Now, the Astral Light is not a universally diffused stuff, but pertains only to our earth and all other bodies of the system on the same plane of matter with it. Our Astral Light is, so to speak, the Linga Sharîra of our earth; only instead of being its primordial prototype, as in the case of our Chhâyâ, or Double, it is the reverse. Human and animal bodies grow and develop on the model of their antetypal Doubles; whereas the Astral Light is born from the terrene emanations, grows and develops after its prototypal parent, and in its treacherous waves everything from the upper planes and from the lower solid plane, the earth, both ways, is reflected reversed. Hence the confusion of its colours and sounds in the clairvoyance and clairaudience of the sensitive who trusts to its records, be that sensitive a Hatha Yogî or a medium.
Such, then, is the Occult Science on which the modern Ascetics and Yogîs of India base their Soul development and powers. They are known as the Hatha Yogîs. Now, the science of Hatha Yoga rests upon the “suppression of breath,” or Prânâyâma, to which exercise our Masters are unanimously opposed. For what is Prânâyâma? Literally translated, it means the “death of (vital) breath.” Prâna, as said, is not Jîva, the eternal fount of life immortal; nor is it connected in any way with Pranava, as some think, for Pranava is a synonym of Aum in a mystic sense. As much as has ever been taught publicly and clearly about it is to be found in Nature's Finer Forces. If such directions, however, are followed, they can only lead to Black Magic and mediumship. Several impatient Chelâs, whom we knew personally in India, went in for the practice of Hatha Yoga, notwithstanding our warnings. Of these, two developed consumption, of which one died; others became almost idiotic; another committed suicide; and one developed into a regular Tântrika, a Black Magician, but his career, fortunately for himself, was cut short by death.
The science of the Five Breaths, the moist, the fiery, the airy, etc., has a twofold significance and two applications. The Tântrikas take it literally, as relating to the regulation of the vital, lung breath, whereas the ancient Râja Yogîs understood it as referring to the mental or “will” breath, which alone leads to the highest clairvoyant powers, to the function of the Third Eye, and the acquisition of the true Râja Yoga Occult powers. The difference between the two is enormous. The former, as shown, use the five lower Tattvas; the latter begin by using the three higher alone, for mental and will development, and the rest only when they have completely mastered the three; hence, they use only one (Âkâsha Tattva) out of the Tântric five. As well said in the above stated work, “Tattvas are the modifications of Svara.” Now, the Svara is the root of all sound, the substratum of the Pythagorean music of the spheres, Svara being that which is beyond Spirit, in the modern acceptation of the word, the Spirit within Spirit, or as very properly translated, the “current of the life-wave,” the emanation of the One Life. The Great Breath spoken of in our first volume is Âtmâ, the etymology of which is “eternal motion.” Now while the ascetic Chelâ of our school, for his mental development, follows carefully the process of the evolution of the Universe, that is, proceeds from universals to particulars, the Hatha Yogî reverses the conditions and begins by sitting for the suppression [pg 503] of his (vital) breath. And if, as Hindu philosophy teaches, at the beginning of kosmic evolution, “Svara threw itself into the form of Âkâsha,” and thence successively into the forms of Vâyu (air), Agni (fire), Âpas (water), and Prithivî (solid matter),[833] then it stands to reason that we have to begin by the higher supersensuous Tattvas. The Râja Yogî does not descend on the planes of substance beyond Sûkshma (subtle matter), while the Hatha Yogî develops and uses his powers only on the material plane. Some Tântrikas locate the three Nadîs, Sushumnâ, Îdâ and Pingalâ, in the medulla oblongata, the central line of which they call Sushumnâ, and the right and left divisions, Pingalâ and Îdâ, and also in the heart, to the divisions of which they apply the same names. The Trans-Himâlayan school of the ancient Indian Râja Yogîs, with which the modern Yogîs of India have little to do, locates Sushumnâ, the chief seat of these three Nadîs, in the central tube of the spinal cord, and Îdâ and Pingalâ on its left and right sides. Sushumnâ is the Brahmadanda. It is that canal (of the spinal cord), of the use of which Physiology knows no more than it does of the spleen and the pineal gland. Îâ and Pingalâ are simply the sharps and flats of that Fa of human nature, the keynote and the middle key in the scale of the septenary harmony of the Principles, which, when struck in a proper way, awakens the sentries on either side, the spiritual Manas and the physical Kâma, and subdues the lower through the higher. But this effect has to be produced by the exercise of will-power, not through the scientific or trained suppression of the breath. Take a transverse section of the spinal region, and you will find sections across three columns, one of which columns transmits the volitional orders, and a second a life current of Jîva—not of Prâna, which animates the body of man—during what is called Samâdhi and like states.
