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THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING HOUSE Adyar - Madras - India

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C. Subbarayudu at THE VASANTA PRESS Adyar - Madras - India

Also obtainable from

THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING HOUSE 68 Great Russell Street London, W.C.I, England

THE THEOSOPHICAL

PRESS Wheaton, Illinois, U.S.A.

A YOGA OF REMEMBRANCE

This Yoga is a Yoga of Remembrance.

It is a Yoga of the Memory of the One in the Many.

It is a Yoga of the Memory of the Sun of the Eternal amidst its shadows of Time.

It is a Yoga of the Memory of God among the Gods in every kingdom of Nature.

It is a Yoga of the Memory of the Seed in the Flower, and of the Flower in the Seed.

It is a Yoga of the Memory of Life amidst its countless Forms.

It is a Yoga of the Memory of the Future in the Present.

It is a Yoga of the Memory of the Eternal Now.

It is a Yoga of the Memory of Silence amidst Sound, of Light amidst Darkness.

It is a Yoga of the Memory of the Infinite in the Finite, of the Whole in every Part.

It is a Yoga of the Memory of the Ceaseless Breath of God.

It is a Yoga of the Memory of the Eternal Bridge between the Less and the More.

It is a Yoga of the Memory of Victory in the midst of Defeat.

It is a Yoga of Memory in Transubstantiation.

It is a Yoga of the Memory of the Divinity in all things.

THE FOUR SOURCES OF WISDOM

There are, it is said in the Teachings of Manu, four great sources of Wisdom :

1. There is Revelation, as, for example, given in the Scriptures

of the world.

2. There are the Experiences of the Wise.

3. There is the Vision of the Enlightened.

4. There is the Right Living of the Virtuous.

This book on Symbolic Yoga is, perhaps, a little of each, written down by one who aspires to benefit from all.

PREFACE

In publishing The Lotus Fire : A Study in Symbolic Yoga, I am very conscious of the fact that its only value lies in the extent to which it is able to suggest to the adventurous thinker and student of life heretofore uncharted fields for fruitful exploration. The book consists of notes taken at the time of my own personal explorations in a field in which I had long been keenly interested, explorations which were fortunate enough to have the guidance of One whose discoveries in innumerable fields have constituted Him a Master of the Wisdom of Life. But even this guidance gives the notes no special authority, for both the guidance and the explorations are individual to myself.

The value of the guidance and the explorations lies, as I have said, in the extent to which these stimulate the adventurous and challenging spirit of the reader, sending him forth on his own unique way, and by no means seeking to invite his adherence to the way I myself am travelling.

Far from presuming to disclose truth and to invite the reader to accept it, I am only disclosing a way I have found which appears to lead in the direction of something true for me. The notes which constitute the material published were written down while the actual journeyings were taking place which led to the discovery of the Symbols. At some risk of redundance and incoherence, they have been left as far as possible intact, so that to some extent at least they may convey the strange atmosphere of the events they describe.

On the other hand, much material has been added both by way of corroboration, of comparison, and of indications as to further study ; and I have very specially to thank Mrs. Adeltha Peterson, of Adyar, for her most valuable assistance in this respect. Mrs. Peterson is herself a deep student of Theosophy and of the occult, and her sympathetic understanding

has immensely facilitated both the investigations and the writing of them down. I thank also Miss Helen Veale and Miss Edith Pinchin for comments of value.

To Mrs. Dinshaw, also of Adyar, my very special thanks are no less due for giving particular assistance in preparing the notes for publication, including the very excellent synopses of the various chapters preceding each book, and for a most careful and critical revision of the proofs.

Mrs. Halsey and those who worked with her have been of invaluable help in preparing an adequate index, a work involving many weeks of concentrated effort.

To Mr. Conrad Woldringh I owe the exquisite little drawings he has made, and also the beautiful frontispiece. The artistic production of much of Adyar's literary output is due to his genius. And as usual Mr. C. Subbarayudu and his co-workers of the Vasanta Press at Adyar have given their skill and their patience in those important mechanical processes whereby thoughts are able to incarnate in gracious forms.

Finally, I am gratefully thankful to Rukmini Devi for her constant inspiration, and I offer respectful homage to Adyar for making possible these excursions into the Kingdom of Yoga. There are but a few places on the world's surface where Yoga can be effectively and safely undertaken. Among these places, Adyar certainly stands very high.

At Adyar, during the earth's adjustment in the Symbol of Easter, 7939.

PROEM

HOW THE BOOK CAME TO BE WRITTEN

The origin of this book lay in the fact that I have been

for a very long time interested in Symbology as a means of

conveying metaphysical conceptions within a very limited

and tangible compass.

Cosmic Events | venture to believe that if we could contact the

as Symbol-Formulae highest reaches of consciousness, however feebly, we could

reduce the greatest happenings, or for the matter of that all happenings, in the evolutionary process, into Symbols or Formulae. God works m A symbol is born because God. Nature, works in

Formulae

formulae. Every living thing is a symbol, a very extraordinary symbol, and I have always desired to understand life in terms of its reduction into symboljc formulae. When I watched a great Indian lady dancing the Hindu classical dance, Bharata Natya, I knew that each one of the gestures, each one of the postures, was a reflection of some ultimate Symbol or Formula. Power Release And it came to me that if only I could understand and

through the

Dance enter into the essence of the Dance of Shiva, I should then

be able in some degree to perceive the Ultimates of the Dance, the Ultimates of Being, of Life, and I should then be able to see how every gesture, in fact every movement of every part of the body, has its own cosmic significance, so that anyone who knew the dance as the dance really is would be able to watch in each element of the dance the

THE LOTUS FIRE

The Symbols disclosed

Corroboration only for the Student

To release a Different Aspect of Yoga

expression of a mighty truth, the release of a spiritual power.

I pondered over this for very long, until one night one of the Great Beings, who is a Messenger of the Lord Shiva, disclosed to me, one after another, certain Symbols in their cosmic significance, showing them with the ease and the splendour of the ali-pervading, all-rhythmic power which He naturally exercises. And when in His Home He showed me these Symbolic Ultimates, the whole vista of the meaning and purpose of evolution gradually unveiled itself before me, and I have done my best to write it all down as I have perceived it, and, where I could, to obtain corrobora-tion from the great books of our Theosophical classic literature.

Not that I wanted any corroboration. When you know, you know. But I felt it might be a matter of convenience for some students of The Theosophical Society, for whom the book is especially intended, to perceive that I have not in fact been outside the great picture of Life as, for example, H. P. Blavatsky has unfolded it to us. I have, perhaps, seen the picture otherwise, but I think I have seen the same picture, modified, of course, by my own personal equation and smaller stature.

So was it that from an intense interest in Truth as depicted in a great sequence of dancing postures and movements, I found myself contemplating as in direct ascent from these a specific series of Symbols Ultimate, from which all Truth depends, be the forms, the colours, the sounds, the expressions, what they may.

The purpose of this book, therefore, is to release an aspect of the evolutionary process somewhat different from that to which we are accustomed, and also to help those who are genuinely interested in Yoga to study a specialized line which will be safe and at the same time fruitful.

PROEM

13

The Real Yoga of Hinduism

A Manual of Creation

I have every reason to believe that this particular form of Yoga is essentially the same as those forms which we are in the habit of studying in the sacred books of Hinduism, but I do definitely feel that the translations of these which are at our disposal, and even the original Samskrit, are by no means adequate—the translations because these are always into non-Yoga languages, and the Samskrit because most of its modern interpreters do not know Yoga even though they may know Samskrit : and do they at all know the real Samskrit, the Samskrit which is the language of the Gods ? When men study Samskrit, its life inevitably becomes veiled even from its students. Perhaps most of the commentaries are cleverly arranged to prevent people from discovering what they had better not discover. There is the same preventing here, but this particular form of Yoga lends itself to the comparatively simple understanding of the modern world.

I begin my book with The Stanzas of Dzyan, the great Manual of Creation, preserved for countless ages in the imperishable occult records, and translated from its Symbolic Senzar 1 for the first time into English by Madame Blavatsky for The Secret Doctrine, which as a whole is a commentary thereon. The Stanzas of Dzyan are utterly fundamental to the conceptions of Yoga with which this book deals. Over and over again, it is necessary for me to refer to The Stanzas, to show how this, that and the other Stanza treats of this, that and the other symbol, for the Yoga herein described is a form of the Symbolic Yoga of The Stanzas. As in ancient days, we are now just beginning to perceive and use symbols for our deeper evolutionary unfoldment. There is no question of modes of breathing or any other type of physical exercise. Though there are certain preconditions necessary for this Yoga development, all is within the compass of the earnest individual who

THE LOTUS FIRE

Two Versions of The Stanzas

The Plan of the Book

A Record of Experience

is moved to ascend the ladder of growth with the aid of Symbolic Yoga.

I am not only publishing The Stanzas, as we know them in The Secret Doctrine, but I also publish — for ready correlation, side by side — The Stanzas in their original form, preserved in the Archives of The Theosophical Society at Adyar, Madras, India. In a number of instances, this original form throws further elucidation on The Stanzas as published.

Following The Stanzas, the book falls naturally into four Sections and a Supplement :

Book One : The Vigil of Purification, in which I tell of pre-requisites for this type of Yoga and preparatory stages leading thereto.

Book Two : Symbols Living and Radiant, a description of the symbols as I have seen them.

Book Three : Symbols Released and Dynamic, wherein I apply the symbols to various aspects of daily growth, and to the Colour-Spectrum, Jewels, Mantras, Music, Rhythms, and so on.

Book Four : From the Symbols to No-Symbol — from the symbols in the Chakras, the Cycles, the great Initiations, and so on, to THAT the Symbol-less.

Book Five : Symbols at Work, that is, material to help the student correlate the symbols with Embryology, Plant Life, the Mineral Kingdom, the various Energies in Physics, the Zodiac, the Rays. There is additionaljhnaterial

to help him in his Yoga, such as the great Hymns of some of the mighty Eucharists, passages on Sacrifice, the Yoga of Mountains, the Grail of Motherhood, etc.

I ought to add that the contents of the book, so far as regards all but a small portion of it, are simply the record of my experiences as I wrote them down night after night the small hours of each new day. They represent,

n

therefore, a first-hand word-picture of that at which I was at

PROEM

15

In a Condition of Yoga

the very moment looking and was experiencing. I had no occasion either to choose my words so as to make the record polished or to guard against either repetitions or apparent contradictions.

I give the record practically as I wrote it, for my friends tell me that it is truer and fresher to leave it as it first came to me rather than to edit it away from direct relationship with experiences which certainly are really inexpressible in terms of any language. Let there be repetitions, contradictions. Inevitably there were repetitions, for it is impossible to understand these cosmic immensities save vaguely ; and repetitions, perhaps also contradictions, are needed even r r the dim picturing I present. I have only seen as throL v ,i a glass darkly, for the relative can make little contact with the Absolute, at all events in the waking consciousness down here—out here—and I had always to try to see over and over again, now from one angle, now from another. At the utmost can I say that now I see, perhaps, as through a glass less darkly. Curiously, I find that as a book the matter is as new to me as it must be to the reader. I am as ,much a student of it as he may choose to be.

It was in a condition of Yoga that the experiences came to me, and out of that condition much of it is as strange to me—and may I say without conceit, wonderful— as it must at least be strange to the reader. I hope it is strange to every reader, for we need strangenesses in our lives, the unaccustomed, the different, the shaking and the shock-giving, so that we become electrified out of our habitual selves into our larger selves. It is indeed good to live from time to time in strange worlds, where we have no bearings, having lost those which are normally familiar to us. Only through contacting the devastatingly different, the revolutionizing^ different, can we know our own uniquenesses, our own essential differences.

May I also say that I finally chose as the title of the

The Title of the record

Book THE LOTUS FIRE :

A STUDY IN SYMBOLIC YOGA

largely because the particular form of Yoga I have attempted to describe is indeed Fire, and has as its heart the Lotus conception ? I did not myself think of this title. But when a friend suggested it, I saw at once its appropriateness. The Lotus is a Fire no less than a Flower. Its very petals are mighty flames issuing forth from a central Fire-reservoir. Every Symbol I have tried to describe is a Fire, but all are contained within the Lotus-Symbol, for the Lotus is, in terms of its seed, the very Forthgoing itself, and in its flower the outward and visible sign of that Consummation which is the attar of the flower itself. And I do not hesitate to say that even the Lotus we see lifting up its glorious head to the light of our Lord the Sun l is as much a fire as it seems to be matter, and as much a gorgeous burst of song as it seems to be a splendid form.

All is Fire^ and Fire is itself a symbol of resistless Power.

The Rhythm of Finally, let me say that the rhythm of the book is to

the Book J J J

be found in the Invocation to " My Lord the Sun " which

follows—-a reminiscence of an Egyptian experience, when we worshipped with Akhnaton the glorious Aton in His magnificent revelation :

See " Sun " in Book Five

TO MY LORD THE SUN

How shall I worship Jhee, O Glorious and Splendid Lord ? Shall I declare to Thee my insignificance and impotence ?

Shall I abase myself and say to Thee that I am naught without Thee, that for all things I depend helplessly upon Thee?

Nay, not thus shall I worship Thee, O wondrous Omnipotence !

Thou knowest me. Thou dost not need to hear from me my need of Thee. Thy Will is that I should know myself for what I am.

So stand I before Thee, as Thou wouldst have me stand, unafraid, unabashed, uncrmging, steadfastly looking into Thy Face.

And knowing that I am Thee, and that Thou art myself, I declare to Thee that I ascend to the measure of Thy Stature, and being naught but Thee, am unfolding into Thy likeness ano 1 Majesty

As Thou art, so am I becoming. As Thou shinest, so am I learning to shine. As Thy Glory is, so shall mine be. As Thou art to Thy Universe, so shall I become to that which shall issue forth from me.

So do I worship Thee, O Giver of Resistless Power, and so do I cause Thee to rejoice, for thus from out the vastness of Thy Universe once mdre comes an echo of Thy Being, bearing witness that the Seed of Thy Sacrifice is ever blossoming into the Flower of Thy Triumph.

Contents

PAGE

FRONTISPIECE

A YOGA OF REMEMBRANCE . 7

THE FOUR SOURCES OF WISDOM 8

PREFACE ... 9

PROEM .... .11

TO MY LORD THE SUN . . . . .17

SEVEN STANZAS FROM THE BOOK OF DZYAN . . 23

BOOK ONE THE VIGIL OF PURIFICATION

CHAPTER

Synopsis of Book One . . 43

Prologue . .47

1. The Yoga of Acceleration . .61

2. Yugas and Yoga . . 67

3. Yoga Real and Unreal . . 72 4 The Yoga of the Individual . . 75

5. The Ultimates of Life . 79

6. Withdrawal or Gathering In? 81

7. The Science of Fulfilment . . . .84

8. The Yoga of Marriage ... .89

9. Enemies within the Gates ... .92

10. A Flash from Far-off Ultimates . . 97

11. A Lord of Yoga . . . 101

12. The Altar of Sublimation . . . . .105

13. "I Will Lift up Mine Eyes unto the Hills " . . ,113 The Star (C. Jinarajadasa) . .118

BOOK TWO SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

CHAPTER PAGE Synopsis of Book Two . 121

1. The Point as Seed of Evolution . .129

2. The Universality of the Point . .138

3. The Potentiality of the Point . 141

4. The Essence-Point . . . .146

5. Harvesting the Fields of Consciousness . .154

6. Cosmic Conceptions of the Point . . 156

7. Adventures into the Infinite Point . .164

8. The Point—Our Unfolded Self . . . .168

9. The Web That Is the Womb . . 172

10. The Line Flashes Forth . .177

11. The Spindle Line , . . . , . 180

12. The Line Gives a New Conception of Man-Woman . 184

13. Sex: A Sacrament of Consecration . 189

14. The All-embracing Line . . 193

15. The Circle-Globe: the Ring-Pass-Not . . 194

16. The Sea of Men in the Circle . 198

17. Life Eternal Self-fulfilled . ... 202

18. The Triangularities . . . 204

19. The 47th Proposition of Euclid .... 206

20. Squaring the Circle . . . 208

21. Three Life-Streams of the One God . . 211

22. The Functions of the Circle . . .215

23. The Cross within the Circle . .218

24. The Svastika or the Whirling Cross .... 223

25. The Myriad-petalled Lotus .... 227

26. Sound, Colour and Form Rays of the Lotus . . . 232

27. The Silent Watchers ..... 237

28. Supercosmic Symbols .... 240

29. Each Symbol Involves Creation .... 245

30. The Point and Its Daughter-Symbols . 248

CHAPTER PAGE

31. The Laboratory of Identification 257

32. The Yoga of Infinitudes . .271

33. A Physical Posture . . 284

34. A Great Act of Yoga . .291 A Warning . . 294

BOOK THREE SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

CHAPTER

Synopsis of Book Three . . . 297

1. The Lotus Fire . . . .301

2. Yoga for the Man in the World . . 308

3. The Yoga of Enfoldment . .314

4. The Yoga of Receptivity . . 323

5. The Yoga of Art . . . . . 335

6. Colour-Ideas and Jewel-Ideas of the Symbols . . 353

7. Colour-Tone in Daily Yoga . 363

8. The Colour-Raga of an Alphabet . 366

9. Aum The Formula of the All-One . . .370

10. A Yoga in Sound . . 373

11. A Master-Channel of Music . 377 12 The Cosmic Drums . . 379 13. The Rhythms of Man . . 385

BOOK FOUR FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

CHAPTER

Synopsis of Book Four . 403

1 Yoga as Bridge from Weakness to Strength 409

2. The Machinery of Yoga . . . 415

3. Sunlit Food . .418

4. The Science of Sleep . 420

CHAPTER PAGE

5. The Symbols in Centre-Radiances .... 427

6. Awakenings into Yoga Consciousness . . .431

7. The Symbols as a Zodiac ..... 438

8. Scientific Ultimates ..... 443

9. Some Notes on Space and Time . . . 447

10. The Wings of Divine Discontent . . . 453

11. The Gates of Heaven ..... 459

12. Initiations on the Path of Fulfilment . . 463

13. The Symbol-Octave of Manifestation . 476

14. The Unity of Life . . . .481

15. The Lords of the Symbols . .487

16. The Three Great Purposes of Yoga .... 498

17. Fulfilling the Symbols in Yoga . . . 504

18. THAT: the Symbol-less . . . .510

19. Yoga without End . . .516

20. The Symbols as Bulwarks against Barbarism . . 523

21. The Endless Glory . .527

22. The Life Magnificent ..... 534 My Adoration of Shr? Nataraja . . . 557

BOOK FIVE SYMBOLS AT WORK

The Author Questions the Reader . . . .561

Corroborative and Supplementary Articles and Notes in Glossary

Form ....... 565

The Call of the Arhat . . 687

The Master Ascended . . 691

Index . . . 701

SEVEN STANZAS

from

THE BOOK OF DZYAN

or Real Knowledge, Obtained through Meditation

STANZA I

SECRET DOCTRINE VERSION

1 The Eternal Parent,

wrapped in her Ever-Invisible

Robes,

had slumbered once again

for Seven Eternities.

2. Time was not, for it lay asleep in the Infinite Bosom of Duration.

3. Universal Mind was not, for there were no Ah-hi

to contain it.

4. The Seven Ways to Bliss were not.

The Great Causes of Misery were not,

for there was no one to produce and get ensnared by them.

5. Darkness alone filled the Boundless All,

ORIGINAL VERSION

The Eternal Mother [space] wrapped in her ever invisible robes [cosmic pre-nebular matter] had slumbered for seven Eternities (1)

Time was not, for it lay asleep in the infinite bosom of Duration.

Universal mind was not,

for there were no Dhyan Chohans

to contain [hence to manifest] it.

The seven Ways to Bliss [Moksha, or Nirvana]—were not. The great causes of Misery [Nidana (2) and Maya] -were not, for there was no one to produce and get ensnared by them.

DARKNESS alone filled the boundless ALL,

SECRET DOCTRINE VERSION

for Father, Mother and Son were once more one, and the Son had not yet awakened for the new Wheel and his Pilgrimage thereon

6 The Seven Sublime Lords

and the Seven Truths

had ceased to be,

and the Universe,

the Son of Necessity,

was immersed in Paranishpanna,

to be outbreathed by that which is, and yet is not Naught was.

7. The Causes of Existence had been done away with , the Visible that was,

and the Invisible that is, rested in Eternal Non-Being— the One Being.

8. Alone,

the One Form of Existence stretched boundless, infinite, causeless, in Dreamless Sleep, and Life pulsated unconscious in Universal Space, throughout that All-Presence, which is sensed by the Opened Eye of Dangma

9. But where was Dangma when the Alaya of the Universe

was in Paramartha,

THE BOOK OF DZYAN

ORIGINAL VERSION

for Father Mother and son were once more one and the Son had not awakened yet for the new wheel (3).

The seven sublime Truths,

and the Seven Srutis (4)—

had ceased to be,

and the Universe,

the son of Necessity,

was plunged in Paranishpanna

[absolute perfection,

Paranirvana, which is Jong-

grub]—

to be outbreathed by that which is, and yet is not (5). Naught was.

The causes of existence having been done away with, the visible that was and the invisible that /s, rested in eternal Non-Being,— the ONE BEING,

Alone,

the one Form of Existence (6) stretched boundless, infinite, causeless, in dreamless Sleep , and life pulsated unconscious in Universal Space, throughout that ALL PRESENCE which is sensed by the " opened Eye " of the Dangma.

But where was the Dangma

when the ALAYA of the Universe

[absolute Soul] was in PARAMARTHA

[absolute being] (7)

SEVEN STANZAS

25

SECRET DOCTRINE VERSION

and the Great .Wheel was Anupadaka ?

ORIGINAL VERSION

the great wheel

was Anupadaka? [" great wheel " is one planetary chain, "Anupadaka" parentless] (8.)

STANZA II

1 .... Where were the Builders,

the Luminous Sons

of Manvantaric Dawn ?

... In the Unknown Darkness

in their Ah-hi Paranishpanna

The Producers of Form

from No-Form—

the Root of the World—

the Devamatri and Svabhavat,

rested in the Bliss of Non-Being.

2. ... Where was Silence? Where the ears to sense it ? No, there was neither Silence nor Sound , naught save Ceaseless Eternal Breath, which knows itself not.

3. The Hour had not yet struck , the Ray had not yet

flashed into the Germ ; the Matripadma had not yet swollen.

4. Her Heart had not yet opened for the One Ray to enter, thence to fall,

as Three into Four, into the Lap of Maya.

5. The Seven were not yet born

Where were the BUILDERS, (1)

the luminous Sons

of Manvantaric Dawn ?

In the UNKNOWN DARKNESS,

in their Dhyan-Chohanic

[Dhyani Buddhic]

Paranishpanna. (2) The producers of Form [rupa] from no-Form [arupa], the Root of the World — the Deva-Matri, and Svabhavat, rested in the bliss of non-Being.

Where was Silence ? Where were the ears to sense it No , there was neither Silence, nor sound. Nought, save ceaseless, eternal Breath [motion] which knows itself not (3)

The hour had not yet struck ;

the RAY had not yet

flashed into the GERM ;

the Matri-Padma [Mother Lotus]

had not yet swollen ; (4)

her heart had not yet opened for the ray to enter, thence to fall

into the lap of Maya. (5)

The seven [Sons] were not yet born

SECRET DOCTRINE VERSION

from the Web of Light. Darkness alone was Father-Mother, Svabhavat; and Svabhavat was in Darkness.

6. These Two are the Germ, and the Germ is One. The Universe was still concealed in the Divine Thought and the Divine Bosom.

THE BOOK OF DZYAN

ORIGINAL VERSION

from the web of light. Darkness alone was Father-Mother, Svabhavat, and Svabhavat was in DARKNESS.

These two are the germ, and germ is—ONE. The Universe was still concealed in the divine Thought and the divine bosom (6).

STANZA

1 .... The last Vibration of the Seventh Eternity thrills through Infinitude. The Mother swells, expanding from within without, like the Bud of the Lotus.

2. The Vibration sweeps along, touching with its swift Wing

the whole Universe and the Germ that dwelleth in Darkness, the Darkness that breathes over the slumbering Waters of Life.

3. Darkness radiates Light, and Light drops one solitary Ray into the Waters,

into the Mother-Deep. The Ray shoots through the Virgin Egg,

the Ray causes the Eternal Egg to thrill, and drop the non-eternal Germ, which condenses into the World-Egg.

4. The Three fall into the Four, The Radiant Essence becomes Seven inside,

The last vibration of the Seventh Eternity thrilled through Infinitude. The Mother swelled expanding from within without like the bud of the Lotus.

The vibration swept along

touching with its swift wing

simultaneously the whole universe,

and the germ

that dwelleth in Darkness,

the Darkness that breathes [moves]

over the slumbering

waters of Life.

Darkness radiated Light,

and light dropped one solitary Ray

into the Waters

of Mother Space.

The ray fructified [recalled to life]

the " Eternal virgin Egg." (1)

. . . The radiant essence

SEVEN STANZAS

SECRET DOCTRINE VERSION

Seven outside. The Luminous Egg,

which in itself is Three, curdles and spreads in milk-white Curds

throughout the Depths

of Mother, the Root that grows in the Depths of the Ocean of Life.

5. The Root remains, the Light remains,

the Curds remain,

and still Oeaohoo is One.

6. The Root of Life was

in every Drop of the Ocean of Immortality,

and the Ocean was Radiant Light,

which was Fire, and Heat,

and Motion.

Darkness vanished

and was no more ,

it disappeared in its own Essence,

the Body of Fire and Water, of Father and Mother.

7. Behold, O Lanoo,

the Radiant Child of the Two, the unparalleled refulgent Glory —Bright Space, Son of Dark Space, who emerges from the Depths of the great Dark Waters. It is Oeaohoo, the Younger, the * * *.

He shines forth as the Sun,

27

ORIGINAL VERSION

within the H/ranya garbha [golden Egg]

curdled and spread

throughout the depths (2) in

milk white curds throughout the depths of the Mother,

the Root which grows

in the Ocean of Life.

The root remained ;

the light remained,

the curds remained ,

and still the three were one, for

the root of life was

in every drop of the Ocean

[of Amrita]

and the drop was in the root, and the whole floated in the

radiant light

which was Fire and Heat and was motion. " Darkness " retired and was ... no more : it vanished in its own Essence,

the essence of Fire and Water, of Father and Mother. . .

Behold, oh Lanoo

the radiant Son of the two,

the unparalleled refulgent glory

emerging from the depths

of the Waters . . .

It is * * * when

thou knowest now as Kwai-Shai-

Yin, (4) who shines forth like

SECRET DOCTRINE VERSION

he is the Blazing Divine

Dragon of Wisdom , the Eka is Chatur, and Chatur takes to itself Tri, and the Union produces the Sapta, in whom are the Seven, which become the Tridasha, the Hosts and the Multitudes Behold him lifting the Veil, and unfurling it from East to

West.

He shuts out the Above, and leaves the Below to be seen as the Great Illusion. He marks the places for the

Shining Ones, and turns the Upper into a shoreless Sea of Fire and the One Manifested into the Great Waters.

8. Where was the Germ, and

where was now Darkness ?

Where is the Spirit of the Flame

that burns in thy Lamp, O Lanoo ?

The Germ is That, and

That is Light,

the White Brilliant Son

of the Dark Hidden Father.

9. Light is Cold Flame, and Flame is Fire,

and Fire produces Heat, which yields Water-the Water of Life in the Great Mother.

10. Father-Mother spin a Web, whose upper end is fastened

to Spirit,

THE BOOK OF DZYAN

ORIGINAL VERSION

the blazing " divine

Dragon of Wisdom," (5) EKA—[one]

and in whom are the seven, and in the seven

the multitudes. Behold him at his work in the solitudes of the sidereal Ocean,

transforming Space into

a shoreless sea of Fire (6)

and the one manifested [Element}

into the great Waters —

Where was the germ, and where was now DARKNESS. Where's the Spirit of the flame that burns in thy lamp, oh Lanoo ? The germ is that, and that is Light, the white brilliant Son of the dark, hidden Father, who uses Kala-hansa [black Swan or goose.]

