But in order that that æonian evolution and unfolding may go forward, it is necessary that this divine germ should come into contact with matter. Hence veil after veil of matter enwraps, is appropriated by, this divine germ, and he draws around himself—as he descends from the highest heavens down to the earth, through region after region of ever-densifying matter—and appropriates veil after veil, in order that by contact with that matter, which alone can give him experience, the powers within him may unfold and the matter that he appropriates may become his servant, his instrument of manifestation. So when we look at any one of ourselves at the stage that we have reached to-day, we find a spiritual being many of whose powers have unfolded, but some of whose powers remain not yet unfolded into manifestation, and we find, clothing, as it were, that unfolding Spirit, the veils of matter of which I spoke, no longer mere inchoate veils, but bodies more or less definitely organised for the purposes of the unfolding life. On our physical plane, in the world in which we are to-day, that appropriated matter is now highly organised, and has become the servant of the intelligence of the Spirit to a very large extent in the more highly developed human beings. It has had developed in it, age after age, those organs of knowledge that we call the senses; five in number at the present time, as mankind has passed through five of those great Races that I likened to the waves of the human ocean when I first addressed you on this subject. You may remember that then I spoke of ourselves as being in the fifth of those great waves, and also in the fifth sub-wave, as we may say, into which the larger wave divides itself. Even looking back along our experience in the present cycle of human growth, we can see these senses developing from their earliest inception up to the present point of keenness that they have reached, one sense developing in all its stages through one of the great Races.
In order that you may not think that that is quite removed from experience, let me ask you for a moment to look at a fairly prominent family of the fourth race, the one that preceded our own, which is now living in Burma, part of the Indian empire. In that fourth race as a whole the sense of taste was the one that was gradually evolving, the sense of smell being only germinal and rudimentary, not developed. Now if you go among the Burmans to-day and inquire into their diet, you will find that one favourite article of diet is fish; but not fish freshly drawn from sea or river, but fish that has been caught for some time, buried in the ground until it has become fairly aged, and then unburied, to form a delightful dish on the Burmese table. Certainly you can well realise the fact that in that fourth Race people the sense of taste is very different from what it is amongst yourselves, with perhaps one exception that I ought to make, that I believe even now in the sense of taste in some people finds gratification in game and venison that are euphemistically called “high.” Well, the fish that the Burman eats is very high; one might almost, if it were not rude, perhaps apply to it a word more like calling a spade a spade, and call it rotten. Now no one could eat such food as that and find it pleasant if the sense of smell, which has so much to do with the more delicate savours of taste, were already well developed among the people; and I take that as a striking illustration, one that has come also under my own observation, in order to make clear what I mean when I say to you that with each race one sense is developed and the next sense to it is only germinal, and shows itself out in the following race, through which it grows to higher and higher perfection. So that the mere fact of the five senses of the present is an indication of the point at which humanity is standing, and a proverb—and there is often much truth in proverbs—about a man being frightened out of his seven senses, although at present he has only five, may serve as an indication of the widespread and ancient tradition that man has two races still through which he will evolve, and senses which will be developed as those races gradually develop upon earth; so that in the sixth Race, with which I shall have to deal in these lectures this day fortnight, “The Coming Race,” we shall be looking for the development of a new sense, the sense which will make the next world on the other side of death as palpable to us in the physical body as the physical world is palpable at the present time. For in man that form of vision will be the next to develop; and as his next higher body, the astral, becomes rightly organised, then in the physical brain will develop pari passu the organ whereby the knowledge of that world will come into the physical consciousness, and thus enormously widen our outlook, and make palpable what now is hidden from the eyes of most.
Taking this view of man, that he is an unfolding spiritual consciousness, we find that he creates for himself, as he unfolds, more highly organised bodies of matter, so that the double growth is going on in every one of us, higher stages of unfolding consciousness, subtler bodies of matter by which that consciousness can express itself clearly and definitely; to every change in consciousness a vibration in matter answering; to every vibration in matter a change in consciousness responding; so that there are side by side the unfolding of the Spirit and the development of a more delicate and more highly organised body, the difference showing itself in the nervous system as well as in the mere outer configuration of the body. Glance again at that fourth Race, study its nervous system, and you will find it very different from your own. While like your own in outer configuration, while the differences between the brain and the general distribution of the nerves to the body are not great, if you go into the question of the organisation of that nervous system you will find that an enormous gulf divides the fourth and the fifth great Races of mankind. Again, if you want a proof, look at the amount of pain or the amount of physical injury which can be endured, say, by the Chinaman, in comparison with what you can bear. Notice that an enormous laceration inflicted on the body of the Chinaman leaves him ready to recover rapidly, while a similar injury to you would kill you by nervous shock. It is not the question of the mutilation—that and the loss of blood might be the same in each—but the fifth Race man dies from nervous shock, where the fourth Race man with the coarser nervous system is able to recover, is able to re-establish the nervous equilibrium.
