Section One – The Internal Fires – Fire by Friction
Section E – Motion on the Physical and Astral Planes
Section E – Motion on the Physical and Astral Planes
E.I. Introductory Remarks
I would point out primarily and emphasize the fact that the
motion we are considering is that due to the fire latent in
matter itself, a motion that is the prime characteristic
and basic quality of the Primordial Ray of Active
Intelligence. To express it otherwise: it is the
outstanding faculty of the third Logos, of Brahma [142]
viewed as the Creator, and this faculty is the product or
result of an earlier manifestation. Each of the three
Logoi, when in manifestation and thus personified, is
exemplifying some one quality which predominates over the
others. Each, more or less, exemplifies all, but each
demonstrates one of the three aspects so profoundly as to
be recognized as that aspect itself. In much the same way,
for instance, the different incarnating jivas carry a
vibration which is their main measure, though they may also
have lesser vibrations that are subsidiary to them. Let us
get this clear, for the truth embodied is fundamental.
- The threefold goal,
- The threefold function,
- The threefold mode of activity.
- His goal is the perfect blending of Spirit and matter.
- His function is the manipulation of prakriti, or matter, so as to make it fit, or equal to, the demands and needs of the Spirit. [143]
- His mode of action is rotary, or, by the revolution of matter, to increase activity and thereby make the material more pliable.
The Second Logos. The second Logos, Vishnu, the
divine Wisdom Ray, the great principle of Buddhi seeking to
blend with the principle of Intelligence, is characterized
by Love. His motion is that which we might term spiral
cyclic. Availing Himself of the rotary motion of all
atoms, He adds to that His own form of motion or of
spiraling periodical movement, and by circulation along an
orbit or spheroidal path (which circles around a central
focal point in an ever ascending spiral) two results are
brought about:
- He gathers the atoms into forms.
- By means of these forms He gains the needed contact, and develops full consciousness on the five planes of human development, gradually rarefying and refining the forms as the Spirit of Love or the Flame Divine spirals ever onward towards its goal, that goal which is also the source from which it came.
64 Elemental Essence is seen to consist of
aggregations of matter, on one of the six non-atomic
subplanes of the mental and the desire planes –
aggregations which do not themselves serve as forms for any
entity to inhabit, but as the material out of which such
forms may be built.
All lesser spheres ranging downward from these major
spheres, include all grades of manifestation down to the
elemental essence on the arc of involution.64 We
need to remember that on the Path of Involution, the action
of Brahma is primarily felt, seeking the line of least
resistance. On the Path of Evolution the work of the second
Logos is felt, beginning at a point in time and space which
hides the mystery of the second chain, but finding its
point of accelerated vibration or the unification of the
two modes of manifestation – rotary-spiral-cyclic – in the
middle part of what we call the third chain. This is after
all the blending of the activity of Brahma with the onward
progress of Vishnu. We have the correspondence to this in
the sumtotal of the effects brought about in the second and
third root races.
The activity of the second Logos is carried on under the
cosmic Law of Attraction. The Law of Economy has for one of
its branches a subsidiary Law of marked development called
the Law of Repulsion. The cosmic Laws of Attraction and
Economy are therefore the raison d'être (viewed from
one angle) of the eternal repulsion that goes on as Spirit
seeks ever to liberate itself from form. The matter aspect
always follows the line of least resistance, and repulses
all tendency to group formation, while Spirit, governed by
the Law of Attraction, seeks ever to separate itself from
matter by the method of attracting an ever more adequate
type of matter in the process of distinguishing the real
from the unreal, and passing from one illusion to another
until the resources of matter are fully utilized. [145]
Eventually the Indweller of the form feels the urge, or
attractive pull, of its Own Self. The reincarnating jiva,
for instance, lost in the maze of illusion, begins in
course of time to recognize (under the Law of Attraction)
the vibration of its own Ego, which stands to it as the
Logos of its own system, its deity in the three worlds of
experience. Later, when the body egoic itself is seen as
illusion, the vibration of the Monad is felt, and the jiva,
working under the same law, works its way back through the
matter of the two planes of superhuman evolution, till it
is merged in its own essence.
Therefore:
- The goal of the second Logos is consciousness, to be achieved in cooperation with the third Logos.
- His function is the building of forms to be His instruments of experience.
- His mode of action is cyclic and spiral, the revolution of the wheel of existence in ordered cycles for a specific purpose, and the progression of these spheres of matter around a fixed center, within the solar periphery.
- Between the Sun and its six brothers.
- Between the circling whirling seven planes of the solar system.
- Between everything in the matter of all forms, the spheres of matter themselves and the aggregate of those spheres that are embodied in the forms of still others.
65 "The Hindus place their seven primitive
Rishis in the Great Bear. The prototypes or the animating
source of the seven Heavenly Men, the planetary Logoi, are
considered the seven Existences who function through the
seven stars of the Bear."
- S. D., II, 668.
- S. D., II, 668.
66 S. D., I, 100-108.
67 Subba Rao says in Five Years of Theosophy, page 102: "As a general rule, whenever seven entities are mentioned in the ancient occult science of India in any connection whatsoever, you must suppose that those seven entities came into existence from three primary entities; and that these three entities, again, are evolved out of a single entity or monad. To take a familiar example, the seven colored rays in the solar ray are evolved out of three primary colored rays; and the three primary colors coexist with the four secondary colors in the solar ray. Similarly the three primary entities which brought man into existence coexist in him with the four secondary entities which arose from different combinations of the three primary entities." Read also S. D., I, 190, 191.
68 "See S. D., I, 100, 108. Also Stanza III, 7A.
This subject of the first Logos, manifesting only in
connection with the other two in the system, is a profound
mystery, which is not fully understood by even those who
have taken the sixth Initiation.
The first Logos embodies the "will to live" and it was
through His instrumentality that the Manasaputras came into
objective existence in relation to the human and deva
hierarchies. In this system, the blending of the Divine Ray
of Wisdom and the Primordial Ray of intelligent matter
forms the great dual evolution; back of both these cosmic
Entities stands another Entity Who is the embodiment of
Will, and Who is the utilizer of forms – though not the
forms of any other than the Greater Building devas and the
human hierarchies in time and space. He is the animating
principle; the will-to-live aspect of the seven
Hierarchies. Nevertheless these seven Hierarchies are (as
says H. P. B.) the sevenfold ray of wisdom, the dragon in
its seven forms.66, 67, 68
This is a [147] deep mystery, and only a clue to it all can
be found at this time by man in the contemplation of his
own nature in the three worlds of his manifestation. Just
as our Logos is seeking objectivity through His solar
system in its threefold form of which the present is the
second, so man seeks objectivity through his three bodies –
physical, astral and mental. At this time he is polarized
in his astral body, or in his second aspect in like manner
as the undifferentiated Logos is polarized in His second
aspect. In time and space as we now conceive it, the sum
total of jivas are governed by feeling, emotion, and
desire, and not by the will, yet at the same time the will
aspect governs manifestation, for the Ego who is the source
of personality shows in manifestation the will to love.
The difficulty lies in the inability of the finite mind to
grasp the significance of this threefold manifestation,
but by thoughtful brooding over the Personality and its
relation to the Ego, who is the love aspect and who
nevertheless in relation to manifestation in the three
worlds is the will aspect likewise, will come some
faint light upon the same problems raised to Deity, or
expanded from microcosmic to macrocosmic spheres.
The Mahadeva, aspect or the first Logos (who embodies
cosmic will) is controlled by the Law of Synthesis, the
cosmic law governing the tendency to unification; only in
this case, it is not the unification of matter and Spirit,
but the unification of the seven into the three, and into
the one. These three figures primarily stand for Spirit,
[148] for quality, for principle, and not so primarily for
matter, although matter, being inspired by spirit,
conforms. The Law of Synthesis has a direct connection with
One Who is still higher than our Logos, and is the law of
control exercised by Him upon the Logos of our system. This
is a spiritual relationship that tends to abstraction or to
that synthesis of the spiritual elements that will result
in their conscious return (the whole point lying in that
word "conscious") to their cosmic point of synthesis, or of
unification with their source. Their source is the ONE
ABOUT WHOM NAUGHT MAY BE SAID, as we have earlier seen.
Therefore, in connection with the first Logos, we can sum
up as we did with the other Logoi:
- His goal is the synthesis of the Spirits who are gaining consciousness through manifestation, and who, by means of experience in matter, are gaining in quality.
- His function is, by means of will, to hold
them in manifestation for the desired period, and later
to abstract them, and blend them again with their
spiritual source. Hence the necessity of remembering that
fundamentally, the first Logos controls the cosmic
entities or extra-systemic beings; the second Logos
controls the solar entities; the third Logos controls the
lunar entities and their correspondences elsewhere in the
system.
This rule must not be carried too far in detail as long as man's mind is of its present caliber. The mystery lies in the realization that all is carried on in a divine cooperation that has its base outside the system. Hence too the fact that the first Logos is called the Destroyer, because He is abstraction, if viewed from below upwards. His work is the synthesis of Spirit with Spirit, their [149] eventual abstraction from matter, and their unification with their cosmic source. Hence also He is the one who brings about pralaya or the disintegration of form, – the form from which the Spirit has been abstracted.
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 center of his little system. The Ego is extra-cosmic as far as the human being on the physical plane is concerned, and in the realization of this fact may come elucidation of the true cosmic problem involving the Logos and "the spirits in prison," as the Christian puts it.
- 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:
First, Added quality to quality, and therefore emerging plus the gained faculty that experience has engendered.
Second, Increased the vibration of matter itself by means of its own energy, so that matter at the moment of pralaya and obscuration will have two main characteristics, – activity, the result of the Law of Economy, and a dual magnetism which will be the result of the Law of Attraction.
These preliminary statements have been laid down in an
endeavor to show the synthesis of the whole. In the use of
words comes limitation, and a clouding of the idea; words
literally veil or hide thoughts, detract from their
clarity, and confuse them by expression. The work of the
second and third Logoi (being the production of the
objectivity of the essential Spirit) is more easy to grasp
in broad outline than the more esoteric work of the first
Logos, which is that of the animating will.