Light is flame

and flame is Fire,

and the fire produces heat,

which yields water,

the water of Life

in the great Mother [Chaos].

Father-Mother spin a web whose upper end is fastened to Spirit [Purusha]

SEVEN STANZAS

SECRET DOCTRINE VERSION

the Light of the One Darkness, and the lower one to

its shadowy end, Matter; and this Web is the Universe, spun out of the Two Substances made in One, which is Svabhavat.

11. It expands when the Breath of Fire is upon it;

it contracts when the Breath

of the Mother touches it. Then the Sons dissociate

and scatter, to return into their Mother's

Bosom,

at the end of the Great Day, and re-become one with her. When it is cooling, it becomes radiant. Its Sens expand and contract through their own Selves and

Hearts ; they embrace Infinitude.

12. Then Svabhavat sends Fohat to harden the Atoms.

Each is a part of the Web

Reflecting the " Self-Existent Lord," like a Mirror,

each becomes in turn a World.

29

ORIGINAL VERSION

the light of the great Darkness and the lower one to matter [Prakriti], and this web is the Universe, spun out of the two substances made in one, which is Svabhavat.

It expands when the breath of fire is upon it,

its sons [the elements] dissociate,

scatter and return into their mother's

bosom

to rebecome one with her ;

when it cools,

and rebecomes radiant,

its sons expand and contract

through their own selves and

hearts . . . for embracing infinitude

Svabhavat sends out Fohat and hardens the atom. Each is a part of the web

[Universe].

Reflecting the " Self-existent Lord " [primeval light]—like

a mirror, each becomes in turn, a World, . .

STANZA IV

1.

. Listen, ye Sons of the Listen, ye sons of the Earth, Earth,

to your Instructors— the Sons of the Fire. Learn, there is neither first nor last; for all is One Number, issued from No-Number.

to your instructors the sons of the Fire (1) Learn there is neither first nor last, for all is ONE number issued from NO-NUMBER.

THE BOOK OF DZYAN

SECRET DOCTRINE VERSION

2. Learn what we, who descend from the Primordial Seven,

we, who are born

from the Primordial Flame,

have learnt from our Fathers . .

3. From the Effulgency of Light— the Ray of the Ever-Darkness— sprang in Space

the reawakened Energies ,

the One from the Egg,

the Six, and the Five.

Then the Three, the One,

the Four, the One,

the Five—the Twice Seven,

the Sum Total.

And these are the Essences,

the Flames, the Elements,

the Builders, the Numbers,

the Arupa, the Rupa,

and the Force or Divine Man, the Sum Total. And from the Divine Man emanated the Forms, the Sparks, the Sacred Animals, and the Messengers of the Sacred Fathers within the Holy Four

4. This was the Army of the Voice,

the Divine Mother of the Seven. The Sparks of the Seven are subject to, and the servants of, the First, the Second, the Third, the Fourth, the Fifth, the Sixth, and the Seventh of the Seven. These are called Spheres,

Triangles, Cubes, Lines and Modellers ; for thus stands

ORIGINAL VERSION

Learn what we, who descend from the primordial SEVEN (2) that are born

from the primordial Flame-— have learned from our Fathers.

From the effulgency of Light— the Ray of the EVER-DARKNESS— sprung in Space (3) the reawakened Energies

[Dhyani-chohans] the One from the Egg, the six and the five ; then the ONE the THREE,

the FIVE and the twice SEVEN the Sum Total (4). And these are ; the Essences, the Flames, the Elements, the Builders, the Numbers, the Arupa [Formless] the Rupa

[vv/th bodies]

and the FORCE or Divine man— the sum Total (5). And from the Divine Man emanated the FORMS, the SPARKS, the sacred Animals, (6) and the messengers of the sacred Pitris within the holy FOUR.

This was the army of the

Voice (7)— the divine Septenary. The Sparks of the seven are subject to, and the servants of the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and the-Seventh of the SEVEN. These " Sparks " are called

Spheres,

Triangles. Cubes, Lines (8) and Modellers ; for thus stands

SEVEN STANZAS

SECRET DOCTRINE VERSION

the Eternal Nidana— the Oi-Ha-Hou

5.

The Oi-Ha-Hou, which is Darkness,

the Boundless, or the No-Number, Adi-Nidana Svabhavat, the O

I. The Adi-Sanat, the Number, for he is One.

II. The Voice of the Word,

Svabhavat, the Numbers, for he is One and Nine.

III. The " Formless Square "

And these Three, enclosed within the O,

are the Sacred Four ; and the Ten are the Arupa

Universe.

Then come the Sons, the Seven Fighters, the One, the Eighth left out, and his Breath which is the Light-Maker.

6. ... Then the Second Seven, who are the Lipika, produced by the Three,

31

ORIGINAL VERSION

The Rejected Son is One.

The " Son-Suns " are countless.

the eternal Nidana --the OI-HA-HOU.

[Adi-Nidana Svabhavat]

0 for X, unknown quantity -

" Darkness," the boundless, or " The NO

NUMBER "

I. The Adi-Sanat (9) the Number, for he is one

II. The VOICE of the Word,

Svabhavat (10) the Numbers for he is ONE and NINE

III The " Formless Square "

[Arupa]

And these three enclosed within the O [Boundless Circle] are the sacred FOUR, and the TEN are the Arupa [Subjective Formless] Universe (11). Then come the " Sons," the Seven Fighters, the One the Eighth rejected, (12) their Breath (13) which is the Light-maker [Bhaskara] ;

then the Second SEVEN, who are the Lipika (14) produced by the THREE [Word,

Voice and Spirit] (15). The Rejected [Sun is One, the Sun-Suns, who are countless]

STANZA V

1. The Primordial Seven, the First Seven Breaths

The Primordial seven, the first Seven Breaths

SECKE7 DOCTRINE VERSION

of the Dragon of Wisdom, produce in their turn from their Holy Circumgyrating Breaths the Fiery Whirlwind.

2. They make of him the

Messenger of their Will

The Dzyu becomes Fohat: the swift Son of the Divine

Sons,

whose Sons are the Lipika. runs circular errands. Fohat is the Steed, and

the Thought is the Rider. .He passes like lightning through

the fiery clouds ,

takes Three, and Five, and Seven Strides through the Seven Regions above, and the Seven

below.

He lifts his Voice, and calls the innumerable Sparks,

and joins them together.

3. He is their guiding spirit

and leader.

When he commences work, he separates the Sparks of the Lower Kingdom,

that float and thrill with joy in their radiant dwellings,

and forms therewith the

Germs of Wheels.

He places them in

the Six Directions of Space,

and One in the middle—

the Central Wheel.

THE BOOK OF DZYAN

ORIGINAL VERSION

of the Dragon of Wisdom produce in their turn from their holy circumgyrating Breaths the Fiery whirlwind (1).

They make of him the messenger

of their Will (2) The Dgyn becomes FOHAT (3) The swift Son of the divine

Sons

and the Lipika (4) runs circular errands under the impulse of their

guiding Thought. He passes like lightning through

the Fiery clouds [cosmic

mists] ;

takes three and five and seven strides through the seven regions above and the seven

below [the words to be] (5). He lifts his voice and calls the innumerable sparks

[atoms] and joins them.

He is their guiding spirit

and leader.

When he commences work, he separates the sparks of the lower kingdom [mineral

atoms]

that float and thrill with joy in their radiant dwellings

[gaseous clouds], and forms therewith the germs of wheels (6). He places them in the six directions of space and one in the middle— the central wheel (7)

SEVEN STANZAS

SECRET DOCTRINE VERSION

4. Fohat traces spiral lines to unite the Sixth to the

Seventh—the Crown. An Army of the Sons of Light stands at each angle , the Lipika, in the Middle Wheel. They say . <4 This is good."

The first Divine World is ready ; the First, the Second. Then the " Divine Arupa "

reflects itself in Chhaya Loka,

the First Garment of Anupadaka.

5. Fohat takes five strides,

and builds a winged wheel at each corner of the square for the Four Holy Ones . . and their Armies.

6. The Lipika circumscribe

the Triangle,

the First One, the Cube, the Second One, and the Pentacle within the Egg.

It is the Ring called •• Pass Not " for those who descend and ascend ;

who during the Kalpa are progressing towards the Great Day " Be With Us." . . Thus were formed the Arupa and the Rupa :

33

ORIGINAL VERSION

Fohat traces spiral lines to unite the six :

an army of the Sons of Light

stands at each angle and

the Lipika—in the middle wheel.

When they [the Lipika] have said ---

This is good

the first divine World is ready,

the first being the second (8)

Then the " divine Arupa "

[the formless world] reflects itself in the Intellectual Rupa

Loka [the eternal world of

Form], the first garment of the

Divine (9) the Manava-loka

of the Mind-born sons.

Fohat takes five strides

[having performed the first three] ' and builds 4 winged wheels

at each corner of the square,

for the four Holy ones (10)

and their armies [hosts].

The Lipika circumscribe

the Triangle, the first Line the Cube ; the second Line and the Pentacle within the Egg

[circle]

It is the ring called • • Pass Not " (11) for those who descend and ascend as also for those, who during the Kalpa are progressing toward the great Day " Be with us" (12). Thus were formed the Arupa

and the Rupa [the Formless

THE BOOK OF DZYAN

SECRET DOCTRINE VERSION

from One Light, Seven Lights from each of the Seven, seven times Seven Lights. The Wheels watch the Ring . .

ORIGINAL VERSION

world and the world of

Forms] :

from One LIGHT seven Lights ; from each of the seven seven times seven lights. The wheels " watch the RING " [The Stanza proceeds with a minute classification of the orders of Angelic Hierarchy. From the group of seven, emanates the mind-born group of Ten of Twelve of Twenty one, etc. all these divided again into sub-groups of septenary, novems, duo decimals and so on until the mind is lost in this endless enumeration of celestial hosts and Beings, each having its distinct task in the ruling of the visible Kosmos during its duration]

STANZA VI

1. By the power of the Mother of Mercy and Knowledge, Kwan-Ym—

the Triple of Kwan-Shai-Ym,

residing in Kwan-Yin-Tien—-

Fohat, the Breath of their Progeny,

the Son of the Sons,

having called forth,

from the lower Abyss,

the Illusive Form of Sien-Tchan

and the Seven Elements.

2. The Swift and the Radiant One

produces the seven Laya Centres,

against which none will prevail

to the Great Day •• Be With Us " ;

and seats the Universe

on these Eternal Foundations,

By the power of Kwan-Ym, the bright Mother of Mercy and

knowledge,

the " triple " of Kwan-Shi-Yin, residing in Kwan-yin-tien Fohat the Breath of their progeny, the " Son of the Sun " calls forth

from the lower Chaos, the illusive form of s/en-tcfien

[one universe] out of the seven Elements :

SEVEN STANZAS

SECRET DOCTK/NE VERSION

surrounding Sien-Tchan with the Elementary Germs.

3. Of the Seven—first

One manifested, Six concealed ; Two manifested, Five concealed ;

Three manifested, Four concealed,

Four produced, Three hidden ; Four and One Tsan revealed, Two and One-Half concealed ; Six to be manifested, One laid aside. Lastly, Seven Small Wheels revolving , one giving birth to the other

4. He builds them in the likeness of older Wheels,

placing them on the Imperishable

Centres

How does Fohat build them ? He collects the Fiery-Dust. He makes Balls of Fire, runs through them, and round them, infusing life thereinto, then sets them into motion , some one way, some the other way

They are cold, he makes them hot. They are dry, he makes them

moist. They shine, he fans and cools them.

Thus acts Fohat from one

Twilight to the other, during Seven Eternities

35

ORIGINAL VERSION

first,

one manifested, six concealed ;

then two manifested, -five concealed ;

again three manifested four concealed ;

four manifested three hidden ,

four and one half manifested--

two and one half concealed ;

six to be manifested—

one laid aside (1) Lastly

seven wheels revolving

emanating one from the other (2)

He builds them in the likeness of the older wheels [worlds].

How does he build them

Fohat collects the dust.

He makes balls of fire with it

and sets them in motion, some one way, others in the

opposite direction. They are cold, he makes them hot. They are dry, he makes them

moist. They shine, he fans and makes them

cool putting out their lustre Thus acts Fohat from the dawn

of the DAY till the

twilight of NIGHT during the seven Eternities (3)

" With this Shloka ends that portion of the Stanzas relating to the cosmogony of the Universe after the last Mahaprabya, or Universal Dissolution,

THE BOOK'OF DZYAN

which, when it comes, sweeps out of Space every differentiated thing, gods as well as atoms, like so many dry leaves. From this verse onwards, the Stanzas are only concerned with our Solar System in general, with the Planetary Chains therein inferentially, and with the history of our Globe (the Fourth and its Chain) especially. All the verses which follow in this Volume refer only to the evolution of, and on, our Earth . . .

" Let us then make a short break between the Shlokas just explained and those which follow, for the cosmic periods which separate them are of immense duration."—S.D., I, 175 (Adyar ed., I, 206-07).

" • - * the Stanzas which follow . . . speak of the evolution in our Fourth Round only. The latter is the cycle of the turning-point, after which, matter, having reached its lowest depths, begins to strive onward and to become spiritualized, with every new race and with every fresh cycle."— S.D., I, 208 (Adyar ed., I, 237).

SECRE 7 DOCTRINE VERSION

5. At the Fourth,

the Sons are told to create

their Images. One-Third refuses. Two obey.

The Curse is pronounced. They will be born in the Fourth,

suffer and cause suffering. This is the First War.

6. The Older Wheels rotated

downward and upward . . .

The Mother's Spawn filled the whole.

There were Battles fought

between the Creators and the Destroyers,

and Battles fought for Space ;

the Seed appearing and reappearing continuously.

ORIGINAL VERSION

... At the beginning of

the first, the " Sons " are told to create

their images. The one third refuse.

The two [thirds] obey. The curse is pronounced. They will be born on the

Fourth [globe]

suffer and cause suffering . . . This is the first war . . .

The older wheels had rotated downward and upward for one, and one half of an eternity.

The Mother's spawn filled the whole [kosmos]

There had been battles fought

between the creators and the rebels,

and battles fought for space,

the seed appearing and reappearing continuously (4)

SEVEN STANZAS

SECRET DOCTRINE VERSION

7.

Make thy calculations, O Lanoo, thou wouldst learn the correct

age of thy Small Wheel Its Fourth Spoke is our Mother.

if

Reach the Fourth Fruit

of the Fourth

Path of Knowledge that leads

to Nirvana, and thou shalt

comprehend, for thou shalt see .

37

ORIGINAL VERSION

since the first impulse had

been given to our wheels . . .

Make thy calculations,

Lamas, if thou wouldst learn the correct

age of thy small wheel (5) Its fourth spark is our mother

[Earth].

Reach the fourth " fruit " of the Fourth

Path of knowledge, that leads to Nirvana and thou shalt comprehend for thou shalt see.

(6) ...

STANZA VII

1. Behold the beginning

of sentient formless Life.

First, the Divine, the One from the Mother-Spirit ,

then, the Spiritual ;

the Three from the One,

the Four from the One,

and the Five, from which

the Three, the Five and the Seven.

These are the Three-fold

and the Four-fold downward ;

the Mind-born Sons

of the First Lord,

the Shining Seven.

It is they who are thou,

I, he, O Lanoo ; they who watch over thee and thy mother, Bhumi.

2. The One Ray smaller Rays.

multiplies the

. . . Behold the beginning

of sentient, formless Life. First the Spiritual, from

the ONE, the " Atman "

[Spirit], then—" Atma-Buddhi

[Spirit-Soul]- this.

the three, the five and the

seven (1) ; then, the Three-fold, the Four-fold and downward ; the mind-born Sons of the FIRST LORD [Prajapati] the shining seven [Builders] It is they who are thou,

me, him, (2) Oh Lanoo , They, who watch over thee and thy mother Bhumi [the Earth].

The one Ray multiplies the smaller rays. (3)

SECRET DOCTRINE VERSION

Life precedes Form,

and Life survives the last atom.

Through the countless Rays

the Life-Ray, the One,

like a Thread through many Beads.

3. When the One becomes Two, the Threefold appears,

and the Three are One ; and it is our Thread, O Lanoo, the Heart of the Man-Plant called Saptaparna.

4. It is the Root that never dies ; the Three-tongued Flame

of the Four Wicks The Wicks are the Sparks, that draw from the Three-tongued

Flame shot out by the Seven—

their Flame — the Beams and Sparks of one Moon

reflected in the running Waves of all the Rivers of Earth.

THE BOOK-OF DZYAN

ORIGINAL VERSION

Life precedes Form, and life survives the last

atom of Stula Sarira

[external body] (4) Through the countless rays

proceeds

the life-ray, the One, like a thread through many pearls.

When the one becomes two— the " Three-fold " appears (5) The three are [linked into] one ; and it is our thread, oh Lanoo, the heart of the Man-Plant called Suptasarma (6).

It is the root that naver dies, the three-tongued flame

of the four Wicks (7). The wicks are the sparks, and use, the three-tongued

flame (8) shot out by the

Seven ; their flame ; the beams and sparks of one

moon

reflected in the running waves of all the rivers of Bhumi

[Earth] (9).

5. The Spark hangs from the The spark hangs from the flame

Flame

by the finest thread of Fohat. It journeys through the

Seven Worlds of Maya.

It stops in the First,

and is a Metal and a Stone ; It passes into the Second,

and behold—a Plant; the Plant whirls through

changes

by the finest thread of Fohat. It journeys through the

seven and seven worlds

Maya. It stops in the first

[kingdom] and behold—a planet;

seven seven changes more and it

of

SEVEN STANZAS

39

SECREJ DOCTRINE VERSION

and becomes a Sacred Animal. From the combined attributes

of these,

Manu, the Thinker, is formed. Who forms him ?

The Seven Lives and the One Life. Who completes him ? The Five-fold Lha. And who perfects the last Body ? Fish, Sin, and Soma .

6. From the First-born

the Thread between the Silent Watcher and his Shadow

becomes more strong and radiant with every Change.

The morning Sunlight has changed into neon-day glory . . .

7 " This is thy present Wheel/' said the Flame to the Spark. " Thou art myself, my image

and my shadow. I have clothed myself in thee, and thou art my Vahan to the Day ' Be With Us,' when thou shaft re-become myself and others, thyself and me."

Then the Builders, having donned their first

Clothing,

descend on radiant Earth and reign over Men— who are themselves . . .

ORIGINAL VERSION

becomes an animal

From the combined attributes

of these—

Manu [man] the thinker, is formed. Who forms him. " The One Life " ;

who forms his body ? the many lives (10) ...

From the first-born

[primitive or the first man] the thread between the Silent

Watcher and his Shadow becomes more strong and radiant

with every change

[reincarnation] (11) The morning sun-light has changed

into noon-day glory. . . .

This is thy present wheel said the Flame to the Spark. Thou art myself, my image

and my shadow. I have clothed myself in thee, and thou art my Vahan to the Day " Be with us," when thou shalt rebecome myself and others, thyself

and me (12) ... Then the Builders having donned their first

clothing

descend on the cooled earth and reign over MEN (13) who are themselves (14) . . .

" Thus ends this portion of the archaic narrative, dark, confused, almost incomprehensible."—S.D., I, 66, (Adyar ed., I, 99).

41 The original of The Book of Dzyan is in the hands of the august Head of the Occult Hierarchy, and has been seen by none. None knows

how old it is, but it is rumoured that the earlier part of it (consisting of the first six Stanzas) has an origin altogether anterior to this world, and even that it is not a history, but a series of directions—rather a formula for creation than an account of it.

" A copy of it is kept in the museum of the Brotherhood, and it is that copy (itself probably the oldest book produced on this planet) which Madame Blavatsky and several of her pupils have seen—which she describes so graphically in The Secret Doctrine. [' Pages from a Pre-historic Record : An archaic Manuscript—a collection of palm leaves made impermeable to water, fire, and air, by some specific and unknown process—is before the writer's eye. On the first page is an immaculate white disk within a dull black ground . . .' S.D., 1 I, 31 ; Adyar ed., I, 69.]

The book has, however, several peculiarities which she does not there mention. It appears to be very highly magnetized, for as soon as a man takes a page in his hand he sees passing before his eyes a vision of the events which it is intended to portray, while at the same time he seems to hear a sort of rhythmic description of them in his own language, so far as that language will convey the ideas involved. Its pages contain no words whatever—nothing but symbols."

—Talks on the Path of Occultism, by Annie Besant and

C. W. Leadbeater, p. 329.

1 S.D. = The Secret Doctrine, by H P. Blavatsky

Book One—The Vigil of Purification

SYNOPSIS OF BOOK ONE

PROEM

One night one of the Great Beings, a Messenger of the Lord Shiva, disclosed to me, in His home, certain Symbols in their cosmic significance ; and when He showed these Symbolic Ultimates. the whole vista of the meaning and purpose of evolution unveiled itself before me, and I have done my best to write it all down as I have perceived it, and where I could, to obtain corroboration from our Theosophical classic literature. It is a Yoga of the Memory of the Divinity in all things.

PROLOGUE

I am thinking of Ultimates of those symbols which are among the formulae of God the Creator They are multi-dimensional, and transcend all confinement within two or three. They may be sketched on a piece of paper, but the true student will only use such a sketch as a starting-point, whence he unfolds the sketch-note into a symphony of sound-colour-form. The person who desires to succeed in Yoga must be balanced between undue asceticism on the one hand, and disruptive indulgence on the other.

Chapter 1

THE YOGA OF ACCELERATION

In Kali Yuga, the injunction, " Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall," has very special significance. A feature of the forces of retardation is that they seem not only to differ very little from the forces of acceleration, but to offer much more. This Yoga is to help alt to tread their ways more quickly by bringing into their daily lives some of the great Formulae of Life ; and it is to help them to guard against the temptations of the forces of retardation by giving them opportunities constantly to hold before themselves Truths (which are hidden within themselves) with the aid of these same great Mnemonics of Living.

Chapter 2 YUGAS AND YOGA

As Yuga succeeds Yuga, so does the Eternal Truth descend more and more into symbols In this Kali Yuga the symbol-note must be at its height, for men, not yet being able to know Truth face to face, must know it as through a symbol, darkly. This form of Yoga is for the Kali Yuga.

Chapter 3

YOGA REAL AND UNREAL

There is a flood of pseudo-occult literature, which is as mischievous as it is false, and some are so foolish as to believe that for the payment of a sum of money the principles of Yoga may be acquired ' Real Yoga needs arduous and prolonged training, which is known by the genuine student to be essential to the development of those forces which build lofty character and truly spiritual stature, and all the power that comes therewith.

Chapter 4

THE YOGA OF THE INDIVIDUAL

We knock. You open—not to admit from without, but rather to release from within You will see how glorifying these symbols must become when translated into those vibrations which the student can most readily use in the outer world Even if he cannot express here that which he can shape there, the inspiration of his achievements in the realms of more sensitive substance is bound to flow down, and give the worker what we call heroism, genius, or sainthood, according to his mode of expression.

Chapter 5

THE ULTIMATES OF LIFE

This Yoga is for the purpose of striving to gain some direct impression of some of the Ultimates of Life or Being. I see, in the farthest distance, a mighty range of Mountain-Symbols I have perceived their substance-shadows in my very self. And I record all I have been able to understand of an illumined Vision of the Real.

Chapter 6

WITHDRAWAL OR GATHERING IN ?

If we die, it is because we have not yet learned how to live. If we kill, it is because we have not yet learned how to cherish. If we withdraw, it is because we have not yet learned how to include. In this Symbolic Yoga, we move on our way by fulfilling, by sublimitmg, by per-

forming those acts which are the reflections in the outer world of the real acts of Transubstantiation in the inner.

Chapter 7

THE SCIENCE OF FULFILMENT

To look our weaknesses in the face, and not to seek to cast them off, is the particular note of this Yoga Only those are qualified for Yoga who are constantly fulfilling both their virtues and their weaknesses. There is no weakness which does not point the way to strength There is no strength which does not need further refining. We must learn to dist'l all experience. We must learn how to release God in all things, and to take Him with us everywhere In the midst of achievement the Yogi lifts up his eyes unto loftier heights, and soon departs to tread the way to regions more sublime. The divine discontent of God as He makes His universe must be mirrored in us, as we make ours.

Chapter 8

THE YOGA OF MARRIAGE

Marriage and the processes of procreation are among the holi-nesses of living, as is death, as is birth, as is active entry into the larger consciousness of citizenship, and so forth. The sacraments of marriage and of conception are among the most potent forces of life, for they are among the living witnesses to our Divinity No aspirant for the crown of the Yogi could ever desecrate that which is holy beyond all words of expression.

Chapter 9

ENEMIES WITHIN THE GATES

The aspirant must purify his vehicles, by abstaining from alcohol, smoking and flesh-foods, and practise strictest harmlessness, shrinking from no human ridicule or contempt to achieve that glorious aid and blessing which purity and harmlessness bestow. And he must consider it a major crime to place in the way of any Yogi, unconscious or self-conscious, an obstacle of any kind, for every obstacle thus placed becomes an obstacle in his own way, and only as he removes the obstacle from the path of his brother, will its counterpart in his own way disappear.

Chapter 10

A FLASH FROM FAR-OFF ULTIMATES

In this form of Yoga a contemplation of far-off Ultimates forms an essential part of the earliest training. It brings the student into touch with the great End while he is still, as it were, fumbling with the means. Thus, on the very beginning of his way shines a reflection of those Ultimates which it will necessarily take him aeons to achieve.

Chapter 11

A LORD OF YOGA

The Lord of Yoga who revealed to me this particular form of the Science is a Personage who embodies the Dance of Shiva, the Yoga of Eternal Rhythm. He is a reflection of Nataraja, of Krishna, of Orpheus, and an Inspirer of all who sing and dance to the glory of God and in the service of His Life. Through forms, postures, gestures, movements, in colour and sound, He embodies the Law of Adjustment, whereby the whole world draws ever nearer to the Real. In the mode of Yoga disclosed by Him, each act of Yoga involves a blending of the origins, ways, and end of life, so that it becomes a potent means whereby the circumstances of time obtain adjustment to their eternal archetypes.

Chapter 12

THE ALTAR OF SUBLIMATION

The whole process of sublimation has yet to become clear. It is highly individual to each student. Each student must examine the whole content of each of his consciousnesses—physical, astral and the rest—so as to perceive what he has to exalt and how he is to exalt it. But this Yoga does not involve any withdrawal from plane after plane of consciousness, but rather a fulfilment of plane after plane.

Chapter 13

« I WILL LIFT UP MINE EYES UNTO THE HILLS "

As a child may be lifted upon the shoulders of his father to see with delight that which must otherwise be hidden from him, so the self-controlled and humble aspirant may be enfolded in the magic blessing of an Elder which shall reveal to him the mightier heights, the very symbols themselves of that Supreme Transubstantiatioa which glorifies all Earths and makes all Heavens still more sublime.

PROLOGUE

The Ultimatesm | n his Epilogue to New Pathways in Science, Sir Arthur

Symbol

Eddington says :

My conclusion is that, although for the most part our inquiry into the problem of experiences ends in a veil of symbols, there is an immediate knowledge in the minds of conscious beings which lifts the veil in places ; and what we discern through these openings is of mental and spiritual nature. Elsewhere we see no more than the veil.

In my Prologue to this Study in Symbolic Yoga, may I say that I am perhaps trying to begin with those very symbols in which Sir Arthur so rightly perceives the solution of the problem of experiences to end ? I am well aware that, as I have set them forth, the symbols examined in this book are by no means those to which Sir Arthur alludes. He is, I imagine, thinking of those symbols of science, and possibly of religion, more immediately connected with such frontiers in experience as science and religion may have reached. I am thinking of Ultimates, as I have called them, of those Symbols 1 which are among the formulae of God the Creator, rather than of those which are among the formulae of Man the Seeker.

