ACCIDENT. ::: There is no such thing as a mere accident. There is some - perhaps a slight - unconsciousness in the physical and it is taken advantage of by these small beings of the vital physical plane, who are more mischievous than consciously hostile.
It has often been seen that when an accident takes place at a particular spot, there is a tendency for some time for other accidents to happen there. There is the same tendency with suicides at a particular place. It is a sort of powerful formation that remains there with or without a vital being (spirit) in charge of the’ formation.
According to theosophy the forces of science are effects produced on the physical plane by elementals or nature forces, which are themselves secondary causes and the effects of primary causes, ultimately of divine origin, behind the veil of terrestrial phenomena. Descending through the planes of cosmos there is a chain of effects. Theosophy sees no fundamental difference between force and motion: eternal motion gives rise on every plane to the dual manifestation of force and matter, twin aspects of the same substance.
Aerial Fire Every element being dual in nature, there is a celestial and a terrestrial fire; while between them is what may be called aerial fire, which is the intermediate stage through which celestial fire pours forth its energies on the physical plane, producing the terrestrial fire. Aerial fire is a lower kabir (creative power).
akasa (akasha) ::: the ether of the gross physical plane.
An event on the physical plane may be preceded by causes not perceptible to our physical senses, yet of which our more subtle inner senses are aware. Some people and many animals may have a presentiment of an earthquake, through sensitiveness to certain astral and physical conditions which precede the actual earth-shock. Explaining such a case as that of avoiding a doomed train brings up the general question of prediction and the problem of time. In these cases the inner sense may perceive an event before it has happened on the physical plane, and such cases are too numerous for them to be lightly dismissed as imaginary or mere coincidences. See also PROPHECY
An example of the dual aspect of substance and force underlies to some extent Weismann’s biological analysis of the fertilized cell. Add to his description the directing influence of the dhyani-chohanic astral fluid which on the physical plane is a vital force, i.e., the astral fluid of the reimbodying ego, and this illustrates the vital action of matter-force. See also JIVA; LIFE-ATOMS; PRANA
Ascending arc: In theosophical occultism, the ascent of the evolving monads (q.v.) from the physical plane or globe upwards through the higher levels of existence. (Also called luminous arc.)
ascent ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The ascent or the upward movement takes place when there is a sufficient aspiration from the being, i.e., from the various mental, vital and physical planes.” *Letters on Yoga
ascent ::: “The ascent or the upward movement takes place when there is a sufficient aspiration from the being, i.e., from the various mental, vital and physical planes.” Letters on Yoga
A somewhat different definition is, “Mind is a name given to the sum of the states of Consciousness grouped under Thought, Will, and Feeling. During deep sleep, ideation ceases on the physical plane, and memory is in abeyance; thus for the time being ‘Mind is not,’ because the organ, through which the ego manifests ideation and memory on the material plane, has temporarily ceased to function. A noumenon can become a phenomenon on any plane of existence only by manifesting on that plane through an appropriate basis or vehicle; and during the long night of rest called Pralaya, when all existences are dissolved, the ‘Universal Mind’ remains as a permanent possibility of mental action, or as that abstract absolute thought, of which mind is the concrete manifestation” (SD 1:38). Here mind is consciousness in action, the phenomenon corresponding to a noumenon which, in the absence of vehicles for its expression, can only be described as mind in latency, or a possibility of mental action. The dhyani-chohans are the expressers of latent cosmic mind, who bring it into various degrees of manifestation. They are vehicles for the expression of divine thought and will, intelligent forces which give to nature its laws.
Assiah ::: See Physical Plane. The World of Action in Kabbalistic terminology as per the Four Worlds model.
Astral Light ::: The astral light corresponds in the case of our globe, and analogically in the case of our solar system, towhat the linga-sarira is in the case of an individual man. Just as in man the linga-sarira or astral body is the vehicle or carrier of prana or life-energy, so is the astral light the carrier of the cosmic jiva or cosmic life-energy. To us humans it is an invisible region surrounding our earth, as H. P. Blavatsky expresses it,as indeed it surrounds every other physical globe; and among the seven kosmic principles it is the mostmaterial excepting one, our physical universe.The astral light therefore is, on the one hand, the storehouse or repository of all the energies of thekosmos on their way downwards to manifest in the material spheres -- of our solar system in general aswell as of our globe in particular; and, on the other hand, it is the receptacle or magazine of whateverpasses out of the physical sphere on its upward way.Thirdly, it is a kosmic "picture-gallery" or indelible record of whatever takes place on the astral andphysical planes; however, this last phase of the functions of the astral light is the least in importance andreal interest.The astral light of our own globe, and analogically of any other physical globe, is the region of thekama-loka, at least as concerns the intermediate and lower parts of the kama-loka; and all entities that diepass through the astral light on their way upwards, and in the astral light throw off or shed the kama-rupaat the time of the second death.The solar system has its own astral light in general, just as every globe in the universal solar system hasits astral light in particular, in each of these last cases being a thickening or materializing or concretingaround the globe of the general astral substance forming the astral light of the solar system. The astrallight, strictly speaking, is simply the lees or dregs of akasa and exists in steps or stages of increasingethereality. The more closely it surrounds any globe, the grosser and more material it is. It is thereceptacle of all the vile and horrible emanations from earth and earth beings, and is therefore in partsfilled with earthly pollutions. There is a constant interchange, unceasing throughout the solarmanvantara, between the astral light on the one hand, and our globe earth on the other, each giving andreturning to the other.Finally, the astral light is with regard to the material realms of the solar system the copy or reflection ofwhat the akasa is in the spiritual realms. The astral light is the mother of the physical, just as the spirit isthe mother of the akasa; or, inversely, the physical is merely the concretion of the astral, just as the akasais the veil or concretion of the highest spiritual. Indeed, the astral and physical are one, just as the akasicand the spiritual are one.
Astral Light This is the next cosmic plane above the physical, which is to the physical globes of our earth or of the other bodies of our solar system what the linga-sarira is to the human physical body. As such, it is the carrier of life-forces — jiva cosmically, and prana individually — and the storehouse of cosmic energies on their way to or from physical manifestation. It preserves an indelible record of all events on the astral and physical planes, there being continual interaction between the two planes. No natural phenomenon, whether mental, psychic, or physical, can be explained without it; without it, the physical world would crumble to impalpable dust.
Astrology therefore embraces a science of vast scope, permitting of studies which range from the sublime to the trivial, from the most spacious to the most confined. If astronomy concerns itself with the physical constitution of the celestial bodies, astrology concerns itself especially with what might be called the reasons rather than the mere laws of the universe. Considered in its largest aspect, it includes the entire universe and every being or thing, not only on the physical plane but even more so on the invisible or causal planes — the physical plane being merely the consequence of the actions and operations of the lives and forces residing in the invisible worlds.
Bacteria A numerous and varied class of microorganisms which exist in the air, earth, water, and in and on the bodies of plants, animals, and men. Bacteria, like all manifested things, are dual in action, being both beneficial and injurious to others: some of them provide the necessary enzymes for functional use, and others produce dangerous toxins. They are vital factors throughout the plant and animal kingdoms between which they are an organic link; and they are also a medium of contact between the astral and physical planes. As such they serve as material agents for certain phases of the operations of the laws of nature on the terrestrial plane.
bhū ::: earth, the plane of terrestrial existence; the world of Matter bhu (anna1), which is "Sachchidananda represented to His own mental experience as a formal basis of objective knowledge, action and delight of existence", the lowest world of the triloka; it includes the physical plane, along with its vital and mental envelopes (triloka in bhū), and the subtle bhū.
Physical Plane ::: Also Assiah. One of the Four Worlds as part of the Kabbalistic map of reality. A realm of reality that we perceive as solid and as solely real. The Physical Plane is a complex superposition of the three planes above it that serves as a foundationally stable lens through which Source Consciousness experiences reality. Exists along the Middle Pillar in respect to the Kabbalah. See also Malkuth and Physicality.
ciated with visions in a shadowy (chayamaya) dimness; "the subconscient below the Earth ::: the Earth being the conscious physical plane", a domain where what has been rejected from the surface nature often takes refuge.
Conservation of Energy A scientific theory that the total energy of any material system is a quantity which cannot be increased or decreased by any action among the parts, and that when energy seems to disappear it is merely transformed into an equivalent quantity of another mode of energy. The theory, interpreted in its widest sense, means no more than an affirmation that something cannot be created out of nothing or resolved into nothing, and so would seem a perfectly harmless generalization. However, theosophy teaches that there is a constant inflow of force into any such physical or material system, which in the scientific view is from sources exterior to a “closed material system.” Theosophy does not regard such forces as exterior but looks upon closed material systems as merely phenomena on the physical plane of inner and powerful forces which produce such physical systems as an appearance — real enough for the entities within it while it lasts, but vanishing once the inner, controlling forces are withdrawn. Then the atoms simply vanish because the cohering energies which make them are likewise withdrawn.
Death ::: Death occurs when a general break-up of the constitution of man takes place; nor is this break-up amatter of sudden occurrence, with the exceptions of course of such cases as mortal accidents or suicides.Death is always preceded, varying in each individual case, by a certain time spent in the withdrawal ofthe monadic individuality from an incarnation, and this withdrawal of course takes place coincidentlywith a decay of the seven-principle being which man is in physical incarnation. This decay precedesphysical dissolution, and is a preparation of and by the consciousness-center for the forthcomingexistence in the invisible realms. This withdrawal actually is a preparation for the life to come ininvisible realms, and as the septenary entity on this earth so decays, it may truly be said to beapproaching rebirth in the next sphere.Death occurs, physically speaking, with the cessation of activity of the pulsating heart. There is the lastbeat, and this is followed by immediate, instantaneous unconsciousness, for nature is very merciful inthese things. But death is not yet complete, for the brain is the last organ of the physical body really todie, and for some time after the heart has ceased beating, the brain and its memory still remain activeand, although unconsciously so, the human ego for this short length of time, passes in review every eventof the preceding life. This great or small panoramic picture of the past is purely automatic, so to say; yetthe soul-consciousness of the reincarnating ego watches this wonderful review incident by incident, areview which includes the entire course of thought and action of the life just closed. The entity is, for thetime being, entirely unconscious of everything else except this. Temporarily it lives in the past, andmemory dislodges from the akasic record, so to speak, event after event, to the smallest detail: passesthem all in review, and in regular order from the beginning to the end, and thus sees all its past life as anall-inclusive panorama of picture succeeding picture.There are very definite ethical and psychological reasons inhering in this process, for this process forms areconstruction of both the good and the evil done in the past life, and imprints this strongly as a record onthe fabric of the spiritual memory of the passing being. Then the mortal and material portions sink intooblivion, while the reincarnating ego carries the best and noblest parts of these memories into thedevachan or heaven-world of postmortem rest and recuperation. Thus comes the end called death; andunconsciousness, complete and undisturbed, succeeds, until there occurs what the ancients called thesecond death.The lower triad (prana, linga-sarira, sthula-sarira) is now definitely cast off, and the remaining quaternaryis free. The physical body of the lower triad follows the course of natural decay, and its various hosts oflife-atoms proceed whither their natural attractions draw them. The linga-sarira or model-body remains inthe astral realms, and finally fades out. The life-atoms of the prana, or electrical field, fly instantly backat the moment of physical dissolution to the natural pranic reservoirs of the planet.This leaves man, therefore, no longer a heptad or septenary entity, but a quaternary consisting of theupper duad (atma-buddhi) and the intermediate duad (manas-kama). The second death then takes place.Death and the adjective dead are mere words by which the human mind seeks to express thoughts whichit gathers from a more or less consistent observation of the phenomena of the material world. Death isdissolution of a component entity or thing. The dead, therefore, are merely dissolving bodies -- entitieswhich have reached their term on this our physical plane. Dissolution is common to all things, becauseall physical things are composite: they are not absolute things. They are born; they grow; they reachmaturity; they enjoy, as the expression runs, a certain term of life in the full bloom of their powers; thenthey "die." That is the ordinary way of expressing what men call death; and the corresponding adjectiveis dead, when we say that such things or entities are dead.Do you find death per se anywhere? No. You find nothing but action; you find nothing but movement;you find nothing but change. Nothing stands still or is annihilated. What is called death itself shouts forthto us the fact of movement and change. Absolute inertia is unknown in nature or in the human mind; itdoes not exist.
Duodenary (or Dodecad) The number 12, or a group of 12. A most important number in cosmic symbology, as in the 12 signs of the zodiac, the 12 apostles, the 12 great gods of Olympus and other theogonies, the 12 sons of Jacob, and 12 months of the year. The Olympian gods are six male and six female, showing dual aspects of each of the six rays of the logos (not including the synthesizing seventh); and the signs of the zodiac in astrology are similarly divided into masculine and feminine. In Buddhist cosmogony are the 12 nidanas — the chief causes of manifested existence, effects generated by a concatenation of causes, ending on this our physical plane. In theosophy the 12 globes, principles, etc., are distributed on seven planes, five on the three arupa planes, and seven on the four rupa planes.
Each planet, like all other celestial orbs, is composed of seven or twelve globes, in coadunation but not in consubstantiality, forming a planetary chain on the various cosmic planes, only those on our particular physical plane being visible to us. Planets are the outer shell of living beings and have evolved from cosmic seeds, passing through various stages including that of comets. They are inhabited by denizens adapted to their conditions. Each planet of the solar system is in its own particular stage of planetary evolution, one planet being in one round of its own evolutionary course, another in a different round of its evolutionary development; and the substances or matters composing them are in respectively different states of materiality, ethereality, or spirituality. The periods of the planetary movements and of their nodes and apses are regulated by mathematical law originally impressed not only in the structure of the solar system, but in the svabhava or characteristic nature of each individual planet in the system, and these periods mark innumerable cycles of time, great and small. They shed influence on the earth and its inhabitants both as time indicators and by virtue of their quality as living beings. Each celestial body is the mansion, vehicle, or house of what is in its essence a divine entity; and these regents or governors, each one of its own sun or planet, are themselves undergoing courses of evolutionary unfolding in time periods so vast that mathematics of cosmic extent are required to compass them.
Earthquakes Physical phenomena such as earthquakes are generally the end-products of a chain of causation operating not only on the physical plane but also on other cosmic planes. A study of the geology of the earth’s crust as regards the lie of the rocks, the position of faults, the presence of volcanic activities, etc., may indicate the places most likely to be affected, and the relation between earthquakes and the positions of the heavenly bodies is now receiving some consideration from scientists; but they still do not recognize any connection between the cause of earthquakes and events on the mental plane of the earth. “But when they understand that there is no such thing as accident in the universe, that every event which appears to us as accident, is the effect of a force on the mental plane, then they will be able to understand why the superstitious Hindus look upon earthquakes as the effect of accumulated sins committed by men.” (Theos 6:285, "Earthquakes" by K. D. M.)
Ecstasy, Ecstasis (Greek) [from ekstasis displacement, standing out from the proper place, hence rising above] A transference of consciousness from the physical plane to another inner and superior plane, accompanied by awareness and memory of the experience. It is necessary to distinguish between an astral-psychic experience and a truly psychospiritual one. The former is delusive and fraught with harm; the latter is the state of illumination spoken of by Plotinus, resulting from the true asceticism of the disciple, and in its highest form is the same as the high stage of meditation of the Hindu yogi.
Eighth Sphere or Planet of Death ::: A term used in the more esoteric or inner part of the teachings about which little can be said, for over thispart of the doctrine there has always been drawn a thick veil of secrecy and silence.Frequently the term is confused with avichi, but this is incorrect, because the two, while closelyconnected, are nevertheless quite distinct. While avichi is a state where very evil human beings "die andare reborn without interruption," yet not without hope of final redemption -- something which canactually take place even on our physical plane in the cases of very evil or soulless men -- the EighthSphere represents a degree of psychomental degeneration still more advanced. As just hinted, even inavichi there is a possibility of reinsoulment by the ray of the spiritual monad; whereas in the EighthSphere or Planet of Death such possibility finally vanishes, and the entity which has sunk to the Planet ofDeath is what is technically called in the esoteric philosophy a "lost soul." In the Eighth Sphere the lostsouls are ground over and over in nature's laboratory, and are finally dissipated into their componentpsycho-astral elements or life-atoms. The Eighth Sphere or Planet of Death is an actual globe. It is also ofcourse a state or condition of being; whereas the avichi is almost exclusively a state or condition in whichan entity may find itself, although obviously this entity must have position or place and therefore localityin space -- on our earth or elsewhere.
Etheric ::: The term used to describe the structures (especially the chakras, channels, and nadis) that undergird the physical body and the physical world. In the Four Worlds models the Etheric Plane generally falls between the Physical Plane and the Astral Plane but is not discretely classified in that model due to it acting as more of a veil between the Physical and the Astral than as a layer in and of itself, but other models, such as the Seven Planes Model, do distinguish it as a distinctive layer of reality.
Four The square of two, and the second even number, hence feminine in characteristics. It was regarded by the Pythagoreans with especial esteem, for it was the base number of the tetraktys. It corresponds to a solid figure, or a square — the quaternary although on the spiritual plane, as being the immediate successor of the triad, it became the symbol of immortality, and hence in this sense a perfect number, the ideal root of all subsequent hierarchical numbers on the lower planes including the physical. Thus there is the spiritual four as the mother-type of all productivity, and there was likewise the material four, the ideal root of all numbers on the astral and physical planes. It was called by the Pythagoreans the key-keeper of nature, but it was only so in union with the number three, for then the sum made seven — the perfect number of nature in our world. The Hermetists had the same idea: four was the symbol of truth when expanded into a cube, for when this cube is unfolded the production is seven. Four is the number “which affords an arithmetical division between unity and seven, as it surpasses the former by the same number (three), as it is itself surpassed by the seven, since four is by as many numbers above one, as seven is above four” (SD 2:582).
Four Worlds ::: A model of the stages of reality described by the Kabbalah in which the Kabbalistic map is partitioned into four rows where each row contains a number of Sephiroth. These illustrate, from the top down, the evolution of Consciousness from the Non-Dual realm of the Causal Plane through the dualistic beginnings of archetypes in the Mental Plane through the visionary capacity of collective and individual imagination in the Astral Plane into the physical expressions of forms in the Physical Plane.
Germ Cell The early physical vehicle or carrier of the ’ “spiritual plasm’ that dominates the germinal plasm” in the development of the embryo (SD 1:219); “every germ-cell, human or other, is the physical expression of inner, ethereal, and psycho-magnetic activities, and is a compact or bundle or sheaf of inner forces and substances ranging from the divine through intermediate degrees down to the astral and the physical, just as man, but on a much larger scale, himself is” (ET 487 3rd & rev ed). Each germ-cell is the precipitation or projection on and into the physical plane of an inner, psycho-ethereal radiation, an incarnation of a ray point originating in the inner worlds and contacting physical matter by psychomagnetic affinity, and thus arousing a proper particle or molecular aggregate of living physical substance into becoming a reproductive cell. This ray point or tip of the imbodying ray or radiance, is not the reincarnating ego itself, but the tip of the projected ray issuing from the reimbodying ego. When this ego — itself a ray from the spiritual monad — reaches its own intermediate sphere, after leaving its parent-monad, it descends no farther into matter from that plane. But its radiated influence, its psychomagnetic ray, having stronger affinities for material worlds than itself, goes deeper into matter and there awakens into activity the life-atoms in each of the various planes between that of the reimbodying ego and the grossest matter of physical earth. When this psycho-vital-electric or -magnetic ray awakens some particular life-atom in gross physical matter on earth, that life-atom so chosen belonged to the same reimbodying ego before, and therefore responds to its own “parent.” It may even be regarded as the tip of the reimbodying ray from which it is precipitated into matter, “which physical matter, as atoms, is thus attracted around this tip, building first the material imbodiment of the said life-atom and by progressive accretion finally becoming the living germ-cell” (ET 488 4 3rd & rev ed).
Golem ::: A type of servitor with a physical base. Generally used for protection or offense. In myth they have been known to be active on the Physical Plane and could capable of all sorts of acts until disabled or deactivated. Generally not a type of servitor encountered in modern practice; most constructs have a physical base to their sigil or existence but that a golem does not make.
Gravity ::: A fundamental phenomenon of the Universe. Scientifically there is still much to this that is a mystery and spiritually it is also profoundly intriguing and an active area of research. The idea, in terms of the occult sciences, is that there is a scaling effect as consciousness recursively subsets and that this tethers Spirit to matter. At distinct stages there is cohesion and stability and these are perceived as planes of reality. Divergent forms at the levels of these planes stay within that plane and once the Physical Plane is encountered in order for the complexity nodes that are our brains to emerge, a world was needed that was only formed through a scaling of masses downward through galaxy supercluster to galaxy to solar system to planet to body. The lensing effect of consciousness seems to relate to some of this orbital mathematics, especially in terms of the "shape" and "feel" of the sphere of awareness. Additionally, spacetime is warped by mass and vice-versa, so there are many interesting aspects to gravity, the perception of spacetime, and the evolution of consciousness.
Ichchha-sakti (Sanskrit) Icchā-śakti [from icchā desire, will + śakti power] Will power or the force of desire; this power of the will is one of the occult forces of nature. Its most ordinary manifestation on the physical plane is the generation of the nerve currents necessary to set certain muscles in motion for the accomplishment of the desired object, and the paralysing of other muscles. A yogi generally performs his wonders by using ichchha-sakti combined with kriya-sakti. Desire arouses or motivates the will, which then moves in accordance with the direction given it through the desire, which always partakes of mental activity. From this general basis the adept with his knowledge of the laws of nature can utilize certain desires of a lofty character, which arouse the corresponding will on the different planes.
If biological scientists recognize that inner and invisible worlds are the noumenal causes of the exterior or physical world, the difficulty in reconciling the perfectly true adage “nature makes no jumps,” would then vanish; they would then see that the physical plane in its manifestation is the effect of inner and driving causes, and that what appears separate on the physical plane is only so because it is the plane of bodies of a physically material character. Indeed, had we the percipient vision to see it and therefore to know it, we should perceive that even this apparently discrete physical plane, broken up as it apparently is into uncounted myriads of different entities, is really itself no exception to nature’s rule of unbroken continuity throughout; for even the apparently separate entities composing the physical plane are inextricably woven together into a vast web of life by the underlying substances of nature and the ever-active and continuously moving forces which are physical nature itself.
Indeterminacy Used in science to mean that the investigation of intra-atomic phenomena has (for the time being) reached the limits of human power to determine the behavior of a particle. The Heisenberg principle of uncertainty states that it is impossible to increase the accuracy of measurement of the velocity of a particle without by this very observational act introducing an uncertainty into the determination of its position. The attempt to represent phenomena as a chain of cause and effect must lead sooner or later to a point where we can no longer trace the cause — not because causes vanish, but because of the imperfection of our observation and of our instruments, so that the chain of causation continues until we lose track of it because of incapacity. Hence we are unable to predict the behavior of a particle. Subsequent investigation may enable us to carry the chain of causation farther, but the process cannot go on indefinitely without carrying us beyond the physical plane. The standards of measurement successfully adopted for molar physics and for phenomena within terrestrial limits have proved inadequate for the definition of phenomena outside those limits; and both theory and experiment show that these standards are largely conceptual and must be changed to suit new conditions.
In most arguments about the nature of space, space is unconsciously assumed at the outset of the inquiry, so that the reasoning becomes viciously circular. Is space the ultimate residue left after we have removed everything conceivable? In that case how can we define it in terms of anything which is supposed to be derived from it? We must either leave it undefined, as a primary postulate, or else define it in terms of something which lies beyond the physical plane altogether.
In the Jewish Qabbalah the ’elohim, however, are the sixth hierarchical group in derivation from the first or Crown, Kether: cosmogonically they represent the manifested formers or weavers of the cosmos. In this Qabbalistic system, Jehovah was the third angelic potency (counting from the first, Kether). Blavatsky calls all these hierarchicies symbols “emblematic, mutually and correlatively, of Spirit, Soul and Body (man); of the circle transformed into Spirit, the Soul of the World, and its body (or Earth). Stepping out of the Circle of Infinity, that no man comprehendeth, Ain-Soph (the Kabalistic synonym for Parabrahm, for the Zeroana Akerne, of the Mazdeans, or for any other ‘Unknowable’) becomes ‘One’ — the Echos, the Eka, the Ahu — then he (or it) is transformed by evolution into the One in many, the Dhyani-Buddhas or the Elohim, or again the Amshaspends, his third Step being taken into generation of the flesh, or ‘Man.’ And from man, or Jah-Hova, ‘male female,’ the inner divine entity becomes, on the metaphysical planes, once more the Elohim” (SD 1:113).
