The lower you go in the Talas the more intellectual you become and the less spiritual. You may be a morally good man but not spiritual. Intellect may remain very closely related to Kâma. A man may be in a Loka and visit one and all the Talas, his condition depending on the Loka to which he belongs. Thus a man in Bhûrloka only may pass into the Talas and go to the devil. If he dwells in Bhuvarloka he cannot become as bad. If he has reached the Satya state he can go into any Tala without danger; buoyed up by his own purity he can never be engulfed. The Talas are brain intellect states, while the Lokas—or more accurately the three higher—are spiritual.
Manas absorbs the light of Buddhi. Buddhi is Arûpa, and can absorb nothing. When the Ego takes all the light of Buddhi, it takes that of Âtmâ, Buddhi being the vehicle, and thus the three become one. This done, the full Adept is one spiritually, but has a body. The fourfold Path is finished and he is one. The Masters' bodies are, as far as they are concerned, illusionary, and hence do not grow old, become wrinkled, etc.
The student, who is not naturally psychic, should fix the fourfold consciousness in a higher plane and nail it there. Let him make a bundle of the four lower and pin them to a higher state. He should centre on this higher, trying not to permit the body and intellect to draw him down and carry him away. Play ducks and drakes with the body, eating, drinking and sleeping, but living always on the ideal.
Mother-Love.
Mother-love is an instinct, the same in the human being and in the animal, and often stronger in the latter. The continuance of this love in human beings is due to association, to blood magnetism and to psychic affinity. Families are sometimes formed of those who have lived together before, but often not. The causes at work are very complex and have to be balanced. Sometimes when a child with very bad Karma is to be born, parents of a callous type are chosen, or they may die before the Karmic results appear. Or the suffering through the child may be their own Karma. Mother-love as an instinct is between Rasâtala and Talâtala.
The Lipikas keep man's Karmic record, and impress it on the Astral Light.
Vacillating people pass from one state of consciousness to another.
Thought arises before desire. The thought acts on the brain, the brain on the organ, and then desire awakes. It is not the outer stimulus that arouses the organ. Thought therefore must be slain ere desire can be extinguished. The student must guard his thoughts. Five minutes' thought may undo the work of five years; and though the five years' work will be run through more rapidly the second time, yet time is lost.
Consciousness.
H. P. B. began by challenging the views of consciousness in the West, commenting on the lack of definition in the leading Philosophies. No distinction was made between consciousness and self-consciousness, and yet in this lay the difference between man and the animal. The animal was conscious only, not self-conscious; the animal does not know the Ego as Subject, as does man. There is therefore an enormous difference between the consciousness of the bird, the insect, the beast, and that of man.