Another point you may notice among yourselves to-day, emphasising as you do in your own Teutonic sub-race the characteristics of the great Aryan Race to which all these branches that are spread over the West as well as in India belong. Looking at that, you will find, as you come into your own Teutonic sub-race, that nervous diseases increase; and they are increasing very rapidly at the present time, far more rapidly apparently than at any other period in human history. The strain on your present nervous system is beginning to be too great, for it is evolving a little more rapidly than the outer world is evolving to meet it; and hence, in order that you may not suffer from continual nervous diseases, it is necessary to begin to refine and to purify your lives, leaving the grosser passions behind you which in the course of evolution you now ought to have outgrown. As the next sub-race is born—and it is beginning at the present time—the nervous system will become more and more delicate, and keener sense-organs will appear in the children in larger and larger numbers. Our present organs of sense will first become intensified. Then, after much intensification, the newer organs will begin to show themselves—those which will unfold to us the world on the other side of death. To this world our astral bodies belong, and our nervous system will become finer, and thus make it possible to register our investigations more completely in our physical bodies. That will be one point that we shall have to bear in mind in looking for the new doors that are opening. But not only the physical body is growing finer, but in addition to that our next body is organising itself and gradually unfolding its powers, the body that we shall wear on the other side of death as well, the body that we are wearing now through which our emotions are showing. For when we pass through death we do not pass unclothed into another world; we throw off this denser garment of the physical body, but penetrating that, interfused with that, intermingling with that now is the finer matter of the world on the other side of death, growing ready for our use in that further world, and organising itself gradually for the experiences that there we shall meet. And in the next race, as I shall try to show you more fully hereafter, that body will become highly organised, greatly developed, a thorough vehicle of consciousness as the physical body is to-day, and by the growth and organisation of that the new doors will open before us in Religion, in Science, and in Art.
I.—Religion.
Let us see, first, how this will affect Religion. The unfolding of the deeper strata of consciousness will bring our inner selves, the Spirit, into more and more direct touch with the spiritual regions of our universe. I am now not dealing with the finer worlds of matter, but with the spiritual realities which belong to the spiritual life. The nature of God, the consciousness of His presence everywhere, the recognition of His life as an indwelling power—all these will become fundamental realities for the unfolding Spirit in man. I pointed out to you, when dealing with the deadlock in religion, with regard to the idea of God, that no amount of reasons addressed to the intellect could ever lead us to an absolute demonstration of the existence, the reality of God. Probability, yes; cumulative evidence, yes; but demonstration, no. When a thing is once demonstrated, no further challenge arises about it; when once a fact is demonstrated, no one any longer asks: Does that fact exist? and we have been in the region of arguments about God, and not of that spiritual knowledge of God which is eternal life. How is that to be reached? Not by any effort of the reasoning intelligence, not by any upreaching of the merely emotional nature, but by the unfolding in man himself of that Spirit which is divine in its essential quality, which, because itself divine, can respond to divinity without, and, because itself is God, knows that God of which it is the offspring. This is the ultimate truth of religion, the human experience of communion with God in the depths of the human Spirit; for religion is only a groping after God, a search after God; ceremonies and rites, churches and scriptures, they are all external; they can never reveal God to the Spirit, which is of His own likeness and image.
Only the Spirit can know Him, only the Spirit can find Him; while it searches through matter it can only hope He is, but the unveiled Spirit can feel the unveiled Godhead, and by the identity of nature can know that God is, and is itself. And as this inner spiritual life more and more awakens in the religions of the world, man will know the truth of that great saying of the Christ: “The Kingdom of God is within you.” As you go down into the depths of your own being, there shall you find Deity, the conviction that God is and must be. For you can strip away from yourself everything that is not He, until only He, the one Self of all, remains. You can mutilate your body and lose your limbs, but you remain. Your emotions can grow worn out and be withered, but behind your emotions you still are there. Your mind may grow weaker, feebler, may become, as it were, paralysed for reasoning, and yet you are there, behind the failing mind; and if you are willing to pass on into spiritual experience, to let your emotions be quieted, to let your mind be still, then in the silence of the emotions, in the tranquillity of the mind, you shall find a deeper consciousness, a deeper life, a more real individuality; and as the emotions are still and the mind is silent, in the innermost depths of the Spirit you shall find yourself and God. And then, contemplating that mighty and eternal life, you shall feel that you share it, that you are part of it, that you cannot be separated from it, and, in a great gush of experience that never again you can doubt, you shall know the reality of Deity in finding the reality of yourself. That is the ultimate conviction that nothing can shake—that the human experience that many a man has had, that for him has transformed the world; that is the sure ground of the religion of the future, that the rock on which a true faith alone can be based; and it is written, and truly written, in an ancient Hindū scripture, that the only proof of God lies in the witness of the Self. On that rock religion will base itself, fearless of all attack, of all assault. No question of chronology can move it, for every man can gain that experience for himself; no criticism and destruction of scriptures can tear this in pieces, for it is ever renewing in the perennial life of the Eternal Spirit; no churches, in failing, can shake it, for it is this that made churches, to help in its own searching; nothing outside can touch it, for it lives in the innermost heart of man. And in that, ever-opening new experiences, fuller knowledge, deeper understanding, more abounding love, and unchanging peace and bliss. Everything else may go, but this remains unchanging; and as out of this all has come, the perishing of the transient matters not, for the Eternal Source remains.
