Theos-Talk Archives (March 1996 Message tl00072)

OCEAN8.TXT - ~The Ocean of Theosophy~ - W.Q.Judge

CHAPTER VIII

HOW MAN HAS COME to be the complex being that he is and why, are
questions that neither Science nor Religion makes conclusive
answer to. This immortal thinker having such vast powers and
possibilities, all his because of his intimate connection with
every secret part of Nature from which he has been built up,
stands at the top of an immense and silent evolution. He asks
why Nature exists, what the drama of life has for its aim, how
that aim may be attained. But Science and Religion both fail to
give a reasonable reply. Science does not pretend to be able to
give the solution, saying that the examination of things as they
are is enough of a task; religion offers an explanation both
illogical and unmeaning and acceptable but to the bigot, as it
requires us to consider the whole of Nature as a mystery and to
seek for the meaning and purpose of life with all its sorrow in
the pleasure of a God who cannot be found out. The educated and
enquiring mind knows that dogmatic religion can only give an
answer invented by man while it pretends to be from God.

What then is the universe for, and for what final purpose is man
the immortal thinker here in evolution? It is all for the
experience and emancipation of the soul, for the purpose of
raising the entire mass of manifested matter up to the stature,
nature, and dignity of conscious godhood. The great aim is to
reach self-consciousness; not through a race or a tribe or some
favored nation, but by and through the perfecting, after
transformation, of the whole mass of matter as well as what we
now call soul. Nothing is or is to be left out. The aim for
present man is his initiation into complete knowledge, and for
the other kingdoms below him that they may be raised up
gradually from stage to stage to be in time initiated also. This
is evolution carried to its highest power; it is a magnificent
prospect; it makes of man a god, and gives to every part of
nature the possibility of being one day the same; there is
strength and nobility in it, for by this no man is dwarfed and
belittled, for no one is so originally sinful that he cannot
rise above all sin. Treated from the materialistic position of
Science, evolution takes in but half of life; while the
religious conception of it is a mixture of nonsense and fear.
Present religions keep the element of fear, and at the same time
imagine that an Almighty being can think of no other earth but
this and has to govern this one very imperfectly. But the old
theosophical view makes the universe a vast, complete, and
perfect whole.

Now the moment we postulate a double evolution, physical and
spiritual, we have at the same time to admit that it can only be
carried on by reincarnation. This is, in fact, demonstrated by
science. It is shown that the matter of the earth and of all
things physical upon it was at one time either gaseous or
molten; that it cooled; that it altered; that from its
alterations and evolutions at last were produced all the great
variety of things and beings. This, on the physical plane, is
transformation or change from one form to another. The total
mass of matter is about the same as in the beginning of this
globe, with a very minute allowance for some star dust. Hence it
must have been changed over and over again, and thus been
physically reformed and re-embodied. Of course, to be strictly
accurate, we cannot use the word reincarnation, because
"incarnate" refers to flesh. Let us say "reembodied," and then
we see that both for matter and for man there has been a
constant change of form and this is, broadly speaking,
"reincarnation." As to the whole mass of matter, the doctrine is
that it will all be raised to man's estate when man has gone
further on himself. There is no residuum left after man's final
salvation which in a mysterious way is to be disposed of or done
away with in some remote dust-heap of nature. The true doctrine
allows for nothing like that, and at the same time is not afraid
to give the true disposition of what would seem to be a
residuum. It is all worked up into other states, for as the
philosophy declares there is no inorganic matter whatever but
that every atom is alive and has the germ of self-consciousness,
it must follow that one day it will all have been changed. Thus
what is now called human flesh is so much matter that one day
was wholly mineral, later on vegetable, and now refined into
human atoms. At a point of time very far from now the present
vegetable matter will have been raised to the animal stage and
what we now use as our organic or fleshy matter will have
changed by transformation through evolution into self-conscious
thinkers, and so on up the whole scale until the time shall come
when what is now known as mineral matter will have passed on to
the human stage and out into that of thinker. Then at the coming
on of another great period of evolution the mineral matter of
that time will be some which is now passing through its lower
transformations on other planets and in other systems of worlds.
This is perhaps a "fanciful" scheme for the men of the present
day, who are so accustomed to being called bad, sinful, weak,
and utterly foolish from their birth that they fear to believe
the truth about themselves, but for the disciples of the ancient
theosophists it is not impossible or fanciful, but is logical
and vast. And no doubt it will one day be admitted by everyone
when the mind of the western race has broken away from Mosaic
chronology and Mosaic ideas of men and nature. Therefore as to
reincarnation and metempsychosis we say that they are first to
be applied to the whole cosmos and not alone to man. But as man
is the most interesting object to himself, we will consider in
detail its application to him.