In terms of fire another angle of expression may
perhaps elucidate.
The third Logos is fire in matter. He burns by
friction, and gains speed and added vibration by the
rotation of the spheres, their interplay thus producing
friction with each other.
The second Logos is solar fire. He is the fire of
matter and the electric fire of Spirit blended, producing,
in time and space, that fire which we call solar. He is the
quality of the flame, or the essential flame, produced by
this merging. A correspondence to this may be seen in the
radiatory fire of matter, and in the emanation, for
instance, from the central sun, from a planet, or from a
human being, – which latter emanation we call magnetism. A
man's emanation, or characteristic vibration, is the result
of the blending of Spirit and matter, and the relative
adequacy of the matter, or the form, to the life within.
The objective solar system, or the sun in manifestation, is
the result of the blending of Spirit (electric fire) with
matter (fire by friction), and the emanations of the Son,
in time and space, are dependent upon the adequacy of the
matter, and of the form to the life within.
The first Logos is electric fire, the fire of pure
Spirit. Yet in manifestation He is the Son, for by union
with matter (the mother) the Son is produced by Whom He is
[151] known. "I and my Father are One" (John, 10:30) is the
most occult statement in the Christian Bible, for it not
only refers to the union of a man with his source, the
monad, via the ego, but to the union of all life e with its
source, the will aspect, the first Logos.
We will now endeavor to confine ourselves strictly to the
subject of fire in matter, and its active effect upon the
sheaths of which it is the animating factor, and upon the
centers which come primarily under its control.
As we have been told, and as is generally recognized, the
effect of heat in matter is to produce that activity which
we call rotary, or the revolution of the spheres. Some of
the ancient books, and among them a few that are not yet
accessible in the occident, have taught that the entire
vault of heaven is a vast sphere, revolving slowly like a
stupendous wheel, and carrying with it, in its revolution,
the entire number of constellations and of universes
contained within it. This is a statement unverifiable by
the finite mind of man at his present stage, and with his
present scientific accessories, but (like all occult
statements) it contains within it the seed of thought, the
germ of truths, and the clue to the mystery of the
universe. Suffice it here to say, that the rotation of the
spheres within the solar periphery is a recognized occult
fact, and indications are available to prove that science
itself likewise formulates the hypothesis that the solar
ring-pass-not similarly rotates in its appointed place
among the constellations. But at this juncture we will not
deal with this angle of the subject, but will study the
rotary action of the spheres of the system, and of its
content – all the lesser spheres of every degree –
remembering ever to keep the distinction clearly in mind
that we are dealing now simply with the inherent
characteristic of matter itself, and not with matter in
cooperation with [152] its opposite, Spirit, which
cooperation brings about spiral-cyclic movement.
E.II. The Effects of Rotary Motion
Every sphere in the body macrocosmic rotates. This
rotation produces certain effects, which effects might be
enumerated as follows:
1. Separation is produced by rotary movement. By
means of this action, all the spheres became
differentiated, and form, as we know, the following atomic
units:
- The solar system, recognized as a cosmic atom, all the so-called atoms within its periphery being regarded as molecular.
- The seven planes, regarded as seven vast spheres, rotating latitudinally within the solar periphery.
- The seven rays, regarded as the seven veiling forms of the Spirits, themselves spheroidal bands of color, rotating longitudinally, and forming (in connection with the seven planes) a vast interlacing network. These two sets of spheres (planes and rays) form the totality of the solar system, and produce its form spheroidal.
In connection with these two types of spheres we might, by
way of illustration and for the sake of clarity, say that:
- The planes rotate from east to west.
- The rays rotate from north to south.
The seven planes, likewise atoms, rotate on their own axis,
and conform to that which is required of all atomic lives.
The seven spheres of any one plane, which we call
subplanes, equally correspond to the system; each has its
seven revolving wheels or planes that rotate through their
own innate ability, due to latent heat – the heat of the
matter of which they are formed.
The spheres or atoms of any form whatsoever, from the form
logoic, which we have somewhat dealt with, down to the
ultimate physical atom and the molecular matter that goes
to the construction of the physical body, show similar
correspondences and analogies.
All these spheres conform to certain rules, fulfil certain
conditions and are characterized by the same fundamental
qualifications. Later we will consider these [154]
conditions, but must now continue with the effect of rotary
action.
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 center, and
which likewise keeps the planes and subplanes from losing
their material identity. Here we can see the beginning of
that agelong 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.70,71 [155]
70 "The moon (our satellite) pouring forth into
the lowest globe of our planetary chain (Globe D. "Earth"),
all its energy and powers; and having transferred them to a
new center, becoming virtually a dead planet in which,
since the birth of our globe, rotation has ceased."
– S. D., I, 179.
– S. D., I, 179.
71 S. D., I, 179.
3. Frictional effect on all other bodies atomic,
producing:
- Vitality of the atom,
- Coherence of the atom,
- Ability to function.
- Heat supplied to the composite form of which it may form a fragmentary part, whether it is the heat supplied by the rotation of a planet within the form macrocosmic, or the rotation of a cell in the physical body within the form microcosmic.
- Final combustion or disintegration, when the fires latent and radiatory have achieved a specific stage. This is the secret of final obscuration and of pralaya, but cannot be dissociated from the two other factors of solar and electric fire.
4. Absorption, through that depression which is seen
in all whirling spheres of atomic matter at whichever
surface in the sphere corresponds to the point called in a
planet the North Pole. Some idea of the intention that I
seek to convey may be grasped by a study of the atom as
portrayed in Babbitt's "Principles of Light and Color," and
later in Mrs. Besant's "Occult Chemistry." This depression
is produced by radiations which proceed counter to the
rotations of the sphere and pass down from the north
southwards to a midway point. From there they tend to
increase the latent heat, to produce added momentum and to
give specific quality according to the source from which
the radiation comes. This absorption of extra-spheroidal
emanation is the secret of the dependence of one sphere
upon another, and has its correspondence in the cycling of
a ray through any plane sphere. Every atom, though termed
spheroidal, is more accurately a sphere slightly depressed
at one location, [156] that location being the place
through which flows the force which animates the matter of
the sphere. This is true of all spheres, from the solar
down to the atom of matter that we call the cell in the
body physical. Through the depression in the physical atom
flows the vitalizing force from without. Every atom is both
positive and negative; it is receptive or negative where
the inflowing force is concerned, and positive or radiatory
where its own emanations are concerned, and in connection
with its effect upon its environment.
This can be predicated likewise of the entire ring-pass-not
of the solar system in relation to its cosmic environment.
Force flows into the solar system from three directions via
three channels:
- The sun Sirius,
- The Pleiades,
- The Great Bear.
- Akashic.
- Electrical.
- Pranic.
Certain broad statements have been laid down here
concerning the rotation of matter, and the results [157]
produced in diverse spheres by that rotation. What is
predicated of any one sphere or atom can be predicated of
all, if it is in any way an occult statement of fact and we
should be able to work out these four effects:
- Separation, or the repulsive effect,
- Momentum, or the interior effect,
- Frictional, environal effect,
- Absorption, the receptive or attractive effect,
E.III. The Qualities of Rotary Motion
Every rotating sphere of matter is characterized by the
three qualities, of inertia, mobility and rhythm.
1. Inertia. This characterizes every atom at the
dawn of manifestation, at the beginning of a solar cycle or
mahamanvantara (or one hundred years of Brahma), at the
commencement of a chain, of a globe, or of any spheroidal
form whatsoever without exception. This statement,
therefore, includes the totality of manifesting forms
within the solar system.
Let us keep clearly in our minds that we are simply
considering the three qualities of matter itself and are
not considering consciousness. Inertia is the result of
lack of activity and the relative quiescence of the fires
of matter. These fires, during obscuration or Pralaya,
though latent, are free from the stimulation that comes
from the aggregation of atoms into form, and the consequent
interplay of the forms upon each other. Where form exists
and the Laws of Repulsion and Attraction are coming into
force, making radiation therefore possible, then comes
stimulation, emanative effect, and a gradual speeding up
which eventually, from within the atom itself, by its own
rotary movement produces the next quality. [158]
2. Mobility. The inherent fires of matter produce
rotary movement. Eventually this rotation results in
radiation. The radiation of matter, the result of its dual
heat, produces necessarily an effect upon other atoms in
its environment (it matters not whether that environment is
cosmic space, systemic space, or the periphery of the
physical body of a man), and this interaction and interplay
causes repulsion and attraction according to the polarity
of the cosmic, systemic or physical atom. Eventually this
produces coherence of form; bodies, or aggregates of atoms
come into being or manifestation, and persist for the
length of their greater or lesser cycle until the third
quality is brought into definite recognition.
3. Rhythm, or the attainment of the point of perfect
balance and of equilibrium. This point of perfect balance
then produces certain specific effects which might be
enumerated and pondered upon, even if to our finite minds
they may seem paradoxical and contradictory.
The limitation lies with us and with the use of words and
not in any real inaccuracy. These effects are:
- The disintegration of form,
- The liberation of the essence which the form confines,
- The separations of Spirit and matter.
- The end of a cycle, whether planetary, human or solar,
- The production of obscuration, and the end of objectivity or manifestation,
- The reabsorption of the essence, and the merging again of differentiated matter with the root of matter,
- The end of time and space as we understand it,
- The unification of the three Fires and the bringing about of spontaneous combustion, if one might so express it, [159]
- The synthetic activity of matter in the three types of movement, – rotary, spiraling-cyclic and onward progression, – which unified movement will be produced by the interaction of the fires of matter, of mind and of Spirit upon each other.
E.IV. Rotary Motion and Symbolism
Every rotating sphere of matter can be pictured by using
the same general cosmic symbols as are used f or the
portrayal of evolution.
