Mans
Relation to the Phenomenal World
AS
VIEWED BY TRANSCENDENTAL PHILOSOPHY AND BY OCCULTISM
by OSWALD MURRAY
A Paper read before the Adelphi Lodge, T.S. 7 Duke Street
Adelphi. W.C. in 1892
published in "Theosophical Siftings" - Volume 5- [1892-1893]
THE object of this paper will be to distinguish between the
real and the unreal aspect of life; to endeavour to show that
all phenomena, time, space, matter, individuation, are
contents of consciousness; are modes, self-determined by
consciousness for its own manifestation; that the only
reality in these phenomena exists in the consciousness which
contains them and renders them possible.
Having determined that consciousness is the ultimate Reality
in life, it will be shown that our normal state of
consciousness may be expanded, or transcended.
This position will be shown first as maintained by the
transcendental school of philosophy; that of Hegel and
Professor Green, Kant, etc., and subsequently as taught by
occultism.
The result of our education, of the influence of the opinions
current in our surroundings, is that we are led to look on
ourselves as something apart and separate from all else, as
having separate self-existence; and of the world in which we
live, as something standing outside of us, apart from us. We
speak of this world outside of us as the tangible world, and
infer thereby that the objects thus spoken of, have a reality
in themselves, apart from and independent of consciousness.
In fact most people consider the phenomenal world to be real,
and thought to be comparatively illusory.
We are led to think of the Deity as a gigantic person,
existing somewhere in the sky, and of our relation to him as
of that of a culprit towards an omnipotent judge.
Thus we grow up without any conception of the unity of the
Universe, of the fact that the Universe in all its manifold
variety is the external manifestation of one all-pervading
universal element, of which we ourselves are
individualisations, and of which our surroundings are other
aspects.
Most people go through life satisfied with the popular
conception. Some, however, are led to analyse for themselves,
what "existence" means, and to seek to understand in what
man's relation to the world around him consists.
The first thing that such a man will realise is, that he is,
that he exists as a self-conscious centre of thought; he
realises further that there is a world of objects, or
phenomenal world, around him, with which his senses bring him
in relation. He will realise further, that there is a world
of thought which wells up within him, and which we describe
as reflection, or re-presentation. By further analysing his
own thinking, he will find that the phenomenal, or so-called
"tangible" world, has to be translated into the subjective in
order to be perceived by the mind. Objects appeal to the
senses, to the physical impermanent element in man, whereas
the thought-symbols into which they are translated by the
mind and conveyed to the apprehension, represent the
principles which are behind or within the objects, and which
principles appeal to that element in man which is of the same
character. Cognition infers an identical element in the
knowing act and the object known. But for this identity, or
common element, cognition would be impossible. That which
perceives its other aspect contains it and must be the
ultimate Reality.
The consideration of the phenomenal world leads us to the
conclusion that the reality to us of an object in
presentation, consists in its presence in this common
element, consciousness. A sensible world independent of
sense-perception is a baseless assumption.
If not present to a particularised mode of consciousness, an
object is still necessarily present to the universal. But our
minds cannot cognise things in themselves. To perceive a
thing in itself would be to perceive it neither in time nor
in space, as these are furnished by the constitution of our
perceptive faculties, and our minds are fettered by the
limitations of the senses. Our minds only cognise certain
symbols or thoughts of a thing presented to our
self-consciousness by the senses.
Science teaches us that we do not perceive the objects which
we sense, but only certain vibrations transmitted to our
brain. Vibrations are radiated from objects and impinge on
our senses. They there set up other vibrations in our nerves,
which are transmitted to our brains. What it is that
perceives these vibrations in the brain, gathers and
transmutes them into thought, science does not analyse.
It is well known that our senses are not invariably reliable,
and do not always transmit true pictures of objects. Thus to
some people the fields and trees carry the appearance which
to us would be red. The scale of our sense perceptions is
very limited in comparison with that of many animals. Science
has shown that there are vibrations which pass through us
unperceived. For these and another reason to be referred to
shortly, philosophy describes the phenomenal world as the
hypothetical world. It is thus evident that the order of
nature, as exhibited to particular minds, is an order of
knowing, and that to attribute a validity to objects, apart
from consciousness, would be fallacious.
Some schools of philosophy consider that the objectifying
function of the mind is identical with the ultimate fact
presented to consciousness. This must be a misconception.
