If one carefully searches through the exoteric and grossly anthropomorphic allegories of popular religions, even in these the doctrine embodied in the Circle of “Pass Not,” guarded by the Lipika, may be dimly perceived. Thus one finds it even in the teachings of the Vedântin sect of the Visishthadvaita, the most tenaciously anthropomorphic in all India. For we read of the released soul that, after reaching Moksha—a state of bliss meaning “release from Bandha,” or bondage—bliss is enjoyed by it in a place called Paramapada, which place is not material, but made of Suddasattva, the essence, of which the body of Îshvara—the “Lord”—is formed. There, Muktas or Jîvâtmâs (Monads) who have attained Moksha, are never again subject to the qualities of either matter or Karma. “But if they choose, for the [pg 157]sake of doing good to the world, they may incarnate on earth.”[238] The way to Paramapada, or the immaterial worlds, from this world, is called Devayâna. When a person has attained Moksha and the body dies:
The Jîva (Soul) goes with Sûkshma Sharira[239] from the heart of the body to the Brahmarandra in the crown of the head, traversing Sushumna, a nerve connecting the heart with the Brahmarandra. The Jiva breaks through the Brahmarandra and goes to the region of the Sun (Sûryamandala) through the solar rays. Then it goes, through a dark spot in the Sun, to Paramapada.... The Jîva is directed on its way ... by the Supreme Wisdom acquired by Yoga.[240] The Jîva thus proceeds to Paramapada by the aid of Athivâhikas (bearers in transit), known by the names of Archi Ahas ... Âditya, ... Prajâpati, etc. The Archis, etc., here mentioned, are certain pure Souls, etc., etc.[241]
No Spirits except the “Recorders” (Lipika) have ever crossed the forbidden line of this Ring, nor will any do so until the day of the next Pralaya, for it is the boundary that separates the Finite—however infinite in man's sight—from the truly Infinite. The Spirits referred to, therefore, as those who “ascend and descend,” are the “Hosts” of what are loosely called “Celestial Beings.” But they are, in fact, nothing of the kind. They are Entities of higher worlds in the Hierarchy of Being, so immeasurably high that, to us, they must appear as Gods, and collectively—God. But so must we, mortal men, appear to the ant, which reasons on the scale of its special capacities. The ant may also, for all we know, see the avenging finger of a Personal God in the hand of the urchin who, under the impulse of mischief, destroys, in one moment, its ant-hill, the labour of many weeks—long years in the chronology of insects. The ant, feeling it acutely, may also, like man, attribute the undeserved calamity to a combination of providence and sin, and see in it the result of the sin of its first parent. Who knows, and who can affirm or deny? The refusal to admit, in the whole Solar System, of any other reasonable and intellectual beings than ourselves on the human plane, is the greatest conceit [pg 158] of our age. All that Science has a right to affirm, is that there are no invisible Intelligences living under the same conditions as we do. It cannot deny point-blank the possibility of there being worlds within worlds, under conditions totally different to those that constitute the nature of our world; nor can it deny that there may be a certain limited communication between some of these worlds and our own. The greatest philosopher of European birth, Emmanuel Kant, assures us that such a communication is in no way improbable.
