The Friendly Philosopher-eternal verities

POKROV IS A SPIRITUAL ASSOCIATION OF ESOTERIC.

The Friendly Philosopher-The Eternal Verities

The friendly philosopher

WHAT SURVIVES AFTER DEATH?
Day after day we are constantly confronted by the fact that we are all subject to death. No matter how we may live, whether
our lives bring to us failure or the greatest possible success in the eyes of the world, death is there at the end. So sure as
there is birth for us, so there is death. Each one knows that sooner or later death must be his portion; but what does he know
of after-death?
‘What, if anything, survives? Religions such as we have professed do not give us any information whatever on this most
serious question; materialistic science presents us no solution; from neither religion nor science have we gained anything to
rest upon when the great conqueror of all human bodies appears before us. Is there any hope in life that what we are doing
may be of any value after death? Whether we can answer that question, or not, before death confronts us—the confronting of
death will be there. The time will come.
If any solution to the problems presented by death exists, it must be perceptible during life to have any value for us as living
human beings. It must be a reasonable solution, sufficiently evident to us as we now live, to convince us of the correctness of
the solution. There must be clear evidence as to an understanding of the facts of life, before we may accept any explanation
as to what must be after death. When we know the meaning of birth; when we know what we are working here in bodies for;
when we know what all manifested life exists for—then, we may have an answer as to why we pass so few years in any one
physical existence; we may know where are our friends, our parents, our grandparents, who lived as we are living but now
are gone; we may know if life has ceased for them; and, then, if life can ever cease for us.
There is one fact of human existence which should guide us in our thinking—the fact of law, ruling in everything that we do. Is
it not our knowledge, our perception of law that enables us to control the elements in nature? We control the various
substances and elements by understanding the law of their operation. We know that the law of action and re-action prevails
in nature; we recognize in nature the law of cause and effect. But do we not know that law rules in our very selves? We know
there is a law under which the body grows from conception to birth, from birth to maturity, followed by gradual declination.
Just as there is for man a cycle of birth, youth, manhood, decay and death, so there is a succession of events in nature,
which we perceive to be a universal law. Morning, noon, and night are followed by morning again; spring, summer, autumn,
and winter are followed by spring again. We ought then to be able to perceive that, as in nature our birth this time is but in
orderly succession after previous death, so must we come again and again for a life-time on earth, as we come again and
again to our day-times after the night. We must have passed through a great sweep of existence to have reached this
present birth, but that must also have been the operation of law. The choice lies between law and chaos. There can not be
law here and chaos there. All is under law; or, all is chaos. Our whole experience shows that law rules, and the conclusion
becomes necessary that law rules in every thing and in every circumstance. Law, therefore, must rule on both sides of death.
But is this law enforced upon us by some powerful Being? If so, there is no hope whatever for us. And who are WE
operating under this all-inclusive law? If we are mere bodies, we are small and restricted beings. If all the life there is, is what
we feel and experience in our bodies, life amounts to nothing. Very little thought, however, will convince us that we are not
our bodies. We know that our bodies are under constant change from birth to the present time; constant change will go on
until the cessation of these bodies; but we do not change. The same “I” was child, youth, young man, and older man. The
identity has not changed at all through all the changes of body it has experienced. Nor are we our minds, as so many
believe. Our minds are merely certain bundles of ideas in regard to life, and we must be greater than those minds because
we can change them. Nor is there any imaginable limit to that changing. No matter how much knowledge we may acquire,
we can go on learning; no matter what kind of a mind we may have, we possess the illimitable power to go on increasing it.
If one doubts the existence of anything greater than mind, he has but to see that the very fact of doubting—the expression of
doubt—shows an act and purpose beyond the idea. We could utterly refuse to think, and still exist. We must look deeper for
ourselves than the mind and the body. Both are but instruments which WE use. Then, what can we be? There is that in us
which lives, which thinks, which is life itself, which garners all experience, which it self changes not at all. It is smaller than the
small, as the ancients said; it is greater than the great. It can not be weighed nor measured. We can not say where it is and
where it is not; and yet it is the one thing in us—our very selves which enables us to have any experience, any idea or
combination of ideas. Call it Spirit, if you will. Call it Life. Call it Consciousness; for we well know that we can not have any
experience unless we are conscious of it. The ancients said: “The Soul is the Perceiver, is Vision itself, pure and simple,
and looks directly on ideas.” Spirit sees the idea; actions flow from the ideas adopted. Our differences are in respect to
mentality, in accordance with the kind and range of ideas; but we have all sprung from the same Source; we all have a
common basis, a common essential nature, which is Spirit and Life itself.
Our days and nights afford an illustration of the fact that we can let the body go, that we can depart from the body, and still
exist. While we are awake in the day-time, we act outwardly through the organs of the body which serve to transmit and
receive impressions. At night, these activities are stilled, and it is said that we sleep. But how may we know we are
conscious during those hours of the night? Because when we awake, we can say, “I dreamed,” and there is no question as
to our identity in the dream. We were conscious, too, of having all the senses; we had, apparently, the powers of motion.
Notwithstanding the dormant condition of the body in that state we call deep sleep, we were still acting, living, conscious
beings. It may not be difficult to conceive that, during the greater portion of the night’s rest passed in what is known as
“dreamless slumber” of the body, we are conscious; that our action is of a higher and finer kind than in waking-life; that it is
possible for us to keep a conscious hold on that action— to bring back into this brain of ours, which we are using during the
day-time, the memory of every act on every inner plane of being. The soul—the Real Man—with all his past experiences is
fully awake when the body is asleep. The night-time of the soul is the day-time of the body. It is only in exceptional cases,
however, that a human being knows that he is conscious all the time; that Consciousness can never by any possibility
cease. Yet each one can see for himself that if Consciousness ever ceased, there would be no possibility of its ever
beginning again. We can see continuing consciousness in the fact that we are able to take up, each day in our life, the work
of the day and days before.
Theosophy is presented for the purpose of showing that this full consciousness in the day-time, in operation through the
body, is possible to every man. If we had that consciousness, what would death mean to us? It would mean no more than
sleep. Death would mean merely a letting go of the body which had become useless to us. We should know that death could
never touch us any more than sleep reaches us; that as our consciousness is continuous, whether the body is asleep or
awake, so when the body dies, there is no cessation for us.
What, then, survives after death? The man himself, with all his tendencies, with all his experience. The Thinker, the Soul, is
what survives, is what can never be extinguished, can never itself suffer, can never be involved, is always of its own nature,
no matter what conditions a man may become involved in for the time being. Conditions, whether of joy or suffering, must
have an ending; but the One who enjoys, the One who suffers, the One who feels, changes not at all. That which survives is
our very selves—all that we call ourselves—the self who wakes, who dreams, who enjoys, who goes into different states,
through all the worlds. Let us say that this life is a dream in which we have our sufferings and our joys. When we awake, we
shall have other experiences, but it is that something permanent in us which takes to itself of each and every experience;
coming into any field of operation, it gathers experience according to the tendencies which itself has engendered on that
plane of being. Thus man has no other experience on earth save that which is his very own, save that which he has made
part of his action on this earth. The law of action and reaction, of cause and effect, sowing and reaping is, then, his own law.
What is it that survives? WE survive, as conscious beings, with all the powers of perception, with all that we have ever
gained, and thus shall it ever be. There is no cessation for us. Bodies wear out in one life, as we know, when they are no
longer capable and useful. Would we in wisdom wish to continue in such bodies? No: the soul demands a better instrument.
We tear down the old house to build a better one—or it may be a worse one, we might remember. If we are selfish, if we
work for this body alone, if we are against our fellow beings, then, in a body we shall have the reaction from our selfish
action. This is law, and not sentiment. It is not the doings of our fellow men that we are suffering from, but the evil we have
sown, coming back and pressing with its full weight against us. Not until man assumes his birthright and realizes that the
whole course of evolution is the working out of the laws of justice, will he take the first step forward in true progress, which
leads to conscious immortality.
THE ETERNAL VERITIES

