FOOTNOTES:
[1] Khandogya Upanishad, 1st Khanda. See Vol. 1, Sacred Books of the East. Müller.
[2] Hymn of Praise to Brahm.
[3] St. John. C. I, v. 1.
[4] See Bagavad-Gita.
[5] Mundaka Upanishad, II, Kh. 2. (Müller’s Tr.)
[6] See Theosophist, Vol. III, p. 177.
[7] See Esoteric Buddhism for the sevenfold classification adopted by many Theosophists.
[8] Zanoni, Book IV, Chapter 2.
[9] Patanjali’s Yoga Aphorisms, 30 & 31, Part I.
[10] The following from the Kaushitaki Upanishad, (see Max Muller’s translation, and also that published in the Bibliotheka Indica, with Sankaracharya’s commentary—Cowell’s tran.) may be of interest to students. “Agatasatru to him: Bàlàki, where did this person here sleep? Where was he? Whence did he come back? Bàlàki did not know. And Agatasatru said to him: ‘Where this person here slept, where he was, whence he thus came back, is this: The arteries of the heart called Hita extend from the heart of the person towards the surrounding body. Small as a hair divided a thousand times, they stand, full of a thin fluid of various colors, white, black, yellow, red. In these the person is when sleeping, he sees no dream (Sushupti). Then he becomes one with that prâna (breath) alone.’” (Elsewhere the number of these arteries is said to be 101.) “And as a razor might be fitted in a razor case, or as fire in the fire place, even thus this conscious self enters into the self of the body, to the very hair and nails; he is the master of all, and eats with and enjoys with them. So long as Indra did not understand that self, the Asuras (lower principles in man) conquered him. When he understood it, he conquered the Asuras, and obtained the pre-eminence among all gods. And thus also he who knows this obtains pre-eminence, sovereignty, supremacy.” And in the Khandogya Upanishad, VI Prap. 8, Kh. 1: “When the man sleeps here, my dear son, he becomes united with the True—in Sushupti sleep—he is gone to his own self. Therefore they say, he sleeps (Swapita), because he is gone (apita) to his own (sva).” And in Prasna Up II, 1, “There are 101 arteries from the heart; one of them penetrates the crown of the head; moving upwards by it man reaches the immortal; the others serve for departing in different directions.” [Ed.]
[11] This opens up an intensely interesting and highly important subject, which cannot be here treated of, but which will be in future papers. Meanwhile, Theosophists can exercise their intuition in respect to it. |Ed.
[12] Guru, a spiritual teacher.
[13] Vide Light on the Path, Rule 1, note, part 1.
[14] There is one exceptional case where the Guru’s goal is seen, and then the Guru has to die, for there can be no two equals.
[15] There is no contradiction between this and the preceding paragraph where it is said “To see the Guru’s goal is impossible.” During the initiation ceremony, there is no separateness between those engaged in it. They all become one whole, and therefore, even the High Hierophant, while engaged in an initiation, is no more his separate self, but is only a part of the whole, of which the candidate is also a part, and then, for the time being, having as much power and knowledge as the very highest present. [Ed.]
[16] Rig Veda, IV, VII, 9.
[17] Divine science.
[18] “The knowledge of Yoga, which is, joining with your higher self.”
[19] See Zanoni, Book IV, c. iii.
[20] Highest soul.
[21] Fifth principle.
[22] See Vol. 1, Theosophist.
[23] Taubaya uddito lókó; jaráya pari vârato: Maccuna pihito loko; Dukkhe Loko patitthito.
[24] Kammam vijjà dhammóca; Silam jivita muttamam; Etena maccá sujjhanti: Na-gottêna dhanenavá.
[25] Code of laws.
[26] Restraining thoughts from being dispersed.
[27] Effecting complete reconciliation and composure of mind.
[28] Worldly.
[29] Superhuman.
[30] This means the particular kind which each man, because of heredity, education and class, exercises. It is also known as using the path pertaining to the Lodge or Ray, to which the one meditating, belongs.—[Ed.]
[31] See Bagavad-Gita, c. 14.—[Ed.]
[32] See No. 68 (May, 1886) Theosophist.
[33] Gnyanam is translated “higher knowledge,” which does not merely mean acquirement of greater so-called mortal or ordinary knowledge, but that kind of knowledge which is only attained by rising to higher spiritual planes, and which transcends the highest of ordinary knowledge of the greatest literati or scientist.
[34] This was written then to various persons in Paris, London, New York, and India.
[35] By D. M. Tredwell. Published by Fred Tredwell, 78 Nassau St., New York, 1886.
