Eastern School of Theosophy (07)

(Echoes of the Orient p. 333-342)

Eastern School of Theosophy

Suggestions and Aids

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The upper triangle is the root, on the one side, of the manifested, on the other, of the unmanifested Logos. The one Ray first becomes two, which meaning only divergence, cannot stand. It therefore becomes three, the base of the triangle being the ‘point,’ or unmanifested Logos, from which proceeds the manifested Logos, or Creative Word. The sexless ‘life-giving principle of universal nature was called Eros by the Greeks. Metaphysically, it is the highest and noblest, absolutely sexless power of creation, symbolized by Brahmā, Ouranos, Kronos, etc. It is the noumenon of Fohat. Eros is thus a universal love, a desire for manifestation. It is unavoidable law, creating those divine powers which descend to the manifested plane, and which may be regarded as the personified desire of the One Absolute. Eros is often called the One Ray in the Secret Doctrine. It is that which “sets fire” to the Absolute and causes manifestation’ “ (MS. of a Teacher). “Eros,. the divine desire in the gods, as well as in all nature, [is] to create and give life to beings. This, the rays of the one ‘dark’. Flame could achieve only by themselves descending into matter” (Secret Doctrine II:234). We shall see later how they draw to themselves a mind and a body. They belong to World 2. This noumenon of Fohat is then: World ii, the Archetypal World — Ālaya-Ākāśa; the plane of cosmic ideation. “What springs up in the Logos at first is simply an image, a conception of what is to be in the Cosmos” (S. Row’s Notes on Bhagavad-Gītā, p. 13).1

This world seems to correspond to the Auric Egg in man, as in it are all formative powers and potentialities. In man imagination is the plastic or formative power of the soul. The Secret Doctrine speaks of this as the world of the divine flames, or formless fiery Breaths, the Lions of Life. “It is the nucleole of the superior divine world” (Secret Doctrine I:213 et seq.).

World iii, the Spiritual World — This appears to be the “superior divine world” above mentioned; the plane of cosmic motion or the “light or energy” which “catches the image (in the Logos) and impresses it upon the cosmic matter which is already manifested. Thus spring into existence all the manifested solar systems” (S. Row’s Notes on the Bhagavad-Gītā, p. 13). This light is what is known as Fohat. It seems to be the universal prototype of Buddhi as an active force (Ātma- Buddhi) in man.

“First the divine (vehicle) — the one from the mother Spirit (Ātman); then the spiritual (Ātma-Buddhi)” (Secret Doctrine I:213). It is the plane of noetic force. “The divine astral is a place or plane of Nature; the divine spiritual is a state” (MS. of a Teacher).

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World iv, the Mānasic World — This appears to be the “divine astral” above mentioned. It corresponds to the human soul (Manas) and to Mahat and Manas in the universe, from all that is said on the subject.

World v, the Psychic World — It is, in the universe, the plane of cosmic dust; of those interstellar atoms of which The Secret Doctrine says that the Divine Radiations (the Powers of World 2) attach them to themselves, to form objective bodies, just as they attach agglomerations of monads from the next world above (World 3, Monas), Mahat, to form an omniscient mind (Secret Doctrine I:632-3). This is the plane of magnetic, attractive drawing force, and seems to be the universal correspondent of the Kāma principle in man. Isis, I:168, says that Paracelsus “demonstrates further that in man lies hidden a ‘sidereal force,’ which is that emanation from the stars and celestial bodies of which the spiritual form of man — the astral spirit — is composed. This identity of essence which we may term the spirit of cometary matter, always stands in direct relation with the stars from which it was drawn, and thus there exists a mutual attraction between the two, both being magnets.” H.P.B. adds that even the spectroscope shows the “composition of man and the stars to be identical.” She elsewhere states: “Occultism calls the force transmitted [in magnetism] the ‘auric fluid’ . the ‘fluid’ being a correlation of atoms on a higher plane, and a descent to this lower one [earth], in the shape of impalpable and invisible plastic Substances “ [Article “Hypnotism,” Lucifer, Dec. 1890, p. 295; BCW XII:396]. This form of magnetic force seems to be that which inheres in the kāmarūpa for a time after death, and in which are the Skandhas. In Lucifer, Dec. 1888 [BCW X:219], H.P.B. says that the kāma or desire principle is used by the Adept as the vehicle for the Māyāvi-rūpa or thought body, so that we see why Paracelsus speaks of this force as forming the astral spirit of man. It is the attractive, pulling force.

