Examining the
Immortal
Dimension of
Consciousness
Robert Crosbie
Robert Crosbie
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The following text
is reproduced from
the book “The Friendly Philosopher”, by
Robert Crosbie, Theosophy
Co., Los Angeles,
416 pp., 2008, pp.
234-239. We add two footnotes.
(CCA)
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What reincarnates
is a mystery to many minds because they find a difficulty in understanding such
a permanency as must stand behind repeated incarnations. They know that the
body is born and dies and is dissolved, but their minds are so identified with
the body in its relations and surroundings that they are unable to dissociate
themselves from it. They think of themselves as persons, as bodies of a
physical nature, and hence cannot see where in them may reside that power of
incarnating from life to life.
Theosophy presents a larger view in showing that man
is not his body, because the body is
continually changing; that man is not his mind, because he is constantly
changing his mind; that there is in man a permanency which is the identity
throughout all kinds of embodiments.
There has been no change in our identity from
childhood up to the present day. The body has changed; the surroundings have
changed; but the identity remains the same and will not change from now on
through all changes of body or mind or circumstance. That in us which is itself
unchanging is the only real. Nothing is real that changes. It is only the real
that perceives change. Change cannot see change. Only that which is constant
perceives change; only the permanent can perceive impermanence. However dimly
we may perceive it, there is that in us which is eternal and changeless.
This unchanging, constant, and immortal something in
us is not absent from any particle or any being whatever. There is only one
Life in the world to which we, as well as all other beings, pertain. We all
proceeded from the same one Source - not many - and we are proceeding on the
same path to the same great goal. The ancients said that the Divine Self is in
all beings, but in all it does not shine forth. The real is within, and may be
realized by any human being in himself. Everyone needs that realization that he
may shine forth and express the God within, which all beings but partially
express.
If then the Source is the same - the One Spirit - in
all beings, why so many forms, so many personalities, so many
individualizations? All, again Theosophy shows, are developments. In that great
Ocean of Life, which is at the same time Consciousness and Spirit, we move and
live and have our being. That ocean is separable into its constituent drops and
the separation is effected through the great course of evolution. Even in the
kingdoms below us, which are from the same Source, the tendency to separate
into drops of individualized consciousness goes on in ever-increasing degree.
In the animal kingdom, those species that are nearest to us make an approach to
self-consciousness; but we as human beings have arrived at that stage where
each is a constituent drop of the
great ocean of Consciousness. As with an ocean of water each drop of it
contains all the elements of the great body, so each constituent drop of
humanity - a human being - contains within its range every element of the great
universe.
The same power exists in all of us, yet where we stand
on the ladder of being we see many below us and others greater than we above
us. Humanity now is building the bridge of thought, the bridge of ideas that
connects the lower with the higher.
The whole purpose of incarnation, or our descent into
matter, was not only to gain further knowledge of matter, but to impel the
lower kingdoms to come up to where we are. We stand as gods to the lower
kingdoms. It is our impulsion that brings them weal or woe. It is our
misconception of the aim of life that makes Nature so hard; that causes all the
distress and disasters which afflict us in cyclones, tornadoes [1], diseases, pestilences of every
kind. All are our own doing; and why? Because there is a sublimation of
mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms in our bodies, which are lives in
themselves.
Every cell in our bodies has its birth, youth,
manhood, decay and death, and its reincarnation. We are impelling each one of
those lives according to whatever thought, will, or feeling we may have,
whether for help or injury to others. These lives go out from us for good or
evil, back into their kingdoms with good or evil. So by our lack of understanding
of our own true natures, without a comprehension of universal brotherhood, we
are imperfectly performing our duties on this plane and are imperfectly helping
the evolution of the lower kingdoms.
We shall realize our responsibility to them only as we
see that every being is on his way upward; that all above man have been men at
one time; that all below man will some time reach man’s estate, when we have
gone on further; that all forms, all beings, all individualizations are but
aspects of the One Spirit. Granted, then, that this one unchanging Spirit is in
all - the cause of all evolutionary development, the cause of all incarnations -
where, we may ask, do we carry the power to see and know from life to life? How
is continuity of knowledge, gained by observation and experience, preserved?
How is the individual maintained as such?
We should remember that we were self-conscious beings
when this planet began; some even were self-conscious when this solar system
began; for there is a difference in degree of development among human beings.