[36] The Life of Apollonius, &c., Hist. of Chr. Church, Vol. I, p. 348. The Life of Apollonius, of Tyana, by Philostrates, tr. by Rev. Edward Berwick, Ireland (1809).
[37] Sacred Books of the East, Vol. I, lxv.
[38] Sacred Books, &c., Vol. I, lxvii.
[39] Hist. of Sans. Lit., p. 155, note.
[40] From the negatives en and am, and the noun Soph “end or terminus.”
[41] See Kabbalah, published by R. Worthington, 770 Broadway, N. Y.
[42] See Kabbalah, Page 47.
[43] Trans. Bomb. lit. Soc. Comp. the Dabistan.
[44] The Dabistan: The prophet is a person who is sent to the people as their guide to the perfection which is fixed for them in the presence of God, according to the exigency of the dispositions determined by the fixed substances, whether it be the perfection of faith, or another.
[45] It is to this state the Sufis refer Mohammed’s words: “I have moments when neither prophet nor angel can comprehend me.”
[46] From the Dabistan. Comp. Zeitschrift d. morgl. Gesellsch. 16 art. by Fleischer Ueber die farbigen lichterscheinungen der Sufis.
[47] J. P. Brown, Dervishes pp. 333.
[48] Bagavad-Gita, ch. 13; id. ch. 10.
[49] Path, No. 1. p. 24.
[50] The original MS. of this Diary as far as it goes is in our possession. The few introductory lines are by the friend who communicated the matter to us.—[Ed.]
[51] I find it impossible to decipher this name.
[52] There is a peculiarity in this, that all accounts of Cagliostro, St. Germain and other Adepts, give the apparent age as forty only.—[Ed.]
[53] The warrior caste of India.—[Ed.]
[54] The soul soliloquizing.
[55] The Deity.
[56] Second century.
[57] The Deity.
[58] The Work entitled “The Acts of the Adepts,” by Shemsu-D-Din Ahmed, El EFlaki has been reserved for our second part: Symbols.
[59] A Godhra is the counterpane of shreds the Fakirs use to lie down upon, and throw over their shoulders.
[60] Comp. the mediæval conception “Lady World.”
[61] Khizer, the “Green Old Man” is the guardian of “the fountain of life” and the type of the self sustaining power of Deity.
[62] Quran II. 216, Elias discovered the water of life.
[63] Saturn is lord of the seventh heaven.
[64] No more individual existence.
[65] The following is told, and attributed to Attar; A thirsty traveller dips his hand into a spring of water to drink from. Another comes likewise to drink and leaves his earthen bowl behind him. The first traveller takes it up for another draught and is surprised to find the same water bitter when drank from the earthen cup. But a voice from heaven tells him the clay from which the bowl is made was once Man; and into whatever shape renewed, can never lose the bitter flavour of mortality.
[66] See Introduction to The Divine Pymander p. VI-et. seq. edition 1650.
[67] Ibid.
[68] In the ancient Aztec civilization in Mexico, the Sacerdotal order was very numerous. At the head of the whole establishment were two high priests, elected from the order, solely for their qualifications, as shown by their previous conduct in a subordinate station. They were equal in dignity and inferior only to the sovereign, who rarely acted without their advice in weighty matters of private concern. (Sahagun Hist. de Nueva España, lib. 2; lib. 3 cap. 9—Torq. Mon. Ind. lib. 8 cap. 20; lib. 9, cap. 3, 56; cited by Prescott in vol. 1, Conq. Mex. p. 66).—[Ed.]
[69] King or Ruler.
[70] A low caste man, e. g., a sweeper. Such a building can now be seen at Bijapur, India.—[Ed.]
[71] An obsessing astral shell. The Hindus consider them to be the reliquæ of deceased persons.—[Ed.]
[72] Nature spirit or elemental.—[Ed.]
[73] This sentence is of great importance. The Occidental mind delights much more in effects, personalities and authority, than in seeking for causes, just as many Theosophists have with persistency sought to know when and where Madame Blavatsky did some feat in magic, rather than in looking for causes or laws governing the production of phenomena. In this italicized sentence is the clue to many things, for those who can see.—[Ed.]
[74] Masonic Review, July, 1885.
[75] The Cabbalah, its Doctrine, Development and Literature.
[76] Farhad was the youthful lover of Shirin.
[77] Her refers to the candle. The moth is the lover and the candle the beloved.
[78] See note above.
[79] Mulla is the Persian form of the Arabic Maulawi, “a learned man,” “a scholar.”