1 Speaking of the phenomenon of the " release " of consciousness, Jung declares • " The achievement of such a symbolic unity is beyond the power of the conscious will because, in this case, the conscious is partisan. Its opponent is the collective unconscious which does not understand the language of the conscious. Therefore it is necessary to have the ' magically ' effective symbol which contains those primitive analogies that speak to the unconscious. The unconscious can only be reached and expressed by the symbol, which is the reason why the process of individuation can never do without the symbol. The s^nbol is, on the-one hand, the primitive expression of the unconscious, while on the other hand, it is an idea corresponding to the highest intuition produced by Consciousness."—The Secret of the Golden Flower, p, 105.

THE VIGIL OF PURIFICATION

The Sword of the Will

Refining the Material

It is possible, I think, to gain some glimpse of these. 1 believe I have done so with the aid of a Scientist who is infinitely nearer to God than I. And I seek to communicate these to you, not that you may accept them, but that, looking upon them, you may the more clearly see your way to discover for your very selves the symbols of God. You may see His formulae otherwise than I am seeing them. It is enough that you perceive them, for to each individual God-in-the-Becoming is his own vision of Divinity. Approach the veils before you, and seek in lawful ways to lift them.

Let me also say that the mighty Truths of Yoga can never be described, still less understood, within the confines of the mind alone, whether Universal or merely human.

They must flash forth from the very Will of God Himself, veiled as may be expedient from the excess of their glory, and drenching the whole consciousness of their recipient.

It is as if God draws His Symbol-Sword, flashing it forth into the consciousness of the would-be knight of Yoga, so that he too draws his sword, Excalibur, and enters upon his quest for Truth.

Such indeed is the inner significance of the legend of King Arthur and his Knights who sought the Holy Grail. 1 The Cup of the Christ was a symbol of the fulfilment of the Yoga of a man becoming Superman. 2

To live this Yoga He who is called the Christ sent forth Jesus, that in mankind's midst there might be renewed in the world, for the vision of generations to come, the living witness to an Eternal Truth by One who was man, yet by the Truth became Superman.

The reader will find herein no precise indications as to the procedure to be adopted in case an individual gradually

1 See " Eucharists " in Book Five. *

- Cf. the Beyond-Man of Nietzsche and the Ueber-Mensch of Goethe.

decides, after long meditation and deep aspirational seeking, to practise this particular form of Symbolic Yoga. The reason why I have not made any such suggestions is for the simple reason that I myself received no precise indications, but was left to find my way amidst a mass of, to me, priceless material.

I have tried in some sort of way to describe the material available, or rather some of the material available, for the benefit of those who by temperament, or in any other way, find themselves inclined in the direction of this form of Symbolic Yoga. But I am bound to leave to each student the discovery of the best w6y of employing the material, for to each student the material presents itself differently, according to his approach-motif. I think that the general statements I have made should suffice to guide him. He may regard them as principles or hypotheses, but he must apply them in terms of his own uniqueness.

I cannot, however, too strongly insist on a careful and thorough preliminary preparation, especially of the physical body and of the feelings and emotions.

The physical body must be made reasonably free from meat, alcohol and tobacco ] contamination, for contamination all these are when we look upon them with clear perception. It must have been free for some time—for a year at least. Further, the physical body must be kept as clean as possible, with special attention to inner cleanliness and to cleanliness of hands and feet.

The physical body and feelings and emotions must be at peace, and in the best health available, though ill-health is not necessarily a bar, at all events to gentle and unstrained practice.

It is desirable that the use of even the milder medicinal drugs be kept to the minimum, as stimulant or narcotic drugs are an inevitable barrier to Yoga practice. Glandular

1 See The Chakras, by C. W. Leadbeater, pp. 38, 52.

therapy, and other remedies obtained at the expense of animal life, must be avoided not only by the student of Yoga who wishes to keep his vehicle free from contamination, but by all who wish to protect themselves from the terrible consequences attendant upon increasing the sufferings of our younger brothers. Note carefully what is said in a later chapter l on " The Protective Web."

In the case of the removal of any of the vital organs of the body, all of which, be it remembered, have a direct relation to the higher centres in the physical body and to their counterparts in the higher bodies, the body may take many years for readjustment before other organs can, if it all, take over the inner functions of those removed. Yoga practices during this period may completely derange the nervous and brain functions, and the harmonious relationship between the outer and inner vehicles.

In the practice of Yoga, common sense is a pre-requi-site. All wise writers warn students against the dangers of focussing undue attention, either of thought, breath, tone, etc., on specific centres of the body. They also warn that at the slightest sense of pain, heaviness, giddiness, or of undue stress, the practice should be stopped, as pain is always a danger-signal that the bodies are not in synchronous vibration, or that the lower vehicles are receiving too great a pressure for their strain-capacity.

The person who desires to succeed in Yoga should be balanced between undue asceticism on the one hand and disruptive indulgence on the other, whether it be in the things of the body, the emotions, or the lower mind."

Those who find themselves as yet unable to take up the more serious practices of Yoga can lead lives of

1 Note at the end of Chapter 9.

-"Thus the Exalted One spake unto the company of the Five Mendicants •

These two extremes. Brethren, should not be followed by one who has gone forth from home • Devotion to the pleasures of sense . . . and Self-Mortification ... By avoiding these two extremes, He who has won the

PROLOGUE

51

A Yoga of Service

goodwill, simplicity, purification. Let them harmonize themselves and their vehicles with all around them in the service of the One Life. An attempt may be made to understand the inner meaning of the Symbols. Sooner or later the physical disabilities will drop away, and the time spent in preparation will herald an even more rapid progress. There is never any time lost in a serious and sustained search for the Path of Yoga, or Union with the One Self.

Among feelings and emotions, irritability must be reduced to a minimum, hatred having been long ago transmuted, of course. Understanding must be the law in terms of Reverence, Goodwill and Compassion. The spirit of instinctual and also of intuitive generosity and appreciation should pervade the whole of this field of consciousness. And it is of the utmost importance that the lacerating influences of excitement should be avoided.

The mind must free itself from pride, from the spirit of destructive criticism, and from a sense of superiority, though there must, of course, be no inferiority complex, since this itself is a subtle form of pride.

The mind must seek to know and to judge, but to judge for service, not to sit in judgment upon others.

This form of Yoga, as indeed all other forms of Yoga, is emphatically a Yoga of Service, for the very reason that it is a Yoga of Union, and he who seeks only to gain and not to give will soon find that, far from gaining, he is beginning to lose that which he already has. 1

He betrays his Higher Self, his God-given integrity, he is untrue and insincere, who seeks to perform a Yoga for

Truth (the Buddha) has gained knowledge of that Middle Path which giveth Vision, which giveth Knowledge, which causeth Calm, Insight, Enlightenment and Nibbana.

When questioned further as to what the Middle Path involved, the Lord proclaimed the Noble Eightfold Path -

Right View, Right Aim, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Living, Right Effort, Right Mmdfulness, Right Concentration."—The Word of the Buddha, by Nyanatiloka.

1 " For he that hath, to him shall be given , and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath " -Mark, IV, 25.

purely personal advantage. It is right that he should unfold his own Divine Life, but he must ever remember that only as he shares, may he retain, and gain. It has been said : Seek, Find, Share. These are indeed the true processes of Yoga, and if we omit the last, the time will come when we shall neither seek nor find.

It is perhaps useful to realize that all true Yoga is a form of bombardment of the smaller self by the Larger, of the less by the More, of the individual by the Universal, of manhood by Godhead, or of man by Superman.

Where there is weakness this will be intensified. Where there is strength this will be intensified. That which can be shattered will be shattered. That which can be refined will be refined. That which can be broken into pieces will be broken into pieces. That which can be made whole will be made whole.

An individual who indulges in physical self-satisfactions, which intensify the physical nature, may tend to find himself breaking to pieces under the powerful bombardment of finer and therefore stronger influences.

He is in fact setting up physical targets which will be in danger of being blown to pieces. And if he sets up similar targets in the realm of feelings and emotions, he is subjecting himself to an even fiercer bombardment. It is impossible simultaneously to serve both God and Mammon, until we have experienced them as one.

This yogic bombardment is precisely like those bombardments with which science deals in its transmutation of the elements. It is for release, for the release of nature's finer forces. Clearly, therefore, the more we intensify the resistance, the more difficult will become the release, the more certainty of a grave injury to tissues instead of an easy forthflowing. Who should If you have for some time been engaged in some

practise Yoga P * 3 *

form of spiritual athletics and have been reasonably

PROLOGUE

53

Dynamic Symbols

successful, you may possibly be able to begin exercises in this form of Yoga, provided it is entirely congenial to you. But you are heading straight for disaster if you ignore all warnings and neglect all precautions.

Imagine the effect upon an individual who took part in a boat-race, involving a tremendous strain, without any athletic training beforehand !

I must also point out that those who are already engaged in some form of Yoga, or who are already members of an Esoteric School, must not add this Yoga to their exercises without consultation with the heads of their schools. Yogas must on no account be mixed, or each will not only fail to produce the designed result, but an unbearable strain will eventuate in wrecking physical and other health.

It was my original intention to publish a number of diagrams, illustrating my conceptions of the symbols in this form of Symbolic Yoga. But I have been advised that so to do would largely frustrate the object I have in view of moving my readers to make their own discoveries without the hindrance of static forms, to which there would be a conscious, or even an unconscious, tendency to conform.

I have described my own vision of the seven symbols, and, as the reader will see, in Book Five (article on " Syrpbols through the Kingdoms "), there are very close correspondences between these visions of the macrocosmic and the microcosmic processes of incarnation. On the other hand, each one of us must manufacture his own Yoga for himself within the laws of the Science. He may perceive other symbols, or he may perceive these very symbols otherwise. In any case, I must not unduly influence him as I should be doing were I to make static that which is above all dynamic, flowing, restless, changeful.

It is well, indeed, that the reader should decide that my descriptions are vague and without clear definition. In

this way, he will feel that they are free from hard precision, and what is even more important, will feel himself free from all imposition of authority.

Far from presuming to be in any way authoritative, it is no more than an experience very carefully observed over a considerable period of time. And it is intended only to stir to their own experiences those who so desire.

Gossamer | am also anxious that readers of this book shall not

fall into the mistake of regarding the seven symbols as a series of solids, as, for example, the Platonic " solids," l which I very much wish were not called solids at all, as by those with occult vision they are said to be but lines of force.

The symbols shown to me are much more in the nature of patterns, each as web-like as is the Web that is the Womb, or of Line-curves. They are among the Thought-Forms of a God, and possess that indefinable delicacy yet precision of texture which characterizes the higher regions of consciousness.

They are multi-dimensional, and transcend all confinement within two or three. They may be most imperfectly sketched on a piece of paper, but the true student will only use such a sketch as a starting-point, whence he unfolds the sketch-note into a symphony of sound and colour and form.

I hope I shall not be misunderstood if I explain that these symbols are so real—may I say " so solid " ?—that they have a delicacy, a fineness, a gossamer quality, and therefore a power, all of which lose their intensity as their substance—but not, of course, their substans —increasingly

1 " . . . the five Platonic solids, the only regular polygons possible in geometry ... are given in a fixed series, and this series agrees with the different planes of the solar system. Each of them indicates not the form of the atoms of the different planes, but the lines along which the power works which surrounds those atoms These polygons are the tetrahedron, the cube, the octahedron, the dodecahedron and the icosahedron If we put the point at one end and the sphere at the other, we get a set of seven figures, corresponding to the number of planes in our solar system." -C. W. Lead-beater, Trie Inner Life, Vol. 1

PROLOGUE 55

assumes the texture of circumferences receding from the Centre. Furthermore, these symbols are so perfectly restless that they seem to bfe, and are, in a state of perfect rest. Perfect rest involves no-rest, as perfect no-rest involves rest.

But let me also warn the reader that almost inevitably he will look upon the symbols I have sought to describe through the coloured lens of his individuality, as I myself have necessarily done. I have tried to be as impersonal as I could with due regard to a certain amount of clarity. But the reader must guard himself as far as he can both against my personal equation and against his own.

I believe my experiences to be substantially in accord with the trend of the deepest philosophic thought as expressed, for example, in what is called Theosophy. But I make no apology even where this is not the case. Rather than to be orthodox and conformatory, I have sought to be myself, and to give my experience as I have encountered it, constantly verifying the accuracy of my transcription, rather than its conformity with what has been written in books, albeit these have been compiled by those infinitely wiser than myself.

I have always had the conviction that the whole purpose of the revelation of the Science of Theosophy is to help people to find their own Theosophies, by no means mere reproductions of those works in which the revelation first found utterance in the modern world.

So, in publishing this Study in Symbolic Yoga, I am but disclosing a colour-sound-form in my own life, believing that there will be many who will be encouraged to find complementary colour-sound-forms in theirs.

Translating the The difficulty in translating the super-physical—one

Untranslatable

might almost say the "super-material," were that not an

impossibility in the case of indissolubly linked Spirit-Matter— has been voiced by one of our greatest occultists, Dr. Annie

Besant; I here reproduce, echoing them most heartily, her inimitable descriptions in this regard :

"It is hafdly possible to take up a more difficult and obscure subject l than that chosen for this morning, and I have been trying to think of the best way in which to put it before you. I have been urged to explain it, to give some idea of what we mean by this constantly repeated term, and I will try to make it more intelligible. But it is very difficult, for there is so much of sight, which is then mixed up by the seer with the thoughts within his own mind. I have been trying as hard as possible to separate off these elements by observing my own consciousness, and I will try to describe what is seen, and to separate it off from what is thought in connection with what is seen, so that, to some extent at least, I shall put before you separately the vision which is observed, and the deductions drawn from it by the mystic.

" Now as a rule this is not done, and what you are given by the seer, by the mystic, is a mixture. The person who has the vision pours it all out—what he sees, what he thinks, what he puts into the vision—all in one stream. Obviously you cannot disentangle it; you have no means of distinguishing clearly what he has seen, and what he has thought; only the man himself can do it.

" I found the process more difficult than I expected when I began to try to do it. I am not sure even now that I shall not convey to you more confusion than the ultimate clearness I myself obtained in the matter. For it is hard to translate the experience of one plane into a language belonging to another, and the word which is seized on, as the nearest equivalent on the physical plane for that which is seen on the higher, is more often misleading than illuminative, because of its connotations, all of which are, naturally, plunged into it by the hearer. The

1 " What the Mystic Means by the Eternal Now/' a talk to students.

things that colour one's own ideas most are the hardest to put into words, because this colour is often due to a sensing of something beyond, which is too subtle to be seen, and is not on the plane where the mind definitely outlines the thought which it is taking into intelligible form which it can comprehend. There is a difference, in that there are some things that you sense, but while you sense them you do not see their outline, so that you get rather a sensing than a thought, still less a thought-form.

" These three elements are present, as factors in the vision of the mystic, but they are not, as a rule, recognized by him as factors :

" 1. That which is looked at, the fact on another plane.

"2. That which is read into the fact by the thought of the seer, by the previous experience he has gathered, largely on the physical plane, and which is the normal content of his consciousness.

" 3. That which he senses beyond his thinking, beyond his sight, beyond his possibility of putting into clear thought, much less clear language."

The element of incompleteness in all that one sees or hears or otherwise contacts on these higher planes of consciousness is again mentioned by Dr. Besant in a pamphlet entitled Investigations into the Super-physical.* In part she says :

" Things change in appearance as the power of vision increases. A globe is seen, and one calls it a globe. Later on, one finds that it is not a globe, but the physical end of a form composed of higher kinds of matter. Down here the solar system consists of globes rolling in their orbits round a central sun. From a higher plane the solar system looks like a lotus flower, its petals spread in space, its golden centre the sun, and the tip of each petal a world. Was one wrong to speak of a world as a globe ? No ; it is true

1 Adyar Pamphlet 36.

on the physical plane. But later, one sees things differently. We see things down here as we might see a picture through holes in a veil which covers it; through the holes we see patches of colour ; remove the veil, and the patches are part of a garment, of a hand, of a face. Alas ! our senses shut out more than they reveal ; they are holes in the wall which imprisons our perceptive power. They often deceive us ; but such as they are, with all their defects, we must make the best of them. Even talc windows in a wall are better than none,

" Let me take as an example the investigations made into the atoms by Mr. Leadbeater and myself, in 1895 and in 1907-08. In 1895 we said that the ultimate physical atom disintegrated into astral matter. That was what we saw. In 1907-08, using other sight, we found that between the ultimate physical atom and its appearance as astral matter, a whole series of changes intervened, a series of disintegrations into ultimate bubbles in aether, and of integrations back to astral matter. The case is analogous to the study of an object under the lower and higher powers of a microscope. You look at it through a low power and describe it; say, that you see little separate particles, and that you so describe them in your record of your observation. You put on a higher power ; you discover that little threads of matter, too fine to be visible under the lower power, link the particles together into a chain. The first record can hardly be said to be wrong ; it recorded accurately what was seen under the low power, the appearance presented by the object. All vision can only tell of appearances, and we may always be sure that its records are imperfect. We enlarge our perceptions as we ascend from one plane to another, and gain a completer view of each object.

" No one of us possesses the whole truth ; very far are we from the all-round view of Those ' who have nothing

more to learn ' in our system. Generations far in the future, ourselves, in new bodies, will still be extending the limits of the known, and pressing on into the unknown ; we do not want our limbs to be fettered then by appeals to our present researches, exalted into Scriptures, nor to find our opinions canonized into fossils, used as walls to bar our onward progress then.

"And do not be too quick to believe . . . [on the other hand] if the intuition of any reader sets itself against any discovery of any investigator, let the former be patient and suspend his judgment. . . . The Theosophical Society cannot be injured by any researches carried on by its members ; its Third Object justifies them in their work. But it may be injured by the blind zeal of those who pin their faith to any one investigator, and denounce all the rest. ' Prove all things ; hold fast that which is good/ Let us study as strenuously as we can, sift all statements according to our ability, ' follow peace with a men ' and willingly extend to all, the same liberty that we claim for ourselves."

Originality is | cannot too strongly warn readers of this book

against in any way lightly undertaking the practice of Yoga.

As I constantly endeavour to point out, Yoga is a definite act of dedication, of consecration, and both the slightest of selfish motives and, still more, any insincerity or lightness of attitude will recoil dangerously upon anyone thus animated.

Even to copy Yoga is dangerous. To copy the Yoga of another is as futile as to imagine for a single moment that a copy of a work of art is as good as the original masterpiece. The masterpiece has genius, whatever be its defects, while a copy of it cannot even be faithful, for not only is it unable to reproduce the genius, it is equally unable to reproduce those very so-called defects, those

excursions outside the conventional, the orthodox, the accepted, which themselves are signs of the expression of the genius.

If any reader sets out just to copy the details of my Yoga theme, trying to repeat them in himself, regardless of his essential difference from myself, he is not yet ready for Yoga. If, on the other hand, he uses my experiences to stimulate his own Yoga, not copying my Yoga but setting about the construction of a Yoga of his own, then will he derive profit from what I have written. He is ready for Yoga, and it may well be safe for him, right for him, to relate somewhat of my theme to his own symphony.

In Yoga a very definite measure of originality is vital, for the Science of Yoga is such that it most remarkably adapts itself to each individual's uniqueness.

I do not ask any reader to judge my book by the extent to which it has external corroboration, but by his own awakened or awakening intuition, by the measure of his own independence and freedom from imprisoning orthodoxies.

And since I quote somewhat extensively from that Book of books, The Secret Doctrine, I would say to its devotees, among whom I count myself, that only as there is arising within us our own Secret Doctrine, our own unique Secret Doctrine, can we hope to give full measure of value to The Secret Doctrine.

Only as we are beginning to hear the Voice of our own silence, shall we be able to understand The Voice of the Silence ; only as is flowering within us the Doctrine of our own heart, shall we be able to enter into the spirit of The Doctrine of the Heart; only as Light is beginning to dawn upon our own pathway, shall we be able to know Light on the Path.

Only as the God within awakens, shall we hear the Call of God without.

Chapter 1

THE YOGA OF ACCELERATION

Hatha and Raja Yogas

The Real Indian Yoga

Psychism and Spirituality — the Yoga

If thou kneadest husks with Maya's dew, thou canst create but food for the black doves of death—the birds of birth, decay and sorrow. —H. P. Blavatsky

In these days of the Kali Yuga, * the Science of Yoga has become degraded, so that the Kingly or Raja Yoga has become obscured by that Hatha Yoga which once was the servant of the King, but now is so often his tyrant. Western dabblers in Yoga reach but this Hatha Yoga in its present extravagance, and think that they have entered into the sanctum sanctorum of Yoga because their teachers can perform tricks. There can be no true Hatha Yoga without Raja Yoga.'

In India today, save in remote regions inaccessible to the curious, little of the real Science survives, for most seekers of modern times seek for themselves, for their self-glorification, for their salvation, concern themselves little with the liberation of the world, and fancy that they can live as the outer world lives and at the same time be students of the Science of Yoga.

Infinitely more lies hidden in the real India than man shall know for many a century to come.

In discussing this question of the trend of the western world in the direction of psychism and pseudo-Yoga practices, forsaking the glorious path that leads to true Yoga—Spirituality—I can do no better than quote to you

1 See " Kali Yuga " in Book Five.

- See " Yoga in Hinduism " in Book Five.

the line of demarcation as defined by one of the greatest Yogis of the age—Dr. Annie Besant:

" Psychism is the improvement of mechanism, of apparatus, not of spiritual power." ] She then declares that Spirituality is not a mere " recognition of the unity, but a realization of the unity.

" To realize the unity is for each of you to live in all forms, and not only in your own, to feel yourselves as suffering with the starvation of the starving, with the degradation of the degraded, to feel the sin of the sinner to be your sin, the misery of the miserable to be your misery . . . Psychism comes by knowledge. Spirituality comes by love. To know the One, to feel the One, to realize the One, that is spirituality. But it means that you see no difference between yourself and others. It means that you identify yourself with every living thing. That is spirituality—and nothing less. Such has been the teaching of every great spiritual man who has lived in this lower world. There is no separation for the man who lives in the spirit . . . There is no such thing as indignation that can move the spirit who sees himself only, and cannot be indignant because all is himself. Righteous indignation is a valuable thing. Why ? Because men are not strong enough to come in contact with evil, and not have some desire to follow it ... It is necessary for the weak. You are not yet strong enough to be spiritual without peril to your own goodness. . . .

" The spiritual state ... is only valuable as it purifies the soils of those around ... If you are pure, your purity is not yours for separation ; it is yours for sharing that all may become pure . . . There is no solitary salvation ;. there is no individual .salvation. A man is saved as all are saved, and salvation for some only would not be worth accepting. . . .

1 Chicago Lectures of f 907, p. 23, et seq.

THE YOGA OF ACCELERATION

63

Acceleration and Retardation

Pseudo-Yoga

"How wide then the difference between psychism and spirituality ! How vast the difference. Both are good. Both have their use. Both ultimately must join in the perfect man."

To no small extent is this form of Yoga designed to help all who are in danger of becoming detached from their due rate of growing at that stage in human evolution which they have so far attained.

It is one of the peculiar dangers of the Kali Yuga in the human kingdom that, with the tendency to acceleration associated with the higher regions of the kingdom, there is intensified in an equal and opposite direction the tendency to retardation, so that the injunction in / Corinthians, X, 12 : " Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall," has very special significance.

And one of the most remarkable features of the forces of retardation is that they seem, at all events at first sight, not only to differ very little from the forces of acceleration, but to offer much more.

In America, where on the one hand there are obviously at work a large number of forces for acceleration— naturally so when we look into the foundations of the American organism—there are also an equal and opposite number of retardatory forces, specially in evidence in the forms of secret societies, occult practice courses, and individuals blatantly making the most extravagant claims as to their exclusive relations with the Highest Beings.

It would be curious that so many people allow themselves to be deceived by these definitely evil activities working for the retardation of progress, were not such proneness to deception a characteristic of a people vital with the spirit of youth and challenge, and almost recklessly eager to give trust to any who are clever enough to surround themselves with plausible atmospheres of deep mystery and magic, and of intimate and sole confidence on

THE VIGIL OF PURIFICATION

Retarding the Natural Rhythm of Growth

California's splendid facilities for Yoga

The Notes of i Nations

the part of Personages about whom they are able to talk and write glibly, because they have read about them in Theosophical literature. The hall-mark of these unfortunate deluders, indeed self-deluders no less than deluders of others, is generally their claim to unique messengership—a word they would probably spell with a capital " M."

Under such influences the unfortunate dupe, however admirable his intentions, steps out of his normal and natural rhythm, and definitely retards his progress ; and it may take him some incarnations before he is able to disentangle himself from the pseudo-spiritual slime with which he has allowed himself to be permeated.

California, by very reason of her splendid facilities for spiritual acceleration, unequalled by any other part of the United States, must needs be specially afflicted by these noxious forces. But only those who have not yet learned to enter into the spirit of California, however long they may have resided in the State, are in any danger of becoming enslaved by them. The whole atmosphere of California is a fragrant and vital safeguard, if. only Californians will learn to breathe it in its purity and beauty.

England has not to face those forces of retardation which find fruitful soil in America. Her danger lies in those elements which make for the domination of the static, of self-satisfaction, indeed of self-righteousness. England's greatness is, of course, in those very virtues of acceleration to which these weaknesses of retardation are complementary. England's note is stability, as America's is quest. But just as quest may degenerate into greed, so may stability degenerate into pride.

My thoughts naturally turn also to India, which, like all other countries, is twofold in her nature. America is the America of Lincoln and Washington as well as the country

THE YOGA OF ACCELERATION

65

Land of the Rishis

The Holy Grail of the Motherland

In Yoga Man

remembers

Himself

Yoga is Life's Formula

Yoga reminds us of the Real

she is today. England—I am specifically omitting reference to her three sister-nations—is the England of Elizabeth and Victoria as well as the country she is today.

India is the India of the Rishis as well as the India ol today. To each country are its foundations, and the structures built upon these, some enduring, some but whims oi fleeting moods.

India's strength lies in her eternal reality. Her weakness lies in the prostitution of this reality to modern fashion, whether in politics, in religion, in education, in industry in her arts and crafts, or even in the daily living of hei peoples.

There are those in India today, as there are others ir every other country, who seek to make their country < slave of some other country's soul, instead of a Holy Grai for her own soul. They look everywhere but at thei Motherland, and seek her redemption everywhere but ir her own heart.

This Symbolic Yoga is to help all to remember whena they have come, who they indeed are, and whithe they are wending their individual, but no less collect ive, ways.

It is to help them to enter into their great Memories that they may remember what manner of Men they are and how they are Gods no less.

It is to help them to tread their ways more quickly bj bringing into their daily lives, simply, without strain, bu piercingly, some of the great Formulae of Life, some of the great Mnemonics of Living.

It is to help them to guard against the temptations o the forces of retardation, subtle and insidiously attractive as these needs must be, by giving them opportunities constantly to hold before themselves Truths which are in fad within them, are theirs already, only needing reminders ol their existence.

Yoga is Life This Symbolic Yoga is therefore Life, to be fashioned

into images reflecting the highest individuality of each of its students. If it be displayed in the forms I have described, it is only because I saw this Yoga in such forms, perhaps because they are mine, but also because every great Science of Life from time immemorial has borne witness to their reality.

The Symbols They are mine because they are real. I think they

belong to all for the same reason. But there may be some who think they see other forms.

Let not any form be an obstacle to the Life, or to that Yoga whereby the Life may shine forth in each of us more gloriously.

