The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 3 of 4 The Synthesis of...

In Nature, then, we find seven Forces, or seven Centres of Force, and everything seems to respond to that number, as for instance, the septenary scale in music, or Sounds, and the septenary spectrum in Colours. I have not exhausted its nomenclature and proofs in the earlier volumes, yet enough is given to show every thinker that the facts adduced are no coincidences, but very weighty testimony.

There are several reasons why only five Tattvas are given in the Hindu systems. One of these I have already mentioned; another is that owing to our having reached only the Fifth Race, and being (so far as Science is able to ascertain) endowed with only five senses, the two remaining senses that are still latent in man can have their existence proven only on phenomenal evidence which to the Materialist is no evidence at all. The five physical senses are made to correspond with the five lower Tattvas, the two yet undeveloped senses in man; and the two forces, or Tattvas, forgotten by Brâhmans and still unrecognized by Science, being so subjective and the highest of them so sacred, that they can only be recognized by, and known through, the highest Occult Sciences. It is easy to see that these two Tattvas and the two senses (the sixth and the seventh) correspond to the two highest human principles, Buddhi and the Auric Envelope, impregnated with the light of Âtmâ. Unless we open in ourselves, by Occult training, the sixth and seventh senses, we can never comprehend correctly their corresponding types. Thus the statement in Nature's Finer Forces that, in the Tâttvic scale, the highest Tattva of all is Âkâsha828 (followed by [only] four, each of which becomes grosser than its predecessor), if made from the Esoteric standpoint, is erroneous. For once Âkâsha, an almost homogeneous and certainly universal Principle, is translated Ether, then Âkâsha is dwarfed and limited to our visible Universe, for assuredly it is not the Ether of Space.

Ether, whatever Modern Science makes of it, is differentiated Substance; Âkâsha, having no attributes save one—Sound, of which it is the substratum—is no substance even exoterically and in the minds of some Orientalists,829 but rather Chaos, or the Great Spatial Void.830

Esoterically, Âkâsha alone is Divine Space, and becomes Ether only on the lowest and last plane, or our visible Universe and Earth. In this case the blind is in the word “attribute,” which is said to be Sound. But Sound is no attribute of Âkâsha, but its primary correlation, its primordial manifestation, the Logos, or Divine Ideation made Word, and that “Word” made “Flesh.” Sound may be considered an “attribute” of Âkâsha only on the condition of anthropomorphizing the latter. It is not a characteristic of it, though it is certainly as innate in it as the idea “I am I” is innate in our thoughts.

Occultism teaches that Âkâsha contains and includes the seven Centres of Force, therefore the six Tattvas, of which it is the seventh, or rather their synthesis. But if Âkâsha be taken, as we believe it is in this case, to represent only the exoteric idea, then the author is right; because, seeing that Âkâsha is universally omnipresent, following the Paurânic limitation, for the better comprehension of our finite intellects, he places its commencement only beyond the four planes of our Earth Chain,831 the two higher Tattvas being as concealed to the average mortal as the sixth and seventh senses are to the materialistic mind.

Therefore, while Sanskrit and Hindu Philosophy generally speak of five Tattvas only, Occultists name seven, thus making them correspond with every septenary in Nature. The Tattvas stand in the same order as the seven macro- and micro-cosmic Forces: and as taught in Esotericism, are as follows:

(1) Âdi Tattva, the primordial universal Force, issuing at the beginning of manifestation, or of the “creative” period, from the eternal immutable Sat, the substratum of All. It corresponds with the Auric Envelope or Brahmâ's Egg, which surrounds every globe, as well as every man, animal and thing. It is the vehicle containing potentially everything—Spirit and Substance, Force and Matter. Âdi Tattva, in Esoteric Cosmogony, is the Force which we refer to as proceeding from the First or Unmanifested Logos.

(2) Anupâdaka Tattva,832 the first differentiation on the plane of being—the first being an ideal one—or that which is born by transformation from something higher than itself. With the Occultists, this Force proceeds from the Second Logos.

(3) Âkâsha Tattva, this is the point from which all exoteric Philosophies and Religions start. Âkâsha Tattva is explained in them as Etheric Force, Ether. Hence Jupiter, the “highest” God, was named after Pater Æther; Indra, once the highest God in India, is the etheric or heavenly expanse, and so with Uranus, etc. The Christian biblical God, also, is spoken of as the Holy Ghost, Pneuma, rarefied wind or air. This the Occultists call the Force of the Third Logos, the Creative Force in the already Manifested Universe.