[80] Khudawand is a Persian word signifying “lord,” “prince,” “master.” A professor: a man of authority. It is used as a title of the Deity and by Christian missionaries in India it is generally employed as a translation of the Greek Kyrios, “Lord.” (Hughes’ Dic.)
[81] Islam means the resigning or devoting one’s self entirely to God, and his service.
[82] Isis Unveiled, p. 507, vol I.
[83] Ibid.
[84] Physio-philosophy.
[85] I use this word “privilege” in its ethical sense; privileges are to the patriot what the “pleasures” are to the family life.
[86] This is the man to be in the family and not of the family like the water on the lotus leaf, making only the good traits of the family the seat of his higher self.
[87] The Ether, the Astral Light.—[Ed.]
[88] I use the word in the peculiar sense which I have already attached to it.
[89] In reply to several inquiries as to the meaning of Chela, we answer that it here means an accepted disciple of an Adept. The word, in general, means, Disciple.
[90] See Agroushada Parakshai, 2d book, 23d dialogue.—[Ed.]
[91] It is interesting to compare the Brihadaranyaka-Upanishad, 4th Brah., with this: “In the beginning this was Self alone, in the shape of a spirit. He looking round, saw nothing but his Self.”—[Ed.]
[92] Quran xxiv, 35.
[93] ibid. lxxvi, 18.
[94] The Mevlevi or dancing devishes.
[95] Quran xix, 74.
[96] ibid. xxv, 26.
[97] ibid. ii,
[98] ibid. lxxx, 15.
[99] ibid. lvi, 78.
[100] ibid. lvi, 79.
[101] ibid. xli, 42.
[102] ibid. xii, 64.
[103] ibid. vii, 150.
[104] True transl. by J. Freeman Clark.
[105] This is also an ancient Hindu doctrine laid down in secret books.—[Ed.]
[106] See his Clavix, written in 1624.—[Ed.]
[107] It is important to remember that Behmen gave the name spirit to the lower soul and soul with him meant what we call spirit.—[Ed.]
[108] Threefold life; Three principles; and Aurora.
[109] See Bagavad-Gita.—[Ed.]
[110] “Full consent” including the consent of all their various consciousnesses. If the Patin or Pati saw, and they ought to be able to see, that even in one of the consciousnesses of any of their near relatives there lurked a latent spark of hesitation to consent or of unwillingness, then the pair unselfishly gave up their determination to become Vanaprasthas and remained with the family until the proper time came.
[111] The emerald table is from the collection commencing with Le Miroirs d’ Alquimie de Jean de Mehun, philosophe, tres—excellent. Traduict de Latin on François, A Paris, 1613, pp. 36-39, to which is also attached, the Petit Commentaire de L’Hortulain, philosophe, dict des Jardins maritimes, sur la Table d’ Esmerande d’ Hermes Trismegiste pp. 42-64.
[112] An ancient Hindu book full of tales as well as doctrines.—[Ed.]
[113] These flashes of thought are not unknown even in the scientific world, as, where in such a moment of lunacy, it was revealed to an English scientist, that there must be iron in the sun; and Edison gets his ideas thus.—[Ed.]
[114] The careful student will remember that Jacob Bœhme speaks of the “harsh and bitter anguish of nature which is the principle that produces bones and all corporification.” So here the master, it appears, tells the fortunate chela, that in the spiritual and mental world, anxiety, harsh and bitter, raises a veil before us and prevents us from using our memory. He refers, it would seem, to the other memory above the ordinary. The correctness and value of what was said in this, must be admitted when we reflect that, after all, the whole process of development is the process of getting back the memory of the past. And that too is the teaching found in pure Buddhism as well also as in its corrupted form.—[Ed.]
[115] The mystic syllable OM.—[Ed.]
[116] There is some reference here apparently to the Upanishad, for they contain a teacher’s directions to break through all shrines until the last one is reached.—[Ed.]
[117] See Bagavad-Gita where the whole poem turns upon the conflict in this battle field, which is called the “sacred plain of Kurukshetra” meaning, the “body which is acquired by Karma.”—[Ed.]
[118] Arabian Soc. in the Middle Age.—D’Ohsson describing the Turkish Dervishes gives another account.
[119] Emerson.
[120] Intell. Obs. Vol. 7.
[121] Notes on Mohammedanism.
[122] The Zikrs will be described in next number of The Path.
[123] Those words are continually giving rise to misunderstandings and misinterpretations, because nearly every one has a different opinion of what is “Good.”
[124] See Bagavad-Gita, c. 6.
[125] Taken from the Glauben, Wissen und Kunst der alten Hindus, etc., von Niklas Müller. Erster Band, Mainz, 1822.
