And
the Consciousness of the Initiates
Helena
P. Blavatsky
Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891), working in her office
The “Mystery of
Buddha” is that of several other Adepts - perhaps of many. The whole trouble is
to understand correctly that other mystery: that of the real fact, so abstruse
and transcendental at first sight, about the “Seven Principles” in man, the
reflections in man of the seven powers in Nature, physically, and of the seven
Hierarchies of Being, intellectually and spiritually.
Whether a man - material, ethereal, and spiritual - is
for the clearer comprehension of his (broadly-speaking) triple nature, divided
into groups according to one or another system, the foundation and the apex of
that division will be always the same. There being only three Upadhis (bases)
in man, any number of Koshas (sheaths) and their aspects may be built on these
without destroying the harmony of the whole. Thus, while the Esoteric System
accepts the septenary division, the Vedantic classification gives five Koshas,
and the Taraka Raja Yoga simplifies them into four - the three Upadhis
synthesized by the highest principle, Atman.
That which has just been stated will, of course,
suggest the question: “How can a spiritual (or semi-spiritual) personality lead
a triple or even a dual life, shifting respective ‘Higher Selves’ ad libitum, and be still the one eternal
Monad in the infinity of a Manvantara?”
The answer to this is easy for the true Occultist,
while for the uninitiated profane it must appear absurd. The “Seven Principles”
are, of course, the manifestation of one indivisible Spirit, but only at the
end of the Manvantara, and when they come to be re-united on the plane of the
One Reality, does the unity appear; during the “Pilgrim’s” journey the
reflections of that indivisible One Flame, the aspects of the one eternal
Spirit, have each the power of action on one of the manifested planes of
existence - the gradual differentiations from the one unmanifested plane - on
that plane namely to which it properly belongs.
Our earth affording every Mayavic condition, it
follows that the purified Egotistical Principle, the astral and personal Self
of an Adept, though forming in reality one integral whole with its Highest Self
(Atman and Buddhi) may, nevertheless, for purposes of universal mercy and
benevolence, so separate itself from its divine Monad as to lead on this plane
of illusion and temporary being a distinct independent conscious life of its
own, under a borrowed illusive shape, thus serving at one and the same time a
double purpose: the exhaustion of its own individual Karma, and the saving of
millions of human beings less favored than itself from the effects of mental
blindness.
If asked: “When the change described as the passage of
a Buddha or a Jivanmukta into Nirvana takes place, where does the original
consciousness which animated the body continue to reside - in the Nirvani or in
the subsequent reincarnations of the latter’s ‘remains’ (the Nirmanakaya)?” the
answer is that imprisoned
consciousness may be a “certain knowledge from observation and experience”, as
Gibbon puts it, but disembodied
consciousness is not an effect, but a cause.
It is a part of the whole, or rather a Ray on the
graduated scale of its manifested activity, of the one all-pervading, limitless
Flame, the reflections of which alone can differentiate; and, as such,
consciousness is ubiquitous, and can be neither localized nor centered on or in
any particular subject, nor can it be limited.
Its effects alone pertain to the region of matter, for
thought is an energy that affects matter in various ways, but consciousness per se, as understood and explained by
Occult philosophy, is the highest quality of the sentient spiritual principle
in us, the Divine Soul (or Buddhi) and our Higher Ego, and does not belong to
the plane of materiality.
After the death of the physical man, if he be an
Initiate, it becomes transformed from a human quality into the independent
principle itself; the conscious Ego becoming Consciousness per se without any Ego,
in the sense that the latter can no longer be limited or conditioned by the
senses, or even by space or time.
Therefore it is capable, without separating itself
from or abandoning its possessor, Buddhi, of reflecting itself at the same time
in its astral man that was, without being under any necessity for localizing
itself. This is shown at a far lower stage in our dreams. For if consciousness
can display activity during our visions, and while the body and its material
brain are fast asleep - and if even during those visions it is all but
ubiquitous - how much greater must be its power when entirely free from, and
having no more connection with, our physical brain.
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The article “The Seven Principles” is published in
the associated websites since 29 February 2020. It was reproduced from the
“Collected Writings”, Helena P. Blavatsky, T.P.H., volume XIV, pp. 386-387. It
is also part of the May 2018 edition of “The Aquarian Theosophist”. We divided the text into small paragraphs in order to
facilitate its contemplative reading.
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You may like to
read the texts “The Seven Principles of Consciousness”,
“The Seven Principles of the Movement”,
and “Antahkarana, the Bridge to Sky”.
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