But that is not the only new door, though the most important one, which opens to religion. You remember that I said, that with the unfolding consciousness a more delicately organised body was evolved. And so we find that new senses, new powers awake in the material tabernacle with this unfolding of the divine Spirit in man. The senses which belong to the higher worlds are very near to the opening in every one of you; and if you ask me why I say it, my answer is very simple, because, taking, say, any dozen of you, dulling the physical senses by what is called mesmerism, or hypnotism if you will, so that you cannot see physical things, cannot hear physical sounds, cannot taste or smell or touch so that the senses answer to objects outside—under those conditions in about ten out of every dozen these inner senses are able to make themselves manifest, are able to bear witness to the existence of a subtler world. Now when you find that by an artificial process of that kind an ordinary man or woman can be made what is called clairvoyant or clairaudient, or able to touch and feel things that the ordinary physical touch does not reveal; when you find that by stilling the physical these rudimentary senses are able to work—within limitations, but still to work—it is a fairly clear proof that man is on the threshold of unfolding those senses that now are rudimentary, and that need an artificial condition in order to show themselves. But they do show themselves under that artificial condition. If they were not there they could not show themselves, no matter how much you might paralyse the dense physical body; it is only because they are there that they can function. But when the rougher senses are active, those stronger vibrations dull the delicate vibrations of the rudimentary and dawning senses. It is only because they are present, but only partly developed that you are able to make them manifest in the great majority which might be taken from a meeting such as this.
Now, not only is that true—and I mention that first because that is practically universally recognised by science now—but they may be artificially stimulated without the help of mesmerism at all. While that is a rough-and-ready way of doing it with anybody, the other means requires a consciousness unfolded to the point where the fact of these senses is recognised as probable, and then a deliberate and sustained effort to bring these senses into working order. Now that is done by what is known generally as meditation, and meditation is only concentrated thinking. Anyone who is able to pay attention, any one who is able to think steadily on one subject for a little time without letting the mind wander, is ready to begin meditation; and most of all are those ready to begin it, although at first sight they might not look promising, who are capable of being seized upon by a single idea of a high and lofty character; which, as it were, takes possession of them, obsesses them if you will, so that they become martyrs, heroes for the idea which has gripped them. I do not say that is the highest state—it is not; it is not best to be possessed by the idea, but to possess the idea—that is a stage higher still. But the power of being possessed by an idea shows that you are climbing upwards towards the realms of the ideal; and many a man or woman who is marked out as a fanatic, as unwilling to be reasoned out of their foolish ideals, the dreamers of the world, the Utopians, the poets who dream of a coming golden age, those men and women who despise the present, sometimes irrationally, in the wild enthusiasm of the idea that has possessed them, they are treading on the threshold of that power of concentration of the mind which, when they have mastered their ideas, should carry them far on—on to the next stage in human progress. It is by meditation that these senses are artificially awakened; that is, you quicken the normal workings of evolution by knowing the laws of thought, and utilising them to bring about that which you desire. It is only artificial in the same sense that a cattle-breeder, when he wants to breed a particular type, uses those laws of nature that help him, and avoids or evades those that would hinder him. He clears out of his way all the opposing forces and energies, so that those he wants may have free play. So with the laws of mind; if you know the laws of mind, the laws by which consciousness evolves, then you can use them scientifically to develop in yourselves the highest powers of the mind, and use those powers of the mind to organise your subtler body, so that it may become a vehicle of consciousness, may be obedient to your will to know. That is already stirring within you; hence the nervous troubles that you have; but when you understand the law, you can evolve the finer nervous system without peril to health. Only this demands rules which many people kick against, a physical self-mastery that is not popular in the luxurious and ease-seeking civilisation of our time; to make your physical body only an instrument, to allow it to eat only what you choose for it as best suited to your purpose, to allow it to drink that alone which suits your aim, to allow it to sleep just as long as, and no longer than, conduces to that object that you have set before yourself—to make the body the servant, and not the master, or even the equal, of the Spirit—that is the regimen which has to go with the quicker evolution of the astral body and the keener senses which belong to it. Many are doing it amongst us now; nature is doing it, but not so rapidly as man can do it by working with nature.
On the western coast of America, along the Californian district, where the electric conditions are very peculiar, one of the games the children like is to run along the carpet, rubbing their feet along the carpet as they go. This charges them so highly with electricity that if you turn on a gas-jet they can put a finger to it and light it. These are things that are well known over there, and with that peculiar electrical condition the tension of the nervous system is higher, and so these senses are very much more common there than they are in our damper and less brilliant electrical atmosphere. That, however, is coming for all; there partly by natural conditions; here, if you choose to do it, by deliberate working with nature along the line of evolution.