CAN THE DEAD COMMUNICATE?
Since the forties of last century Spiritualists have affirmed the answer to this question, claiming sufficient evidence for the
survival of intelligence after the state known as death. But Spiritualism is not a new thing. Five hundred years or more ago,
and, way back through every age of man, people have practised what is called Bhut worship—that is, worship of the “spirits”
of the dead. Present day Spiritualism is but a repetition of a former error, even though its resurrection has been among
those whom we would call of higher intelligence, “deep thinkers,” and men of science. The “communications” of today, just
like those others all down the ages, bear nothing whatever in them of a truly spiritual nature; they are physical to the last
degree, as tile communications to Sir Oliver Lodge from his son, Raymond (through a medium, remember), bear witness.
According to the latter’s statement, his life after death is very much like the one he has left behind: people there still drink,
smoke cigars and, in fact (?) have cigars made for them in spirit-factories out of cigar stuff belonging to that state of matter.
If this is a “spiritual” communication, anybody is welcome to take it as such, but it only goes to show that when we are out of
physical life we are not necessarily in a spiritual state— as is the common supposition.
The question is, what do we learn from such “communications”? Is there anything or has there ever come anything from the
plane of spiritualistic communication which has been of any benefit to mankind? Has anything from that source shown us the
great purpose for which we are here? Does it tell us the meaning of life; why there appears to be so much injustice in the
world? Does it tell us of wars that are to be, and how to prevent various great catastrophies from falling upon us? Does it
inform us as to the connection or common cause of all the different beings in the world? Does it show us the nature of the
becoming of beings who are greater than we are, as well as of beings lower than we are? Does it show why and how this
solar system came into existence, and the laws which rule it? No. These are all matters on which we need knowledge; yet
from so-called “spirits” we get all sorts of differing communications as a basis for reasoning about them. Those very
differences should show us there is no source of knowledge in that quarter. ‘What we need is not what any “spirit” or
anybody else says about anything, but rather, a reasonable, logical, just statement of laws which each and every person can
test out for himself.
Let us consider the presentment of Theosophy as to how man has become what he now is—the real story of evolution, as
gained by observation and experience in the vast ages that have passed. The basis underlying that evolution is the same in
every human being, in every human heart, in every animal life, in every speck of matter—the same Spirit in all, the same One
Life, the One Intelligence. All are rays from that One Life, that One Intelligence, and each expresses the possibilities existing
in the Infinite Source. Differences in beings, in mankind, in various races, all mean degrees of intelligence; for each has the
same power as the highest being and the same power as all beings; the use or employment of the power brings about an
instrument to represent it more or less fully. Evolution is Spirit expressing itself, whether in this solar system, or in those
which preceded it. Intelligence was behind the beginning of this planet in its nebulous condition, or fire mist; intelligence was
behind the cooling and hardening processes through many, many ages. In all those states and in all those substances
connected with this planet we also have existed as spiritual beings, nor are they absent from us now. At the end of every life,
we go back through all those stages again to the highest one, and then descend again to the earthly stage, to reap the
effects of causes set in motion by us before in other bodies. For there is no transforming power in death; as a tree falls, so
must it lie. It is during the life-time that we must recognize and awaken our true natures. Death opens no door to knowledge.
We have proof of these states of consciousness right within our nightly experience. When we sleep—though we never sleep;
only the body sleeps—the consciousness of this physical plane is gone from us. We have no idea of what is going on
among our friends or relatives; we have not one slightest sensation of what is occurring anywhere on the earth while we are
not using the body. Here is “death”—a smaller, temporary death—for the body. Then we pass into another state altogether,
which we know as the dreaming state. The human soul goes on in dream, knowing oneself as the one there, seeing,
smelling, hearing, talking, moving and doing all the other things which he does while in the body, awake. They used to say
that if you took hold of a sleeper’s great toe he would talk to you. You would get a communication from a “spirit,” but what
kind of a communication would it be! The man would tell you just what his own mind had worked with; he would not know in
the dreaming state any more than his own personal thoughts, his own personal ideas and activities.
Applying this analogy to the time of death, we can see that in reality the time of death never comes. We finally give up this
body and it goes back to the earth from which it was taken; but WE are not dead. We are still alive. We are still conscious
on other planes and in other degrees, though we are not using the body nor the brain. But what kind of a consciousness,
what kind of an intelligence, are we using? Just the same kind that we had when we were in the body. Our thoughts and
feelings and desires go on acting for a time just as they did when we were using the body, because of the energy we had
