Ali Ritsema – the Netherlands
I would like to start with a quotation from the Catechism in The Secret Doctrine (SD), vol. I, p. 120:
'Lift thy head, O Lanoo; dost thou see one, or countless lights above thee, burning in the dark midnight sky?'
'I sense one Flame, O Gurudeva, I see countless undetached sparks shining in it.'
'Thou sayest well. And now look around and into thyself. That light which bums inside thee, dost thou feel it different in anywise from the light that shines in thy Brother men?'
'It is in no way different, though the prisoner is held in bondage by Karma, and though its outer garments delude the ignorant into saying, "Thy Soul and My Soul".'
This quotation expresses beautifully the essence of Wholeness. In the first part, it refers to the fundamental Unity of Existence, the Oneness of life as it might be experienced by a mystic, occultist or yogi. It reflects the depth of a mystical experience of Oneness. The second part indicates why this wholeness is not experienced in our normal daily life: imprisoned by Karma and thus in bondage.
Wholeness is that which is undivided, that in which no part is missing. We hear from the SD (vol. I, p. 2): the One Life, eternal, invisible, yet Omnipresent, without beginning or end has one attribute — ceaseless Motion, which is called in esoteric parlance the 'Great Breath', and is the perpetual motion of the universe, in the sense of limitless, ever-present SPACE. There is nothing 'absolutely motionless within the universal soul'. Also that occultism sees no difference between force or motion (SD, vol.1, p. 512). It means that there is nothing without force or energy within the universal soul.
Forces are said to be dual in character; being composed of (a) the irrational brute energy, inherent in matter and (b) the intelligent soul or cosmic consciousness which directs and guides that energy and is the Dhyan Chohanic thought reflecting the Ideation of the Universal Mind. (The Dhyan Chohans are the divine Intelligences charged with the supervision of the Cosmos.) This results in a perpetual series of physical manifestations and moral effects on Earth, during manvantaric periods, the whole being subservient to Karma. As that process is not always perfect — even results very often in evident failures — therefore, there are no proper subjects for divine honors and worship. All are entitled to the grateful reverence of Humanity, however, and man ought to be ever striving to help the divine evolution of Ideas, by becoming, to the best of his ability, a co-worker with Nature in the cyclic task. The ever-unknowable and incognizable Karana alone, the Causeless Cause of all causes, should have its shrine and altar on the holy and ever untrodden ground of our heart — invisible, intangible, unmentioned, save through 'the still small voice' of our spiritual consciousness. Those who worship before it, ought to do so in the silence and the sanctified solitude of their Souls; making their spirit the sole mediator between them and the Universal Spirit, their good actions the only priests, and their sinful intentions the only visible and objective sacrificial victims to the Presence.
How can we hear that still small voice of our spiritual consciousness? How can we become like the Lanoo and see one flame with countless undetached sparks, or become that intelligent soul or cosmic consciousness which guides and directs irrational brute force? How can we become co-workers in the divine evolutionary plan? A few hints have already been given: good actions, which are the mediators with the universal spirit, and the sacrifice of all sinful intentions.
A clearer idea of what this implies may be obtained by going deeper into the meaning of Karma, taking the advice in The Mahatma Letters (no. 16):
. you can do nothing better than to study the two doctrines — of Karma and Nirvana — as profoundly as you can. . . . Karma and Nirvana are but two of the seven Great Mysteries of Buddhist metaphysics. . . .
The Maha Chohan says (Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, 1st Series, p. 3) that
it is not the individual and determined purpose of attaining oneself Nirvana (the culmination of all knowledge and absolute wisdom) which is, after all, only an exalted and glorious selfishness — but the self-sacrificing pursuit of the best means to lead on the right path our neighbor, to cause as many of our fellow-creatures as we possibly can to benefit by it, which constitutes the true theosophist.
This also is good action in a different way. Good actions result in the spirit¬ualizing of our lower nature.
We are apt to say that something is somebody's karma, but do we know what is really meant by it and why it is so troublesome for humanity? The word 'karma' means 'action', meta¬physically the Law of Retribution, of cause and effect or ethical causation.
In the SD (vol. II, p. 305) we find that the Law of Retribution
.. . predestines nothing and no one. It exists from and in Eternity, truly, for it is ETERNITY itself; and as such, since no act can be co-equal with eternity, it cannot be said to act, for it is ACTION itself. It is not the wave which drowns a man, but the personal action of the wretch, who goes deliberately and places himself under the impersonal action of the laws that govern the ocean's motion. Karma creates nothing, nor does it design. It is man who plans and creates causes, and Karmic law adjusts the effects; which adjustment is not an act, but universal harmony, tending ever to resume its original position, like a bough, which, bent down too forcibly, rebounds with corresponding vigor. If it happen to dislocate the arm that tried to bend it out of its natural position, shall we say that it is the bough which broke our arm, or that our own folly has brought us to grief?
Further on the SD says:
... he who unveils through study and meditation its intricate paths, and throws light on those dark ways, in the windings of which so many men perish owing to their ignorance of the labyrinth of life, is working for the good of his fellow-men.