In the Puranas the apsarasas are sometimes divided into two classes, the daivika (divine or belonging to the devas), hence highly ethereal beings, and the laukika [from loka worldly], belonging to the worlds of manifestation, such as a physical plane. Considered apart from mythologic references, the apsarasas bear a strong resemblance to the undines of medieval Europe, nature forces and elementals appurtenant to all ten ranges of their hierarchical distribution, from the spiritual to the grossly material and physical. Every one of the seven or ten cosmic elements (bhutas) or principles (tattvas) has its own class of inhabitants.
In velt, oys velt (&
kamananda ::: a form of sarirananda or physical ananda associkamananda ated with (suddha) kama or purified desire, also referred to as maithunananda (though that term is usually reserved for a high intensity of kamananda); a general term for ananda as experienced on the physical plane: "the joy of Matter released into a spiritual consciousness and thrilled with a constant ecstasy", realised as part of "the total perfection of the spiritualised body". Kamananda manifests both in the sūks.ma deha (subtle body) and the sthūla deha (gross body), and there is a subjective kamananda besides the physical kamananda that is more often meant by the word. The perfection of kamananda, as the "most central" form of physical ananda, depends on a "transformation of the sex-centre and its energy" so that this energy which "is the support in the body of all the mental, vital and physical forces of the nature" is "changed into a mass and a movement of intimate Light, creative Power, pure divine Ananda".
Karmendriyas (Sanskrit) Karmendriya-s Organs of action; the innate astral-vital-physical organs of sensation and action on the physical plane — the generative organs, hands, feet, excretory organs, and mouth. They form one of the three classes of indriyas (organs, channels, instruments) given in Hindu philosophy, the others being buddhindriyas (organs of spiritual consciousness, sense, and action) and jnanendriyas (organs of intellectual and psychological consciousness) (FSO 275-6). The karmendriyas also have correspondences with the tanmatras (rudiments), bhutas (elements), and jnanendriyas (sense organs) as well as with the lokas, rupas, and human principles and senses (BCW 12:660-1, 12:667). See also INDRIYA
Life-Wave ::: This is a term which means the collective hosts of monads, of which hosts there are seven or ten,according to the classification adopted. The monad is a spiritual ego, a consciousness-center, being in thespiritual realms of the universal life what the life-atoms are in the lower planes of form. These monadsand life-atoms collectively are the seven (or ten) life-waves -- these monads with the life-atoms in andthrough which they work; these life-atoms having remained, when the former planetary chain went intopralaya, in space as kosmic dust on the physical plane, and as corresponding life-atoms or life-specks ofdifferentiated matter on the intermediate planes above the physical. Out of the working of the monads asthey come down into matter -- or rather through and by the monadic rays permeating the lower planes ofmatter -- are the globes builded. The seven (or ten) life-waves or hosts of monads consist of monads inseven (or ten) degrees of advancement for each host.When the hosts of beings forming the life-wave -- the life-wave being composed of the entities derivedfrom a former but now dead planet, in our case the moon -- find that the time has arrived for them toenter upon their own particular evolutionary course, they cycle downwards as a life-wave along theplanetary chain that has been prepared for them by the three hosts of elementary beings, of the threeprimordial elementary worlds, the forerunners of the life-wave, yet integral parts of it. This life-wavepasses seven times in all around the seven spheres of our planetary chain, at first cycling down theshadowy arc through all the seven elements of the kosmos, gathering experience in each one of them;each particular entity of the life-wave, no matter what its grade or kind -- spiritual, psychic, astral,mental, divine -- advancing, until at the bottom of the arc, when the middle of the fourth round isattained, they feel the end of the downward impulse. Then begins the upward impulse, the reascent alongthe luminous arc upwards, towards the source from which the life-wave originally came.
Limiting our explanation only to the manifest seven globes of the complete twelve, the six globes other than the earth exist, according to one diagrammatic delineation, two by two, on the three planes of the solar system more ethereal than the physical plane. These three superior planes or worlds are each one superior to the world or plane immediately beneath it. Our earth-globe is the fourth and most material of all the manifest globes of the earth-chain. Three globes precede it on the descending or shadowy arc and three globes follow it on the ascending or luminous arc of evolution.
Lunar Chain, Moon-Chain The planetary chain of the solar system which, although now dead and in decay, was the former imbodiment of our present earth-chain. When the life forces inherent in a globe of a planetary chain have completed seven rounds on that globe, these life forces progressively pass out into a laya-center which then becomes, after a time period determined by karma, the vital nucleus for the corresponding globe or the next imbodiment of that planetary chain. This took place on the lunar chain as the globes of this chain in the preceding chain-manvantara reached the end of their life-term in manifestation, and died in serial order from the first to the last globe. Thus each globe of the lunar chain as it died became a lunar globe-corpse still infilled with the molecular life of the globe, but deprived of all its higher, more ethereal and spiritual parts — exactly as happens at the death and decay of a human physical body. Though globe D of the moon-chain, as an instance in point, thus passed into invisibility with the disintegration of its molecular components and with the passage of cosmic ages, yet we are able to discern its phantom, our moon, because our senses, correlated to the physical plane of matter of our chain, are also correlated to what on the lunar chain would be astral matter, and thus are able to perceive what is actually the kama-rupa or astral shell of globe D of the lunar chain (our moon). Hence the earth-chain is the child or reimbodiment of the lunar chain.
Malkuth ::: Translated as "Kingdom" in Hebrew. The tenth Sephirah of the Kabbalah. From the human lens it is representative of the final stable stage of dualistic consciousness as emanated from the Causal and Non-Dual. Existing along the Middle Pillar, Malkuth is echo of Kether and Tiphereth. Malkuth is the sum total of all of the previous qualities of the Sephiroth and is hence emergent physicality and is a cohered and persistent emanation of the other three of the Four Worlds. It is the Physical Plane (i.e the Fourth World). Associated with the sphere of Earth in the planetary magic paradigm.
Manifestation ::: A generalizing term signifying not only the beginning but the continuance of organized kosmic activity,the latter including the various minor activities within itself. First there is of course always the Boundlessin all its infinite planes and worlds or spheres, aggregatively symbolized by the circle; then parabrahman,or the kosmic life-consciousness activity, and mulaprakriti its other pole, signifying root-natureespecially in its substantial aspects. Then the next stage lower, Brahman and its veil pradhana; thenBrahma-prakriti or Purusha-prakriti (prakriti being also maya); the manifested universe appearingthrough and by this last, Brahma-prakriti, "father-mother." In other words, the second Logos orfather-mother is the producing cause of manifestation through their son which, in a planetary chain, is theprimordial or the originating manu, called Svayambhuva.When manifestation opens, prakriti becomes or rather is maya; and Brahma, the father, is the spirit of theconsciousness, or the individuality. These two, Brahma and prakriti, are really one, yet they are also thetwo aspects of the one life-ray acting and reacting upon itself, much as a man himself can say, "I am I."He has the faculty of self-analysis or self-division. All of us know it, we can feel it in ourselves -- oneside of us, in our thoughts, can be called the prakriti or the material element, or the mayavi element, orthe element of illusion; and the other is the spirit, the individuality, the god within.The student should note carefully that manifestation is but a generalizing term, comprehensive thereforeof a vast number of different and differing kinds of evolving planes or realms. For instance, there ismanifestation on the divine plane; there is manifestation also on the spiritual plane; and similarly so onall the descending stages of the ladder or stair of life. There are universes whose "physical" plane isutterly invisible to us, so high is it; and there are other universes in the contrary direction, so far beneathour present physical plane that their ethereal ranges of manifestation are likewise invisible to us.
mantra ::: a mystic formula, "a word of power born out of the secret depths of our being where it has been brooded upon by a deeper consciousness than the mental", which can not only "reveal knowledge and faculties we did not before possess", but in some cases "produce vibrations in the mental and vital atmosphere which result in effects . . . on the physical plane".
Mantra ::: In fact, speech is creative. It creates forms of emotion, mental images and impulses of action. The ancient Vedic theory and practice extended this creative action of speech by the use of the Mantra. The theory of the Mantra is that it is a word of power born out of the secret depths of our being where it has been brooded upon by a deeper consciousness than the mental, framed in the heart and not originally constructed by the intellect, held in the mind, again concentrated on by the waking mental consciousness and then thrown out silently or vocally —the silent word is perhaps held to be more potent than the spoken—precisely for the work of creation. The Mantra can not only create new subjective states in ourselves, alter our psychical being, reveal knowledge and faculties we did not before possess, can not only produce similar results in other minds than that of the user, but can produce vibrations in the mental and vital atmosphere which result in effects, in actions and even in the production of material forms on the physical plane.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 18, Page: 30
Materialism In the rigid philosophical sense, any theory which considers the facts of the universe to be sufficiently explained by the existence and nature of matter. A familiar form of this is what has been called the atomo-mechanical theory, which derives all phenomena from the movements of material atoms in space. The philosophical definition of materialism differs according to the meaning of the word matter; as for instance, when we limit matter by no physical attributes or implications alone, but see in it the sevenfold prakritis or pradhanas of Hindu philosophers and mystics, matter is then seen to be but a name for the veil or shadow of spirit — the other side of spirit as it were. This distinction makes materialism but a synonym for spiritualism — i.e., the profound philosophic theory that the universe is built throughout, from and of the substances and attributes of spirit, which become matter in its innumerable and manifold forms and phases on the lower cosmic planes. What physicists have been calling matter is a percept derived from the interaction of the physical senses with the physical plane of prakriti or nature.
material vital ::: that part of the lower vital turned entirely to physical things, full of desires and greeds and seekings for pleasure on the physical plane.
Matter in the scientific sense is a percept resulting from the interaction of our physical senses with the physical plane of prakriti. Formerly regarded as having an existence independently of the observer, its illusory nature is now better recognized. In attempting to conceive of matter in a general sense the mind must be relieved of familiar notions of physically extended space, of resistance, mass, bulk, etc. — properties peculiar to the physical plane of consciousness, but which we are apt to transfer unwittingly to our notions of other kinds of matter. We may speak of mind-stuff as the scene of mental activity and the vehicle of thought-force; but we can hardly view this as a kind of rare gas. Grossness, inertness, and immobility are attributes of the physical plane, rather than of matter itself. Yet the word matter has come to be significant of grossness, animalism, and materialism, although it is but the shadow or veil of cosmic spirit, spirit concreted or manifesting under the multifarious forms of the planes of the universe.
Mirror Plane ::: A portion of the Astral Plane that reflects the Physical Plane's structure. When people astral project and find themselves in an area similar to their room in the Physical Plane, they are finding themselves in a malleable echo of that room on the Astral.
Money ::: Money is the visible sign of a universal force, and this force in its manifestation on earth works on the vital and physical planes and is indispensable to the fullness of the outer life. In its origin and its true action it belongs to the Divine. But like other powers of the Divine it is delegated here and in the ignorance of the lower Nature can be usurped for the uses of the ego or held by Asuric influences and perverted to their purpose
Ref: CWSA Vol. M - 4, Page: 374
MONEY. ::: Money is the visible sign of a universal force, and this force m its manifestation on earth woris an the vitaf and physical planes and Is indispensable to the fullness of the outer life. In its origin and true action it belongs lo the Divine. But like other powers of the Divine it is delegated here and in the ignorance of the lower Nature can be usurped for the uses of the ego or held by Asuric influences and perverted to their purpose.
Nirmanakaya(Sanskrit) ::: A compound of two words: nirmana, a participle meaning "forming," "creating"; kaya, a wordmeaning "body," "robe," "vehicle"; thus, nirmanakaya means "formed-body." A nirmanakaya, however,is really a state assumed by or entered into by a bodhisattva -- an individual man made semi-divine who,to use popular language, instead of choosing his reward in the nirvana of a less degree, remains on earthout of pity and compassion for inferior beings, clothing himself in a nirmanakayic vesture. When thatstate is ended the nirmanakaya ends.A nirmanakaya is a complete man possessing all the principles of his constitution except the linga-sariraand its accompanying physical body. He is one who lives on the plane of being next superior to thephysical plane, and his purpose in so doing is to save men from themselves by being with them, and bycontinuously instilling thoughts of self-sacrifice, of self-forgetfulness, of spiritual and moral beauty, ofmutual help, of compassion, and of pity.Nirmanakaya is the third or lowest, exoterically speaking, of what is called in Sanskrit trikaya or "threebodies." The highest is the dharmakaya, in which state are the nirvanis and full pratyeka buddhas, etc.;the second state is the sambhogakaya, intermediate between the former and, thirdly, the nirmanakaya.The nirmanakaya vesture or condition enables one entering it to live in touch and sympathy with theworld of men. The sambhogakaya enables one in that state to be conscious indeed to a certain extent ofthe world of men and its griefs and sorrows, but with little power or impulse to render aid. Thedharmakaya vesture is so pure and holy, and indeed so high, that the one possessing the dharmakaya orwho is in it, is virtually out of all touch with anything inferior to himself. It is, therefore, in thenirmanakaya vesture if not in physical form that live and work the Buddhas of Compassion, the greatestsages and seers, and all the superholy men who through striving through ages of evolution bring forthinto manifestation and power and function the divinity within. The doctrine of the nirmanakayas is one ofthe most suggestive, profound, and beautiful teachings of the esoteric philosophy. (See also Dharmakaya,Sambhogakaya)
Nirmanakaya (Sanskrit) Nirmāṇakāya [from nirmāṇa forming, creating + kāya body, robe, vehicle] Appearance body; the lowest of the trikaya, followed by sambhogakaya and dharmakaya. A state assumed by a bodhisattva who, instead of entering nirvana, remains on earth to help inferior beings. “A Nirmanakaya is a complete man possessing all the principles of his constitution except the Linga-sarira, and its accompanying physical body. He is one who lives on the plane of being next superior to the physical plane, and his purpose in so doing is to save men from themselves by being with them, and by continuously instilling thoughts of self-sacrifice, of self-forgetfulness, of spiritual and moral beauty, of mutual help, of compassion, and of pity” (OG 114). Beings in this state make a wall of protection around mankind, which shields humanity from evils.
Nolini: “Amber colour representing a particular plane of consciousness. Yellow + red + touch of brown—physico-vital or even subtle physical plane—the New Creation come down on that plane. Mother India—Nolini’s reply to a question from Huta.
OCCULT. ::: Occult forces are the forces that can only be known by going behind the veil of apparent phenomena, especially the forces of the subtle physical and supraphysical planes.
Our subliminal self is not, like our surface physical being, an outcome of the energy of the Inconscient; it is a meeting-place of the consciousness that emerges from below by evolution and the consciousness that has descended from above for involution. There is in it an inner mind, an inner vital being of ourselves, an inner or subtle-physical being larger than our outer being and nature. This inner existence is the concealed origin of almost all in our surface self that is not a construction of the first inconscient World-Energy or a natural developed functioning of our surface consciousness or a reaction of it to impacts from the outside universal Nature,—and even in this construction, these functionings, these reactions the subliminal takes part and exercises on them a considerable influence. There is here a consciousness which has a power of direct contact with the universal unlike the mostly indirect contacts which our surface being maintains with the universe through the sense-mind and the senses. There are here inner senses, a subliminal sight, touch, hearing; but these subtle senses are rather channels of the inner being’s direct consciousness of things than its informants: the subliminal is not dependent on its senses for its knowledge, they only give a form to its direct experience of objects; they do not, so much as in waking mind, convey forms of objects for the mind’s documentation or as the starting-point or basis for an indirect constructive experience. The subliminal has the right of entry into the mental and vital and subtle-physical planes of the universal consciousness, it is not confined to the material plane and the physical world; it possesses means of communication with the worlds of being which the descent towards involution created in its passage and with all corresponding planes or worlds that may have arisen or been constructed to serve the purpose of the re-ascent from Inconscience to Superconscience. It is into this large realm of interior existence that our mind and vital being retire when they withdraw from the surface activities whether by sleep or inward-drawn concentration or by the inner plunge of trance. Our waking state is unaware of its connection with the subliminal being, although it receives from it—but without any knowledge of the place of origin—the inspirations, intuitions, ideas, will-suggestions, sense-suggestions, urges to action that rise from below or from behind our limited surface existence. Sleep like trance opens the gate of the subliminal to us; for in sleep, as in trance, we retire behind the veil of the limited waking personality and it is behind this veil that the subliminal has its existence. But we receive the records of our sleep experience through dream and in dream figures and not in that condition which might be called an inner waking and which is the most accessible form of the trance state, nor through the supernormal clarities of vision and other more luminous and concrete ways of communication developed by the inner subliminal cognition when it gets into habitual or occasional conscious connection with our waking self. The subliminal, with the subconscious as an annexe of itself,—for the subconscious is also part of the behind-the-veil entity,—is the seer of inner things and of supraphysical experiences; the surface subconscious is only a transcriber. It is for this reason that the Upanishad describes the subliminal being as the Dream Self because it is normally in dreams, visions, absorbed states of inner experience that we enter into and are part of its experiences...
Ref: CWSA Vol. 21-22, Page: 236
Parasakti (Sanskrit) Parāśakti The supreme force or great power. The entire universe is built of seven or ten prakritis, with their corresponding seven or ten purushas or cosmic energies. Parasakti, which in one sense is the highest of these seven forces, acts, like all the other saktis, not only on its own plane or in its own specific prakriti, but likewise extends itself throughout all the other six saktis or prakritis. For this reason every kosmic plane has its own dominant energy or prakriti or sakti; and yet at the same time contains those above it, and in undeveloped form those below it which flow forth from it in the procession of unfolding powers as evolution continues through the manvantara. Thus parasakti, which includes on the physical plane what we call light and heat, on its own primordial plane likewise produces the metaphysical origins of light and heat — the intelligent activity of the buddhi principle, signifying light combined with the vital warmth of kama or cosmic love (the Greek Eros).
Pasyanti: The subtle or the second state of sound whi in its grossest form is manifest as the audible sound upon physical plane.
PaTaLA. ::: The subcooscient below the Earth — the Earth being the conscious physical plane.
Physical Organs Natural history reveals that the organs of the body acquire a greater individual importance, and in some cases occupy a larger proportion of the organism, as we ascend from the lower to the higher animal forms. G. de Purucker points out that “Every one of the organs of the human physical body, both collectively and distributively, is the organic representative in man’s physical sheath or body of one part or portion of his complex inner and invisible constitution. . . . every one of the monadic centers in man’s being . . . has its own corresponding organ in the physical body, each such organ functioning in the body as much as it can according to the characteristic or type-activity of its inner and invisible cause. Thus the heart, the brain, the liver, the spleen, etc., is, each one, the expression on the physical plane and in the human physical body of a corresponding consciousness-center in the invisible constitution of the sevenfold man” (ET 518 3rd & rev ed).
Physical, Physicalization The physical plane of matter is that one of the many planes in universal nature which is coordinated with our physical senses; and the physical plane of consciousness is therefore the plane on which our consciousness functions when we are using those senses. It is characterized by the familiar qualities which science studies under the name of properties of matter. In order to understand biological evolution, it is necessary to admit the existence of the next plane above — the astral plane. The passage of the astral prototypes of organisms from the astral plane to the physical is called physicalization. Differentiation on the physical plane is caused by the psychological and astral life-agents acting in the protyle of the physical plane. Temporary and abnormal physicalization takes place in a spiritualistic materialization.
physical vital ::: the part of the vital that is turned entirely upon physical things, full of desires and greeds and seekings for pleasure on the physical plane.
Planetary Chain ::: Every kosmic body or globe, be it sun or planet, nebula or comet, atom or electron, is a composite entityformed of or comprised of inner and invisible energies and substances and of an outer, to us, and oftenvisible, to us, physical vehicle or body. These elements all together number seven (or twelve), being whatis called in theosophy the seven principles or elements of every self-contained entity; in other words, ofevery individual life-center.Thus every one of the physical globes that we see scattered over the fields of space is accompanied bysix invisible and superior globes, forming what in theosophy is called a chain. This is the case with everysun or star, with every planet, and with every moon of every planet. It is likewise the case with thenebulae and the comets as above stated: all are septiform entities, all have a sevenfold constitution, evenas man has, who is a copy in the little of what the universe is in the great, there being for us one life inthat universe, one natural system of "laws" in that universe. Every entity in the universe is an inseparablepart of it; therefore what is in the whole is in every part, because the part cannot contain anything that thewhole does not contain, the part cannot be greater than the whole.Our own earth-chain is composed of seven (or twelve) globes, of which only one, our earth, is visible onthis our earth plane to our physical sense apparatus, because that apparatus is builded or rather evolved tocognize this earth plane and none other. But the populations of all the seven (or twelve) globes of thisearth-chain pass in succession, and following each other, from globe to globe, thus gaining experience ofenergy and matter and consciousness on all the various planes and spheres that this chain comprises.The other six (or eleven) globes of our earth-chain are invisible to our physical sense, of course; and,limiting our explanation only to the manifest seven globes of the complete chain of twelve globes, the sixglobes other and higher than the earth exist two by two, on three planes of the solar system superior toour physical plane where our earth-globe is -- this our earth. These three superior planes or worlds areeach one superior to the world or plane immediately beneath or inferior to it.Our earth-globe is the fourth and lowest of all the manifest seven globes of our earth-chain. Three globesprecede it on the descending or shadowy arc, and three globes follow it on the ascending or luminous arcof evolution. The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky and the more recent work, Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy (1932), contain most suggestive material for the student interested in this phase ofthe esoteric philosophy. (See also Ascending Arc)
Planet ::: In terms of planetary magic this refers to one of the seven classical planets in Hermetic astrology. In respect to initiation, a planet is more of a primordial archetype that reality tends to coalesce around: something that is fundamental to the experiences that we have; it can also be viewed as a current through which the experience that is human consciousness is tapped into. The planet, as worked with in planetary magic, is associated with a certain Kabbalistic Sephirah and can generally be viewed as the same thing. The physical planets do not exactly correspond to the archetypal ones we reference here. Also called "spheres" on this site.
Power Spot ::: A location, usually in the Physical Plane, that is unusually powerful or active spiritually relative to other locations around it. Places like churches are an everyday example of this. When dozens of minds turn their focus to a singular idea and worship then there tends to be a power to that. Natural formations of sanctity (e.g. Uluru) or constructs of great intrigue (e.g. Stonehenge) are similar examples but even an unusual circle of rocks in the woods could be deemed such a spot.
Prevision Foresight, seeing an event with the inner eye before or at the time of its occurrence. As the inner eye is independent of the time sequence on which our physical eyes and minds act, it is aware of things which to our physical perceptions belong to the future. Hence, if a contact is established between our consciousness and this inner sense, we may obtain a picture of events which have not yet come into the present. Events on the physical plane are the effects of causes which are preparing on invisible planes. The effect follows the cause — not infallibly, but with varying degrees of probability. Theosophy teaches an objective idealism, that while the universe in its phenomenal or manifested attributes is a product of maya, yet for all beings within such universe and subject to the sway of maya, events, manifestations, and similar things which occur are relatively real to their consciousness. Thus to the eye of the spirit — the awakened eye of Siva as it is called in the Orient — all events whatsoever, past, present, or future, appear as in an eternal Now, a shadow cast up from the waves of maya to the consciousness of the said seeing eye, and it is this underlying fact which gives the power of prevision, true premonition, foresight, etc. See also PROPHECY; PREMONITION
Protoplasm [from Greek protos first + plasma form] The semi-fluid granular substance found in all forms of organic life; the primal type of physical matter which appears as merely homogeneous, amorphous, gelatinous substance, yet with the potentiality of differentiating into every known organized form and function. The biological basis of manifesting life on the physical plane, it is semi-astral matter operating at the level where “the two realms, the lower astral and the ethereal-physical, here melt or merge into each other” (ET 151 3rd & rev ed). As a physicalization of vital astral substance, it interlinks the tangible world of forms to the invisible world of living forces and the root-types in the evolutionary ground plan. “Astral matter, it must be noted, is fourth state matter, having, like our gross matter, its own ‘protyle.’ There are several ‘protyles’ in Nature, corresponding to the various planes of matter” (SD 2:737). This ethereal gradation of substances affords a medium or stairway for the transmission of the living impulses and forces of lofty intelligences which are the vitalizing and directing cause of every protoplasmic seed or center differentiating and evolving, each after its own kind and in its own degree of unfolding. In the lower kingdoms where all forms of plant and animal life begin in this seemingly indifferent substance, their essential nature and instincts operate under the vitalizing influence of a hierarchy of dhyani-chohanic entities who, in the aggregate, represent and are the so-called laws of nature. In addition to this creative supervision, in self-conscious man his own spiritual essence is allied with the operation of the karmic agents in working out his fleshly imbodiments. The fertilized germ-cell of the human embryo is a microscopic copy of the protoplasmic second human root-race, “huge and highly ethereal astral Cells . . . infilled with the astral essence of the lowest of the Dhyani-Chohanic fluids” (ET 151 3rd & rev ed).