World vi, the Astral World — This appears to be the lower astral, the plane of the astral light, corresponding to the liṅga-śarīra or astral body of man, and also to the psycho-physiological forces of the universe and of man, in which last the plane above shares. It is of this plane, apparently, that H.P.B. speaks in these terms: “A medium is simply one in whose personal Ego, or terrestrial mind (psychē), the percentage of ‘astral’ light so preponderates as to impregnate with it their whole physical constitution. Every organ and cell is thereby attuned, so to speak, and subjected to an enormous and abnormal tension. The mind is ever on the plane of, and quite immersed in, that deceptive light whose soul is divine, but whose body — the light waves on the lower planes — infernal; for they are but the black and disfigured reflections

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of the earth’s memories” [see BCW XII:372]. The Voice of the Silence, p. 11, says that the disciple must be able to destroy or paralyze his “lunar body,” which is defined as the astral form. This identifies liṅga-śarīra in man with this sixth world.

World vii, the Elemental World — While there are three classes of formless (arūpa) beings (Secret Doctrine I:218, et seq.) and numberless side branches, the above term here appears to refer especially to the lower classes, called nature spirits, while generally including all classes. “In their turn the phenomenal subdivisions were informed by the elementals, so called, the ‘Nature Spirits’ of lower grades” (Secret Doctrine I:461). Man’s “physical body is shaped by the lowest elemental lives, through physical, chemical, and physiological evolution. ‘The Blessed Ones have naught to do with the purgations of matter’ “ (Secret Doctrine I:224). Under the terms “atom” and “monad” in the index we find more upon this subject. All these atomic (and monadic) lives are among the jīvas, and this plane seems to correspond with Prāṇa in man. Prāṇa is said to fashion the physical body, and returns to the universal life-current as jīva after the “death” of a body. “Prāṇa is one stage finer than the gross matter of the earth” [The Theosophist, May 1888, p. 478]. World viii, the Earth — It corresponds to, and furnishes, says Secret Doctrine, the physical body of man (I:181, 191 and 227). It does not count among these seven worlds or planes, any more than the physical body of man counts among the seven principles. In this connection we are referred to a diagram in Secret Doctrine, I:200, showing the relation of our world to the other planes or worlds (exoterically given). It is instructive to note that, in this diagram, the seven worlds of our chain are placed in the same manner as the seven upper orifices, or centers of action in the head of man. (Instructions No. I, lower oval of doublepage diagram.) [See BCW XII, Diagram I, facing p. 524].

ON “VĀCH”

In an earlier paper we have seen that Vāch is the female aspect of Brahmā, and thus represents the passive generative power of Nature (Secret Doctrine I:8). Brahma is neuter, “the unmanifested, the universe in abscondito, and Brahmā, the manifested, is the Logos, made malefemale in the symbolical orthodox dogmas” (Secret Doctrine I:8). Isis, Vāch, Venus were always synonymous, and the mothers of Cupid, or Love; the cow was their symbol, and Vāch is called the “melodious cow,” but the Logos was also esoterically designated under the cow

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symbol, and afterwards in Egypt and India by the bull. “In esoteric philosophy, the cow is the symbol of creative nature, and the bull (her calf ) the spirit which vivifies her. Hence the symbol of the horns. These were sacred also with the Jews, who placed near the altar horns of shittim wood, by seizing which a criminal ensured his safety” (Secret Doctrine II:418n). The conscious energy of the Logos, its power or light, is called Fohat. It is the root of mental self, and hence of physical self; through this light everything is created. It is the “music of the spheres,” Adam Kadmon, the mother of the gods and so forth (Secret Doctrine I:430 et seq.). There seem to be four chief and three lesser aspects of Vāch. The four chief ones correspond to the four basic cosmic principles (Secret Doctrine I:432).