This is the most ancient of doctrines and is believed in now by
more human minds than the number of those who do not hold it.
The millions in the East almost all accept it; it was taught by
the Greeks; a large number of the Chinese now believe it as
their forefathers did before them; the Jews thought it was true,
and it has not disappeared from their religion; and Jesus, who
is called the founder of Christianity, also believed and taught
it. In the early Christian church it was known and taught, and
the very best of the fathers of the church believed and
promulgated it.

Christians should remember that Jesus was a Jew who thought his
mission was to Jews, for he says in St. Matthew, "I am not sent
but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." He must have
well known the doctrines held by them. They all believed in
reincarnation. For them Moses, Adam, Noah, Seth, and others had
returned to earth, and at the time of Jesus it was currently
believed that the old prophet Elias was yet to return. So we
find, first, that Jesus never denied the doctrine, and on
various occasions assented to it, as when he said that John the
Baptist was actually the Elias of old whom the people were
expecting. All this can be seen by consulting St. Matthew in
Chapters XVII, XI, and others.

In these it is very clear that Jesus is shown as approving the
doctrine of reincarnation. And following Jesus we find St. Paul,
in Romans IX, speaking of Esau and Jacob being actually in
existence before they were born, and later such great Christian
fathers as Origen, Synesius, and others believing and teaching
the theory. In Proverbs VIII, 22, we have Solomon saying that
when the earth was made he was present, and that, long before he
could have been born as Solomon, his delights were in the
habitable parts of the earth with the sons of men. St. John the
Revelator says in Revs. III, 12, he was told in a vision which
refers to the voice of God or the voice of one speaking for God,
that whosoever should overcome would not be under the necessity
of "going out" any more, that is, would not need to be
reincarnated. For five hundred years after Jesus the doctrine
was taught in the church until the council of Constantinople.
Then a condemnation was passed upon a phase of the question
which has been regarded by many as against reincarnation, but if
that condemnation goes against the words of Jesus it is of no
effect. It does go against him, and thus the church is in the
position of saying in effect that Jesus did not know enough to
curse, as it did, a doctrine known and taught in his day and
which was brought to his notice prominently and never condemned
but in fact approved by him. Christianity is a Jewish religion,
and this doctrine of reincarnation belongs to it historically by
succession from the Jews, and also by reason of its having been
taught by Jesus and the early fathers of the church. If there be
any truthful or logical way for the Christian church to get out
of this position , excluding, of course, dogmas of the church ,
the theosophist would like to be shown it. Indeed, the
theosophist holds that whenever a professed Christian denies the
theory he thereby sets up his judgment against that of Jesus,
who must have known more about the matter than those who follow
him. It is the anathema hurled by the church council and the
absence of the doctrine from the teaching now that have damaged
Christianity and made of all the Christian nations people who
pretend to be followers of Jesus and the law of love, but who
really as nations are followers of the Mosaic law of
retaliation. For alone in reincarnation is the answer to all the
problems of life, and in it and Karma is the force that will
make men pursue in fact the ethics they have in theory. It is
the aim of the old philosophy to restore this doctrine to
whatsoever religion has lost it; and hence we call it the "lost
chord of Christianity."

But who or what is it that reincarnates? It is not the body, for
that dies and disintegrates; and but few of us would like to be
chained forever to such bodies as we now have, admitted to be
infected with disease except in the case of the savage. It is
not the astral body, for, as shown, that also has its term and
must go to pieces after the physical has gone. Nor is it the
passions and desires. They, to be sure, have a very long term,
because they have the power to reproduce themselves in each life
so long as we do not eradicate them. And reincarnation provides
for that, since we are given by it many opportunities of slowly,
one by one, killing off the desires and passions which mar the
heavenly picture of the spiritual man.

It has been shown how the passionnel part of us coalesces with
the astral after death and makes a seeming being that has a
short life to live while it is disintegrating. When the
separation is complete between the body that has died, the
astral body, and the passions and desires , life having begun to
busy itself with other forms , the Higher Triad, Manas, Buddhi,
and Atma, who are the real man, immediately go into another
state, and when that state, which is called Devachan, or heaven,
is over, they are attracted back to earth for reincarnation.
They are the immortal part of us; they, in fact, and no other
are we. This should be firmly grasped by the mind, for upon its
clear understanding depends the comprehension of the entire
doctrine. What stands in the way of the modern western man's
seeing this clearly is the long training we have all had in
materialistic science and materializing religion, both of which
have made the mere physical body too prominent. The one has
taught of matter alone and the other has preached the
resurrection of the body, a doctrine against common sense, fact,
logic, and testimony. But there is no doubt that the theory of
the bodily resurrection has arisen from the corruption of the
older and true teaching. Resurrection is founded on what Job
says about seeing his redeemer in his flesh, and on St. Paul's
remark that the body was raised incorruptible. But Job was an
Egyptian who spoke of seeing his teacher or initiator, who was
the redeemer, and Jesus and Paul referred to the spiritual body
only.

