The
evolution
How man has come to be the complex being that he is and why, are
questions that neither Science nor Religion makes conclusive answer to. This
immortal thinker having such vast powers and possibilities, all his because of
his intimate connection with every secret part of Nature from which he has been
built up, stands at the top of an immense and silent evolution.
He asks why Nature exists, what the drama of life has for its aim, how
that aim may be attained. But Science and Religion both fail to give a reasonable
reply. Science does not pretend to be able to give the solution, saying that
the examination of things as they are is enough of a task; religion offers an
explanation both illogical and unmeaning and acceptable but to the bigot, as it
requires us to consider the whole of Nature as a mystery and to seek for the
meaning and purpose of life with all its sorrow in the pleasure of a God who
cannot be found out. The educated and enquiring mind knows that dogmatic
religion can only give an answer invented by man while it pretends to be from
God.
What then is the universe for, and
for what final purpose is man the immortal thinker here in evolution?
It is all for the experience and emancipation of the soul, for the
purpose of raising the entire mass of manifested matter up to the stature,
nature, and dignity of conscious god-hood. The great aim is to reach
self-consciousness; not through a race or a tribe or some favored nation, but
by and through the perfecting, after transformation, of the whole mass of
matter as well as what we now call soul.
Nothing is or is to be left out. The aim for present man is his initiation
into complete knowledge, and for the other kingdoms below him that they may be
raised up gradually from stage to stage to be in time initiated also. This is
evolution carried to its highest power; it is a magnificent prospect; it makes
of man a god, and gives to every part of nature the possibility of being one
day the same; there is strength and nobility in it, for by this no man is
dwarfed and belittled, for no one is so originally sinful that he cannot rise
above all sin.
Treated from the materialistic position of Science, evolution takes in
but half of life; while the religious conception of it is a mixture of nonsense
and fear. Present religions keep the element of fear, and at the same time
imagine that an Almighty being can think of no other earth but this and has to
govern this one very imperfectly. But the old theosophical view makes the
universe a vast, complete, and perfect whole.
Now the moment we postulate a double evolution, physical and spiritual,
we have at the same time to admit that it can only be carried on by
reincarnation. This is, in fact, demonstrated by science. It is shown that the
matter of the earth and of all things physical upon it was at one time either
gaseous or molten; that it cooled; that it altered; that from its alterations
and evolutions at last were produced all the great variety of things and
beings.
This, on the physical plane, is transformation or change from one form
to another. The total mass of matter is about the same as in the beginning of
this globe, with a very minute allowance for some star dust. Hence it must have
been changed over and over again, and thus been physically reformed and
reimbodied. Of course, to be strictly accurate, we cannot use the word
reincarnation, because "incarnate" refers to flesh. Let us say
"reimbodied," and then we see that both for matter and for man there
has been a constant change of form and this is, broadly speaking,
"reincarnation."
As to the whole mass of matter, the doctrine is that it will all be
raised to man's estate when man has gone further on himself. There is no
residuum left after man's final salvation which in a mysterious way is to be
disposed of or done away with in some remote dust-heap of nature.
The true doctrine allows for nothing like that, and at the same time is
not afraid to give the true disposition of what would seem to be a residuum. It
is all worked up into other states, for as the philosophy declares there is no
inorganic matter whatever but that every atom is alive and has the germ of
self-consciousness, it must follow that one day it will all have been changed.
Thus what is now called human flesh is so much matter that one day was
wholly mineral, later on vegetable, and now refined into human atoms. At a
point of time very far from now the present vegetable matter will have been
raised to the animal stage and what we now use as our organic or fleshy matter
will have changed by transformation through evolution into self-conscious
thinkers, and so on up the whole scale until the time shall come when what is
now known as mineral matter will have passed on to the human stage and out into
that of thinker.
Then at the coming on of another great period of evolution the mineral
matter of that time will be some which is now passing through its lower
transformations on other planets and in other systems of worlds. This is
perhaps a "fanciful" scheme for the men of the present day, who are
so accustomed to being called bad, sinful, weak, and utterly foolish from their
birth that they fear to believe the truth about themselves, but for the
disciples of the ancient theosophists it is not impossible or fanciful, but is
logical and vast.
And no doubt it will one day be admitted by everyone when the mind of
the western race has broken away from Mosaic chronology and Mosaic ideas of men
and nature. Therefore as to reincarnation and metempsychosis we say that they
are first to be applied to the whole cosmos and not alone to man. But as man is
the most interesting object to himself, we will consider in detail its
application to him.
This is the most ancient of doctrines and is believed in now by more
human minds than the number of those who do not hold it. The millions in the
East almost all accept it; it was taught by the Greeks; a large number of the
Chinese now believe it as their forefathers did before them.