While valid of the fact it is not identical. The objectifying
function of the mind is adjectival only; the discursive [Page
5] intelligence can never represent the wealth of the Reality
which lies beyond immediacy. Only by transcending the modal
consciousness would that be possible. At the same time, we
cannot think of any reality as the ultimate ground of our
apprehension that is not in immediacy, or actually present in
thought as self-reference.
It is difficult to distinguish between the perception in
consciousness of objects of thought, of reflection, or
representation, on the one hand, and the perception of actual
concrete objects on the other. The reality of both to
self-consciousness consists in the experience. Objects
conceived in reflection are integrated experiences. "Actual
concrete objects in presentation are formed by a
quasi-judgment, wherein past experiences are associated with
present sensation and regarded as present in time and space".
But actual and concrete experience must not be confused with
experience reflected on.
There is another aspect of the conditions of life which is
generally the subject of fallacious conceptions.
Time and space are very often considered to have a reality in
themselves by which they are supposed to condition and
determine our experience. This is a fallacy. Time exists only
in, and for, thought. In reflecting on a state, it is already
past and reproduced in reflection.
Relations of sequence are thought and as present in
actuality, they are relations, not of sequence, but of
co-existence. Time is not perceived, it is conceived.
Similarly space may be defined as an order of relations
co-existing in perception, in thought. The consideration of a
series of states forces us to the conclusion of their
essential identity in the particular experience. Time and
space, it will thus be seen, are modes used by consciousness
for its own manifestation, having their only existence for it
and in it.
It is evident that the phenomenal world, or actual concrete
experience, does not account for itself, therefore we
conclude that there is a ground outside human consciousness
which makes it possible. But such a ground must itself be
consciousness (though not our limited and discursive
consciousness) for existence means Being-in-experience.
The manifestation in us of the faculty of being able to
consciously link our surroundings to ourselves, is due to the
presence in us of that common element which we have shown to
be the basis of the phenomenal world, and which will be shown
to be the Ultimate Reality of Being cognisable to our minds.
This common element, or element of identity, which we share
in common with all, is the basis of everything. We thinkers
are ourselves this universal element individualised,
particularised Universals, communicated into physical
conditions, looking through the small focal point of our
limited self, at the other focal points contained in our
greater, our true self — the Universal. Individuations are
determinations of this Universal, knowing itself in manifold
variety.
Reflection will show that this Universal, as Universal, that
is as static, unchangeable, undeterminate, can have no
expression. No cognition or experience is possible apart from
particulars, or differentiation. Hence the Universal by
self-determination "becomes", impels itself into objectivity,
for self-cognition, self-realization, and manifests in
process.
The transcendental school considers that the ultimate Reality
is immediately present in experience, of which it is the
ground, and which it relates to itself.
Experience is analysed into three aspects, which may be
distinguished but cannot be separated.
It is.
It is something.
It bears self-reference.
It ever is, and this is-ness is the ultimate Reality, the
ground and basis of Being, of existence; the universal
element which wells up and is immediately present in thought.
It is something, viz. it has actuality, particularity, "I"
presence.
It bears self-reference; that is, it carries self-relation.
Being immediately present in thought as its ground, it
relates the particularity, the actual, the "I", to itself,
and thus binds the Universe into one whole.
From this it is argued that Being and Being-in-experience are
identical.
The Universe is a Universe of experience. Human spirits are
limited, and cannot wholly account for themselves therefore,
but limitation in experience has no meaning unless there is
an experience which knows itself as limiting, that is to say,
as ground and fulfilment. Hence Being and Being-in-experience
may be said to be identical, or the Universe is a Universe of
experience.
TRANSCENDING
OR TRANCE-SENDING
The philosophical position which has thus been defined is
constructed on the introspection and analysis of thought. It
seeks the attainment of truth; the identification of
knowledge and Being, by the way of reason and logic: the
analysis of consciousness, which it finds accounts for itself
and is the basis and explanation of the Universe; the ground
and Reality of self-included Being.
But the only consciousness actually cognisable in thought is
the modal, the particularised, the self-consciousness.
Binding itself by the laws of empiricism, metaphysic refuses
to admit that the modal consciousness [Page 7] may transcend
its self-determined conditions; that human perception may
transcend its normal limitations. It formulates the Universal
as a postulate, in order to construct the Universe into a
logical whole. But the ground of Being remains an inferential
and abstract proposition, with which the mind can never
consciously commune. The Universal ever recedes behind the
individual thinker. Every attempt to grasp it ends
negatively, as the subject identity slides ever behind the
regarding mind, habituated as this is to dependence on sense
and empiricism. Metaphysic is thus obliged to leap with a
single jump from the Universal to its particularisations,
which alone come within the field of its cognition, without
attempting to deal with the intermediary process; or to
relate the individual to the Universal except in terms of
abstract thought.