- The circle. This stands for the ring-pass-not of undifferentiated matter. It stands for a solar system or the body logoic, viewed etherically; it stands for a planet or the body of a Heavenly Man viewed etherically; it stands for a human body, viewed likewise, etherically and it stands for them all at the prime or earliest epoch of manifestation. It stands finally for a single cell within the human vehicle, and for the atom of the chemist or physicist.
- The circle with the point in the center. This signifies the production of heat in the heart of matter; the Point of fire, the moment of the first rotary activity, the first straining of the atom, motivated by latent heat, into the sphere of influence of another atom. This produced the first radiation, the first pull of attraction, and the [160] consequent setting up of a repulsion and therefore producing
-
The circle divided into two. This marks the
active rotation and the beginning of the mobility of
the atom of matter, and produces the subsequent
extension of the influence of the positive point within
the atom of matter till its sphere of influence extends
from the center to the periphery. At the point where it
touches the periphery it contacts the influence of the
atoms in its environment; radiation is set up and the
point of depression makes its appearance, marking the
inflow and outflow of force or heat.
We are here only showing the application of cosmic symbols to matter, and are not dealing with manifestation from any other angle than that of the purely material. For instance, we are applying the symbol of the point within the circle to the sphere of matter, and the point of latent heat. We are not handling at this point matter as informed by an entity who is to matter, when so informing, a point of conscious life.
We are dealing only with matter and latent heat, with the result produced by rotary movement of radiatory heat and the consequent interplay of bodies atomic. We are therefore dealing with the point we set out to consider while studying our fifth division, motion in the sheaths.
- The Circle divided into four. This is the true circle of matter, the equal armed cross of the Holy Spirit, Who is the personification of active intelligent matter. This shows the fourth dimensional quality of matter and the penetration of the fire in four directions, its threefold radiation being symbolized by the triangles formed by the fourfold cross. This portrays the fourfold revolution of any atom. By this is not meant the ability of any atom to make four revolutions, but the fourth dimensional quality of the revolution which is the goal aimed at, and which is even now becoming known in matter during this [161] fourth round, and in this fourth chain. As the fifth spirillae or fifth stream of force in an atom becomes developed and man can conceive of a fourth-dimensional rotary movement, the accuracy of this symbol will be recognized. It will then be seen that all sheaths in their progress from inertia to rhythm, via mobility, pass through all stages, whether they are logoic sheaths, the rays in which the Heavenly Men veil Themselves, the planes which form the bodies of certain solar entities, the causal body (or the sheath of the Ego on the mental plane), the human physical body in its etheric constitution, or a cell in that body etheric. All these material forms (existent in etheric matter which is the true matter of all forms) are primarily undifferentiated ovoids; they then become actively rotating or manifest latent heat; next they manifest duality or latent and radiatory fire; the expression of these two results in fourth dimensional action or the wheel or rotary form turning upon itself.
- The swastika, or the fire extending not only from the periphery to the center in four directions, but gradually circulating and radiating from and around the entire periphery. This signifies completed activity in every department of matter until finally we have a blazing, fiery wheel, turning every way, with radiant channels of fire from the center to the ring-pass-not – fire within, without and around until the wheel is consumed and there is naught remaining but perfected fire.
E.V. Motion and the Centers
We can take up this matter of the centers along three
lines. Much has been written and discussed anent the
centers, and much mystery exists which has aroused the
curiosity of the ignorant, and has tempted many to meddle
with that which does not concern them. I seek to elucidate
somewhat and to give a new angle of vision to [162] the
study of these abstruse matters. I do not in any way intend
to take up the subject from such an angle as to convey
rules and information that will enable a man to vivify
these centers and bring them into play. I sound here a
solemn word of warning. Let a man apply himself to a life
of high altruism, to a discipline that will refine and
bring his lower vehicles into subjection, and to a
strenuous endeavor to purify and control his sheaths. When
he has done this and has both raised and stabilized his
vibration, he will find that the development and
functioning of the centers has pursued a parallel course,
and that (apart from his active participation) the work has
proceeded along the desired lines. Much danger and dire
calamity attends the man who arouses these centers by
unlawful methods, and who experiments with the fires of his
body without the needed technical knowledge. He may, by his
efforts, succeed in arousing the fires and in intensifying
the action of the centers, but he will pay the price of
ignorance in the destruction of matter, in the burning of
bodily or brain tissue, in the development of insanity, and
in opening the door to currents and forces, undesirable and
destructive. It is not the part of a coward, in these
matters concerning the subjective life, to move with
caution and with care; it is the part of discretion. The
aspirant, therefore, has three things to do:
- Purify, discipline and transmute his threefold lower nature.
- Develop knowledge of himself, and equip his mental body; build the causal body by good deeds and thoughts,
- Serve his race in utter self-abnegation. In doing this he fulfils the law, he puts himself in the right condition for training, fits himself for the ultimate application of the Rod of Initiation, and thus minimizes the danger that attends the awakening of the fire. [163]
- The nature of the centers.
- The centers and the rays.
- The centers and kundalini.
- The centers and the senses.
- The centers and initiation.
E.V.1 The Nature of the Centers
Let us take the first point: I wish to enumerate the
centers to be dealt with in this treatise, keeping the
enumeration very closely to that laid down earlier, and
dealing not with all the centers, but simply with those
closely concerned with man's fivefold evolution.
As before stated, man, at the close of his long pilgrimage,
will have passed through the five kingdoms of nature on his
way back to his source:
- The mineral kingdom,
- The vegetable kingdom,
- The animal kingdom,
- The human kingdom,
- The superhuman, or the spiritual kingdom, and will have developed full consciousness on the five planes: [164]
- The physical plane,
- The emotional or astral plane,
- The mental plane,
- The intuitional, or the buddhic plane,
- The spiritual, atmic, or nirvanic plane, by means of the five senses and their correspondences on all the five planes:
- Hearing,
- Touch,
- Sight,
- Taste,
- Smell.
We will therefore only concern ourselves here with those
centers which relate to the evolution of the subtler
bodies, the evolution of the psyche, and not with those
connected with the evolution and propagation of the dense
physical body. These centers are five in number: [165]
- That at the base of the spine, the only one dealt with that has a physical effect.
- That situated at the solar plexus, the most important one in the body from the standpoint of the astral plane.
- That found at the throat, the most important from the standpoint of the mental plane.
- That in the region of the heart, which has an occult link with the buddhic plane.
- That above the top of the head, which is the crown, and has relation with the atmic plane.
The centers in the human being deal fundamentally with the
FIRE aspect in man, or with his divine spirit. They are
definitely connected with the Monad, with the will aspect,
with immortality, with existence, with the will to live,
and with the inherent powers of Spirit. They are not
connected with objectivity and manifestation, but with
force, or the powers of the divine life. The
correspondence in the Macrocosm can be found in the
force which manipulates the cosmic nebulae and which
by its whirling rotary motion eventually builds them into
planets or spheroidal bodies. These planets are each of
them an expression of the "will to live" of some cosmic
entity, and the force that swirled, that rotated, that
built, that solidified, and that continues to hold in form
coherent, is the force of some cosmic Being.
This force originates on cosmic mental levels, from certain
great foci there, descends to the cosmic astral, forming
corresponding cosmic focal points, and on the fourth cosmic
etheric level (the buddhic plane of our solar system) finds
its outlet in certain great centers. These [166] centers
are again reflected or reproduced in the three worlds of
human endeavor. The Heavenly Men, therefore, have centers
on three solar planes, a fact to be remembered.
- On the monadic plane, the plane of the seven Rays.
- On the buddhic plane, where the Masters and their disciples form the forty-nine centers in the bodies of the seven Heavenly Men.
- On the fourth etheric physical plane, where the sacred planets, the dense bodies in etheric matter of the Heavenly Men, are to be found.
The centers 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 centers 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.
The centers, therefore, when functioning properly, form the
"body of fire" which eventually is all that is left, first
to man in the three worlds, and later to the Monad. This
body of fire is "the body incorruptible" (Bible, I Cor.,
XV, 53.) or indestructible, spoken of by St. Paul, and is
the product of evolution, of the perfect blending of the
three fires, which ultimately destroy the form. When the
form is [167] destroyed there is left this intangible
spiritual body of fire, one pure flame, distinguished by
seven brilliant centers of intenser burning. This electric
fire is the result of the bringing together of the two
poles and demonstrates at the moment of complete
at-one-ment, the occult truth of the words "Our God is a
consuming Fire." (Bible, Deut. IV, 24; Hebrews XII, 29.)
Three of these centers are called major centers, as they
embody the three aspects of the threefold Monad – Will,
Love and Intelligence:
- The Head center – The Monad – Will or Power.
- The Heart center – The Ego – Love and Wisdom.
- The Throat center – The Personality – Activity or Intelligence.
We must disabuse our minds of the idea that these centers
are physical things. They are whirlpools of force
that swirl etheric, astral and mental matter into activity
of some kind. Because the action is rotary, the result
produced in matter is a circular effect that can be seen by
the clairvoyant as fiery wheels situated:
- In the region of the spine, the lowest part.
- Between the ribs, just below the diaphragm. [168]
- In the region of the left breast.
- In the center of the throat.
- Just above the top of the head.
I would like to describe these centers in greater detail,
dealing with them as seen in etheric matter, and basing
what I say upon a similar statement by Mr. C. W. Leadbeater
in "Inner Life," Vol. I, page 447-460. We will note
the colors and petals: The base of the spine, four petals.
These petals are in the shape of a cross, and radiate with
orange fire.
- The solar plexus, ten petals rosy color with admixture of green.
- The heart center, twelve petals glowing golden.
- The throat center, sixteen petals of a silvery blue, with blue predominating.
- The head center in its twofold divisions:
- Between the eyebrows, consisting of ninety-six petals, one-half of the lotus being rose and yellow, and the other half blue and purple.
- The very top of the head. A center consisting of twelve major petals of white and gold, and nine hundred and sixty secondary petals arranged around the central twelve. This makes a total of ten hundred and sixty-eight petals in the two head centers (making the one center) or three hundred and fifty-six triplicities. All these figures have an occult significance.
