The Key to Theosophy
Helena
Petrovna Blavatsky
1831
-1891
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The Key to Theosophy
By
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
On the Various Principles in Man
Q. I have heard a good deal about this constitution of the
"inner man" as you
call it, but could never make "head or tail on't" as
Gabalis expresses it.
A. Of course, it is most difficult, and, as you say,
"puzzling" to understand
correctly and distinguish between the various aspects,called by us
the
principles of the real Ego. It is the more so as there exists a
notable
difference in the numbering of those principles by various Eastern
schools,
though at the bottom there is the same identical substratum of
teaching.
Q. Do you mean the Vedantins, as an instance? Don't they divide your
seven
principles into five only?
A.They do; but though I would not presume to dispute the point with
a learned
Vedantin, I may yet state as my private opinion that they have an
obvious reason
for it. With them it is only that compound spiritual aggregate
which consists of
various mental aspects that is called Man at all, the physical body
being in
their view something beneath contempt, and merely an illusion. Nor
is the
Vedanta the only philosophy to reckon in this manner. Lao-tzu, in
his Tao Te
Ching, mentions only five principles, because he, like the
Vedantins, omits to
include two principles, namely, the spirit ( Atma) and the physical
body, the
latter of which, moreover, he calls "the cadaver." Then
there is the Taraka
then, in reality, their Sthulopadhi, or the physical body, in its
waking
conscious state, their Sukshmopadhi, the same body in Svapna,or the
dreaming
state, and their Karanopadhi or "causal body," or that
which passes from one
incarnation to another, are all dual in their aspects, and thus
make six. Add to
this Atma, the impersonal divine principle or the immortal element
in Man,
undistinguished from the Universal Spirit, and you have the same seven
again.
They are welcome to hold to their division; we hold to ours.
[See 'Secret Doctrine', part 1, p. 182 for a clearer exposition]
Q. Then it seems almost the same as the division made by the mystic
Christians:
body, soul, and spirit?
A. Just the same. We could easily make of the body the vehicle of
the "vital
Double"; of the latter the vehicle of Life or Prana; of
Kamarupa,or (animal)
soul, the vehicle of the higher and the lowermind, and make of this
six
principles, crowning the whole with the one immortal spirit. In
Occultism every
qualitative change in the state of our consciousness gives to man a
new aspect,
and if it prevails and becomes part of the living and acting Ego,
it must be
(and is) given a special name, to distinguish the man in that
particular state
from the man he is when he places himself in another state.
Q. It is just that which it is so difficult to understand.
A. It seems to me very easy, on the contrary, once that you have
seized the main
idea,i.e., that man acts on this or another plane of consciousness,
in strict
accordance with his mental and spiritual condition. But such is the
materialism
of the age that the more we explain the less people seem capable of
understanding what we say. Divide the terrestrial being called man
into three
chief aspects, if you like, and unless you make of him a pure
animal you cannot
do less. Take his objective body; the thinking principle in
him-which is only a
little higher than the instinctualelement in the animal-or the
vital conscious
soul; and that which places him so immeasurably beyond and higher
than the
animal-i.e.,his reasoning soul or "spirit." Well, if we
take these three groups
or representative entities, and subdivide them, according to the
occult
teaching, what do we get?
First of all, Spirit (in the sense of the Absolute, and therefore,
indivisible
All), or Atma. As this can neither be located nor limited in
philosophy, being
simply that which is in Eternity, and which cannot be absent from
even the
tiniest geometrical or mathematical point of the universe of matter
or
substance, it ought not to be called, in truth, a "human"
principle at all.