Pythagoras taught that seven was composed of the numbers three and four, explaining that “on the plane of the noumenal world, the triangle was, as the first conception of the manifested Deity, its image: ‘Father-Mother-Son’; and the Quaternary, the perfect number, was the noumenal, ideal root of all numbers and things on the physical plane” (ibid.). Further, seven was called by the Pythogoreans the vehicle of life for it consisted of body and spirit: the body was held to consist of four principal elements, while the spirit was in manifestation triple, comprising the monad, intellect or essential reason, and mind.
REGIONS The planets&
rent regard for the other members of the great series. Thus, if we regard the vital or the subtle physical plane, we see great ranges of it, (most of it), existing in themselves, without any relation with the material world and with no movement to affect or influence it, still less to precipitate a corresponding manifes- tation in the physical formula. At most we can say that the existence of anything in the vital, subtle physical or any other plane creates a possibility for a corresponding movement of manifestation in the physical world. But something more is needed to turn that static or latent possibility into a dynamic potentiality or an actual urge towards a material creation. That something may be a call from the material plane, e.g., some force or some one on the physical existence entering into touch with a supraphysical power or world or part of it and moved to bring it down into the earth-life. Or it may be an impulse in the vital or other plane itself, e.g., a vital being moved to extend his action towards the earth and establish there a kingdom for himself or the play of the forces for which he stands in his own domain.
Science admits the existence of vast stores of latent energy in the atoms; and considering everything as a question of physical dynamics, it infers that an equivalent quantity of physical energy must have been expended in creating the atom. Energy or life is a fundamental attribute and function of the universe, which has its manifestations on all seven or ten planes of prakriti, appearing as centers of energy which radiate outwards from within. Also used to denote the female potency or sakti (SD 1:l36); aether too is mentioned as the quintessence of energy. Energy expended on the astral plane is far more productive of results than the same amount expended on the physical plane, according to occult dynamics.
Seeking for occulf powers is looked on with disfavour for the most part by spiritual teachers in India, because it belongs to the inferior planes and usually pushes the seeker on a path which may lead him very far from the Divine. Especially, a contact mth the forces and beings of the astral (or, as we term it, the vital) plane is attended with great dangers. The beings of this plane are often bosiQc to the true aim of spiritual life and establish contact with the seeker and offer him powers and occult experiences only in order that they may lead him away from the spiritual path or else that they may establish their own control over him or take possession of him for their owm pur- pose. Often, representing themselves as Divine powers they mis- lead, give erring suggestions and impulsions and pervert the inner life. Many are those who, attracted by these powers and beings of the vital plane, bave ended in a definitive spiritual fall or in mental and physical perversion and disorder. One comes ineritably into contact with the vital plane and enters into it in the expansion of consriousness which results from an inner opening, but one ought never to put oneself into the hands of these beings and forces or allow oneself to be led by their sug- gestions and impulsions. This is one of the chief dangers of the spiritual life and to be on one’s guard against it is a necessity for the seeTer if he wishes to arrive at his goal. It is true that many supraphysical or supernonnal powers come with the expansion of the consciousness in the yoga ; to rise out of the body consciousness, to act by subtle means on the supraphysical planes, etc. are natural activities for the yogi- But these powers are not sought after, they come naturally, and they have not the astral character. Also, Aey have to be used on purely spiritual
Senses In general, gateways of communication between the perceiving function of the ego and the corresponding elements of the plane where it is functioning. The physical senses appeared in serial evolution in the order of hearing, touch, sight, taste, and smell. These senses were not developed out of nothing but are expressions or reflection on the physical plane of previous latent, inner causal functions residing in the structure of the inner person.
Seven Planes Model ::: An additional model to describe the layers of conscious experience and the subtleties thereof. The primary difference between this and the Four Worlds model is that the Four Worlds model encompasses a broader swathe of reality while the Seven Planes Model drills down into those four and further partitions them. The Seven Planes Model consists of the Physical Plane, the Etheric Plane (which is more of a boundary in the Four Worlds model), the Astral Plane, the Soul Plane (the Higher Astral in the Four Worlds model), the Information Plane (the Lower Mental in the Four Worlds model), the Mental Plane, and the Causal Plane.
Sleep In sleep the ego becomes unconscious on the physical plane in its brain — except in the cases of dreaming; the connection between the mind and the bodily senses is quiescent and there is no direct self-conscious cognition of physical objects and events. In short, the ego is functioning on a different plane of consciousness. On awaking, we have confused recollections of experiences of the state of imperfect sleep which fringes the waking and sleeping states, but the sleeping state is not a single state. Many planes of consciousness are enumerated, of which what we call the waking state is one. One Hindu system has a fourfold division of consciousness into jagrat, the waking state; svapna, the dream state; sushupti, the state of dreamless sleep; and, highest, the turiya, which is relatively complete egoic or spiritual consciousness on interior planes. From this last state of perfect awakenment, the jagrat or physical waking state is the farthest removed; what is to us the dream state (svapna) is a closer approach; and sushupti, which to us is complete loss of physical brain-mind consciousness, is actually the closest approach to the complete consciousness experienced by the ego in turiya. Turiya is the complete oblivion to the outside world, for the ego is functioning in its spiritual vehicle of consciousness.
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Some people try to introduce a volitional principle into nature at this point, but this is falsely to assume that the volitional principle is absent elsewhere — an assumption purely speculative, and which seems entirely unwarranted. It is not that the universe is divided into a mechanical section and a volitional section, arbitrarily separated by a hypothetical boundary that varies according to our progress in investigation. The mechanical interpretation therefore is a device adopted for practical purposes on the physical plane, which enables us to predict results within limits that do not bring the validity of its assumptions into question. Science finds that one form of motion is consequent upon another, but it knows nothing about the cause of motion; and words like force and mass are merely convenient abstractions. Hence there can be no reason for introducing a psychological element into nature at one point rather than at another, for such disjunct compartments do not exist in nature.
Sons of Fohat The vital intelligent powers in nature subordinate to fohat, being the seven distinct primary forces of cosmic electricity or magnetism. These seven sons are also fohat’s brothers, for Fohat is forced to be born time after time whenever any two of his son-brothers indulge in too close contact — whether an embrace or a fight. To avoid this, he binds together and unites those of unlike nature and separates those of similar temperaments. This, of course, relates, as any one can see, to electricity generated by friction and to the law involving attraction between two objects of unlike, and repulsion between those of like polarity” (SD 1:145). The seven primary forces of cosmic electricity are only visible on our physical plane as physical effects, not as primary forces, and hence sound, light, color, magnetism, heat, cohesion, lightning, and so forth, are but its phenomena in the world of senses, the distant results of originating spiritual powers engendered by conscious causes.
Spontaneous Generation In science, abiogenesis (the production of living from nonliving matter), archegenesis, or archebiosis; in theosophy, however, there is no nonliving matter, for even the rocks are but concreted living monads, which because of their temporarily passing through this state of concretion do not manifest the innate powers and functions of vitality which they do on inner an invisible planes. Thus, the only distinction between what is popularly called living and nonliving matter is the differences in organic development on this physical plane. Everything is always alive, life self-expresses itself everywhere — in organized beings of flesh, in the vegetation, and in the rocks. To the occultist magnetism and electricity, forms of radiation, are but manifestations of cosmic vitality; and even the atoms and their component particles, being themselves electrical in essence, are but life particles.
Sri Aurobindo: "The word is a sound expression of the idea. In the supra-physical plane when an idea has to be realised, one can by repeating the word-expression of it, produce vibrations which prepare the mind for the realisation of the idea. That is the principle of the Mantras and of Japa. One repeats the name of the Divine and the vibrations created in the consciousness prepare the realisation of the Divine. It is the same idea that is expressed in the Bible: ‘God said, Let there be Light, and there was Light". It is creation by the Word.” *The Future Poetry
Sthula-Sarira(Sanskrit) ::: Sthula means "coarse," "gross," not refined, heavy, bulky, fat in the sense of bigness,therefore, conditioned and differentiated matter; sarira, "form," generally speaking. The lowestsubstance-principle of which man is composed, usually classified as the seventh in order -- the physicalbody.The sthula-sarira or physical hierarchy of the human body is builded up of cosmic elements, themselvesformed of living atomic entities which, although subject individually to bewilderingly rapid changes andreimbodiments, nevertheless are incomparably more enduring in themselves as expressions of themonadic rays than is the transitory physical body which they temporarily compose.The physical body is composed mostly of porosity, if the expression be pardoned; the most unreal thingwe know, full of holes, foamy as it were. At death the physical body follows the course of natural decay,and its various hosts of life-atoms proceed individually and collectively whither their natural attractionscall them.Strictly speaking, the physical body is not a principle at all; it is merely a house, man's carrier in anothersense, and no more is an essential part of him -- except that he has excreted it, thrown it out from himself-- than are the clothes in which his body is garmented. Man really is a complete human being without thesthula-sarira; and yet this statement while accurate must be taken not too literally, because even thephysical body is the expression of man's constitution on the physical plane. The meaning is that thehuman constitution can be a complete human entity even when the physical body is discarded, but thesthula-sarira is needed for evolution and active work on this subplane of the solar kosmos.
Sthula-sarira (Sanskrit) Sthūla-śarīra [from sthūla coarse, gross, not refined, heavy, bulky, fat in the sense of bigness, conditioned and differentiated matter + śarīra to molder, waste away] A gross body, impermanent because of its wholly compounded character. The physical body, usually considered as the lowest substance-principle of the sevenfold human constitution. This human form is the result of the harmonious coworking on the physical plane of forces and faculties streaming through their astral vehicle or linga-sarira, the pattern or model of the physical body. The sthula-sarira may be considered concreted effluvium or dregs of the linga-sarira. Hence, the sthula-sarira is the vehicle or carrier on this plane of all the other human principles. The physical body is built up of cosmic elements from all parts of the universe. The millions of tiny lives that make up our bodies are much more enduring than is the body itself as a unit. These little lives are constantly undergoing birth and rebirth because constantly changing or evolving, and thus the human body also changes as the years pass by. The physical body is the outermost, and therefore the feeblest, expression of all the wondrous qualities and forces working in man.
“Strictly speaking the physical body is not a ‘principle’ at all; it is merely a house, man’s ‘carrier’ in another sense; and no more is an essential part of him — except that he has excreted it, thrown it out from himself — than are the clothes in which his body is garmented. Man really is a complete human being without the Sthula-sarira; and yet this statement while accurate must be taken not too literally, because even the physical body is the expression of man’s constitution on the physical plane. The meaning is that the human constitution can be a complete human entity even when the physical body is discarded, but the Sthula-sarira is needed for evolution and active work on this sub-plane of the solar kosmos” (OG 164-5).
sūks.ma (sukshma; çukshma) ::: subtle; non-material, not belonging to suksma the physical world perceived by the outer mind and senses; (relating to) the subliminal parts of our being or the supraphysical planes of existence (lokas) between the sthūla and the karan.a. ssuksma ūks.ma ak akasa
The astral light also plays an enormous part in most dreams. We may witness scenes which cannot have formed part of our waking experience, and evidently in this case are seeing pictures in the astral light which we correctly or erroneously connect with our own personality. Again, with prophetic dreams our vision, untrammeled by physical senses, perceives in the astral light the image of what will later happen on the physical plane, and we may occasionally carry a recollection of what has been seen into the waking state.
The astral light is nature’s storehouse of the images of events, and contact with the object puts the psychometer in rapport with the impressions concerned. The psychometer brings his inner self in contact with the “soul” of the object. But as the phenomena involve the properties of planes other than the physical, any attempt to explain them in terms of the physical plane must necessarily be lame. The physical plane limits both the powers of nature and our own faculties, and the psychometer rises to a plane where some of these barriers are removed, for nothing is destroyed and there is unity and intercommunication throughout all nature.
The astral light is virtually the same as the sidereal light of Paracelsus and other medieval mystic philosophers who followed him. The reason for calling this kosmic plane astral or sidereal is that all nature being a vast and intricately interwoven organism, the stars and planets emanate into each other their respective celestial energies and substances. Thus, because there is this constant interchange of starry fluids emanating from the different celestial bodies, the term astral light has a foundation of esoteric scientific fact. It is applied specifically to the second kosmic plane only because it is nearest to the physical and beings living on the physical plane at times become sensible of the existence of the second kosmic plane by means of flashes of starry light or sensations of luminosity. Hence the ancient initiates, knowing the source of this starry substance, properly called it the astral or sidereal light, or by some similar expression. The astral light, finally, is the very dregs of akasa, and is virtually the same as the hypothetical ether of science.
The point at issue between theosophic teachings and modern evolutionary theory is that species cannot be traced back to a unitary physical origin; instead, a number of types appeared on the physical planes, coming from the astral, through intermediate astro-physical stages, and each type proceeding to differentiate physically in response to physical conditions.
The Pythagoreans regarded the number seven as a compound of three and four: “On the plane of the noumenal world, the triangle was, as the first conception of the manifested Deity, its image: ‘Father-Mother-Son’; and the Quaternary, the perfect number, was the noumenal, ideal root of all numbers and things on the physical planes” (SD 2:582). The early Pythagoreans regarded the number three mystically as the vehicle of deity. If the duad was considered by these and other thinkers to be the first numerical element in cosmic manifestation, so following the same line the triad or three was considered the first number with which began the emanative series of hierarchies building all the planes inner and outer of the manifested worlds. See also TRIAD
The quaternary is said, in the Pythagorean numerical system, to be the ideal root of all numbers and things on the physical plane, because the quaternary is projected downwards, so to speak.
The states of matter give clues by means of correspondence to the understanding of the primary elements. Gases are indefinitely expansible and their particles have great freedom and range of movement and are always in rapid motion. It would seem by analogy that the solid state corresponds to the physical planes, the liquid state to the astral or psychic plane, air to mind, and fire to spirit. Air may be called the vehicle of fire, as mind is the vehicle of spirit. Fire is analogous to points or foci of energy; air, being number two, suggests lines of force or radiation, motion. The air which, according to the teaching of the medieval Fire-philosophers, is the domain of sylphs is certainly not our familiar mixture of oxygen and nitrogen, which is merely a correspondence of the element on our plane; it is when on our own astral air plane that these beings may be encountered.
"The theory of the Mantra is that it is a word of power born out of the secret depths of our being where it has been brooded upon by a deeper consciousness than the mental, framed in the heart and not constructed by the intellect, held in the mind, again concentrated on by the waking mental consciousness and then thrown out silently or vocally — the silent word is perhaps held to be more potent than the spoken — precisely for the work of creation. The Mantra can not only create new subjective states in ourselves, alter our psychical being, reveal knowledge and faculties we did not before possess, can not only produce similar results in other minds than that of the user, but can produce vibrations in the mental and vital atmosphere which result in effects, in actions and even in the production of material forms on the physical plane.” The Upanishads
“The theory of the Mantra is that it is a word of power born out of the secret depths of our being where it has been brooded upon by a deeper consciousness than the mental, framed in the heart and not constructed by the intellect, held in the mind, again concentrated on by the waking mental consciousness and then thrown out silently or vocally—the silent word is perhaps held to be more potent than the spoken—precisely for the work of creation. The Mantra can not only create new subjective states in ourselves, alter our psychical being, reveal knowledge and faculties we did not before possess, can not only produce similar results in other minds than that of the user, but can produce vibrations in the mental and vital atmosphere which result in effects, in actions and even in the production of material forms on the physical plane.” The Upanishads
“The theory of the Mantra is that it is a word of power born out of the secret depths of our being where it has been brooded upon by a deeper consciousness than the mental, framed in the heart and not constructed by the intellect, held in the mind, again concentrated on by the waking mental consciousness and then thrown out silently or vocally—the silent word is perhaps held to be more potent than the spoken—precisely for the work of creation. The Mantra can not only create new subjective states in ourselves, alter our psychical being, reveal knowledge and faculties we did not before possess, can not only produce similar results in other minds than that of the user, but can produce vibrations in the mentaland vital atmosphere which result ineffects, in actions and even in theproduction of material forms on the physical plane.” The Upanishads
The world of the Asuras is prior to the evolution, so are the worlds of the mental, vital or subtle-physical Devas — but these beings are different from each other. The great Gods belong to the Overmind plane ::: in the Supennind they are unified as aspects of the Divine, in the Overmind they appear as separate personali- ties. Any godhead can descend by emanation to the physical plane and associate himself with the evolution of a human being with whose line of manlfestion he is in affinity.
They are one key (there are others) to contact with the other worlds or with the inner worlds and all that is there and these are regions of immense riches which far surpass the physical plane as it is at present. One enters into a larger, freer self and a larger, more pfastic world; of course indmrfual w/anr only give a contact, not an actual entrance, but the power of vision accompanied with the power of other subtle senses (hear- ing, touch, etc.) as it expands does give this entrance. These things have not the effect of a mere imagination but if fully fo * lowed out bring a constant growth of the being and the conscious- ness and its richness of experience and its scope.
They are one key (there are others) to contact with the other worlds or with the inner worlds and all that is there and these are regions of immense riches which far surpass the physical plane as it is at present. One enters into a larger, freer self and a larger, more plasdc world; of course individual visions only give a contact, not an actual entrance, but the power of vision accompanied with the power of other subtle semes (hear- ing, touch, etc.) as it expands does give this entrance. These things have not the effect of a mere imagination but if fully fol- lowed out bring a constant growth of the being and the conscious- ness and its richness of experience and its scope.
This is the Diwne seen around us and on our own physical plane. But he may reveal himself above. We see or feel him as a high-lifted Presence, a great infinite of Ananda above us,
Three-dimensional The physical plane of objectivity is often spoken of as the three-dimensional world, because in our space considered as a system of points, three rectilinear coordinates are necessary to determine the position of a point. When one of these three dimensions becomes zero, the volume of the body also becomes zero, and it vanishes from the physical planes. Mathematics speaks of n-dimensions, but some of these dimensions may be vectors, such as force or velocity, so that it is necessary to avoid drawing false analogies.
Three Worlds Model ::: A model of levels of reality described in some shamanic traditions. The role of the shaman is one of mediation and hence the Physical Plane finds itself in the middle. The Heavens make up the world of archetypes and non-dual awareness and the Underworld refers to the Astral domains as well as to the Hell realms.
Thus Qelippoth has a dual meaning: first and less customary, the unorganized matter of space out of which spiritual beings build their bodies in order to manifest on this physical plane; second and more customary, is the physical bodies themselves as thus built, containing the vital and other characteristics of living beings. The word corresponds to the rupa-worlds — the imbodied beings of this world or sphere.
Thus when an adept for some noble object purposes to use his inner powers, it is rare indeed that a single one of these saktis is employed alone. First there may be an evocation from his constitution of the sakti of ideation or high mentation giving the picture of what must be done, thus directing the flow of the will; then follows the evocation of ichchha-sakti or desire to perform the object in view. This combines with kriya-sakti or mental power guiding the desire and the will along the proper path to the end desired. Other saktis may or may not be called into function as needed. The saktis most commonly having a phenomenal effect or repercussion on the physical plane are ichchha-sakti, combining with kriya-sakti, guided by jnana-sakti.
Transformism Adopted from the French, it is the process of evolution as understood by Lamarck and Darwin, as distinguished from evolution in its true etymological sense as used in theosophy. It means the supposed transformation of one kind of organism into another kind of organism, by purely physical processes. Evolution means that a living monad or soul unfolds itself from within outwards, thus producing the forms by which it manifests itself on the physical planes; and clothing itself in a graduating and constantly improving succession of forms, according to changes in its own growth and requirements.
Types, Ancestral In biology used in connection with theories of evolution, which seek for ancestral types which may have served as staring points for physical development. But the causes operative on the physical plane on which science relies, are in fact only secondary causes. The true ancestral types are astral, and indeed, because of distant causal action, even spiritual models reflected in the astral and thence into the physical, and thus governing shape, form, and their correlations with other effects. The secondary causes come into play mainly after the physicalization of the astral forms (cf SD 2:648-9).
Universal Mind The sum of the states of kosmic consciousness grouped under the human expressions thought, will, understanding, and feeling, collectively expressed in the Sanskrit as mahat. During deep sleep, the human mind is in abeyance on the physical plane, because our consciousness is not affecting the physical brain which in waking hours expresses it, although during the svapna (sleeping-dreaming) state the brain dreams; and similarly in the cosmos at the manvantaric dawn universal mind “was not” because there was as yet no vehicle for its expression through the cosmic hierarchies, this vehicle being the collective Ah-hi or hosts of dhyani-chohans. Universal mind remained during pralaya in a state of intense spiritual-intellectual activity, as the permanent root of subsequent cosmic mental action arising during manvantara. Universal mind is the manifested One, from the still more abstruse One or kosmic unity, and simultaneously with the evolution of universal mind the cosmic supreme One or hierarch also manifests itself in manvantara as avalokitesvara (Logos or atman) through its veil, universal substance or mulaprakriti — a unity with triple aspects. It is the mother of the manasaputras or sons of mind, and is kosmic buddhi or mahabuddhi.
Used in limited senses in reference to planes of manifestation: thus the unmanifested causes of things on the physical plane may be manifest to the consciousness pertaining to the higher planes. See also MANIFESTATION
Vibration, in all its myriad manifestations, is the consequence of inner hidden causal agencies. The vibrations ensuing from such inner movements expressing themselves through bodies or veils, are always in accordance with the causal rhythms and mathematics involving quantities such as rate, intensity, and quality, there being vibrations of as many kinds as there are different causal agents. Thus there are vibrations as effects on our gross physical plane, other vibrations which manifest themselves on the astral, emotional, and psychological or lower mental planes. There are again vibrations of higher type which originate in the intellectual and spiritual monads of the human constitution.
vital (the) ::: the life-nature made up of desires, sensations, feelings, passions, energies of action, will of desire, reactions of the desire-soul of man and of all that play of possessive and other related instincts, anger, greed, lust, etc., that belong to this field of nature. The vital part of man is a true instrument only when its feelings and tendencies have been purified by the psychic touch and governed by the spiritual light and power. The vital has three main parts:
higher vital ::: the mental vital and emotional vital taken together. The mental vital gives a mental expression by thought, speech or otherwise to the emotions, desires, passions, sensations or other movements of the vital being; the emotional vital is the seat of various feelings, such as love, joy, sorrow, hatred and the rest.
central vital or vital proper ::: dynamic, sensational and passionate, it is the seat of the stronger vital longings and reactions, such as ambition, pride, fear, love of fame, attractions and repulsions, desires and passion of various kinds and the field of many vital energies.
lower vital ::: made up of the smaller movements of human life-desire and life-reactions, it is occupied with small desires and feelings, such as food desire, sexual desire, small likings, dislikings, vanity, quarrels, love of praise, anger at blame, little wishes of all kinds, etc. The material vital is that part of the lower vital turned entirely upon physical things, full of desires and greeds and seekings for pleasure on the physical plane.