- The alta major center,
- The pineal gland,
- The pituitary body,
- Between the alta major center and the throat center.
- Between the heart center and the pituitary body.
- Between the head center and the pineal gland.
-
The pranic triangle.
- The shoulder center.
- The center near the diaphragm.
- The spleen.
-
Man controlled from the astral plane.
- The base of the spine.
- The solar plexus.
- The heart.
-
Man controlled from the mental plane.
- The base of the spine.
- The heart.
- The throat. [170]
-
Man partially controlled by the Ego, advanced
man.
- The heart.
- The throat.
- The head, i.e., the four lesser centers and their synthesis, the alta center.
-
Spiritual man to the third Initiation.
- The heart.
- The throat.
- The seven head centers.
-
Spiritual man to the fifth Initiation.
- The heart.
- The seven head centers.
- The two many-petalled lotuses.
All these different periods show different triangular
radiances. We must not infer from this that when the fire
is centered in one triangle it is not demonstrating in
others. Once the fire has free passage along any triangle
it flames continuously, but always there is one triangle
more radiant and luminous than the others, and it is from
these glowing triangles of light, issuing from wheel and
vortices of fire that the clairvoyant and the teacher of
the race can appraise a man's position in the scheme of
things, and judge of his attainment. At the culmination of
life experience, and when man has reached his goal, each
triangle is a radiant path of fire, and each center a wheel
of living fiery force rotating at terrific speed; the
center at this stage not only rotates in specific
direction, but literally turns upon itself, forming a
living flaming iridescent globe of pure fire, and holding
within it a certain geometrical shape, yet withal vibrating
so rapidly that the eye can scarcely follow it. Above all,
at the top of the head will be seen a fiery display that
seems to put all the other centers into insignificance;
from the heart of this many-petalled lotus issues a flame
of fire with the basic hue of a man's ray. This flame [171]
mounts upward and seems to attract downward a sheet of
electric light, which is the downflow from the spirit on
the highest plane. This marks the blending of the fires and
the deliverance of man from the trammels of matter.
We might now note that the evolution of these centers of
force can be portrayed, not only in words, but under the
same five symbols that have so often a cosmic
interpretation.
1. The circle. At this stage the center is seen
simply as a saucer-like depression (as Mr. C. W. Leadbeater
expresses it) of dimly glowing fire, a fire diffused
throughout but of no real intensity. The wheel rotates
slowly, but so slowly as to be almost inappreciable. This
corresponds to the little developed stage, and to the early
Lemurian root-race, and to that period wherein man was
simply animal; all that was being formed was a field for
the appearance of the spark of mind.
2. The circle with the point in the center. The
center is here seen with a point of glowing fire in the
middle of the saucer-like depression, and the rotation
becomes more rapid. This corresponds to the stage wherein
mind is beginning to be felt and thus to later Lemurian
days.
3. The divided circle. At this stage the point of
light in the center of the vortex of fire is becoming more
active; rotary motion causes it to burn more brightly, and
to cast off rays of fire in two directions, which appear to
split the vortex into two; the motion is much accelerated,
and the dividing flame in the vortex shoots back and forth,
stimulating the glow of the center itself, till a much
greater point of radiance is achieved. This corresponds to
Atlantean days.
4. The circle divided into four. We come now to the
point where the center is exceedingly active, with the
cross within its periphery rotating as well as the wheel
itself, and causing an effect of great beauty and activity.
The man has reached a stage of very high development [172]
mentally, corresponding to the fifth root-race, or to the
fifth round in the larger cycle; he is conscious of two
activities within himself, symbolized by the rotating wheel
and the inner rotating cross. He is sensing the spiritual,
though actively functioning in the personal life and the
development has reached a point wherein he is nearing the
Probationary Path.
5. The swastika. At this stage the center becomes
fourth-dimensional; the inner rotating cross begins to turn
upon its axis, and to drive the flaming periphery to all
sides so that the center is better described as a sphere of
fire than as a wheel. It marks the stage of the Path in its
two divisions, for the process of producing the effect
described covers the whole period of the Path. At the
close, the centers are seen as globes of radiant fire with
the spokes of the wheel (or the evolution of the cross from
the point in the center) merging and blending into a "fire
that burneth up the whole."
A brief sentence has its place here owing to its relation
to this subject. Another sentence is also added here which,
if meditated upon, will prove of real value and will have a
definite effect upon one of the centers, which center it is
for the student himself to find out.
These two sentences are as follows:
"The secret of the Fire lies hid in the second letter of
the Sacred Word. The mystery of life is concealed within
the heart. When the lower point vibrates, when the Sacred
Triangle glows, when the point, the middle center, and the
apex likewise burn, then the two triangles – the greater
and the lesser – merge with one flame which burneth up the
whole."
"The fire within the lesser fire findeth its progress much
impelled when the circle of the moving and the unmoving, of
the lesser wheel within the greater wheel that moveth not
in Time, findeth a twofold outlet; it then shineth with the
glory of the twofold One and of His sixfold brother. Fohat
rusheth through space. He searcheth for his complement.
[173] The breath of the unmoving one, and the fire of the
One Who seeth the whole from the beginning rush to meet
each other, and the unmoving becomes the sphere of
activity."
We take up our second point in the consideration of the
centers:
E.V.2. The Centers in connection with the Rays
This will give us a large range of subject to be dealt
with, and much food for thought, surmise and wise
conjecture. All that is here stated is given simply as
basic or foundation facts, upon which may be erected a
structure of conjecture, and of logical reasoning,
employing the imagination, and thereby effecting two
things:
These are an ability to expand our mental concept and to
build the antahkarana, or that bridge which all who seek to
function in the buddhic vehicle must build between higher
and lower mind; hence the necessity for the use of the
imagination (which is the astral equivalent to mental
discrimination), and its ultimate transmutation into
intuition.
All teachers, who have taken pupils in hand for training,
and who seek to use them in world service, follow the
method of imparting a fact (oft veiled in words and blinded
by symbol) and then of leaving the pupil to follow his own
deductions. Discrimination is thereby developed, and
discrimination is the main method whereby the Spirit
effects its liberation from the trammels of matter, and
discerns between illusion and that which is veiled by it.
Not much can be here imparted, as the subject, if dealt
with at all fully, would convey too much information to
those liable to misuse it. As we know, the evolution of the
centers is a slow and gradual thing, and proceeds in
ordered cycles varying according to the ray of a man's
Monad. [174]
The life of the Pilgrim can be, for purposes of discussion,
divided into three main periods:
- That period wherein he is under the influence of the Personality Ray.
- That wherein he comes under the Ray of the Ego.
- That wherein the Monadic Ray holds sway.
74 "When the last cycle of man-bearing has been
completed by that last fecund earth; and humanity has
reached in a mass the stage of Buddhahood and passed out of
the objective existence into the mystery of Nirvana – then
"strikes the hour"; the seen becomes the unseen, the
concrete resumes its precyclic state of atomic
distribution.
But the dead worlds left behind the onsweeping impulse do not continue dead. Motion is the eternal order of things and affinity or attraction its handmaid of all works. The thrill of life will again reunite the atom, and it will stir again in the inert planet when the time comes. Though all its forces have remained status quo and are now asleep, yet little by little it will – when the hour restrikes – gather for a new cycle of man-bearing maternity, and give birth to something still higher as moral and physical types than during the preceding manvantara. And its "cosmic atoms already in a differentiated state" (differing – in the producing force in the mechanical sense of motions and effects) remain statu quo as well as globes and everything else in the process of formation." Such is the "hypothesis fully in accordance with (your) (my) note." For, as planetary development is as progressive as human or race evolution, the hour of the Pralaya's coming catches the series of worlds at successive stages of evolution; (i.e.) each has attained to some one of the periods of evolutionary progress – each stops there, until the outward impulse of the next manvantara sets it going from that very point – like a stopped time-piece rewound. Therefore, I have used the word "differentiated."
At the coming of the Pralaya no human, animal, or even
vegetable entity will be alive to see it, but there will be
the earths or globes with their mineral kingdoms; and all
these planets will be physically disintegrated in the
pralaya, yet not destroyed; for they have their places in
the sequence of evolution and their "privations" coming
again out of the subjective, they will find the exact point
from which they have to move on around the chain of
"manifested forms." This, as you know, is repeated
endlessly throughout Eternity. Each man of us has gone this
ceaseless round, and will repeat it forever and ever. The
deviation of each one's course, and his rate of progress
from Nirvana to Nirvana is governed by causes which he
himself creates out of the exigencies in which he finds
himself entangled."
- From The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, p.
67.
The first period is by far the longest, and covers
the vast progression of the centuries wherein the activity
aspect of the threefold self is being developed. Life after
life slips away during which the aspect of manas or mind is
being slowly wrought out, and the human being comes more
and more under the control of his intellect, operating
through his physical brain. This might be looked upon as
corresponding to the period of the first solar system,
wherein the third aspect logoic, that of Brahma, Mind, or
Intelligence, was being brought to the point of
achievement.74 Then the second aspect began in
[175] this present solar system to be blended with, and
wrought out through it. Centuries go by and the man becomes
ever more actively intelligent, and the field of his life
more suitable for the coming in of this second aspect. The
correspondence lies in similitude and not in detail as seen
in time and space. It covers the period of the first three
triangles dealt with earlier. We must not forget that, for
the sake of clarity, we are here differentiating between
the different aspects, and considering their separated
development, a thing only permissible in time and space or
during the evolutionary process, but not permissible from
the standpoint of the Eternal Now, and from the Unity of
the All-Self. The Vishnu or the Love-Wisdom aspect is
latent in the Self, and is part of the monadic content, but
the Brahma aspect, the Activity-Intelligence aspect
precedes its manifestation in time. The Tabernacle in the
Wilderness preceded the building of the Temple of Solomon;
the kernel of wheat has to lie in the darkness of mother
Earth before the golden perfected ear can be seen, and the
Lotus has to cast its roots down into the mud before the
beauty of the blossom can be produced.