Reincarnation
and Christianity
The Jews thought it was true, and it has not disappeared from their
religion; and Jesus, who is called the founder of Christianity, also believed
and taught it. In the early Christian church it was known and taught, and the very
best of the fathers of the church believed and promulgated it.
Christians should remember that Jesus was a Jew who thought his mission
was to Jews, for he says in St. Matthew, "I am not sent but unto the lost
sheep of the house of Israel." He must have well known the doctrines held
by them. They all believed in reincarnation. For them Moses, Adam, Noah, Seth,
and others had returned to earth, and at the time of Jesus it was currently
believed that the old prophet Elias was yet to return.
So we find, first, that Jesus never denied the doctrine, and on various
occasions assented to it, as when he said that John the Baptist was actually
the Elias of old whom the people were expecting. All this can be seen by
consulting St. Matthew in chapters xvii, xi, and others.
In these it is very clear that Jesus is shown as approving the doctrine
of reincarnation. And following Jesus we find St. Paul, in Romans ix, speaking
of Esau and Jacob being actually in existence before they were born, and later
such great Christian fathers as Origen, Synesius, and others believing and
teaching the theory.
In Proverbs viii, 22, we have Solomon saying that when the earth was
made he was present, and that, long before he could have been born as Solomon,
his delights were in the habitable parts of the earth with the sons of men.
St. John the Revelator says in Revs. iii, 12, he was told in a vision which
refers to the voice of God or the voice of one speaking for God, that whosoever
should overcome would not be under the necessity of "going out" any
more, that is, would not need to be reincarnated.
For five hundred years after Jesus the doctrine was taught in the church
until the council of Constantinople. Then a condemnation was passed upon a
phase of the question which has been regarded by many as against reincarnation,
but if that condemnation goes against the words of Jesus it is of no effect.
It does go against him, and thus the church is in the position of saying
in effect that Jesus did not know enough to curse, as it did, a doctrine known
and taught in his day and which was brought to his notice prominently and never
condemned but in fact approved by him.
Christianity is a Jewish religion, and this doctrine of reincarnation
belongs to it historically by succession from the Jews, and also by reason of
its having been taught by Jesus and the early fathers of the church. If there
be any truthful or logical way for the Christian church to get out of this
position—excluding, of course, dogmas of the church—the theosophist would like
to be shown it.
Indeed, the theosophist holds that whenever a professed Christian denies
the theory he thereby sets up his judgment against that of Jesus, who must have
known more about the matter than those who follow him. It is the anathema
hurled by the church council and the absence of the doctrine from the teaching
now that have damaged Christianity and made of all the Christian nations people
who pretend to be followers of Jesus and the law of love, but who really as
nations are followers of the Mosaic law of retaliation.
For alone in reincarnation is the answer to all the problems of life,
and in it and Karma is the force that will make men pursue in fact the ethics
they have in theory. It is the aim of the old philosophy to restore this
doctrine to whatsoever religion has lost it; and hence we call it the
"lost chord of Christianity."
But who or what is it
that reincarnates?
It is not the body, for that dies and disintegrates; and but few of us
would like to be chained forever to such bodies as we now have, admitted to be
infected with disease except in the case of the savage. It is not the astral
body, for, as shown, that also has its term and must go to pieces after the
physical has gone. Nor is it the passions and desires. They, to be sure, have a
very long term, because they have the power to reproduce themselves in each
life so long as we do not eradicate them. And reincarnation provides for that,
since we are given by it many opportunities of slowly, one by one, killing off
the desires and passions which mar the heavenly picture of the spiritual man.
It has been shown how the passional part of us coalesces with the astral
after death and makes a seeming being that has a short life to live while it is
disintegrating. When the separation is complete between the body that has died,
the astral body, and the passions and desires —life having begun to busy itself
with other forms— the Higher Triad, Manas, Buddhi, and Atma, who
are the real man, immediately go into another state, and when that state, which
is called Devachan, or heaven, is over, they are attracted back to earth
for reincarnation.
They are the immortal part of us; they, in fact, and no other are we.
This should be firmly grasped by the mind, for upon its clear understanding
depends the comprehension of the entire doctrine. What stands in the way of the
modern western man's seeing this clearly is the long training we have all had
in materialistic science and materializing religion, both of which have made
the mere physical body too prominent.
The one has taught of matter alone and the other has preached the
resurrection of the body, a doctrine against common sense, fact, logic, and
testimony. But there is no doubt that the theory of the bodily resurrection has
arisen from the corruption of the older and true teaching. Resurrection is
founded on what Job says about seeing his redeemer in his flesh, and on St.
Paul's remark that the body was raised incorruptible. But Job was an Egyptian
who spoke of seeing his teacher or initiator, who was the redeemer, and Jesus
and Paul referred to the spiritual body only.