put into them. As there is no renewal of it, that energy wears itself out, and the man—as a real spiritual being—enters into
quite another state, where no one on earth can disturb the action of his intelligence and the enjoyment of his bliss. How could
that be a state of bliss if for one single instant it could be disturbed by the sorrows left behind on earth? Could there be a
worse hell to some people than seeing from their “heaven” the appeasing of a husband’s sorrow and the place of mother
taken by another? We should understand that when a human being passes out of life, he passes through something like the
dream state—a mixed state—and then reaches the best state he is capable of expressing. A spiritual human being, it would
be folly to imagine otherwise, could not be disturbed by earthly doings, for his mission on earth was fulfilled when he left it.
But he would come back again in another body to take up another day’s work. Then, can we not see that all this idea of
communication with so-called “spirits” who have left the body is nonsense?
Let us not imagine that there are no other beings besides men outside the body. Let us not imagine that dead men, or living
dead men, are the only ones existent on the other side of this physical world. There are myriads of kinds of beings who do
not live in bodies like ours but inhabit planes into which men pass from this earth. Contiguous to our plane all sorts of
beings—sub-men, as well as human elementals, dwell. Can we imagine these are desirable communicants? And how can
we be sure that any external communication is not connected with some devilish spirit who likes to pose, to take the cast-off
clothing of man because of its at traction to his nature and desires, and exploit it to us? A great deal of knowledge is
required to understand the real nature of man, nor is it arrived at by any kind of “communication” what ever, but by entering
into our own natures. The Father in secret is within, not without, and everything we know or ever will know has to be known in
ourselves and by ourselves. Never from other people, never from any other kind of spirit, will it be known. The Spirit of God
within everyone—the Knower in everyone—is the last resort, the highest tribunal, the last eminence that we shall reach.
We are now traveling together through earth matter; when we leave the earth, we leave it, alone. So, when we travel through
astral matter, we are not confabulating with the denizens of the astral plane but are moving along our own lines. The states
after death are merely the effects of the life last lived. We step through from the place of our endeavor to reap what we have
sown—first casting off the evil, and then experiencing the highest and best of all our aspirations. In all of these states each
being realizes himself to be the same person; never for an instant does it enter one’s perception, or consciousness, that he
is any other than the one who was on earth; nor does he know that any such thing as death has occurred at all, in his highest
state he has with him all those whom he loved, and in just that condition which he would desire to have for them. He has his
bliss, because the balance between cause and effect, even for his sufferings on earth, is struck straight and true for the
spirit. All those states are within us, not outside; in those states, we meet first, last, and all the time Ourselves—first as we
think we arc, and finally as we really are.
There is no possibility of any communication from a “dead” person to a living one, except perhaps in the very short period
before the real individual has shaken off the ideas held during life. Sometimes then a very, very strong desire to impart
something will effect some sort of communication, but after the great change known as “the second death” all connection
with earth is broken off. A pure-minded living person by his aspiration and love may himself ascend to a heavenly place, and
there seem to speak and feel and be with those he loved, but that speaking and feeling do not disturb the one there. The
very essence of the spiritual state would exclude all disturbance, though we can obtain the kinds of feeling which exist in that
condition. All that a medium obtains are simply reflections and repetitions of what has occurred, recorded in the nature of
the sitter. A medium will describe the after death state of a person very much alive, which should show how subject to
mistakes and errors a medium is. In the passive mediumistic state there is no control over anything; there is merely a
channel provided through which certain things can come, or “leak.”
The majority of the “spiritual” communicants of the mediums are suicides and the victims of “accidental” death. For not
always is there death when the body dies. Unless the death coincides with the end of the life-term, which is fixed at birth, a
man is still tied to earth until the end of his term.
But there are cases of communications with beings in the world—almost within the realm of this world—beings not in
physical bodies, who live and move on another plane of substance, far away from connection with some easy going
medium. These beings are known as Nirmanakayas. They are men who have become perfected—who could if they chose
reach up to and hold the very highest state of bliss, but who refuse that bliss because it would mean forever to forsake all
chance of helping their fellow-men. They can, when the nature of the person is true and aspiring strongly, communicate, if it
is necessary to help him. But there is no mistake about these communications. They are personal, meant for that one as
direct help. It is the within which induces any outside help that we receive. It is a recognition of the spiritual nature of
ourselves and all beings which makes the true condition. It is from the spiritual that all true strength comes. And it is for the
perfection of humanity that all the Divine Incarnations have labored.