1st — Vaikharī Vāch — This is what we utter. It is sound, speech, that “which becomes comprehensive and objective to one of our physical senses, and may be brought under the laws of perception” (Secret Doctrine I:432). It exists, as do all forms of Vāch, in four subdivisions or modes. It corresponds to the objective form of the universe, or rather to the physical basis from which that form proceeds (Notes on the Bhagavad Gītā, p. 14 [TUP, p. 26]). We may say that mind is the ultimate basis of speech, and so compare this form of Vāch to Manas or Mahat. “Language is certainly coeval with reason, and could never have developed before men became one with the informing principles in them; those who fructified and awoke to life the Mānasic element dormant in primitive manLogos is both reason and speech. But language, proceeding in cycles, is not always adequate to express spiritual thought. The Greek Logos is the equivalent of the Sanskrit Vāch — the immortal (intellectual) ray of spirit” (Secret Doctrine II:199n). We may remember that the fourth race developed speech. The first race was speechless. The second had a sound language of chant-like vowel sounds. The third had a language which resembled various natural sounds or cries. Monosyllabic speech was that of the first approximately fully developed human beings, after the separation of the sexes and full awakening of their minds. Before that, they held communication by a species of thought transference, though thought was little developed. This monosyllabic speech was the vowel parent of the monosyllabic language mixed with hard consonants, still used among the yellow races. These linguistic characteristics developed into agglutinative languages which decayed and remained limited to the aboriginal tribes of America (Secret Doctrine II:198 et seq.). Vaikharī Vāch is the basis for the potency of Mantrams.

2d — Madhyamā Vāch is that whose beginning and end are unknown (Secret Doctrine I:138n). It is the light of the Logos expressed (Secret

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Doctrine I:432). “In the universe it appears to be that which is the basis of the astral world. In cosmos, it is the light of the Logos” (Notes on the Bhagavad Gītā, p. 15 [TUP, p. 26]). The basis of the astral world is Ālaya-Ākāśa. It is Buddhi in man, and Buddhi made active by the power of this expressed light.

3d — Paśyantī Vāch — Row says that this is the Logos in the Cosmos, and in man, Sūtrātma, the thread soul or Auric Egg, the seventh principle. Secret Doctrine I:432 speaks of it as the ideation of the Logos or its latent light. This form of Vāch is alluded to in Light on the Path [I:12]: “Thou shalt enter the light” — (the Auric Egg, the kingdom of heaven, which Behmen says is of a “green-blue color”) — “but thou shalt never touch the flame.” (The one dark flame, to us incomprehensible; the absolute Life.) It appears that all the mystic vibratory forces center in and proceed from the Auric Egg. The Voice of the Silence, p. 9, tells us, “Before thou set’st thy foot on the ladder’s upper rung, the ladder of the mystic sounds, thou hast to hear the voice of thy inner GOD in seven manners.” These manners are then described. The “Inner God” is Christos, the seventh principle. “The divine voice of the soul speaks audibly to the Initiate” (Secret Doctrine I:431n). All these mystic sounds belong to different states of consciousness and to the action of dynamo-spiritual forces induced by the yogi, whereby illumination of various planes is attained. He lives now upon one plane, then upon another; e.g. his consciousness is centered or awakened upon one after the other. Patanjali treats of this.