Occultism agrees with this philosophy that the human
consciousness is in its innermost the Ultimate Reality
itself, but proceeds to teach that being thus of the
potentiality of the Universal, it may by the same will which
impelled it into conditions of limitation, transcend those
conditions and stand liberated and free, in conscious contact
with its causal source, and entering into communion, know
itself as a whole where before it could cognise but parts of
its nature.
The difference between the two schools lies in the fact that
metaphysic limits its introspection to the state of
modal-consciousness, while occultism affirms the possibility
of volitionally liberating consciousness from
self-restrictions and, reverting to its original state of
freedom, impel itself into conscious communion with its basic
source, and from there regard its circumference transitively
and know, not as in the state of individuation, where things
are known apart, in separation of subject and object, but in
identity. Conjoining with its basic source, consciousness
ceases to distinguish by intellection, by discursive
processes, but passing into identic-union, becomes its own
ultimate object as it was before the subject, in simultaneous
accord. Returning subsequently to normal states of mentality,
consciousness brings with it the memories of its experiences,
and the knowledge of intermediary states between the ground
of being and personality; or in other words, of the process
of "becoming".
That the normal limits of consciousness may be transcended
finds literal illustration in the facts of clairvoyance,
which are today too well known to be disputed. Numerous
experiments made in different medical schools may be
consulted; notably those of Dr. Charcot, of the Salpetrière
Hospital in Paris; and of Dr. Bernheim, of Nancy.
There are standard medical works, such as those of Dr. Luys
and others, which deal with these subjective phenomena, and
may be referred to. The Psychical Research Society and Mr.
Stead have accumulated evidence also. But it is well to
remember that in all cases of hypnotised [Page 8] subjects
the will of the sensitive is made subject; the consciousness
of the sensitive acts under the dictates of an outsider's
will, and consequently does not carry its own self-directing,
its dynamic force, with it. The result is apparently that
such consciousness, while it transcends the normal limits of
space and time, while it may look into the past and the
future, or perceive things which exist at very considerable
distances, it still functions within "relative" states of
time and space. It is probable that consciousness when so
propelled cannot transcend the astral plane or state.
Clairvoyance, or the expansion of the field of consciousness,
may however be developed under certain modes of training. In
such cases the consciousness is projected volitionally,
propelled by its own dynamic will-force. It then transcends
the field of perception attainable by the hypnotised
sensitive, whose will does not accompany his perception.
This possibility is sketched out in the Yoga system of
Patanjali, but the system is never given in its entirety to
the public. Such information is never printed, and only
imparted to accepted students, after many trials and tests of
unselfishness of purpose.
The impelling of human consciousness into conscious contact
and communion with its causal-source, has always been
considered as "the great work" in occultism, and as the
highest achievement possible to initiates in the mysteries.
It is referred to under curious veils in the various systems.
In alchemy it is described as the conjunction of the sun and
the moon, for which must be read the Soul and Spirit. In
Hermeticism it is the "mystic marriage" of soul and mind, by
which man becomes the Christos, and the Kingdom of Heaven
becomes on earth (that is, in man).
Boehme refers to it as the revivification by mind and will of
the divine image in which man was made by the Elohim, or
seven spirits of God. This Spirit image, the "Spouse of the
Soul", becomes obscured by the projection of the Soul into
the wrath-fire, or astral-sense plane, and has to be
re-vivified with Spirit.
A similar conception is found in some Rosicrucian works,
which state that the vitalising of the Divine Ideal within
the soul, entails the possibility of conscious action above
the conditions of normal mental states, and consequently of
transcending their limitations. In Theosophy this is referred
to as the result following upon the conjunction of the Manas
and Buddhi states of consciousness.
Alchemy, however, asserts that the normal states of
consciousness cannot be transcended without theurgic
assistance. "Things pertaining to the Gods are moved by
themselves, and not by inferior natures. The union of Soul
and Spirit is not attainable by metaphysical abstraction, or
theoretic philosophy, but by a Divine work. By no ordinary
process of rational contemplation is the mind able to
conceive the nature of the Infinitude of true Being, as our
consciousness is separated off from its antecedent identity.
