The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2 of 4 The Synthesis of...

Each of these descriptions, allegorical and even perverted in their later form, is, nevertheless, an echo of the Secret Doctrine teaching. They all refer to the pre-human evolution of the “Water-men terrible and bad” by unaided Nature through millions of years, as previously described. But we deny point-blank the assertion that “these were never real races,” and point to the Archaic Stanzas for our answer. It is easy to infer and to say that our “instructors have mistaken these shadows of the Past, for things human and spiritual”; but that “they are neither, and never were either,” it is less easy to prove. The assertion must ever remain on a par with the Darwinian claim that man and the ape had a common pithecoid ancestor. What the lecturer takes for a “mode of expression” and nothing more, in the Egyptian Ritual, we take as having quite another and an important meaning. Here is one instance. Says the Ritual, the Book of the Dead:

It gives first of all a corroboration of the teaching that, while the human Monad has passed on Globe A and others, in the First Round, through all the three kingdoms—the mineral, the vegetable, and the animal—in this our Fourth Round, every mammal has sprung from Man, if the semi-ethereal, many-shaped creature with the human Monad in it, of the first two Races, can be regarded as Man. But it must be so called; for, in the Esoteric language, it is not the form of flesh, blood, and bones, now referred to as man, which is in any way the Man, but the inner divine Monad with its manifold principles or aspects.

The lecture referred to, however, much as it opposes Esoteric Buddhism and its teachings, is an eloquent answer to those who have tried to represent the whole as a new-fangled doctrine. And there are many such, in Europe, America, and even India. Yet, between the Esotericism of the old Arhats, and that which has now survived in India among the few Brâhmans who have seriously studied their Secret Philosophy, the difference does not appear so very great. It seems centred in, and limited to, the question of the order of the evolution of cosmic and other principles, more than anything else. At all events it is no greater divergence than the everlasting question of the filioque dogma, which since the eighth century has separated the Roman Catholic from the older Greek Eastern Church. Yet, whatever the differences in the forms in which the septenary dogma is presented, the substance is there, and its presence and importance in the Brâhmanical system may be judged by what one of India's learned meta-physicians and Vedântic scholars says of it:

The real esoteric seven-fold classification is one of the most important, if not the most important classification, which has received its arrangement from the mysterious constitution of this eternal type. I may also mention in this connection that the four-fold classification claims the same origin. The light of life, as it were, seems to be refracted by the treble-faced prism of Prakriti, having the three Gunams for its three faces, and divided into seven rays, which develop in course of time the seven principles of this classification. The progress of development presents some points of similarity to the gradual development of the rays of the spectrum. While the four-fold classification is amply sufficient for all practical purposes, this real seven-fold classification is of great theoretical and scientific importance. It will be necessary to adopt it to explain certain classes of phenomena noticed by occultists; and it is perhaps better fitted to be the basis of a perfect system of psychology. It is not the peculiar property of the “Trans-Himâlayan Esoteric Doctrine.”In fact, it has a closer connection with the Brâhmanical[pg 673]Logos than with the Buddhist Logos. In order to make my meaning clear I may point out here that the Logos has seven forms. In other words, there are seven kinds of Logoi in the Cosmos. Each of these has became the central figure of one of the seven main branches of the ancient Wisdom-Religion. This classification is not the seven-fold classification we have adopted. I make this assertion without the slightest fear of contradiction.

The real classification has all the requisites of a scientific classification. It has seven distinct principles, which correspond with seven distinct states of Prajñâ or consciousness. It bridges the gulf between the objective and subjective, and indicates the mysterious circuit through which ideation passes. The seven principles are allied to seven states of matter, and to seven forms of force. These principles are harmoniously arranged between two poles, which define the limits ofhumanconsciousness.1542

The above is perfectly correct, save, perhaps, on one point. The “seven-fold classification” in the Esoteric System has never (to the writer's knowledge) been claimed by any one belonging to it, as “the peculiar property of the ‘Trans-Himâlayan Esoteric Doctrine’ ”; but only as having survived in that old School alone. It is no more the property of the Trans-, than it is of the Cis-Himâlayan Esoteric Doctrine, but is simply the common inheritance of all such Schools, left to the Sages of the Fifth Root-Race by the great Siddhas1543 of the Fourth. Let us remember that the Atlanteans became the terrible sorcerers, now celebrated in so many of the oldest MSS. of India, only toward their “Fall,” whereby the submersion of their Continent was brought on. What is claimed is simply that the Wisdom imparted by the “Divine Ones”—born through the Kriyâshaktic powers of the Third Race before its Fall and separation into sexes—to the Adepts of the early Fourth Race, has remained in all its pristine purity in a certain Brotherhood. The said School or Fraternity being closely connected with a certain island of an inland sea—believed in by both Hindûs and Buddhists, but called “mythical” by Geographers and Orientalists—the less one talks of it, the wiser he will be. Nor can one accept the said “seven-fold classification” as having “a closer connection with the Brâhmanical Logos than with the Buddhist Logos,” since both are identical, whether the one Logos is called Îshvara or Avalokiteshvara, Brahmâ or Padmapâni.