VOICES. ::: There are many voices, each force, each move- ment of the mental, vital, physical plane may equip itself with a voice,
Word ::: “The word is a sound expression of the idea. In the supra-physical plane when an idea has to be realised, one can by repeating the word-expression of it, produce vibrations which prepare the mind for the realisation of the idea. That is the principle of the Mantras and of Japa. One repeats the name of the Divine and the vibrations created in the consciousness prepare the realisation of the Divine. It is the same idea that is expressed in the Bible: ‘God said, Let there be Light, and there was Light’. It is creation by the Word.” The Future Poetry
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1:For the physical plane the work always repeated is the foundation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Work and Yoga, #KEYS
2:On the physical plane the Divine expresses himself through beauty, on the mental plane through knowledge, on the vital plane through power and on the psychic plane through love.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother III,#KEYS
3:The word is a sound expressive of the idea. In the supra-physical plane when an idea has to be realised, one can by repeating the word-expression of it, produce vibrations which prepare the mind for the realisation of the idea. That is the principle of the Mantra and of japa. One repeats the name of the Divine and the vibrations created in the consciousness prepare the realisation of the Divine. It is the same idea that is expressed in The Bible, God said, Let there be Light, and there was Light. It is creation by the Word. 6 May 1933 ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Poetry And Art, 1.1.1.02 - Creation by the Word / 2.3.02 - Mantra and Japa, #KEYS
4:the vital
the life-nature made up of desires, sensations, feelings, passions, energies of action, will of desire, reactions of the desire-soul of man and of all that play of possessive and other related instincts, anger, greed, lust, etc., that belong to this field of nature. The vital part of man is a true instrument only when its feelings and tendencies have been purified by the psychic touch and governed by the spiritual light and power. The vital has three main parts:
higher vital
the mental vital and emotional vital taken together. The mental vital gives a mental expression by thought, speech or otherwise to the emotions, desires, passions, sensations or other movements of the vital being; the emotional vital is the seat of various feelings, such as love, joy, sorrow, hatred and the rest.
central vital or vital proper
dynamic, sensational and passionate, it is the seat of the stronger vital longings and reactions, such as ambition, pride, fear, love of fame, attractions and repulsions, desires and passion of various kinds and the field of many vital energies.
lower vital
made up of the smaller movements of human life-desire and life-reactions, it is occupied with small desires and feelings, such as food desire, sexual desire, small likings, dislikings, vanity, quarrels, love of praise, anger at blame, little wishes of all kinds, etc. The material vital is that part of the lower vital turned entirely upon physical things, full of desires and greeds and seekings for pleasure on the physical plane. ~ Integral Yoga; Sri Aurobindo's Teaching and Method of Practice,#KEYS
5:Disciple: If the Asuras represent the dark side of God on the vital plane - does this dark side exist on every plane? If so, are there beings on the mental plane which correspond to the dark side?
Sri Aurobindo: The Asura is really the dark side of God on the mental plane. Mind is the very field of the Asura. His characteristic is egoistic strength, which refuses the Higher Law. The Asura has got Self-control, Tapas, intelligence, only, all that is for his ego.
On the vital plane the corresponding forces we call the Rakshashas which represent violent passions and impulses. There are other beings on the vital plane which we call pramatta and piśacha and these; manifest, more or less, on the physico-vital plane.
Distiple: What is the corresponding being on the higher plane?
Sri Aurobindo: On the higher plane there are no Asuras - there the Truth prevails. There are "Asuras" there in the Vedic sense,- "beings with divine powers". The mental Asura is only a deviation of that power.
The work of the Asura has all the characteristics of mind in it. It is mind refusing to submit to the Higher Law; it is the mind in revolt. It works on the basis of ego and ignorance.
Disciple: What are the forces that correspond to the dark side of God on the physical plane?
Sri Aurobindo: They are what may be called the "elemental beings", or rather, obscure elemental forces - they are more "forces" than "beings". It is these that the Theosophists call the "Elementals". They are not individualised beings like the Asura and the Rakshasas, they are ignorant forces working oh the subtle physical plane.
Disciple: What is the word for them in Sanskrit;?
Sri Aurobindo: What are called bhūtas seem most nearly to correspond to them.
Disciple: The term "Elemental" means that these work through the elements.
Sri Aurobindo: There are two kinds of "elementals": one mischievous and the other innocent. What the Europeans call the gnomes come under this category. ~ A B Purani, EVENING TALKS WITH SRI AUROBINDO, 15-06-1926,#KEYS
6:Can it be said in justification of one's past that whatever has happened in one's life had to happen?
The Mother: Obviously, what has happened had to happen; it would not have been, if it had not been intended. Even the mistakes that we have committed and the adversities that fell upon us had to be, because there was some necessity in them, some utility for our lives. But in truth these things cannot be explained mentally and should not be. For all that happened was necessary, not for any mental reason, but to lead us to something beyond what the mind imagines. But is there any need to explain after all? The whole universe explains everything at every moment and a particular thing happens because the whole universe is what it is. But this does not mean that we are bound over to a blind acquiescence in Nature's inexorable law. You can accept the past as a settled fact and perceive the necessity in it, and still you can use the experience it gave you to build up the power consciously to guide and shape your present and your future.
Is the time also of an occurrence arranged in the Divine Plan of things?
The Mother: All depends upon the plane from which one sees and speaks. There is a plane of divine consciousness in which all is known absolutely, and the whole plan of things foreseen and predetermined. That way of seeing lives in the highest reaches of the Supramental; it is the Supreme's own vision. But when we do not possess that consciousness, it is useless to speak in terms that hold good only in that region and are not our present effective way of seeing things. For at a lower level of consciousness nothing is realised or fixed beforehand; all is in the process of making. Here there are no settled facts, there is only the play of possibilities; out of the clash of possibilities is realised the thing that has to happen. On this plane we can choose and select; we can refuse one possibility and accept another; we can follow one path, turn away from another. And that we can do, even though what is actually happening may have been foreseen and predetermined in a higher plane.
The Supreme Consciousness knows everything beforehand, because everything is realised there in her eternity. But for the sake of her play and in order to carry out actually on the physical plane what is foreordained in her own supreme self, she moves here upon earth as if she did not know the whole story; she works as if it was a new and untried thread that she was weaving. It is this apparent forgetfulness of her own foreknowledge in the higher consciousness that gives to the individual in the active life of the world his sense of freedom and independence and initiative. These things in him are her pragmatic tools or devices, and it is through this machinery that the movements and issues planned and foreseen elsewhere are realised here.
It may help you to understand if you take the example of an actor. An actor knows the whole part he has to play; he has in his mind the exact sequence of what is to happen on the stage. But when he is on the stage, he has to appear as if he did not know anything; he has to feel and act as if he were experiencing all these things for the first time, as if it was an entirely new world with all its chance events and surprises that was unrolling before his eyes. 28th April ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931,#KEYS
1:When I look at my life, I see that I wanted to be free of the physical plane, the psychological plane, and when I got free of those I didn't want to go anywhere near them. ~ ram-das, @wisdomtrove 2:Love makes you wise. Love unites. Pain divides. Hate divides even more. Hate separates and brings us down to a very physical plane. Love elevates us to a plane of spirit. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 3:People say that what we are all seeking is meaning for life. I think that what we're really seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our innnermost being and reality, so that we can actually feel the rapture of being alive. ~ joseph-campbell, @wisdomtrove 4:What one thinks continually, they become; what one cherishes in their heart and mind they make a part of the pulsation of their heart, through their own blood cells, and build in their own physical, that which its spirit and soul must feed upon, and that with which it will be possessed, when it passes into the realm for which the other experiences of what it has gained here in the physical plane, must be used. ~ edgar-cayce, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:It is not necessary to meet your guru on the physical plane. The guru is not external. ~ Neem Karoli Baba, #NFDB
2:We build in thought the conditions that will later come into manifestation on the physical plane. ~ Emmet Fox, #NFDB
3:For the physical plane the work always repeated is the foundation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Work and Yoga, #NFDB
4:You are a holistic being with both nondualistic energy and the energy of the physical plane as a part of your being at your disposal. ~ Wayne Dyer, #NFDB
5:Our thoughts are linked to the invisible energy that makes up all that is, and they help mold it into that which we experience on the physical plane. ~ Jen Sincero, #NFDB
6:I think that sexuality is first and foremost the way that God chooses for us to be here on earth, to enjoy this energy of love in the physical plane. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
7:When I look at my life, I see that I wanted to be free of the physical plane, the psychological plane, and when I got free of those I didn't want to go anywhere near them. ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
8:Love makes you wise. Love unites. Pain divides. Hate divides even more. Hate separates and brings us down to a very physical plane. Love elevates us to a plane of spirit. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
9:According to traditional man the physical plane merely contains effects; nothing takes place in this world that did not originate first in the next world or in the invisible dimension. ~ Julius Evola, #NFDB
10:On the physical plane the Divine expresses himself through beauty, on the mental plane through knowledge, on the vital plane through power and on the psychic plane through love.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother III,#NFDB
11:As we enter the physical plane, we are love temporarily hidden from itself. When we remember who we really are, our inner light, our love, shines forth for all to see. That, I believe, is why we are here. ~ Robert Schwartz, #NFDB
12:For awhile, I was left with nothing on the physical plane. I had no relationships, no job, no home, no socially defined identity. I spent almost two years sitting on park benches in a state of the most intense joy. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
13:The metaphysical experiences described in the Bible most frequently occur near water. In religious symbolism, water is a symbol of the etheric world that extends beyond the physical plane of life. ~ Manly P Hall, How to Understand Your Bible, #NFDB
14:Whether it was true or not, it eased his heart to think there was something beyond the physical plane, something that felt benevolent toward humans, because the gods knew there wasn’t much on the physical plane that felt benevolent toward them. ~ Anne Bishop, #NFDB
15:Sex was always surrounded by taboos, and I don't see it necessarily as a manifestation of evil. I think that sexuality is first and foremost the way that God chooses for us to be here on earth, to enjoy this energy of love in the physical plane. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
16:The prevailing theory in the paranormal community is that a person’s energy remains intact and either moves to a new plane (heaven or hell) or resides in the physical plane with us, which causes what we call a haunting. It is this wandering energy that still knows who it is with which we try to make contact. ~ Zak Bagans, #NFDB
17:The driving forces of the universe, the framework upon which it is built up in all its parts, belong to another phase of manifestation than our physical plane, having other dimensions than the three to which we are habituated, and perceived by other modes of consciousness than those to which we are accustomed. ~ Dion Fortune, #NFDB
18:Our greatest dreams and desires abide in the mental and spiritual realm. In order to transfer them in the physical plane we need to invert subject and object. You will receive from the world what you deeply long to receive the day when you give to the world what you deeply long to receive. Today could be that day. ~ Franco Santoro, #NFDB
19:I transmit astral plane harmonies through my brushes into the physical plane. These otherworld colours are reflected in the alphabet of nature, a grammar in which the symbols are plants, animals, birds, fishes, earth and sky. I am merely a channel for the spirit to utilize, and it is needed by a spirit starved society. ~ Norval Morrisseau, #NFDB
20:In creating the realm of the relative, I first created the opposite of My Self. Now, in the realm in which you live on the physical plane, there are only two places of being: fear and love. Thoughts rooted in fear will produce one kind of manifestation on the physical plane. Thoughts rooted in love will produce another. ~ Neale Donald Walsch, #NFDB
21:Yoga is for everyone. You need not be an expert or at the peak of physical fitness to practice the asanas described...Yoga helps to integrate the mental and the physical plane, bringing about a sense of inner and outer balance, or what I term alignment. True alignment means that the inner mind reaches every cell and fiber of the body. ~ B K S Iyengar, #NFDB
22:People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
23:People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
24:If any of these demoniacal creatures were to confront a person on the physical plane, it would scare him to death, but because the unfortunate person does not see them, he does not worry. It would be wise if people did consider them, however, as they will find out if they do not fortify themselves by taking the White Path. ~ Manly P Hall, Magic: A Treatise on Esoteric Ethics, #NFDB
25:Man is a far more complete being than is generally imagined. He has not only a body and a soul, but he is a spirit possessing a soul, which soul has several vehicles for expression, these several vehicles being of different degrees of density, the body being the lowest form of expression. These different vehicles manifest upon different "planes," such as the "physical plane," the "astral plane, ~ William Walker Atkinson, #NFDB
26:What one thinks continually, they become; what one cherishes in their heart and mind they make a part of the pulsation of their heart, through their own blood cells, and build in their own physical, that which its spirit and soul must feed upon, and that with which it will be possessed, when it passes into the realm for which the other experiences of what it has gained here in the physical plane, must be used. ~ Edgar Cayce, #NFDB
27:An intelligent haunting is just as it sounds—a spirit who is aware of its surroundings and (usually) its situation. Sometimes a spirit knows that it’s dead and its spirit has remained in the physical plane, but other times it doesn’t know. An intelligent haunting is a spirit that maintains its identity, memories, and personality after death. They can be good, bad, virtuous, benevolent, mischievous, evil, or just lonely. ~ Zak Bagans, #NFDB
28:Man is a far more complete being than is generally imagined. He has not only a body and a soul, but he is a spirit possessing a soul, which soul has several vehicles for expression, these several vehicles being of different degrees of density, the body being the lowest form of expression. These different vehicles manifest upon different "planes," such as the "physical plane," the "astral plane," etc., all of which will be explained as we proceed. ~ William Walker Atkinson, #NFDB
29:As with all things in the physical plane, nothing is permanent, and the only thing we can truly count on is change. Things come and go, people are born and die and move in and out of our lives. The dreams and goals of today will one day either materialize or evolve into something different with time. If we become rigidly attached to any of this, we set ourselves up for the inevitable suffering that will ensue when the thing, person or idea flows out of our lives, or our desire for it shifts. ~ Dashama Konah Gordon, #NFDB
30:Knowledge based on the senses is therefore a subjective judgment, an ever-varying opinion without any absolute foundation. True knowledge, by contrast, is possible only from a direct apprehension of the transcendent Forms, which are eternal and beyond the shifting confusion and imperfection of the physical plane. Knowledge derived from the senses is merely opinion and is fallible by any nonrelative standard. Only knowledge derived directly from the Ideas is infallible and can be justifiably called real knowledge. ~ Richard Tarnas, #NFDB
31:the veil of illusion is very dense on the physical plane. Ordinary people are unaware that all manifestations of order in the world come from the higher planes. Just as wild nature may become a garden under the direction of the human mind, so may human thought – wild in primitive individuals – likewise be transformed into a powerful creative force when inspired by minds at work in the higher realms. No useful organization ever materializes on the earth unless its first rays have come down from the higher spheres. ~ Francisco C ndido Xavier, #NFDB
32:To say that a thing is imaginary is not to dispose of it in the realm of mind, for the imagination, or the image making faculty, is a very important part of our mental functioning. An image formed by the imagination is a reality from the point of view of psychology; it is quite true that it has no physical existence, but are we going to limit reality to that which is material? We shall be far out of our reckoning if we do, for mental images are potent things, and although they do not actually exist on the physical plane, they influence it far more than most people suspect. ~ Dion Fortune, #NFDB
33:In the cosmogony of the Greeks the material universe is brought into being by seven gods, each of whom rules over one of the seven parts of the mundane diffusion. In the Greek system the gods are: Phanes, Ouranos, Chronos, Rhea, Zeus, Poseidon and Hades. The mundane world consists of seven interpenetrating spheres of which six are superphysical and the lowest or seventh is physical. According to this system, the seventh or physical plane is ruled over by Hades, the subterranean god, to symbolize the physical plane as being the farthest removed from the divine energy. ~ Manly P Hall, How to Understand Your Bible, #NFDB
34:The ego is definitely an advancement, but it can be compared to the bark of the tree in many ways. The bark of the tree is flexible, extremely vibrant, and grows with the growth beneath. It is a tree’s contact with the outer world, the tree’s interpreter, and to some degree the tree’s companion. So should man’s ego be. When man’s ego turns instead into a shell, when instead of interpreting outside conditions it reacts too violently against them, then it hardens, becomes an imprisoning form that begins to snuff out important data, and to keep enlarging information from the inner self. The purpose of the ego is protective. It is also a device to enable the inner self to inhabit the physical plane. It is in other words a camouflage. It is the ~ Jane Roberts, #NFDB
35:Whereas males of both species played the field in similar ways, a human marriage had nothing on a vampire mating. A marriage could be dissolved by a judge with a little slip of paper. A marriage could be ended in a blink if the humans got tired of each other or fell out of love. With vampires, there was no dissolving a mating. A mated pair didn't grow tired of one another, and they certainly didn't fall out of love. When two vampires mated, a link formed to tether them to one another on a level that transcended the physical plane and fused them into one on a spiritual and emotional level, which was why the loss of a mate left a male in a state of despair if it didn't kill him outright. A mating was for life and plainly demonstrated the vampire race's link to the animal kingdom. ~ Donya Lynne, #NFDB
36:Reality took forever — the underwater way people walked and sent their voices wobbling through the air, how printed words lay inert like bugsplat, all manifesting the basic DUH of the physical plane. By the time he decided to go anywhere he wondered why he wasn't there already. As soon as he sent an email he felt he should already have the reply. And learning any fact, he was annoyed not to have known it already, because whenever anything happened, the conversation around it had already trended and backlashed and been reexamined and swallowed and shat and reswallowed and reshat in a thousand places online, until all thinking felt redundant. We needed brain-to-brain; only then would we catch up to real time. Right now everything progressed so slowly that by the time we arrived at the future it was the present again. ~ Tony Tulathimutte, #NFDB
37:On the physical plane, man, in order to see things beyond his normal vision, must make use of the telescope. Likewise, on the astral plane, he must call into operation some assistance to the simple astral vision, in order to receive a clear impression of things far off. This assistance, however, comes from within his own astral organism, and consists of a peculiar astral faculty which acts as the lens of a telescope and magnifies the rays received from afar, rendering them sufficiently large to be distinguished by the mind. This power is "telescopic" in effect, although it is really by a variation of that "miscroscopic" faculty noted under the head of simple clairvoyance. This telescopic faculty varies very much in psychics, some being able to see but a few miles, while others receive impressions just as easily from all parts of the earth, and a few have been able to occasionally perceive scenes on other planets. ~ William Walker Atkinson, #NFDB
38:We are really gods in incarnation. We need to recognize our threefold constitution: We are a spark of God; every religion has postulated this and has kept the idea of our divinity before humanity for thousands of years. But it can be seen more scientifically and still correctly. Speaking as an esotericist, I would say that the divine spark is so refined in vibration that it cannot manifest directly on the physical plane. It reflects itself, therefore, as the individualized human soul. The soul, in its turn, reflects itself in the human personality, with its physical, emotional, and mental bodies. Through the physical plane personality, the soul enacts its reincarnational process, until finally the individual on the physical plane, the man or woman, reflects perfectly the quality of the soul, which is the divine quality of the spark of God. ~ Benjamin Creme in The Ageless Wisdom, An introduction to humanity's spiritual legacy,'Share International (1996) p.3-4, #NFDB
39:It’s called being in love. It’s more frightening than confronting your deepest fear and opens you to being hurt beyond the physical plane.” He placed a hand over his heart. “It might seem as though it’s a weakness to you but it is proof that we are more than numbers, experiments, or whatever else Mercile intended us to be. It takes bravery and strength to feel such strong emotions for one person when we were denied from birth the chance to ever care about anything or anyone. I’m not saying it’s easy or painless. It is probably one of the most complex things I’ve experienced. Jessie is my life. My heart beats for her and I will admit to all that I wouldn’t want to go on if I lost her. The unmated ones don’t understand and are currently looking confused or horrified. I’m hopeful they’ll know the ups and downs of falling in love one day. It’s a gift and a curse at times but everyone should experience it. It’s a part of life and we are survivors. ~ Laurann Dohner, #NFDB
40:The man in this stage of consciousness thinks of his "I" as a mental thing, having a lower companion, the body. He feels that he has advanced, but yet his "I" does not give him the answer to the riddles and questions that perplex him. And he becomes most unhappy. Such men often develop into Pessimists, and consider the whole of life as utterly evil and disappointing—a curse rather than a blessing. Pessimism belongs to this plane, for neither the Physical Plane man or the Spiritual Plane man have this curse of Pessimism. The former man has no such disquieting thoughts, for he is almost entirely absorbed in gratifying his animal nature, while the latter man recognizes his mind as an instrument of himself, rather than as himself, and knows it to be imperfect in its present stage of growth. He knows that he has in himself the key to all knowledge—locked up in the Ego—and which the trained mind, cultivated, developed and guided by the awakened Will, may grasp as it unfolds. ~ William Walker Atkinson, #NFDB
41:But another type of life review happens to all of us when we die and our consciousness leaves the physical body at the end of each lifetime. This time it is not done with a therapist, but rather with our spiritual guides or other wise beings; it is not a clinical life review but a karmic one. As we are replenished by the beautiful light, our awareness is directed to review the results of our actions while we were on the physical plane. We see the people we have harmed and we feel their emotional reactions, magnified greatly. Similarly, we feel the emotions, again enhanced, of those we have aided and loved. In this manner, we examine all our relationships, and we deeply experience all the anger, hurt, and despair that we have caused—but also all the gratitude, appreciation, love, and hope that we have elicited. This life review is not done in a spirit of punishment or guilt. By truly understanding the result of our behavior, we learn the importance of loving-kindness and compassion. As ~ Brian L Weiss, #NFDB
42:You ask about the Great One whom we call the Christ, the Lord Maitreya, and about His work in the past and in the future... there is what we may call a department of the inner government of the world which is devoted to religious instruction—the founding and inspiring of religions, and so on. It is the Christ who is in charge of that department; sometimes He Himself appears on earth to found a great religion and sometimes He entrusts such work to one of His more advanced assistants. We must regard Him as exercising a kind of steady pressure from behind all the time, so that the power employed will flow as though automatically into every channel anywhere and of any sort which is open to its passage; so that He is working simultaneously through every religion, and utilizing all that is good in the way of devotion and self-sacrifice in each. The fact that these religions may be wasting their strength in abusing one another upon the physical plane is of course lamentable, but it does not make much difference to the fact that whatever is good in each of them is being simultaneously utilized from behind by the same great Power. p. 19 ~ C.W. Leadbeater, in The Inner Life (1917), #NFDB
43:the animal desires, and the ordinary feelings, emotions, etc., belong to the instinctive mind. All the "feelings" belonging to our passional and emotional nature belong to this plane. All animal desires, such as hunger and thirst, sexual desires (on the physical plane); all passions, such as physical love, hatred, envy, malice, jealousy, revenge, are a part of it. The desire for the physical (unless as a means of reaching higher things), the longing for the material, all belong to this plane. The "lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life," are on this plane. This principle is the most material of the three mental principles, and is the one which is apt to bind us the closest to the earth and earthly things. Remember, that we are not condemning material or "earthly" things - they are all right in their place; but man in his unfoldment grows to see these things as only a means to an end - only a step in the spiritual evolution. And with clearer vision he ceases to be bound too tightly to the material side of life, and, instead of regarding it as the end and aim of all things, sees that it is, at the best, only a means to a higher end. ~ William Walker Atkinson, #NFDB
44:THROUGH THE BREADTH and scope of existence, the essence of your being has traveled, gathering experiences of every human emotion, situation, nationality, race, gender, and type of death and birth. This indefinable essence, which has traveled across time, is a vast storehouse of unlimited knowledge and possibilities contained in a collection of memories that are locked deep inside you. What exactly is this pearl of great price? It is your soul. Over the years, I have received many messages from Spirit describing the nature of the soul. Descriptions range from it being the nucleus of our being, to the power within, to the core of freedom. Scientists, metaphysicians, and psychologists have referred to the soul as the “super conscious.” I know it as the source of all intelligent energy wherein our true selves reside. Only a thin veil of human amnesia hides our own truth from us. The soul exists on many different levels of consciousness. It can be present on the physical plane and coexist on another dimension simultaneously. The soul is not human; therefore it does not possess human chemistry. However, it is colored by an accumulation of human lifetimes. The soul is always evolving, growing, and expanding based on the choices we make during the situations that come upon us. ~ James Van Praagh, #NFDB
45:the vital
the life-nature made up of desires, sensations, feelings, passions, energies of action, will of desire, reactions of the desire-soul of man and of all that play of possessive and other related instincts, anger, greed, lust, etc., that belong to this field of nature. The vital part of man is a true instrument only when its feelings and tendencies have been purified by the psychic touch and governed by the spiritual light and power. The vital has three main parts:
higher vital
the mental vital and emotional vital taken together. The mental vital gives a mental expression by thought, speech or otherwise to the emotions, desires, passions, sensations or other movements of the vital being; the emotional vital is the seat of various feelings, such as love, joy, sorrow, hatred and the rest.
central vital or vital proper
dynamic, sensational and passionate, it is the seat of the stronger vital longings and reactions, such as ambition, pride, fear, love of fame, attractions and repulsions, desires and passion of various kinds and the field of many vital energies.
lower vital
made up of the smaller movements of human life-desire and life-reactions, it is occupied with small desires and feelings, such as food desire, sexual desire, small likings, dislikings, vanity, quarrels, love of praise, anger at blame, little wishes of all kinds, etc. The material vital is that part of the lower vital turned entirely upon physical things, full of desires and greeds and seekings for pleasure on the physical plane. ~ Integral Yoga; Sri Aurobindo's Teaching and Method of Practice,#NFDB
46:Disciple: If the Asuras represent the dark side of God on the vital plane - does this dark side exist on every plane? If so, are there beings on the mental plane which correspond to the dark side?