The second period, wherein the egoic ray holds sway,
is not so long comparatively; it covers the period wherein
the fourth and fifth triangles are being vivified, and
marks the lives wherein the man throws his forces on the
side of evolution, disciplines his life, steps upon the
Probationary Path, and continues up to the third
Initiation. Under the régime of the Personality Ray, the
man proceeds upon the five Rays to work consciously with
Mind, the sixth sense, passing first upon the four minor
Rays and eventually upon the third. He works [176] upon the
third Ray, or that of active Intelligence, an from thence
proceeds to one of the subrays of the two other major Rays,
if the third is not his egoic Ray.
Enquiry might naturally arise as to whether the egoic ray
is necessarily one of the three major rays, and in
Initiates and Masters are not to be found upon some of the
rays of mind, the minor four.
The answer lies here: The egoic ray can always be one of
the seven, but we need to remember that, in this
astral-buddhic solar system, wherein love and wisdom are
being brought into objectivity, the bulk of the monads are
on the love-wisdom ray. The fact, therefore, of its being
the synthetic ray has a vast significance. This is the
system of the SON, whose name is Love. This is the divine
incarnation of Vishnu. The Dragon of Wisdom is in
manifestation, and He brings into incarnation those cosmic
Entities who are in essence identical with Himself. After
the third Initiation all human beings find themselves on
their monadic ray, on one of the three major rays, and the
fact that Masters and Initiates are found on all the rays
is due to the following two factors:
First. Each major ray has its subrays, which
correspond to all the seven.
Second. Many of the guides of the race transfer from
one ray to another as They are needed, and as the work may
require. When one of the Masters or Initiates is
transferred it causes a complete readjustment.
When a Master likewise leaves the hierarchy of our Planet
to take up work elsewhere, it frequently necessitates a
complete reorganization, and a fresh admission of members
into the great White Lodge. These facts have been but
little realized. We might here also take the opportunity to
point out that we are not dealing with earth conditions
when we consider the Rays, nor are we only concerned with
the evolution of the Monads upon this planet, but are
equally concerned with the solar [177] system in which our
earth holds a necessary but not supreme place. The earth is
an organism within a greater one, and this fact needs wider
recognition. The sons of men upon this planet so often view
the whole system as if the earth were in the position of
the sun, the center of the solar organism.
Under the régime of the Ego, the ray upon which the ego can
be found holds sway. This ray is simply a direct reflection
of the monad, and is dependent upon that aspect of the
spiritual triad which for the man is at any particular time
the line of least resistance. By that we must understand
that sometimes the ray will have for its center of force
the atmic aspect, sometimes the buddhic, and at other times
the manasic aspect. Though the triad is threefold, yet its
egoic outposts (if one may so express it) will be either
definitely atmic, or predominantly buddhic or manasic. Here
again I would draw attention to the fact that this triple
demonstration can be seen under three forms, making in all
a ninefold choice of rays for the Ego:
Atmic aspect.
- atmic – atmic
- atmic – buddhic
- atmic – manasic.
- buddhic – atmic
- buddhic – buddhic
- buddhic – manasic.
- manasic – atmic
- manasic – buddhic
- manasic – manasic.
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:
- Two triangles brought to vivification by the personality ray.
- Two triangles brought to vivification by the egoic ray.
- The synthesizing triangle of the Monad.
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 centers, and of the centers 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
centers exist which are productive of objectivity. The
centers in the human being are reflections in the three
worlds of those higher force centers.
Before taking up the subject of kundalini and the centers,
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.
The Solar System. We might briefly look at this from
[180] the standpoint of the centers of the Heavenly Men and
of the Grand Man of the Heavens, the Logos.
a. The Heavenly Men. The Heavenly Men, in
Themselves, embody centers just as does a human being, and
on Their Own plane these centers of force can be found.
Again we need to recollect that these centers of force on
cosmic levels, and in manifestation in the objective
system, demonstrate as the great force centers of which any
particular group of adepts and Their pupils are the
exponents. Every group of Masters and all the human beings
incarnate or discarnate – who are held within the periphery
of Their consciousness – are centers of force of some
particular kind or quality. This is a fact generally
recognized, but students should be urged to link up this
fact with the information imparted on the centers of the
human being, and see if much is not thereby learnt. These
centers of force will demonstrate on etheric levels and on
the subtler planes just as they do in a man, and they will
be vivified as are the human centers by planetary
kundalini, progressing in the desired triangles.
Two hints can here be given for thoughtful consideration.
In connection with one of the Heavenly Men (which one
cannot at this juncture be pointed out) we have one
triangle of force to be seen in the following three
centers:
- The force center of which the Manu, and His group, are the expression.
- The center of which the Bodhisattva or the Christ and His adherents are the focal point.
- The center of which the Mahachohan and his followers are the exponents.
Another triangle in connection with our own planetary Logos
is that formed by the seven Kumaras – the four exoteric
Kumaras corresponding to the four minor head centers, and
the three esoteric Kumaras corresponding to the three major
head centers.75, 76
75 There are seven Kumaras connected with our
planetary evolution, of Whom four are exoteric; the four
exoteric have vehicles in etheric matter; three Kumaras are
esoteric and have their vehicles in subtler matters still.
Sanat Kumara, The Lord of the world, is the representative on earth of the specialized force of the planetary Logos; the other six Kumaras transmit energy from the other six planetary schemes. 76 S. D., I, 186-189.
The second hint I seek to give, lies in the triangle formed
by the Earth, Mars and Mercury. In connection with this
triangle, the analogy lies in the fact that Mercury and the
center at the base of the spine in the human being are
closely allied. Mercury demonstrates kundalini in
intelligent activity, while Mars demonstrates kundalini
latent. The truth lies hid in their two astrological
symbols. In transmutation and planetary geometrizing, the
secret may be revealed.
b. The Grand Man of the Heavens. The seven Heavenly
Men are the seven centers in the body of the Logos, bearing
to Him a relationship identical with that borne by the
Masters and Their affiliated groups, to some planetary
Logos. Systemic kundalini goes forward to the vivification
of these centers, and at this stage of development certain
centers are more closely allied than others. Just as in
connection with our planetary Logos, the three etheric
planets of our chain – Earth, Mercury and Mars77
– form a triangle of rare importance, so it may be here
said that at the present point in evolution of the logoic
centers, Venus, Earth and Saturn form one triangle of great
interest. It is a triangle that is at this time undergoing
vivification [182] through the action of kundalini; it is
consequently increasing the vibratory capacity of the
centers, which are becoming slowly fourth-dimensional. It
is not yet permissible to point out others of the great
triangles, but as regards the centers, we may here give two
hints:
- First. Venus corresponds to the heart center in the body logoic, and has an interrelationship therefore with all the other centers in the solar system wherein the heart aspect is the one of greater prominence.
- Second. Saturn corresponds to the throat center, or to the creative activity of the third aspect.
77 The chains of any planetary scheme are
frequently called by the names of the seven sacred planets,
making the study of the Law of Correspondences easier;
similarly, the globes Of any chain are called by planetary
names, as is the case here. There are planetary schemes
called Mars and Mercury.
78 S. D., I, 545, 726; II, 581, 582, 654.
In addition to these some hints in connection with the
microcosmic and macrocosmic centers, we might here give the
cosmic correspondences at which it is possible to hint.
The Cosmos. Our solar system, with the Pleiades and
one of the stars of the Great Bear, form a cosmic triangle,
or an aggregation of three centers in the Body of HIM OF
WHOM NAUGHT MAY BE SAID. The seven stars in the
constellation of the Great Bear are the correspondences to
the seven head centers in the body of that Being, greater
than our Logos. Again, two other systems, when allied with
the solar system and the Pleiades, make a lower quaternary
which are eventually synthesized into the seven head
centers in much the same way as in the human being after
the fourth initiation. [183]
- The base of the spine.
- The solar plexus.
- The heart.
- The throat.
E.V.3 The Centers and Kundalini
As stated, it is not possible to impart much about
kundalini, or the serpent fire. It might be of value,
however, briefly to enumerate what has been said:
- Kundalini lies at the base of the spine, and, in the normal average man, its main function is the vitalization of the body.
- Kundalini makes three at-one-ments during the period of evolution:
- With the radiatory fires of the body or prana at a
point between the shoulder blades.
- With the fires of mind at a point at the very top of the spine, in the center of the back part of the throat.
- With the fire of Spirit at the point where these two united fires of matter and of mind issue from the top of the head.
- Each of the three channels within the spinal column have for specific purpose the blending of these threefold fires. We need to bear in mind that the [184] fires circulate, and that, at the moment of achievement, every triangle in the body is vivified, every center is fully functioning, and a threefold path of fire can be seen extending the entire length of the backbone.
- When kundalini has blended with the pranic fire, the centers become three-dimensional. When it blends with mind or solar fire and the two fires are perfectly united, the centers become fourth-dimensional. When it blends with the electric fire of pure Spirit after the third Initiation, they take on two more dimensions.
- Kundalini, as it is aroused, steadily increases
the vibratory action, not only of the centers, but of
every atom of matter in all the bodies – etheric,
astral and mental. This quickening of activity has a
dual effect of great interest:
- It causes the elimination of all matter that is coarse and unsuitable, and casts it off in exactly the same way as a rapidly rotating wheel casts off or rejects from its surface.
- It sweeps into its sphere of influence matter that is keyed to its own vibration, and builds it into its vibratory content. This is but a reflection of the action of the Logos in sweeping into differentiation the matter of the solar system. Kundalini is likewise the fire or force of matter, and therefore the life of the third Logos.
- Kundalini has two effects upon the etheric web,
as it is called.
- By its gradually increasing action it purifies that etheric form and cleanses it from "dross," as the Christian expresses it.
- Eventually, after the two fires of matter and the fire of mind have begun to blend (a slow and gradual process), the web itself is [185] destroyed, and by the time the third Initiation is reached, the man should have continuity of consciousness. This is so unless for certain work and for certain specific ends, the man consciously and willingly foregoes the burning of the web, a thing which can be brought about by the conscious action of the will.