If the planet or solar system began in a state of
primordial substance, or nebulous matter, as Science calls it, then we must
have had bodies of that state of substance. In that finest substance are all
the possibilities of every grade of matter, and hence it is that within the
true body of primordial matter all the changes of coarser and coarser substance
have been brought about; and within that body is all experience. Our birth is
within that body. Everything that occurs to us is within that body - a body of
a nature which does not change throughout the whole Manvantara.[2] Each one
has such a body of finest substance, of the inner nature, which is the real
container for the individual. In it he lives and moves and has his being, and
yet even the great glory and fineness of that body is not the man; it is merely
the highest vesture of the Soul. The Real Man we are is the Man that was, that
is, and that ever shall be, for whom the hour will never strike - Man, the
thinker; Man, the perceiver - always thinking, continually acting.
Life is one. Spirit is one. Consciousness is one.
These three are one - a trinity- and we are that trinity. All the changes of
substance and form are brought about by Spirit and Consciousness and expressed
in various forms of life. We are that One Spirit, each standing in a vast
assemblage of beings in this great universe, seeing and knowing what he can
through the instruments he has. We are the Trinity - the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Ghost; or, in theosophical parlance, we are Atma, Buddhi, and Manas. Atma is the One Spirit, not belonging to anyone, but to all. Buddhi is the sublimated experience of
all the past. Manas is the thinking power, the thinker, the man, the immortal
man. There is no man without the Spirit, and no man without that experience of
the past; but the mind is the realm of creation, of ideas; and the Spirit
itself, with all its power, acts according to the ideas that are in the mind.
“The Voice of the Silence” says, “Mind is like a
mirror. It gathers dust while it reflects.” It needs soul-wisdom to brush away
the dust. This mind of ours, or that which we call the mind, is merely the
reflector, which presents as we train it, different pictures. The Spirit acts
in accord with the ideas seen, for good or for evil. Is there evil in the
world? It is the power of Spirit that caused it. Is there good in the world? It
is the power of Spirit that caused it. For there is only one power. The
misdirection of that power brings evil; its right direction brings good.
We must give up the idea that we are poor, weak, miserable creatures who can never do
anything for ourselves; for as long as we hold that idea, so long will we never
do anything. We must get the other idea - that we are Spirit, that we are
immortal - and when we come to realize what that means, the power of it will
flow directly in and through us, unrestricted in any direction, save by the
instruments which we ourselves caused to be imperfect. So let us get away from the idea that we are
this poor, miserable, defective physical body over which we have so little
control. We cannot stop a heartbeat; we cannot stop the breath without
destroying the body; we cannot stop the constant dissociation of matter that
goes on in it, nor prevent its final dissolution. Some people talk of
“demonstrating” against death, but we might as well try to demonstrate against
the trees shedding their leaves when the winter blasts come. Death will always
be, and there is a great advantage in it. If we could not change our bodies,
how would there be any chance for advancement? Are we so well pleased with the
bodies now ours that we would desire no change? Certainly not.
There is only one thing in this life that can be
retained permanently, and that is the spiritual nature, and the great divine
compassion which we may translate by the word “love”.
We are the reincarnating Egos who will continue to
incarnate until the great task which we undertook is completed. That task is
the raising up of the whole of humanity to the highest possible stage of
perfection on an earth of this kind.
We incarnate from age to age for the preservation of
the just, the destruction of wickedness, and the establishment of
righteousness. That is what we are here for, whether we know it or not, and we
must come to a recognition of the immortality of our own natures before we
shall ever relieve ourselves from the distresses that afflict humanity
everywhere. We have to bring ourselves in touch and tune with the whole great purpose
of Nature which is the evolution of Soul, and for which alone all the universe
exists.
NOTES:
[1] “It is our misconception of the aim of life that
makes Nature so hard; that causes all the distress and disasters which afflict
us in cyclones, tornadoes…”. Robert Crosbie here mentions the direct relation
between mankind’s thoughts and the geo-ecological cycles of our planet. Humanity
is responsible, in a way, for the mental life of the planet. Each time the life
on the planet decays on the plane of human mind, geological life also decays. The process is
regulated by the law of cycles. All levels of
consciousness are karmically linked to each other and interact among them.
(CCA)
[2] Manvantara: a period of manifestation of the
Universe, or of a Solar System. Each
Manvantara is followed by a Pralaya, a period of rest, before another
Manvantara emerges. (CCA)
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In September 2016, after a careful
analysis of the state of the esoteric movement worldwide, a group of students decided
to form the Independent Lodge of
Theosophists, whose priorities include the building of a better future in
the different dimensions of life.
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