THE ETERNAL VERITIES

SLEEP AND DREAMS
There is something in each of us which enters the state called dreams, the state called sleep, and the state called death. No
understanding whatever can be had of the states into which we pass and from which we emerge save under the idea that
there is an Ego, a thinker, a perceiver, a knower, an experiencer, who enters the states and re-emerges there from, and that
this Ego, the real man, retains his integrity throughout them all.
We are more than any of the states we enter into, no matter how highly we may have considered any of those states. Even if
we imagine that we have reached, or can reach, the highest state of intelligence and action—that which we call the divine—
it is we who enter it. So an understanding of the states into which we go cannot be until we recognize that there is That in us
which goes through them all; then we must try to understand what that something is, and in this endeavor begin right where
we now are; we cannot start from any other place or position than where we are at any time.
What do we find, then? That we are a continuing identity. We have passed through many changes from birth up to now, but
our identity has not changed, no matter through what changes it may have passed, or may pass. When we get this fact firmly
fixed in our minds we will have reached the point of understanding that there is an immortal nature in each of us; that it is
divine in its essence, not subject to change; for It is changeless.
The dreaming state we enter just as we let go of the body, before we pass into the state of dreamless sleep; and on
awakening is, again, the transitional state into which we return before resuming waking state in the body. We know that we
have all the senses in dreams, although the body is quiescent, and the sense organs are not in use. We can see and feel,
we hear, talk, and act, just as we do in waking state, without using the physical organs associated with those sensations and
actions. This shows that we are conscious, alive, existent, although the body knows nothing. We know further that our identity
is not disturbed by entering dream-state; it is we ourselves, and none other, experiencing that state.
Dreaming state is known to be a very short state as contrasted with the waking state. It is known that we can dream and
experience through what seems to represent a very long period of time in the dream, though the state last but a few seconds
by the clock. There is a portion, by far the greater portion, of the “night’s rest” which is only known to us (in waking state) as
“dreamless sleep.” This is merely the slumber of the body. The body is then almost as if one had left it entirely. Yet the entity
must be in contact somewhere, for he is existent all the time, and is conscious—the same identity. Were this not true, we
would not wake, or on awakening there would be a new being altogether.
Further than these ideas as to dream and sleep Western psychologists have not gone. They do not know what was known
ages ago, and what is known to some today, that the Ego, the man, the thinker, is more fully occupied, more his real self,
during the dreamless slumber of the body than at any other time. So it was said that the day-time of the body is the night-
time of the soul, and the night-time of the body is the day-time of the soul. When the body sleeps, the real man is most
active, with the greatest degree of intelligence, but thinking and acting on another plane altogether, in a different state
altogether, from any known to us in ordinary waking human existence.
We know nothing about sleep, although we say that we experience it. What we know is that we are getting sleepy—that is,
that the body is growing exhausted—but sleep never comes to us. We are awake in the day-time; we are conscious; we
think. But our power to see and know when awake is applied almost exclusively to external things of a material kind, so that
what we call knowledge—waking knowledge—is, practically, an application of all our powers to physical existence, and to
that alone. When we sleep, what takes place?
During that interval we know that the body is absolutely irresponsive in regard to anything external. We do not know nor feel
anything that happens to our friends. The most frightful calamities might occur around about us, and we would know nothing
about them until we resumed control of the body. Yet we must have been alive, conscious, with an unchanged identity. This
brings our minds to the question as to why or how it is that we know nothing when awake of that activity on higher and
altogether different planes during the deep sleep of the body.
We have within us in abeyance, but not forgotten, not inaccessible, all that knowledge. It is recorded, impacted, in our
imperishable nature as truly as any record can possibly be made—every thing that we have been through, every degree of
experience, of knowledge, that we have ever acquired. When we sleep—that is, when the body sleeps—we go back to that
fountain of knowledge which is within ourselves; and “wake up” in the morning none the wiser. How can it be that,
possessing such knowledge, possessing the powers that belong to immortal Spirit, to divine Intelligence,we nevertheless
cannot use them, are not even aware of their existence in us?
There is a law known as Karma, the law of action and reaction, which has been stated: “Whatsoever a man soweth, that
shall he also reap.” We have so thought and acted while in the body as to produce finally an instrument that is not in accord
with our own real nature. We have put the power of our intelligence upon a consideration and use of material things—things
that appertain to a lower state of being than our own—and so have become involved in them. The brain that we use is
responsive almost entirely to these lower ideas; so that when we return into it, upon awakening, there is nothing in that brain
which will take the slightest impression or record of those states of consciousness through which we have passed.
If we are beings who have passed through higher states during sleep, how are we ever going to regain a knowledge of
these possessions? If we are told that we are divine in nature, not earthly; that we have an immense past; that we have
planes of consciousness higher than this and powers of action on those planes—what does that do for us? What does that
impart to us? What does that arouse in us? Does it not make us look at life from a different standpoint than the one we have
hitherto been accustomed to take?
Everything that we do in life, every result that we experience, is governed by some attitude of mind which we hold in regard
to life. If one is an atheist, let us say, or a materialist, who thinks that life began with this body and will end with it, then all his
thoughts and acts will be on that basis. But if he changes that idea, as he may, for the idea that he is immortal in essential
nature, then that of itself begins to work a transformation.
It is not what we go through that counts; but what we learn from it. Knowledge is what we should desire; not comforts nor
station. We desire to know, for in knowing we perceive the right things to do, the right thoughts to hold. As we are thinking all
the time, we are thinking either good or evil or indifferent
thoughts; our actions are good, evil or indifferent according to our thoughts. If we begin to think aright, we give direction to
that Spiritual Force which is the very essence of our nature. Let a man think aright, let him think and act unselfishly, and just
so surely as he does that he opens up the channels of his brain to a greater and greater perception and realization of his
own nature. When he reaches a certain point he is able to perceive that whether the body is awake or asleep or dreaming,
or whether the body has passed through the state called death—there is no cessation for him.
Supposing we were able to pass from waking to dreaming, from dreaming to sleeping, from sleeping to death, from death
to re-birth in another body—and able to go through all these states and changes without a single break of memory, so that
we could not only carry the memory intact from lower to higher states, but bring it through with us from higher to lower states,
through every plane, bringing back the knowledge into this or an other body—what would we be? Then we would know just
what we are. We would know the relation of this plane to every other. We could read the hearts of men. We could help them
to take a greater and higher stand. We should no longer be deluded by the ideas which impel the majority of men. We would
no longer struggle for place or position. We would struggle only for knowledge, for possessions of every kind in order that
we might be the better able to help and teach others. We would sojourn with Deity all the time, whether in a body or out of it.
It is to arouse man to an understanding of his own nature and to the right use of his powers that Theosophy has been
brought to him again, as it has been brought in period after period by Those who are greater than we are—Those who have
passed through the same stages we are now passing through—our Elder Brothers, the Christs of all times, the Divine
Incarnations. It is They who come to remind us of our own natures; to remind us and to arouse us to action, so that what we
really are may be known to us and expressed by us here on this lowest physical plane, on which we are working out our
destiny—a destiny made by ourselves, a destiny which can only be changed by ourselves, by the very power of that Spirit
which we are..
No one can know anything for another. Each one has to know for himself. Each one has to do his own learning. The object of
Theosophy is to teach man what he is, to show man what he is, and to present to him the necessity of his knowing for
himself. No vicarious atonement, no vicarious transmission of knowledge, is possible. But the direction in which knowledge
lies may be pointed out; the steps which will lead us in that direction may be shown, as can be done only by those who have
passed that way before. It is exactly what is being done. It is the course of all Saviors of humanity. It is the doctrine of
Krishna, of Buddha, of Jesus, no less than the doctrine of H. P. Blavatsky. The two teachings that the West is most urgently
in need of are those of Karma and Reincarnation, the doctrines of hope and responsibility— Karma, the doctrine of
responsibility means that whatever a man sows he shall also reap—Reincarnation, the doctrine of hope, means that—
whatever he is reaping—there never will be a time when he may not sow better seed. The very fact of suffering is a blessing.
Karma and Reincarnation show us that suffering is brought about by wrong thought and action; through our suffering we may
be brought to a realization that a wrong course has been pursued. We learn through our suffering. Life is one grand school
of Being, and we have come to that stage where it is time for us to learn to understand the purpose of existence; to grasp
our whole nature firmly; to use every means in our power in every direction—waking, dreaming, sleeping, or in any other
state—to bring the whole of our nature into accord, so that our lower instrument may be in line” and thus more and more fully
reflect our divine inner nature.