4th — Parā Vāch — “Parā means infinite” (Secret Doctrine I:138n). “The parā form is the ever subjective and latent Light and Sound, which exist eternally in the bosom of the incognizable” (Secret Doctrine I:432). “Parabrahman is the parā (beyond the noumenon of all Noumena) aspect of Vāch” (Notes on the Bhagavad Gītā, p. 15 [TUP, p. 26]). Thus these four forms of Vāch correspond with the four basic principles given in Instructions No. III, p. [607], as follows: 1 — Jīvātma or Parabrahman. 2 — Auric Egg. 3 — Buddhi. 4 — Manas.

The great factors of creation are Light, Sound, and Number. Fohat fills the universe (Hsien-chan) from T’ien-hsin (the heaven of absolute sound), with elementary germs or atoms, which are the atoms of science, and the Monads of Leibnitz (Secret Doctrine I:139). The one light becomes the many through the action of this energy of the Logos upon cosmic matter. Hence it is said: “the manifested Kosmos is the Verbum manifested as Kosmos” (Secret Doctrine I:138). “Vāch being spoken of as the daughter of Daksha — ‘the god who lives in all the Kalpas’ — her Māyāvic character is thereby shown: during the pralaya she disappears, absorbed in the one, all-devouring Ray” (Secret

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Doctrine I:430-1). Vāch is also called Praṇava, or Aum. And Aum is also called Praṇava. In other words, the resonance of Aum is silent in pralaya, when all disappears but the Great Breath, and man is the product of that Aum. When Brahmā-Prajāpati became separated from, yet identical with Vāch, he caused the Seven Ṛishis, the Seven Manus or Prajāpatis to issue (Secret Doctrine I:433).

All these facts explain why “the Pythagoreans asserted that the doctrine of Numbers — the chief of all in Esotericism — had been revealed to man by the celestial deities; that the world had been called forth out of Chaos by Sound or Harmony and constructed according to the principles of musical proportion; that the seven planets which rule the destiny of mortals have a harmonious motion and ‘intervals corresponding to musical diastemes rendering various sounds, so perfectly consonant that they produce the sweetest melody, which is inaudible to us only by reason of the greatness of the sound, which our ears are incapable of receiving’” (Secret Doctrine I:433). It is taught both in the Kabbalah and in esoteric philosophy that when the heavenly man, or Logos, first assumed the form of the crown (Kether) and identified himself with Sephīra, he caused seven splendid lights to emanate; these are the Sephīroth, which our Instructions tell us are the seven sacred planets, each of which is the objective body of its Ṛishi or Planetary Spirit. There is very much more to be learned along this line, about the seven Hierarchies.

N.B. — No authority is claimed for any of this series of papers.

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Eastern School of Theosophy

To All Members of the E.S.T.

A full meeting of the Council, as appointed by H.P.B., was held at the Headquarters of the Theosophical Society in Europe, 19, Avenue Road, London, England, on May 27, 1891. The American Councillors were represented by Brother William Q. Judge, with full power, and Brother Judge attended as the representative of H.P.B. under a general power given as below:

Know, Dare, Will, Silence.

ESOTERIC T.S. SECTION

As Head of the Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society, I hereby declare that William Q. Judge, of New York, U.S., in virtue of his character as a chela of thirteen years’ standing, and of the trust and confidence reposed in him, is my only representative for said Section in America, and he is the sole channel through whom will be sent and received all communications between the members of said Section and myself, and to him full faith, confidence and credit in that regard are to be given. *** Done at London this fourteenth day of December, 1888, and in the fourteenth year of the Theosophical Society. [seal] H. P. Blavatsky, ∴

The Council passed the following minute:

In virtue of our appointment by H.P.B., we declare:

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That in full accord with the known wishes of H.P.B., the visible Head of the School, we primarily resolve and declare that the work of the School ought and shall be continued and carried on along the lines laid down by her, and with the matter left in writing or dictated by her before her departure.

That it was recorded that there was ample proof by witnesses, members of this School, that her last words in reference to the School and its work were: “Keep the link unbroken! Do not let my last incarnation be a failure.”