Now, what I have to say here is addressed especially to those members who are anxious to develop powers by “sitting for Yoga.” You have seen, from what has been already said, that in the development of Râja Yoga, no extant works made public are of the least good; they can at best give inklings of Hatha Yoga, something that may develop mediumship at best, and in the worst case—consumption. If those who practice “meditation,” and try to learn “the Science of Breath,” will read attentively Nature's Finer Forces, they will find that it is by utilizing the five Tattvas only that this dangerous science is acquired. For in the exoteric Yoga Philosophy, and the Hatha Yoga practice, Âkâsha Tattva is placed in the head (or physical brain) of man; Tejas Tattva in the shoulders; Vâyu Tattva in the navel (the seat of all the phallic Gods, “creators” of the universe and man); Âpas Tattva in the knees; and Prithivî Tattva in the feet. Hence the two higher Tattvas and their correspondences are ignored and excluded; and, as these are the chief factors in Râja Yoga, no spiritual or intellectual phenomena of a high nature can take place. The best results obtainable will be physical phenomena and no more. As the “Five Breaths,” or rather the five states of the human breath, in Hatha Yoga correspond to the above terrestrial planes and colours, what spiritual results can be obtained? On the contrary, they are the very reverse of the plane of Spirit, or the higher macrocosmic plane, reflected [pg 500] as they are upside down, in the Astral Light.

First of all, remember that the Septenary of visible and also invisible Nature is said in Occultism to consist of the three (and four) Fires, which grow into the forty-nine Fires. This shows that as the Macrocosm is divided into seven great planes of various differentiations of Substance—from the spiritual or subjective, to the fully objective or material, from Akâsha down to the sin-laden atmosphere of our earth—so, in its turn, each of these great planes has three aspects, based on four Principles, as already shown above. This seems to be quite natural, as even modern Science has her three states of matter and what are generally called the “critical” or intermediate states between the solid, the fluidic, and the gaseous.

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.

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

This brilliant “sand” is the concretion of the gland itself, so say the Physiologists. Perhaps not, we answer. The Pineal Gland is that which the Eastern Occultist calls Devâksha, the “Divine Eye.” To this day, it is the chief organ of spirituality in the human brain, the seat of genius, the magical Sesame uttered by the purified will of the Mystic, which opens all the avenues of truth for him who knows how to use it. The Esoteric Science teaches that Manas, the Mind Ego, does not accomplish its full union with the child before he is six or seven years of age, before which period, even according to the canon of the Church and Law, no child is deemed responsible.835 Manas becomes a prisoner, one with the body, only at that age. Now a strange thing was observed in several thousand cases by the famous German anatomist, Wengel. With a few extremely rare exceptions, this “sand,” or golden-coloured concretion, is found only in subjects after the completion of their seventh year. In the case of fools these calculi are very few; in congenital idiots they are completely absent. Morgagni,836 Grading,837 and Gum838 were wise men in their generation, and are wise men to-day, since they are the only Physiologists, so far, [pg 507] who connect the calculi with mind. For, sum up the facts, that they are absent in young children, in very old people, and in idiots, and the unavoidable conclusion will be that they must be connected with mind.

Now since every mineral, vegetable and other atom is only a concretion of crystallized Spirit, or Âkâsha, the Universal Soul, why, asks Occultism, should the fact that these concretions of the Pineal Gland, are, upon analysis, found to be composed of animal matter, phosphate of lime and carbonate, serve as an objection to the statement that they are the result of the work of mental electricity upon surrounding matter?

Our seven Chakras are all situated in the head, and it is these Master Chakras which govern and rule the seven (for there are seven) principal plexuses in the body, besides the forty-two minor ones to which Physiology refuses that name. The fact that no microscope can detect such centres on the objective plane goes for nothing; no microscope has ever yet detected, nor ever will, the difference between the motor and sensory nerve-tubes, the conductors of all our bodily and psychic sensations; and yet logic alone would show that such difference exists. And if the term plexus, in this application, does not represent to the Western mind the idea conveyed by the term of the Anatomist, then call them Chakras or Padmas, or the Wheels, the Lotus Heart and Petals. Remember that Physiology, imperfect as it is, shows septenary groups all over the exterior and interior of the body; the seven head orifices, the seven “organs” at the base of the brain, the seven plexuses, the pharyngeal, laryngeal, cavernous, cardiac, epigastric, prostatic, and sacral, etc.