These are, however, [pg 674] very small differences, more fanciful than real, in fact. Brâhmanism and Buddhism, both viewed from their orthodox aspects, are as inimical and as irreconcilable as water and oil. Each of these great bodies, however, has a vulnerable place in its constitution. While even in their esoteric interpretation both can agree but to disagree, once that their respective vulnerable points are confronted, every disagreement must fall, for the two will find themselves on common ground. The “Achilles' heel” of orthodox Brâhmanism is the Advaita philosophy, whose followers are called by the pious “Buddhists in disguise”; as that of orthodox Buddhism is Northern Mysticism, as represented by the disciples of the philosophies of the Yogâchârya School of Âryâsangha and the Mahâyâna, who are twitted in their turn by their co-religionists as “Vedântins in disguise.” The Esoteric Philosophy of both these can be but one if carefully analyzed and compared, as Gautama Buddha and Shankarâchârya are most closely connected, if one believes tradition and certain Esoteric Teachings. Thus every difference between the two will be found one of form rather than of substance.

In that forest are seven large trees [the senses, mind and understanding, or Manas and Buddhi, included], seven fruits, and seven guests; seven hermitages, seven (forms of) concentration, and seven (forms of) initiation. This is the description of the forest. That forest is filled with trees producing splendid flowers and fruits of five colours.

Are called trees, as being producers of the fruits ... pleasures and pains ...; the guests are the powers of each sense personified—they receive the fruits above described; the hermitages are the trees ... in which the guests take shelter; the seven forms of concentration are the exclusion from the self of the[pg 675]seven functions of the seven senses, etc., already referred to; the seven forms of initiation refer to the initiation into the higher life, by repudiating as not one's own the actions of each member out of the group of seven.1546

That forest is filled with trees producing flowers and fruits of four colours. That forest is filled with trees producing flowers and fruits of three colours, and mixed. That forest is filled with trees producing flowers and fruits of two colours, and of beautiful colours. That forest is filled with trees producing flowers and fruits of one colour, and fragrant. That forest is filled [instead of with seven] with two large trees producing numerous flowers and fruits of undistinguished colours [mind and understanding—the two higher senses, or theosophically, Manas and Buddhi]. There is one fire [the Self] here, connected with the Brahman,1547and having a good mind [ortrue knowledge, according to Arjuna Mishra]. And there is fuel here, (namely) the five senses [or human passions]. The seven (forms of) emancipation from them are the seven (forms of) initiation. The qualities are the fruits.... There ... the great sages receive hospitality. And when they have been worshipped and have disappeared, another forest shines forth, in whichintelligenceis the tree, and emancipation the fruit, and which possesses shade (in the form of) tranquillity, which depends on knowledge, which has contentment for its water, and which has the Kshetrajña1548within for the sun.

Now, all the above is very plain, and no Theosophist, even among the least learned, can fail to understand the allegory. And yet, we see great Orientalists making a perfect mess of it in their explanations. The “great sages” who “receive hospitality” are explained as meaning the senses, “which, having worked as unconnected with the self are finally absorbed into it.” But one fails to understand, if the senses are “unconnected” with the “Higher Self,” in what manner they can be “absorbed into it.” One would think, on the contrary, that it is just because the personal senses gravitate and strive to be connected with the impersonal Self, that the latter, which is Fire, burns the lower five and purifies thereby the higher two, “mind and understanding,” or the higher aspects of Manas1549 and Buddhi. This is quite apparent from the [pg 676] text. The “great sages” disappear after having “been worshipped.” Worshipped by whom if they (the presumed senses) are “unconnected with the self”? By Mind, of course; by Manas (in this case merged in the sixth sense) which is not, and cannot be, the Brahman, the Self, or Kshetrajña—the Soul's Spiritual Sun. Into the latter, in time, Manas itself must be absorbed.