To discover the one principle, the perceiver must first
become assimilated to it". Also did the Chaldaic oracles
declare that there is no other means of strengthening "the
vehicle of the soul", but by material rites. Plato therefore
in Alcibiades calls the magic of Zoroaster, "the service of
the Gods".
In support of this alchemists assert that the separation of
the human consciousness from the original spirit, is enacted
in generation. "By the fact that the corporeal-sensual nature
is predominant in physical conception, the Divine original is
obscured". The individual thus subsists, as a distinct
particularisation, from that fontal Reason whence it springs.
By regeneration (an alchemic process) the Ultimate Reality
may be discovered as it is after death.
Were it possible for generation to take-place without
subjection to the sense-nature in conception, our Divine
origin would not be obscured. This is the "fall" of the soul,
by which the "Divine Image" becomes obscured, and the soul
subject to the astral-sense-nature. Only by rising above this
plane, or state of bondage, to sense-nature, whether in life
or death, may consciousness commune with its antecedent cause
and basic source, the ground of Being.
The "Kabbala" also teaches that the descent of consciousness
into the astral sphere entails bondage, and is equivalent to
the "fall" of the soul, which is crucified in the quadruple
cross of the elements (Body). The regeneration or
resuscitation into the consciousness of essential Being and
freedom, is a "process" in accord with the plan of the Divine
Archetype. This is illustrated in the Chaldean myth, in which
Eve, the soul, is made a derivative from Adam, the spirit,
through which it is brought into external manifestation, and
descends into contact with the sense-nature, with which, as
"the serpent", Soul or "woman's seed" remains for ever in
conflict and enmity.
The regenerated life, on the other hand, is pictured in the
New Testament, under the allegory of Jesus, or "Jehoshua" =
the life, which descends by "immaculate conception". This
refers to the life which has undergone the process of
re-birth, of regeneration, by which the sense-nature has been
subdued and conquered, in which consciousness consequently
communes with "the Father" or ground of Being, and which is
signified by the term Christ, or Christos, i.e., the state of
union of soul and spirit. The "virgin mother" refers to the
inner states of purity of mind, by which regeneration, or
re-birth, are rendered possible.
Similarly was this illustrated in the old Egyptian myth, in
which Isis (spirit) and Osiris (soul), sister and brother,
were conjoined in marriage. [Page 10] Their kingdom was
usurped by Typhon, the sense-nature, who malignantly
crucified Osiris and cut his body into pieces, and scattered
his members to the four winds (elements). Isis, however,
re-collecting these, preserved them in a chest (body), which
floated in the Nilotic waters in safety, until the period
arrived for a restitution, when the King Horus was
thenceforth resuscitated and came forth more powerful than he
was before. (Horus, the son, stands here in the same relation
as the "son of man" to "the Father".)
It is clear that these different systems all agree that it is
the descent of the soul, or individuated consciousness, into
the astral light, in an envelope of which it is imprisoned as
in a body, which prevents it, while in that astral body from
communing with the ground of Being.
To learn how to penetrate the astral light is therefore to
learn the mode of communing in identic-union with the
Ultimate Reality.
The alchemists make it very clear that this transcending is
only possible during trance.
"The dark dominion of the self-hood has to be dissolved, and
the senses entranced. But the vital spirit must first be
purified by certain theurgic processes in the ceremonies of
the Mysteries. Otherwise the unprepared consciousness might
be made captive in the astral sphere; the kingdom of Pluto;
the waters of Lethe; Hades; by the allurements of its own
reflections; taken captive by deluding desires, in the
vaporous images of its own imagination, where desires are
images and will their act".
This was illustrated in the old myths by the picture of
Orpheus turning backwards in his upward ascension, and thus
imprisoning his soul, Euridyce, in the allurements of the
astral Hades. So also Prosperine or Persephone, the soul, was
imprisoned in the kingdom of the senses, or Pluto's wiles.
Thus in the Aeneid, as Proclus explains, was Theseus unable
to obtain the golden apples, being detained by his passions,
his love of beauty, in the sea of sense.
Of the danger of his descent to Tartarus, was Aeneas warned
by the Sybil, who tells him to take the golden bough to guide
him, the same which Apuleius tells us the ass carried in the
Mysteries sacred to Isis, where it is identified with the
Caduceus of Mercury, that pregnant symbol. Nor could Theseus
have tamed the Minotaur (senses) but for the assistance of
Ariadne (soul); Jason would not have found his way out of the
labyrinth but for the golden thread of his soul, Medea. Thus
also was Andromeda, the soul, sacrificed to the Gorgon, the
hydra of many eyes, or allurements of the senses, till
Perseus, the spirit, liberated her.