E.V.4. The Centers and the Senses, Normal and Supernormal
Before at all dealing with the centers and their
relationship to the senses, it will be necessary first of
all to point out certain facts of interest in connection
with those senses,79 and so clear the ground for
further information. [186]
79 The seven senses or the avenues of
perception. – S. D., I, 489, 490, The third or Indriya
Creation. – S. D., III, 567.
Indriya – The control of the senses in yoga practice. These are the 10 external agents; the 5 senses which are used for perception are called 'Jnana-indriya' and the 5 used for action 'karma-indriya' – Theosophical Glossary.
"Jnana-indriyas" – literally knowledge-senses... by which knowledge is obtained... They are the avenues inward.
"Karma-indriyas" – literally action senses... those producing action. They are the avenues outwards. – Study in Consciousness, pp. 166-167.
- Sensation is latent in every atom of substance. – S. D., II, 710.
- The Sun is the heart of the system and sensation emanates from there. It is due to solar radiation – S. D., I, 590, 662.
- Knowledge is the end of sense. – S. D., I, 300.
- There is a double set of senses, spiritual and material. – S. D., I, 582; S. D., II, 307, 308.
- This finds its reflection in the double set of physical senses noted in defining the indriyas.
- The senses might be enumerated as follows: S. D., I, 583 and note 123; S. D., II, 600, 674, 675, 676.
- The elements are the progenitors of the senses. – S.
D., II, 112, 113.
- Aether – Hearing – Sound – Atmic plane.
- Air – Touch – Sound, touch – Buddhic plane.
- Fire – Sight – Sound, touch, sight – Mental plane.
- Water – Taste – Sound, touch, sight, taste – Astral plane.
- Earth – Smell – Sound, touch, sight, taste, smell – Physical plane.
- Every sense pervades every other sense... – S. D.,
III, 569.
There is no universal order.
All are on all planes. – S. D., III, 550. - The senses correspond with every other septenate in
nature.
See S. D., III, 448. Compare S. D., III, 497.
Practical reading... – S. D., I, 288
What are the senses? How many are there? And what is their
connection with the indwelling Man, the Thinker, the Divine
Manasaputra? These are questions of vital moment, and in
their due comprehension comes the ability wisely to follow
the path of knowledge.
The senses might be defined as those organs whereby man
becomes aware of his surroundings. We should perhaps
express them not so much as organs (for after all, an organ
is a material form, existent for a purpose) but as media
whereby the Thinker comes in contact with his environment.
They are the means whereby he makes investigation on the
plane of the gross physical, for instance; the means
whereby he buys his experience, whereby he discovers that
which he requires to know, whereby he becomes aware, and
whereby he expands his consciousness. We are dealing here
with the five senses as used by the human being. In the
animal these five senses exist but, as the thinking
correlating faculty is lacking, as the "relation between"
the self and the not-self is but little developed, we will
not concern ourselves with them at this juncture. The
senses in the animal kingdom are group faculty and
demonstrate as racial instinct. The senses in man are his
individual asset, and demonstrate:
- As the separate realization of self-consciousness.
- As ability to assert that individualism.
- As a valuable means to self-conscious evolution.
- As a source of knowledge.
- As the transmuting faculty towards the close of life in the three worlds.
- Hearing.
- Touch.
- Sight.
- Taste.
- Smell. [187]
Let us first take up each of these senses, point out some
interesting facts in connection with them, and suggest
their subplane correspondence.
- PLANE – SENSE
- Physical – Hearing.
- Astral – Touch or feeling.
- Mental – Sight.
- Buddhic – Taste.
- Atmic – Smell.
Microcosmic Sensory Evolution
| Physical plane |
|
5th – gaseous |
|
4th – first etheric | |
|
3rd – super-etheric | |
|
2nd – subatomic | |
|
1st – atomic | |
| Astral plane |
|
5th |
|
4th | |
|
3rd | |
|
2nd | |
|
1st | |
| Mental plane |
|
7th (form) |
|
6th (form) | |
|
5th (form) | |
|
4th (form) | |
|
3rd (formless) | |
|
2nd (formless) | |
|
1st (formless) | |
| Buddhic plane |
|
7th |
|
6th | |
|
5th | |
|
4th | |
|
3rd | |
| Atmic plane |
|
5th |
|
6th | |
|
5th | |
|
4th | |
|
3rd |
It can be noted that we have not summed up the two planes
of abstraction on the atmic and the buddhic planes, the
reason being that they mark a degree of realization which
is the property of initiates of higher degree [189] than
that of the adept, and which is beyond the concept of the
evolving human unit, for whom this treatise is written.
We might here, for the sake of clarity, tabulate the five
different aspects of the five senses on the five planes, so
that their correspondences may be readily visualized, using
the above table as the basis:
- The First Sense – Hearing.
- Physical hearing.
- Clairaudience.
- Higher clairaudience.
- Comprehension (of four sounds)
- Beatitude.
- The Second Sense – Touch or feeling.
- Physical touch.
- Psychometry.
- Planetary psychometry.
- Healing.
- Active service.
- The Third Sense – Sight.
- Physical sight.
- Clairvoyance.
- Higher clairvoyance.
- Divine vision.
- Realization.
- The Fourth Sense – Taste.
- Physical taste.
- Imagination.
- Discrimination.
- Intuition.
- Perfection.
- The Fifth Sense – Smell.
- Physical smell.
- Emotional idealism.
- Spiritual discernment.
- Idealism.
- All knowledge. [190]
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 cognizance 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:
- His own sound.
- His brother's sound.
- His group sound.
- The sound of that one of the Heavenly Men with whom he is connected.
- The sound of the Logos, or the sound of nature; of the solar system, of the Grand Man of the Heavens.
- On the physical plane he finds his own note.
- On the astral plane he finds his brothers note; through identity of emotion he comes to the recognition of his brother's identity. [191]
- On the mental plane he begins to find his group note.
- On the buddhic plane, or the plane of wisdom, he begins to find the note of his planetary Logos.
- On the atmic, or spiritual plane the note logoic begins to sound within his consciousness.
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 specialized 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 plane – a 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.
On the buddhic plane, hearing (now of the synthetic quality
called telepathy) demonstrates as complete comprehension,
for it has involved two things:
- A knowledge and recognition of individual sound,
- A similar knowledge of group sound,
On the atmic plane this perfected hearing is seen as
beatitude. Sound, the basis of existence; sound, the method
of being; sound, the final unifier; sound therefore
realized as the raison d'être, as the method of evolution,
and therefore as beatitude.80 [193]
80 ..."the chief agency by which Nature's wheel
is moved in a phenomenal direction is sound. Sound is the
first aspect of the manifested pentagon since it is a
property of ether called Akas and as I already said Vedic
recitation is the highest Yagnam containing in itself all
minor Yagnams and tending to preserve the manifested
pentagon in the proper order. In the opinion of our old
philosophers sound or speech is next to thought the highest
karmic agent used by man.
Of the various karmic agencies wielded by man in the way
of molding himself and surroundings, sound or speech is the
most important, for, to speak is to work in ether which of
course rules the lower quaternary of elements, air, fire,
water and earth. Human sound or language contains therefore
all the elements required to move the different classes of
Devas and those elements are of course the vowels and the
consonants. The details of the philosophy of sound in its
relation to the devas who preside over the subtle world,
belong to the domain of true Mantra Sastra which of course
is in the hands of the knowers.
– Some Thoughts on the Gita, p. 72.
81 Astral-buddhic consciousness is the term applied to the basic consciousness in our solar system. It is characterized by emotion, by feeling, sensation, which have eventually to be transmuted into intuition, spiritual perception and unity.
82 Sensations aroused by sense objects are experienced by means of the outer instruments of the Lord of the Body or senses (Indriya) which are the pathways through which the Jiva receives worldly experience. These are ten in number, and are of two classes:
- The five organs of sensation – Jnanendriya
- The Ear – Hearing.
- Skin – Feeling by touch.
- Eye – Sight.
- Tongue – Taste.
- Nose – Smell.
- The five organs of action – Karmendriya
- Mouth – Speaking.
- Hands – Grasping.
- Legs – Walking.
- Anus – Excretion.
- Genitals – Procreation.
"The Indriya or sense is not the physical organ, but the faculty of mind operating through that organ as its instrument. The outward sense organs are the usual means whereby on the physical plane the functions of hearing and so forth are accomplished. But, as they are mere instruments and their power is derived from the mind, a Yogi may accomplish by the mind only all that may be done by means of these physical organs without the use of the latter...
"The three functions of attention, selection and
synthesizing the discreet manifold of the senses, are those
belonging to that aspect of the mental body, the internal
agent, called Manas. Just as manas is necessary to the
senses, the latter are necessary for manas... Manas is thus
the leading indriya, of which the senses are powers.
- Serpent Power, by Arthur Avalon
b. Touch. In taking up
the subject of the second sense, that of touch, we
must note that this sense is pre-eminently the sense of
very great importance in this, the second, solar system – a
system of astral-buddhic consciousness.81 Each
of these senses, after having reached a certain point,
begins to synthesize with the others in such a way that it
is almost impossible to know where one begins and the other
ends. Touch is that innate recognition of contact
through the exercise of manas or mind in a threefold
manner:
- As recognition.
- As memory.
- As anticipation.
- Hearing gives him an idea of relative direction, and enables a man to fix his place in the scheme, and to locate himself.
- Touch gives him an idea of relative quantity and enables him to fix his relative value as regards other bodies, extraneous to himself.
- Sight gives him an idea of proportion, and enables him to adjust his movements to the movements of others.
- Taste gives him an idea of value, and enables him to fix upon that which to him appears best.
- Smell gives him an idea of innate quality, and enables him to find that which appeals to him as of the same quality or essence as himself.
In the evolution of the senses, hearing is the first vague
something which calls the attention of the apparently blind
self
- To another vibration.
- To something originating outside of itself.