It has worshipped “great sages” and given hospitality to terrestrial wisdom; but once that “another forest shone forth” upon it, it is Intelligence (Buddhi, the seventh sense, but sixth principle) which is transformed into the Tree—that Tree whose fruit is emancipation—which finally destroys the very roots of the Ashvattha tree, the symbol of life and of its illusive joys and pleasures. And therefore, those who attain to that state of emancipation have, in the words of the above-cited Sage, “no fear afterwards.” In this state “the end cannot be perceived because it extends on all sides.”

“There always dwell seven females there,” he goes on to say, carrying out the imagery. These females—who, according to Arjuna Mishra, are the Mahat, Ahamkâra and five Tanmâtras—have always their faces turned downwards, as they are obstacles in the way of spiritual ascension.

In that same [Brahman, the Self] the seven perfect sages, together with their chiefs, ... abide, and again emerge from the same. Glory, brilliance and greatness, enlightenment, victory, perfection and power—these seven rays follow after this same sun [Kshetrajña, the Higher Self].... Those whose wishes are reduced [the unselfish]; ... whose sins [passions] are burnt up by penance, merging the self in the self,1550devote themselves to Brahman. Those people who understand the forest of knowledge [Brahman, or the Self], praise tranquillity. And aspiring to that forest, they are [re-] born so as not to lose courage. Such, indeed, is this holy forest.... And understanding it, they [the sages] act (accordingly), being directed by the Kshetrajña.

No translator among the Western Orientalists has yet perceived in the foregoing allegory anything higher than mysteries connected with sacrificial ritualism, penance, or ascetic ceremonies, and Hatha Yoga. But he who understands symbolical imagery, and hears the voice of Self within Self, will see in this something far higher than mere ritualism, however often he may err in minor details of the Philosophy.

And here we must be allowed a last remark. No true Theosophist, from the most ignorant up to the most learned, ought to claim infallibility for anything he may say or write upon Occult matters. The [pg 677] chief point is to admit that, in many a way, in the classification of either cosmic or human principles, in addition to mistakes in the order of evolution, and especially on metaphysical questions, those of us who pretend to teach others more ignorant than ourselves—are all liable to err. Thus mistakes have been made in Isis Unveiled, in Esoteric Buddhism, in Man, in Magic: White and Black, etc., and more than one mistake is likely to be found in the present work. This cannot be helped. For a large or even a small work on such abstruse subjects to be entirely exempt from error and blunder, it would have to be written from its first to its last page by a great Adept, if not by an Avatâra. Then only should we say, “This is verily a work without sin or blemish in it!” But so long as the artist is imperfect, how can his work be perfect? “Endless is the search for truth!” Let us love it and aspire to it for its own sake, and not for the glory or benefit a minute portion of its revelation may confer on us. For who of us can presume to have the whole truth at his fingers' ends, even upon one minor teaching of Occultism?

Our chief point in the present subject, however, has been to show that the septenary doctrine, or division of the constitution of man, was a very ancient one, and was not invented by us. This has been successfully done, for we are supported in this, consciously and unconsciously, by a number of ancient, mediæval, and modern writers. What the former said, was well said; what the latter repeated, has generally been distorted. An instance: Read the Pythagorean Fragments, and study the septenary man as given by the Rev. G. Oliver, the learned Mason, in his Pythagorean Triangle, who speaks as follows:

As to the charge that our School has not adopted the sevenfold classification of the Brâhmans, but has confused it, this is quite unjust. To begin with, the “School” is one thing, its exponents (to Europeans) quite another. The latter have first to learn the A B C of practical Eastern Occultism, before they can be made to understand correctly the tremendously abstruse classification based on the seven distinct states of Prajñâ or Consciousness; and, above all, to realize thoroughly what Prajñâ is, in Eastern metaphysics. To give a Western student that classification is to try to make him suppose that he can account for the origin of consciousness, by accounting for the process by which a certain knowledge, though only one of the states of that consciousness, came to him; in other words, it is to make him account for something he knows on this plane, by something he knows nothing about on the other planes; i.e., to lead him from the spiritual and the psychological, direct to the ontological. This is why the primary, old classification was adopted by the Theosophists—of which classifications in truth there are many.

To busy oneself, after such a tremendous number of independent witnesses and proofs have been brought before the public, with an additional enumeration from theological sources, would be quite useless. The seven capital sins and seven virtues of the Christian scheme are far less philosophical than even the seven liberal and the seven accursed sciences—or the seven arts of enchantment of the Gnostics. For one of the latter is now before the public, pregnant with danger in the present as for the future. The modern name for it is Hypnotism; used as it is by scientific and ignorant Materialists, in the general ignorance of the seven principles, it will soon become Satanism in the full acceptation of the term.