There are methods by which an ascent may be effected from
oblivious bondage of existence, through a gradual
assimilation, to a survey, more or less immediate, of the
causal source, but the necessity is evident that the [Page
11] will be first freed by purification from all
sense-inclination, before it becomes fit to penetrate the
astral-sphere.
The descent of the soul into the astral body may be
introverted; it may be made to rise to the zenith of the
Elysian-Light, and returning thence to the body again, become
to it as is the sun to the earth, illuminating it with life
celestial, with energy and power almost immortal.
Judging from Boehme, this possibility appears to depend on
the vivifying of the "Divine Image" within the soul.
A few words on his position will be necessary in order to
understand the possibility referred to. Matter must be
understood to be spirit densified; Soul, to be a spherical
vehicle polarised by Divine Idea and will, or negative and
positive forces (the twin serpents of Egypt and of the
Caduceus of Mercury). This polarisation being effected in the
astral light, the Divine Idea, or sphere of the Soul, becomes
surrounded by an envelope of astral-fire, which separates it
off from the ground of Being, as previously stated.
The purpose of this descent of the Divine Idea, which is also
referred to as a spark of divine light, is that it may obtain
corporeal form, in which consciousness may manifest, as the
radiation or effulgence from the radiant point, the Divine
Idea, from which it is inseparable. Mind is the result of
this effulgence, in contact with matter, an effect of
organisation, developed by the soul in contact with the body,
with which it forms the connecting link. It is the mode of
action, of manifestation, of soul. That portion of the
effulgence which remains within the astral state, constitutes
the permanent mind. That portion which penetrates and is
absorbed by the astro-sidereal body, is impermanent, as
regards the individual.
But the emanation absorbed by these elements contributes to
their spiritual growth and evolution, and is in fact to them,
what sunlight is to the life of the earth. The soul is to the
atomic-lives of the body, what the sun is to the earth,
illuminating them with light and life.
Soul is thus the medium by which the Universal Spirit, or
Consciousness, is individuated and becomes concrete; and life
may be said to be a process for the elaboration of the soul,
or vehicle of consciousness, by which process God-the-one
becomes God-the-many.
By being immersed in the astral light, or sidereal body, the
Divine Image becomes obscured and has to be substantiated by
spirit during life in the physical body. The process by which
the divine spirit, with which the Idea has to be
substantiated, is distilled 'from denser spirit in the
alembic of the human body, must be discovered by the "seeing
eye" from the purposely obscured jargon of the alchemists.
One thing Boehme makes quite clear is that the outer personal
will or astral-will, must "die" daily, must become tinctured
by the will of the unity, which acts from within the Soul.
This tincturing of the personal will [Page 12] by the inner
light, not only constitutes a state of mind and heart, but is
a creation; it is re-birth.
Considerable insight into this process may be obtained from
Dowd's "Temple of the Rosy Cross", which while not based on
Boehme specially, yet runs on very similar lines. Hermeticism
refers to the same conception in other terms. A "genius'' or
flame may be polarised by the united action of will and mind,
as the essence of oil passes into and becomes a flame, as a
flame is to its candle, and which flame will function in a
higher state of consciousness.
This was illustrated in the ancient myths, when Aeneas,
having passed the Stygian border, goes forth to meet his
"father" in "Elysian fields". Thus Hercules dragged Cerberus
from hell, or liberated the individual entity and established
it in the Hesperidian islands, or Elysian fields. Thus Jason
is joined in marriage with his bride, the soul Medea, when he
had won the "golden fleece". Perseus, the "Son of God",
rescues Andromeda his soul, and bears her to heaven, to shine
for ever beside him, redeemed and glorious.
So the re-arisen Osiris appears in shining garments; so
Apollo is all over radiant; so Bacchus appeared in splendour
when married to Ariadne; so "divine" Achilles shone refulgent
in golden armour.
"Take the flying bird" (or Soul), says Hermes, "and drown it
flying" (birth in body), "separate it from its redness which
holds it in death" (sense), "draw it forth that it may live,
not by flying away to the region above" (death), "but by
forbearing to fly" (returning to body). "If thou shalt
deliver it out of its prison" (body) "thou shalt afterwards
govern it according to reason, and it will become a companion
to thee".