And again SD, vol. II, p. 306:
Intimately, or rather indissolubly, connected with Karma, then, is the law of rebirth, or of the reincarnation of the same spiritual individuality in a long, almost interminable, series of personalities.
The personality is not aware that he is only playing a role, but the inner or real man (the permanent individuality), is fully aware of the fact, though through the atrophy of the 'spiritual' eye in the physical body owing to the materiality, it is unable to impress that knowledge on the consciousness of the personality.
We find in The Theosophical Glossary. Karma is the power that controls all things, the resultant of moral action, or the moral effect of an act committed for the attainment of something which gratifies a personal desire. Karma neither punishes nor rewards, it is simply the one Universal Law which guides unerringly all other laws, and is productive of effects arising from their respective causations. Though nothing remains of each personality after death, the causes remain until they are exhausted by their legitimate effects during the life of the person who produced them. They will follow the reincarnated Ego until a harmony between effects and causes is fully re-established. Only that which is immortal in its very nature and divine in its essence exists forever. Only when we live a pure, spiritual life as a result of following the promptings of our higher, divine nature, is it possible to experience something of our divine life. In this case, there is no moral effect following the satisfaction of personal desires and passions.
In The Mahatma Letters (Chr. edn., p. 472), KH explains to Hume that they (the Masters) 'see a vast difference between the qualities of two equal amounts of energy expended by two men, of whom one ... is on his way to his daily quiet work, and another on his way to denounce a fellow creature at the police station ... .' The difference has to do with motivation, and even intensity of brain activity. Every thought, it is stated, becomes an active entity by associating itself... with an elemental; that is to say with one of the semi-intelligent forces of the kingdoms. It survives as an active intelligence, a creature of the mind's begetting, for a longer or shorter period proportionate with the original intensity of the cerebral action which generated it. Thus, a good thought is perpetuated as an active beneficent power, an evil one as a maleficent demon. And so man is continually peopling his current in space with a world of his own, crowded with the offspring of his fancies, desires, impulses, and passions, a current which reacts upon any sensitive and or nervous organization which comes in contact with it in proportion to its dynamic intensity.
... the Adept evolves these shapes consciously, other men throw them off unconsciously.
The Adept to be successful and preserve his power must dwell in solitude and more or less within his own soul.
Another comparison is given by KH about the difference in expending energy (p. 470) where a traveler who pushes aside the bush that obstructs his path is compared to the scientific experimenter who expends an equal amount of energy in setting a pendulum in motion. The one uselessly dissipates or scatters force, the other concentrates and stores it. He adds that:
in the one case, there is but brute force flung out without any transmutation of that brute energy into the higher potential form of spiritual dynamics, and, in the other there is just that.
It is clear that when brute energy is dissipated or scattered nothing will be contributed to the benefit of the world while, in the other case, a contribution is made to benefit the world and one of the best means is used to help fellow- creatures to evolve.
When there is concentration and storage of energy, there is transmutation of brute energy into a higher potential form of spiritual dynamics. The idea KH conveys (p. 471) is that:
the result of the highest intellection in the scientifically occupied brain is the evolution of a sublimated form of spiritual energy, which, in the cosmic action, is productive of illimitable results, while the automatically acting brain holds or stores up in itself only a certain quantum of brute force that is unfruitful of benefit for the individual or humanity. The human brain is an exhaustless generator of the most refined quality of cosmic force, out of the low, brute energy of Nature; and the complete adept has made himself a centre from which irradiate potentialities that beget correlations upon correlations through Aeons to come.
This is the spiritualizing of matter. This can only be done by humans on this earth and may be the evolutionary purpose of man, because it is in humans that the manas principle has been activated, manas being the link between spirit and matter, and the brain being the instrument of manas. To do this manas must turn away from kama, that is, brute energy, towards that 'guiding intelligence', Buddhi, which HPB describes as an indescribable feeling of unity.
In The Inner Life of Krishnamurti (IL), Aryel Sanat states (p. 63) that Krishnamurti has spoken from the beginning about the need for radical transformation or mutation and that, without such a mutation humanity would not have a spiritually meaningful future, and perhaps no future at all. During the last years of his life, Krishnamurti elucidated more carefully that this mutation was not only psycho-spiritual, but also biological, a mutation of the brain cells. Sanat indicates that only in the late twentieth century scientists have begun to note that evolution in Nature does not take place gradually through very small changes and adaptations, but in sudden spurts of mutation, for reasons not yet clearly known, after long periods of relative equilibrium that often last millions of years. HPB's teachers seem to have said {IL, p. 235) that 'human consciousness is now ready for mutation on a grand scale ... as a result of great crises that cry out for transformation'.
It is obvious that transformation on a global scale will be the result of the mutation of individuals. One of the reasons why the TS was founded, with universal brotherhood as its foremost important objective, is this mutation. 'But... universal brotherhood is far from realized', to quote Radha Burnier (Human Regeneration, p. 21); and
unless we see that this object implies a deep psychological revolution, we will not be able to carry out the work of the Society with the requisite energy. . . . universal brotherhood without distinctions of any kind is a revolution in consciousness. It is the one thing which will change humanity, and bring it to a new level of existence.