Sri Aurobindo: The Asura is really the dark side of God on the mental plane. Mind is the very field of the Asura. His characteristic is egoistic strength, which refuses the Higher Law. The Asura has got Self-control, Tapas, intelligence, only, all that is for his ego.
On the vital plane the corresponding forces we call the Rakshashas which represent violent passions and impulses. There are other beings on the vital plane which we call pramatta and piśacha and these; manifest, more or less, on the physico-vital plane.
Distiple: What is the corresponding being on the higher plane?
Sri Aurobindo: On the higher plane there are no Asuras - there the Truth prevails. There are "Asuras" there in the Vedic sense,- "beings with divine powers". The mental Asura is only a deviation of that power.
The work of the Asura has all the characteristics of mind in it. It is mind refusing to submit to the Higher Law; it is the mind in revolt. It works on the basis of ego and ignorance.
Disciple: What are the forces that correspond to the dark side of God on the physical plane?
Sri Aurobindo: They are what may be called the "elemental beings", or rather, obscure elemental forces - they are more "forces" than "beings". It is these that the Theosophists call the "Elementals". They are not individualised beings like the Asura and the Rakshasas, they are ignorant forces working oh the subtle physical plane.
Disciple: What is the word for them in Sanskrit;?
Sri Aurobindo: What are called bhūtas seem most nearly to correspond to them.
Disciple: The term "Elemental" means that these work through the elements.
Sri Aurobindo: There are two kinds of "elementals": one mischievous and the other innocent. What the Europeans call the gnomes come under this category. ~ A B Purani, EVENING TALKS WITH SRI AUROBINDO, 15-06-1926,#NFDB
47:Can it be said in justification of one's past that whatever has happened in one's life had to happen?
The Mother: Obviously, what has happened had to happen; it would not have been, if it had not been intended. Even the mistakes that we have committed and the adversities that fell upon us had to be, because there was some necessity in them, some utility for our lives. But in truth these things cannot be explained mentally and should not be. For all that happened was necessary, not for any mental reason, but to lead us to something beyond what the mind imagines. But is there any need to explain after all? The whole universe explains everything at every moment and a particular thing happens because the whole universe is what it is. But this does not mean that we are bound over to a blind acquiescence in Nature's inexorable law. You can accept the past as a settled fact and perceive the necessity in it, and still you can use the experience it gave you to build up the power consciously to guide and shape your present and your future.
Is the time also of an occurrence arranged in the Divine Plan of things?
The Mother: All depends upon the plane from which one sees and speaks. There is a plane of divine consciousness in which all is known absolutely, and the whole plan of things foreseen and predetermined. That way of seeing lives in the highest reaches of the Supramental; it is the Supreme's own vision. But when we do not possess that consciousness, it is useless to speak in terms that hold good only in that region and are not our present effective way of seeing things. For at a lower level of consciousness nothing is realised or fixed beforehand; all is in the process of making. Here there are no settled facts, there is only the play of possibilities; out of the clash of possibilities is realised the thing that has to happen. On this plane we can choose and select; we can refuse one possibility and accept another; we can follow one path, turn away from another. And that we can do, even though what is actually happening may have been foreseen and predetermined in a higher plane.
The Supreme Consciousness knows everything beforehand, because everything is realised there in her eternity. But for the sake of her play and in order to carry out actually on the physical plane what is foreordained in her own supreme self, she moves here upon earth as if she did not know the whole story; she works as if it was a new and untried thread that she was weaving. It is this apparent forgetfulness of her own foreknowledge in the higher consciousness that gives to the individual in the active life of the world his sense of freedom and independence and initiative. These things in him are her pragmatic tools or devices, and it is through this machinery that the movements and issues planned and foreseen elsewhere are realised here.
It may help you to understand if you take the example of an actor. An actor knows the whole part he has to play; he has in his mind the exact sequence of what is to happen on the stage. But when he is on the stage, he has to appear as if he did not know anything; he has to feel and act as if he were experiencing all these things for the first time, as if it was an entirely new world with all its chance events and surprises that was unrolling before his eyes. 28th April ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931,#NFDB
85 Integral Yoga
14 Occultism
7 Theosophy
3 Yoga
3 Education
1 Thelema
1 Psychology
1 Alchemy
50 Sri Aurobindo
32 The Mother
19 Nolini Kanta Gupta
15 A B Purani
14 Satprem
7 Alice Bailey
3 Aleister Crowley
2 Sri Ramana Maharshi
2 Sri Ramakrishna
2 Peter J Carroll
15 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
8 Letters On Yoga IV
8 Letters On Yoga I
7 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
7 A Treatise on Cosmic Fire
5 Record of Yoga
5 Letters On Yoga II
4 The Secret Doctrine
4 The Mother With Letters On The Mother
4 Questions And Answers 1953
4 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
4 Letters On Yoga III
4 Agenda Vol 01
3 The Synthesis Of Yoga
3 The Life Divine
3 Talks
3 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
3 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
3 On Education
3 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
2 Words Of The Mother III
2 Words Of The Mother I
2 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
2 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
2 Questions And Answers 1954
2 Questions And Answers 1929-1931
2 Magick Without Tears
2 Liber Null
2 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
2 Agenda Vol 04
2 Agenda Vol 03
2 Agenda Vol 02
00.02 - Mystic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
And there is such a commensurability or parallelism between the various levels of consciousness, in and through all the differences that separate them from one another. Thus an object or a movement apprehended on the Physical Plane has a sort of line of re-echoing images extended in a series along the whole gradation of the inner planes; otherwise viewed, an object or movement in the innermost consciousness translates itself in varying modes from plane to plane down to the most material, where it appears in its grossest form as a concrete three-dimensional object or a mechanical movement. This parallelism or commensurability by virtue of which the different and divergent states of consciousness can portray or represent each other is the source of all symbolism.
A symbol symbolizes something for this reason that both possess in common a certain identical, at least similar, quality or rhythm or vibration, the symbol possessing it in a grosser or more apparent or sensuous form than the thing symbolized does. Sometimes it may happen that it is more than a certain quality or rhythm or vibration that is common between the two: the symbol in its entirety is the thing symbolized but thrown down on another plane, it is the embodiment of the latter in a more concrete world. The light and the fire that Saint Paul and Moses saw appear to be of this kind.
0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
His body would not have survived but for the kindly attention of a monk who happened to be at Dakshineswar at that time and who somehow realized that for the good of humanity Sri Ramakrishna's body must be preserved. He tried various means, even physical violence, to recall the fleeing soul to the prison-house of the body, and during the resultant fleeting moments of consciousness he would push a few morsels of food down Sri Ramakrishna's throat. Presently Sri Ramakrishna received the command of the Divine Mother to remain on the threshold of relative consciousness. Soon there-after after he was afflicted with a serious attack of dysentery. Day and night the pain tortured him, and his mind gradually came down to the Physical Plane.
--- COMPANY OF HOLY MEN AND DEVOTEES
--
One day, in January 1884, the Master was going toward the pine-grove when he went into a trance. He was alone. There was no one to support him or guide his footsteps. He fell to the ground and dislocated a bone in his left arm. This accident had a significant influence on his mind, the natural inclination of which was to soar above the consciousness of the body. The acute pain in the arm forced his mind to dwell on the body and on the world outside. But he saw even in this a divine purpose; for, with his mind compelled to dwell on the Physical Plane, he realized more than ever that he was an instrument in the hand of the Divine Mother, who had a mission to fulfil through his human body and mind. He also distinctly found that in the phenomenal world God manifests Himself, in an inscrutable way, through diverse human beings, both good and evil. Thus he would speak of God in the guise of the wicked, God in the guise of the pious. God in the guise of the hypocrite, God in the guise of the lewd. He began to take a special delight in watching the divine play in the relative world. Sometimes the sweet human relationship with God would appear to him more appealing than the all-effacing Knowledge of Brahman. Many a time he would pray: "Mother, don't make me unconscious through the Knowledge of Brahman. Don't give me Brahmajnana, Mother. Am I not Your child, and naturally timid? I must have my Mother. A million salutations to the Knowledge of Brahman! Give it to those who want it." Again he prayed: "O Mother let me remain in contact with men! Don't make me a dried-up ascetic. I want to enjoy Your sport in the world." He was able to taste this very rich divine experience and enjoy the love of God and the company of His devotees because his mind, on account of the injury to his arm, was forced to come down to the consciousness of the body. Again, he would make fun of people who proclaimed him as a Divine Incarnation, by pointing to his broken arm. He would say, "Have you ever heard of God breaking His arm?" It took the arm about five months to heal.
--- BEGINNING OF HIS ILLNESS
--
It was at Cossipore that the curtain fell on the varied activities of the Master's life on the Physical Plane. His soul lingered in the body eight months more. It was the period of his great Passion, a constant crucifixion of the body and the triumphant revelation of the Soul. Here one sees the humanity and divinity of the Master passing and repassing across a thin border line. Every minute of those eight months was suffused with touching tenderness of heart and breath-taking elevation of spirit. Every word he uttered was full of pathos and sublimity.
It took the group only a few days to become adjusted to the new environment. The Holy Mother, assisted by Sri Ramakrishna's niece, Lakshmi Devi, and a few woman devotees, took charge of the cooking for the Master and his attendants. Surendra willingly bore the major portion of the expenses, other householders contributing according to their means. Twelve disciples were constant attendants of the Master: Narendra, Rakhal, Baburam, Niranjan, Jogin, Latu, Tarak, the-elder Gopal, Kali, Sashi, Sarat, and the younger Gopal. Sarada, Harish, Hari, Gangadhar, and Tulasi visited the Master from time to time and practised sadhana at home. Narendra, preparing for his law examination, brought his books to the garden house in order to continue his studies during the infrequent spare moments. He encouraged his brother disciples to intensify their meditation, scriptural studies, and other spiritual disciplines. They all forgot their relatives and their
0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
on the Physical Plane, Laylah is an Australian.
[69]
01.07 - The Bases of Social Reconstruction, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Our ideals have been mental constructions, rather than spiritual realitiesrealities of the deepest and highest being. And the power by which we sought to realise those ideals was mainly the insistence of our emotional urges, rather than Nature's Truth-Power. For this must be understood that the mental, the vital and the physical form a nexus of reality which works in its own inexorable law and so long as we are within them we cannot but obey the laws that guide them. Of these three strata which form the human adhara, it is the vital which holds the key to man's nature. It is the executive power, the force that fashions the realities on the Physical Plane; it is what creates the character. The power of thought and sentiment is often much too exaggerated, even so the power of the body, that of physical and external rules and regulations. The mental or the physical or both together can mould the vital only to a limited extent, to the extent which is allowed by the inherent law of the vital. If the demands of the mental and the physical are stretched too far and are not suffered by the vital, a crash and catastrophe is bound to come in the end.
This is the meaning of the Reformist's pessimism. So long as we remain within the domain of the triple nexus, we must always take account of an original sin, an aboriginal irredeemability in human nature. And it, is this fact which a too hasty optimistic idealism is apt to ignore. The point, however, is that man need not be necessarily bound to this triple chord of life. He can go beyond, transcend himself and find a reality which is the basis of even this lower poise of the mental and vital and physical. Only in order to get into that higher poise we must really transcend the lower, that is to say, we must not be satisfied with experiencing or envisaging it through the mind and heart but must directly commune with it, be it. There is a higher law that rules there, a power that is the truth-substance of even the vital and hence can remould it with a sovereign inevitability, according to a pattern which may not and is not the pattern of mental and emotional idealism, but the pattern of a supreme spiritual realism.
0 1954-08-25 - what is this personality? and when will she come?, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Only when we went down from the vital plane into the Physical Plane, all this went awaybecause on the Physical Plane, the work is much harder and we had so much to do, so many things to change.
But if a force like Hers could manifest and be received here, it would have INESTIMABLE results!
0 1958-09-16 - OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
So each one must find something that acts on himself, individually. I am only speaking of the action on the Physical Plane, because mentally, vitally, in all the inner parts of the being, the aspiration is always, always spontaneous. I am referring only to the Physical Plane.
The physical seems to be more open to something that is repetitious for example, the music we play on Sundays, which has three series of combined mantras. The first is that of Chandi, addressed to the universal Mother:
0 1958-10-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The other day when I was in this state of concentration, I had the vision that I mentioned to you. I felt I was being pulled, that something was pulling me and trying to draw my attention. I felt it very strongly. So I opened my eyes, my mental eyes (the physical eyes may remain opened or closed, it makes no difference either way; when I am concentrated, things on the Physical Plane no longer exist), I deliberately opened the minds eyes, for that is where I felt myself being pulled, and then I had this vision I told you of. Someone was trying to draw my attention, to tell me something. It takes someone really quite powerful, with a very great power of concentration, to do thatthere are certainly a great many people here and elsewhere who try to do this, yet I dont feel a thing.3
In the outer, practical domain, I might suddenly think of someone, so I know that this person is calling or thinking of me. When you left on your trip, I created a special link-up so that if ever, at any moment, you called me for anything, I would know it instantly, and I remained attentive and alert. But I do that only in exceptional cases. Generally speaking, when I havent made this special link-up, things keep coming in and coming in and coming in and coming in, and the answer goes out automatically, here or there or there or therehundreds and hundreds of things that I dont keep in my memory because then it would really be frightful. I dont keep these things in my consciousness; it is rather a work that is done automatically.
0 1960-10-30, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The physical vibration is important. The circumstances relating to the work of transformation make the physical vibration important. I feel it, for as soon as I want to do something with someone on the Physical Plane (physical, mind you), it all comes into the body. And the body is simply seized I see that absolutely physical vibrations are being used all the time. Its really so different. All the work which is done at a distance (gesture indicating action stemming from the mind)it acts, of course, but
You know, even now, all this (Mother touches her body, her hands) feels so vibrant and alive that its difficult to sense its limits as if it extends beyond the body in all directions. It no longer has any limits.
0 1961-11-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In January 1925, mother had an inflammation of the knee. On May 25 of the same year, Sri Aurobindo noted in a letter, 'The condition here is not very good. I am at present fighting the difficulties on the Physical Plane.' (Cited by A.B. Purani, Life of Sri Aurobindo, p. 203.) Note that in 1925 the Nazi Party was founded.
We aren't sure, but this may refer to the experience of July 12, 1960, or to that of November 5, 1958, 'the almighty spring' (in fact, they are probably one and the same experience) which gave rise to the 1959 New Year Message: 'At the very bottom of the Inconscient, most hard and rigid and narrow and stifling, I struck upon an almighty spring that cast me up forthwith into a formless, limitless Vast, vibrating with the seeds of a new world.'
0 1961-12-23, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is something deeper. And within this deeper thing there was: quiet, quiet, quiet, we will wait; and the impression (but vague, distant and uncertain) of some attempt being made to introduce a very good possibility into the atmosphere. I never see on the purely Physical Plane, you know (its always on the subtle physical, the plane of possibilities thats more real to me; the purely physical generally eludes me, but I see the subtle physical clearly), and I was seeing I dont know, it was like something higher, from above, trying to make someone enter the field of possibilities, a brain that would suddenly be touched by the book and reverse the situation. I dont know who, I dont know what, I dont know how. Ah, you know that yellow rose I just gave you? Its fringed in pink. Well, what came was like a slender pink fringe winding through the atmosphere of this situation.
Its possibleall is possible!
0 1962-01-12 - supramental ship, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And, over and above this, for the realization to be total, there are two other conditions, which arent easy either. Intellectually, theyre not too difficult; in fact, for someone who has practiced yoga, followed a discipline (I am not speaking here of just anyone), theyre relatively easy. Psychologically too, given this equality, theres no great difficulty. But as soon as you come to the material plane the Physical Plane and then to the body, it isnt easy. These two conditions are first, the power to expand, to widen almost indefinitely, enabling you to widen to the dimensions of the supramental consciousness which is total. The supramental consciousness is the consciousness of the Supreme in his totality. By totality, I mean the Supreme in his aspect of Manifestation. Naturally, from a higher point of view, from the viewpoint of the essence the essence of that which in Manifestation becomes the Supermindwhats necessary is a capacity for total identification with the Supreme, not only in his aspect of Manifestation, but in his static or nirvanic aspect, outside of the Manifestation: Nonbeing. But in addition, one must be capable of identifying with the Supreme in the Becoming. And that implies both these things: an expansion that is nothing less than indefinite, and that should simultaneously be a total plasticity enabling one to follow the Supreme in his Becoming. You dont merely have to be as vast as the universe at one point in time, but indefinitely in the Becoming. These are the two conditions. They must be potentially present.
Down to the vital, we are still in the realm of things that are more than feasible they are done. But on the material level it results in my misadventures of the other day.2
0 1962-02-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
With a universal mental vision, you can see (and this is very interesting) how the mental world operates to get realized on the Physical Plane. You see the various mental formations, how they converge, conflict, combine and relate to one another, which ones get the upper hand, exert a stronger influence and achieve a more total realization. Now, if you really want a higher vision, you must get out of the mental world and see the original wills as they descend to take expression. In this case, you may not have all the details, but the central FACT, the fact in its central truth, is indisputable, undeniable, absolutely correct.
Some people also have the faculty of predicting things already existing on earth but at a distance, far from physical eyestheyre generally those who have the capacity to expand and extend their consciousness. Their vision is slightly more subtle than physical vision, and depends on an organ subtler than its purely material counterpart (what could be called the life of this organ). So, by projecting their consciousness, and having the will to see, they can clearly see things that already exist but are beyond our ordinary field of vision. Those who have this capacitysincere people who tell what they see, not blufferssee with perfect precision and exactness.
0 1963-08-13b, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yet, on the Physical Plane, the difference is obvious. For we are still all that we no longer want to be, while He is all that we want to become.
Signed: Mother
0 1963-11-04, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
If we look at it from a psychological standpoint On the mental plane, its very easy; on the vital plane, its not too difficult; on the Physical Plane, its a little heavier, because desires are passed off as needs. But there too, there has been a field of experience these last few days: the study of medical and scientific conceptions on the bodys makeup, its needs, and whats good or bad for it. And all this, in its essence, again boils down to the same question of vibrations. It was quite interesting: there was an appearance (because all things as the ordinary consciousness sees them are nothing but appearances), there was an appearance of food poisoning (mushrooms that are thought to have been bad). It was the object of a particular study to find out whether there was something absolute about the poisoning, or whether it was relative, that is, based on ignorance, a wrong reaction and the absence of the true Vibration. And the conclusion was as follows: its a question of proportion between the amount, the sum of the vibrations that belong to the Supreme, and the sum of the vibrations that still belong to darkness. Depending on the proportion, the poisoning appears as something concrete, real, or else as something that can be eliminated, in other words, that doesnt resist the influence of the Vibration of Truth. And it was very interesting, because, immediately, as soon as the consciousness became aware of the cause of the trouble in the bodys functioning (the consciousness perceived where it came from and what it was), immediately the observation began, with the idea: Lets see what happens. First set the body perfectly at rest with the certainty (which is always there) that nothing happens except by the Lords Will and that the effect too is the Lords Will, all the consequences are the Lords Will, and consequently one should be very still. So the body is very still: untroubled, not agitated, it doesnt vibrate, nothingvery still. Once this is achieved, to what extent are the effects unavoidable? Because a certain quantity of matter that contained an element unfavorable to the bodys elements and life was absorbed, what is the proportion between the favorable and the unfavorable elements, or between the favorable and the unfavorable vibrations? And I saw very clearly: the proportion varies according to the amount of cells in the body that are under the direct Influence, that respond to the supreme Vibration alone, and the amount of other cells that still belong to the ordinary way of vibrating. It was very clear, because I could see all the possibilities, from the ordinary mass [of cells], which is completely upset by that intrusion and where you have to fight with all the ordinary methods to get rid of the undesirable element, to the totality of the cellular response to the supreme Force, which renders the intrusion perfectly innocuous. But this is still a dream for tomorrowwere on the way. But the proportion has become rather favorable (I cant say all-powerful, far from it, but rather favorable), so that the consequences of the ill-being didnt last very long and the damage was, so to say, minimal.
But all the experiences nowadays, one after the otherall the PHYSICAL experiences, of the bodypoint to the same conclusion: everything depends on the proportion between the elements that respond exclusively to the Supremes Influence, the half-and-half elements, on the road to transformation, and the elements that still follow Matters old vibratory process. The latter appear to be decreasing in number, to a great extent, but there are still enough of them to bring about unpleasant effects or unpleasant reactionsthings that are untransformed, that still belong to ordinary life. But all problems, whether psychological or purely material or chemical, all problems boil down to this: they are nothing but questions of vibrations. And there is the perception of that totality of vibrations and of what we could call (in a very rough and approximative way) the difference between the constructive and the destructive vibrations. We can say (to put it very simply) that all the vibrations that come from the One and express Oneness are constructive, while all the complications of the ordinary, separative consciousness lead to destruction.
0 1964-10-07, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Other Physical Planets?
Physical. Yes, physical.
02.02 - Lines of the Descent of Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We have thus far followed the course of the break-up of Personality, from the original one supreme Person, through a continuous process of multiplication and disintegration, of parcellation and crystallisation into more and more small self-centred units, until we reach the final pulverisation as purely material physico-chemical atoms. Now with the reversal of consciousness, in its return movement, we have again a process of growth and building up of individuality and personality, with the awakening and ascension of consciousness from level to level on the Physical Plane and in the material embodiment, there occurs too an evolution of the personal aspect of the reality.
We say that at the lowest level of involution, in Matter, where consciousness has zero magnitude, there is no personality or individuality. It is all a mechanical play of clashing particles that constantly fly apart or come together according to the force or the resultant of forces that act upon them. An individuality means a bounded form as its basis of reaction and a form that tends to persist and grow by assimilation; it means a centre of a definite manner and pattern of reaction. Individuality, in its literal sense, designates that which cannot be divided (in + dividus). Division is only another name for death for the particular entity. Even in the case of cell-division or self-division of some lower organisms, in the first instance the original living entity disappears and, secondly, the succeeding: entities, created by division, always re-form themselves again into integral wholes. A material particle, on the other hand, is divisible ad infinitum. We have been able to divide even an atom (which means also that which cannot be divided) to such an extent as to reduce it to a mere charge of energy, nay, we have sublimated it to a geometrical point. Individualisation starts with the coming of life. It is a ganglion of life-force round which a particular system of action and reaction weaves itself. The characteristic of individuality is that each one is unique, each relates itself to others and to the environment in its own way, each expresses itself, puts forth its energy, receives impacts from outside in a manner that distinguishes it from others. It is true this character of individuality is not very pronounced in the earlier or rudimentary forms of life. Still it is there: it grows and develops slowly along the ladder of evolution. Only in the higher animals it attains a clear and definite norm and form.
03.05 - Some Conceptions and Misconceptions, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The principle of exclusive concentration does not by itself really create the objects of the material world; it creates the perception the illusory perceptionof separativeness, that objects are more or less closed systems, distinct and isolated from one another. The sense of limitation and hence actual limitation, not however real or essential limitationcomes out of the exclusive concentration. This does not mean that the limitation or discreteness of objects is merely psychological (mental), not ontological, as one may say. In Sri Aurobindo's outlook the distinction between psychological and ontological is not trenchant and absolute. For, psychological, according to him, does not mean merely mental but also relating to consciousness; and although mind does not create material objects, consciousness may do soindeed it is the force of the original consciousness, which is the force of being, that has created the Physical Plane of multiplicity. This creative power is the self-projecting energy of consciousness prajna. It is, in other words, the force of individuation inherent in the play of consciousness. Now, as I have already said, at a certain stage, under certain conditions, through a gradation of stages, this force of individuation originally and intrinsically existing and working in and through unity and integration, is possessed or veiled by or devolves into a force of limitation, meaning separateness and exclusion. What would otherwise be an ensemble, an organism of individualities held together and moving as various forms or lines of force of one and the same reality, is now broken up and becomes a conglomeration of isolated entities. Unity is transformed into multiplicity, solidarity is lost in plurality.