THE ETERNAL VERITIES

INSTINCT AND INTUITION
Instinct is a direct perception of what is right, within its own realm. Intuition is a direct cognition of the truth in all things.
Reason is, as it were, the balance between instinct and intuition. Animals have right instinct in regard to what to eat, and in
regard to what is dangerous to them, for their instinct is acquired experience; but they do not reason in their instincts—they
feel them. We reason about both our instincts (for we have some) and our intuitions, and usually reason ourselves into a
false position from a false basis of thinking. Reason is an instrument we are working with, but if we start with wrong
premises we are bound to come to false conclusions, however faultless the reasoning. Working logically, we can come to
right conclusions only with an eternal premise; in no other way shall we ever determine the right in our modes of looking at
things.
In trying to understand instinct and intuition, therefore, we shall have to ascertain their true foundation. Certainly, there must
be a deep meaning in, and a deep cause for, their existence. Looking upon the animal kingdom and seeing therein actions
proceeding for the welfare of the different animal beings, we call those actions on their part instinct, without at all realizing
that some thing produced that instinct. It could not arise of itself. It must have been a production, as all things in this or any
universe are productions. The statement of the ancient Wisdom-Religion is that at the root of every being of every grade, of
every form and of every kind, there is one reality—Spirit, and Spirit alone. From Spirit have come all productions; from Spirit
all evolutions have been brought about. The Spirit is the same in all; the acquisition differs in accordance with the degree of
progress of the individual or being; for evolutions proceed on individual lines. All beings are of the same nature, but because
the thought, the ideal and the action differ, we find in a great universe like ours many kinds of intelligence evolved from the
great Root of all evolution—the Spirit in each being.
All beings below man are evolutions each in its own degree. Even in the mineral kingdom there is form, whether that form be
of a crystal or an atom; it is a spiritual something with a psychic nature, expressing itself according to its own acquired
nature. Crystals have their own particular sympathies and antipathies, their own attractions and repulsions. Are these
mechanical? Not in the least. They are inherent instinct—an unerring faculty which is but that spark of the divine lurking in
every particle of in organic matter. If the mineral kingdom did not have a psychic intelligence, man could never use it. The
same is true with the vegetable and animal kingdoms, which, each, adds something to the mere psychical intelligence of the
mineral kingdom in a limited way. Then, coming to man, we find that he has the power of transcending his conditions, of
standing apart from them and looking upon them as a self-conscious being, separate from them, and of an entirely different
nature. That which is but a spark of divinity in the lower kingdoms grows to be a flame in the higher beings.
There are seven distinct stages through which all forms come, from nebular matter down to our present concrete formations.
Conditioned existence is produced by various kinds of lives in every state of matter—by different acquired intelligences. But
Man had a large part in the determination of the processes, of the degrees of descent to be undertaken, and it was
according to his knowledge and processes instituted by him, that the state or conditions of the kingdoms below him were
made. For Man was a self-conscious being when this earth began. Man stands midway between spirit and what we call
matter; he is the turning point of evolution, and on him depends the future of this evolution. Man has both instinct and
intuition. Every cell in our bodies is instinctively impelled by us. Whether we are conscious of it or not, that instinct causes
them to evolve. The lives in our bodies have been trained life after life, until their action is automatic and reflex. The cells of
the different organs have their own special impulsations. The cells subtract from food whatever is necessary for the
composition of the blood, the bones, the various tissues, and the brain—which, too, is made of the food we eat and is
changing all the time, like any other part of the body, being in constant dissociation. But the Real Man is not his body, nor his
brain, and it is to the Real Man that intuition pertains.
Both instinct and intuition have been gained in no other way than through observation and experience. All the instinct of
animals is a gain in that particular species along the lines of their own growth in intelligence and expression in bodies. So,
man’s intuition carries with it all the knowledge existing in his real nature. Man has lived lives anterior to this one, not few but
many—even on a planet which we inhabited before this earth began, or, rather, before we began with this earth. The many,
many experiences gained through many, many lives are still with us. We have never lost them. They are still resident and
potentially active in our innermost being—in that real nature of ours which each one of us reaches every twenty-four hours,
when the body is asleep, when the dreaming state is passed. There lies intuition— the sum total of all our past experiences.
Something comes through occasionally, giving us an inkling of what is the true nature. The voice of the conscience is the
outlook of that true nature upon the action which is contemplated. Some people hearing that “voice of the silence” think God
is speaking to them, or that some other outside being impresses them. But, in reality, it came from their own inner nature—
was born from and drawn from the accumulation of all past wisdom; it was “the voice” of their own spiritual nature.
The channel through which the intuition may flow may be made clear by any and every one of us. In what way? By desiring to
perpetuate the personality? Never, in this nor any other world. There must be a recognition of what, in reality, our personality
is. It is not the body; it is the ideas held. Ideas make a body a fit vehicle for them; ideas control the action of the body. Our
personalities are composed of our ideas, our likes and dislikes, our attractions and repulsions, of the little things that we
demand for ourselves, that buttress up in us the notion that all this is for me. This is not the Real Man. The personality can not
be retained; whatever the ideas held today, they are not the same as those we held in the past; yet in the past we acted, as
now, according to the ideas then entertained. In the future we shall have still other ideas, and will act in accordance with
them. It is our thinking which limits our action. It is, then, for us to see that we are real spiritual beings internally, and that it is
only the outer—the personality—which needs clarifying. The clearing can come about only by acting for and as the One Self.
Then we shall express our real natures clearly in this world of material things; then we shall know what some men only
suspect—for intuition is a direct cognition of the truth.
The Message of Theosophy was given us that we may reach into that part of our nature which knows, which notes and
knows. This is not an impossible task; for we are not poor miserable sinners, and others have accomplished it. They went
this way and tested out for themselves, as is the only true way for every one. They found it to be absolute fact that all this
inner knowledge, or intuition, is recoverable. They know that our ideas, our thoughts, our modes of thinking, our limited
understandings of our natures make our hindrances; they know that neither the body, nor any environment whatever is
detrimental, but that every environment is an opportunity—the greater the obstacles, the more hindrances of circumstance,
the greater the opportunity. If we could but be wise enough, if we could open our eyes wide enough to see, we could learn
something from the various instincts perceived in the kingdoms below us. All those beings are proceeding by instinct on that
long, long journey which leads to that place where we now are. If we are wise, by intuition we also will proceed on that small
old Path which leads far away—the Path that all the Predecessors of all time have trodden. All the Beings who have
appeared in the world as our Elder Brothers—Divine Incarnations—in past civilizations have reached that stage toward
which we are now consciously or unconsciously proceeding. Our intuition is not so asleep as we think. It is shining in us all
the time. If we will only remove the false conceptions which prevent us now from seeing, those of us who are operating on
this side of the dark veil can draw that veil aside and let the light shine through.