[126] Fire, Æther, Light.
[127] Satya-Loka, the place, world, or region of Truth.—[Ed.]
[128] See Indian Wisdom by Monier Williams, p. 12.
[129] This occurs at the beginning of prayers, etc., as our word AMeN occurs at the end. It is so sacred that none must hear it pronounced. Originally its three letters typified the three Vedas, afterwards it became a mystical symbol of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva in unity; see further as to AUM supra.
[130] I. e., the present age of spiritual blindness.
[131] See “Transactions of the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society,” No. 5.
[132] See charge and answer, in Theosophist, August, 1882.
[133] The cycle of existence during the manvantara—period before and after the beginning and completion of which every such “monad” is absorbed and reabsorbed in the ONE soul, anima mundi.
[134] Hades has surely never been meant for Hell. It was always the abode of the sorrowing shadows of astral bodies of the dead personalities. Western readers should remember Kama-loka is not Karma-loka, for Kama means desire, and Karma does not.
[135] Had this word “immediate” been put at the time of publishing Isis between the two words “no” and “reincarnation” there would have been less room for dispute and controversy.
[136] By “sphere above,” of course “Devachan” was meant.
[137] The reader must bear in mind that the esoteric teaching maintains that save in cases of wickedness when man’s nature attains the acme of Evil, and human terrestrial sin reaches Satanic universal character, so to say as some Sorcerers do—there is no punishment for the majority of mankind after death. The law of retribution as Karma, waits man at the threshold of his new incarnation. Man is at best a wretched tool of evil, unceasingly forming new causes and circumstances. He is not always (if ever) responsible. Hence a period of rest and bliss in Devachan, with an utter temporary oblivion of all the miseries and sorrows of life. Avitchi is a spiritual state of the greatest misery and is only in store for those who have devoted consciously their lives to doing injury to others and have thus reached its highest spirituality of Evil.
[138] Says Apuleius: “The soul is born in this world upon leaving the soul of the world (anima mundi) in which her existence precedes the one we all know (on earth). Thus, the Gods who consider her proceedings in all the phases of various existences and as a whole, punish her sometimes for sins committed during an anterior life. She dies when she separates herself from a body in which she crossed this life as in a frail bark. And this is, if I mistake not, the secret meaning of the tumulary inscription, so simple for the initiate: ”To the Gods manes who lived.“ But this kind of death does not annihilate the soul, it only transforms (one portion of it) it into a lemure. ”Lemures“ are the manes, or ghosts, which we know under the name tares. When they keep away and show us a beneficent protection, we honour in them the protecting divinities of the family hearth; but if their crimes sentence them to err, we call them larvæ. They become a plague for the wicked, and the vain terror of the good.” (“Du Dieu de Socrate” Apul. class, pp., 143-145.)
[139] “The cause of reincarnation is ignorance”—therefore there is “reincarnation” once the writer explained the causes of it.
[140] A proof how our theosophical teachings have taken root in every class of Society and even in English literature may be seen by reading Mr. Norman Pearson’s article “Before Birth” in the “Nineteenth Century” for August, 1886. Therein, theosophical ideas and teachings are speculated upon without acknowledgment or the smallest reference to theosophy, and among others, we see with regard to the author’s theories on the Ego, the following: “How much of the individual personality is supposed to go to heaven or hell? Does the whole of the mental equipment, good and bad, noble qualities and unholy passions, follow the soul to its hereafter? Surely not. But if not, and something has to be stripped off, how and when are we to draw the line? If, on the other hand, the Soul is something distinct from all our mental equipment, except the sense of self, are we not confronted by the incomprehensible notion of a personality without any attributes.”
To this query the author answers as any true theosophist would: “The difficulties of the question really spring from a misconception of the true nature of these attributes. The components of our mental equipment—appetites, aversions, feelings, tastes and qualities generally—are not absolute but relative existences. Hunger and thirst for instance are states of consciousness which arise in response to the stimuli of physical necessities. They are not inherent elements of the soul and will disappear or become modified, etc.,” (pp. 356 and 357). In other words the theosophical doctrine is adopted, Atma and Buddhi having culled off the Manas the aroma of the personality or human soul—go into Devachan: while the lower principles the astral simulacrum or false personality void of its Divine monad or spirit will remain in the Kama-loka—the “Summerland.”
[141] Nirmanakaya is the name given to the astral forms (in their completeness) of adepts, who have progressed too high on the path of knowledge and absolute truth, to go into the state of Devachan; and have on the other hand, deliberately refused the bliss of nirvana, in order to help Humanity by invisibly guiding and helping on the same path of progress elect men. But these astrals are not empty shells, but complete monads made up of the 3d, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th principles. There is another order of nirmanakaya, however, of which much will be said in the Secret Doctrine.—H. P. B.
