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

Bhûrloka is the waking state in which we normally live; it is the state in which animals also are, when they sense food, a danger, etc. To be in Svarloka is to be completely abstracted on this plane, leaving only instinct to work, so that on the material plane you would behave as an animal. Yogîs are known who have become crystallized in this state, and then they must be nourished by others. A Yogî near Allahabad had been for fifty-three years sitting on a stone; his Chelâs plunge him into the river every night and then replace him. During the day his consciousness returns to Bhûrloka, and he talks and teaches. A Yogî was found on an island near Calcutta round whose limbs the roots of trees had grown. He was cut out, and in the endeavour to awaken him so many outrages were inflicted on him that he died.

A. The consciousness cannot be entirely on two planes at once. The higher and lower states are not wholly incompatible, but if you are on the higher you will wool-gather on the lower. In order to remember the higher state on returning to the lower, the memory must be carried upwards to the higher. An Adept may apparently enjoy a dual consciousness; when he desires not to see he can abstract himself: he may be in a higher state and yet return answers to questions [pg 572] addressed to him. But in this case he will momentarily return to the material plane, shooting up again to the higher plane. This is his only salvation in adverse conditions.

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.