Chapter 2

YUGAS AND YOGA

The Age of Innocence

Man Made Self-reliant

A Further Dipping-down

The reward, which a man obtains in the Krita age by abstract meditation, in the Treta by sacrifice, in the Dvapara by adoration, he receives in the Kali Yuga by merely reciting the names of Keshava. — Vishnupuranam, VI, 2

Reference has been made to the various Ages through, which Man passes, and particularly to the Kali Yuga in which for the moment he finds himself.

The Krita Yuga would seem to be the Age of Innocence, in the sense of its being the first step in the evolutionary process, when life is mothered by the Giver of Life.

This mothering is clearly noticeable in the earlier kingdoms of nature, but is also to be observed in the human kingdom itself, at such time as the Giver of Life establishes on earth the standards for humanity.

In the course of the Treta Yuga, which is the Second Age of the world, as well as of a particular kingdom of nature, there is a period during which Man, in every kingdom of his uprising, comes into his own, which is to say, he starts on the process of fulfilling the standards established for him in every kingdom of nature during its Krita or Satya Yuga.

The Higher Gods would seem almost to recede into the background, thus forcing Man back upon his own Godhead, such as is appropriate to the kingdom of nature through which he is passing.

The Dvapara Yuga is a further unfoldment of the Krita Yuga, a further dipping-down into matter under the Law of Adjustment.

THE VIGIL OF PURIFICATION

The Yuga of Manhood

Ascent to Satya Yuga

Every Plane becomes Divine

Stages of Yoga

'From

Unconscious to Self-conscious Transcendence

Shorter and Longer Yugas

The Kali Yuga is the lowest point in such dipping-down. It is the period in which Man is beginning to know himself as Man, but not yet to know himself as God. Therefore, it is inevitably a Yuga of strife, of friction.

But from the Kali Yuga there is the beginning of an ascent into a Dvapara Yuga, with ascent and not descent characteristics.

Thence man passes upwards into the Treta Yuga, with ascent and not descent characteristics.

Finally, there is entry into the Satya Yuga, when Man becomes Self-conscious of his Divinity on every plane, inasmuch as he brings every plane of nature with him to the consummation of Divinity, with the result that every plane becomes divine.

The symbology of the Krita or Satya Yuga as having " four points," the Treta Yuga as having three, the Dvapara as having two, and the Kali Yuga as having one point, indicates the nearness of each Yuga to the Centre. The Krita or Satya Yuga has four points of nearness, the Treta Yuga three, the Dvapara two, and the Kali Yuga only one point.

In each Yuga, of course, all four stages are inherent, but while on the downward arc, unconsciousness dominates. In the Kali Yuga Self-consciousness begins to be definitely developed, and when the turning-point of the Kali Yuga is passed, there is ascent in ever-increasing Self-consciousness 'into each of the higher Yugas, Dvapara, Treta, and finally Krita or Satya.

It is very difficult to understand clearly the distinction between the unconsciousness on the downward arc and the Self-consciousness on the upward arc, for even consciousness on its downward progress positively grows through its descent into Yuga after Yuga. However this may be, it seems obvious that the more sublime Yugas are longer than the Kali Yuga which is likely to be the shortest of all

YUGAS AND YOGA

69

The Yugas of the Individual

Yugas for Each Cycle

The Age of Conquest

the Yugas. It may well be that in the higher Yugas, as consciousness descends, the rate of movement is slower. It may well be that in the Kali Yuga a tremendous amount of movement is compressed within a very short space of time. Furthermore, we may speak of an increasing acceleration in and after the Kali Yuga. In any event the limits of the duration of a Yuga cannot be arbitrarily fixed. As Madame Blavatsky has so rightly stated : "Cycles and epochs depend on consciousness . . . Cycles are measured by the consciousness of humanity and not by Nature." 1

These Yugas are not merely world-periods, or macrocosmic, but are also periods of microcosmic evolution. I have the impression that we could establish these Yugas in every living creature. I think that the childhood of man corresponds to the Satya or Krita Yuga, his youth to the Treta Yuga, his adolescence to the Dvapara Yuga, and his years up to middle age, or somewhat beyond, to the Kali Yuga. From that turning-point, he should be facing homewards, and as the years pass from middle to old age, he should rapidly pass, through the Dvapara and Treta Yugas, to that Satya Yuga entry to which is given through the door of death.

There would seem to be a Krita or Satya Yuga in the very beginning of the evolutionary process, also for each wave of life as it animates a kingdom of nature, after a previous life-wave has passed from that kingdom. I seem to see a Satya Yuga for every kingdom of nature, as we'l as all the other Yugas.

If I am at all right in this, then we do not look upon the Kali Yuga 2 in any sense as a futile age, or as an age in which Man dwells in the midst of innumerable adverse

1 S.D., III, 563, (Adyar ed., V, 536).

2 Literally, Yuga = to yoke; fCr/ta = that which has been made (spun); Satya = truth ; Treta-triad, the die marked with three points ; Dvapara = the die with two points; Ka/i = the die with one point, dissension, strife, that which is urged, driven, impelled.

THE VIGIL OF PURIFICATION

Symbolic Yoga for the Kali Yuga

The Yogas of other Ages

The Symbols accompany Men into Darkness

forces. Rather is it an age in which Man establishes his mastery at the very frontiers of his evolutionary process. Triumphing at its frontiers, he turns his face homewards with the " spoils " of his righteous war.

I am inclined to think that as Yuga succeeds Yuga, so does the Eternal Truth descend more and more into symbols. In this Kali Yuga the symbol-note must be at its height, for Men, not yet being able to know Truth face to face, must know it as through a symbol, darkly. This form of Yoga is specially for the Kali Yuga.

I can well imagine that in the Satya Yuga there was no need for symbols, since Truth walked freely abroad, and the eyes of the then Men were veiled from the excess of its glory. Men were but children in their glorious and eternal home.

Then, in the Yuga following, they began their youth, preparing to journey forth towards the farthest distances of consciousness. In the first Yuga ". . . the Builders, having donned their first Clothing, descend on radiant Earth and reign over Men—who are themselves," says the seventh Stanza of Dzyan. But the time came when Heroes must take the place of Gods, and Men must learn to walk alone. So in the succeeding Age, still further do Men wander away from their unconsciousness that they may become Self-conscious.

Symbols 1 accompany them, however, into these darker regions, to be their memories of Truth. And in the Kali Yuga, while Truth lives, most of it is veiled in symbol, and often in allegory. And some Men gaze upon the symbols, and see naught else, nor perceive in words but the meanings of their actual forms. They see the letter, and imagine in their darkness that it is the spirit, for their eyes can measure but little shining. So do they become enslaved in forms and in authorities. So, be they ^ee " Symbols " in Book Five.

Hindus, or Christians, or Parsis, or Buddhists, or Mussal-mans, they bow down before images of Truth, nor look behind the image for the substance of which it is a shadow.

Rryst F o a LUt elr But there be other Men who ' knowing so well the

Man's Way darkness, ardently seek the Light, and in symbols find here

and there its rays. And they delight in symbols, for these are the jewels which foretell the Sun.

And the time comes when, gazing upon these jewel-symbols they find, they feel, they sense, a stirring within themselves, and looking within, discover that in them these jewels shine, that Truth dwells within them no less than without.

Cognation ^° d ° ^ e ^ g ' ory in their J ewels and move quickly on

their way from Kali Yuga back to Satya Yuga, the home they left, bringing to that home in triumph those kingly attributes which shall crown them Kings where once they had but kingship.

Chapter 3

YOGA REAL AND UNREAL

The Way of Holiness

Yoga is Creative Unity

It is the life and not the knowledge, the purified heart, not the well-filled head that leads us to our Master's Feet.

—Annie Besant

At the outset of this Study in Symbolic Yoga I must express the misgiving I feel with regard to its publication, partly because the Science of Yoga 1 is so intricate, and partly because it is so individual.

True, indeed, in the deeper reaches of the great religions of the world there always lies hidden the great Truth of Transubstantiation, of Liberation, of Union, of Samadhi,~ for the finding of those who know how to seek. There always lies hidden the dangerously glorious Way of Holiness, 3 of Purification, the short cut up the side of the Mountain of Evolution, which those may tread who are ready to tread it. In some of the great Scriptures, this Truth and this Way have been marvellously described in richest detail, notably in Hinduism, so that the Science of their attainment is shown to be a matter of Law and of obedience to Law.

Fortunately, however, for the modern world, the key 4 to the practice of Yoga, veritable science of creative unity,, is most cleverly lost amidst the innumerable directions for

1 See " Yoga through Many Eyes " in Book Five. 8 See " SamSdhi " in Book Five.

3 See the chapter on Initiations in Book Four.

YOGA REAL AND UNREAL

Yoga is not for Sale

To every Yogi his own Yoga

its discovery, with the result that while the Science of Yoga remains living today, its practice becomes automatically restricted to those whose worthiness to know reveals to them the way to knowledge.

On the other hand, the restlessness of the modern world, and its instinctive urge to escape from greater into lesser ignorance, causes an intense interest in a science which seems to possess the power of lifting its votaries out of the slough of their despond. And the result is both a number of commentaries on the various systems of Yoga, on the part of those who seek to translate into English scientific terms which they do not themselves really understand, and for which the English language has no equivalents whatever ; and a number of books written by credulous foreigners, who think they are encountering Yogis when at the most they are but watching conjuring tricks.

In some parts of the world, too, there is a flood of pseudo-occult literature, which is as mischievous as it is false, and some are so foolish as to believe that for the payment of a sum of money the principles of Yoga may be acquired !

It cannot be too clearly stated that no one can become a Yogi with the Yoga of another, nor as he studies and strives to practise the laws of Yoga as these may be set forth in those Scriptures especially dealing with Yoga. The great principles of Yoga may well be of universal validity. But they have an infinite variety of application as they descend into the individual uniqueness of each seeker. And while the effective study of Yoga may need a teacher as well as the observance of certain laws of the Science, all that the teacher can do is through his own Yoga to evoke the Yoga of his pupil, while all that the Law can do is to help the traveller on his way, and to protect him against the dangers which must needs beset him as he travels.

THE VIGIL OF PURIFICATION

The Eternal Alphabet of Yoga

Your Yoga is within You

Distortions of Yoga

Any book on Yoga, therefore, can at best stir in the earnest student that spirit of Yoga which, dwelling within himself, he will have to pour into forms constructed in terms of his own genius and fundamental distinctiveness. There is, I am sure, but one eternal alphabet of Yoga, but each one of us must learn to write and pronounce its letters differently, so that out of the one alphabet emerge innumerable forms and sounds, each different from all the rest. One Truth, many truths. One Law, many laws. The Yoga of the Lord of this universe in which we live and move and have our being is unique to this universe, and different from the Yogas of all other universes.

I regard these notes, therefore, not as a guide to the practice of a certain form of Yoga, though they may be such if the student wishes to use them as a stepping-stone to his own true Yoga, but more particularly as a stimulus to the discovery by each earnest and truly enquiring student of his own unique Yoga, different as this must be from my own if his discovery be true.

It is most unfortunate that an impression prevails that Yoga means the attainment of what are called psychic powers, and that it is conceived to that end. The impression also prevails 'that certain physical practices, together with certain vague concentrations, heralded by no particular vigil or preparation, will cause such powers to issue forth, so that the practice of " Yoga " tends in these days to become a kind of hobby for all and sundry, an amusement for the leisure hours, to be undertaken without any of that arduous and prolonged training which is known by genuine students to be essential to the development of those forces which build lofty character and truly spiritual stature, and all the power that comes therewith.

Chapter 4

THE YOGA OF THE INDIVIDUAL

Western and Eastern Bodies

The Fragrance •of Experience

One vision differs from another, not because the Reality as such is different, but because it is viewed from a different level, height or story of the tower of spiritual evolution.

— B. L Atreya

That which is set forth in these pages is the result of much study and experiment during many years, with a further clarification from certain special facilities which have come my way. A western body is indeed ill-equipped to stand the strain of the venturesomeness required for successful experiment. It has neither the heredity nor the purity of the average eastern body, so essential to the undertaking of what is often a forlorn hope. I have, however, lived for over thirty years in India, and what is far more important, in the spirit of India, seeking India's eternal life. This has, perhaps, offset my various physical disadvantages, and I have had the gracious help of One who is indeed a Lord of Yoga. Little could I understand of His mighty sweeps of power-release. But through His magic my own Yoga stirred within me, and these notes are the result.

I am telling you all I can about experiences which to me have been, are, and doubtless will ever be, of tremendous import, the more so because as I grow, the experiences will unfold too. I am telling you about the symbols which embody the experiences, which epitomize the experiences, and which point out to me to what

THE VIGIL OF PURIFICATION

Release from Within

The Chakras of Creation

An Individual Interpretation

Voga is One

further heights and depths they lead. I am telling you of the fragrances, of the illuminations, of the inspirations, of the release, which accompany these experiences. And I am not hesitating to suggest to you that, perchance, these experiences may have some kind of counterpart in your own growings.

But I want to insist and insist and insist that all anyone can do by way of helping is to knock at the door of your life with his, not to ask you to open the door to receive his life, but to open the door to release your own.

We knock. You open—not to admit from without, but rather to release from within.

As I am sure you will perceive, the symbols that have crystallized my own wanderings into the realms of Yoga are symbols ! very well known to all students of the Real. They are by no means new. On the contrary, I have good reason to believe that they exist from eternity to eternity. Before time, they were. Before space. For they are among a marvellous range of formulae into which He who transcends all time and space, who is No-Life because sa infinitely more than all Life, who is No-Being because so infinitely more than Being, may breathe His No-Lightning for their infinite expansion.

That they are vital and fundamental I have no doubt whatever. But my interpretation is my own. My understanding is my own. My experience is my own. That which they are to me I have set forth. To such of them as you may feel attracted by the Law of Gravitation as it works within you, you should use for the building of your own Yoga. But you must build in the light of your spirit, and not in that of mine. A number of artists gazing upon a tree will each be differently impressed. There will be as many trees, and truly as

1 See " Alphabets " in Book Five ; and note on Trie Book of Dzyan, pp. 39-40.

THE YOGA OF THE INDIVIDUAL

77

Uniqueness of Approach

The Mathematician

The Artist

The Musician

many trees, as there are artists, even if there be but One Tree. So will there be many Yogas, each the supreme object of devotion to its true votary, and yet only One Yoga.

In the One Yoga seek your own, and In it find the One.

I desire likewise to stress the fact that these great symbols of Symbolic Yoga will appear differently as they are studied by different types of consciousness :

I have watched a mathematician examine them in the light of his particular science, and I could see, without comprehending, how, in some high branch of mathematics, he was able to reduce each symbol to a great mathematical formula. The result to him was a series of abstruse formulae which, as it were, epitomized for him the whole universe. As Einstein so truly remarks, for all real study and experiment, the faculty of the imagination is essential, and I can see clearly how he himself bridged his gulfs with the help of his own sparkling and creative imagination. I could see also how this particular mathematician used his imagination to construct bridges over gulfs, and then looked to see if he had really reached the other side, that is to say, another side which satisfied his other faculties. The difficulty with the scientist is not in the beginning nor in the end, but in between. When Science knows how to make a bridge, Science is complete.

It was the same with an artist, He translated each symbol into forms and colours, into such forms and colours as impinged most closely upon their archetypes. The result was a series of colour-forms, each kaleidoscopically emerging from its predecessor, and summing up the colour-and-form scheme of the whole evolutionary process. He had his formula, but in terms of colour and form.

So was it with a musician, working in terms of sound as the artist worked in terms of light.

The musician made an archetypal note for each symbol, and elaborated it in the heaven world where there are no restrictions. It is glorious to watch a great composer go into the heaven world of music, and bring down the symbol in his own particular way. Wagner, for example, brings down a globule of music, and the lower it gets, the more it tends to burst. At last it bursts in his own individual heaven world, and then the symphony, the opera, and all the scintillations of the rainbow effect of music are produced. Follow an opera or symphony back, and it becomes the Point. It is a very wonderful thing to reduce any piece of music to its Point significance. Can you reduce a Raga to one vibration, only one? The musician does. So does the master of form, as such. You have a colour alphabet, a sound alphabet, a fragrance alphabet, and you have also a form alphabet. All Things to So will it be with every student; and you will, lam

All Students , f . , ,

sure, see how glorifying these symbols must become when

translated into those vibrations which the student can most readily use in the outer world. Even if he cannot express here that which he can shape there, the inspiration of his achievements in the realms of more sensitive substance is bound to flow down into these regions of comparative inelasticity, and give the worker what we call genius, heroism, or sainthood, according to his mode of expression.

For my own part I have tried to be as impersonal as I could, so as not to interpose my own individuality between the symbols and my readers.

Chapter 5

THE ULTIMATES OF LIFE

The Real Purpose of this Yoga

Planting the End into the Way

Within Thy Form, O God, the Gods I see, All grades of beings with distinctive marks.

—The Bhagavad G/ta, XI, 15.

This particular research into Yoga has not been for the purpose of acquiring what are normally called miraculous powers, nor for the intimate practice of withdrawal from, various intervening states of consciousness, as set forth in most works of Yoga.

This Yoga is for the purpose of striving to gain some direct impression of some of what may perhaps be called, without undue impertinence, the Ultimates of Life, of the fundamental Ultimates of Being, and of the evolutionary process itself.

If in some way we can plant the end into the actual way, that will vivify the way. From cosmic regions the Lords of the Flame, certain Ultimates of Evolution, descended right down into our poor little evolutionary process. The Ultimates descended down into the actuals. This, on an infinitely smaller scale, is the descent of Ultimates, as expressed in Symbols, down into the human kingdom, not only for general uplift, but to try to stem the tide of pseudo-occultism which is rife in so many directions, and which is gaining more and more ascendency in certain parts of the world. If we can in some poor way bring down even the vaguest shadowy conceptions of certain Ultimates, and plant them in the world in the hearts of men who are

THE VIGIL OF PURIFICATION

Momn tain-Symbols

From

Transcendence to Endeavour

ready to receive them, then perchance good will be done, even though the world cannot be restrained, I fear, from some of the disasters which have to follow the causes of which they are effects.

Of course, I have no business whatever to write of " Ultimates." What can I know of such ? But for the fact that in myself I know I am an Ultimate, the very use of such a word is impertinent conceit. So, if I use it at all, it is only to represent the farthest states of consciousness I can perceive—I do not say " reach "—with the help of a Lord of Yoga who lifts me up into His Mount of Transcendence for more extended vision. I see in the farthest distance a mighty range of Mountain-Symbols. I have perceived their substance-shadows in my very self. I record all I have been able to understand of this illumined Vision of the Real.

I descend from the Mount of His Transcendence into the valley of my endeavour. And I seek the way to climb to my own Transcendence, again to gaze upon the range of distant Mountain-Symbols, and to find my way to them, the Home whence I have come.

Chapter 6

WITHDRAWAL OR GATHERING IN ?

Rest is not quitting the busy career; Rest is the putting of self to the sphere

Gazing into Distances

The Stillnesses of Growing Nature

—Goethe

How to climb ? How to gaze ? How to move upon the splendid way ?

By withdrawal from state after state of consciousness, as seems to be described in some of the works on Yoga ?

Is it by leaving behind that I shall climb more lightly, see more clearly, move more easily?

No, not so has it seemed to me in the beginning, not so has it seemed to me since. Indeed must I enter into the great stillnesses of Mountains, into their sublime power and purpose. Indeed must my eyes—my inner and spiritual eyes—become infinitely far-seeing. They must become as the eyes of those who gaze into distances, and perceive that which those cannot see who look but a short way before them. They must see beyond the visible into the invisible. They must become the calm, deep eyes, reflecting pools of great Silences, so still that I hardly know whether I am looking upon a substance or a shadow.

I must move onwards into the stillnesses of growing nature, each stirring of a leaf, each hum of an insect, each note of a bird, each breath of a breeze, each drop of the rain, even the menace-notes of wild animals and rumblings of storms—all together but intensifying the stillness so deep

THE VIGIL OF PURIFICATION

Mountains of Triumph

Leave Nothing behind

From

Unconscious to Self-conscious Yoga

with sound. I must move onwards and then upwards into the range of Mountain-Symbols, where I shall find all Sounds, all Colours, all Stillnesses, all Silence, all Darkness.

Shall I achieve all this by relinquishment ? Shall I reach the summits by casting away ? Not by deadening, not by discarding, not by withdrawing, do we achieve the means to rise to the heights of our predestined end, but by refining, by making each molehill of experience a mountain of triumph.

Not by killing, not by dying, not by withdrawing, do we achieve life eternal, but by intensifying living to the utmost of its glory.

If we die, it is because we have not yet learned how to live. If we kill, it is because we have not yet learned how to cherish. If we withdraw, it is because we have not yet learned how to include. Dying, killing, withdrawing —these are but substitutes for the life we have yet to find.

So is it that, in this form of Yoga, we move on our way by fulfilling, by sublimating, by performing those acts of transubstantiation which are the reflections in the outer worlds of the real acts of transubstantiation in the inner. The true withdrawal of Yoga is the power to take everything with us on our journeyings, leaving nothing whatever behind. Yoga is for the expansion and filling of consciousness, for the refining and purifying of consciousness, for the universalizing of consciousness, for the helping of men to become Gods.

Yoga is the act of God who makes Men Gods.

The whole of Life, as we know it and even more as we do not know it, is one perfect Yoga, and by the grace of a God of Yoga, by the grace of a Supreme Ishvara, we and all that lives—and there is nothing inorganic anywhere —are Yogis. We are unconscious Yogis in the Universal

WITHDRAWAL OR GATHERING IN ?

We can never lose Ourselves

The Essence of Experience

Yoga l until we enter the human kingdom and attain its higher reaches.

Then do we begin to become self-conscious Yogis in our unique individualities, thus preparing to fulfil at last the high purpose of Him, who for ever and for ever has been, calling to the Yoga within us with the compelling Voice, Sublimity and Magic of His own.

So we see how from universal aspects of Yoga we become individual aspects of Yoga, and then from the individual aspect of Yoga, from and by an act of Divine Magic, once more we enter into the Universal with an Individuality which we never lose. One of the most glorious things to perceive, even at an infinite distance, is the Great God as a Person. It is infinitely comforting from one point of view, and infinitely glorifying from another point of view, to know that we shall never lose ourselves,, nor can we ever lose those who are around us as companions on our way.

Nowhere is there unreality. Everywhere Reality shines forth in all its powers and potencies. Supremely real must we become as the fruition of our evolutionary way. So, as we undergo experience after experience, we take them with us in their essence, in their fragrance, in. their life.

To prepare for the Yoga which is our divine heritage as well as the Crown of our future Glory, we must seek to fulfil all things which concern us, causing each to become as a jewel of our Coronation.

Chapter 7

THE SCIENCE OF FULFILMENT

Yog Fulfi

;a is ilment

The Voice of God becomes the Will of Man

Thou wouldst not seek for Me, unless Thou hadst already found Me.

— The Imitation of Christ

Yoga is not a Science of Negation. It is a Science of Fulfilment. And only those are qualified to tread the way who are constantly fulfilling both their virtues and their weaknesses: Be it remembered that even our virtues are but very partial expressions of their substances, and that our weaknesses have their place in our unfolding.

To wallow or to indulge either in a virtue or in a weakness—I do not care to use the word "vice"—is to degrade it and not to fulfil it. It is as destructive to be the slave of a virtue as of a weakness.

The would-be Yogi takes with him for his Yoga the Will of God as expressed both through his weaknesses and his virtues. In his weaknesses he will seek the Will of God and fulfil it. In his virtues he will seek the Will of God and fulfil it. There is no weakness which does not point the way to strength, if only we could see the pointing. There is no strength which needs no further refining. Where the would-be Yogi discovers in himself a weakness, he will neither justify it nor continue to indulge in it. He will face it, and demand to hear in it the Voice of God calling to him.

If he hates, he will seek to listen to the Voice of God speaking even in the hatred, and maybe he will be thankful

THE SCIENCE OF FULFILMENT

85

The Note of this Yoga

The Lord of Experience

to have hated in that he has thus learned the better how-to love.

The Yogi will see, as no non-Yogi could see, in the very hatred that overcomes him from time to time, "Yes,, this teaches me the better how to love."

If he has passions, in them will he seek to listen to the Voice of God calling him to awaken to their message to him.

If he has selfishnesses, in them will he seek to listen to the Voice of God calling him to awaken to the message they have for him.

If he has virtues, in them will he no less seek to listen to the Voice of God calling him to awaken to their message.

Everything is a message from God, from our Selves, and when we realize and heed this, we are Yogis, whether we are able to hold our breath or adopt this or that yogic posture. We are the real Yogis who are needed in this Kali Yuga more than at any other time.

So does the would-be Yogi, growing worthy to tread the way to Yoga, hear in all things the Voice of God, his own voice as he shall someday know, and learn to sing his song of victory.

To look our weaknesses in the face, and not to seek to cast them off, is the particular note of this form of Yoga. We listen to catch the note of the Divinity that they express no less than virtue, so that in the midst of the darkness there is always light, nothing but light. Darkness and Light are relative terms. The greater the darkness the greater the light.

The true Yogi is a master of all the circumstances which ebb and flow through his life, even when they come to him unbidden. The would-be Yogi seeks to ascend out of slavery into kingship, so that he may rule instead of circumstances. And when, from time to time, he finds them to be his masters, he summons to his aid his will, and with it faces.

THE VIGIL OF PURIFICATION

The Great Release

Experience reflects Reality

The Great At-one-ment

subdues and moulds them. He may fail today, tomorrow and the next day. But far greater than success is effort, unceasing and undeviating. He who wins a race does well. Better still does he who falls and loses, but picks himself up to run again, undaunted.

We learn how to release God, our Self, in all things, and to take Him with us everywhere. But only those who are indeed on the threshold of the life of the Yogi are endowed with the power of listening to the Voice of God in all things, and of making the great release. All others must still remain swayed by their experiences, often at their mercy, often tossed about by them hither and thither, needing their ministrations, and far too often revelling in and justifying their reactions to them.

The would-be Yogi disentangles himself from crowds, though perchance living in their midst in peaceful loneliness. Already is he glowing with the fire of his kingship, even though not yet a king.

As we grow from the unconscious universalized Yoga, in which life at its earlier stages evolves, into the conscious individualized Yoga of the human kingdom, we pass through innumerable experiences, every single one of which is necessary to our unfoldment, and the essence of which, therefore, each one of us must take with him on his immortal journey.

Each experience ! on every plane, of whatever nature, is a reflection of a reality on a plane within. Every form we see around us is a reflection of the formless, as even the formless itself is a reflection of the still more radiant. Every virtue is a reflection of the Will of God, but so also, and no less, is every weakness.

So is it that the Yogi-to-be takes with him on his return to the inner regions of life, in awakening

'Literally, "out of trial, danger or suffering." See "Experience" in Book Five.

THE SCIENCE OF FULFILMENT

87

four Godhead s Needed

: reedom and Slavery

Self-consciousness, a beautiful and perfect distillation of all his experiences, as he identifies himself, becomes one, with plane after plane 1 of nature. The very essence of each plane becomes part of his own nature. Each plane, and all that it is, becomes his own. Its power, its life, its forms, are distilled into his being, for when he becomes God, he will need them all to fructify a Sea of Life which even now awaits the Call which someday he will know how to make.

If you will try to contact the Cosmos, you will perceive a Sfea of the Unmanifest waiting for the Call you do not yet know how to make. It is a very wonderful thought to feel your Godhead needed, as the God of this universe was needed and did bring within the Circle of His Ring-Pass-Not the whole of this sea of Green Men. For there is a sea of sleeping, not yet dreaming, Men awaiting us. Someday, when we learn how to draw the Great Circle of our Universe, within that Circle will pour these Men, and they will grow into Godship.

All who still demand to live exclusively within a fragment of a plane, and who would insist that elsewhere is no life, have still far to go, for there is no life anywhere on any plane which must not become their life.