PERSISTENCE
OF INDIVIDUALITY
While the philosophic position already defined shows that
consciousness is the only Reality in man and the Universe,
that it is the permanent element and cause of manifestation,
it cannot solve the question of the persistence of
individuality after death. The only consciousness it can
cognise is self-consciousness, and cognition it maintains is
inseparable from particulars. Hence, the Universal not being
able to cognise as Universal, particularises itself, in order
to make cognition possible.
But this philosophy has to leap from the ground of Being,
Universal Consciousness, to its manifestation,
self-consciousness, and the converse of this position is that
when any particular individuated expression of the Universal
is withdrawn from manifestation, by death, it must
immediately merge again into the Universal, and individuality
cease at death.
Theosophy, on the other hand, teaches that there are seven
aspects, or [Page 13] states, of the one consciousness,
instead of the two above referred to. Each of these is
related to a cosmic state or plane, in which it functions.
As self-consciousness has its physical organism, so likewise
each of these aspects, or states of consciousness, have their
more or less ethereal bodies, of which the atoms
interpenetrate those of the next grosser form, and through
these respective bodies each aspect of consciousness is
related to the respective cosmic states or planes of the
Universe. Death may thus be said to be but the shedding of
the outer atoms, or withdrawing of consciousness to an inner
plane, to which it finds itself related through an inner,
ethereal form, that body indeed which held together the
physical atoms during life.
Further there is, says Theosophy, what is equivalent to a
second death, in which consciousness withdraws from, or
within, the astral state, through which it had previously
emerged into physical life. Only when liberated from this
astral form, whether during life or after death, can it
cognise the ground of Being, the Ultimate Reality.
Theosophy thus presents a chain of interlinked intermediary
states, connecting its manifestation of self-consciousness
with the ground of Being, and explains the modus operandi by
which individuality may and does persist after death.
These aspects of consciousness may, as already stated, be
awakened into activity during life, and by transcending the
astral-sense prison, consciousness may commune in
identic-union with its basic-source, may cognise states that
otherwise would only be known after the liberation of death,
and thus realise during life that we are not dependent on our
bodies for conscious existence.
Similarly Alchemy teaches that if man vitalizes the
Archetypal Image within his soul during physical life, his
consciousness is drawn into contact with its ground of Being,
and is then informed from within by revelation or subjective
union, oneness of spirit and Being, instead of being
instructed from without.
Consciousness then functions in the state to which it is
thereby related, whence it was impelled into manifestation,
and to which it will return when liberated from the body at
death.
Thus man may cognise, while yet connected with the body, the
states to which his consciousness will return when connection
with the body is severed. All dread of death must then cease,
when it is realized to be but an indrawing of the field of
action, to a state which may actually be cognised during
life.
Further, when the portal of death has thus been penetrated
during life, man's consciousness may, when being finally
severed from his body, not to return again to it, pass
through that portal consciously and with power of [Page 14]
self-direction; taking with it the memories of its acquired
experiences on earth.
Such consciousness then becomes free to act on any of the
inter-related planes which have been awakened into activity
within, including even, under certain conditions, this
external one.
The theosophical seven aspects of consciousness may be viewed
as a ray, connecting the ground of Being with its physical
manifestation, or as a seven-platformed ladder, on any of
which platforms consciousness may concentrate (or focus)
itself, from that of mere physical sensation, feeling,
emotion, intellectual self-assertion, to communion with the
ground of Being. In other words, the perceptive point is
mutable, and may be focused in the several aspects of
individual consciousness, which while distinguishable are not
separable.
The "Kabbala" attributes four aspects to consciousness, as
also does Alchemy and the Hermeticism of ancient Egypt. But
it is easy for the student to reconcile and identify these
four, with the theosophic seven.
THE
REAL AND IMPERMANENT ASPECTS OF EXPERIENCE
While Occultism would agree with Transcendentalism that the
Universe is a Universe of experience, it does not admit that
all the experience of a human person is real, in relation to
the individual consciousness. Occultism asserts that man is
much more, complex than transcendentalism admits, and relates
much of his experience to the impermanent element in man. As
such elements are, however, present in the Universal
Consciousness, they and their experiences are real as related
to the Universal; yet they are impermanent, hence unreal, in
their relation to the individual. Experience is permanent or
real in relation to individuality, in proportion as it is
related by man to the ground of Being. Experience is unreal
in relation to individuality, in proportion as it is related
to the impermanent element in man, that is, to the physical
organism which dissolves and is shed at death, and the astral
personality which also dissolves at the second death already
referred to. Such experiences are real and permanent in their
relation to the elements (as Universal Consciousness) which
are used to build up the physical and the astral organisms,
while they are impermanent in their relation to the
individual who used them.