He who has studied both systems, the Hatha and the Râja Yoga, finds an enormous difference between the two: one is purely psycho-physiological, the other purely psycho-spiritual. The Tântrists do not seem to go higher than the six visible and known plexuses, with each of which they connect the Tattvas; and the great stress they lay on the chief of these, the Mûladhâra Chakra (the sacral plexus), shows the material and selfish bent of their efforts towards the acquisition of powers. Their five Breaths and five Tattvas are chiefly concerned [pg 504] with the prostatic, epigastric, cardiac, and laryngeal plexuses. Almost ignoring the Âjñâ, they are positively ignorant of the synthesizing laryngeal plexus. But with the followers of the old school it is different. We begin with the mastery of that organ which is situated at the base of the brain, in the pharynx, and called by Western Anatomists the Pituitary Body. In the series of the objective cranial organs, corresponding to the subjective Tâttvic principles, it stands to the Third Eye (Pineal Gland) as Manas stands to Buddhi; the arousing and awakening of the Third Eye must be performed by that vascular organ, that insignificant little body, of which, once again, Physiology knows nothing at all. The one is the Energizer of Will, the other that of Clairvoyant Perception.
Those who are Physicians, Physiologists, Anatomists, etc., will understand me better than the rest in the following explanation.
Now, as to the functions of the Pineal Gland, or Conarium, and of the Pituitary Body, we find no explanations vouchsafed by the standard authorities. Indeed, on looking through the works of the greatest specialists, it is curious to observe how much confused ignorance on the human vital economy, physiological as well as psychological, is openly confessed. The following is all that can be gleaned from the authorities upon these two important organs.
(1) The Pineal Gland, or Conarium, is a rounded, oblong body, from three to four lines long, of a deep reddish grey, connected with the posterior part of the third ventricle of the brain. It is attached at its base by two thin medullary cords, which diverge forward to the Optic Thalami. Remember that the latter are found by the best Physiologists to be the organs of reception and condensation of the most sensitive and sensorial incitations from the periphery of the body (according to Occultism, from the periphery of the Auric Egg, which is our point of communication with the higher, universal planes). We are further told that the two bands of the Optic Thalami, which are inflected to meet each other, unite on the median line, where they become the two peduncles of the Pineal Gland.
(2) The Pituitary Body, or Hypophysis Cerebri, is a small and hard organ, about six lines broad, three long and three high. It is formed of an anterior bean-shaped, and of a posterior and more rounded lobe, which are uniformly united. Its component parts, we are told, are almost identical with those of the Pineal Gland; yet not the slightest connection can be traced between the two centres. To this, however, [pg 505] Occultists take exception; they know that there is a connection, and this even anatomically and physically. Dissectors, on the other hand, have to deal with corpses; and, as they themselves admit, brain-matter, of all tissues and organs, collapses and changes form the soonest—in fact, a few minutes after death. When, then, the pulsating life which expanded the mass of the brain, filled all its cavities and energized all its organs, vanishes, the cerebral mass shrinks into a sort of pasty condition, and once open passages become closed. But the contraction and even interblending of parts in this process of shrinking, and the subsequent pasty state of the brain, do not imply that there is no connection between these two organs before death. In point of fact, as Professor Owen has shown, a connection as objective as a groove and tube exists in the crania of the human fœtus and of certain fishes. When a man is in his normal condition, an Adept can see the golden Aura pulsating in both the centres, like the pulsation of the heart, which never ceases throughout life. This motion, however, under the abnormal condition of effort to develop clairvoyant faculties, becomes intensified, and the Aura takes on a stronger vibratory or swinging action. The arc of the pulsation of the Pituitary Body mounts upward, more and more, until, just as when the electric current strikes some solid object, the current finally strikes the Pineal Gland, and the dormant organ is awakened and set all glowing with the pure Âkâshic Fire. This is the psycho-physiological illustration of two organs on the physical plane, which are, respectively, the concrete symbols of the metaphysical concepts called Manas and Buddhi. The latter, in order to become conscious on this plane, needs the more differentiated fire of Manas; but once the sixth sense has awakened the seventh, the light which radiates from this seventh sense illumines the fields of infinitude. For a brief space of time man becomes omniscient; the Past and the Future, Space and Time, disappear and become for him the Present. If an Adept, he will store the knowledge he thus gains in his physical memory, and nothing, save the crime of indulging in Black Magic, can obliterate the remembrance of it. If only a Chelâ, portions alone of the whole truth will impress themselves on his memory, and he will have to repeat the process for years, never allowing one speck of impurity to stain him mentally or physically, before he becomes a fully initiated Adept.
It may seem strange, almost incomprehensible, that the chief success of Gupta Vidyâ, or Occult Knowledge, should depend upon such flashes [pg 506] of clairvoyance, and that the latter should depend in man on two such insignificant excrescences in his cranial cavity, “two horny warts covered with grey sand (acervulus cerebri),” as expressed by Bichat in his Anatomie Descriptive; yet so it is. But this sand is not to be despised; nay, in truth, it is only this landmark of the internal, independent activity of the Conarium that prevents Physiologists from classifying it with the absolutely useless atrophied organs, the relics of a previous and now utterly changed anatomy of man during some period of his unknown evolution. This “sand” is very mysterious, and baffles the inquiry of every Materialist. In the cavity on the anterior surface of this gland, in young persons, and in its substance, in people of advanced years, is found
A yellowish substance, semi-transparent, brilliant and hard, the diameter of which does not exceed half a line.[834]