We can, however, make a distinction between limitation and delimitation or individuation. Limitation is a movement of Ignorance: it is the result of exclusive concentration. It creates separateness, forgets the unity. Delimitation, on the contrary, is a movement of knowledge, of pure consciousness dynamic. It creates diversity, multiplicity maintained in unity.
--
One must not forget, however, that the principle of exclusive concentration cannot be isolated I from the total action of consciousness and viewed as functioning by itself at any time. We isolated it for logical comprehension. In actuality it is integrated with the whole nisus of consciousness and operates in conjunction with and as part of the total drive. That total drive at one point results in the multiple realities of Matter. When the element of limitation in the Physical Plane is ascribed to the exclusiveness of a stress in consciousness, it should not be forgotten that the act is, as it were, a joint and several responsibility of the whole consciousness in its multiple functioning. And the reverse movement is also likewise a global act: there too the force that withdraws, ascends or eliminates cannot be isolated from the other force that reaffirms, re-establishes, reintegrates,the principle of exclusiveness (like that of pain) is not proved to be illusory and non-existent, but reappears in its own essential nature as a principle of centring or canalisation of consciousness.
***
04.01 - The March of Civilisation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Light as it descends from its own home above to the lower levels of our being expresses itself no doubt in one way, but also gets diminished, modified, even deformed in another respect. The work of purification certainly goes on and until that is complete and there comes the fullest expression, it will continue. The action of light on the Physical Plane, for example, on the body of the Cosmic Being is so blurred and confusing apparently that it looks almost like the action of Darkness. And yet the Dark Night of the soul is not simply the obscurity of Ignorance. It is only the mud that lay diffused or settled in the being which has come up in its gathered mass in the process of churning and cleaning and appears like an obscure screen.
***
04.03 - Consciousness as Energy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Man, we thus see, is an infinitely composite being. We have referred to the four or five major chords in him, but each one has again innumerable gradations of vibration. Man is a bundle or dynamo of energy and this energy is nothing but the force of consciousness. To different modes or potentials of this energy different names are given. And what makes the thing still more complex is that all these elements exist simultaneously and act simultaneously, although in various degrees and stresses. They act upon each other, and severally and collectively impress upon the nature and character of the individual being and mould and direct his physical status and pragmatic life. A man can, however, take consciously a definite position and status, identify himself with a particular form and force of consciousness and build his being and life in the truth and rhythm of that consciousness. Naturally the limits and the limitation of that consciousness mark also the limits and limitation of the disposition he can effect in his life. When it is said that the spiritual force is not effective on the Physical Plane in mundane affairsBuddha, it is said, for example, has not been able to rid the earth or age, disease and death (although it was not Buddha's intention to do so, his purpose was to show a way of escape, of bypassing the ills of life, and in that he wholly succeeded)it only means that the right mode or potential of spiritual energy has not been found; for that matter even the mightiest mundane forces are not sovereignly effective in mundane affairs, otherwise the Nazi-Force would have been ruling the world today.
Still it must be remembered that all these apparently diverse layers and degrees of being or consciousness or energy form essentially one indivisible unity and identity. What is called the highest and what is called the lowest are not in reality absolutely disparate and incommensurable entities: everywhere it is the highest that lies secreted and reigns supreme. The lowest is the highest itself seen from the reverse side, as it were: the norms and typal truths that obtain in the superconsciousness are also the very guiding formulas and principles in the secret heart of the Inconscience too, only they appear externally as deformations and caricatures of their true reality. But even here we can tap and release the full force of a superconscient energy. A particle of dead matter, we know today, is a mass of stilled energy, electrical and radiant in nature; even so an apparently inconscient entity is a packet of Superconsciousness in its highest potential of energy. The secret of releasing this atomic energy of the Spirit is found in the Science of Yoga.
05.03 - Bypaths of Souls Journey, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Reverting to the original question with which we started, we can say now that the birth of a soul is not like the birth of a living being or organism, that is to say, it does not happen at a given point of time. A soul is truly aja, unborn; it was always there imbedded as the element of secret consciousness in the bosom of the inconscient material Nature. Only it grew out, manifested itself, attaining gradually an individuality and an integrated personality. Neither can it be said that all souls originally, that is to say, at the very beginning of their evolutionary course, were of the same magnitude, equal in all respects. As we know the ultimate material particles the atoms of the different elements or their constituents, protons, etc.have not all the same mass or charge, even so the spiritual elements too have not the same potency or vibration: they are of varying sizes and strengths. The stress of the evolutionary urge in life expressed itself in multiple and varied figures and dispositions, variation being an inherent virtue of the stress. And the development too follows a chequered line: the direction, the tempo, the degree, the manner of the march all differ according to the case, each spark is or tends to be unique and sui generisand even erratic perhapsin its behaviour, like its physical counterpart, the indeterminate and indeterminable material particle. And yet all move towards a heightening, enlarging, deepening of the consciousness rivers flowing and broadening out in their meandering course to the sea: what was unformed, rudimentary, scarcely distinguishable from out of a homogeneous mass, detaches itself gradually, shapes itself into an organised individual entity and finally the fully conscious personality. But, as I have said, the growth does not follow a single one-track straight line: there can be a fusion of souls, the descent and integration of a being or soul from another level of consciousness into a developing soul or psychic element from out of Nature. In this sense then there can be a birth of souls too. The astronomers speak of novae, new stars that suddenly flare out in the sky, as if from nowhereeven though they or their elements were existent before the phenomenon happened. Souls too can come to birth in an analogous way. That is to say, it is due to a special descent of a formed being or consciousness into the human vehicle. The conception of the "twice-born caste" may be remembered in this connection. There is a physical birth and there is a spiritual birth: the latter takes place when the being on the Physical Plane, yet wholly belonging to evolving Nature, suddenly (it usually happens suddenly) opens and receives into itself a higher principle and becomes a conscious personality.
The soul in Nature grows along a definite line and the descent also of higher principles overarching that soul happens also in the same line connecting it with its archetype in the supreme status. This we may call the major line of development through various avataras one after another: but apart from this there may also be subsidiary formations that are its emanations or are added to it from elsewhere either temporarily or even permanently. The soul can put out derivative or ancillary emanations, parts of its being and consciousness, a mental or vital or even a subtle physical movement or formation which can take a body creating a temporary, a transient personality or enter into another's body and another personality in order to go through a necessary experience and gather an element needed for the growth of its being and consciousness. One can recall here the famous story of Shankaracharya Who entered into the body of a king (just dead, made him alive and lead the life of the king) in order to experience love and enjoyment, things of which, being a Sannyasi, he was innocent. Similarly one can take into one-self such parts and elements from others which he wishes to utilise for his growth and evolution. It is said that a man with low carnal instincts and impulses becomes an animal of that type in his next life. But perhaps it is truer to say that a part only the vital part of animal appetiteenters into or takes shape in an animal: the soul itself, the true or the whole being of the person, once become human, does not revert to animalhood. The animal portion in man that refuses to be taken up and integrated, sublimated into the higher human consciousness has to be satisfied and exhausted, as much as possible, in the animal way.
05.05 - Man the Prototype, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Not only so. Our limited mind and senses are accustomed to view and recognise individuals alone as persons. But there are group personalities too. Thus each species has a generic personality, a consciousness and an ideal or intrinsic form also: the individuals on the Physical Plane are its various incarnations, projections and formations. Old Plato was not so naive, as we of today are apt to believe, when he spoke of the real reality of general ideas. The attributes, qualities and functions of the generic personality are the source and pattern of what the individuals that form the group actually are. The group person is the king, he is also the body of the Dharma ruling the domain. Any change in the law of being of the group person is necessarily translated in a similar change in the nature and activity of the individuals of the species. What evolutionists describe as sudden variation or mutation and whose cause or genesis they are at a loss to trace, is precisely due to an occult change in the consciousness and will of the group soul.
Man too as a species has a generic personality, his prototype. Only, in opposition to the scientific view, that is an earlier phenomenon belonging to the very origin of things. Man in his essential form and reality is found at the source and beginning of creation. When the unmanifest Transcendent steps forward to manifest, when there is the first expression of typal variations in the infinite as the basis of physical creation, then and there appears Man in his essential and eternal divine form. He is there almost as a sentinel, guarding the passage from the formless to form. Indeed, he is the first original form of the formless. A certain poet says that man is the archetype of all living forms. A bird is a flying man, a fish a swimming man, a worm a crawling man, even a plant is but a rooted man. His form belongs to a region beyond even the first principles of creation. The first principles that bring out and shape and uphold the manifested universe are the trinity: Life, Light and Delightin other terms, Sachchidananda. The whole complex of the manifest universe is resolvable into that unity of triple status. But behind even this supernal, further on towards the final disappearance into the absolute Unmanifestsumming up, as it were, in him the whole manifestationstands this original primordial form, this first person, this archetypal Man.
05.12 - The Soul and its Journey, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
When a man dies, his soul or psychic being, after a time goes to the psychic world and takes rest there till the hour comes to take birth again in another body upon earth. There are then these two periods in the life after death. First, the passage and next the rest. The passage means the gradual shedding of all the other sheaths or envelopes that surround the psychic being and form its earthly frame. With the physical body has to go also the subtle body, then the vital and finally the mental too. The reason why one does not remember the past lives is this that one leaves behind the instrument of memory the brain mindwith one's death. One does not carryover with the psychic being the other parts that constitute the terrestrial life. They are dispersed and dissolved in their respective cosmic spheres. The subtle body gives up its elements to the subtle Physical Plane, the vital elements are taken up into the vital world and the mental elements go into the mental world,unless the psychic being is highly developed and has organised around itself as its instrument of self-expression any of these elements. In that case, as much of the terrestrial partsnamely, of the subtle body and life and mindas have come into direct contact with the psychic and have allowed themselves to be moved and moulded by its consciousness, will alone persist and share in the immortality of the soul. Normally, the elements of the human vehicle form a loose and unorganised aggregate massed round the psychic centre. When the centre withdraws, they too fall off automatically and are scattered into the universal storehouse of Nature. Only when they have been organised and when they have attained a definite form and character expressing something of the psychic nature, can they maintain their identity, for this identity is part and parcel of the psychic identity.
I have said that the memory of past lives is effaced because of the effacement of the instrument. But there is a higher memory which is the attribute of the psychic consciousness. The psychic being is made of light and knowledge: it knows, rather it sees and can survey the whole curve of its past growth and development. Of course, it may not see or remembervery often it does notall the physical details of things and happenings of an earthly life, the hundred incidents, accidents and contingencies that are not directly linked to its consciousness. But all things that have had its touch and have contri buted to its growth and development and have in their turn received its influenceobjects, persons, happenings or movementsfind themselves harboured in the psychic memory. And thus the only sure way of remembering the past, remembering, that is to say, what is worth remembering, is to go into the psychic being, possess the psychic consciousness. There one has the whole panorama of the soul's odyssey revealed. Any other way leads only to imagination, conjecture and delusion.
06.15 - Ever Green, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Whenever you go inside and seek your poise, do not look for your old acquaintances, the familiar experiences, do not carry upon your back the load of the past, but go ahead, as if through a virgin tract, making quite new discoveries, and opening unexpected vistas at each step. You can make an experiment even on your physical body, i.e. take the physical consciousness too to share in your adventure of ever new discovery. Thus you may, for example, forget your habit of eating or even walking, truly forget and try to learn over again, even as you did for the first time as a child. You have to acquire consciously a capacity of the body that has become an almost unconscious reflex action. It is a wonderful and exhilarating experience. Naturally you cannot repeat too often or carry too far an experiment of this kind on the Physical Plane. But you can freely deal with your inner life and consciousness. You can make your mind and your vital a clean slate, as much as you like: not once in your life, but every moment of your life. And then see how the world impinges upon your consciousness, what fresh discoveries and awakenings come to you endlessly! You can always rid yourself of the accustomed vibrations on the normal levels of your existence, the physical, vital and mental; and even you can go beyond your psychic formation and be the wide, the vast, the limitless, the Infinite itself, void of all name and form. And then with that virgin consciousness drop straight into the world of material life and form, into your body and bodily reactions. The world will give itself up to you in its pristine purity, its original beauty and truth, always luminous and glorious. This experience has to be the normal mode of your living, not simply the culmination or acme of your being, a fixed and stagnant status, even if considered the highest, the summum bonum. That is how you can keep yourself and the world around you ever fresh and young and new.
The preacher who speaks of the truth and delivers it to his hearers is usually effective for the first time or for a first few occasions only, when he feels the truth of his truth and is sincere while delivering. But as time wears on, his truth too wears out, for it becomes stereotyped, a matter of mere habit. The experience is no longer lived, but mechanically doled out. You are sincere only when the experience is new and fresh and living, it should be made so every moment, otherwise it is dead letter, letter that killeth.
07.45 - Specialisation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
But it is a very natural and spontaneous movement in man to change from one work to another in order to maintain a kind of balance. Change also means rest. We have often heard of great artists or scholars seeking for rest and having great need for it. They find it by changing their activity. For example, Ingres was a painter; painting was his normal and major occupation. But whenever he found time he took up his violin. Curiously, it was his violin which interested him more than his painting. He was not very good at music, but he took great pleasure in it. He was sufficiently good at painting, but it interested him less. But the real thing is that he needed a stable poise or balance. Concentration upon a single thing is very necessary, I have said, if one aims at a definite and special result; but one can follow a different line that is more subtle, more comprehensive and complete. Naturally, there is a physical limit somewhere to your comprehensiveness; for on the Physical Plane you are confined in respect of time and space; and also it is true that great things are difficult to achieve unless there is a special concentration. But if you want to lead a higher and deeper life, you can comm and capacities which are much greater than those available to the methods of restriction and limitation belonging to the normal consciousness. There is a considerable advantage in getting rid of one's limits, if not from the point of view of actual accomplishment, at least from the point of view of spiritual realisation.
***
1.00a - DIVISION A - THE INTERNAL FIRES OF THE SHEATHS., #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
1. Physical Plane.
Salamanders, those little fire elementals who can be seen dancing in every flame, tending the fires of the hearth and the home, and of the factory. They are of the same group as the fire spirits who can be contacted deep in the fiery bowels of the planet.
1.00b - DIVISION B - THE PERSONALITY RAY AND FIRE BY FRICTION, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
In looking at the matter from the standpoint of fire the idea may be grasped a little through the realisation that the latent fire of matter in the atom is brought into brilliance and usefulness by the action of the personality Ray which merges with this fire and stands in the same position to the permanent atom in the microcosm as FOHAT does on the cosmic plane. The fire is there hidden within the sphere (whether the sphere systemic or the sphere atomic) and the personality Ray in the one case, and Fohat in the other, acts as the force which brings latency into activity and potentiality into demonstrated power. This correspondence should be thought out with care and judgment. Just as Fohat has to do with active manifestation or objectivity, so the personality Ray has to do with the third, or activity aspect in the microcosm. The work of the third aspect logoic was the arranging of the matter of the system so that eventually it could be built into form through the power of the second aspect. Thus the correspondence works out. By life upon the Physical Plane (that life wherein the physical permanent atom has its full demonstration) the matter is arranged and separated that must eventually be built into the Temple of Solomon, the egoic body, through the agency of the egoic life, the second [73] aspect. In the quarry of the personal life are the stones prepared for the great Temple. In existence upon the Physical Plane and in the objective personal life is that experience gained which demonstrates as faculty in the Ego. What is here suggested would richly repay our closest attention, and open up before us reaches of ideas, which should eventuate in a wiser comprehension, a sounder judgment, and a greater encouragement to action.
III. THE PERSONALITY RAY AND KARMA
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The karma of form is likewise a vast subject, too [76] involved for average comprehension but a factor of real importance which should not be overlooked in connection with the evolution of a world, a synthesis of worlds, or of a system when viewed from higher levels. Everything is, in its totality, the result of action taken by cosmic Essences and Entities in earlier solar systems, which is working out through the individual atoms, and through those congeries of atoms which we call forms. The effect of the personality Ray upon the internal fires is therefore, in effect, the result of the influence of the planetary Logos of whatever ray is implicated, as He works out that portion of Karma which falls to His share in any one cycle, greater or lesser. He thus brings about and eventually transmutes, the effects of causes which He set in motion earlier in relation to His six Brothers, the other planetary Logoi. We get an illustrative parallel in the effect which one individual will have upon another in worldly contact, in moulding and influencing, in stimulating or retarding. We have to remember that all fundamental influence and effects are felt on the astral plane and work thence through the etheric to the dense physical thereby bringing matter under its sphere of influence, yet not itself originating on the Physical Plane.
[77]
1.00c - DIVISION C - THE ETHERIC BODY AND PRANA, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
Second. In the study of the etheric body and prana lies the revelation of the effects of those rays of the sun which (for lack of better expression), we will call "solar pranic emanations." These solar pranic emanations are the produced effect of the central heat of the sun approaching other bodies within the solar system by one of the three main channels of contact, and producing on the bodies then contacted certain effects differing somewhat from those produced by the other emanations. These effects might be considered as definitely stimulating and constructive, and (through their essential quality) as producing conditions that further the growth of cellular matter, and concern its adjustment to environing conditions; they concern likewise the internal health (demonstrating as the heat of the atom and its consequent activity) and the uniform evolution of the form of which that particular atom of matter forms a constituent part. Emanative prana does little in connection with [79] form building; that is not its province, but it conserves the form through the preservation of the health of its component parts. Other rays of the sun act differently, upon the forms and upon their substance. Some perform the work of the Destroyer of forms, and others carry on the work of cohering and of attracting; the work of the Destroyer and of the Preserver is carried on under the Law of Attraction and Repulsion. Some rays definitely produce accelerated motion, others produce retardation. The ones we are dealing with herepranic solar emanationswork within the four ethers, that matter which (though physical) is not as yet objectively visible to the eye of man. They are the basis of all Physical Plane life considered solely in connection with the life of the Physical Plane atoms of matter, their inherent heat and their rotary motion. These emanations are the basis of that "fire by friction" which demonstrates in the activity of matter.
Finally, in the study of the etheric body and prana comes comprehension of the method of logoic manifestation, and therefore much of interest to the metaphysician, and all abstract thinkers. The etheric body of man holds hid the secret of his objectivity. It has its correspondence on the archetypal plane,the plane we call that of the divine manifestation, the first plane of our solar system, the plane Adi. The matter of that highest plane is called often the "sea of fire" and it is the root of the akasha, the term applied to the substance of the second plane of manifestation. Let us trace the analogy a little more in detail, for in its just apprehension will be found much of illumination and much that will serve to elucidate problems both macrocosmic and microcosmic. We will begin with man and his etheric body.
The etheric body has been described as a network, permeated with fire, or as a web, animated with golden light. It is spoken of in the Bible as the "golden bowl." [80] It is a composition of that matter of the Physical Plane which we call etheric, and its shape is brought about by the fine interlacing strands of this matter being built by the action of the lesser Builders into the form or mould upon which later the dense physical body can be moulded. Under the Law of Attraction, the denser matter of the Physical Plane is made to cohere to this vitalised form, and is gradually built up around it, and within it, until the interpenetration is so complete that the two forms make but one unit; the pranic emanations of the etheric body itself play upon the dense physical body in the same manner as the pranic emanations of the sun play upon the etheric body. It is all one vast system of transmission and of interdependence within the system. All receive in order to give, and to pass on to that which is lesser or not so evolved. Upon every plane this process can be seen.
Thus the etheric body forms the archetypal plane in relation to the dense physical body. The thinker on his own plane stands, in relation to the physical, as the Logos to His system. In the synthesis of thought it might be expressed thus: The thinker on the astral plane, the plane of desire and of necessity, stands to the physical body as the Logos on the cosmic astral plane stands to His system.
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Eighth. When the "will to live" vanishes, then the "Sons of Necessity" cease from objective manifestation. This is logically inevitable, and its working out can be seen in every case of entifed objectivity. When the Thinker on his own plane withdraws his attention from his little system within the three worlds and gathers within himself all his forces, then Physical Plane existence comes to an end and all returns within the causal consciousness; this is as much an abstraction in the three worlds of the Thinker as the Absolute is in the threefold solar system of the Logos. This demonstrates on the Physical Plane in the withdrawing from out of the top of the head of the radiant etheric body and the consequent disintegration of the physical. The framework goes and the dense physical form falls apart; the pranic life is abstracted bodily from out of the dense sheath, and the stimulation of the fires of matter ceases to be. The latent fire of the atom remains; it is inherent, but the form is made by the action of the two fires of matteractive and latent, radiatory and inherentaided by the fire of the second Logos, and when they are separated the form falls apart. This is a picture in miniature of the essential duality of all things acted upon by Fohat.
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There is a close connection between the spleen and the top of the head in connection with the etheric body. The organ of the spleen has an interesting correspondence to the umbilical cord which attaches an infant to the mother for purposes of nourishment, and which is separated at birth. When a man starts to live his own life of conscious desire, when a man is born into a new world of a subtler form of life, that interlaced cord of etheric matter (which had united him to his physical body) is broken; the "silver cord is loosed" and the man severs his connection with the dense physical body and passes out through the highest center of the body instead of the lowest to life in a higher world and of another dimension. So it will be found in all the bodies and sheaths of the microcosm, for the analogy will persist on all planes during manifestation. When more scientific knowledge has been gained it will be found that the same procedure on a larger scale, takes place in planetary manifestation. A planet is but the body of a planetary Logos, that body being etheric, and the Logos expressing Himself through it and building upon the etheric scaffolding a vehicle of manifestation. The MOON once was the body of expression for one of the Logoi; the Earth now is, and the cycles change continuously. The centre of escape for the etheric body is found likewise in a Physical Planet, and the planetary silver cord is loosed at the time appointed; but the times and cycles, their commencement and termination are hid in the mysteries of Initiation, and do not concern us.
Again in the solar system itself similar action will eventuate at the close of a Mahamanvantara. The Logos will withdraw within Himself, abstracting His three major principles. [xxxvii]37 His body of manifestation the Sun [87] and the seven sacred Planets, all existing in etheric matterwill withdraw from objectivity and become obscured. From the usual physical standpoint, the light of the system will go out. This will be succeeded by a gradual inbreathing until He shall have gathered all unto Himself; the etheric will cease to exist, and the web will be no more. Full consciousness will be achieved, and in the moment of achievement existence or entified manifestation will cease. All will be reabsorbed within the Absolute; pralaya, [xxxviii]38 or the cosmic heaven of rest will then ensue, and the Voice of the Silence will be heard no more. The reverberations of the WORD will die away, and the "Silence of the High Places" will reign supreme.
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This is the vital fluid emanated from any planet, which constitutes its basic coloring or quality, and is produced by a repetition within the planet of the same process [92] which is undergone in connection with man and solar prana. The planet (the Earth, or any other planet) absorbs solar prana, assimilates what is required, and radiates off that which is not essential to its well-being in the form of planetary radiation. Planetary prana, therefore, is solar prana which has passed throughout the planet, has circulated through the planetary etheric body, has been transmitted to the dense Physical Planet, and has been cast off thence in the form of a radiation of the same essential character as solar prana, plus the individual and distinctive quality of the particular planet concerned. This again repeats the process undergone in the human body. The physical radiations of men differ according to the quality of their physical bodies. So it is with a planet.