All experience is real to the consciousness which relates all
experience to the Ultimate Reality; which is able to
transcend the astral personality and commune with the ground
of Being; which is able to focus itself on any of its seven
aspects or states; which passes through the portal of death
with self-directing power.
Occultism teaches that the elements, or atoms, which are
built into the astral and physical forms, and associate in
co-operation to form the human personality, are lives, and
have a relative degree of consciousness of their own. This is
polarised during life into an astral focus, in which is
centred the feelings, passions, emotions, the resultant of
the various elements, each seeking satisfaction and
fulfilment, and impelling the man who lends himself to their
cravings in ever-varying directions. It is the consciousness
of these lower elements, seeking satisfaction through man and
impelling their cravings into his perception, by means of
their relation with this through his organism, of which they
form the outer sheath, which constitutes the war between his
higher and lower self, the conflict between passions,
desires, self-seeking, and the inner voice of his own divine
principle. The alternative is ever presented as to whether
man shall give way to the temptation thus thrust upon him by
the cravings of these lower elements, and lend himself to
indulgence in sense, or control these elements (lives) into
subordination and preserve the body as a mechanism for the
ultimation of the Divine inner will.
Hence does Boehme say: — "The outer will has to die daily";
that it must be "tinctured by the radiation of the Divine
Will from within. The personal or outer will (cravings of
astral elemental lives) is our enemy. Let it not take the
soul captive. Strive against every lust. Do not the pleasure
of the flesh. Our capacity depends on our drawing on the
central will within us. With its assistance we can do all
things".
At death the magnetic polarity which focused the
consciousness of the atoms into a personality is withdrawn.
The organism dissolves, the elements fall asunder, and all
physical and passional associations are disaggregated, among
the participating elements.
In focusing consciousness in the life of the senses, in the
self-hood, and making it the seat of the will, man obscures
the vibration from the central radiant point of Divine Light
within, the basis of Being, and revolts against the influx of
the higher will, which, leaving us free, consents to its
temporary effacement. In thus obscuring the radiation of the
Divine Will from within, man entails suffering of mind and
body upon himself, and practically establishes the hells
within himself.
Consciousness, then, swings hither and thither, swayed by
sensations, emotions of the personality, which domineers in
physical or intellectual self-assertion and conceit,
inebriated with the intoxication of self-expression. In
proportion as personal self-expression is sought, whether in
the satisfying of physical desires, or in intellectual
ambition, in proportion as the self-hood is asserted in
personal supremacy, in pursuit of self-interest, or selfish
gratification, does man cut himself off from the Real, from
the ground of Being, and live in the impermanent, in the
illusive and dissolving personality. Hermeticism teaches
similarly that by ever giving preference to the inner life of
the Spirit, man accentuates the force which originally
polarised his rudimentary Soul out of homogeneous
undeterminate spirit, and his soul then continues to polarise
towards the Supreme. By dwelling in thought in the centre of
Being, that is, by ever remembering that the Reality of his
Being is the presence of the Universal within it, by
contemplating the Unity and Identity of the particularised
being with the Universal, by presenting our life as an
offering to that inner Reality; by endeavouring to bring that
central principle into our thoughts by ever relating these to
It; by thus subordinating the will of the personality to the
inner guidance, ultimately the inner Light will radiate
through man's mind, from the centre to the circumference, the
central point of perception will become the focus of all
convergent radii; then an inner voice will speak within (the
theosophical "Voice of the Silence") and man will commune
with his divine source.
Thus experience is real to us according to occultism, in
proportion as we intentionally relate our thoughts to the
ground of Being which wells up within us, in proportion as we
make the self-hood transparent, and focusing our
consciousness towards the inner Light, the radiant central
spark of Divine fire within; rising towards that central ray,
seek to unify ourselves with the source of its light, aware
that we are but prisms for the reflection of the God within.
By conquering the elemental-lives which constitute his
external personality, by surrendering his exterior will with
all its exclusively material and selfish desires and
preferences, by steadfastly listening to and following the
guidance of the God within and seeking to ultimate its Divine
light, man's body constitutes itself in harmony with the
interior will, the Divine law, and every element in the body
or lower nature comes under the control of that mode of
Being. The body becomes sensitive and responsive to the
dictates of the inner spirit, at one with and reflects forth
the central will. Man's body then becomes the temple of the
living God, in which the God within and the God without may
consciously commingle and the Supreme may speak through man.