All who are imprisoned within the boundaries of a faith, or of a nation, or of a race, or of beliefs or convictions, who declare that right and truth are with them, and are theirs alone, have still far to travel. They have yet to know that all faiths are revelations of God, all nations God's people, all beliefs and all convictions vessels in which a truth is to be found. They have yet to learn to be all things to all creatures, to go forth among all creatures and find themselves in them, and to draw into themselves all creatures, knowing that life, in all its myriad forms, is one.

THE VIGIL OF PURIFICATION

From

Experience to Power

Still Loftier Heights

The Summit of Realization

Thus does every experience become a power at the aspirant's disposal for hastening him more quickly on his way. And never does he think, not even for a single moment, that in any experience he has reached an Ultimate of Life, a fundamental End. Never can he say he has no further to go. Rather does he declare, with regard to each, that assuredly it is not an Ultimate, an Everest, 1 than which there is no higher mount. He declares that however glorious may be his experience, however divine his illumination, however deep his ecstasy, however transcendent his vision, there are experiences, illuminations, ecstasies, visions, still more divine, awaiting his approach.

In the very midst of sunrise or of sunset, of flashing rainbow or of majestic storm, of awesome rumblings of thunder, of gorgeous intensities of surging seas, of swift-flowing rivers, of mountain ranges, of peaceful landscape, and of all the splendours of individual experiences of mind, emotions and the higher consciousness, let the would-be student of Yoga know in deep realization that there is majesty far beyond those he is immediately contacting. He may well rest awhile in the splendours he has achieved, but even while he is resting, he must lift up his eyes unto those loftier heights whence shall come his further illumination, and soon must he depart from the heights he has reached to tread the way upwards, to regions still more sublime.

True self-realization cannot be achieved, save on the sure foundations of vitalizing discontent. The Divine Discontent of God as He makes His universe must be mirrored in us, as we make ours.

Away and away and away !

1 See Chapter 2 of Book Three.

Chapter 8

THE YOGA OF MARRIAGE

Sublimation

Inturned Relaxation

Marriage is perhaps the holiest act in which any human* being can participate. — You

The particular form of Yoga with which I am concerned does not, therefore, endorse any withdrawal from the normal states of consciousness, in the sense of deadening them, or even of stilling them, but rather of sublimating, them so that they accompany the wanderer*-Yogi on his inward way. He cannot return on his homeward journey with less than all that he has, with any experience left behind. He needs them all for the Yoga that is Self-fulfilment. Else why did they scatter his way ?

Hence, there is no moving away from any form of consciousness. Nor are there prescribed any of those physical exercises and postures so commonly associated with what is supposed to be the practice of Yoga. These may indeed be modes of approach, especially to certain* forms of Yoga. But they are only modes. There are many other modes. And in this particular form of Yoga, all preparation is of the nature of an inturned relaxation and adjustment rather than of any external effort. What has to be done must be accomplished more by what I might call effortless adjustment than by strain of any kind whatsoever.

The physical body must perform its normal and natural functions more naturally, more easily and rhythmically. So

yu

THE VIGIL OF PURIFICATION

The Holiness of Sex

Creative Magic

must the body of the feelings and emotions. So must the body of the mind. And their various forces must flow calmly for health, and not tempestuously for craving.

Therefore must all disturbing activities be gradually brought under perfect self-control. Rhythm must be established in physical sex activity, insofar as there is to be any at all, and it must be made holy through observance within a sacramental setting. Marriage l and the processes of procreation are among the holinesses of living, as is' death, as is birth, as is active entry into the larger consciousness of citizenship, and so forth. The sacraments of marriage and of conception are among the most potent forces of life, for they are among the living witnesses to our Divinity ; and need, therefore, the protection of the sacramental setting as, for example, is provided in religious ceremonial. No one can become a Yogi who is not intent upon making all these forces holy, who has not lifted them up unto the Lord of Life.

It may be well for those so destined that they give birth to children. But it is well for all that they give birth to great feelings .and emotions, great aspirations, great ideas, great plans. And it is to be noticed that man and woman together create most wondrously. Man and Wife. Man and Mother. Woman and Father. One man and one woman in some deep and sacred relationship.

The husband who becomes a father becomes a Knight of Sacrifice, a Knight of Creative Holiness, and he must approach his knighthood through a veritable vigil at the Altar of Consecration.

The wife who becomes a mother becomes a Holy Gra//, and she must approach her transmutation through a veritable vigil at the Altar of the Cup.

In truth, marriage is the act of magic whereby a man and a woman call upon the God within them to set in

THE YOGA OF MARRIAGE

91

The Sacrament made flesh

The Sacrament defiled

God Creates through Sex

motion His divine powers of creation on these lower planes, wherein two are needed to perform those creative acts which on the higher planes are performed by a One, in whom duality dwells potent.

And the fatherhood of the man is God the Father, shining forth, as the motherhood of the woman is the shining forth of God the Mother. In a glorious Silence and Darkness should be born a God, the Son—God the Spirit alive in all three to fructify the splendid Sacrament.

How inexpressibly degraded has become this majestic glory, whereby the very universe itself exists and moves irresistibly on its Way of Beauty. Look upon the marriages of the West, and see so many of them in all their sordid-ness, in all their emptiness, in all their unreality, though girt about with the prostituted forms of ceremonial sacrament. Look upon the crudity of fashion as it quenches the fires of holiness with the muddy waters of its futilities. Look upon the terrible enslavement of a most sacred offering within the dictates of customs and conventions. No wonder the world is as it is when Truth can so be set at naught.

There is no more marvellous testimony to man's inherent Divinity, nor to the splendours of his transcendent future, than the inconceivable wonders of what is called sexual power in this very physical world of ours, and in every kingdom of nature. But it may be used either to praise God or to defile Him, and in these days it is more often abused, with the results we see around us everywhere, in human and sub-human misery.

When a power of God such as the power of ssx is misused, it spreads devastation far and wide. It spreads destitution and pain and suffering. It spreads wars and diseases. It spreads hatreds and tyrannies.

No aspirant tor the crown of the Yogi could ever desecrate that which Is holy beyond all words of expression.

Chapter 9

ENEMIES WITHIN THE GATES

Ask, and it shall be given you ; seek, and you shall find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. — Luke, XI, 9

Self-Dedication But he must purify his vehicles in other ways too.

He must abstain from alcohol and from smoking, since these habits deaden both the physical nerves and their inner counterparts to those Teachings out into the great beyond of consciousness which are the daily and hourly activity of the true Yogi. He cannot afford to smoke, nor can he afford to drink alcohol, save under very exceptional circumstances. Alcohol and tobacco fumes form sheaths round all sensitive centres of the lower bodies—useful for those who want to acclimatize themselves to the noises of the external world, but fatal to the discovery of the inner worlds.

Harmlessness Similarly, the earnest aspirant for Yoga must avoid all

flesh-eating, for this not only coarsens the various vehicles to a most devastating extent, but links the flesh-eater to every process whereby the flesh has been made available to him—to the pain of the animal in very special measure, so that there must come about the adjustment of retribution before the individual is free to move inwards, leaving behind him no trace of injustice.*

It cannot be too strongly emphasized that he who interferes with the Yoga of another, so as to slow down the See note on " The Protective Web " at the end of this chapter.

ENEMIES WITHIN THE GATES

93

everywhere and m all

Seeking the Self

gradual acceleration of the latter's transubstantiation, burdens himself with the heavy responsibilities, throwing himself open to devastating repercussions from the wrongs he commits.

Upon each kingdom of nature is its appropriate Yoga bestowed, and miserable indeed is he who would set at naught that Yoga so that he may enslave a brother to his selfishness. We thus break his Yoga, and that is a crime beyond most crimes.

Yoga is in process everywhere. Our universe, the whole of manifestation, is part of the Divine Yoga of God. All life is in process of unfoldment through a Yoga which is unconscious on the lowest plane of its manifestation, though Self-conscious indeed on its plane of divinity. Each individuality in every kingdom of nature is a Yogi. Every animal, every insect, every bird, every creeping thing, every member of the vegetable and mineral kingdoms, is a Yogi, fulfilling its Yoga unconsciously within the universal consciousness of God, the Supreme Yogi, its divine Progenitor and Image, and within a unique and individual Divine Consciousness whereby it shall achieve its own Godhead. From one standpoint we partake of the Universal Yoga of God, but from another aspect we are Yogis with our own unique Yogas. Such Yoga is, of course, the seeking of the Self, as Dr. Besant so beautifully declares in the following passage, 1 for wherever she writes of the seeking of the Self she might as well have written of the Yoga of the Self :

" If we turn our glance over Nature, if we look over the whole of the world, everywhere we find things seeking the Self; everywhere in every direction, under whatever form and whatever name, whether wisely or blindly, whether clear-sightedly or gropingly, all seek the Self, all are striving to find the Self. The sun as it darts its rays through

1 The Three Paths, by Annie Besant, pp. 2-4. (See " Universal Yoga " in Book Five.)

space is seeking the Self ; the vast ocean when it surges into waves is but seeking the Self ; the winds as they wander over the surface of the earth are seeking the Self ; the forest trees as they stretch their arms outwards are seeking the Self ; every animal, however dimly, is groping after the Self, mankind, however blindly, however foolishly, however mistakenly, is searching for the Self. This tendency in all creation, this universal fact in every form of life, in ancient times was called the Seeking of the Self. Modern science notices the same tendency in Nature, and names it Evolution. So to whichever side we turn, ancient or modern, we find this upward, this inward, aspiration.

" Why should all things seek the Self ? Why should the Self be the goal of all endeavours ? Is it not because the Self dwells alike in the hearts of all ? Whether it be in the ocean, whether it be in a mineral or in a tree, whether in an animal or in a man, the Self there is hidden within, concealed by the outer covering of illusion. The one Self is seated alike in the sun and in the cavity of the heart, and every living creature searching after happiness is but seeking the Self ; for searching, however mistakenly, after happiness is but the blind groping after the Self which is Bliss. Yea, the Self is Bliss, eternal, unending, undying, and what we call happiness is the Self, which is bliss, reflected in broken beams through the medium which surrounds us. Let none mistake, let none be blinded by the divergences of seeking, by the errors caused by the outer illusions ; for all are really seeking in the outer form the inner life. They seek it everywhere, in all their blind efforts after joy ; and it was the Self Incarnate, Shri Krishna who said :

"Who seeth, seated equally in all beings, the supreme Ishvara, he seeth (The Bhagavad-Gha, XIII, 28)."

Self-conscious As has already been written, only in the human king-

Yoga

dom, and in parallel kingdoms in other evolutionary

schemes, is there the dawning of Self-conscious Yoga. And

ENEMIES WITHIN THE GATES

95

Gods of Yoga

The Golden Stairs

only when the experiences of the human kingdom are in process of being fulfilled, is the age-old Yogi beginning to know Yoga, and to come face to face with that Yoga which is his alone. Thus from unconsciousness does he pass to Self-consciousness, and begin the long and arduous way which, after countless light-years, leads him to the foot of his eternal throne upon which he ascends to seat himself as a God.

A Son of Yoga, a Man of Yoga, must become a God of Yoga. This is the high purpose of his unfoldment. All creatures are Men, as the Mystic Truth has it: In the beginning were Men, and Men were with God, and were God. Howsoever Life appears in the kingdoms of nature, all forms are Men reaching out to their Divinities.

It is, therefore, indeed a major crime to place in the way of any Yogi, unconscious or Self-conscious, an obstacle of any kind, for every obstacle thus placed becomes an obstacle in his own way, and only as he removes the obstacle from the path of his brother, will its counterpart in his own way disappear.

Harmlessness l raised to the highest possible power is essential to the would-be Yogi, and he must shrink from no human ridicule or contempt to achieve that glorious aid and blessing which earnest harmlessness bestows.

As for any other qualifications, I can think of no finer statement of them than the following from the pen of H. P. Blavatsky, herself the greatest Yogi of our time living in the outer world :

A clean life, an open mind, a pure heart, an eager intellect, an unveiled spiritual perception, a brotherliness for one's co-disciple, a readiness to give and receive advice and instruction, a loyal sense of duty to the Teacher, a willing obedience to the behests of Truth, once we have placed our confidence in, and believe that Teacher to be in possession of it; a courageous endurance of personal injustice, a brave declaration of principles, a valiant defence of those who are unjustly attacked,

•96 THE VIGIL OF PURIFICATION

and a constant eye to the ideal of human progression and perfection which the secret science depicts—these are the golden stairs up the steps of which the learner may climb to the Temple of Divine Wisdom.

THE PROTECTIVE WEB

" Every man has around him a certain protective coating that keeps him safe from the many lives around, which might be hostile to himself. He walks, as it were, angel-guarded as long as he breathes the life of love, the love that is divine and makes all creatures friendly. But if you do a cruel thing to an animal, or slay an animal, you attach that animal to yourself by the link of fear and hatred. The animal cannot by itself do much. One animal's feelings are not much in this great world. You have done more by that act of cruelty ; you have broken through the covering which keeps you safe from the evils around you. You have opened the door by your cruel act, and through that open door all the animal suffering in the world can pierce you ; the one becomes a channel through which the whole can pour into you and affect you for evil."— The Birth of New India, by Annie Besant.

I have no space to quote at length from the wonderful description in Dr. Besant's The Ancient Wisdom, Chapter X, showing the unfoldment of the Law of Sacrifice, whereby its automatic activity in the sub-human kingdoms ultimately gives place to a self-conscious administering of the Law by the Divine in Man as human being. I ask you to read most carefully Dr Besant's words, among the most significant she has ever uttered.

As regards the protective web in the aura of each individual, we are continually breaking it.

Chapter 10

A FLASH FROM FAR-OFF ULTIMATES

Dynamic Yoga

Rhythm more than Exertion

And then, the goal; beyond which lie, bathed in the sunlight of the Spirit, glories untold, unseen by any save the eye of the Soul. —The Voice of the Silence

The true Yogi must be dynamic, ever moving with the less he has achieved to the more which lies before him. He must remain static in no thought, in no feeling, in no desire, in no aspiration, in no state of consciousness. He must be dynamic in fact, however static he may be in appearance. And I would make bold to say that it is not cessation of function which is the purpose of Yoga, but rather the sublimation, and therefore a supreme intensification, of function. I agree that there is just a little something in the maintenance of some physical or other posture for a period of time. But I have the gravest doubts as to the inducement thereby of any condition of true Yoga. Above all, evolution is movement.

In any case, I am concerned only with the approach to a form—I by no means say " the form "—of Symbolic Yoga, and it has been my experience that for its understanding rhythm is infinitely more purposeful than exertion, that it helps more to do better, far better if possible, that which I am in the habit of doing—save, of course, that which hinders than to send any available force to furrow new grooves.

As power gains in spiritual intensity, it will flood all fields of consciousness, and render channels, though not perhaps reservoirs, comparatively unnecessary.

THE VIGIL OF PURIFICATION

The Way and-the Will

The Approach of the End to the Means

The Symbols

Face to Face

It is true that, as in the case of the awakening of the fofce of Kundalini/ certain obstructions must be sublimated, fire-purified, as happens in the movement of Kundalin?^ which is to say—fulfilled. But the very burning depends upon a fulfilment achieved through lives of slow fulfilling. And for the most part such fulfilment can be, and should be, in the normal everyday pathway of growth.

So far, my experience convinces me that all necessary contacts are in existence for penetration into the ultimate realities of life, or rather into what may be called Ultimates from our existing point of disadvantage. The necessary channels are all there. Some have been grossly misused, and need drastic cleaning. Others have not yet been« opened, though they exist—the way is there, waiting for the Will.

One of the most interesting qualities of this form of Yoga lies, in the fact that at once it brings the student into touch with the great End while he is still, as it were, fumbling with the means. Thus, upon the very threshold of his accelerating way shines in some measure a perceived reflection of those Ultimates which it will necessarily take him aeons to achieve.

The various symbols which I shall shortly be introducing to you are symbols of Truth infinitely beyond our most profound comprehension, let alone any question of contact. Yet, in some magic way, we are able to gain a distinct apprehension or awareness of them, at least while the spirit of the Yoga is upon us.

But I must emphasize that relatively speaking they are Ultimates, though who shall speak of final Ultimates ? And my own personal experience convinces me that they are extraordinarily potent in their adjustment of myself as I am

1 The great Mother Fire of the Third Logos on its upward journey from the earth, It sleeps in the root Lotus Flower at the base of the spine, though its most gentle manifestation is the nerve-fluid. (See The Chakras, by C. W. Leadbeater; and Kundalini, by George S. Arundale).

to myself as I shall be in the far distant future. I see, however momentarily, face to face, and not as through a glass darkly.

^^ ' ^ ave ever y con f'dence that as I grow, the moment will gradually lengthen. In the beginning there may be the Moment. Then will come Time, composed of many moments. But at last will come Eternity. And I am indeed content to dwell in the moment, for only the flashing and fleeting Moment can be borne by a crucible as yet too weak and small to enclose either Time or Eternity.

I think you too will see how wonderful an atmosphere is induced even by the shortest contemplation of one of the symbols associated with this particular form of Yoga. You may not, I think you will not, understand them. But they will, I am sure, be to you in this darkness of ours as intimations in some wise of a Light ineffable.

Yoga and the | can only justify the notes and myself by stating that

I have sought to become a student of Yoga, not in and through the books, not on the plane of the mind, but on the plane of the will, not content with climbing, though climb I must, but willing myself to stand for a moment on an eminence that I may have some vision at least of the glories towards which my will is determined to move. I have had, and am, of course, still having, some little practical experience of this form of Yoga at work in me.

I pass on such experience, not to be copied, but that it may knock upon the frontiers of the kingdom of the will in each one of you, to stir you to quicker movement on your way to discover your own Yoga within you. For be assured that the Yoga of each is within him, and that this " within " most truly extends through the whole world, through the whole solar system, through the whole universe, and verily beyond.

The One in the All

The

Expanding of Consciousness

THE VIGIL OF PURIFICATION

One of the earliest glimpses one gains of one's own reality is not only of its immortality, but no less, in some mysterious and incomprehensible way, of its omnipresence, so that every living thing in every kingdom of nature, every planet, every star, every constellation, in the Spaces of God, are somehow oneself. 1

Thus is it that, in this form of Yoga, a contemplation of far-off Ultimates forms an essential part of the earliest training. It is highly necessary that as far as possible the Beyond shall form part of what is called the waking consciousness, though the inner consciousness must ever be more awake than the outer. Consciousness is elastic and requires scientific stretching, such as may be accomplished by the influence of symbols, which are overwhelming realities so expressed that we may look upon them without danger, and with at least some small measure of understanding. That excess of their glory which would dazzle us to blindness, and confuse us to destructive misunderstanding, is veiled from us. Our eyes are open and we may see.

The end adjusts the means.

But how shall I gain some knowledge of the heights to which a duly performed Yoga must eventually bring me ?

1 Says the Master in The Mahatma Letters (p. 267): " Nature has linked all parts of her Empire together by subtle threads of magnetic sympathy, and there, there is a mutual correlation even between a star and a man."

Chapter 11

A LORD OF YOGA

The Divinity of the Dance

Symbolic Formulae for Ultimate Realities

There is, in the northern direction, the deity-souled lord of mountains, named Himalaya, who stands like the measuring-rod of the Earth, having entered into the eastern and western oceans.

Kalidasa's Kumara Sambhava, I, 1

Already, for long, had I been somewhat of a mountaineer/ as perhaps my books on Mount Everest and Nirvana, especially the latter, indicate. And in trying to understand India's mighty Science of Dancing, of Spiritual Movement expressed through physical forms, I was impelled to the belief that through symbology I might perceive and approach my heights more truly. Furthermore, as I watched Shrimati Rukmini Devi so very obviously uttering Truth in her rhythms, in her gestures, in every movement, whether of voice or of body, it became clear to me that movement, gesture, song, silence—all are surely the physical! formulae or symbols of otherwise inexpressible Reality. I saw at once that dancing, degraded though it so largely is in the West, purposeless though it is, however beautiful even in its splendours of the true ballet, is indeed in essence as divine as it is regarded in Hinduism. And I longed to develop my own spiritual ascent with the aid of, under the compelling inspiration of, the Life behind all forms.

And so has it come to pass. For the occasion came for me to be admitted to the environment of a Lord of Yoga, of Spiritual Movement, within whose highly spiritual 1 See " Mountaineering " in Book Five.

THE VIGIL OF PURIFICATION

End and Beginning are One

The Thread of Constancy

Lord of Eternal Rhythm

field I might perchance be able to understand a little of His magic. On a number of occasions I saw before me certain symbols of forms vibrate with eternal life and meaning, microcosmic formulae of macrocosmic processes. I saw that these symbol-forms constituted stages in a mode of yogic unfoldment, terms in a series of consciousness-expansions.

I perceived also that, in the mode of Yoga which was being disclosed to my view, each act of Yoga involved a blending in some measure, of the beginnings, ways and end of life, so that it became a potent means whereby the circumstances of time obtained adjustment to their eternal archetypes. All processes contain within themselves their ends as well as their origins, and in this form of Yoga symbols are used to evoke in the consciousness of the student a sense of his eternal meaning. These symbols reflect some among the great Ultimates of Life, and are inherent in everything that lives.

Each one of us, each denizen of every kingdom of nature, is such an Ultimate in all its modes. In its universal aspect, no less than in its aspect of individuality, Ultimate-ness is inherent in us all. Each symbol of the Ultimate has its reflection in each one of us, or rather has in us its substance as well as its shadow. So is it that in this form of Yoga the symbol of an eternal is constantly present at every stage of the exercises. And as a series, these Symbols form a thread of constancy, a theme of unity, amidst the changing modalities which the evolutionary process rings upon them.

The Lord of Yoga who revealed to me this particular form of "the Science is one of those Personages who embody what is called in Hinduism the Dance of Shiva, the Yoga of Eternal Rhythm as performed by Him who is the Regenerator of the world, with Vishnu as the Sustainer, and Brahma as the Creator. This great Teacher is one of the Agents of this aspect of the Trinity of God, is a

reflection of Nataraja, of Krishna the flute-player, of Orpheus, 1 and an Inspirer of all who sing and dance to the glory of God and in the service of His Life.

Through forms, postures, gestures, movements, in colour and sound, He embodies the Law of Adjustment, whereby the whole world draws ever nearer to the Real. The Dance of | d o no t think a better description of the spirit of

such embodiment exists than that in the great musician Scriabine's Poem of Ecstasy. I cannot resist the temptation to quote the extract which appears in A. K. Coomaraswamy's The Dance of Shiva, which book I commend to your careful reading :

The Spirit playing, The Spirit longing, The Spirit with fancy creating all, Surrenders Himself to the bliss of love. . . Amid the flowers of His creation, He lingers in kiss. . . Blinded by their beauty, He rushes, He frolics, He dances, He whirls. . ,

He is all rapture, all bliss, in this play

Free, divine, in this love struggle.

In the marvellous grandeur of sheer aimlessness,

And in the union of counter-aspirations

In consciousness alone, in love alone,

The Spirit learns the nature of His divine being. . .

" O, my world, my life, my blossoming, my ecstasy ! Your every moment I create By negation of all forms previously lived through: I am eternal negation. ..."

Enjoying this dance, choking in this whirlwind, Into the domain of ecstasy, He takes swift flight. In this unceasing change, in this flight, aimless, divine The Spirit comprehends Himself, In the power of will, alone, free, Ever-creating, ail-irradiating, all-vivifying, Divinely playing in the multiplicity of forms, He comprehends Himself. . . .

" I already dwell in thee, O my world,

Thy dream of me—'twas I coming into existence. , .

And thou art all—one wave of freedom and bliss. ..."

1 See notes on Krishna, Nataraja, Orpheus, Shiva, and Vishnu, in Book Five.

Pulsations of

Rhythmic

Adjustment

Fragrance Tone Colour Form

The Hush before the Dawn

THE VIGIL OF PURIFICATION;

By a general conflagration the universe is embraced,

The Spirit is at the height of being, and He feels the

tide unending

Of the divine power of free will. He is all daring : What menaced, now is excitement, What terrified, is now delight. . . And the universe resounds with the joyful cry / am. 1

I approached, on the waves of these pulsations of rhythmic adjustment, which surged through the whole of my being, the state of consciousness depicted in the first Stanza of that marvellous Book of Dzyan which, for the student of Yoga, epitomizes the whole of the Yoga path. 1 '

I cannot say that I experienced the state of consciousness thus depicted, for only a God can know the Godhead. But I gained a sense of its fragrance, of its note or motif, of its flashing colour, of its curving form. I looked upon something which was a shadow of a shade of its reality.

Obviously, no description in any language, can even in the slightest measure portray the vast majesties of these formless Radiances, (quick with form though they be) of that which appears to be as a great and unthinkable Hush of a Consummation before a great Stirring of a Beginning. Whence the Consummation ? Whither the Beginning ? The answers to these questions I hope to try to give in due course.

1 From the translation by Lydia L. Pimenoff Noble, published in the Boston Symphony Orchestra Programme, 29 October 1917.

In Thus Spake Zarathustra, Nietzsche causes his Zarathustra to say : "I could believe only in a God who would know how to dance " ; also : " Now a God danceth through me."

2 See p. 23,

Chapter 12

THE ALTAR OF SUBLIMATION

Priests of

Tran-

substantiation

The Body of Tension

In blinding white and golden fire Shines forth the Host e'en as the Sun, And in the Wine a glowing crimson sword " In colour like the fingers of a hand Before a burning taper."

-(Adapted) 1

For the present, let us seek to stand together upon those heights whence, in that distance which separates Time from Eternity, we shall see as in the Heavens a symbol of the Godhead of all Gods. First, we must undergo the Vigil of Purification at the Altars of our Higher Selves, feeding each vehicle of consciousness with pure food and holy purpose. Priests as we are at our Altars, we may perform for ourselves the great Act of Transubstantiation, set forth in all its supernal glories in Christianity and Hinduism.

I have already referred to this in relation to creative activity on the physical plane, and to that aspect of purification which gives poised and athletic receptivity to the body in abstinence from flesh-eating, alcohol and smoking. I have also referred to H. P. Blavatsky's general statement as to the ladder leading to the Temple of Divine Wisdom.

We may sum up the sublimation needed for the physical body in the terms Grace, Dignity, Poise, Purity and Strength. Thus is receptivity assured so far as regards

THE VIGIL OF PURIFICATION

The Body of Movement

The Body of Understanding

What of our Weaknesses ?

the physical body itself, for all these are the distillation of Right Living in this great region of Tension.

We then come to the body of desires, feelings and emotions. This vehicle we feed with the whole range of those movements which appertain to what we must call Love, though this beautiful word has been the subject of so much degradation in modern times in the West. Among such movements the most important are the Reverence Scale, the Goodwill Scale, and the Compassion Scale. So we may sum up the sublimation needed for the body of desires and emotions in the terms Reverence, Goodwill, Compassion, Aspiration, adding to these the terms belonging specially to the purification of the physical body. Thus is receptivity assured so far as this body is concerned, for all these are the distillation of Right Living in this great region pf Movement.

Then we come to the body of the mind. This body we feed with what I must call for want of a better word Knowledge, by which I mean a gathering of, the analysing of, and the partial synthesizing of the nature of things as we are able to perceive them in the various kingdoms of nature, and of seeking to ascribe to each of them its Order, its Purpose, its Law. So may we sum up the sublimation needed for the body of the mind, in terms of Collation, Analysis, Synthesis, Order, Law, Purpose, adding to these the terms belonging to the other vehicles. Thus is receptivity assured so far as this body is concerned, for all these are the distillation of Right Living in this great region of Understanding.

But we are so far offering upon the Altar of Purification only the Right Living aspects of our evolutionary path. What about the weaknesses which constitute what I can only call Wrong Living, it being understood that Right and Wrong are relative terms, and do not at all establish any absolute code or orthodoxy.

THE ALTAR OF SUBLIMATION

107

The

Offering of our

"Weaknesses

The illusion of Prejudice

The

Universalization of Individuality

These weaknesses we must also offer, of whatever nature they may be. And the mode of their offering is to look them squarely in the face, and perceive where they are virtues turned upside down, as they generally are. Thus perceiving, we shall begin to be able in a very real sense to "right" them, mingling their fragrances with those of our virtues.

