Thus in this most excellent essay on the “Higher Self,” this term is applied to the sixth principle or Buddhi (of course in conjunction with Manas, as without such union there would be no thinking principle or element in the spiritual soul); and has in consequence given rise to just such misunderstandings. The statement that “a child does not acquire its sixth principle—or become a morally responsible being capable of generating Karma—until seven years old,” proves what is meant therein by the Higher Self. Therefore, the able author is quite justified in explaining that after the “Higher Self” has passed into the human being and saturated the personality—in some of the finer organizations only—with its consciousness “people with psychic faculties may indeed perceive this Higher Self through their finer senses from time to time.” But so are those, who limit the term “Higher Self” to the Universal Divine Principle, “justified” in misunderstanding him. For, when we read, without being prepared for this shifting of metaphysical terms,[48] that while “fully manifesting on the physical plane ... the Higher Self still remains a conscious spiritual Ego on the corresponding plane of Nature”—we are apt to see in the “Higher Self” of this sentence, “Atma,” and in the spiritual Ego, “Manas,” or rather Buddhi-Manas, and forthwith to criticise the whole thing as incorrect.
To avoid henceforth such misrepresentations, I propose to translate literally from the Occult Eastern terms their equivalents in English, and offer these for future use.
| Atma, the inseparable ray of the Universal | |
| The Higher | and One Self. It is the God above, more |
| Self is | than within, us. Happy the man who succeeds |
| in saturating his inner Ego with it! | |
| the Spiritual soul or Buddhi, in close union | |
| The Spiritual | with Manas, the mind-principle, without |
| divine Ego is | which it is no Ego at all, but only the Atmic |
| Vehicle. | |
| Manas, the “Fifth” Principle, so called, | |
| independently of Buddhi. The Mind-Principle | |
| The Inner, | is only the Spiritual Ego when merged |
| or Higher | into one with Buddhi,—no materialist being |
| “Ego” is | supposed to have in him such an Ego, however |
| great his intellectual capacities. It is the | |
| permanent Individuality or the “Reincarnating Ego.” | |
| the physical man in conjunction with his | |
| lower Self, i.e., animal instincts, passions, | |
| The Lower, | desires, etc. It is called the “false personality,” |
| or Personal | and consists of the lower Manas combined |
| “Ego” is | with Kama-rupa, and operating through |
| the Physical body and its phantom or “double.” |
The remaining “Principle” “Pranâ,” or “Life,” is, strictly speaking, the radiating force or Energy of Atma—as the Universal Life and the One Self,—Its lower or rather (in its effects) more physical, because manifesting, aspect. Pranâ or Life permeates the whole being of the objective Universe; and is called a “principle” only because it is an indispensable factor and the deus ex machinâ of the living man.
Enq. This division being so much simplified in its combinations will answer better, I believe. The other is much too metaphysical.
Theo. If outsiders as well as Theosophists would agree to it, it would certainly make matters much more comprehensible.