By obtaining control over the elements in himself, man has
power over his body, as the Supreme has over the Universe.
Man, states occultism, is a synthesis of the Universe, and
symbolises within himself all states of Being, and may
ultimately relate himself consciously to all. Being a
synthesis of elements, vegetable principle, animal principle,
as well as the Universal Reason, by knowing himself he shall
thus know all things and directly; he may then obtain control
over the same elements, or principles in nature, outside of
his body. It is evident that inasmuch as consciousness is
one, identical and universal, that its individualisations
remain the Universal in their ground of Being, and further,
as will is but the dynamic aspect of consciousness, so
therefore the will expressing itself in the individual
self-consciousness and the will expressing itself in the
elements, or elemental lives, used as its organism by the
self-consciousness, are still this one will of the Universe,
or Universal Will.
So the relation between the elements of the organism and the
will of the directing individual self-consciousness of the
organism, must in reality be one of harmony. The conflict or
contest between these two wills is a fallacy, existing in
appearance only. Though it has several aspects there is only
one Will, and the Universe must be one of order and harmony,
or unity would dissolve into chaos. The Universal determines
and enacts the process of spiritual evolution by its contact
with matter through man. Matter, it must be remembered, is
spirit densified, and the result of the contact of the spark
of Divine fire within man with the denser spirit of his
organism, is that matter is refined and upraised, or
"distilled" into a higher state.
Thus it may be said that the Universal ever impels itself
into states of density, and thence refines itself again
through man, for the purpose of self-realization, of
experience.
Thus man, all unconsciously to himself, co-operates with
Deity. He is the "miracle of the Universe", the instrument by
which Deity manifests, by which Deity evolves from the
abstract to the concrete, from abstract Being into manifested
existence, cognition and experience. Thus the one Supreme,
the Infinite spirit of Love, becomes “man in states of
progression”, Spirits, Angels, Archangels, Planetary-Gods.
Therefore let no man judge another for his apparent state of
obscuration. It may be that the ascending rebound may be
proportionate to the depth of the descent of the spirit, into
states of density in this life.
Occultism teaches that the individualised consciousness, or
spark of Divine Light, re-ascends after life in the physical
organism, through the successive states or planes, which it
passed through in its descent, till it reaches the state of
identic-union with the ground of Being, whence it originally
descended, but carrying with it a form related to that which
it obtained by ultimation in matter, and thus persisting in
its individualisation. It is stated that this spark of light
takes on a vehicle in each of the states of Being, through
which it passes in its descent; in the same way as it builds
up a physical body from the minute ovum, in this most
external existence. These vehicles are co-existent, it is
affirmed, within the physical body. But the Divine-original
is obscured, as also the recollection of the intervening
states, by the superposing of these vehicles. Unless these
separating barriers are broken through, that is to say,
unless these interior states of [Page 18] Consciousness are
awakened into activity during life in the organism and
constituted into a continuous interlinked chain, connecting
the outer expression of self-consciousness with its
Ground-of-Being, then the memories of earth-life are left
behind, as consciousness re-ascends, or recedes within, to
the inner state whence it issued, in the process of
"becoming".
SUMMARY
While these divergences between the philosophical position
defined, with that of occultism, are important, there remains
nevertheless a considerable basis of unity between the two
schools. To both schools consciousness is the sole Reality in
the Universe; the Ultimate Reality of Being. To both, the
only Reality in the phenomenal world, is its presence in
consciousness. To both, a sensible world, independent of
sense perception in consciousness, is a baseless assumption.
To both, consciousness is the permanent element, and
phenomena temporary and impermanent. To both, time, space,
individuation, are modes, and the phenomenal world is the
plane of manifestation, self-determined by consciousness, for
experience and self-realization. To both, therefore, the
Universe is a Universe of experience. To both, man is an
individualisation of Universal Consciousness, which to both,
is the equivalent to what in the popular conception is termed
"God". Man may thus be defined by both schools as "God in
states of progression". Both relate their ethics to their
first principle and formulate their conduct, in accord with
what they know of the Universe.
It is thus evident that there is a considerable basis of
identity, between occultism and transcendental philosophy.
The bond is very much closer than it ever can be with either
the Churches on one hand, who exalt the unbalanced, jealous
Jehovah of the Hebrews into the Supreme, and assert the
self-destructive proposition of an infinite God limited to
one personality; or with evolutionists on the other hand, who
deify matter into their first principle, from which thought
is made to evolve as an inherent potentiality, thus
abolishing God from out of man and the Universe.
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