When the time comes, advanced students will be given the minute details about the Master Chakras and taught the use of them; till then, less difficult subjects have to be learned. If asked whether the seven plexuses, or Tâttvic centres of action, are the centres where the seven Rays of the Logos vibrate, I answer in the affirmative, simply remarking that the rays of the Logos vibrate in every atom, for the matter of that.

In these volumes it is almost revealed that the “Sons of Fohat” are the personified Forces known in a general way as Motion, Sound, Heat, Light, Cohesion, Electricity or Electric Fluid, and Nerve-Force or Magnetism. This truth, however, cannot teach the student to attune and moderate the Kundalinî of the cosmic plane with the vital Kundalinî, [pg 508] the Electric Fluid with the Nerve-Force, and unless he does so, he is sure to kill himself; for the one travels at the rate of about 90 feet, and the other at the rate of 115,000 leagues a second. The seven Shaktis respectively called Para Shakti, Jñâna Shakti, etc., are synonymous with the “Sons of Fohat,” for they are their female aspects. At the present stage, however, as their names would only be confusing to the Western student, it is better to remember the English equivalents as translated above. As each Force is septenary, their sum is, of course, forty-nine.

The question now mooted in Science, whether a sound is capable of calling forth impressions of light and colour in addition to its natural sound impressions, has been answered by Occult Science ages ago. Every impulse or vibration of a physical object producing a certain vibration of the air, that is, causing the collision of physical particles, the sound of which is capable of affecting the ear, produces at the same time a corresponding flash of light, which will assume some particular colour. For, in the realm of hidden Forces, an audible sound is but a subjective colour; and a perceptible colour, but an inaudible sound; both proceed from the same potential substance, which Physicists used to call ether, and now refer to under various other names; but which we call plastic, through invisible Space. This may appear a paradoxical hypothesis, but facts are there to prove it. Complete deafness, for instance, does not preclude the possibility of discerning sounds; medical science has several cases on record which prove that these sounds are received by, and conveyed to, the patient's organ of sight, through the mind, under the form of chromatic impressions. The very fact that the intermediate tones of the chromatic musical scale were formerly written in colours shows an unconscious reminiscence of the ancient Occult teaching that colour and sound are two out of the seven correlative aspects, on our plane, of one and the same thing, viz., Nature's first differentiated Substance.

Here is an example of the relation of colour to vibration well worthy of the attention of Occultists. Not only Adepts and advanced Chelâs, but also the lower order of Psychics, such as clairvoyants and psychometrists, can perceive a psychic Aura of various colours around every individual, corresponding to the temperament of the person within it. In other words, the mysterious records within the Auric Egg are not the heirloom of trained Adepts alone, but sometimes also of natural Psychics. Every human passion, every thought and quality, is indicated [pg 509] in this Aura by corresponding colours and shades of colour, and certain of these are sensed and felt rather than perceived. The best of such Psychics, as shown by Galton, can also perceive colours produced by the vibrations of musical instruments, every note suggesting a different colour. As a string vibrates and gives forth an audible note, so the nerves of the human body vibrate and thrill in correspondence with various emotions under the general impulse of the circulating vitality of Prâna, thus producing undulations in the psychic Aura of the person which result in chromatic effects.

The human nervous system as a whole, then, may be regarded as an Æolian Harp, responding to the impact of the vital force, which is no abstraction, but a dynamic reality, and manifests the subtlest shades of the individual character in colour phenomena. If these nerve vibrations are made intense enough and brought into vibratory relation with an astral element, the result is—sound. How, then, can anyone doubt the relation between the microcosmic and macrocosmic forces?

And now that I have shown that the Tântric works as explained by Râma Prâsad, and other Yoga treatises of the same character which have appeared from time to time in Theosophical journals—for note well that those of true Râja Yoga are never published—tend to Black Magic and are most dangerous to take for guides in self-training, I hope that students will be on their guard.