In this connection I refer you to Section 11 of the first (Adyar ed., second) volume of The Secret Doctrine, in the course of which reference is made to the Kabalistic saying, " Demon est Deus inversus," and to the fact that "if Evil disappeared, Good would disappear along with it from Earth. . . . There is no malum in se ; only the Shadow of Light, without which Light could have no existence, even in our perceptions." Evil is "evil for some, good for others."

I wish very specially to warn would-be students of Yoga against prejudices, obstinacies, self-justifications, and all other manifestations of the pride which is for ever exalting the constituent elements of the temporary self to which it belongs.

Race prejudice, nation prejudice, faith prejudice, opinion prejudice, family prejudice, all are highly detrimental to the practice of Yoga, and particularly that subtle form of prejudice which seeks to camouflage its very existence within the garments of righteousness.

A Yogi belongs to the whole world. He belongs to all faiths. He is free in all circumstances. He is a master of circumstances; not a child, as are most, to be nursed by them.

Having been for aeons unconscious in his Yoga, in his approach to Self-conscious Yoga he begins to universalize his individuality, just as the beginning of his way was characterized by an individualization of that universality in the protection of which he set forth on his mighty

THE VIGIL OF PURIFICATION

Positive Sublimation

Apotheoses

wanderings. And the process of universalization, wherein the individuality grows more and not less, draws him inexpressibly near to all life around him, visible and invisible.

He begins to know. Therefore he begins to understand. Therefore he begins to help. Therefore he begins to laud. No knowledge is true which separates. It is but a poor caricature of knowledge.

The whole process of this sublimation has yet to become clear, but at least there emerges the idea that it is highly—I wonder if I dare say, exclusively—individual to each student. Each student must examine the whole content of each of his consciousnesses—physical, "astral," and the rest—so as to perceive what he has to exalt and how he is to exalt it.

I think we may say in general that the process of subliming is * governed by the law that everything grows from less to more. Out of every weakness will grow a strength, out of every vice will grow a virtue, even though both weakness and vice must first fulfil themselves as such. Some must—if I may use the expression without being misunderstood—reach vice-heights before they turn homewards to reach virtue-heights. And out of every strength will grow a -power, as out of every virtue a glory. Hence the work of sublimation is positive and not negative. It consists in the discernment of the shortest way whereby weaknesses may become strengths, vices virtues, strengths powers, and virtues glories. A weakness is a strength in the becoming. A vice is a virtue in the becoming. A strength is a power in the becoming. A virtue is a glory in the becoming.

Hatred is love in the becoming. Passion is compassion 1 in the becoming. Pride is understanding in the becoming. Selfishness is generosity in the becoming. Each may be far off from its consummation. Yet out of the acorn grows, the splendid oak.

THE ALTAR OF SUBLIMATION

109

Fulfilling the World

Psychology .needs Restatement

Sublimation thus consists in perceiving apotheoses, and in accelerating movement towards them or unfoldment in them. Any individual who is truly ready for Yoga has already moved far towards the apotheosis of hatred, of passion, of pride, of selfishness. But, if after careful and impersonal examination, he decides that he has not yet moved far enough away from the earlier incarnations of any particular apotheosis, that he has not yet reached its later incarnations, he will seek to impress his present state with somewhat of the future apotheosis, thus effecting in some measure a transubstantiation.

I am labouring this point somewhat, because I want to avoid any sort of suggestion that there must be a withdrawal from any state of consciousness, a negation of any kind. The strength of the Yogi does not lie in withdrawing from the world, but rather in fulfilling the world, not by collecting innumerable experiences at all costs, not by lying static in the midst of them, but by universalizing each to its strength, to its virtue, to its power, to its glory. Each of his weaknesses he conjures into strength by the magic of his fore-seen Godhead. Each of his strengths he conjures into power. Each of his vices he conjures into virtues, each of his virtues into glories.

I think that the science of psychology needs some restatement in the light of the above considerations. We have hardly begun to examine the technique of modifying the inclinations of an individual's current forces so as to accelerate his growth, and to meet his evolving needs. At present there is not a little tendency to desire to kill or to starve, when the line of least resistance would be to cause to operate differently. Both psychology and psycho-analysis, the latter especially, will become infinitely more real as we seek to assign to weaknesses and vices their due place in the evolutionary process, and to perceive them to be forces which we class as weaknesses and vices because we have in

THE VIGIL OF PURIFICATION

The Spiritual Healer

Disease is a Projection of Selfishness

The Incense of Sacrifice

fact no further use for the directions they have so far taken. A weakness is a force which is now being wrongly directed. A vice is a stabilization of wrong direction.

The tide has fortunately turned in the field of medicine in the West. The orthodox physician of yesterday has turned the psychologist of today. Articles are appearing in medical journals of the highest scientific repute in which for the treatment of such material illnesses as skin-disease, cancer, and other actual organic ills, the patient is given ethical advice that might easily have emanated from a religious teacher rather than from a scientist. The physician is regaining his old position—never lost in true eastern medicine—of spiritual healer.

C. G. Jung, one of the best known of modern psychologists, has made a splendid attempt in his Secret of the Golden Flower to bring to western psychology this wisdom of the East. He speaks of a life " which, if lived with complete devotion, brings an intuition of the self, the individual being." As to the trend of irreligious feeling, he writes :

We indeed think we can flatter ourselves at having already reached . . . heights of clarity because . . . phantoms of gods seem to have been left far behind. But the things we have outgrown are only the word-ghosts, not the psychic facts which were responsible for the birth of the gods.

The gods have become diseases ; not Zeus, but the sblar* plexus, now rules Olympus ... It is not a matter of unconcern whether one calls something a " mania " or a " god/' To serve a mania is detestable and undignified, but to serve a god is full of meaning, and rich in possibilities, because it means yielding to a higher, invisible, and spiritual being. The personification enables one to see the relative reality of the autonomous partial-system, which, in turn, makes its assimilation possible and depotentializes the forces of external life. When God is not recognized, selfish desires develop, and out of this selfishness comes illness.

We have yet to learn to perceive light in every darkness, for darkness is the progenitor of light. It is this on which the would-be Yogi of this particular yogic path should be intent.

THE ALTAR OF SUBLIMATION

11T

Frustrations Vanquished

The Eternal Peace

Garnering for the Future

His act of Yoga on each and every plane of consciousness, from the physical upwards, is to offer to his Godhead the incense of his sacrifice, of his act of making holy all that is his, was his, and shall be his. We are very complete, very compact. We are Gods. We are Altars. We are the Priests, and we are the Sacrifice. We do not need anything from outside. If we have all the external temples and priesthoods, and holy objects of sacrifice, as in the religions of the world, it is to remind us of all that is within us. We should be perfectly justified in having a picture of Ourselves above our Altars, provided it was not a time-picture but was some sort of representation of the Ego, the Eternal Self.

The would-be Yogi, therefore, must have the inestimable advantage of understanding how to make a silk purse out of that which looks like a sow's ear, flowers out of apparent weeds, rainbows out of seeming darknesses, and triumphs out of would-be frustrations. He should know how to do all this, and work at it on every plane of his consciousness.

\ Meditation on these Symbols and reduction of them to individual formulae of life give to each individual some sense of his eternal meaning, apart from the particular incarnation in which he lives, apart from his present problems. It lifts him above his sorrows and above his joys into that peace in which both Joy and Sorrow blend.

Thus this particular type of Yoga does not involve any withdrawal from plane after plane of consciousness, but rather a fulfilment of plane after plane. 1 As is said in the Tibetan Book of the Dead :'' " God never destroys." God always gathers in. Whatever we are, whatever have been our virtues, weaknesses or qualities, all these do we need.

1 " I come not to destroy, but to fulfil," said the Christ.—Matthew, V, 17.

2 Bardol Thodol, one of the " lost Canons " of Tibet, recovered by Rizzm, "The Great Doctrine of Liberation by Hearing or Seeing," which assists the one about to die, the deceased, and the one about to be reborn.

The man who is intent upon Yoga gathers everything with him so that he may retire into the inner regions of his heart with the whole of himself. Everything that he has ever been is with him. 1 There is nothing left behind. Only we must bring everything to its flower. Out of the mud, and through the water, the lotus flower ascends into the sunshine.

But I had better delay any ideas I may have as regards the methods of so working until you have accompanied me into the regions of the Ultimates, for only as we gain a glimpse of these, shall we be able to reflect them down on to the various planes of consciousness, externalized for our evolving.

1 "The power of creating a universe is only gained, according to The Wisdom, by involving within the Self ail that is later to be put forth. A Logos does not create out of nothing, but evolves all from Himself ; and from the experiences we are now passing through, we are gathering the materials out of which we may build a system in the future. 1 '—Annie Besant, A Study in Consciousness, Chap. Ill, Section 1. See also " Experience " in Book Five.

Chapter 13

"I WILL LIFT UP MINE EYES UNTO THE HILLS"

And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John, his brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart, and was transfigured before them : and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. —Matthew, XVII, 1, 2

Let us assume we have established on every plane we can contact the constructive stillness of which I have already written. Let us assume we have converged each plane consciousness into the bud, not yet into the flower, of its fruition, that we have stilled all into relative harmony and essential purpose. The Physical Let us assume we have done this on what we call

Plane—Yoga is

Dominant the physical plane—I really do not know how I am to

define the word " physical," though I have suggested the idea of "tension." Etymologies give us the idea of productivity as suggestive of its meaning, as if every other plane of consciousness were not infinitely more productive. For my own part, I should regard this so-called physical plane as the plane on which Yoga in its most completely externalized aspect is dominant. The physical plane is the plane of consciousness externalized almost, though not quite, to its limits, and in which life individualities are at work at the very frontiers of consciousness, forthgoing, involving in every kingdom of nature the

The Group-Soul group-soul idea of Theosophy. I believe that the group-soul idea Has truth in the human kingdom as well as in the

THE VIGIL OF PURIFICATION

God Economizes

The Throbbing of Desire

The Collating Mind

Law

Consciousness

sub-human kingdoms, though differently. There is but One Soul with its constituent group-souls, however much there be an infinitude of individualities. Indeed, the very idea of individuality necessitates the conception of the One.

The physical plane is the plane of the universal power in its microcosmic functioning, so that the individualities or Monads, which are the near Ultimates of Life, grow in terms of multitudes, sharing experience until such mode or type of sharing is no longer possible as growth-acceleration proceeds. Does not God economize ?

Let us assume we have done this on what we call the astral plane, though here again I do not know how I am going to define the word " astral "—I have called it " movement." It is the plane of attraction and repulsion, desire, of throbbing movement, of heights and depths, of love and hatred, of aspirations. Why call it " astral " ?

Let us assume we have done this on the plane of the mind, the plane of collecting and collating concepts, of analysing and synthesizing them, the plane of the lower laws of evolving life. It is the plane of the lower memories both in analysis and synthesis. It is, perhaps, the key plane of the first section of the evolutionary process. It is the plane of awakening to the glories of life—the glory forthshadowing itself first in narrow pride and at last in universal praise.

I hardly think I need take into account those higher vehicles which, in the case of most of us, still remain embryonic. We may have flashes of what is called in Theo-sophical terminology, following that of the Hindu Scriptures, the Buddhic consciousness, that consciousness which is the realization of Law, of the Law of the Eternal Life—the Law of Universal Memory—reflected in our outer time world as the laws of nature. The word " intuition " l only very partially expresses the significance of this realm. 1 See " Intuition " in Book Five.

WILL LIFT UP MINE EYES UNTO THE HILLS "

115

Light Consciousness

Life or Will Consciousness

Constructive Forgetting

The Mount of Exaltation

The Nirvanic consciousness we shall in all probability be unable to contact, the consciousness of Light, the Life's blood of evolution. And to us all must remain closed what is called the Monadic consciousness, the consciousness of Life insofar as such consciousness can be reflected in these realms of manifestation, the Will-consciousness of God. 1

In a word, we must follow the advice Shri Krishna * gave to Arjuna, and rise above our changing consciousness contents, not by fighting them and conquering them, not even by exalting them, but by learning how to forget them constructively so that they become habits and instincts. Only those contents of our consciousness which we can afford to forget are really ours.

I have said that there is little contact we can make with the planes on which our Law-consciousness, our Light-consciousness and' our Life-consciousness are functioning. Yet we need some touch with all three of these for some kind of vision of the symbols of the Eternal Truths.

Can we gain this touch ? I think we can gain it vicariously if we offer upon the Altar of Purification all lower bodies made holy, that is, truly sacrificed. The purity of the lower vehicles is a potent call to the awakening of the higher vehicles to active co-operation with them. And upon the earnest student of Yoga shall perhaps descend a blessing from an Elder so that he may see beyond his present sight. As a child may be lifted upon the shoulders of his father to see with delight that which must otherwise be hidden from him, so the self-controlled and humble aspirant may be enfolded in that magic blessing which shall

1 See note on " Planes of Consciousness " at the end of this chapter.

2 "The Vedas deal with the three attributes (gunas—attributes, or forms of energy. They are sattva, rhythm, harmony, or purity ; ra/as, motion, activity, or passion ; tamas, inertia, darkness, or stupidity) ; be thou above these three attributes, O Arjuna ; beyond the pairs of opposites, ever steadfast in purity (sattva), careless of possessions, full of the Self ."—Annie Besant, commentary translation of The Bhagavad-GHa, II, 45.

reveal to him the mightier heights, the very symbols themselves of that Supreme Transubstantiation which glorifies all Earths and makes all Heavens still more sublime. Standing on the Mount of Exaltation, by the grace of our Elders, we become transfigured, and see that which we shall find so difficult to remember.

PLANES OF CONSCIOUSNESS

I find myself using various terms to indicate my understanding of the closely interwoven states of consciousness, and I fear lest I may be confusing those of my readers who may be accustomed to Theosophical literature, in which a definite sequence has been established.

May I observe that it is one thing to read with the mind and from a book the nature of the differences separating one plane or state from another, and quite another thing to experience these differences ?

We have the most fragmentary information regarding the exact nature of the difference between one sub-state or sub-plane of consciousness and another, within the plane or state as a whole.

I find, for example, no little difficulty in satisfactorily distinguishing the various sub-planes of the Tension (Physical) and Movement (Astral) states of consciousness. I find it a little easier to distinguish between the four lower sub-planes of Mind-consciousness and the three upper sub-planes, because we leave the rupa (form or concrete) regions and transport ourselves into the arupa (formless or abstract) regions. But even here it is difficult to make a clear distinction between individual sub-planes within each fourfold or threefold division.

The difficulty pursues me still more ruthlessly when I come to the region of what is called Buddhic consciousness or, as I term it, Law-consciousness—the laws of the upper division of the Mind plane being resolved into Universal Law.

I know the nature of the plane as a whole, but the subtle differences between one sub-plane and another baffle me.

Still greater is the difficulty when I come to Nirvanic consciousness or, as I term it, Light-consciousness—the Universal Law being perceived in its prototype of Light.

I see clearly that beyond the Light there is what I can only call, for want of a better word, the Life or the Will, the Life or the Will of God as expressed on this lowest plane of Divinity.

Now I see so clearly the distinction between the Light and the Life or the Will, for the Light is the Life or the Will in incarnation, that I am always thinking I see a plane entirely distinct from Nirvana. I think I may say that the plane of Life or Will is the Monadic plane in Theosophical nomenclature. (See Fig. 3 in The Chakras, by C. W. Leadbeater.)

On the other hand, the distinction between the lower four and the higher three subdivisions of the Mind plane is so emphatic that I might quite well have deemed I was perceiving a distinct plane in these three higher regions, had not my experience made very clear to me that i was looking at one single plane.

So I ask my readers to pay little attention to the whole question of actual divisions, and to see in my arrangement a ladder of consciousness irrespective of its divisions into planes and sub-planes.

I begin, for purposes of convenience, with the physical plane, which I call the Tension Plane, and then designate the next rung of the Ladder as the Movement Plane, passing upwards to the Mind Plane, and thence to the Law Plane, from that to the Light Plane, and then, as the summit of this particular Ladder, the Life or Will Plane. In the text of this book the Plane of Light I have called " Nirvanic," and the Plane of Life or Will " Monadic."

How many actual planes this arrangement covers does not very much matter.

There are no stations to correspond with the various sub-planes at each of which someone says : "All change here for the next sub-plane," so that we are constantly having distinctions thrust before us. Similarly, there are no stations separating one plane from another.

The consciousness of them all is intricately interwoven, and it seems difficult to know from down here where one begins and another ends.

THE STAR

In those moments of rest from teaching the people, the Divine Child dwelt alone in a garden. By the edge of a pool of white lilies, there was a low circular marble seat, and often he sat on the grass, resting his head and arms on the seat, and dreaming. He had with him a book, but it was different from all other books in the world. It contained no words, and on each of its pages was a series of concentric circles. The space between two circles was divided into many unequal segments, and each segment was coloured. The figure on each page was different, varying in the number of the circles, the segments and the colours. These figures of the book were alive, for each was a key which released cosmic forces.

These forces were embodied in music, and each diagram was in some mysterious way the summation of a sonata or a symphony. The cosmic thought which was the soul of the music was stated in symbol in the figure on the page. So when the Divine Child looked at each symbol, he released cosmic forces of sound, and each plane and sub-plane contributed its share of sound to the ordered whole. All things everywhere, mineral and plant, animal and man and angel, joined in the music, and each gave its chord or phrase as the music developed theme by theme.

The music was to the Divine Child the road which led to his Star. Night and day, when teaching the people, or when with the three sisters, or when he nestled by the side of the Wonderful Maiden, he was ever dreaming of his Star. So as he sat on the grass, and leaned his head on the marble seat, and looked at the book which rested on his lap, the music of the great Gods came to him to tell him of his Star. Then his radiating compassion for the many became a burning beam of love for the One, and his body fell from him, as with a sigh of rapture he went to his Star. For such is the nature of a Divine Child.

-.Release, by C. Jinarajadasa

Book Two—Symbols Living and Radiant

SYNOPSIS OF BOOK TWO

Chapter 1

THE POINT AS SEED OF EVOLUTION

We are looking upon a Radiance which seems to be a Point. It is a Point of Silence, a Point of Darkness. We see in this Point the Consummation of a mighty aeon of manifestation, its fruition. It is as if we heard : Consummation est! And then : Let there be Light '

Chapter 2

THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE POINT

Now we are discovering the Point to be no longer without us, but in some mysterious way we discover it within us, as part of our being. And the vision reveals to us not only the Point within, but the wondrous universality of the Point in all manifestation, and in the unmanifest no less.

Chapter 3

THE POTENTIALITY OF THE POINT

The Point symbolizes for us an infinity of potentiality based on an aeon of consummation. The music of the approach to the symbol of the Point is that of a trumpet-blast, followed by the infinitely deep yet dull rumbling of a thunder-cloud, there being a gorgeous crescendo of vibration between the two. In terms of light, there is the flashing forth of a veritable rainbow, changing into rapid hues of violet and purple, growing darker and darker until no light of any hue can be seen by the lower consciousness. But the Point is More-than-Sound, More-than-Light!

Chapter 4

THE ESSENCE-POINT

The Point, despite all its grandeur and sublimity, is but a limitation! designed for our understanding. It is the essence of things to which Yoga leads us, and the idea of the Point is given us to suggest the idea of essence. We use words : Manifest, Unmanifest, Movementless Poise,

Ceaseless Eternal Breath, Silence, Darkness, Sound, Light, and all the rest—but all are within the One which is symbolized by the Point.

Chapter 5

HARVESTING THE FIELDS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Everything you are doing now and at any other time is a ploughing, a reaping, a harvesting for fruition in the Point. We contemplate the Point—apotheosis of all things, promise of ail things, symbol of that Silence which is the heaven of sound, symbol of that Darkness which is the heaven of light; and we proceed to bring these ultimates into the perspective of each rung of the ladder of our consciousness.

Chapter 6

COSMIC CONCEPTIONS OF THE POINT

The Point is You. In your supreme moments, you will be able to feel a Silence and to touch a Darkness, touch the radiance and the form of the formless Point, and feel the Ceaseless Breath of God in which the Point pulsates. For intangibility increasingly accompanies the outflowing life as it moves towards its circumference. At the centre, tangibility achieves its apotheosis'.

Chapter 7

ADVENTURES INTO THE INFINITE POINT

I have tried with my imagination—the power that builds bridges to Heaven, and hurls over precipices into hell—and with all the magic that in me lies, to enter into the Point in all spiritual endeavour and reckless adventure. And the shadow that does come to me is " Ceaseless Eternal Breath." But in these regions, as in all others, there comes a Ring-Pass-Not.

Chapter 8

THE POINT—OUR UNFOLDED SELF

In the Point we contact a state of Causelessness—which is more than cause. For the Point is the primordial symbol containing in its nature all the rest. The Point at its own level becomes More, which is beyond us—but we know that evolution may be summed up in the one word " More." Finally, the Point is symbol of the Monad, and we perceive it to be our unfolded Self—our beginning, our way, our end.

Chapter 9

THE WEB THAT IS THE WOMB

The Father-Mother spirit emerges out of the Silence and the Darkness of the Point, and a cosmic fecundation takes place. Vibrant

with alt the contents of the Point is the Web that is a Womb. Miracle Matrix is it of the Eternal Life, for it constitutes the Sound, the Colour and the Form of Eternal Divinity, and thus fashions the manifest-to-be in the living image of its own essential Godhead. From the Beginning to the End does the Web-Womb remain, as does its Progenitor, the Point; and so the other symbols. Silent Watcher does each become of that to which it gives birth.

Chapter 10

THE LINE FLASHES FORTH

The Line is marvellous, for it is at this point that we hear the Sound, and see the Light, which themselves are born of the Silence and the Darkness. Forth flashes the Line in all its Song-Light from the centre, the Point, to the north, and from the centre, the Point, to the south, halted at either end by the Will which bids a Sea of the Un-manifest awaken to its destiny.

Chapter 11

THE SPINDLE LINE

As the Web is the Cradle, so is the Line the axis round which the universe revolves—the Divine Measure of the Forthgoing. The Line is a spiral—as Space-Time and Matter-Energy are curvatures according to modern science. The Point is curved, the Line is curved, and also the other symbols. Symbolic Yoga is the Yoga of Essential Curvature.

Chapter 12

THE LINE GIVES A NEW CONCEPTION OF MAN-WOMAN

The Line symbol involves that sex-power is the glorious reflection of the Creative Spirit pervading all consciousness, all life, all being. Each living thing—and all things are living—is Man-Woman. The male and female elements are sometimes separated for purposes of more intensive evolution. The Godhead is the sublimation of Man-Womanhood.

Chapter 13

SEX: A SACRAMENT OF CONSECRATION

Every posture of Symbolic Yoga is an assertion of the sanctity of sacrament, and of the right of every seed to grow into the beauty of its destined flower. And the Yogi knows that the candle of creative activity cannot be burned at both ends.

Chapter 14

THE ALL-EMBRACING LINE

To sum up, this Line is the Divine Measure, the Yard-Stick of the descent and ascent of the Life-to-be. It is the all-embracing standard for both the highest and lowest reaches of the manifested Life.

Chapter 15

THE CIRCLE-GLOBE: THE RING-PASS-NOT

The Line in a flash becomes the diameter of the Circle, which is the fourth great symbol in this form of Yoga. The Circle marks the frontiers of the new evolutionary process, and also draws round the Point, the Web and the Line a sea of undifferentiated life, of sleeping Monads, to be awakened by the Call, in terms of Light, Form and Sound, of a God,

Chapter 16

THE SEA OF MEN IN. THE CIRCLE

The Raga of a new Life sounds forth. The Word of the Line is spoken, and the words of a myriad Monads echo in response. I see Men and Men and Men—a Man-family extraordinarily interdependent: man-Man needs God-Man, animal-Man, vegetable-Man, mineral-Man and elemental-essence-Man for his growing, and vice versa. This means that Right Relationship is needed.

Chapter 17

LIFE ETERNAL SELF-FULFILLED

As I study the Circle, I find myself entering a state of consciousness which reflects the great Hush separating the Consummation and the Forthgoing in the symbol of the Point. There is a Hush connected with every symbol. In these regions of Hush the sense of Time entirely disappears, also the sense of Space, and of Spirit and Matter. The Hush, or No-Movement is ever the background for the Movement to follow.

Chapter 18

THE TRIANGULARITIES

The Men of the Sea within the Circle are triangularities. Thus in his aspect of God, man is Sat-Chit-Ananda, corresponding to Line-Web-Point ; in his veiled aspect as man, he is Rajas-Sattva-Tamas.

Chapter 19

THE 47TH PROPOSITION OF EUCLID

I see in this a very profound truth expressed as an aspect of the Law of Adjustment.

Chapter 20 SQUARING THE CIRCLE

From the standpoint of this Yoga, Square and Circle are identical and interchangeable. And the figure of a Square within a Circle, or a Circle resting on a Square, represents a mode of manifesting Life. I see Geometry as a science of everyday life, and in every geometrical figure a symbol of Man in terms of his evolutionary progress.

Chapter 21

THREE LIFE-STREAMS OF THE ONE GOD

There are three aspects of the Eternal Life—the first is the life that creates, the second is the life that builds, the third is the life that vitalizes. All three are in the One Life, and all three are One. These activities are represented by the symbols Point, Web, Line.

Chapter 22

THE FUNCTIONS OF THE CIRCLE

Remember the two functions of the Circle. To fulfil this symbol, stand forth as the Line, flashing through a world you would conquer to its happiness. Encircle that world with your will, your wisdom, your active love, as God drew a Circle to enclose His universe.

Chapter 23

THE CROSS WITHIN THE CIRCLE

The vertical Line vitalizes. The horizontal Line equilibrates. The Cross is completed within the Circle by simultaneously expressing the spirit of the two Lines —a beautifully poised lightning-flash. The Cross is a universal symbol of the beginning of the evolutionary process—dating from the beginning of Time, and finding a place in many religions.

Chapter 24

THE SVASTIKA OR WHIRLING CROSS

The Cross-spirit is the background of the Svastika, but it projects its nature into a revolving Cross. In every symbol there is this projection, for the Father-Mother spirit in each must give forth the Son. In this symbol is revealed the marvellous activity of life, of man becoming God. You may, if you will try, lose and find yourselves in this cosmic process— this is the gift of the Svastika to you as ordained in this form of Yoga.

Chapter 25

THE MYRIAD-PETALLED LOTUS

The seventh symbol is a myriad-petalled Lotus, a Lotus which was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, a Lotus which is a Universe, a Sun, a World, a God, a Man. It is a Lotus because the Lotus form is the supreme and perfect mirror of the fullness of Life. Where Divinity is, there is the Lotus, and where is Divinity not ?

Chapter 26

SOUND, COLOUR AND FORM RAYS OF THE LOTUS

Every man is characterized by the Sound-Ray, the Colour-Ray and the Form-Ray of the universe to which he belongs, and no less both by the Ray of his Archetype and of his Man-uniqueness. But I have also seen the Lotus of Sound and Light and Form as a Lotus of Fire, with its petals as flames, and its centre as heat that is white. At birth, and at death, of each and every person, the Lotus shines as memory of past achievement and of future triumph. And remembering somewhere, if not down here, Man moves forward on his appointed way to Godhead.

Chapter 27

THE SILENT WATCHERS

I see the Silent Watchers as a Great Company of Archetypes who constitute the real Government of the world. And just as each of us belongs to all Rays, and to one dominantly, so does each of us belong to all Archetypes, and to one dominantly.

Chapter 28

SUPERCOSMIC SYMBOLS

Pursuing the Line a little way along its curvature into the Infinite, I see a Cosmic Line, also a Supercosmic Line ; and so in the case of each and every symbol.

