Theos-Talk Archives (March 1996 Message tl00069)

OCEAN6.TXT (~The Ocean of Theosophy~ by W.Q.Judge)

CHAPTER VI

THE AUTHOR OF Esoteric Buddhism, which book ought to be
consulted by all students of Theosophy, since it was made from
suggestions given by some of the Adepts themselves, gave the
name Kamarupa to the fourth principle of man's constitution. The
reason was that the word Kama in the Sanskrit language means
"desire," and as the idea intended to be conveyed was that the
fourth principle was the "body or mass of desires and passions,"
Mr. Sinnett added the Sanskrit word for body or form, which is
Rupa, thus making the compound word Kamarupa. I shall call it by
the English equivalent, passions and desires, because those
terms exactly express its nature. And I do this also in order to
make the sharp issue which actually exists between the
psychology and mental philosophy of the west and those of the
east. The west divides man into intellect, will, and feeling,
but it is not understood whether the passions and desires
constitute a principle in themselves or are due entirely to the
body. Indeed, most people consider them as being the result of
the influence of the flesh, for they are designated often by the
terms "desires of the flesh" and "fleshly appetites." The
ancients, however, and the Theosophists know them to be a
principle in themselves and not merely the impulses from the
body. There is no help to be had in this matter from the western
psychology, now in its infancy and wholly devoid of knowledge
about the inner, which is the psychical, nature of man, and from
this point there is the greatest divergence between it and
Theosophy.

The passions and desires are not produced by the body, but, on
the contrary, the body is caused to be by the former. It is
desire and passion which caused us to be born, and will bring us
to birth again and again in some body on this earth or another
globe. It is by passion and desire we are made to evolve through
the mansions of death called lives on earth. It was by the
arising of desire in the unknown first cause, the one absolute
existence, that the whole collection of worlds was manifested,
and by means of the influence of desire in the now manifested
world is the latter kept in existence.

This fourth principle is the balance principle of the whole
seven. It stands in the middle, and from it the ways go up or
down. It is the basis of action and the mover of the will. As
the old Hermetists say: "Behind will stands desire." For whether
we wish to do well or ill we have to first arouse within us the
desire for either course. The good man who at last becomes even
a sage had at one time in his many lives to arouse the desire
for the company of holy men and to keep his desire for progress
alive in order to continue on his way. Even a Buddha or a Jesus
had first to make a vow, which is a desire, in some life, that
he would save the world or some part of it, and to persevere
with the desire alive in his heart through countless lives. And
equally so, on the other hand, the bad man life after life took
unto himself low, selfish, wicked desires, thus debasing instead
of purifying this principle. On the material and scientific side
of occultism, the use of the inner hidden powers of our nature,
if this principle of desire be not strong the master power of
imagination cannot do its work, because though it makes a mold
or matrix the will cannot act unless it is moved, directed, and
kept up to pitch by desire.

The desires and passions, therefore, have two aspects, the one
being low and the other high. The low is that shown by the
constant placing of the consciousness entirely below in the body
and the astral body; the high comes from the influence of and
aspiration to the trinity above, of Mind, Buddhi, and Spirit.
This fourth principle is like the sign Libra in the path of the
Sun through the Zodiac; when the Sun (who is the real man)
reaches that sign he trembles in the balance. Should he go back
the worlds would be destroyed; he goes onward, and the whole
human race is lifted up to perfection.

During life the emplacement of the desires and passions is, as
obtains with the astral body, throughout the entire lower man,
and like that ethereal counterpart of our physical person it may
be added to or diminished, made weak or increased in strength,
debased or purified.

At death it informs the astral body, which then becomes a mere
shell; for when a man dies his astral body and principle of
passion and desire leave the physical in company and coalesce.
It is then that the term Kamarupa may be applied, as Kamarupa is
really made of astral body and Kama in conjunction, and this
joining of the two makes a shape or form which though ordinarily
invisible is material and may be brought into visibility.
Although it is empty of mind and conscience, it has powers of
its own that can be exercised whenever the conditions permit.
These conditions are furnished by the medium of the
spiritualists, and in every seance room the astral shells of
deceased persons are always present to delude the sitters, whose
powers of discrimination have been destroyed by wonderment. It
is the "devil" of the Hindus, and a worse enemy the poor medium
could not have. For the astral spook, or Kamarupa, is but the
mass of the desires and passions abandoned by the real person
who has fled to "heaven" and has no concern with the people left
behind, least of all with seances and mediums. Hence, being
devoid of the nobler soul, these desires and passions work only
on the very lowest part of the medium's nature and stir up no
good elements, but always the lower leanings of the being.
Therefore it is that even the spiritualists themselves admit
that in the ranks of the mediums there is much fraud, and
mediums have often confessed, "the spirits did tempt me and I
committed fraud at their wish."

