material body.

 

All these sheaths produce other smaller sheaths, or six attributes or qualities each, the seventh being always the root sheath; and the Atman or spirit passing through all these subtle ethereal bodies like a thread, is called the “thread-soul” or sutratman.

 

 

~ * ~

 

We may conclude with the above demonstration. Verily the Esoteric doctrine may well be called in its turn the “thread-doctrine,” since, like Sutratman or Pranatman, it passes through and strings together all the ancient philosophical religious systems, and, what is more, reconciles and explains them. For though seeming so unlike externally, they have but one foundation, and of that the extent, depth, breadth and nature are known to those who have become, like the “Wise Men of the East,” adepts in Occult Science.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NOTES

 

1. The fact that Manu himself is made to declare that he was created by Viraj and then produced the ten Prajapatis, who again produced seven Manus, who in their turn gave birth to seven other Manus (Manu, 1. 33-36), relates to other still earlier mysteries, and is at the same time a blind with regard to the doctrine of the Septenary chain.

 

2. See “Babylonia,” by George Smith, p. 36. Here again, as with the Manus and 10 Prajapatis and the 10 Sephiroths in the Book of Numbers — they dwindle down to seven!

 

3. Upa-ni-shad means, according to Brahminical authority, “to conquer ignorance by revealing the secret spiritual knowledge.” According to Monier Williams, the title is derived from the root sad with the prepositions upa and ni, and implies “something mystical that underlies or is beneath the surface.”

 

4. This Karana-sarira is often mistaken by the uninitiated for Linga-sarira, and since it is described as the inner rudimentary or latent embryo of the body, confounded with it. But the Occultists regard it as the life (body) or Jiv, which disappears at death is withdrawn — leaving the 1st and 3rd principles to disintegrate and return to their elements.

 

 

(The Theosophist, July 1883, p.253-256)