Rather, and at best, it is in Metaphysics, that point in space
which the human
Monad and its vehicle man occupy for the period of every life. Now
that point is
as imaginary as man himself, and in reality is an illusion, a Maya
; but then
for ourselves, as for other personal Egos, we are a reality during
that fit of
illusion called life, and we have to take ourselves into account,
in our own
fancy at any rate, if no one else does. To make it more conceivable
to the human
intellect, when first attempting the study of Occultism, and to
solve the a-b-c
of the mystery of man, Occultism calls this seventh principle the
synthesis of
the sixth, and gives it for vehicle the SpiritualSoul, Buddhi. Now
the latter
conceals a mystery, which is never given to any one, with the
exception of
irrevocably pledgedChelas, or those, at any rate, who can be safely
trusted. Of
course, there would be less confusion, could it only be told; but,
as this is
directly concerned with the power of projecting one's double
consciously and at
will, and as this gift, like the "ring of Gyges," would
prove very fatal to man
at large and to the possessor of that faculty in particular, it is
carefully
guarded. But let us proceed with the principles. This divine soul,
or Buddhi,
then, is the vehicle of the Spirit. In conjunction, these two are
one,
impersonal and without any attributes (on this plane, of course),
and make two
spiritual principles. If we pass onto the Human Soul, Manas or
mens, everyone
will agree that the intelligence of man is dual to say the least:
e.g., the
high-minded man can hardly become low-minded; the very intellectual
and
spiritual-minded man is separated by an abyss from the obtuse,
dull, and
material, if not animal-minded man.
Q. But why should not man be represented by two principles or two
aspects,
rather?
A. Every man has these two principles in him, one more active than
the other,
and in rare cases, one of these is entirely stunted in its growth,
so to say, or
paralysed by the strength and predominance of the otheraspect, in
whatever
direction. These, then, are what we call the two principles or
aspects of Manas,
the higher and the lower; the former, the higher Manas, or the
thinking,
conscious Ego gravitating toward the spiritual Soul (Buddhi); and
the latter, or
its instinctual principle, attracted to Kama,the seat of animal
desires and
passions in man. Thus, we havefour principles justified; the last
three being
(1) the "Double," which we have agreed to call Protean,
or Plastic Soul; the
vehicle of (2) the life principle; and (3) the physical body. Of
course no
physiologist or biologist will accept these principles, nor can he
make head or
tail of them. And this is why, perhaps, none of them understand to
this day
either the functions of the spleen, the physical vehicle of the
Protean Double,
or those of a certain organ on the right side of man, the seat of
the
above-mentioned desires, nor yet does he know anything of the
pineal gland,
which he describes as a horny gland with a little sand in it, which
gland is in
truth the very seat of the highest and divinest consciousness in
man, his
omniscient, spiritual and all-embracing mind. And this shows to you
still more
plainly that we have neither invented these seven principles, nor
are they new
in the world of philosophy, as we can easily prove.
Q. But what is it that reincarnates, in your belief?
A. The Spiritual thinking Ego, the permanent principle in man, or
that which is
the seat of Manas. It is not Atma, or even Atma-Buddhi, regarded as
the dual
Monad, which is the individual, or divineman, but Manas; for Atma
is the
Universal All, and becomes the Higher-Self of man only in
conjunction with
Buddhi, its vehicle, which links it to the individuality (or divine
man). For it
is the Buddhi-Manas which is called the Causal body,(the United
fifth and sixth
Principles) and which is Consciousness,that connects it with every
personality
it inhabits on earth. Therefore, Soul being a generic term, there
are in men
three aspectsof Soul-the terrestrial, or animal; the Human Soul;
and the
Spiritual Soul; these, strictly speaking, are one Soul in its three
aspects. Now
of the first aspect, nothing remains after death; of the second
(nous or Manas)
only its divine essence if left unsoiledsurvives, while the third in
addition to
being immortal becomesconsciously divine, by the assimilation of
the higher
Manas. But to make it clear, we have to say a few words first of
all about
Reincarnation.
Q. You will do well, as it is against this doctrine that your
enemies fight the
most ferociously.
A. You mean the Spiritualists? I know; and many are the absurd
objections
laboriously spun by them over the pages of Light. So obtuse and
malicious are
some of them, that they will stop at nothing. One of them found
recently a
contradiction, which he gravely discusses in a letter to that
journal, in two
statements picked out of Mr. Sinnett's lectures. He discovers that
grave
contradiction in these two sentences: "Premature returns to
earth-life in the
cases when they occur may be due to Karmic complication … ";
and "there is no accident in the supreme act of divine justice guiding
evolution." So profound a thinker would surely see a contradiction of the
law of gravitation if a man
stretched out his hand to stop a falling stone from crushing the
head of a
child!
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