Planetary emanative prana (as in the case of solar prana) is caught up and transmitted via a particular group of devas, called the "devas of the shadows," who are ethereal devas of a slightly violet hue. Their bodies are composed of the matter of one or other of the four ethers, and they focalise and concentrate the emanations of the planet, and of all forms upon the planet. They have a specially close connection with human beings owing to the fact of the essential resemblance of their bodily substance to man's etheric substance, and because they transmit to him the magnetism of "Mother Earth" as it is called. Therefore we see that there are two groups of devas working in connection with man:
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First. The fourth etheric subplane of the Physical Plane is the immediate concern of
a. Man, the Microcosm,
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When man begins in a small sense to co-ordinate the buddhic vehicle or, to express it otherwise, when he has developed the power to contact ever so slightly the buddhic plane, then he begins simultaneously and consciously to achieve the ability to escape from the etheric web on the Physical Plane. Later he escapes from its correspondence on the astral plane, and finally from the correspondence on the fourth subplane of the mental plane this time via the mental unit. This leads eventually to causal functioning, or to the ability to dwell, and to be active in, the vehicle of the Ego, who is the embodiment of the love and wisdom aspect of the Monad. Note here the correspondence to that proved fact, that many can even now escape from the etheric body, and function in their [114] astral sheath, which is the personality reflection of that same second aspect.
When a man takes the fourth Initiation, he functions in the fourth plane vehicle, the buddhic, and has escaped permanently from the personality ring-pass-not, on the fourth subplane of the mental. There is naught to hold him to the three worlds. At the first Initiation he escapes from the ring-pass-not in a more temporary sense, but he has yet to escape from the three higher mental levels, which are the mental correspondences to the higher ethers, and to develop full consciousness on these three higher subplanes. We have here a correspondence to the work to be done by the initiate after he has achieved the fourth solar plane, the buddhic. There yet remains the development of full consciousness on the three higher planes of spirit before he can escape from the solar ring-pass-not, which is achieved at the seventh Initiation, taken somewhere in the system, or in its cosmic correspondence reached by the cosmic sutratma, or cosmic thread of life [liii]51
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b. This cosmic Physical Plane exists in matter differentiated into seven qualities, groups, grades, or vibrations.
c. These seven differentiations are the seven major planes of our solar system.
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d. These major seven planes of our solar system being but the seven subplanes of the cosmic Physical Plane, we can consequently see the reason for the emphasis laid by H. P. B. [liv]52, [lv]53 upon the fact that matter and ether are synonymous terms and that this ether is found in some form or other on all the planes, and is but a gradation of cosmic atomic matter, called when undifferentiated mulaprakriti or primordial pre-genetic substance, and when differentiated by Fohat (or the energising Life, the third Logos or Brahma) it is termed prakriti, or matter. [lvi]54
e. Our solar system is what is called a system of the fourth order; that is, it has its location on the fourth cosmic etheric plane, counting, as always, from above downwards.
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j. On these etheric levels, therefore, the Logos of our [121] system repeats, as a grand totality, the experiences of His tiny reflections on the Physical Planes; He co-ordinates His cosmic astral body, and attains continuity of consciousness when He has mastered the three cosmic ethers.
k. It is to be observed that just as in man the dense physical body in its three gradesdense, liquid and gaseousis not recognised as a principle, so in the cosmic sense the physical (dense) astral (liquid) and mental (gaseous) levels are likewise regarded as non-existing, and the solar system has its location on the fourth ether. The seven sacred planets are composed of matter of this fourth ether, and the seven Heavenly Men, whose bodies they are, function normally on the fourth plane of the system, the buddhic or the fourth cosmic ether. When man has attained the consciousness of the buddhic plane, he has raised his consciousness to that of the Heavenly Man in whose body he is a cell. This is achieved at the fourth Initiation, the liberating initiation. At the fifth Initiation he ascends with the Heavenly Man on to the fifth plane (from the human standpoint), the atmic, and at the sixth he has dominated the second cosmic ether and has monadic consciousness and continuity of function. At the seventh Initiation he dominates the entire sphere of matter contained in the lowest cosmic plane, escapes from all etheric contact, and functions on the cosmic astral plane.
The past solar system saw the surmounting of the three lowest cosmic Physical Planes viewed from the matter standpoint and the co-ordination of the dense threefold physical form in which all life is found, dense matter, liquid matter, gaseous matter. A correspondence may be seen here in the work achieved in the first three rootraces. [lviii]56, [lix]57
[122]
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Second. The etheric double of a man, a planetary Logos, and a solar Logos, being shattered, becomes non-polarised as regards its indweller, and permits therefore of escape. It is (to word it otherwise) no longer a source of attraction, nor a focal magnetic point. It becomes non-magnetic, and the great Law of Attraction ceases to [131] control it; hence disintegration is the ensuing condition of the form. The Ego ceases to be attracted by its form on the Physical Plane, and, proceeding to inbrea the, withdraws its life from out of the sheath. The cycle draws to a close, the experiment has been made, the objective (a relative one from life to life and from incarnation to incarnation) has been achieved, and there remains nothing more to desire; the Ego, or the thinking entity, loses interest therefore in the form, and turns his attention inward. His polarisation changes, and the physical is eventually dropped.
The planetary Logos likewise in His greater cycle (the synthesis or the aggregate of the tiny cycles of the cells of His body) pursues the same course; He ceases to be attracted downward or outward, and turns His gaze within; He gathers inward the aggregate of the smaller lives within His body, the planet, and severs connection. Outer attraction ceases and all gravitates towards the centre instead of scattering to the periphery of His body.
1.00d - DIVISION D - KUNDALINI AND THE SPINE, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
We must always bear in mind that the fires from the base of the spine and the splenic triangle are fires of matter. We must not lose this recollection nor get confused. They have no spiritual effect, and concern themselves solely with the matter in which the centres of force are located. These centres of force are always directed by manas or mind, or by the conscious effort of the indwelling entity; but that entity is held back in the effects he seeks to achieve until the vehicles through which he is seeking expression, and their directing, energising centres, make adequate response. Hence it is only in due course of evolution, and when the matter of these vehicles is energised sufficiently by its own latent fires that he can accomplish his long-held purpose. Hence again the need of the ascension of the fire of matter to its own place, and its resurrection from its long burial and seeming prostitution before it can be united with its Father in Heaven, the third Logos, Who is the Intelligence of matter itself. The correspondence, again, holds good. Even the atom of the Physical Plane has its goal, its initiations and its ultimate triumph.
Other angles of this subject, such as the centres and their relationship to manas, the fire of Spirit and manas, and the eventual blending of the three fires, will be dealt with in our next two main divisions. In this division we are confining ourselves to the study of matter and fire, and must not digress, or confusion will ensue.
1.00e - DIVISION E - MOTION ON THE PHYSICAL AND ASTRAL PLANES, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
If we carry the analogy down to the microcosm a glimpse can be gained of the same idea and hence ability to comprehend with greater facility. The Ego (being to the man on the Physical Plane what the Logos is to His system) is likewise the animating will, the destroyer of forms, the producer of pralaya and the One Who withdraws the inner spiritual man from out of his threefold body; he draws them to himself the centre of his little system. The Ego is extra-cosmic as far as the human being on the Physical Plane is concerned, and in the realisation of this fact may come elucidation of the true cosmic problem involving the Logos and "the spirits in prison," as the Christian puts it.
c. His mode of action is a driving forward; the will that lies back of evolutionary development is His, and He it is who drives Spirit onward through matter till it eventually emerges from matter, having achieved two things:
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2. Momentum, resulting therefore in repulsion, was produced by the rotary movement. We have referred to the Law of Repulsion as one of the subsidiary branches of the great Law of Economy, which governs matter. Repulsion is brought about by rotary action, and is the basis of that separation which prevents the contact of any atom with any other atom, which keeps the planets at fixed points in space and separated stably from each other; which keeps them at a certain distance from their systemic centre, and which likewise keeps the planes and subplanes from losing their material identity. Here we can see the beginning of that age-long duel between Spirit and matter, which is characteristic of manifestation, one aspect working under the Law of Attraction, and the other governed by the Law of Repulsion. From aeon to aeon the conflict goes on, with matter becoming less potent. Gradually (so gradually as to seem negated when viewed from the Physical Plane) the attractive power of Spirit is weakening the resistance of matter till, at the close of the greater solar cycles, destruction (as it is called) will ensue, and the Law of Repulsion be overcome by the Law of Attraction. It is a destruction of form and not of matter itself, for matter is indestructible. This can be seen even now in the microcosmic life, and is the cause of the disintegration of form, which holds itself as a separated unit by the very method of repulsing all other forms. It can be seen working out gradually and inappreciably in connection with the Moon, which no longer is repulsive to the earth, and is giving of her very substance to this planet. H. P. B. hints at this in The Secret Doctrine, and I have here suggested the law under which this is so. [lxxii]70, [lxxiii]71
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1. The Physical Plane,
2. The emotional or astral plane,
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c. On the fourth etheric Physical Plane, where the sacred planets, the dense bodies in etheric matter of the Heavenly Men, are to be found.
DIVISION E - MOTION ON THE PHYSICAL AND ASTRAL PLANES - Part 2
Here again we can trace the microcosmic correspondence: In the human being the centres are found on the mental plane from which originates the impulse for Physical Plane existence, or the will to incarnate; from thence they can be traced to the astral level, and eventually to the etheric levels, to the fourth ether, where they practically go through the same evolution that the planetary centres went through, and are instrumental in bringing about objectivity,being the force centres.
The centres are formed entirely of streams of force, pouring down from the Ego, who transmits it from the Monad. In this we have the secret of the gradual vibratory quickening of the centres as the Ego first comes into control, or activity, and later (after initiation) the Monad, thus bringing about changes and increased vitality within these spheres of fire or of pure life force.
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The third period, wherein the monadic ray makes itself felt on the Physical Plane, is by far the shortest, and covers the period in which the sixth triangle holds sway. It marks the period of achievement, of liberation, and therefore, although it is the shortest period when viewed from below upward, it is the period of comparative permanence when viewed from the plane of the Monad. It covers the totality of time remaining in the one hundred years of Brahma, or the remainder of the process of manifestation.
When we study, therefore, the sets of triangles earlier referred to and the periods of ray dominance, we will find much room for thought. Let me here point out, however, that the six groups of triangles are in all but five if we eliminate the pranic triangle which has to do with matter itself and is not counted any more than the dense physical is counted a principle. Therefore we have:
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The permanent atoms are enclosed within the periphery of the causal body, yet that relatively permanent body is built and enlarged, expanded and wrought into [179] a central receiving and transmitting station (using inadequate words to convey an occult idea) by the direct action of the centres, and of the centres above all. Just as it was spiritual force, or the will aspect, that built the solar system, so it is the same force in the man that builds the causal body. By the bringing together of spirit and matter (Father-Mother) in the macrocosm, and their union through the action of the will, the objective solar system, or the Son, was produced that Son of desire, Whose characteristic is love, and Whose nature is buddhi or spiritual wisdom. By the bringing together (in microcosm) of Spirit and matter, and their coherence by means of force (or the spiritual will) that objective system, the causal body, is being produced; it is the product of transmuted desire, whose characteristic (when fully demonstrated) will be love, the expression eventually on the Physical Plane of buddhi. The causal body is but the sheath of the Ego. The solar system is but the sheath of the Son. In both the greater and the lesser systems, force centres exist which are productive of objectivity. The centres in the human being are reflections in the three worlds of those higher force centres.
Before taking up the subject of kundalini and the centres, it would be well to extend the information given above, from its prime significance for man, as that which concerns himself, to the solar system, the macrocosm, and to the cosmos. What can be predicated of the microcosm is naturally true of the macrocosm and of the cosmos. It will not be possible to give the systemic triangles, for the information would have to be so blinded that, except for those who have occult knowledge and the intuition developed, it would be practically useless intellectually, but certain things may be pointed out in this connection that may be of interest.
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a. Hearing. This, very appropriately, is the first sense to be manifested; the first aspect of manifestation is that of sound, and necessarily therefore we would expect sound to be the first thing noticed by man on the Physical Plane, the plane of densest manifestation, and of the most marked effects of sound, regarding it as a creating factor. Pre-eminently the Physical Plane is the plane of hearing and hence the sense ascribed to the lowest plane of evolution, and of each of the five planes. On this seventh or lowest plane man has to come to full cognisance of the effect of the Sacred Word as it is in process of sounding forth. As it reverberates throughout the system, it drives matter into its appointed place, and on the Physical Plane finds its point of deepest materiality and of most concrete demonstration. The key for man to discover and turn, concerns itself with the revealing of the mystery of:
a. His own sound.
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Therefore, we note that on the Physical Plane a man has to find his own note, finding it in spite of the density of the form.
a. On the Physical Plane he finds his own note.
b. On the astral plane he finds his brother's note; through identity of emotion he comes to the recognition of his brother's identity.
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Hearing on the astral plane is commonly called clairaudience, and means the ability to hear the sounds of the astral plane. It is a faculty that demonstrates throughout the entire astral body, and a man hears all over his vehicle and not only through the specialised organs, the ears, the product of Physical Plane action and reaction. This would necessarily be so, owing to the fluidic nature of the astral body. Man on the Physical Plane hears at the same time a certain range of sounds, and only a small and particular gamut of vibrations impinges upon his ears. There are many of the lesser sounds of nature which entirely escape him, while the major group sounds are not differentiated at all. As evolution proceeds and the inner sense of hearing becomes acute, these other Physical Plane sounds will likewise swing into his ken, and he will be acutely conscious of all sounds on the astral, and the Physical Planea thing, which if possible now, would result in the shattering of the body. If the note of nature, for instance, were to strike but once upon the ear of a man (a note made up of the totality of vibrations produced by all dense material forms) his physical body would be completely disrupted. [192] He is not ready yet for such a happening; the inner ear is not duly prepared. Only when the threefold hearing is consummated will completed hearing on the Physical Plane be likewise permitted.
Hearing on the mental plane is simply an extension of the faculty of differentiating sound. The hearing dealt with on all these planes is the hearing that has to do with the form, that concerns the vibration of matter, and that is occupied with the not-self. It has not to do with the psyche, or the telepathic communication that proceeds from mind to mind, but with the sound of the form or that power whereby one separated unit of consciousness is aware of another unit who is not himself. Bear this carefully in mind. When the extension of hearing becomes such that it concerns the psyche, then we call it telepathy or that wordless communication that is the synthesis of hearing on all the three lower planes and which is known by the Ego in the causal body on the formless levels of the mental plane.
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As regards taste and smell, we might call them minor senses, for they are closely allied to the important sense of touch. They are practically subsidiary to that sense. This second sense, and its connection with this second solar system, should be carefully pondered over. It is predominantly the sense most closely connected with the second Logos. This conveys a hint of much value if duly considered. It is of value to study the extensions of Physical Plane touch on other planes and to see whither we are led. It is the faculty which enables us to arrive [197] at the essence by due recognition of the veiling sheath. It enables the Thinker who fully utilises it to put himself en rapport with the essence of all selves at all stages, and thereby to aid in the due evolution of the sheath and actively to serve. A Lord of Compassion is one who (by means of touch) feels with, fully comprehends, and realises the manner in which to heal and correct the inadequacies of the not-self and thus actively to serve the plan of evolution. We should study likewise in this connection the value of touch as demonstrated by the healers of the race (those on the Bodhisattva line) [lxxxv]83 and the effect of the Law of Attraction and Repulsion as thus manipulated by them. Students of etymology will have noted that the origin of the word touch is somewhat obscure, but probably means to 'draw with quick motion.' Herein lies the whole secret of this objective solar system, and herein will be demonstrated the quickening of vibration by means of touch. Inertia, mobility, rhythm, are the qualities manifested by the not-self. Rhythm, balance, and stable vibration are achieved by means of this very faculty of touch or feeling. Let me illustrate briefly so as to make the problem somewhat clearer. What results in meditation? By dint of strenuous effort and due attention to rules laid down, the aspirant succeeds in touching matter of a quality rarer than is his usual custom. He contacts his causal body, in time he contacts the matter of the buddhic plane. By means of this touch his own vibration is temporarily and briefly quickened. Fundamentally we are brought back to the subject that we deal with in this treatise. The latent fire of matter attracts to itself that fire, latent in other forms. They touch, and recognition and awareness ensues. The fire of manas burns continuously and is fed by that which is attracted and repulsed. When the two [198] blend, the stimulation is greatly increased and the ability to touch intensified. The Law of Attraction persists in its work until another fire is attracted and touched, and the threefold merging is completed. Forget not in this connection the mystery of the Rod of Initiation. [lxxxvi]84 Later when we consider the subject of the centres and Initiation it must be remembered that we are definitely studying one aspect of this mysterious faculty of touch, the faculty of the second Logos, wielding the law of Attraction.
Let us now finish what may be imparted on the remaining three sensessight, taste, smell and then briefly sum up their relationship to the centres, and their mutual action and interaction. That will then leave two more points to be dealt with in this first division of the Treatise on Cosmic Fire, and a summing up. We shall then be in a position to take up that portion of the treatise that deals with the fire of manas and with the development of the manasaputras, [lxxxvii]85 both in their totality and likewise individually. This topic is of the most imperative importance as it deals entirely with man, the Ego, the thinker, and shows the cosmic blending of the fires of matter and of mind, and their utilisation by the indwelling Flame.
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First. The awakening on the Physical Plane, and the gradually increasing activity of the centres, until the Probationary Path is reached. This is paralleled by the increasing use of the senses, and their constant utilisation for the identification of the self and its sheaths.
Second. The awakening on the astral plane, and the gradually increasing activity of the centres, until the first Initiation is reached. This is paralleled by the tremendously keen use of the senses for the purposes of discriminating between the Self and the not-self.
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e. In the Heavenly Man and His body, a chain of globes [lxxxix]87 likewise can be seen and we need here to remember very carefully that the seven chains of a scheme are the expression of a planetary Logos. The Heavenly Men are expressing Themselves through a scheme of seven chains and the emphasis has been laid unduly, perhaps, upon the dense Physical Planet in any particular chain. This has caused the fact of the chain importance to be somewhat overlooked. Each of the seven chains might be looked upon as picturing the seven centres of one of the Heavenly Men. The idea of groups of Egos forming centres in the Heavenly Men is nevertheless correct, but in this connection the reference is to the centres of force on buddhic and monadic levels. [xc]88
[207]
In connection with this there is a fundamental point that must never be forgotten: these seven Heavenly Men might be considered as being in physical incarnation through the medium of a Physical Planet, and herein lies the mystery of planetary evolution. Herein lies the mystery of our planet, the most mysterious of all the planets. Just as the karma of individuals differs, so differs the karma of the various Logoi, and the karma of our planetary Logos has been a heavy one, and veiled in the mystery of personality at this time.
Again, according as the centres are active or inactive, so the manifestation differs likewise, and the study which opens up is of vast and abstruse interest in connection with the solar system.
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Fourth. A gradual grasp of the Law of Vibration as an aspect of the basic law of building; the initiate learns consciously to build, to manipulate thought matter for the perfecting of the plans of the Logos, to work in mental essence, and to apply the law of mental levels and thereby affect the Physical Plane. Motion originates cosmically on cosmic mental levels, and in the microcosm the same order will be seen. There is an occult hint here that will reveal much if pondered upon. At initiation, at the moment of the application of the Rod, the initiate consciously realises the meaning of the Law of Attraction in form building, and in the synthesis of the three fires. Upon his ability to retain that realisation and himself to apply the law, will depend his power and progress.
e. By the application of the Rod, the fire of kundalini is aroused, and its upward progress directed. The fire at the base of the spine, and the fire of mind are [210] directed along certain routes, or triangles, by the action of the Rod as it moves in a specified manner. There is a definite occult reason, under the Laws of Electricity, behind the known fact that every initiate, presented to the Initiator, is accompanied by two of the Masters, who stand one on either side of him. The three of them together form a triangle which makes the work possible.
1.00f - DIVISION F - THE LAW OF ECONOMY, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
These general rules relating to atomic bodies can be extended not only to the atoms of the Physical Plane, but to all spheroidal bodies within the system, and including the system also, regarding it as a cosmic atom.
The tiny atom of the Physical Plane, a plane itself, a planet, and a solar system all evolve under these rules, and all are governed by the Law of Economy in one of its four aspects.
It might be added in closing, that this law is one that initiates have to master before They can achieve liberation. They have to learn to manipulate matter, and to work with energy or force in matter under this law; they have to utilise matter and energy in order to achieve the liberation of Spirit, and to bring to fruition the purposes of the Logos in the evolutionary process.
1.00 - INTRODUCTORY REMARKS, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
Second, as active heat or prana; this animates all, and is the driving force of the evolving form. It shows itself in the four ethers and in the gaseous state, and a correspondence is here found on the Physical Plane in connection with man to the Akasha and its fivefold manifestation on the plane of the solar system.
This fire is the basic vibration of the little system in which the monad or human spirit is the logos, and it [46] holds the personality or lower material man in objective manifestation thus permitting the spiritual unit to contact the plane of densest matter. It has its correspondence in the ray of intelligent activity and is controlled by the Law of Economy in one of its subdivisions, the Law of Adaptation in Time.
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To continue our consideration of the fires which sustain the economy of the visible solar system, and of the visible objective human being, which produce evolutionary development, and which are the bases of all objective efflorescence, it must be noted that they demonstrate as the sumtotal of the vital life of a solar system, of a planet, of the entire constitution of active functioning man upon the Physical Plane, and of the atom of substance.
Speaking broadly we would say that the first fire deals entirely with:
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Just as it is not possible upon the Physical Plane for the physical vehicle fully to express the total point of development of the Ego or higher self, so it is not possible even for the Ego fully to sense and express the quality of spirit. Hence the utter impossibility for human consciousness justly to appraise the life of the spirit or Monad.
b. The working of the flame divine under the Law of Synthesisa generic term which will be seen eventually to include the other two laws as subdivisions.
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Let us now briefly recognise certain facts regarding fire in matter and let us take them in order, leaving time to elucidate their significance. First we might say that the internal fire being both latent and active, shows itself as the synthesis of the acknowledged fires of the system, and demonstrates, for instance, as solar radiation and inner planetary combustion. This subject has been somewhat covered by science, and is hidden in the mystery of Physical Plane electricity, which is an expression of the active internal fires of the system and of the planet just as inner combustion is an expression of the latent internal fires. These latter fires are to be found in the interior of each globe, and are the basis of all objective physical life.
Secondly, we might note that the internal fires are the basis of life in the lower three kingdoms of nature, and in the fourth or human kingdom in connection with the two lower vehicles. The Fire of Mind, when blended with the internal fires, is the basis of life in the fourth kingdom, and united they control (partially now and later entirely) the lower threefold man or the personality; this control lasts up to the time of the first Initiation.
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2. Radiatory fire. This type of fire might be expressed in terms of Physical Plane electricity, of light rays, and of etheric energy. This is active fire.
3. Essential fire, or the fire elementals who are themselves the essence of fire. They are mainly divided into two groups:
10.17 - Miracles: Their True Significance, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A miracle is nothing but the intervention of a force from another plane of consciousness. It must be recognised at the very outset that the Physical Plane of existence is not the only reality, there are many other planes superimposed' one upon another, each having its own special consciousness and power, its own laws of being and action. Obviously we all know apart from the material or physical being there is the vital being, the life-force and there is the mental being, the mind-force. And there are many other levels like these. A miracle happens, that is to say, a material formation behaves in an abnormal way because a force has come down from the vital region and has influenced or taken control of the material object. So the material object instead of obeying the material law is obliged to obey a vital law which is of a much greater potency. Yogis who do miracles possess this vital power, they have acquired it through a regular discipline and training. Spirit-calling, table-turning, even curing diseases and ailments in a moment and many other activities of the kind are manifestations of very elementary energies of life. From the occult point of view these are very crude and rudimentary examples of what a different kind of force can achieve on a different plane. Even the vital plane possesses deeper and higher energies whose action on the material plane is of deeper and higher category. A deeper or higher vital power can change radically your character and long-standing habits, help to mould them into a different, nobler and more beautiful pattern. The mind too is capable of performing miracles, a strong mental energy can dictate its terms to life and even to the body. Only the miracles here are not of a dazzling kind that astound or confound you. They have a subtler composition, yet they belong to the same category. In the mind itself miracles happen also when a higher light, a superior consciousness intuition, inspiration, revelationdescends into the normal mental working and creates there a thing that is abnormal in beauty and truth and reality. Thus for example, a matter of fact mind is seen turned into a fine poet or a workaday hand is transmuted into a consummate artist.
A miracle can be said to be doubly a miracle; first of all, because it means an intervention from another plane, a superior level of being, and secondly because the process or the action of the intervention is not deployed or staged out but is occult and telescoped, the result being almost simultaneous with the pressure of the moving force. .