THE ETERNAL VERITIES

THE CREATIVE WILL
There is no possible way of understanding or explaining the nature of any being whatever except through Evolution, which is
always an unfolding from within outwards, the expression of spirit or consciousness through the intelligence acquired. The
will of spirit in action has produced everything that exists.
If we understand that intelligent will lies behind everything that exists, is the cause of everything that is, is the Creator in the
universe, we may perhaps gain some idea of what it is necessary for us to know in order properly to use our powers.
All stand as creators in the midst of our creations. There are creators below us in the scale of intelligence. We stand in
another place, with a wider range of vision, a greater fund of experience; so we can see that below us, infinitely below us,
are beings so small that many of them could be gathered on the point of a needle. Yet the scientists who have examined
them under many conditions cannot deny to these infinitesimal organisms a certain intelligence, an ability to seek what they
like and to avoid what they dislike. From the smallest conceivable point of perception and action there is a constantly
widening range of expression, of evolution, a development more and more in the direction of a greater range of being. This
evolution of intelligence, or soul, proceeds very slowly in the lower kingdoms, more rapidly in the animal kingdom, and in
man has reached that stage where the being himself knows that he is, that he is conscious, that he can understand to some
extent his own nature and the natures of the beings below him, and see their relation to each other.
Man has now reached a point where he begins to inquire what more there is for him to know. He has ceased to think
exclusively of the material; he is sensing his own nature, and he asks, What am I, whence came I, whither do I go?
If we have these ideas, we can perceive that there must have been in the past some amongst men who asked these very
questions that we are now asking, and who took the steps that carried them to a higher point of experience and knowledge
than we now occupy. It is these very beings, now above us, who form a stratum of consciousness, of knowledge and power,
that we have not—men who have passed through the stages we are now in. They are the very ones who come to this earth
as Saviors from time to time.
As Christians, we look back to the advent of One such, and think of Him as unique. Yet He came in His time to but one small
nation; He said Himself that He came but to the Jews. Do we not know that every civilization and every tribe that ever has
existed has held a similar record—that of some great Personage who came amongst them?
Back of all the religions that ever have been, there is the record, the tradition, of some great Personage. And we find an
astonishing fact in studying the scriptures and teachings of other days—each of these great Teachers taught the same
doctrines. There is no difference between the teachings of Jesus and the teachings of Buddha, although those teachings
are recorded in different languages and an interval of six hundred years separated the two great Teachers. What is true of
these two is like wise true of all the other many Saviors of different times and peoples—they all taught the same fundamental
ideas.
This fact suggests that there is a body of Men, of perfected men, product of past civilizations and evolution, our Elder
Brothers, in fact, who have acquired and are the Custodians of the knowledge and experience gained through aeons of
time. Their knowledge is actually the very Science of Life, for it enters into every department of existence, of nature. They
know the natures and processes of the beings below man, and above man, as we know the processes of ordinary every-day
experience. This knowledge they have preserved and recorded, and they have the memory of it, just as we have the memory
of yesterday’s experiences and events.
They have not extended their power to know. We have each of us the same power to know that is theirs. But they have
extended the facilities of the instruments which they possess. They have improved what they have. They have better brains.
They have better bodies. How did they acquire them? By fulfilling every duty which faced them, regardless of what came to
themselves. They thought nothing of acquiring power and knowledge for themselves; they thought only of gaining power that
they might expend it for the benefit of every living creature. In so doing they opened the doors to the full play of the power of
the Spirit within.
We do the very opposite. We contract the divine power of the Spirit within us to the pin-holes of personal desires and
selfishness. Do we not see that? Do we not see that we ourselves stand in the way of the use of the power within us
because our ideas are selfish, small, mean?
The great work of evolution proceeds from within outwards. The Soul is the Perceiver; it looks directly on ideas. The action
of the will is through ideas. The ideas give the directions. Small ideas, small force; large ideas, large force; the Force itself
is illimitable, for it is the force of Spirit, infinite and exhaustless. What we lack are universal ideas. We need to arouse in
ourselves that power of perception which will lay the whole field of being open to us. A stream cannot rise higher than its
source.
The nature of man can never be understood in the least degree by the ideas and methods which modern psychologists and
scientists and popular religions are following. They all proceed from the basis of physical life, many of them from the basis of
one life only. They tabulate experiences of many kinds, with out any firm basis upon which to fix their thought, their reason,
and so never arrive at any definite conclusion or real knowledge of what man is, or of the powers that he may exhibit. This is
their use of the creative power, but it is a limited use, a misuse. Those who follow that way usually have some selfish
purpose at the base of their desire, something they wish to achieve for themselves, some benefit they desire for themselves.
This is not the way. Theosophy says that if the desire or aspiration is unselfish, noble, universal, then the force which flows
through the individual is grand, noble, universal in its character. Further, that every human being has in him the same
elements, the same possibilities, as any other, even the noblest and highest beings in this or any solar system. This puts
man in quite a different position from where our religions, our science, or our philosophy of the West place him. They all treat
of man as if he were his body or his mind, as if he were the creature and not the creator.
The body changes; we change our minds; but there is a Something in us which does not change, which does not depend on
change, whether of body, mind or circumstances, but which is the creator, the ruler, the experiencer of all changes of every
kind. It is this portion of our nature—the real Man within us— that we need to know the nature of. If we can reach such a point
of perception that we can grasp the fact of the Spirit within us, we shall have reached a point where a knowledge of
ourselves is possible; and if a knowledge of ourselves, then a knowledge through that of all other beings whatsoever.
The great Teachers point to the fact that the real basis of man’s nature is Divinity, Spirit, God. Deity is not some other being,
however great. It is not something outside. It is the very highest in ourselves and in all others. That is the God, and all that any
man may know of this Spirit is what he knows in himself, of himself, through himself. This is the idea that all the ancients put
forward in saying there is but one Self, and that we are to see the Self in all things and all things in the Self. That is what we
all do to some extent; we see the Self, more or less. Nothing is seen outside ourselves; everything that we see or know is
within ourselves. But we think of the Self in us as mortal, perishable, having no existence apart from this body and this mind,
and as separate from the Self in all other forms.
If we had within us and behind us all the power that there is in the universe, and we had no channel through which that power
could flow—or only a narrow, twisted, distorted channel— that great Power would be of no use to us. would be non-existent
to us. To open up the channel it is necessary for us to understand the real basis: the God within, immortal and eternal, the
Source of all being, our very selves; second, that all action proceeds from that Source and Center of our being and of all
being. Then who is the constructor of all? How was all this evolution brought about? All the beings involved in it make up both
the world and its inhabitants; all that exists is Self-produced, Self-evolved—the creation of Spiritual beings acting in, on, and
through each other. The whole force of evolution, and the whole power behind it, is the human will, so far as humanity is
concerned. We do not realize that every form occupied by any being is composed of Lives, each undergoing evolution on its
own account, aided, impelled or hindered by the force of the higher form of consciousness that evolved it. For this universe
is embodied Consciousness, or Spirit. And just as a single drop of water contains within it every element and characteristic
of the whole ocean, so each being, however low in the degree of its intelligence, contains within itself the potentiality and
possibilities of the highest. The will of the Spirit in action has produced all.
The great Message of Theosophy has provided for every interested enquirer the means by which he may know the truth
about himself and nature. Just as the Elder Brothers have provided in the past, so They have again in our day. Everything
that Humanity needs has been given to us. But can you give to any one what he does not Want? Can you cause to enter into
the mind of another what that mind will not receive?
There has to be an open mind, a pure heart, an eager intellect, an unveiled spiritual perception, before there is any hope for
us. As long as we are self-centered, as long as we are satisfied with what we know and what we have, this great Message
is not for us. It is for the hungry, for the weary, for those who are desirous of knowledge, for those who see the absolute
paucity of what has been put before us as knowledge by those who style themselves our teachers, for those who find no
explanation any where of the mysteries that surround us, who do not know themselves, who do not understand themselves.
For them there is a way; for them there is food in abundance; for them this whole Movement is kept in being by one single
will, the Will of the Elder Brothers who have carried these great eternal truths through good and evil in order that mankind
may be benefited; not desiring any reward, not desiring any recognition, desiring only that Their fellow men, Their younger
brothers, may know, may realize what They know.

