It may be urged that in this line of thought is included no more than the theory of the existence of the ether ... supposed to pervade space.... It may be said that this universal ether pervades all the organism of the animal body as from without, and as part of every organization. This view would be Pantheism physically discovered, if it were true [!!]. It fails to be true because it would destroy the individuality of every individual sense.[922]
We fail to see this, and we know it is not so. Pantheism may be “physically rediscovered.” It was known, seen, and felt by the whole of antiquity. Pantheism manifests itself in the vast expanse of the starry heavens, in the breathing of the seas and oceans, and in the quiver of life of the smallest blade of grass. Philosophy rejects one finite and imperfect God in the universe, the anthropomorphic deity of the Monotheist as represented by his followers. It repudiates, in its name of Philo-theo-sophia, the grotesque idea that Infinite, Absolute Deity should, or rather could, have any direct or indirect relation to finite illusive evolutions of Matter, and therefore it cannot imagine a universe outside that Deity, or the absence of that Deity from the smallest speck of animate or inanimate Substance. This does not mean that every bush, tree or stone is God or a God; but only that every speck of the manifested material of Kosmos belongs to, and is the Substance of, God, however low it may have fallen in its cyclic [pg 582] gyration through the Eternities of the Ever-Becoming; and also that every such speck individually, and Kosmos collectively, is an aspect and a reminder of that universal One Soul—which Philosophy refuses to call God, thus limiting the eternal and ever-present Root and Essence.
Why either the Ether of Space or “Nervous Ether” should “destroy the individuality of every sense,” seems incomprehensible to one acquainted with the real nature of that “Nervous Ether” under its Sanskrit, or rather Esoteric and Kabalistic name. Dr. Richardson agrees that:
If we did not individually produce the medium of communication between ourselves and the outer world, if it were produced from without and adapted to one kind of vibration alone, there were fewer senses required than we possess: for, taking two illustrations only—ether of light is not adapted for sound, and yet we hear as well and see; while air, the medium of motion of sound, is not the medium of light, and yet we see and hear.
This is not so. The opinion that Pantheism “fails to be true because it would destroy the individuality of every individual sense” shows that all the conclusions of the learned doctor are based on the modern physical theories, though he would fain reform them. But he will find it impossible to do this unless he allows the existence of spiritual senses to replace the gradual atrophy of the physical. “We see and hear,” in accordance (of course, in Dr. Richardson's mind) with the explanations of the phenomena of sight and hearing, afforded by that same Materialistic Science which postulates that we cannot see and hear otherwise. The Occultists and Mystics know better. The Vedic Âryans were as familiar with the mysteries of sound and colour on the physical plane as are our Physiologists, but they had also mastered the secrets of both on planes inaccessible to the Materialist. They knew of a double set of senses; spiritual and material. In a man who is deprived of one or more senses, the remaining senses become the more developed; for instance, the blind man will recover his sight through the senses of touch, of hearing, etc., and he who is deaf will be able to hear through sight, by seeing audibly the words uttered by the lips and mouth of the speaker. But these are cases that belong to the world of Matter still. The spiritual senses, those that act on a higher plane of consciousness, are rejected à priori by Physiology, because the latter is ignorant of the Sacred Science. It limits the action of Ether to vibrations, and, dividing it from air—though air is [pg 583] simply differentiated and compound Ether—makes it assume functions to fit in with the special theories of the Physiologist. But there is more real Science in the teachings of the Upanishads, when these are correctly understood, than the Orientalists, who do not understand them at all, are ready to admit. Mental as well as physical correlations of the seven senses—seven on the physical and seven on the mental planes—are clearly explained and defined in the Vedas, and especially in the Upanishad called Anugîtâ:
The indestructible and the destructible, such is the double manifestation of the Self. Of these the indestructible is the existent [the true essence or nature of Self, the underlying principles], the manifestation as an individual (entity) is called the destructible.[923]
Thus speaks the Ascetic in the Anugîtâ, and also:
Every one who is twice-born [initiated] knows such is the teaching of the ancients.... Space is the first entity.... Now Space [Âkâsha, or the Noumenon of Ether] has one quality ... and that is stated to be sound only ... [and the] qualities of sound [are] Shadja, Rishabha, together with Gândhâra, Madhyama, Panchama, and beyond these [should be understood to be] Nishâda and Dhaivata [the Hindû gamut].[924]
These seven notes of the scale are the principles of sound. The qualities of every Element, as of every sense, are septenary, and to judge and dogmatize on them from their manifestation on the material or objective plane—likewise sevenfold in itself—is quite arbitrary. For it is only by the Self emancipating itself from these seven causes of illusion, that we can acquire the knowledge (Secret Wisdom) of the qualities of objects of sense on their dual plane of manifestation, the visible and the invisible. Thus it is said:
Hear me ... state this wonderful mystery.... Hear also the assignment of causes exhaustively. The nose, and the tongue, and the eye, and the skin, and the ear as the fifth [organ of sense] mind and understanding,[925] these seven [senses] should be understood to be the causes of (the knowledge of) qualities. Smell, and taste, and colour, sound, and touch as the fifth, the object of the mental operation, [pg 584]and the object of the understanding [the highest spiritual sense or perception], these seven are causes of action. He who smells, he who eats, he who sees, he who speaks, and he who hears as the fifth, he who thinks, and he who understands, these seven should be understood to be the causes of the agents. These [the agents] being possessed of qualities (sattva, rajas, tamas), enjoy their own qualities, agreeable and disagreeable.[926]