Although reincarnation is the law of nature, the complete
trinity of Atma-Buddhi-Manas does not yet fully incarnate in
this race. They use and occupy the body by means of the entrance
of Manas, the lowest of the three, and the other two shine upon
it from above, constituting the God in Heaven. This was
symbolized in the old Jewish teaching about the Heavenly Man who
stands with his head in heaven and his feet in hell. That is,
the head Atma and Buddhi are yet in heaven, and the feet, Manas,
walk in hell, which is the body and physical life. For that
reason man is not yet fully conscious, and reincarnations are
needed to at last complete the incarnation of the whole trinity
in the body. When that has been accomplished the race will have
become as gods, and the godlike trinity being in full possession
the entire mass of matter will be perfected and raised up for
the next step. This is the real meaning of "the word made
flesh." It was so grand a thing in the case of any single
person, such as Jesus or Buddha, as to be looked upon as a
divine incarnation. And out of this, too, comes the idea of the
crucifixion, for Manas is thus crucified for the purpose of
raising up the thief to paradise.

It is because the trinity is not yet incarnate in the race that
life has so many mysteries, some of which are showing themselves
from day to day in all the various experiments made on and in
man.

The physician knows not what life is nor why the body moves as
it does, because the spiritual portion is yet enshrouded in the
clouds of heaven; the scientist is wandering in the dark,
confounded and confused by all that hypnotism and other strange
things bring before him, because the conscious man is out of
sight on the very top of the divine mountain, thus compelling
the learned to speak of the "subconscious mind," the "latent
personality," and the like; and the priest can give us no light
at all because he denies man's god-like nature, reduces all to
the level of original sin, and puts upon our conception of God
the black mark of inability to control or manage the creation
without invention of expedients to cure supposed errors. But
this old truth solves the riddle and paints God and Nature in
harmonious colors.

Reincarnation does not mean that we go into animal forms after
death, as is believed by some Eastern peoples. "Once a man
always a man" is the saying in the Great Lodge. But it would not
be too much punishment for some men were it possible to condemn
them to rebirth in brute bodies; however nature does not go by
sentiment but by law, and we, not being able to see all, cannot
say that the brutal man is brute all through his nature. And
evolution having brought Manas the Thinker and Immortal Person
on to this plane, cannot send him back to the brute which has
not Manas.

By looking into two explanations for the literal acceptation by
some people in the East of those laws of Manu which seem to
teach the transmigrating into brutes, insects, and so on, we can
see how the true student of this doctrine will not fall into the
same error.

The first is, that the various verses and books teaching such
transmigration have to do with the actual method of
reincarnation, that is, with the explanation of the actual
physical processes which have to be undergone by the Ego in
passing from the unembodied to the embodied state, and also with
the roads, ways, or means of descent from the invisible to the
visible plane. This has not yet been plainly explained in
Theosophical books, because on the one hand it is a delicate
matter, and on the other the details would not as yet be
received even by Theosophists with credence, although one day
they will be. And as these details are not of the greatest
importance they are not now expounded. But as we know that no
human body is formed without the union of the sexes, and that
the germs for such production are locked up in the sexes and
must come from food which is taken into the body, it is obvious
that foods have something to do with the reincarnating of the
Ego. Now if the road to reincarnation leads through certain food
and none other, it may be possible that if the Ego gets
entangled in food which will not lead to the germ of physical
reproduction, a punishment is indicated where Manu says that
such and such practices will lead to transmigration, which is
then a "hindrance." I throw this out so far for the benefit of
certain theosophists who read these and whose theories on this
subject are now rather vague and in some instances based on
quite other hypotheses.

The second explanation is, that inasmuch as nature intends us to
use the matter which comes into our body and astral body for the
purpose, among others, of benefitting the matter by the impress
it gets from association with the human Ego, if we use it so as
to give it only a brutal impression it must fly back to the
animal kingdom to be absorbed there instead of being refined and
kept on the human plane. And as all the matter which the human
Ego gathered to it retains the stamp or photographic impression
of the human being, the matter transmigrates to the lower level
when given an animal impress by the Ego. This actual fact in the
great chemical laboratory of nature could easily be misconstrued
by the ignorant. But the present-day students know that once
Manas the Thinker has arrived on the scene he does not return to
baser forms; first, because he does not wish to, and second,
because he cannot. For just as the blood in the body is
prevented by valves from rushing back and engorging the heart,
so in this greater system of universal circulation the door is
shut behind the Thinker and prevents his retrocession.
Reincarnation as a doctrine applying to the real man does not
teach transmigration into kingdoms of nature below the human.


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