THE ETERNAL VERITIES

MAN, VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE
“There are two kinds of beings in the world, the one divisible, and the other indivisible: the divisible is all things and the
creatures, the indivisible is called Kutastha, or he who standeth on high unaffected. But there is another spirit designated as
the Supreme Spirit—Paramatma—which permeates and sustains the three worlds.”—Bhagavad-Gita.
In considering these statements, our immediate tendency is to make a separateness—a division—in our minds; but to
understand nature at all, to understand ourselves at all, we may not make any such division. Both the divisible and the
indivisible, and the Supreme Spirit, exist within each and every being. The “three worlds” exist in the nature of man as a
being. Man, “visible and invisible,” is Man, “divisible and indivisible.” There are different classes of visible beings, as well as
different classes of invisible beings, but whatever we may know of those different classes must come from a perception
within ourselves. For that perception, however high, there is no stoppage any where; it may reach to the utmost confines of
space. The power in each one is the Supreme Spirit.
When we look at a human being with our physical eyes, we are able to see only the form; when we listen to the speech of a
human being, we are able to understand only the sounds that we hear, or the ideas that the words convey. We can not tell
just what a human being is, just what his possibilities are, or what knowledge is his, either by looking at him or by hearing
him speak. We may know this or that presentment, or the various circumstances under which we came in contact; we may
gain ideas from those contacts; but to know one through and through, root and branch, is not given to any mere physical
thinker. So there is in the human being that which is invisible—that power of perception and expression of which we sense
only a part. That invisible part of man has never been fathomed, though it exists in all of us, and from it all that is visible has
sprung.
Spirit is invisible, yet can we think of a place where Spirit is not? Spirit is everywhere, in everything, the cause, the sustainer,
of all that was, is, or ever shall be. Spirit is not outside of us; the same Spirit is in all; whatever differences we may be able to
perceive in any other are not differences of Spirit, but differences in range of perception. All our powers rest upon that One
Spiritual Nature. The limitations placed upon the power to express are not made by any external force whatever, but made
by ourselves, by the ideas that we hold. Our range of perception is governed by the ideas we hold in regard to ourselves, our
nature, and the life about us. These ideas that control our physical lives and our minds are, in fact, the limitations in
ourselves; yet, however varied, however high, however low they may be, their very permanency rests on the Spirit itself and
every one of them springs from perceptions of Spirit. Truth and error both spring from perceptions of Spirit, and by the very
power of Spirit are sustained. Ideas rule actions, and, as ideas have, like actions, their cycle of return, so we create a
vicious cycle in which we become involved, from the one single fact that we constantly identify ourselves with this, that, or the
other condition. But this very power of self-identification is from Spirit.
Visible man—his body, his physical instrument—alone is a growth from below upwards. The physical body is merely the
shell of the man, made of matter of the earth, from the three lower kingdoms—mineral, vegetable, and animal—and is being
constantly renewed from day to day, constantly worn out from day to day. Man, himself, is that invisible power and entity
which inhabits the body, which is the cause of its present construction and development from lower forms of consciousness.
Man, himself, is above all physicality. From the physical point of view, man, himself, is absolutely invisible. He is that which
acts. No form may restrain him. No form can in any real sense contain him. Any form may be the focus from which he may
and can act. The Real Teaching is that the man himself, as spiritual being, descends from the plane of spirituality, or spiritual
self-consciousness, step by step, through all the stages of condensation of matter; that he meets the uprising tide of form
from the lower kingdoms, and when the most perfect form of all has been brought to its highest stage of development, he
enters it. Not until the invisible man enters the physical instrument, could there be humanity at all. So we, as human beings,
are the product of the higher Divine Spirit, of all the knowledge of a past immensity of time, and also, of all that lies in the
lower kingdoms, which constitutes our lower nature. Man’s higher nature is not divisible. It is constant, eternal and true. The
lower nature is impermanent and changing, but the invisible man within is the one who makes the changes, who forces on
the changes, and who gathers experience and knowledge through them. There is no static condition for any instrument
whatever in all the kingdoms, in all the worlds and in all systems. Never-ceasing motion, the power to move on and on, in
greater and greater ranges of perception, is the birth-right of every human being. We are like the one who went out from his
father’s house and dwelt among the swine and fed upon husks. The time must come for us to say, like the prodigal son, ‘ will
arise and return to my Father”—I will arise and resume my own real place in Nature; using all the instruments that I have, I will
work to the end that all beings may share in all knowledge, that they may progress in a consecutive range of steps, ever on
and upward, without the breaks and obstacles that a false conception of our nature brings about. Such is the whole object of