Let us see whether we can get a clearer idea about this necessary and urgent transformation on which we, as members of the TS, are supposed to work. Krishnamurti talked again and again about the necessity for all of us to 'cleanse the brain' (IL, p. 76), of the debris of conditioned patterns of response, the dying to the known. It means letting go of every identification with a particular religion, belief system, and one's expect¬ations. Mutation or transformation im-plies no identification. In a dialogue with David Bohm, they noted that knowledge and thought are not adequate to make us move away from patterns. Krishnamurti stated that insight, arising in full, undirected attention without a centre, can alone change the brain cells and remove destructive conditioning (p. 64).
Another perspective comes from what HPB says in How to Study Theosophy, as reported in the well-known Bowen Notes:
One must not be a fool and drive oneself into the madhouse by attempting too much at first. The brain is the instrument of waking consciousness and every con¬scious mental picture formed means change and destruction of the atoms of the brain. . . this new kind of mental effort calls for something very different — the carving out of 'new brain paths'. .. at last the mind and its pictures are transcended and the learner enters and dwells in the World of NO FORM. . .
Master KH said in 1922 (IL, p. 57): 'Strive more and more to bring the mind and the brain into subservience to the true Self within.'
Krishnamurti also writes in his Notebook (p. 9) about the brain:
The brain is the centre of all the senses . . . it's the centre of remembrance, the past; it's the storehouse of experience and knowledge, tradition. So it is limited, conditioned. Its activities are planned, thought out, reasoned, but it functions in limitation, in space-time. So it cannot formulate or understand that which is the total, the whole, the complete. . . . Only when the brain has cleansed itself of its conditioning, greed, envy, ambition, then only it can comprehend that which is complete. Love is this completeness.
When Krishnamurti was still very young, and at the beginning of his process, in August 1922, it became clear to him what he had to do. He started meditating every morning and, to his astonishment, could concentrate with considerable ease and within a few days he began to see clearly where he had failed and where he was failing. Im-mediately he set about, consciously, to annihilate the wrong accumulations of the past years. I quote (op. cit., pp. 77-8):
With the same deliberation I set about to find out ways and means to achieve my aim. First I realized that I had to harmonize all my other bodies with the Buddhic plane [the level of awareness immediately beyond the conceptual mind] and to bring about this happy combination I had to find out what my ego wanted on the Buddhic plane. To harmonize the various bodies I had to keep them vibrating at the same rate as the Buddhic and to do this I had to find out what was the vital interest of the Buddhic.
With an ease that rather astonished me I found the main interest on that high plane was to serve the Lord Maitreya and the Masters. With that idea clear in my physical mind I had to direct and control the other bodies to act and think the same as the noble and spiritual plane.
Ultimately, looking into the distance of man's evolutionary journey, this process of the union of manas with Buddhi, the sixth or spiritual principle in man, is, according to HPB's The Secret Doctrine, one of the most important teachings of those great beings who help humanity to achieve its evolutionary goal. To quote The Mahatma Letters (no. 13, Rev. edn.):
the individuality .. . has to assimilate to itself the eternal-life power residing but in the seventh [Atma] and then blend the three (fourth, fifth and seventh) into one — the sixth, which is Buddhi — the Spiritual Soul.
But to be able to do this we must first of all become conscious of the fact that the human brain — being an exhaustless generator — can transmute low, brute energy into a higher form of spiritual dynamics, the most refined quality of cosmic force, which means using energy/force for the benefit of the individual and humanity.
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Reading the SD page by page as one reads any other book will only end in confusion. The first thing to do, even if it takes years, is to get some grasp of the 'Three Fundamental Principles', given in Proem. Follow that up by study of the Recapitulation — the numbered items in the Summing Up to vol. I (Part I). Then take the Preliminary Notes (vol. II) and the Conclusion (vol. II). . . .
Come to the SD without any hope of getting the final Truth of existence from it, or with any idea other than seeing how far it may lead TOWARDS the Truth. See in study a means of exercising and developing the mind never touched by other studies. . . .
No matter what one may study in the SD, let the mind hold fast, as the basis of its ideation, to the following ideas:
(a) The FUNDAMENTAL UNITY OF ALL EXISTENCE. ...
(b) THERE IS NO DEAD MATTER. ...
(c) Man is the MICROCOSM. As he is so, then all the Hierarchies of the Heavens exist within him. But in truth there is neither Macrocosm nor Microcosm but ONE EXISTENCE. Great and small are such only as viewed by a limited consciousness.
(d) Fourth and last basic idea to be held is that expressed in the Great Hermetic Axiom. It really sums up and synthesizes all the others:
As is the Inner, so is the Outer; as is the Great so is the Small; as it is above, so it is below: there is but ONE LIFE AND LAW; and he that worketh it is ONE. Nothing Is Inner, Nothing Is Outer; Nothing Is GREAT, nothing is Small; nothing is High, nothing is Low, in the Divine Economy.
Madame Blavatsky on How to Study Theosophy
Robert Bowen