Although reincarnation is the law of nature, the complete trinity of Atma-Buddhi-Manas
does not yet fully incarnate in this race. They use and occupy the body by
means of the entrance of Manas, the lowest of the three, and the other
two shine upon it from above, constituting the God in Heaven. This was
symbolized in the old Jewish teaching about the Heavenly Man who stands with
his head in heaven and his feet in hell. That is, the head Atma and Buddhi
are yet in heaven, and the feet, Manas, walk in hell, which is the
body and physical life.
For that reason man is not yet fully conscious, and reincarnations are
needed to at last complete the incarnation of the whole trinity in the body.
When that has been accomplished the race will have become as gods, and the
godlike trinity being in full possession the entire mass of matter will be
perfected and raised up for the next step. This is the real meaning of
"the word made flesh." It was so grand a thing in the case of any
single person, such as Jesus or Buddha, as to be looked upon as a divine
incarnation. And out of this, too, comes the idea of the crucifixion, for Manas
is thus crucified for the purpose of raising up the thief to paradise.
It is because the trinity is not yet incarnate in the race that life has
so many mysteries, some of which are showing themselves from day to day in all
the various experiments made on and in man.
Science
and religion
The physician knows not what life is nor why the body moves as it does,
because the spiritual portion is yet enshrouded in the clouds of heaven; the
scientist is wandering in the dark, confounded and confused by all that
hypnotism and other strange things bring before him, because the conscious man
is out of sight on the very top of the divine mountain, thus compelling the
learned to speak of the "subconscious mind," the "latent
personality," and the like; and the priest can give us no light at all
because he denies man's god-like nature, reduces all to the level of original
sin, and puts upon our conception of God the black mark of inability to control
or manage the creation without invention of expedients to cure supposed errors.
But this old truth solves the riddle and paints God and Nature in harmonious
colors.
Does the human reincarnate as an animal?
Reincarnation does not mean that we go into animal forms after death, as
is believed by some Eastern peoples. "Once a man always a man" is the
saying in the Great Lodge. But it would not be too much punishment for some men
were it possible to condemn them to rebirth in brute bodies; however nature
does not go by sentiment but by law, and we, not being able to see all, cannot
say that the brutal man is brute all through his nature. And evolution having
brought Manas the Thinker and Immortal Person on to this plane, cannot
send him back to the brute which has not Manas.
By looking into two explanations for the literal acceptation by some
people in the East of those laws of Manu which seem to teach the transmigrating
into brutes, insects, and so on, we can see how the true student of this
doctrine will not fall into the same error.
The first is, that the various verses and books teaching such
transmigration have to do with the actual method of reincarnation, that is,
with the explanation of the actual physical processes which have to be
undergone by the Ego in passing from the unembodied to the embodied state, and
also with the roads, ways, or means of descent from the invisible to the
visible plane.
This has not yet been plainly explained in Theosophical books, because
on the one hand it is a delicate matter, and on the other the details would not
as yet be received even by Theosophists with credence, although one day they
will be. And as these details are not of the greatest importance they are not
now expounded. But as we know that no human body is formed without the union of
the sexes, and that the germs for such production are locked up in the sexes
and must come from food which is taken into the body, it is obvious that foods
have something to do with the reincarnating of the Ego.
Now if the road to reincarnation leads through certain food and none
other, it may be possible that if the Ego gets entangled in food which will not
lead to the germ of physical reproduction, a punishment is indicated where Manu
says that such and such practices will lead to transmigration, which is then a
"hindrance." I throw this out so far for the benefit of certain
theosophists who read these and whose theories on this subject are now rather
vague and in some instances based on quite other hypotheses.
The second explanation is, that inasmuch as nature intends us to use the
matter which comes into our body and astral body for the purpose, among others,
of benefiting the matter by the impress it gets from association with the human
Ego, if we use it so as to give it only a brutal impression it must fly back to
the animal kingdom to be absorbed there instead of being refined and kept on
the human plane. And as all the matter which the human Ego gathered to it
retains the stamp or photographic impression of the human being, the matter
transmigrates to the lower level when given an animal impress by the Ego.
This actual fact in the great chemical laboratory of nature could easily
be misconstrued by the ignorant. But the present-day students know that once Manas
the Thinker has arrived on the scene he does not return to baser forms;
first, because he does not wish to, and second, because he cannot. For just as
the blood in the body is prevented by valves from rushing back and engorging
the heart, so in this greater system of universal circulation the door is shut
behind the Thinker and prevents his retrocession. Reincarnation as a doctrine
applying to the real man does not teach transmigration into kingdoms of nature
below the human.
(The Ocean of Theosophy, chapter 8)
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