About Self-Knowledge and
Impersonality
Carlos Cardoso Aveline
Carlos Cardoso Aveline
“… Bear always in mind these lines of Tennyson:
‘Self reverence, self knowledge, self control,
These three alone lead life to sovereign power’.”
(An Eastern Master of
Wisdom)
According to an exoteric view of the
classical teachings of theosophy, the very idea of having a personal existence
or an individual identity is selfish and unspiritual in itself, and a
product of profound ignorance.
One should therefore hide
such a terrible heresy as much as possible, and by eliminating it from the
conscious level of one’s own mind, one could perhaps get rid of it.
However, a deeper view of
theosophy will show that it is the very roots of the “personal idea” - and not its
outer leaves or fruits - which the student must understand and transcend. While transcending his personality, he must
also respect, and take care of it. The feeling that one is at a certain level a
“person” is not “bad in itself”. It corresponds
to a fact which must be acknowledged as such, and not superstitiously denied.
According to theosophy, human
consciousness is septenary. None of the seven human principles, or levels of
awareness, is bad in itself. The
idea of an “I” exists in the intermediary principles, which are Kama (personal
feelings) and Manas (thoughts). These
principles are not selfish or separative in themselves. They may work as if they were, in the present
stage of many a human being.
If having the sense of an
“I” were bad in itself, the Eastern Masters of Wisdom, having attained
adepthood, could never speak of themselves as having any individual characteristics,
or human and personal feelings. Yet they
do that throughout the Mahatma Letters. They show anger regarding fraud, they
express revolt regarding hypocrisy, and experience many other “personal” emotions.
They freely speak of their individual characteristics. The Master of the
Himalayas who wrote most letters to Western students was warned at least twice
by the Chohan himself - the “Master of the Masters” - for going too far in self-sacrifice during his attempts to help
the theosophical movement. Because of
his personal inclination to self-sacrifice, that Mahatma forced the limits of
Karma in a few occasions and had to be stopped.
Self-forgetfulness,
loyalty, frankness, honesty, courage, and an essential namelessness, or detachment regarding any names
or words, are all personal characteristics. They belong to one’s character, or will
belong in due time, if one makes a persevering effort in the right direction.
While being essentially
impersonal, Helena Blavatsky and Damodar Mavalankar - two advanced disciples -
express their emotions in what they write. Robert Crosbie (1849-1919) worked
hard and well for the theosophical movement to have a deeper view of
impersonality. He did the movement a
great service in that regard. If Crosbie
had a naïve vision of this issue, however, he would not have written his now
well-known autobiographical notes. [1]
If John Garrigues,
another great theosophist, had an ill-advised view of what is and what is not
impersonality, he would never have published
a “record of Crosbie’s lifetime
and work”, in the form of the 416 pp. book “A
Friendly Philosopher”.
Another and more “worldly” example might be useful, in
trying to understand the mystery of impersonality. If we have a car, we must
see and pay due attention to the difference between the car we drive and every
other car in the streets. If we decide to pretend that “all cars are one
according to theosophy”, or that
“differences among cars are illusions” - there will be trouble in streets and
avenues.
One’s character and
personality is one’s vehicle. It is not bad in itself. On the contrary. It is good. It is a valuable
instrument. It is part of Life. Our personal names are worldly labels which
help identify our outer vehicles. Having personal names is useful, just as we
need documents and words to describe and to identify our cars.
Mahatmas have names. Every
wise man or woman in the past, including
Hypatia, H. P. Blavatsky, Socrates,
Crosbie, Mohandas Gandhi, Plato, Seneca and Epictetus, had a personality; but none of them was unduly attached to it. There is, therefore,
nothing wrong with vehicles in themselves, whether we refer to cars or personalities.
The issue to be seen is what one does,
and does not, with his vehicles.
While it is no use to
pretend that people do not have or should not have personal individualities, it
is also a source of illusion and suffering to make personality the center of
one’s life, or to make one’s car - or any other physical instrument or
gadget, even cell phones - the
priority in life.
The task regarding
impersonality is not to hide the “personal” principles of our septenary
nature. That would only make us behave like
whited sepulchres, as beautifully expressed by Jesus, that meek Master of the New
Testament:
“Woe unto you, scribes
and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye make clean the outside of the cup and
platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and
platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. (…) Ye are like whited
sepulchres …” (Matthew, 23: 25-27)
This is perfect
theosophy.
The dharma and duty of
every theosophist is to gradually dedicate the whole of his septenary
consciousness to live in an impersonal understanding of the universe. Thus his
own passing existence on Earth will be seen from an entirely different
viewpoint. He will naturally work for mankind’s evolution, since he now knows
that there is absolutely no separation between one’s higher self and humanity
as a whole, or our solar system - of which each human is a slowly self-perfecting
miniature.
It makes no sense trying
to amputate one’s personality, or destroying one’s car in the garage. It is
worse than useless to blame one’s tools and vehicles - physical and emotional -
because one may have failed to use them in a proper way. One must drive and use
one’s vehicle with care and discernment. It is our privilege to use our
personalities to perform and promote right actions. Personalities are like students
who learn from listening to the voice of their own inner conscience. There is
an “animal soul”, as there is a “spiritual soul” in human beings, and animals
must be respected. They can learn and they do learn to cooperate with humans,
and with their Masters. In the way humanity relates to animals, there is a
karmic key to the way humans relate to the realm above. It is good to have a kind consideration for animals
and animal souls, so as to learn to appreciate and see the realm above ours,
too. Life is symmetrical, and the old axiom says: “as above, so below”.
Each individual must
understand his own personality and its workings, and kindly place it into the
broader context of a vision of life that is both self-responsible and altruistic.
The idea of “destroying” one’s
personality, which is to be found in theosophical literature, is but a
metaphor. Dogmatism and blindness emerge from taking metaphors literally.
Having an Open Mind and
studying universal wisdom leads one, step by step, to an inner and essential
namelessness - not to a merely decorative and outward imitation of it.
An open mind is not
brainless.
The idea behind the
concept of impersonality was never to stimulate psychological self-violence, or
an attempt to “suppress the personal idea” in mechanistical ways. Theosophy says, instead, that a calm
self-observation should be made from the point of view of one’s divine
potentialities. This practice enables one to attain a deeper self-understanding.
The resulting self-knowledge leads to self-respect, and culminates in self-forgetfulness.
Thus one works and lives in increasing harmony with the One Law.
A Master wrote:
“… Bear always in mind these lines of Tennyson:
‘Self reverence, self knowledge, self control,
These three alone lead life to sovereign power’.” [2]
Having a long-term view of
life is essential, and a complete lifetime is but a passing moment in the
journey.
On the other hand, even the
short term effects of an altruistic vow - however probationary and
challenging they may be - are better than anything else one’s lower self could possibly
obtain in life.
NOTES:
[1] See in our associated websites the article “Transcript of
Autobiographical Notes”, by Robert Crosbie.
[2] “Letters from the Masters of the
Wisdom”, Edited by C. Jinarajadasa, First Series, TPH, Adyar, India, 1973
edition, p. 151.
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On the correct view
and attitude of theosophical students regarding their personalities, see also
the article “Respect for the Lower
Self”, which is available in our associated websites.
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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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