That her words to Brother Judge in a recent letter were read stating that this Section (now School) is the “throbbing heart of the Theosophical Society.”

That it was resolved and recorded that the highest officials in the School for the present are Annie Besant and William Q. Judge, in accordance with the above-quoted order to William Q. Judge of December, 1888, and with the order of April 1, 1891, to Annie Besant, as well as with the written declaration of H.P.B. in a letter to William Q. Judge dated March 27, 1891, which we now here have read, in which she wrote that Annie Besant should be so considered. The order of April 1, 1891,

is as follows:

E.S. — ORDER

I hereby appoint, in the name of the Master, Annie Besant Chief Secretary of the Inner Group of the Esoteric Section and Recorder of the Teachings.

H.P.B., ∴ To Annie Besant, C.S. of the I.G. of the E.S. and R. of T.

April 1, 1891

That it was resolved and recorded that the outer probationary degree should continue its existence and work with the material in hand, and that the 2nd and 7th clauses of the Pledge be altered as follows: 2. I pledge myself to support before the world the Theosophical movement, and in particular to answer and obey, without cavil or delay, all orders given me through the outer Heads of this School in all that concerns my Theosophical duties and Esoteric work, so far as I can do so without violating my positive obligations under the moral law and the laws of the land; and I expressly agree that I may be expelled from the School and that the fact of such expulsion may be made known to its members, should I violate this pledge of obedience and secrecy.

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7. I pledge myself to preserve inviolable secrecy as regards the signs and passwords of the School and all confidential documents; and to return the latter to one of the outer Heads of the School, or their agents, in case of my resignation, or when requested by them to do so. That it was resolved that the said Annie Besant and William Q. Judge send notice to all members of the School, asking from them a declaration of allegiance to the School, and that they will reaffirm it in the new form above given.

That until replies to the said notice are received no more of the Instructions, as revised before the departure of H.P.B., nor any of Instructions No. IV, ought to be sent out or delivered.

That the names of all members who shall reply in the negative to said notice, and of all who shall fail to reply, shall be stricken off the list and a return of all their papers and documents of the School be required to be made to the said Annie Besant and William Q. Judge. That when all members shall have replied to said notice, those whose answers shall be in the affirmative shall receive Nos. i, ii and iii of the Instructions, as corrected and reprinted, if not already forwarded. That respecting No. iv of the Instructions, the same shall be sent under the rule laid down by H.P.B. before her departure, to-wit, to those whose answers to the Examination Paper No. 1 indicate a fitness to profit by them; and that in future, as discretion shall show, a new edition of said Examination Paper shall be sent out to those whose replies were not up to the standard at first, as well as to later members who may never have received the said paper, and whenever upon any new edition of said Examination Paper — or any other sending out thereof — the standard shall be reached by any member in his or her answers to the questions put, then in every such case the member shall be admitted to the Second Degree, and Instruction No. iv shall be sent as promised by H.P.B. before her departure.

That applicants for admission to the School must show a knowledge of exoteric instructions so far given out, by answers to questions to be sent them.

That the questions to candidates be sent out signed by Annie Besant and William Q. Judge. That the preliminary pledge be altered so as to include these questions among the documents not to be shown to anyone, and that the “Questions to Candidates” are to be returned with the answers thereto.

That having read the address drawn up by Annie Besant and William Q. Judge, we put on record our full accord with it. 342 Echoes of the Orient That this Council records its decision that its appointment was solely for the purpose of assisting H.P.B. in a consultative way, and that as she had full power and authority to relieve us from duty at any time, our office and that of each of us ends with the above resolution passed in order as far as possible in our power to place the future conduct of the School on the basis directed and intended by her; therefore we collectively and individually declare that our office as Councillors ceases at this date, and that from henceforth with Annie Besant and William Q. Judge rest the full charge and management of this School. (Signed.)