- To the concept of externality. When sound is first contacted the consciousness for the first time becomes aware of that which is without.
- The point in the center – consciousness and the not-self at a stage where sound alone is descriptive.
- The divided circle – consciousness aware of the not-self, through a dual recognition. [196]
Sight follows on this, the third sense, and the one
definitely marking the correlation of ideas, or the
relation between; it parallels the coming of Mind, both in
time and function. We have hearing, touch or feeling, and
then sight. In connection with the correspondence it is to
be noted that sight came in with the third root-race in
this round, and that the third race saw also the coming in
of Mind. The Self and the not-self were immediately
correlated, and coordinated. Their close partnership became
an accomplished fact, and evolution hastened forward with
renewed impetus. These three major senses (if I might so
describe them) are very definitely allied, each with one of
the three Logoi:
- Hearing - The recognition of the fourfold word, the activity of matter, the third Logos.
- Touch - The recognition of the sevenfold Form Builder, the gathering together of forms, their approximation and interrelation, the second Logos. The Law of Attraction between the Self and the not-self begins to work.
- Sight - The recognition of totality, the synthesis of all, the realization of the One in Many, the first Logos. The Law of Synthesis, operating between all forms which the self occupies, and the recognition of the essential unity of all manifestation by the means of sight.
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 utilizes 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 realizes
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)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.84 Later when we consider the subject
of the centers 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.
83 The line of the Bodhisattva is that of
Love-wisdom, and of the detailed science of the soul; it is
the teaching line and the path upon which an must
eventually pass.
84 The Initiations spoken of in this Treatise are the major Initiations which bring about those expansions of consciousness which lead to liberation; these are taken in the causal body and from thence reflected into the physical; the Initiate never proclaims his initiation.
85 Manasaputras: These are the Sons of Mind, the individual principle in man, the Ego, the solar Angel, in his own body on the abstract levels of the mental plane.
Let us now finish what may be imparted on the remaining
three senses – sight, taste, smell – and then briefly sum
up their relationship to the centers, 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, 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 utilization by the indwelling
Flame.
c. Sight. This sense, as
said before, is the paramount correlating sense of the
solar system.
Under the Law of Economy man hears. Sound permeates matter
and is the basis of its subsequent heterogeneity.
Under the Law of Attraction, man touches and makes contact
with that which is brought to his attention [199] through
sound waves of activity. This leads to a condition of
mutual repulsion and attraction between the one who
apprehends and that which is apprehended.
Having apprehended and then contacted his eyes are opened
and he recognizes his place in the whole order under the
Law of Synthesis.
- Hearing – Unity
- Touch – Duality
- Sight – Triplicity.
- Involution. The separation of matter, or the one becoming the many. The senses are developed, and the apparatus is perfected by the Self for the utilization of matter. This is under the Law of Economy.
- Evolution up to the time of the Probationary Path. The merging of Spirit and matter, and the utilization of the senses in a progressing identification of the Self with all forms from the lowest to those relatively refined. This is under the Law of Attraction.
- Evolution on the Path. Again the separation of spirit from matter, its identification with the One, and the ultimate rejection of form. The senses then are synthesized into acquired faculty, and the Self has no [200] further use for the not-self. It blends with the All-Self. This is under the Law of Synthesis.
In the final perfection of this third sense of sight, the
term used is the wholly inadequate one of realization. Let
the student study carefully the lowest and highest
demonstration of the senses as laid down in the tabulation
earlier imparted, and note the occult significance of the
expressions used in the summation.
- Hearing – Beatitude.
This is realized through the not-self. - Touch – Service.
The summation of the work of the Self for the not-self. - Sight – Realization.
Recognition of the triplicity needed in manifestation, or the reflex action of the Self and the not-self. - Taste – Perfection.
Evolution completed through the utilization of the not-self and its realized adequacy. - Smell – Perfected Knowledge.
The principle of manas in its discriminating activity, perfecting the interrelation between the Self and the not-self.
In all these perfections is seen the awareness of
the Self, and the graded process of identification,
utilization, manipulation and final rejection of the
not-self by that Self who is now consciously aware. He
hears the note of nature and that of his monad; he
recognizes their identity, utilizes their vibration, and
passes rapidly through the three stages of Creator,
Preserver and Destroyer. [201]
He touches or feels the vibration of the form or
not-self in all its various grades, recognizes his identity
in time and space, and for purposes of existence or being
and by means of the three Laws of Economy, Attraction and
Synthesis utilizes, blends and eventually dissociates
himself. He sees the threefold evolutionary process and by
means of the development of the inner vision, sees within
the heart of the system macrocosmic and microcosmic, the
ONE SELF in many forms, and finally identifies himself with
that one Self by the conscious rejection of the not-self
after its complete subjugation and utilization.
d. Tasting. He tastes
then finally and discriminates, for taste is the great
sense that begins to hold sway during the discriminating
process that takes place when the illusory nature of matter
is in process of realization. Discrimination is the
educatory process to which the Self subjects itself in the
process of developing intuition – that faculty whereby the
Self recognizes its own essence in and under all forms.
Discrimination concerns the duality of nature, the Self and
the not-self, and is the means of their differentiation in
the process of abstraction; the intuition concerns unity
and is the capacity of the Self to contact other selves,
and is not a faculty whereby the not-self is contacted.
Hence, its rarity these days owing to the intense
individualization of the Ego, and its identification with
the form – a necessary identification at this particular
time. As the sense of taste on the higher planes is
developed, it leads one to ever finer distinctions till one
is finally led through the form, right to the heart of
one's nature.
e. Smelling. is the
faculty of keen perception that eventually brings a man
back to the source from whence he came, the archetypal
plane, the plane where his true home is to be found. A
perception of difference has been cultivated that has
caused a divine discontent within the [202] heart of the
Pilgrim in the far country; the prodigal son draws
comparisons; he has developed the other four senses, and he
utilizes them. Now comes in the faculty of vibratory
recognition of the home vibration, if it might be so
expressed. It is the spiritual counterpart of that sense
which in the animal, the pigeon and other birds, leads them
back unerringly to the familiar spot from whence they
originally came. It is the apprehension of the vibration of
the Self, and a swift return by means of that instinct to
the originating source.
The consideration of this subject awakens the realization
of the vastness of the region of thought concerned – the
region of the whole evolutionary development of the human
being. Yet all that is possible here, as elsewhere, is to
indicate lines of thought for careful pondering, and to
emphasize certain ideas which may serve as the foundation
thoughts for the future mental activity of the immediate
generation. The following facts must also be borne in mind
when considering the matter:
- That the senses have been dealt with in this division of our Treatise on Cosmic Fire because they concern the material form. Strictly speaking the five senses, as we know them, are the means of contact built up by the Thinker (polarized in his etheric body) and find their expression in the physical form in those nerve centers, brain cells, ganglia and plexus which exoteric science recognizes.
- That these senses for all purposes of present manifestation, have their focal point on the astral plane and are therefore largely under the stimulating action of the solar plexus – that great focal point in the center of the body which is the stimulating agent for most of the human family at this time.
- That as the higher triangle comes into play and the polarization steps up to the higher centers, the senses begin to make themselves felt on the mental level and [203] man becomes aware on that plane. We have in the human body an interesting reflection of the transference of the polarization from the Personality to the Ego, or into the causal body, in the division that exists between the higher and the lower mental planes, and the dividing line of the diaphragm between the higher and the lower portions of the body. Below the diaphragm we have the four lower centers:
- The solar plexus.
- The spleen.
- Organs of generation.
- Base of the spine.
- Heart.
- Throat.
- Head.
- First. The awakening on the physical plane, and the gradually increasing activity of the centers, until the Probationary Path is reached. This is paralleled by the increasing use of the senses, and their constant utilization for the identification of the self and its sheaths.
- Second. The awakening on the astral plane, and the gradually increasing activity of the centers, 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. [204]
- Third. The awakening upon the mental plane, and the gradually increasing activity of the centers and the senses. The effect in both cases tends to identification of the Self with its own essence in all groups and the rejection of the sheaths and the forms.
This development is paralleled on the two higher planes
simultaneously as in the lower, and as the astral senses
come into perfected activity, the corresponding centers of
force on the buddhic plane begin to function until the
vibratory interplay between the two is consummated, and the
force of the Triad can be felt definitely in the
Personality via the astral.
Again the corresponding vortices on the atmic level come
into active vibration as the mental centers become fourth
dimensional, till we have a wonderful fiery activity
demonstrating on all the three planes.
86 The Fire of the manifested cosmos is
Septenary. The Threefold God manifests through the seven
Fires:
- Electric fire – The seven Heavenly Men.
- Solar fire – Evolution of the seven Entities through their vehicles developing the seven principles.
- Fire by friction – The seven chains. They are the seven centers of the Logos.
- He is electric fire – The seven solar entities who inform each globe.
- He is solar fire – Evolution of the life through the forms, developing the seven principles.
- He is fire by friction – The seven globes.
A Man, the Microcosm, manifests through his vehicles:
- He is electric fire – The monad, a solar entity.
- He is solar fire – Evolution of the life through the vehicles in order to develop the seven principles.
- He is fire by friction – The seven sheaths:
- Atmic.
- Buddhic.
- Causal.
- Mental body.
- Astral body.
- Etheric body.
- Physical body.
- Electric fire – The higher self.
- Solar fire – The seven centers.
- Fire by friction – The sheaths.
Some of their names and qualities.
- The seven planetary Logoi, or the seven Spirits before the throne.
- The seven Kumaras – S. D., III, 59, 327.
- Seven solar deities – S. D., I, 114; I, 228; II, 92, 257.
- The primordial seven – S. D., I, 116.
- The seven Builders – S. D., I, 152, 153.
- Seven intellectual Breaths – S. D., II, 332, note.
- The seven Manus – S. D., I, 488.
- The Flames – S. D., II, 258.
They came from previous kalpas. – S. D., II, 99.
Their nature is knowledge and love. – S. D., II, 275; S. D., II, 619.
- Saturn
- Jupiter.