Chapter 29

EACH SYMBOL INVOLVES CREATION

The student creates a standard of forthgoing in the highest regions of his working consciousness, and the creative spirit is pure, holy and sacramental from the very beginning ; and it calls in daily life for a perfect echo. Anyone seeking to practise this Yoga above, and denying it below, is doomed to cataclysm.

Chapter 30

THE POINT AND ITS DAUGHTER-SYMBOLS

First, the Point in its dual aspect of Consummation and Forthgoing. Then flash forth the Web that is the Womb of the universe-to-be ; the Line from north to south, the spine of the universe-to-be ; the Circle-Globe, which is the body of the universe-to-be ; the horizontal Line, which makes the Cross in the Circle which is now a Sea of Men ; the Svastika, giving the hum of a universe at work ; and the Lotus—Godhead dawning to its fruition. There are sounds and colours—very difficult to describe —characteristic of each symbol.

Chapter 31

THE LABORATORY OF IDENTIFICATION

The Yogi is a well-equipped laboratory. No laboratory on earth can bring me to a conception of the symbols. Let me then place the Point within the laboratory which is my Self, which means that I identify myself with each symbol. Thus the Point gives me a sense of omnipo-' tent intensity which can pervade limitlessness—an identity between the infinitely small and the infinitely large. The Point is here and now. It is a universe, and infinitely more. And it has been built of experience-matter. The Point quivers into an opalescence—the Web-Womb of Creativeness, giving a call to difference, uniqueness. The Line is born ; or a measurement incarnates—the measurement of a man or a universe. The Circle appears for Limitation-Protection of the evolution-to-be, and embodies the Call to the Sea of the Unmanifest. The Circle is static compared to the other symbols. The Cross is the setting of the stage of evolution ; I see purple, the herald of constructive catastrophe. The Cross static becomes the Cross dynamic—the Svastika, the Friction Wheel of Salvation. Ignorance is broken upon this wheel of the Love of God. I see the Lotus, Flower or Fire of Fruition, as symbol of the attainment by the Men of the Sea of their Godhead. The difference between one symbol and another is but a difference of mode of life.

Chapter 32

THE YOGA OF INFINITUDES

I have described the Point as Consummation-Forthgoing, but I also see it as an Infinitude—both an infinite Expansion and an infinite Contraction. This suggests to me some thoughts and some " over-thoughts." Thus infinitude is everywhere, and God is an Infinitude-Self-Consciousness. Each moment contains Absolute Perfection, there is a goal attained all the time, and God is a series of Perfections. To us the Relative is dynamic, and the Absolute is static. I see that Time-Movement slowing down becomes Infinitude-intense, and so does Eternity speeded up. I see the Point as an essence of Time; the Call of the Point is both static, as composed of Absolutes, and dynamic as composed

of Movement; and the Call awakens both the Men of the Point and the Point itself. I have described the Web-Womb as a scintillating network, but I also see it as a long half-opened lily. So with the other symbols. And they are not absolutely ultimate, but relatively ultimate. To describe the Point fully is to describe the seven symbols. Infinitude and Curvature, Law-Life-Light and other embodiments of the Point, are inherent in all the symbols. The principle of Curvature suggests the truth of Universal Relationship ; and I see Reverence, Goodwill and Compassion as essential qualities of Curvature. Finally, the vertical and horizontal Lines give me intriguing ideas of directions and divisions of our earth-globe.

Chapter 33

A PHYSICAL POSTURE

The Yogi will know how to stand erect as a Line, upright, drawing from his north the fire of Heaven, and from his south the fire of Earth. So he reflects the third great symbol of this Yoga, the vertical Line, the forthpouring of the Third Logos in fecundation of the Sea of the Unmanifest. And it is the primordial posture in this form of Yoga.

Chapter 34

A GREAT ACT OF YOGA

He was perfectly still; His state of vibrant ease seemed to compel the homage of His surroundings, and tune them to the peace which was theirs to enjoy. From His background of Silence and Darkness, flashed forth Sound and Light. Thus He fulfilled in Himself some of the great symbols of this form of Yoga, and by this act of Yoga released for each Man-wanderer, travelling to his Godhead, a great Act of Remembrance, the memory that he is God.

Chapter 1

THE POINT AS SEED OF EVOLUTION

The Vigil is over

A Stillness Rich with Life

Stillness Darkness

At the beginning of every "dawn " of " Creation," eternal Light—which is darkness—assumes the aspect of so-called Chaos ; chaos to the human intellect; the eternal Root to the superhuman or spiritual sense. 1 —H. P. Blavatsky

In the inner region the whole universe exists as a Point.

—Annie Besant

Let me assume that the Vigil i over and that we are ready to receive the grace of truer sight. We are in the hills, away from the valleys, for we have fulfilled our prayer at the Altar : "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help." ~

As we are thus uplifted, all lower consciousness is stilled. The noise of the outer world may be round about us. But it beats in vain upon our stillness. The stillness is not empty, but still because it is rich with life, rich with the fullness of life. It is not the absence of sound that causes true stillness, but a perfection of sound so true, so delicate, that it gives us the sense of stillness. It is not the absence of light that causes true darkness, but a perfection of light so true, so infinitely delicate, that it gives us the sense of darkness.

It is the stillness whereby alone we can hear the Silence of the first of the symbols of this form of Yoga. It is the stillness whereby alone we can see the

1 The Secret Doctrine, III, 229 (Adyar ed., V, 233).

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

A Point Radiance

Fruition, End, Consummation

The Point-Seed of Evolution

Darkness of the first symbol of this form of Yoga. In this stillness our ears and our eyes, not those of the physical body but of our highest functioning consciousness, become attuned to a Silence we have never known before, and which even now we only know in the blessing of a Transfiguration. l

At what are we looking ?

We are looking upon a Radiance which seems to be a Point,' at a Centre without a circumference, at a Centre which is infinitely alive in a sense of the word " Life " of which we have not the slightest conception, a Centre which is a Radiance, yet does not radiate, a Centre which is but One, yet embodies an infinitude of " Ones," a Centre which is infinitely still, yet breathes.

Yes, it is a Point. It is a Point of Silence, a Point of Darkness ; and somehow we know that this Silence and. this Darkhess are at once a Fruition, an End, a Consummation, and a Beginning, a Forthgoing.

We see in this Point the consummation of a mighty aeon of manifestation, its fruition. It is as if we heard : Consummatum est! And then : Let there be Light!

This Point 3 is the Seed into which a whole aeon of evolution has become distilled. A Globe-series of evolutionary processes has been gathered into a Point-Seed. The Point has harvested the whole of an evolution in its minutest details. It is that Central Nucleus round which a Logos draws a whole system of evolution. He who, among an infinitude of others, began a Man in the period of a Seed's

1 I should very strongly advise a careful study of the account of the Transfiguration in the Christian New Testament, for it gives that perfume which will help us to become ourselves transfigured.

2 See "Point " in Book Five

3 "An Adept can acquire knowledge of any object within His limit by concentrating upon it, and distance in no way affects such concentration He becomes conscious of an object, not because His astral vision acts telescop-ically, but because in the inner region the whole universe exists as a point, such a man reaches the Heart of Life, and sees all things therein."-Annie Besant, Thought-Power: Its Control and Culture.

THE POINT AS SEED OF EVOLUTION

131

A Fulfilment and a Forti,going

The Formula of God Eternal

What is Truth?

forthgoing has become a God, a Logos, a Word, who shall, when the Heavens are ready, breathe Himself upon the surface of the waters of an unmanifest, and Men shall arise to climb to their Divinities.

A Man who has reached the perfect stature of the Godhead utters a mantra, a formula, which marks the fulfilment of his journey—or should I not rather say the fulfilment of a journey—and which marks no less the beginning of a forthgoing to make Men into Gods. He sums up as in the Gayatri or in the Pranava, as in a concentrated essence of sound or form or colour, both the Consummation of His Divinity and His directing of such Divinity upon the Sea of the Unmanifest. Man, as God, enters into the Silence and the Darkness, moves upwards to heights still more sublime, and in that very act shines forth upon a sea like unto the sea of which He formed a part a myriad light-years ago.

All this is the Point and infinitely more. We gaze upon our very Selves, upon the formula, the symbol, of Godhead eternal and everywhere.

In calm power must we strive to hold this stillness in and of ourselves, lest the vision fade. Only in a stillness can we hear the Voice of the Silence, and see the Light of the Darkness.

Through many stillnesses we reach the Silence. If we can achieve the Yoga of Stillness, and reach our own Yoga of Silence in the very physical body itself, we are preparing the way when, as a God, we shall sound the measure of the physical bodies to be in the new manifestation over which we shall preside.

And let us remember that this stillness, composed of stillnesses achieved in every vehicle of our consciousness, is woven of Truth, of all the venturings which have led us from our lower into our higher Selves. What is Truth ? Shall I reply otherwise than with the Silence which our

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

What is the Point ?

Not a glorified Full-Stop

Chalice of

Innumerable

Seed-Points

Lord the Christ Himself invoked ? Or may I just suggest that Truth is that which leads us from a lesser into a larger light ? Truth is that which beckons us on our way, which calls us to dynamic movement. Truth is only "truly" Truth when, having satisfied us, it ceases to satisfy, when it causes us to long for light more splendid than the light we have. Never did Goethe know Truth more than when he said : " Light! More Light! "

So the stillness is not a static stillness, but a stillness full of life and restlessness divine. But, you are asking me, what is this Point which I have been looking at ? Am I really looking at an actual Point such as a kind of glorified full-stop ? Has it substance ? Has it shape ? Has it something which, as it were, looks like Silence and Darkness, and Consummation and Forthgoing ? And what do these look like, if they look at all ? The questions are well taken and must somehow be answered, at least to my own satisfaction, if not at all to yours.

No, it is not a glorified full-stop. It is a Radiance which is not yet radiating, but which is pulsating with the spirit of Radiance. The Radiance is the essence of Godhead, the fullness of Divinity. It is infinitely more than Light. Therefore we call it Darkness. It is infinitely more than Sound. Therefore we call it Silence. It is the abstract of all that is concrete. It is the archetype of all that is form. I may call it circular. I may call it egg-shaped. I may give it form, sound, colour. It is the fruition of them all. It is the seed of them all. It is the acorn and the oak in one. It expresses in the great valves of its heart the Consummation of Godhead and the Forthgoing of Gods.

Has it substance ? It has substans, which is infinitely more. Yes, its Silence and its Darkness are " tangible " in the sense that they can be known, experienced It throbs with Consummation. It strains at Forthgoing. It

THE POINT AS SEED OF EVOLUTION

133

Essence of Majesty

Symbol-Reflections of Reality

is infinitely vibrant, and within it are multitudes of seeds of its very self. As in the seed of the lotus lies the flower in miniature, so in innumerable seeds lies the Point in miniature, though I have no understanding whatever as to their destinies. The Point is a collection of Points, yet is a Point because of this. There would be no Point but for its constituent " Pointnesses." I have a sort of feeling that I know what they are—types of unfathomable origins, cosmic jig-saw pieces for universe-building, types which have been the measure of life-unfoldment. They take me back into primordial negations, as the magic whereby negation blends into affirmation.

Do you see that I am trying to escape from mind-conceptions, from Law-conceptions, even from Light-conceptions, 1 and to go beyond even these majesties into an essence of Majesty ?

As you read page after page of this book, you should constantly be remembering that the very symbols I unveil, however much they may be described in detail, are nothing more than symbols, and may or may not, or may in greater or lesser degree, reflect the life of which they are formulae. Each symbol has a specific form presentation and that form presentation may either have a universal or only a particular significance, or it may have both.

As you will find me constantly saying throughout the book, for on this subject there cannot be too much reiteration, the symbols, as I describe them, are certainly true for me, but the question still remains as to whether they are universally true. I believe they are, at all events to a certain extent. But it by no means follows that each symbol will give to each reader a real conception of that for which each one is a real conception so far as I am concerned.

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

Absolutes and Relatives

Each Symbol is induced by Yoga

But the wise Reader seeks Substrata

I tell of a Point, for example; but when I say " Point/' I am superimposing a symbol-word upon the very symbol itself. True, the word "Point" expresses a definite idea. But as an Ultimate we must regard this idea as an absolute idea on the same principle as we feel justified in speaking of vacua, even though there be no such absolute condition. Out of this absolute idea a relative idea—the idea as I see it—is drawn. And this relative idea must not be regarded as the ultimate idea, or even as a shadow of it. When I speak of a " Point," and even go so far as to describe it, I am merely describing a relative conception of it, and in all probability a conception which is in many ways particular and peculiar to myself, even though the conception may be in a plane of consciousness far higher than any I can normally reach.

Each symbol I have seen in a state of Yoga, and to that extent it is justifiable to say that each symbol is by no means merely a mind-conception, or a feeling, or an intuition. Each is certainly more than this, for it involves a state of consciousness which I can only reach at rare intervals. We may perhaps therefore look upon each symbol as being less personal than if it were a product of the ordinary waking consciousness. Each is indeed a conception induced by Yoga. But to each individual his own Yoga, and therefore each conception in Yoga must in some degree be personal, be individual, to the particular observer.

What I am really doing when I write of a Point or of the other symbols, and even when I am trying to describe each, can only be to try to set up a vibratory-motif which each reader must interpret according to his own values. He will not gain any real benefit from reading this book unless, while receptive to the stimulus it contains, he moulds its vibrations to his own rate of living, and so creates or constructs his own Lotus Fire, his own Symbolic Yoga.

THE POINT AS SEED OF EVOLUTION

135

Becomes exalted by his own Formulae

Fragrance of Sublimation

A Song of fulfilment

All this is not, however, to suggest that there is not a definite substratum of universal value even in the very form and description of each symbol. But the wise reader will seek through the form and the description the very substratum itself.

For my own part, I think that what I have described is a truth as to cosmic Ultimates. I do not hesitate to say that I have, in a condition of Yoga, perceived in some measure some of these Ultimates. I have seen Ultimates which are universal, common to all life. The symbols I describe are certainly true for me, and may therefore be said to be my formulae of the evolutionary process. But the formulae true for one may have less validity for another. I shall be most happy if, in a measure stirred by my own formulae, a reader discovers his own, and becomes exalted by them, as I am exalted by mine. How wonderful it would be if each reader could write at least a monograph on his Symbobgy of the Ultimates. There might be something marvellous in a composite picture of the various symbols that various students have been able to discover.

But you must remember that, only as you conjure stillnesses from out your experiences, and suffuse your whole being with the fragrance of sublimation after sublimation, can you hope to know the Point—not as I have known it, but as your own distinct uniqueness must know it.

I can but try to create an atmosphere, a gossamer line between you and the Point, which you must vitalize by an act of Yoga.

In the Point all sublimations have been fulfilled. They are in the Point in a consummation of Yoga. They sing the song of their fulfilment; and hearing the song, in the Sea of the Unmanifest, are prototypes beginning to be busy about the magic they in their turn have to perform. Through such magic a negation will once more blend into

an affirmation. The " Men " of the Sea are awakening to their " Manness."

This Point is the Essence, the Supreme Macrocosm, and the Supreme Microcosm not only of Being, but of Non-Being also. Upwards and Jo put the whole idea very baldly and crudely, you

Outwards

must imagine yourself reaching the end of the evolutionary process, far beyond the stage of the Master, far beyond the stage of most of the high Initiations with which we are familiar, if not all of them. There is a point at which an individual achieves, consummates, his Divinity—whatever Divinity may mean, I do not at all know. At this point, two things happen : He proceeds onwards and upwards; but as he has received, so does he give. That is the whole idea of the twofold nature of this metaphysical Point. He achieves his Divinity and, in so achieving, branches out in two directions. The one direction is upwards into future unfoldment, and the second is the sounding forth of some stupendous note which is his note, and has been his note from the very beginning, so that the rhythm of the sounding forth of that note begins to call into being a universe of Men, because every constituent particle is a Man with a capital " M," and the process of evolution is for the Man. to become a God. The Man descends into the Elemental Kingdoms, becomes Mineral, Vegetable, Animal, Man, and the Man becomes a God.

Out of the Sea of the Unmanifest, in the vibration of this Note, gathers together a manifestation of Men. I regard this Forthgoing as Creative Activity straining at the leash. You have a sense of perfect poise of the athlete waiting for the sound of the gun to start him on the race. The poise is remarkable for its intensity. When one looks at this Point, one is quite unable to go with it upwards, but being also an element of the Sea of the Unmanifest, there is a certain innate familiarity with the nature of

the Forthgoing. So one concentrates immediately on that, and then one sees the marvellous poise of the Athlete, with a capital " A," straining at the leash. The Point is a You must, however, also remember that I am looking

Universal

upon the Point in terms of my individuality, however much of the higher consciousness may be concentrated in my gaze. The Point is a Universal, even though pervaded by Individuality. But I am still at the stage of learning how to be an individual, how to be my individual self. The spirit of Self-conscious individuality has yet to be in flower within me. Still more, therefore, has the spirit of Universality to be in flower. Necessarily, therefore, I must needs colour my vision of the Point 'with my individual self, and the Point loses accordingly.

Chapter 2

THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE POINT

The Yogi Chares with ail Creatures

The Yog. becomes more warmly Human

The supreme Point sends forth a light of such transparency, limpidity and subtlety that it penetrates everywhere.— The Zohar

Is there a Consummation and a Forthgoing every moment ? In some mysterious way is there a Flower and a Seed in every moment of living ? Is an old cycle being closed and a new cycle being opened in every instant of our lives ?

Remembering all this, I must now ask you to realize that this Yoga of Sublimation, which carries you onwards to the heights, is an act in which the whole of your fellow-life in every kingdom shares. No one can grow alone, and the way of the Yogi, far from taking him away from his fellow-life, not only draws him more closely to it but draws it with him, so that as he grows, so does all that lives, each life where it is on the wider way.

As the Yogi moves slowly towards the far-off regions of the Super-human, he becomes more truly and warmly human, and more truly and warmly sub-human as well. He draws nearer to his fellow-men, nearer to the animal kingdom, nearer to the vegetable kingdom, nearer to the mineral kingdom. He draws nearer to all who suffer and who are held awhile in the despairs of life. He draws nearer to all life, and stirs it to move more quickly to the kingship that awaits it, as he is drawing more closely to his own.

To look upon the Point with true understanding, it is needful that we should have purified our gaze with an

THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE POINT

139

The Reverence of Nature

Nearer to all is the Master Ascended

Unity Incarnates

understanding of those who are travelling with us on the pathway of life. We cannot understand the More save insofar as we are understanding the Less. To understand the nature of the Point we must understand the nature of the life we share with all things ; and the Point cannot help us save as we help others.

One of the most significant ingredients of a vision of the Point is that which causes us to bring all nature to the act of reverence. We do not stand alone to worship. We do not stand with our individual selves alone. We conjure every kingdom of life to stand with us. So do we, as individualized, universalize in some measure our gaze, thus bringing the like to look upon the like.

In this connection I should like to draw your attention to a most interesting article which appeared in the April 1935 issue of The Jheosophist. It is entitled "The Master Ascended," and describes how One who is stepping from the human kingdom to the kingdom beyond achieves a triumph, not for Himself alone, but for the whole of the Life that is evolving with His. Not only does He achieve a victory, but because of His victory, all Life moves onwards through yet another triumph. Nearer to all that lives does He draw, but nearer to the Goal, at their various and respective levels, draw the Monads, who in the beginning were received into the communion of the new manifestation. Nearer to the Goal do they all draw because He has drawn nearer, and because Life is one and indivisible, as is the Light, even though it becomes the Rainbow.

I would ask you to read that article, 1 for It reveals a veritable Yoga of that ascent which all living things make together, even though differently. Yoga 2 is Union—the incarnation of Unity—and Union the Son returns to Unity the Father, on the splendid way so graphically described.

1 See " The Master Ascended " in Book Five. 3 See " Yoga " in Book Five.

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

The Point within Us

Unites with the Point without Us

In the light of this understanding, let us once again gaze upon the Point, and try to see what more we may perchance perceive.

Perhaps we are discovering the Point to be no longer without us, but in some mystery we do not fathom we discover it within us, part of our Being. Are we in the outer court of the Eternal ? Do we suddenly find ourselves at home?

I think that only as the Point without us unites with the Point within, shall we be able to know a little more. But it is indeed true that, as we gaze upon the Point apparently without us, the very vision will reveal to us not only the Point within, but the wondrous universality of the Point in all manifestation, and in the unmanifest no less.

Chapter 3

THE POTENTIALITY OF THE POINT

The mathematical Point universe, as the acorn the oak. 1

. which contains the whole - H. P B.

A Primordial 'Point-Event

Eternity Incarnates in Time

In his fascinating Space, T/'me and Gravitation, Sir Arthur

«

Eddington writes of what he calls the "point-event" as one of the most elementary concepts of nature. He describes it as an instant of time at a point of space. But in terms of Yoga we see this point-event as elementary not only in the sense of its being cosmically primordial, but no less in the sense of its being cosmically ultimate—the end as well as the beginning, the whole as well as the part, the universal as well as the individual. It is nothing less, in its primordial aspect, than a mode of undifferentiated infinity, while in its fulfilment it is a mode of infinity self-realized. This Point is as a meeting-point between the Consummation of an old process and the beginnings of a new. It AS the symbol of a God triumphant poised, in Silence and in Darkness, between the fulfilment of the one great phase of the seeking and finding of Godhead and the other great phase—the phase of a Forthgoing, of sharing the Godhead thus achieved with the Godhead " asleep in the Infinite Bosom of Duration," as the first Stanza of Dzyan observes of Time, a quality of the substance of the evolutionary process. We, with our quality of Time, were asleep " in the Infinite Bosom of Duration," Duration being the

An /Con of Consummation

Veil upon Veil behind

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

movement-potentiality of the Eternal, and Time its incarnation.

In any case, the Point exists in its infinity, in its summation of a Past and a Future in an undifferentiated Present, by grace of a magic of Time and Space within a limitless Eternity. 1

By such grace the Point symbolizes for us an infinity of Potentiality based on an aeon of Consummation. There is Man become God. There is a Silence and a Darkness. There are the eternal Archetypes. There is the Radiance as yet undifferentiated. There is the cosmic Hush as the bridge between an evolution concentrated, distilled, into a Point and an evolution as yet to unfold. The Radiance is pregnant with radiation. The Silence is pregnant with sound. The Darkness is pregnant with light. God is pregnant with Divinity. An All has become merged in a One. An Infinity which has become undifferentiated out of differentiation is pregnant with the seed of infinite potentiality. All that was is distilled into the Point. All that is to be is potential in the Point.

Yet as we reach out into these inaccessibilities, for it is good to reach out, though we cannot hope to reach, let us ponder over the mighty words of the Lord Buddha :

The Books teach Darkness was, at first of all, And Brahm. sole meditating in that Night

Look not for Brahm and the Beginning there ' Nor him, nor any light

Shall any gazer see with mortal eyes,

Or any searcher know by mortal mind ,

Veil after veil will lift—but there must be Veil upon veil behind

1 In the words of a Master, " 1 feel irritated at having to use these three clumsy words Past, Present, and Future—miserable concepts of the objective phases of the subjective whole, they are about as ill-adapted for the purpose as an axe for fine carving ' -The Secret Doctnne, I, 75 (Adyar ed , I. 116).

THE POTENTIALITY OF THE POINT

143

Pray not ! the Darkness will not brighten ! Ask Nought from the Silence, for it cannot speak '

The Eternal Attars

The Sun of the Monad

The Seven Sounds of the Inner God

Within yourselves deliverance must be sought, Each man his prison makes l

All sound has taken refuge in Silence, all light in Darkness, all rays in Radiance, all space in a Point, all time in Eternity. Into Silence is sound distilled. Into Darkness is light distilled. Into Eternity is time distilled. Or shall I say that Silence is the attar of sound, Darkness the attar of light, Eternity the attar of time ?

And the Yogi will perceive that every experience he has encountered, whether of pain and suffering or of peace and happiness, whether of despair or hope, whether of defeat or victory, has been a" flower for his attar/' The sun of his Monad" has shone even upon his clouds, melting them into rain for his baptism into power.

In a wonderful passage in Fragment One of The Voice of the Silence, the whole process of evolution has been entrancingly described in what are called the seven sounds of the inner God. It may be difficult to trace these to their respective points in the process, but the student who is climbing to the heights will recognize those which sound in his inner ear, as he draws near to the summit :

The first is like the nightingale's sweet voice chanting a song of parting to its mate

The second comes as the sound of a silver cymbal of the Dhyanis, awakening the twinkling stars

The next is as the plaint melodious of the ocean-sprite imprisoned in its shell

And this is followed by the chant of vina.

The fifth like sound of bamboo-flute shrills in thine ear.

It changes next into a trumpet-blast.

The last vibrates like the dull rumbling of a thunder-cloud,

1 Sir Edwin Arnold, Jhe Light of Ana, Book VIII. • See " Attar " in Book Five. 1 See " Monad " in Book Five.

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

The Music of Approach to the Point

The Flashing Rainbow

Deva-Angels of the Point

I am large , !

contain

Multitudes

The seventh swallows ail the other sounds. They die, and then are heard no more.

The music of the approach to the symbol of the Point is indeed that of " a trumpet-blast," followed by the infinitely deep yet " dull rumbling of a thunder-cloud/' there being a gorgeous crescendo of vibrations between the two.

The Silence of the Point " swallows all the other sounds." They do not die, but they " are heard no more " by the lower consciousness.

And in terms of Light there is the flashing forth of a veritable rainbow, changing into rapid hues of violet and purple, growing darker and darker until no light of any hue can be seen by the lower consciousness. As the rainbow thrills into its resolution, I seem to hear a dull rumbling l of colour. Sound departing into its primordial Silence. Light departing into its primordial Darkness.

How reminiscent is a physical-plane storm, with its crashing thunder and piercing lightning, of these transcendent regions of awful Being. And I have wondered if, in attendance on that sublimity of consciousness which I am calling a Point, there are the Mightiest of Beings, as there are angels and devas attendant upon, revelling in, recreating in, a storm of our outer world.

Are there the Deva-Angels of the Point and of every other symbol in this form of Yoga ? I am sure there are. But They are beyond my sight, though I feel as if I could discern Silent Watchers even in these formless heights.

Must we not, as we seek to translate the Point in terms appropriate to our usage, reflect in some wise the cosmic thunder we have heard, and the cosmic lightning we have seen ? For my own part the reflection comes to me as a rumbling of my own consciousness, a tuning of

1 " In the realm of hidden Forces, an audible sound is but a subjective colour; and a perceptible colour, but an inaudible sound."— fhe Secret Doctrine, III, 508 (Adyar ed., V, 484).

THE POTENTIALITY OF THE POINT

145

•More-than-Sound, More-than-Light

The Scales of Silence and of .Darkness

my consciousness to react to notes beyond my normal scale of living. There is, as it were, a stretching of the consciousness so that it contains more, and I think of Walt Whitman's cataclysmic poem wherein he says: " I am large. I contain multitudes."

Thus do we come to that condition of Being so vividly described in the last two verses of Light on the Path: " Listen only to the voice which is soundless. Look only on that which is invisible alike to the inner and the outer sense." I remember the fourth Stanza of Dzyan wherein the significant phrase " No-Number " is used, and I say to myself : " No-Sound," " No-Light." But there is no negation whatever. It is only the poverty of language which forces us to measure the immeasurable with negations. The phrases should be " More-than-Sound," " More-than-Light."

Sound has an infinitude of scales, and so has Light. Have Silence and Darkness these scales and more ? There is something about each which gives me a strange impression that there is a vast region which these two cosmic states include about which I can know nothing whatever, nor even a Master of the Wisdom until He reaches one of the further heights in inter-stellar spaces.

To paraphrase the vibrant sentence in the eighth book of The Light of Asia : The Silence and the Darkness know !

Chapter 4

THE ESSENCE-POINT

Dreamers of Dreams ' — we take the taunt with gladness. Knowing that God beyond the years you see Has wrought the dreams that count with you for madness Into the glory of the life to be.