This Kamarupa spook is also the enemy of our civilization, which
permits us to execute men for crimes committed and thus throw
out into the ether the mass of passion and desire free from the
weight of the body and liable at any moment to be attracted to
any sensitive person. Being thus attracted, the deplorable
images of crimes committed and also the picture of the execution
and all the accompanying curses and wishes for revenge are
implanted in living persons, who, not seeing the evil, are
unable to throw it off. Thus crimes and new ideas of crimes are
wilfully propagated every day by those countries where capital
punishment prevails.

The astral shells together with the still living astral body of
the medium, helped by certain forces of nature which the
Theosophists call "elementals," produce nearly all the phenomena
of non-fraudulent spiritualism. The medium's astral body having
the power of extension and extrusion forms the framework for
what are called "materialized spirits," makes objects move
without physical contact, gives reports from deceased relatives,
none of them anything more than recollections and pictures from
the astral light, and in all this using and being used by the
shells of suicides, executed murderers, and all such spooks as
are naturally near to this plane of life. The number of cases in
which any communication comes from an actual spirit out of the
body is so small as to be countable almost on one hand. But the
spirits of living men sometimes, while their bodies are asleep,
come to seances and take part therein. But they cannot recollect
it, do not know how they do it, and are not distinguished by
mediums from the mass of astral corpses. The fact that such
things can be done by the inner man and not be recollected
proves nothing against these theories, for the child can see
without knowing how the eye acts, and the savage who has no
knowledge of the complex machinery working in his body still
carries on the process of digestion perfectly. And that the
latter is unconscious with him is exactly in line with the
theory, for these acts and doings of the inner man are the
unconscious actions of the subconscious mind. These words
"conscious" and "subconscious" are of course used relatively,
the unconsciousness being that of the brain only. And hypnotic
experiments have conclusively proved all these theories, as on
one day not far away will be fully admitted. Besides this, the
astral shells of suicides and executed criminals are the most
coherent, longest lived, and nearest to us of all the shades of
Hades, and hence must, out of the necessity of the case, be the
real "controls" of the seance room.

Passion and desire together with astral model-body are common to
men and animals, as also to the vegetable kingdom, though in the
last but faintly developed. And at one period in evolution no
further material principles had been developed, and all the
three higher, of Mind, Soul, and Spirit, were but latent. Up to
this point man and animal were equal, for the brute in us is
made of the passions and the astral body. The development of the
germs of Mind made man because it constituted the great
differentiation. The God within begins with Manas or mind, and
it is the struggle between this God and the brute below which
Theosophy speaks of and warns about. The lower principle is
called bad because by comparison with the higher it is so, but
still it is the basis of action. We cannot rise unless self
first asserts itself in the desire to do better. In this aspect
it is called rajas or the active and bad quality, as
distinguished from tamas, or the quality of darkness and
indifference. Rising is not possible unless rajas is present to
give the impulse, and by the use of this principle of passion
all the higher qualities are brought to at last so refine and
elevate our desires that they may be continually placed upon
truth and spirit. By this Theosophy does not teach that the
passions are to be pandered to or satiated, for a more
pernicious doctrine was never taught, but the injunction is to
make use of the activity given by the fourth principle so as to
ever rise and not to fall under the dominion of the dark quality
that ends with annihilation, after having begun in selfishness
and indifference.

Having thus gone over the field and shown what are the lower
principles, we find Theosophy teaching that at the present point
of man's evolution he is a fully developed quaternary with the
higher principles partly developed. Hence it is taught that
today man shows himself to be moved by passion and desire. This
is proved by a glance at the civilizations of the earth, for
they are all moved by this principle, and in countries like
France, England, and America a glorification of it is exhibited
in the attention to display, to sensuous art, to struggle for
power and place, and in all the habits and modes of living where
the gratification of the senses is sometimes esteemed the
highest good. But as Mind is being evolved more and more as we
proceed in our course along the line of the race development,
there can be perceived underneath in all countries the beginning
of the transition from the animal possessed of the germ of real
mind to the man of mind complete. This day is therefore known to
the Masters, who have given out some of the old truths, as the
"transition period." Proud science and prouder religion do not
admit this, but think we are as we always will be. But believing
in his teacher, the theosophist sees all around him the evidence
that the race mind is changing by enlargement, that the old days
of dogmatism are gone and the "age of inquiry" has come, that
the inquiries will grow louder year by year and the answers be
required to satisfy the mind as it grows more and more, until at
last, all dogmatism being ended, the race will be ready to face
all problems, each man for himself, all working for the good of
the whole, and that the end will be the perfecting of those who
struggle to overcome the brute. For these reasons the old
doctrines are given out again, and Theosophy asks every one to
reflect whether to give way to the animal below or look up to
and be governed by the God within.

A fuller treatment of the fourth principle of our constitution
would compel us to consider all such questions as those
presented by the wonder workers of the east, by spiritualistic
phenomena, hypnotism, apparitions, insanity, and the like, but
they must be reserved for separate handling.

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