Placing these parallel with the division in esoteric teaching we see that (1) Osiris is Atma; (2) Sa is Buddhi; (3) Akh is Manas; (4) Khou is Kama-rupa, the seat of terrestrial desires. (5) Khaba is Lingha Sarira; (6) Kha is Pranatma (vital principle) (7) Sah, is mummy or body.
[142] Because they drove the enemies away.
[143] From manus—“good,” an antiphraris, as Festus explains.
[144] Page 12. Vol I. of “Isis Unveiled” belief in reincarnation is asserted from the very beginning, as forming part and parcel of universal beliefs. “Metempsychosis” (or transmigration of souls) and reincarnation being after all the same thing.
[145] These three qualities are explained by Krishna in the Bhagavadgitâ, as Satwa good or inactive being purely spiritual; Rajas bad and active; and Tamas inactive or indifferent and bad. They exist in every human mind and are mingled in greater or less proportions at all times, according to the individual and also according to his varying circumstances. His teaching in regard to the Tamo guna is the same as that taught in the Christian Bible, for he says that for the indifferent man there is no salvation—he is as it were “ejected like a broken cloud;” and in I James v, 6, 7, the doubting man is declared incapable of obtaining anything, while in Rev. iii, 16, the Laodiceans are accused of being neither cold nor hot, that is of being indifferent, and they are condemned to be “spewed out of the mouth,” which is the same as the fate described as awaiting those in whom indifference predominates, Krishna declaring that they become more and more deluded at each succeeding generation until at last they reach the lowest round of the ladder in the shape of primordial matter. The difference between the two schools is, that Krishna’s allows the doctrines of Reincarnation and Karma, while the modern Christians, blind to their own Bible, reject these supremely important laws, or rather ignore them as yet. [Ed.]
[146] Maya is the sanscrit for illusion. [Ed.]
[147] Bagavad-Gita.
[148] Milton.
[149] Bible.
[150] Light of Asia.
[151] Browning.
[152] Bri-Up. 1. Adh., 4 Brah., 7.
[153] ‘We take no notice of time save by its loss’, i. e. its passage or motion.
[154] Isis Unveiled, vol. I. p. 507, et seq.
[155] Pymander, p. 33, et seq., edition of 1650.
[156] IV Book, p. 60.
[157] Dr. G. Weil: The Bible, the Koran, and the Talmud.
[158] Leibnitz was born 1646 at Leipzig, and died 1716. According to Schwegler’s Hist. of Phil. he was, next to Aristotle, the most highly gifted scholar that ever lived, and according to F. Papillon (“Nature and Life”) modern students in various departments of science and philosophy have verified his ideas and endorsed then to a large extent.
[159] See July and August Path.
[160] Light on the Path.
[161] Letter from a friend.
[162] It is an old declaration of the esoteric doctrine that “the counterfeit religion will last as long as the true one.”—[Ed.]
[163] See N. Y. Tribune, Nov. 28. 1886.
[164] See Bag.-Gita, Ch. 14.
[165] The numbers used here are significant. In Bagavad-Gita are 18 chapters, and Krishna as there revealed has a special meaning under the No. 18. The five Pandavas are the same as those who are concerned in the Gita story. If the product of 18 x 360 be added, the sum is 18. The correspondences in all the Hindu stories will repay study.—[Ed.]
[166] This injured Brahmin was a sage who assuming that disguise desired to make a test.—[Ed.]
[167] The orthodox translation is “When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.”
[168] From Leaves of Grass.
[169] Chandogya-Upanishad, vi.
[170] Bagavad-Gita, ch. 15.
[171] Compare the “Elixir of Life” in The Theosophist.
[172] This has nothing whatever to do with so-called “stigmatization”: the latter being merely the result of a strong imagination upon a weak body.
[173] “That which was from the beginning.” etc.—John. Epistle I, i.
[174] I Cor. xv.
[175] Light on the Path.
[176] Vedanta.
[177] It is known that in Ireland and other places, many peasants possess words whose sound can thrill a man and make a horse unmanageable. [Ed.]
[178] Vedanta.
[179] Light on the Path.
[180] See Fiske, Stuart, et al.
[181] Emerson.
[182] On sound, P. 54.
[183] Vedanta.
[184] Idem.
[185] Through the Gates of Gold: a Fragment of Thought. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1887. Price, 50 cents.