1.01 - The Divine and The Universe, #Words Of The Mother III, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
On the Physical Plane the Divine expresses himself through beauty, on the mental plane through knowledge, on the vital plane through power and on the psychic plane through love.
When we rise high enough, we discover that these four aspects unite with each other in a single consciousness, full of love, luminous, powerful, beautiful, containing all, pervading all.
1.04 - Money, #The Mother With Letters On The Mother, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
1:Money is the visible sign of a universal force, and this force in its manifestation on earth works on the vital and Physical Planes and is indispensable to the fullness of the outer life. In its origin and its true action it belongs to the Divine. But like other powers of the Divine it is delegated here and in the ignorance of the lower Nature can be usurped for the uses of the ego or held by Asuric influences and perverted to their purpose. This is indeed one of the three forces - power, wealth, sex - that have the strongest attraction for the human ego and the Asura and are most generally misheld and misused by those who retain them. The seekers or keepers of wealth are more often possessed rather than its possessors; few escape entirely a certain distorting influence stamped on it by its long seizure and perversion by the Asura. For this reason most spiritual disciplines insist on a complete self-control, detachment and renunciation of all bondage to wealth and of all personal and egoistic desire for its possession. Some even put a ban on money and riches and proclaim poverty and bareness of life as the only spiritual condition. But this is an error; it leaves the power in the hands of the hostile forces. To reconquer it for the Divine to whom it belongs and use it divinely for the divine life is the supramental way for the Sadhaka.
2:You must neither turn with an ascetic shrinking from the money power, the means it gives and the objects it brings, nor cherish a rajasic attachment to them or a spirit of enslaving self-indulgence in their gratifications. Regard wealth simply as a power to be won back for the Mother and placed at her service.
1.04 - Religion and Occultism, #Words Of The Mother III, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, it is the symbol of the descent of the divine forces upon the Physical Plane.
25 January 1934
1.07 - The Magic Wand, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
Under charging the wand with certain universal qualities is understood qualities such as omnipotence or other specific ones which the magician needs for his realizations in the mental, astral or Physical Planes and which are concentrated into the rod in the same manner as described above. It is possible (similar to the charge with the magician's will) when charging the wand with a certain quality, to impel the quality into the wand not only by embodying one's consciousness into it and by condensing the power, but also by pulling the quality down from the universe by means of one's imagination and concentration of will-power, thereby condensing the quality in the wand, thus charging it.
Constant condensing of a certain quality will make the relevant spiritual power if concentrated in the wand a direct physical power. This means that with the wand the magician is in possession of an accumulator equivalent to a battery powerfully charged with electricity. That then one and the same power may be used for good as well as for bad purposes is true, but a magician, having proceeded as far as this in his individual training, will never think of any evil motives or try to put them into action, since he, at all times, is anxious to be regarded as a true and faithful servant by Divine Providence.
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When applying this principle, the charge of the magic wand is possible, but not any kind of accumulation, since the Akashaprinciple cannot be intensified. But repeated meditation on the qualities of the Akasha-principle with all its aspects in the magic wand will finally enable the magician to create causes in the Akasha-principle, which will itself realize in the mental and astral planes, and also in the Physical Plane. Using a rod charged in the manner described, the magician will be able to impel, by force of imagination, a power or quality via the wand into the Akasha, which then, like a volt created by an electromagnetic fluid, will have direct influence on the three-dimensional world from above.
Such a wand will be regarded with awe by positive intelligences and will have a frightening effect on negative beings. A wand charged in this fashion is usually preferred by magicians working with negative beings, so-called demons, in order to make them pliant. For further details on this subject see the chapter dealing with necromancy.
1.08 - The Four Austerities and the Four Liberations, #On Education, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
When a thought is expressed in speech, the vibration of the sound has a considerable power to bring the most material substance into contact with the thought, thus giving it a concrete and effective reality. That is why one must never speak ill of people or things or say things which go against the progress of the divine realisation in the world. This is an absolute general rule. And yet it has one exception. You should not criticise anything unless at the same time you have the conscious power and active will to dissolve or transform the movements or things you criticise. For this conscious power and active will have the capacity of infusing Matter with the possibility to react and refuse the bad vibration and ultimately to correct it so that it becomes impossible for it to go on expressing itself on the Physical Plane.
This can be done without risk or danger only by one who moves in the gnostic realms and possesses in his mental faculties the light of the spirit and the power of the truth. He, the divine worker, is free from all preference and all attachment; he has broken down the limits of his ego and is now only a perfectly pure and impersonal instrument of the supramental action upon earth.
1.094 - Understanding the Structure of Things, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
We are, for instance, not conscious of the existence of worlds other than this earth, or the Physical Plane. But scriptures tell us, and even science corroborates, that there can be many kinds of beings perhaps infinite in number all differing, one from the other. Also, the contents of the realms will not be similar, because they belong to different space-times. This is also a great revelation of the modern theory of relativity. There are infinite space-times, and each space-time has a peculiar conditioning feature which manifests itself as a particular world of perception or experience. This particular space-time is only one possibility among the many possibilities in the form of many other space-times infinite in number. This is also mentioned to us in the stories of the Yoga Vasishtha. Infinite space-times, infinite worlds are there, and one can be penetrating through the other, one not being aware of the existence of the other. Worlds interpenetrate one another at a given cross-section of time and space, and yet one will not be aware of the other on account of the difference of the frequency of consciousness which is connected to that particular order of space-time.
This present condition of experience, which is called udita in this particular sutra, is only one time-form taken by prakriti, and it has potentialities which were in the past that can manifest themselves once again in the future. There will be an occasion for us to study this in future, when Patanjali will tell us that there is no identical substance called individual at all. There is no self-identical being. They are only different phases of the manifestation of prakriti, which is mistaken for a self-identical individuality, so that what is intended here is that the so-called asmita, which plays such havoc, is a phantasmagoria. It is not there at all!
1.09 - Sleep and Death, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
or go into a rage, or feel a movement of rebellion inside us, or a sexual impulse, etc., or even, to take another example of a seemingly different nature, we may trip on the stairs two or three times and almost fall headlong, or contract a violent fever; then we notice that each of these small, very trivial daytime incidents corresponds exactly to another incident, most often symbolic in nature (symbolic, because it is not the fact itself, but a mental transcription when we wake up in the morning), which we experienced the night before: either we were attacked in a "dream" by an enemy, or we were involved in an unhappy turn of event, or else we saw, sometimes very precisely, all the details surrounding the psychological scene that would take place the next day. It would seem that "someone" is perfectly awake in us and very concerned with helping us identify all the why's and hidden mechanisms of our psychological life, all the reasons for our falls as well as progress. For, conversely, we may have a premonition of all the happy psychological movements that will translate the next day into a progress, an opening of consciousness, a feeling of lightness, an inner widening; we remember that the night before we saw a light, an ascent, or a wall or house crumbling (symbolic of our resistance or the mental constructions that were confining us). We are also very struck by the realization that these premonitions are usually not associated with events we deem important on our Physical Plane, such as the death of a parent or some worldly achievement (although these premonitions also may occur), but with very trivial details, bearing no external importance, yet always very meaningful for our inner progress. This is a sign of the development of our consciousness.
Instead of unconsciously accepted mental, vital or other vibrations,
1.09 - To the Students, Young and Old, #On Education, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Consequently, we are not here to repeat what others have done, but to prepare ourselves for the blossoming of a new consciousness and a new life. That is why I address myself to you, the students, that is, to all who wish to learn, to learn always more and always better, so that one day you may be capable of opening yourselves to the new force and of giving it the possibility of manifesting on the Physical Plane. For that is our programme and we must not forget it. To understand the true reason why you are here, you must remember that we want to become instruments that are as perfect as possible, instruments that express the divine will in the world. And if the instruments are to be perfect, they must be cultivated, educated, trained. They must not be left like fallow land or a formless piece of stone. A diamond reveals all its beauty only when it is artistically cut. It is the same for you. If you want your physical being to be a perfect instrument for the manifestation of the supramental consciousness, you must cultivate it, sharpen it, refine it, give it what it lacks, perfect what it already possesses. That is why you go to school, my children, whether you are big or small, for one can learn at any ageand so you must go to your classes.
Sometimes, if you are not in a very good mood, you say, How boring it is going to be! Yes, perhaps the teacher who is taking your class does not know how to amuse you. He may be a very good teacher, but at the same time he may not know how to entertain you, for it is not always easy. There are days when one does not feel like being entertaining. There are days, for him as for you, when one would like to be elsewhere than in school. But still, you go to your class. You go because you must, for if you obey all your fancies you will never have any control over yourselves; your fancies will control you. So you go to your class, but instead of going there and thinking, How bored I am going to be; I am sure it is not going to be interesting, you should tell yourselves, There is not a single minute in life, not one circumstance that is not an opportunity for progress. So what progress am I going to make today? The class I am going to now is on a subject that does not interest me. But perhaps that is because something is lacking in me; perhaps, in my brain, a certain number of cells are deficient and that is why I cannot find any interest in the subject. If so, I shall try, I shall listen carefully, concentrate hard and above all drive out of my mind this aimlessness, this superficial shallowness which makes me feel bored when there is something I cannot grasp. I am bored because I do not make an effort to understand, because I do not have this will for progress. When one does not progress, one feels bored, everyone, young or old; for we are here on earth to progress. How tedious life would be without progress! Life is monotonous. Most often it is not fun. It is far from being beautiful. But if you take it as a field for progress, then everything changes, everything becomes interesting and there is no longer any room for boredom. Next time your teacher seems boring to you, instead of wasting your time doing nothing, try to understand why he bores you. Then if you have a capacity of observation and if you make an effort to understand, you will soon see that a kind of miracle has occurred and that you are no longer feeling bored at all.
1.1.01 - Seeking the Divine, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It is a universally accepted principle of the spiritual endeavour that one must be prepared to sacrifice everything without reserve in order to reach the Divine through a spiritualised consciousness. If self-development on the mental, vital and Physical Plane is his aim that is another matter - that life is the life of the ego with the soul kept behind undeveloped or half developed.
16
1.1.1.01 - Three Elements of Poetic Creation, #Letters On Poetry And Art, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The originating source may be anywhere; the poetry may arise or descend from the subtle Physical Plane, from the higher or lower vital itself, from the dynamic or creative intelligence, from the plane of dynamic vision, from the psychic, from the illumined mind or Intuition,even, though this is the rarest, from the Overmind widenesses. To get the Overmind inspiration is so rare that there are only a few lines or short passages in all poetic literature that give at least some appearance or reflection of it. When the source of inspiration is in the heart or the psychic there is more easily a good will in the vital channel, the flow is spontaneous; the inspiration takes at once its true form and speech and is transmitted without any interference or only a minimum of interference by the brain-mind, that great spoiler of the higher or deeper splendours. It is the character of the lyrical inspiration, to flow in a jet out of the beingwhe ther it comes from the vital or the psychic, it is usually spontaneous, for these are the two most powerfully impelling and compelling parts of the nature. When on the contrary the source of inspiration is in the creative poetic intelligence or even the higher mind or the illumined mind, the poetry which comes from this quarter is always apt to be arrested by the outer intellect, our habitual thought-production engine. This intellect is an absurdly overactive part of the nature; it always thinks that nothing can be well done unless it puts its finger into the pie and therefore it instinctively interferes with the inspiration, blocks half or more than half of it and labours to substitute its own inferior and toilsome productions for the true speech and rhythm that ought to have come. The poet labours in anguish to get the one true word, the au thentic rhythm, the real divine substance of what he has to say, while all the time it is waiting complete and ready behind; but it is denied free transmission by some part of the transmitting agency which prefers to translate and is not willing merely to receive and transcribe. When one gets something through from the illumined mind, then there is likely to come to birth work that is really fine and great. When there comes with labour or without it something reasonably like what the poetic intelligence wanted to say, then there is something fine or adequate, though it may not be great unless there is an intervention from the higher levels. But when the outer brain is at work trying to fashion out of itself or to give its own version of what the higher sources are trying to pour down, then there results a manufacture or something quite inadequate or faulty or, at the best, good on the whole, but not the thing that ought to have come.
2 June 1931
1.1.1 - The Mind and Other Levels of Being, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It [the perception of an intuitivised mind] is when, instead of seeing things as they appear to the external mind and senses, one begins to see things about them with a subtler physical mind and sensee.g. seeing intuitively what is to be done, how to do it, what the object (even so-called inanimate objects) wants or needs, what is likely to happen next (or sometimes sure to happen), what forces are at play on the Physical Plane etc. etc. Even the body becomes intuitively conscious in this way, feels without being told by the mind what it has to do, what it has to avoid, what is near it or coming to it (though unseen) etc. etc.
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1.11 - The Three Purushas, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
These three Purushas are described in the fifteenth chapter of the Gita. There are two Purushas in the world, the akara and the kara,the kara is all creatures, the akara is called kastha, the one on the summit. There is another Purusha, the highest (uttama), called also the Paramatma or Supreme Spirit, who enters into the three worlds, (the worlds of suupti, svapna, jgrat, otherwise the causal, mental and Physical Planes of existence), and sustains them as their imperishable lord. And in the thirteenth chapter, while drawing the distinction between the lower Purusha and the higher, Sri Krishna defines more minutely the relations of God and the individual soul to Nature. Prakriti is the basic source of cause, effect and agency; the Purusha, of the sense of enjoyment of happiness and grief; for it is the soul in Nature (Purusha in Prakriti) that enjoys the threefold workings of things caused by Nature, (the play of conservation, creation and destruction; reception, reaction and resistance; illumination, misconception and obscuration; calm, work and inertia; all being different manifestations of three fundamental forces called the gunas or essential properties of Prakriti), and it is the attachment of the soul to the gunas that is the cause of births in bodies good and evil. The highest Purusha in this body is the one who watches, who sanctions, who enjoys, who upholds, who is the mighty Lord and the Supreme Soul.
The personality of the Supreme Soul is universal, not individual. Whatever is in all creatures, character, idea, imagination, experience, sensation, motion, is contained by Him as an object of spiritual enjoyment without limiting or determining Him. He is all things at once. Such a universality is necessary to support and supply individual existence, but it cannot be the determining limit of individual existence. Something has to be reserved, something put forward, and this partial manifestation is the individual. It is verily an eternal part of Me that in the world of individual existence becomes the Jiva or individual. The Jiva or individual is kara purua, and between him and the Supreme stands the akara purua, the bird on the summit of the tree, joyous in his own bliss, undisturbed by the play of Nature, impartially watching it, receiving its images on his calm immovable existence without being for a moment bound or affected, eternally self-gathered, eternally free. This akara purua is our real self, our divine unity with God, our inalienable freedom from that which is transient and changing. If it did not exist, there would be no escape from the bondage of life and death, joy and grief, sin and virtue; we should be prisoners in a cage without a door, beating our wings against the bars in vain for an exit; life and death, joy and grief, sin and virtue would be eternal, ineffugable realities, not temporary rules determining the great game of life, and we should be unwilling actors, not free playmates of God able to suspend and renew the game when we will. It is by realising our oneness with the akara purua that we get freedom from ignorance, freedom from the cords of desire, freedom from the imperative law of works. On the other hand if the akara purua were all, as the Sankhya philosophy contends, there would be no basis for different experience, no varying personality, every individual existence would be precisely like every other individual existence, the development and experience of one soul in Nature an exact replica of the development and experience of another soul. It is the kara purua who is all creatures, and the variety of experience, character and development is effected by a particular part of the universal swabhava or nature of conscious existence in phenomena being attached to a particular individual or Jiva. This is what is meant by saying that it is a part of God which becomes the Jiva. This swabhava, once determined, does not change; but it manifests various parts of itself, at various times, under various circumstances, in various forms of action and various bodies suited to the action or development it has to enjoy. It is for this reason that the Purusha in Nature is called kara, fluid, shifting, although it is not in reality fluid or shifting, but constant, eternal and immutable, santana. It is the variety of its enjoyment in Time, Space and Causality that makes it kara. The enjoyment of the akara purua is self-existent, beyond Time, Space and Causality, aware of but undisturbed by the continual multitudinous flux and reflux of Prakriti. The enjoyment of Purushottama is both in Prakriti and beyond it, it embraces and is the reality of all experience and enjoyment.
1.1.2 - Commentary, #Kena and Other Upanishads, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
production of material forms on the Physical Plane.
As a matter of fact, even ordinarily, even daily and hourly we
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the Physical Plane by physical means for a physical life; but they
are inherent capacities and not dependent on the circumstance
1.13 - Conclusion - He is here, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
Those of us who grieved over the tremendous loss received a sharp reprimand from the Mother, "To grieve is an insult to Sri Aurobindo who is here with us, conscious and alive." And "The lack of receptivity of the earth and men is mostly responsible for the decision Sri Aurobindo has taken regarding his body. But one thing is certain: what has happened on the Physical Plane affects in no way the truth of his teaching. All that he has said is perfectly true and remains so. Time and the course of events will prove it abundantly." And how much he worked for us, for the world, can be gauged by the inscription in English and French on the Samadhi as an offering of the Mother's gratitude:
"To Thee who hast been the material envelope of our Master, to Thee our infinite gratitude. Before Thee who hast done so much for us, who hast worked, struggled, suffered, hoped, endured so much, before Thee who hast willed all, attempted all, prepared, achieved all for us, before Thee we bow down and implore that we may never forget, even for a moment, all we owe to Thee."
1.16 - Man, A Transitional Being, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
that with such consciousness she knew of Sri Aurobindo's existence long before meeting him physically and coming to join him in Pondicherry. Between the ages of eleven and thirteen, she explains, a series of psychic and spiritual experiences revealed to me not only the existence of God, but man's possibility of finding Him and revealing Him integrally in consciousness and action, and of manifesting Him on earth in a divine life. This revelation, along with the practical discipline for achieving it, were given to me during my body's sleep by several teachers, some of whom I met afterwards on the Physical Plane. Later on, as the inner and outer development progressed, my spiritual and psychic relationship with one of these beings became increasingly clear and rich. . . . The moment I saw Sri Aurobindo, I
knew it was he who had come to do the work on earth and that it was with him I was to work. The "transformation" was under way. It was the Mother who took charge of the Ashram when Sri Aurobindo retired into complete solitude in 1926, and it is she who would continue the Work after his departure in 1950. The Mother's consciousness and mine are the same.312 It is quite significant that the living synthesis of East and West, which Sri Aurobindo already symbolized, would become perfected by this meeting between East and West, as if the world could only be fulfilled by the coming together of the two poles of existence, Consciousness and Force, Spirit and Earth, He and She forever.
1.16 - The Suprarational Ultimate of Life, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Up to a certain point this recoil has its uses and may easily even, by tapasy, by the law of energy increasing through compression, develop for a time a new vigour in the life of the society, as happened in India in the early Buddhist centuries. But beyond a certain point it tends, not really to kill, for that is impossible, but to discourage along with the vital instincts the indispensable life-energy of which they are the play and renders them in the end inert, feeble, narrow, unelastic, incapable of energetic reaction to force and circumstance. That was the final result in India of the agelong pressure of Buddhism and its supplanter and successor, Illusionism. No society wholly or too persistently and pervadingly dominated by this denial of the life dynamism can flourish and put forth its possibilities of growth and perfection. For from dynamic it becomes static and from the static position it proceeds to stagnation and degeneration. Even the higher being of man, which finds its account in a vigorous life dynamism, both as a fund of force to be transmuted into its own loftier energies and as a potent channel of connection with the outer life, suffers in the end by this failure and contraction. The ancient Indian ideal recognised this truth and divided life into four essential and indispensable divisions, artha, kma, dharma, moka, vital interests, satisfaction of desires of all kinds, ethics and religion, and liberation or spirituality, and it insisted on the practice and development of all. Still it tended not only to put the last forward as the goal of all the rest, which it is, but to put it at the end of life and its habitat in another world of our being, rather than here in life as a supreme status and formative power on the Physical Plane. But this rules out the idea of the kingdom of God on earth, the perfectibility of society and of man in society, the evolution of a new and diviner race, and without one or other of these no universal ideal can be complete. It provides a temporary and occasional, but not an inherent justification for life; it holds out no illumining fulfilment either for its individual or its collective impulse.
Let us then look at this vital instinct and life dynamism in its own being and not merely as an occasion for ethical or religious development and see whether it is really rebellious in its very nature to the Divine. We can see at once that what we have described is the first stage of the vital being, the infrarational, the instinctive; this is the crude character of its first native development and persists even when it is trained by the growing application to it of the enlightening reason. Evidently it is in this natural form a thing of the earth, gross, earthy, full even of hideous uglinesses and brute blunders and jarring discords; but so also is the infrarational stage in ethics, in aesthetics, in religion. It is true too that it presents a much more enormous difficulty than these others, more fundamentally and obstinately resists elevation, because it is the very province of the infrarational, a first formulation of consciousness out of the Inconscient, nearest to it in the scale of being. But still it has too, properly looked at, its rich elements of power, beauty, nobility, good, sacrifice, worship, divinity; here too are highreaching gods, masked but still resplendent. Until recently, and even now, reason, in the garb no longer of philosophy, but of science, has increasingly proposed to take up all this physical and vital life and perfect it by the sole power of rationalism, by a knowledge of the laws of Nature, of sociology and physiology and biology and health, by collectivism, by State education, by a new psychological education and a number of other kindred means. All this is well in its own way and in its limits, but it is not enough and can never come to a truly satisfying success. The ancient attempt of reason in the form of a high idealistic, rational, aesthetic, ethical and religious culture achieved only an imperfect discipline of the vital man and his instincts, sometimes only a polishing, a gloss, a clothing and mannerising of the original uncouth savage. The modern attempt of reason in the form of a broad and thorough rational, utilitarian and efficient instruction and organisation of man and his life is not succeeding any better for all its insistent but always illusory promise of more perfect results in the future. These endeavours cannot indeed be truly successful if our theory of life is right and if this great mass of vital energism contains in itself the imprisoned suprarational, if it has, as it then must have, the instinctive reaching out for something divine, absolute and infinite which is concealed in its blind strivings. Here too reason must be overpassed or surpass itself and become a passage to the Divine.
1.17 - The Transformation, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
This is what some disciples have called the "bright period," lasting from 1920 to 1926, after which Sri Aurobindo would retire into complete solitude for twenty-four years, to concentrate exclusively on the Work. Using the new, supramental power they had discovered, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother first made several experiments on their own bodies. "Testing" is one of the key words in Sri Aurobindo's vocabulary: I have been testing day and night for years upon years more scrupulously than any scientist his theory or his method on the Physical Plane.352 From this huge body of experiences, which pervade Sri Aurobindo's written works and correspondence, we might draw four symbolic events illustrating the power of consciousness and Sri Aurobindo's "testing," bearing in mind that these are only instances among many others, and that neither Sri Aurobindo nor Mother attri buted any special importance to them. It is through chance conversations or letters that their existence came to be known. Sri Aurobindo had just arrived in Pondicherry when he undertook a prolonged fast, "to see." Years later, when a disciple asked him 351
352
12.09 - The Story of Dr. Faustus Retold, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We need not be shocked; after all, the phenomenon is symbolic. The rites represent a psychological operation. A human being, a young boy sacrificed means whatever is most developed in you, whatever is aspiring, whatever is beautiful, is offered to the Divine. In fact, all rituals and ceremonies, all pujas are symbolic, that is to say, representations on the Physical Plane of inner movementsspiritual efforts. It is true some of them, to us moderns, appear revolting and reprehensible but we must remember these ceremonies if they were physically practised were done millenniums ago when humanity was quite young and had not emerged very much out of the animal existence. The life in that early stage of consciousness had to pursue for bare subsistence a mode of living that is un-understandable to the consciousness of today. The human aspiration however was still present there and made use of these normal modalities of life to express and embody itself.
We leave it at that, but the point of the matter is this: the material, the physical life that is in your body is made interesting, even the body itself becomes not only living but beautiful because of the presence of the soul in it, embalming it, perfuming it. If you are able ever to meet it, contact it, touch it, you will find yourself wonderfully transmuted, you will carry yourself and spread abroad your own sweet scent like the scented deer. The body is called a temple, the habitation of the Divinity that is in you. Therefore it must be kept clean and pureno dust from the intruding feet of Satan's brood nor any shadow from their presence should fall here. That other influence must always be shaken off. You must always love your soul, always remain in its embrace, then you will no longer be a mere human being but an angel, indeed a god.
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