the ancient Wisdom Religion—that man may resume his own birthright. No being or beings of any grade can confer upon
man the knowledge that he alone can get. That knowledge is all in reserve in the invisible part of his nature, the result of
every experience of all his immense past; it is right with him, although he has made his physical instrument of such
a nature that it will not register what he, as the real being—the invisible man—knows. Man, the invisible being, eternally is;
for him there is never for an instant cessation of consciousness. The curtain rings down on one scene to immediately rise on
another. When the body is at rest, the man is still acting and thinking, in another way, in a finer form, on planes not so
restricted as is the physical plane. There he has freedom. There he sees and feels and hears and speaks and acts (as he
does on the physical plane) but he can be here, there or elsewhere, wherever his thought brings him, wherever his desire is;
he can move freely and unhampered by gross physical material. The power of perception of all kinds of substance, and of all
kinds of beings is the power of everyone of us, but that power to see lies behind the physical eye; it belongs to the eye
within—the eye of the soul.
How shall we recognize that power? By acting from the basis of our eternal, divine nature; by assuming our own identity; by
ceasing to place dependence on any philosophy, on any science, or religion, or any statement whatever; by depending on
the reality of the inner, true, spiritual man; by clarifying our mental conceptions; by thinking right thoughts and by acting in
accordance with them. In that way, every channel in the body becomes open to what goes on when, as spiritual beings, we
leave the physical instrument at night, and are active on the inner, spiritual planes of being. Each and every human being
must open up those channels on his higher nature for himself. He must know for himself, and the only place where he may
know is within himself. Each one, in reality, stands at the center of the universe, and all the rest are pictures and sounds and
experiences, in which he may see the play of spirit.
How may we obtain a resumption of divinity? It can not be obtained by much speaking, nor by argument. It can be obtained
only by taking the position. Always we act in accordance with the position assumed. So let us take the highest position, the
position that is shown by everything in nature. The highest of the high is ours. We must assume that high position. We must
affirm it. How else can we gain a knowledge of immortality than by taking the position of immortality? We assume and act in
accord with the position of wickedness very easily. If we take the high position, we not only act in accordance with the
greatness of the position taken, but we come to a realization of it within ourselves, where is all perception of it, all fulfillment
of it.
What knowledge could we have of immortality from the point of view of mortality? What idea of perfection could we get from
the basis of imperfection? None but a faulty one. The highest idea on that basis would merely be less imperfection. Real
perfection does not mean a relative perfection; it means an intimate knowledge of the essential basis of everything that
exists in nature. True spirituality is not a hazy condition; not a mere existence without action; but the power to know and to
do, to have what the ancients called ‘all-knowingness.” When we reach "all-knowingness" then are we truly divine—-divine in
knowledge, divine in power, acting through every conceivable state of matter, and through every conceivable instrument.
And that is our great destiny. Just let us seize it. Life is ours. Spirit is ours. Consciousness is ours. Eternal existence is ours.
Just let us take it.
The greatest of all knowledge does exist. All the experience of the past, all the civilizations that ever have been, have
produced beings who now are the custodians of all the knowledge that has been gained. That knowledge is waiting for us
as soon as we shall take the necessary steps to fit ourselves to become the possessors of it. That knowledge includes all
intellectual knowledge, all spiritual knowledge, and all knowledge of every force in nature. Great and powerful as are some
forces that we know of now, there are forces to be known that far transcend them all. The power to destroy a world is
reachable by the one who takes the right step; but the one who takes the right step will never destroy. He will only build. He
will use all the power that he has to construct a path on which humanity may travel the way that he has gone. If, then, we all
think of ourselves as eternal invisible beings, acting through visible impermanent instruments, we shall get a better and truer
conception of life; and if we will try to reach inward to the innermost part of our heart of hearts, we shall find a greater vision
ours—a power to perceive in wider ranges, to greater depth, with more effect than can ever be gained by our physical
organs of sight. As one of our Great Teachers said, “All nature is before you; take what you can.” It is for each one to listen,
to learn, to apply.

THE ETERNAL VERITIES

RENUNCIATION OF ACTION
It would be a grave mistake to think that by not acting one frees himself from the consequences of action. Such would be a
totally false view of the “renunciation of action.” The whole universe is action. First, last, and all the time ceaseless motion
lies behind everything that is. Among all creatures the impulse to move on—to progress—is action, and it comes from the
very nature of Spirit itself; it cannot be denied. Nor can one, even if he should think so, ever cease from action, in not doing
that which ought to be done; for there is action in the very thought—
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