I confess I am much disposed to assert the existence of immaterial natures in the world, and to place my own soul in the class of these beings. It will hereafter, I know not where, or when, yet be proved that the human soul stands even in this life in indissoluble connection with all immaterial natures in the spirit-world, that it reciprocally acts upon these and receives impressions from them.[242]
To the highest of these worlds, we are taught, belong the seven Orders of the purely divine Spirits; to the six lower ones belong Hierarchies that can occasionally be seen and heard by men, and that do communicate with their progeny of the Earth; a progeny which is indissolubly linked with them, each Principle in man having its direct source in the nature of these great Beings, who furnish us respectively with the invisible elements in us. Physical Science is welcome to speculate upon the physiological mechanism of living beings, and to continue her fruitless efforts in trying to resolve our feelings, our sensations, mental and spiritual, into functions of their organic vehicles. Nevertheless, all that will ever be accomplished in this direction has already been done, and Science can go no farther. She is before a dead wall, on the face of which she traces, as she imagines, great physiological and psychic discoveries, every one of which will be shown later on to be no better than cobwebs, spun by her scientific fancies and illusions. The tissues of our objective framework alone are subservient to the analysis and researches of Physiological Science. The six higher Principles in them will evade for ever the hand that is guided by an animus, which purposely ignores and rejects the Occult Sciences. All that modern physiological research in connection with psychological problems has, and owing to the nature of things could have shown, is that every thought, sensation, and emotion is attended with a re-marshalling of the molecules of certain nerves. The inference drawn by scientists of the type of Büchner, Vogt, and others, that [pg 159] thought is molecular motion, necessitates the fact of our subjective consciousness being made a complete abstraction.
The Great Day “Be With Us,” then, is an expression, the only merit of which lies in its literal translation. Its significance is not so easily revealed to a public, unacquainted with the mystic tenets of Occultism, or rather of Esoteric Wisdom or “Budhism.” It is an expression peculiar to the latter, and as hazy for the profane as that of the Egyptians, who called the same the Day “Come To Us,” which is identical with the former—though the word “be,” in this sense, might be still better replaced with either of the two terms “remain” or “rest with us,” as it refers to that long period of Rest which is called Paranirvâna. “Le Jour de ‘Viens à nous’! C'est le jour où Osiris a dit au Soleil: Viens! Je le vois rencontrant le Soleil dans l'Amenti.”[243] The Sun here stands for the Logos (or Christos, or Horus), as the central Essence synthetically, and as a diffused essence of radiated Entities, different in substance, but not in essence. As expressed by the Bhagavadgîtâ lecturer, “it must not be supposed that the Logos is but a single centre of energy which is manifested by Parabrahman. There are innumerable others. Their number is almost infinite, in the bosom of Parabrahman.” Hence the expressions, “The Day of Come to Us” and “The Day of Be With Us,” etc. Just as the Square is the Symbol of the Four sacred Forces or Powers—Tetraktys—so the Circle shows the boundary within the Infinity that no man, even in spirit, or Deva or Dhyân Chohan can cross. The Spirits of those who “descend and ascend,” during the course of cyclic evolution, shall cross the “iron-bound world,” only on the day of their approach to the threshold of Paranirvâna. If they reach it, they will rest in the bosom of Parabrahman, or the “Unknown Darkness,” which shall then become for all of them Light, during the whole period of Mahâpralaya, the “Great Night,” namely, 311,040,000,000,000 years of absorption in Brahman. The Day of “Be With Us” is this period of Rest, or Paranirvâna. It corresponds to the Day of the Last Judgment of the Christians, which has been sorely materialized in their religion.[244]
As in the exoteric interpretation of the Egyptian rites, the soul of every defunct person—from the Hierophant down to the sacred bull Apis—became an Osiris, was Osirified (the Secret Doctrine, however, [pg 160] teaching that the real Osirification was the lot of every Monad only after 3,000 cycles of Existences); so in the present case. The Monad, born of the nature and the very Essence of the “Seven” (its highest Principle becoming immediately enshrined in the Seventh Cosmic Element), has to perform its septenary gyration throughout the Cycle of Being and Forms, from the highest to the lowest; and then again from man to God. At the threshold of Paranirvâna, it reässumes its primeval Essence and becomes the Absolute once more.
Stanza VI.
1. By the power of the Mother of Mercy and Knowledge (a), Kwan-Yin—the Triple of Kwan-Shai-Yin, residing in Kwan-Yin-Tien (b)—Fohat, the Breath of their Progeny, the Son of the Sons, having called forth, from the lower Abyss,[245]the Illusive Form of Sien-Tchan[246] and the Seven Elements.