- Mars
- Sun (substitute for another).
- Venus
- Mercury.
- Moon (substitute for another).
All the seven Logoi influence a chain, but one of Them is the incarnating Entity. They influence:
- Some globe in chain.
- Some plane.
- Some round.
- Some world period.
- Some root-race.
- Some subrace.
- Some branch race.
- Some group.
- Some human unit.
88 In the Secret Doctrine, the Sons of Mind are spoken of as flames. In Stanza VII, 4, "These are the three-tongued flame of the four wicks. The wicks are the sparks, that draw from the three-tongued flame shot out by the seven flames. The spark hangs from the flame by the finest thread of Fohat."
From the point of view of fire,86 leaving the
aura and [205] its colors out of temporary consideration,
the evolutionary development marks an equally definite
process.
- The vivification of the inner heat of the sheaths, or the tiny point of fire latent in every individual atom of matter. This process proceeds in all three bodies, at first slowly, then more rapidly, and finally simultaneously and synthetically.
- The bringing into activity from latency of the seven centers on all planes, beginning from the bottom upwards, until the centers (according to ray and type) are interrelated and coordinated. There are manifest thirty-five vortices of fire in the perfected adept, – all of radiant activity and all interacting.
- The vortices or wheels of lambent flame become interlinked by triangles of fire which pass and circulate from one to another, till we have a web of fiery lines, uniting centers of living fire, and giving truth to the statement that the Sons of Mind are FLAMES.
- These centers reach this condition of perfection as the Spirit or Will aspect takes ever fuller control. The unifying triangles are produced by the action of the fire of mind, while the fire of matter holds the form together in ordered sequence. So the interdependence of matter, mind and Spirit can be seen and demonstrates to the eye of the clairvoyant as the coordination of the three fires.
- In the Heavenly Man and His body, a chain of globes87 likewise can be seen and we need here to [206] 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 centers of one of the Heavenly Men. The idea of groups of Egos forming centers in the Heavenly Men is nevertheless correct, but in this connection the reference is to the centers of force on buddhic and monadic levels.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 centers 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.
E.V.5. The Centers and Initiation
We have dealt briefly with the evolution of the centers,
with their function, their organization and their gradually
increasing activity from a point of comparative inertia
until they are consummated motion. Then they become living
wheels of flame, distinguished by a dual motion of the
periphery and the inner revolving wheels, and by a
fourth-dimensional effect, due primarily to the alignment
of the inner subtler vortices with the comparatively
exoteric etheric centers. This alignment is brought about
eventually at initiation. At the time that initiation is
taken, the centers are all active and the lower four (which
correspond to the Personality) are beginning the process of
translating the fire into the three higher. The dual
revolution in the lower centers is clearly to be seen and
the three higher are commencing to be similarly active. By
the application of the Rod of Initiation at the time of the
initiation ceremony, certain results are achieved in
connection with the centers which might be enumerated as
follows:
- The fire at the base of the spine is definitely [208] directed to whichever center is the object of special attention. This varies according to the Ray, or the specialized work of the initiate.
- The center has its activity intensified, its rate of evolution increased, and certain of the central spokes of the wheel brought into more active radiance. These spokes which are also called by some students lotus-petals, have a close connection with the different spirillae in the permanent atoms. Through their stimulation there comes into play one or more of the corresponding spirillae in the permanent atoms on the three lower planes. After the third Initiation, a corresponding stimulation takes place in the permanent atoms of the Triad, leading to the coordination of the buddhic vehicle, and the transference of the lower polarization into the higher.
- By the application of the Rod of Initiation the downflow of force from the Ego to the personality is tripled, the direction of that force being dependent upon whether the centers receiving attention are the etheric, or the astral at the first and second Initiations, or whether the initiate is standing before the LORD OF THE WORLD. In the latter case, his mental centers or their corresponding force vortices on higher levels, will receive stimulation. When the World Teacher initiates at the first and second Initiations, the direction of the Triadal force is turned to the vivification of the heart, and throat centers, and the ability to synthesize the force of the lower centers is greatly increased. When the One Initiator applies the Rod of His Power, the downflow is from the Monad, and though the throat and heart intensify vibration as a response, the main direction of the force is to the seven head centers, and finally (at liberation) to the radiant head center above, and synthesizing the lesser seven head centers.
- The centers at initiation receive a fresh access of
[209] vibratory capacity and of power, and this results,
in the exoteric life, as:
- First. A sensitiveness and refinement of the vehicles which may result, at first, in much suffering to the initiate, but which produces a capacity to respond to contacts that far outweighs the incidental pain.
- Second. A development of psychic faculty that again may lead to temporary distress, but which eventually causes a recognition of the one Self in all selves, which is the goal of endeavor.
- Third. A burning away, through a gradual arousing of kundalini, and its correct geometrical progression through the etheric web. This produces a resultant continuity of consciousness which enables the initiate consciously to utilize time as a factor in the plans of evolution.
- 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 on 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 realizes the meaning of the Law of Attraction in form building, and in the synthesis of the three fires. Upon his ability to retain that realization and himself to apply the law, will depend his power and progress.
- 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.
When the Rods of Initiation are held in the hands of the
Initiator in His position of power, and at the stated
seasons, they act as transmitters of electric force from
very high levels, – so high indeed that the "Flaming
Diamond" at certain of the final initiations (the sixth and
seventh) transmits force, via the Logos, from outside the
system altogether. We need to remember that this major Rod
is the one used on this planet, but that within the system
there are several such Rods of Power, and that they are to
be found in three grades, if it may be so expressed.
First. The Rod of Initiation used for the first two
initiations and wielded by the Great Lord, the Christ, the
World Teacher. It is magnetized by application of the
"Flaming Diamond" – the magnetization being repeated when
each new world Teacher takes office. There is a wonderful
ceremony performed at the time that a new World Teacher
takes up His work. During the ceremony He receives His Rod
of Power – the same Rod as used since the foundation of our
planetary Hierarchy – and holds it forth to the Lord of the
World, Who touches it [211] with His own mighty Rod,
causing a fresh recharging of its electric capacity. This
ceremony takes place at Shamballa89, 90.
89 Shamballa - The Sacred Island in the
Gobi desert. The center in central Asia where the Lord of
the World, the Ancient of Days, has His Headquarters. H. P.
B. says it is "a very mysterious locality on account of its
future associations." – S. D., II, 413.
90 The World Teacher - takes office cyclically. His cycles do not coincide with those of the Manu as the Manu holds office for the entire root-race. The World Teacher gives out the keynote for the various religions and is the emanating source for periodical religious impulses. The duration of his cycles are not given out. The Buddha held office prior to the present World Teacher and upon his Illumination His place was taken by the Lord Maitreya whom the Occidentals call the Christ.
Second. The Rod of Initiation known as the "Flaming
Diamond" and used by Sanat Kumara, the One Initiator,
called in the Bible, the Ancient of Days. This Rod lies
hidden "in the East" and holds the fire latent which
irradiates the Wisdom Religion. This Rod was brought by the
Lord of the World when He took form and came to our planet
eighteen million years ago.
Once in every world period it is subjected to a similar
process as that of the lesser Rod, only this time it is
recharged by the direct action of the Logos Himself, – the
Logos of the solar system. The location of this Rod is
known only to the Lord of the World, and to the Chohans of
the Rays, and (being the talisman of this evolution) the
Chohan of the second Ray is – under the Lord of the World –
its main guardian, aided by the deva Lord of the second
plane. The Buddhas of activity are responsible for its
custody, and under them the Chohan of the Ray. It is
produced only at stated times when specific work has to be
done. It is used not only at the initiating of men, but at
certain planetary functions, of which nothing as yet has
been given out. It has its place and function in certain
ceremonies connected with the inner round91 and
the triangle formed by the Earth Mars [212] and Mercury.
But more about this is not at this time permissible.
91 The inner round is a mysterious cycle of
which little can be told. It is not concerned with
manifestation through the seven schemes or globes, but has
to do with certain aspects of the subjective Life or the
soul.
Third. The Rod of Initiation, wielded by the Logos
of the solar system, is called among other things, the
"Sevenfold Flaming Fire." It was confided to our Logos by
the Lord of Sirius and sent to our system from that radiant
sun. One of its purposes is for use in emergencies. This
great talisman has never yet been employed in this
particular manner, though twice it was nearly thus used, –
once in Atlantean days, and once in the third year of the
late war. This Rod of Power is used at the initiation of
the seven Heavenly Men on cosmic levels. It is used also in
the initiation of groups, a thing almost
incomprehensible to us. It is applied to the centers of the
seven Heavenly Men in the same general way as the lesser
Rods are applied to the human centers, and the effects are
the same, only on a vaster scale. This, needless to say, is
a vast and abstruse subject, and concerns not the sons of
men. It is but touched upon, as an enumeration of the Rods
of Initiation would be incomplete without some reference to
it, and it serves to show the wondrous synthesis of the
whole, and the place of the system within an even greater
scheme. In all things cosmic, perfect law and order are
found, and the ramifications of the plan can be seen on all
planes and all subplanes. This greatest Rod is in the care
of the first great group of karmic Lords. It might be
described as the Rod which carries a voltage of pure
fohatic force from cosmic levels. The two lesser Rods carry
differentiated fohatic force. This logoic Rod of Power is
kept within the Sun, and is only recharged at the beginning
of every one hundred years of Brahma.
The reason why the Rods of Power are here discussed is that
they have definitely to do with the centers which are
force vortices in matter and which (though channels
[213] for spiritual force, or centers wherein the 'will to
be' finds expression) demonstrate as activity matter. They
are the centers of existence, and just as one cannot, in
manifestation, dissociate the two poles of Spirit and
matter, so one cannot, in initiation apply the Rod without
bringing about definite effects between the two. The Rods
are charged with Fohat which is fire of matter plus
electric fire, hence their effect. The mystery cannot be
explained in greater detail as the secrets of initiation
are not transmissible. More has been here imparted on this
matter than hitherto, though there are those who have heard
these things. [214]