Is this Point then an Ultimate, the Ultimate, the Goal which we must perceive in some faint dimness, if we would reflect it in frontier after frontier of consciousness ? I am compelled, to say that despite all its grandeur and sublimity it is but our Point. It is but a limitation designed for our understanding. There is a veiling of the excess of its glory.

Supernal In that Book of books, The Bhagavad G/ta, in the

Splendours of . ,. . . . ff .

the Divme eleventh discourse, there is a mighty and imagnmcent

description of how the Supreme Lord of Yoga, Shri Krishna, showed to Arjuna His highest Form, which seeing, Arjuna offers praise and adoration in marvellous sequences of glorious descriptions. In these we have set forth the supernal splendours of that which I am calling the Point, and it will at once appear that all we can conceive is but a shadow of a shade. We are not Arjunas, for he was permitted to see that which none except himself had ever seen. And even he is constrained to exclaim :

I have seen that which none hath seen before, My heart is glad, yet faileth me for fear; Show me, O God, Thine other Form again— Mercy, O God of Gods, home of all worlds—

THE ESSENCE-POINT

147

The True Yoga

The Flowers of Love

The Point is the Essence of All

Suspended Breath of God

Diademed, mace and discus in Thy hand. Again I fain would see Thee as before; Put on again Thy four-armed shape, O Lord, O thousand-armed, of forms innumerate.

Let me quote the final words in this discourse of the Blessed Lord Himself, so that we may realize how dim is even our most glorious light, and what is the true nature of the Yoga which shall guide us on our way :

This Form of Mine beholden by thee is very hard to see. Verily the Shining Ones ever long to behold this Form.

Nor can I be seen as thou hast seen Me by the Vedas, nor by austerities, nor by alms, or by offerings :

But by devotion to Me alone I may thus be perceived, Arjuna, and known and seen in essence, and entered, O Parantapa.

He who doeth actions for Me, whose supreme good I am, My devotee, freed from attachment, without hatred of any being, he cometh unto Me, O Pandava.

I ask you to note the words "known and seen in-essence, and entered/' and how the path of Forthgoing, on which are strawn the rocks of constructive hatred, must be succeeded by the path of Return, glorified by the fulfilling flowers of love.

It is to the essence of things that Yoga leads us, and I think the idea of the Point is given us in order to suggest the idea of essence. But it is the essence of all, an undis-criminative not a discriminative essence which we must draw into our Point. This fact must receive due emphasis in a world which needs division and comparison, which needs to choose between paths, between what is called right and wrong, which needs universal standards and codes and conventions. But to the Yogi all life is one, and naught can be excluded from sublimation into its perfect essence.

We gain just a glimpse of the background of the Point in the second Stanza of The Book of Dzyan :

. . . Where was Silence? Where the ears to sense it ? No, there was neither Silence nor Sound ; naught save Cease-less Eternal Breath, which knows itself not.

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

Tangible Silence and Darkness

Extasis of Thunder and Lightning

This is more than what we call Pralaya, for Pralaya is but a form of this Ceaseless Eternal Breath of God. And even here, as in a flash of outreaching, the words come to us: " Suspended Breath of God." What these words mean I do not know, but I do know that we are in the presence of what may well and truly be called an awful mystery, no more to be conceived than that absolute negation both of manifestation and non-manifestation towards which certain types of Yogis irresistibly grope.

Let us leave these tremendous regions and seek in some measure to know the already Everestian height of this essence-Point, the first symbol of the Yoga with which we are here concerned.

I think we must first agree as to the " tangibility " of the Silence and the Darkness so characteristic of the Point. The Point is alive with Silence and Darkness, and pregnant with Sound and Light. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God became the Word. But this is a later stage. I only advert to it here so that we may remember that the Point is supremely Silence, with Darkness, as I have already suggested, girt about, and that Sound precedes Light. In this connection we may also advert to the first chapter of Genesis where it is said that " darkness was upon the face of the deep." * Darkness being thus primordial, God said, " Let there be Light: and there was Light."

Can you even here and now, somehow, perhaps with the adjusting aid which these observations may possibly afford you, flash yourselves into a sense of this tangibility of Silence and Darkness, gaining some faint reaction from their cosmic substance ?

Perchance you may in some small degree partake of the " ecstasy by the divine Spirit" of St. John, whereby

1 The Egyptians spoke of the "thrice unknown Darkness " See G R. S. Mead's Orpfieus.

THE ESSENCE-POINT

149

The Point Matrix of Manifestation

Blotting out the Universe

he entered into the thunder and the lightning, and gave forth his In Principle erat Verbum : "In the beginning was the Word." H. P. Blavatsky declares in a foot-note on p. 131 of the third volume of The Secret Doctrine (Adyar ed., V, 143) : " We have never heard of extasis producing thunder and lightning and we are at a loss to understand the meaning." In all humility I think that this very ascent into the Point is accompanied by a mystic thunder and lightning wholly comparable to its physical counterpart. I have already quoted from The Voice of the Silence the passage in which reference is made to the " dull rumbling of a thunder-cloud." And so far as my own experiences attest, there is a certain form of Yoga, some of the higher reaches of which seem to have a setting of semi-cosmic thunder and of lightning, so that the appellation gained by St. John of "Son of Thunder" is that of all who have attained such regions.

Can you conceive of this Point as the non-material, super-material, matrix of manifestation, of the evolutionary process ? Certainly, with the potent aid of the accumulated transubstantiations of each state of consciousness, you will be able in some measure to do this. But even now you should have entered into a certain poise and balance, so that you are able to hold yourselves for a moment in that state of suspended forthgoing, whereby you become free to contact an Ultimate Essence of the very Forthgoing itself.

You may possibly, if you are adventurers, have tried to imagine the whole of the manifest universe blotted out. Suppose there were No-Selves in addition to No-Number, No-Sound, No-Light, No-Thing. It is a devastating effort to make—to wipe out the whole of the process. In fact you cannot quite do it, because you have not the wherewithal, because you are you, but if you can in a little momentary flash of imagination deceive yourself that you are conceiving of nothing, of no evolutionary process at

all, of absolute negation (only negation is an unfortunate word because it suggests affirmation), if you can get somewhere near the No-Thing, because extremes meet, then you are somewhere near the Everything, just as the tail of the serpent goes into its mouth. This is an interesting meditation. Out of the No-Thing to be able to contact the Everything. It is very difficult, and you must stop if it produces any disturbance whatever, though it is an extremely valuable attempt. Be it understood, then, that although we speak of a Forthgoing, in truth the Whole goes forth in the part, and yet remains the Whole. In every part the Whole is dwelling, and to unseeing eyes seems but a fragment of Itself. In the tenth discourse of The Bhagavad G/ta, Shri Krishna thus resolves this paradox: " Having pervaded this whole universe with one fragment of Myself, I remain." There is no part apart from its Whole. Straimng at the Picture the Silence and the Darkness of the Point as a

Leash of

Movementless cloud, a tangible cloud, which is formless, soundless, colour-Poise

less, infinite, undifferentiated, an All reduced to a formula,

alive yet movementless, and everywhere pregnant with all potentialities—a Silence and a Darkness straining against the leash of movementless Poise. There is no perceptible content other than Silence and Darkness—each of these vibrant, however, with an undifferentiated infinitude of octaves of sound and of light, with unimaginable permutations and combinations of their respective contents.

How the Silence and the Darkness are related I do not yet know, but in his fascinating book, Through Space and 7/me, Sir James Jeans tells us that " we shall not go far wrong if we think of the seven colours l of the spectrum as the seven notes of a scale, red being C, orange D, yellow E, green F, and so on." In any case, we gain a glimpse of our limitations when we remember that our eyes

1 See " Colour " and " Music " in Book Five.

THE ESSENCE-POINT

151

Transcendental States of Consciousness

The Ceaseless Breath of God

can perceive only one octave of light and our ears hear only eleven octaves of sound. Science has, of course, increased our perceptive power, and if I am not mistaken over seventy-three octaves of vibration may now be investigated. In parenthesis, it is surely high time for science to reach the conclusion that the next real step forward in scientific unfoldment is to study the various states of consciousness, with a view to enabling them to do of themselves that which now has to be done by external physical instruments. That which we can create we already are.

I should make quite clear that while from one point of view I think I have correctly described the Point as " move-mentless Poise," from another angle of Truth, we must ever remember that " Ceaseless Eternal Breath " which, so far as we know, pervades all the Eternities, all the Infinitudes, all the Unmanifests, all the Manifests, of which we can have any conception. Therefore, the idea of " movementless Poise " must be used only to suggest that tension of potency which is so characteristic of these regions of Ulti-mates. Just as excess of light, using the word "excess" with reference to our own limited powers of vision, is darkness, so excess of movement is movementlessness. The very words "Silence" and "Darkness" are words we use in order to indicate that we have reached vibratory conditions infinitely beyond our comprehension. " Silence " and " Darkness" are the answers of consciousness to vibrations which not only transcend the powers of the physical organs, but no less transcend all states of consciousness in which we are able to function. Perhaps there is no Silence and no Darkness anywhere. Yet must we convey as best we can the impressions we receive.

Every symbol in this form of Yoga must needs breathe with the Ceaseless Breath [ of God, for it is a symbol of, 1 See " Breath " in Book Five.

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

All within the One

The All-pervading Life

and therefore inherent in, the Reality it unveils. All symbols are parts of their Realities. The Point breathes. The Web-Womb breathes. The Lines breathe. The very Circle breathes. The Cross breathes. The Svastika breathes. The Lotus breathes. Each symbol breathes, and they breathe simultaneously as well as successively. I wonder if I dare suggest that the nearest approach to this cosmic breathing portrayed on the physical plane is that of the jellyfish, partly because there is such tenuousness of body, and partly because the inbreathing and the outbreathing seem so much to be all-pervading.

And these breathings, whether belonging to symbols of the unmanifest or of the manifest, have in them all the elements of the Sound that is Silence, of the Light that is Darkness, as well as of the Silence that is Sound and Form, and of the Darkness that is Light and Fire. For, above all else, the student of Yoga learns, experiences, that there is naught outside the One, howsoever we may define this supremely occult symbol. We use words—Manifest, Unmanifest, Silence, Darkness, Sound, Light, and all the rest —but all are within the One.

We may thus imagine how ineffably glorious and inconceivably alive are the states—I will not say of consciousness—which are sought to be made feebly, so very feebly, visible through the symbols which veil the excess of their glory. But why do I at all use the word " alive " ? Why should I pretend that to be alive is so much more splendid than to be not-alive ? Human beings—not, I think, other beings—have, quite naturally, become so confused by small conceit as to imagine that to be alive with the utmost power and fullness of being is to be awake on the physical plane. Life is confined, in this conceit, to the physical plane alone, while death is the antithesis of life. I wonder how long it will take us to realize that there is a garden beyond the prison of our physical existence. Life is everywhere.

THE ESSENCE-POINT 153

but no more, indeed far, far less, this side of the cremation or burial grounds than on the other side. Who Seeks, How utterly inadequate is all I am writing ! I can only

who Finds,

must Err hope it is better to write something even of this nature

than to write nothing at all. How utterly absurd from one point of view to gaze through manifestation upon what is in fact the unmanifest, the potential, to measure the immeasurable.

Om, Amitaya ' measure not with words

Th' Immeasurable ; nor sink the string of thought

Into the Fathomless. Who asks doth err, Who answers, errs. Say nought ! '

May I add that who seeks must err, who finds must err ? Yet must we seek and find and err, for only thus shall we, and all that lives, achieve Divinity.

Chapter 5

HARVESTING THE FIELDS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

To the Temple of your Godhead

From the Word we knew not to the Word we know

Think, oh, grateful think ' How good the God of Harvest is to you; Who pours abundance o'er your flowing fields.

— Thomson, /Autumn

So do I ask you to embark upon a great reaping and harvesting of the fields of your consciousness and to perceive through them, with their aid, the eventual consummation of those and other fields in the Point-Essence of Potential Life. The more truly you perceive, with increasing spiritual acreage as field after field of Life becomes your own, the more will your growing be hastened until at long last you enter into the Temple of your Godhead, to go forth no more, until the time is set for you, a God, to give your Godhead to a waiting Sea of Life.

Everything you are doing now and at any other time is a ploughing, a reaping, a harvesting, for fruition in the Point.

" Each man his prison makes." In each one of us is this wondrous Silence and Darkness, and within each one of us dwells the Lord of Deliverance whereby we shall know ourselves as wanderers from the Silence and the Darkness we know not to the Silence and the Darkness we shall become. In the beginning was the Word we knew not. At an end shall be the Word we know. In the beginning was the Word we heard and which awakened us. At an end shall be the Word we shall speak to awaken, as we ourselves were awakened.

It is said that at the first of the great Initiations an

individual hears for the first time the name of his Highest

Self; with that Name transmuted and glorified He will

awaken Men.

The Pomt • So d o we contemplate the Point—apotheosis of all

Apotheosis

Promise things, promise of all things, symbol of that Silence which

Fulfilment * ^ * J

is the Heaven of Sound, symbol of that Darkness which is the Heaven of Light. We have gazed upon the Heavens of the mighty Gods, and of all other kings triumphing in their kingdoms. We have looked upon the flowering heights of Fulfilment -the Promise of all ages redeemed in the Perfection-to-be. We have heard the Voiceless Silence—Parent of all Sound. Our eyes have feasted upon the Colourless Darkness—Parent of all Light.

These great Ultimates have appeared before us in the clear light of our vision, and we proceed to bring them, indwelling everywhere as they are, into the perspective of each rung of the ladder of our consciousness.

Chapter 6

COSMIC CONCEPTIONS OF THE POINT

I am a beggar standing at Thy door

My whole being dances with the mad joy of all-knowledge.

In Thy smile shines the Sun of Creation,

And a whole Universe of Glorious Vision becomes the

naked me, I feel in the depths of my mute joy I am everything '

—Puran Singh

But what are words to tell of the Adventure of Night, the Wordless ?. Only the fragrance of the jasmine flower hints of its loveliness, and the deep indigo violet of the tropical sky is the promise of its fulfilment. — The Adventure of Night

Enter mto the Before I go any further in trying to explain what I have

Spirit of the a / / y r

Point understood by this symbol of the Point—and I have to

explain at some length, or I shall not be able to evoke the atmosphere, which is all my purpose—I must ask you very specially, down here where you are, and in your ordinary everyday surroundings, to do all you can to enter into the spirit of the cosmic conceptions of the Point.

The Pomt is As I have already said, this Point is You, and the only

You

purpose of the symbol is in reality to help you to understand yourself from the angle of the Point, just as the purpose of the other symbols is to help you to understand yourself from their respective angles.

How, in what way, can you conjure out of your daily living some faint note of the Silence, some faint ray of the Darkness, some suggestion of the Radiance ?

I think that, if you seek, you will find occasions wonderfully reflective of the mystery of the Point.

COSMIC CONCEPTIONS OF THE POINT

157

The Yoga of the Night

Light melts into Darkness

The Point becomes a Living Reality

float upon the River

Reflect on that Silence, for example, into which the whole of nature hushes at eventime, when the night rises in its majesty, the day rests, when the notes of the birds are stilled, the breezes become soft, and life seems to withdraw into its inbreathing.

The Yoga of the Day has been fulfilled, and the Yoga of the Night once more comes forth into that action which is the very life of Yoga.

The sounds of the day depart, giving place to the stillnesses of the night, broken only by those sounds which reveal to us that in the very Silence music dwells.

Watch while the Yoga of Light melts into the Yoga of Darkness. Watch while the light around you seems to disappear, hushing the winds, hushing the rustling of the trees, softening all outlines, resolving the colours of flowers into their darknesses. Watch all outer life and activity as it withdraws in the very spirit of Yoga into rest and stillness. Watch the workers as they hurry homewards, themselves almost seeming to merge into the twilight and the darkness.

Watch all objects round you as they disappear one by one into their darknesses—the trees, the shrubs, the bushes, the grass, the very buildings themselves, and the roads.

Here you see before your very eyes an act of the Universal Yoga in which the life about you lives and moves and has its being.

Can you cause the spirit of the Point to flow into this Yoga, so that the Point, as you know it in abstraction, becomes a living concrete reality?

I- think you will be able to do this as you yourself seek to become one with this act of Yoga, joining your substance to its growing inertia, poised and will-full. You see the river of light flowing into a sea of darkness. Float upon this river, and let yourself drift into the sea in an

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

The Law that is Buddhi

The Light that is Nirvana

The Point in You

Supreme Moments from Trivialities

infinite exaltation of darkly silent consciousness, thus to identify yourself with an aspect of the Point in which Light is not yet born from Darkness, nor Sound from Silence, in the midst of which God has not yet said : " Let there be Light."

If you can achieve this meditation, you will touch, as in a flash, the Universal Law that is Buddhi, and it will descend into you in its partial aspect of what we call the intuition, 1 awakening you to the Truth that you are in all things, that you are one with them. And perhaps for a single moment, which will seem as an Eternity, you will move one step further inwards and contact that Universal Light that is Nirvana, so that the whole world will be within you, One as you are, but as you still have to discover yourself to be, so that you will awaken to the Truth that all things are in you, that they are one with you.

When these two Truths are really yours, and you are theirs, then will you know the Point, and the Point shall know itself in you.

Then, too, shall you understand the beautiful truth of the Gopis dancing with Shri Krishna, He the Universal One and therefore the Perfect Many.

But this is only one of the many memories of the Point in incarnation in the worlds of form.

Each one of us has his supreme moments—often evoked by apparent trivialities, but often by external majesties. Since all these supreme experiences are within us, as it were, already, so that from the larger-consciousness point of view there is no need to wait for them, therefore they can be evoked, and often are evoked entirely independently of our striving to achieve them. Each person generally has his own particular line of approach of least resistance to his sublimities. If you make a study of the lives of geniuses, you will find that each great genius— 1 See " Intuition " in Book Five.

COSMIC CONCEPTIONS OF THE POINT

159

Rhythms of Potency

Eucharists of Rejoicing

whether he be a musician, a painter or a sculptor, or perhaps a poet—has his own lines of least resistance to reach the summits of himself before he has attained them.

At certain times the rhythm of a moving railway train will reveal to me a symbol of this Yoga. Certain motifs in music, a single note thundering in a stillness, the hum of insects on a warm and still afternoon, a poem with a rhythm akin to my own—such as that of Hiawatha or of Myers* St. Paul —a majesty in prose, in painting, in sculpture— such as that marvellous " Winged Victory " in the Paris Louvre, Thorwaldsen's "Christ," or Michael Angelo's " Moses "—a sound surging within myself and flooding my being, some exquisite structure, alive or living, a very Silence or Darkness within myself : all these and many other things will stir my consciousness, and awaken it to the wonders of its being which these symbols seek to portray. You should be attached to your own inspiration on account of its dominant rhythm. Each artist, each creation of an artist, has a dominant rhythm. You will be attracted to one or another artist, to one or another creation, on account of its, to you, congenial rhythm—a rhythm which is in tune with your own. It is interesting to take sculptures, paintings, operas, ragas, melodies and symbols, and arrange them in octaves according to the notes they seem to you to sound. Through these various ways sound will surge within you and flood your being. In Samskrit verse Rhythm reaches its apotheosis. Samskrit is a dance, every letter releasing a rhythm, and only when you hear a Samskrit word do you perceive how intensely rhythmic sounds can be.

And then there are those great moments, those, to us, supreme moments of remembrance of the Divinity of Life, which come to all whose souls have become old enough to remember. More than one of the great Saviours of the world has revealed to the gaze of us all—do

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

The Ceremony of Wssak

The Miracle of Communion

Intimations of the Higher Self

Each Symbol

releases

Memory

we see or are we still blind ?—mighty peaks of remembrance as in the glorious Eucharists of Hinduism and Christianity. Witness indeed are these stupendous acts of Union to the truth of the words which every Saviour has spoken, and which find in Christ the Comforter the words : " Lo ! I shall be with you to the end of the world."

The true Buddhist knows of the great ceremony of Wesak, 1 during the full moon of the month of May, in a land amidst the Himalayas, when the Flower of earth's humanity, the Lord Buddha, permits some among His devotees to enter into an annual Eucharist with Him. There are those who attend this Eucharist in their physical bodies. There are those who attend it otherwise. To all not only is the experience unforgettable, but even more an indescribable strength.

Then there is the glorious Eucharist of the Christian faith, at the supreme moment of which there is the ecstasy of very communion with the Lord Christ Himself, For a moment the devotee partakes of the Christ-nature, is lifted up to Him as by a miracle of Yoga, so that he knows himself to be a Christ and all around him to participate in the very life of the Christ.

These two Eucharists I know personally. There are others, I am sure, no less sublime."

Cannot those who also know these miracles of Yoga use them to know the mighty symbol of the Point ?

I am very sure that in each of you there are such stirrings, and I ask you to utilize them to the purpose of awakening in you intimations of some of the glories at least of your Higher Selves, of which these symbols themselves are expressions and formulae.

The whole purpose of the Point and of all the other symbols is for the adjustment of each one of us, a Man-God,

1 See Chapter XIV of The Masters and the Path, by C. W. Leadbeater.

2 See " Eucharists " in Book Five.

COSMIC CONCEPTIONS OF THE POINT

161

Yoga must be Real.

The Texture cf the Real

Counterparts of Eternal Verities

to our Manhood and to our Godhead. 1 Each symbol releases Memory, that Line of Divinity upon which are strung the beads of experience from the beginning to the end. We always relate " I remember" to the past. We shall really be Yogis when we relate that phrase to the future no less than to the past. When we have learned to remember our future, as we think we have remembered the past, we are well on the way to the real future. Once we can say with full truth, " I remember," forwards into the future, backwards into the past, poised in the present, we know Infinity and That whence all symbols shine forth.

Every process in this form of Yoga must be real. It must enter into the waking consciousness, and be brought into intimate association with the mountain ranges of individual living in the outer worlds.

Yoga is experience, and in these regions of the greater Real, Truth must be garnered as Life, so that in the regions of the lesser Real it may be perceived in forms. I do not know why I have used the words " greater and lesser Real," since Reality is one. But its texture varies, and we therefore differentiate between the textures.

If, then, you are able to discover in your own individual lives counterparts of these eternal verities, in some cases being able to contact them with the very organs of the senses, you will be inspired to return to the inner regions, and to contact even its abstractions with concrete organs of the senses raised to their abstract power,

Do not please think you cannot contact the intangible with the tangible. That is one of the greatest of mistakes.

1 "God, of the Substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds, and Man, of the substance of his Mother, born in the world .... equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead, and inferior to the Father, as touching his Manhood. . . . One ; not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of the Manhood into God "—The Athanasian Creed, quoted in The Christian Creed by C. W. Leadbeater.

Here is the whole theme of this particular form of Yoga. It is not merely a Christian statement but antedates Christianity by many thousands of years.

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

To Feel a Silence, to Touch a Darkness

The Apotheosis of Tangibility

The "Slow Motions " of Eternal Verities

The Fullness of the Seeming Void

There is no distinction between the tangible and the intangible. It is all on one line, only down here we make all these divisions. We think we cannot contact the inner planes with the physical instrument. It is only by so doing that I have been able to get what I have gotten.

Yow will now, perhaps, be able to feel a Silence and to touch a Darkness. You will be able to pass your " fingers " delicately over the surface of the Radiance, over the " form " of the formless Point, and to feel and hear the Ceaseless Breath of God in which the Point pulsates. Nearer than hands and feet must you be to each constituency of the Point, sensing an identity yet knowing a difference.

Do not think for a moment that you are entering regions of the intangible. Intangibility increasingly accompanies the outflowing life as it moves towards its Circumference. At the Centre, tangibility achieves its apotheosis.

Do not allow yourselves to become confused by the thought that you are now in the regions of the non-material, and that therefore contact cannot be as in what we call the regions of matter.

Matter is but the slow motion of the Eternal Spirit. The contact we know in these outer worlds is but the slow motion of the Identity we experience in the inner worlds.

Time is but the slow motion of Eternity, Space is but the slow motion of the Unmanifest. Sound is the slow motion of Silence, and Light of Darkness.

More substantial than matter is Spirit, than contact is Identity, than time is Eternity, than space is the Unmanifest. More substantial than sound is Silence, than light is Darkness.

"It is the apparent void itself which is solid," write Dr. Besant and Bishop Leadbeater in an article in The

Theosophist (1908). Fohat "digs holes in Space," says H. P. Blavatsky. 1

sp^of th e the ' am afraid ' cannot do more than to ask y° u to

Pomt seek within yourselves for individual and outer approxima-

tions to the universal and inner Point. Part of the Yoga of which the Point is the centre, consists in reproducing the spirit of the Point in ourselves with the aid of experiences related to it, however distantly.

1 Fohat, the Dividing, Differentiating, and Individualizing Power, the Creative Activity of the Logos, sets up whirling vortices of energy m space, nuclei of future forms. See " Fohat" in Book rive.

Chapter 7

ADVENTURES INTO THE INFINITE POINT

The Realm of the Unspoken Word

The Vastnesses of Leashed Omnipotence

To travel still

Over the plain, beyond the hill, Unhesitating through the shade Amid the silence unafraid, Till, at some sudden turn, one sees Against the black and muttering trees Thine altar, wonderfully white Among the Forests of the Night.

-Rupert Brooke

I expect you will ask me how it is at all possible to contact that undifferentiated infinity and infinite potentiality which I ascribe to the Point. How indeed are we to transcend the individuality so deeply impressed upon us, and the universality in the organism of which we are hardly conscious cells ?

In us is undifferentiation, but we have yet to find it. In us is infinitude, 1 but we have yet to find it. Already are we in the formless regions of an Unspoken Word. Already in those regions we have, in some mysterious way, encountered a Silence-Darkness and a Radiance for which we seek in our regions of form some faint shadow. How shall we break through the selves of our Selves, reaching those Selves and raising them to their loftiest Being ? How shall we become still in these vastnesses of dark infinitude, of leashed omnipotence, of well-nigh overwhelming immanence, of purest Being ? How, with our finiteness, with our individuality, with our sounds and our 1 See Chapters 31, 32 of this Book Two.

ADVENTURES INTO THE INFINITE POINT

165

Adventures into the Point Itself

" Ceaseless Eternal Breath"

light, with our forms and our time and our space, shall we know that which is supremely more than any of them ?

I will confess to you that I have tried, with my imagination ] —the power that builds bridges to Heaven, and hurls over precipices into Hell—and with all the magic that in me lies, to enter into the Point in all spiritual endeavour and reckless adventure. I say to myself: " Pre-Silence." I say to myself: " Pre-Darkness."" I say to myself: " Pre-Radiance." For I think--of course I do not think at all, but the weak word slips out to show me that I am still entangled in the realms of the mind-enslaved— I " think " that if I resolve within an imagining of supreme ascent, I shall catch a shadow from these negations of my loftiest summits.

The shadow that does come is pictured in the magnificent phrase of the second Stanza of Dzyan, " Ceaseless Eternal Breath." This is infinitude. This is undifferentia-tion. This is infinite potentiality.

It is reckless work. You see these negations are at the loftiest limit, and one tries to show that any Supreme Conception one may reach is only the shadow of a shade. The next best thing, if we cannot do that, is to find the bridge between those Supreme Negations and ourselves through that Ceaseless Breath of God, of which our own breath in its rhythm is but a reflection, yet a true reflection.

Can you not enter into your own actual physical breathing and vibrate to its even rhythm? One splendid way of healing is to externalize yourself in your breath rhythm.

1 " The Eternal Body of Man is the Imagination , that is God Himself, the Divine Body." Blake.

'"What icoilon is, what its origin, whether it is itself changed by the Divine Breath which is poured into it -does ' Dark Space ' thus become ' Bright Space ' at the beginning of a manifestation ? these are questions to which we cannot at present even indicate answers Perchance an intelligent study of the great Scriptures of the world may yield replies."— Occult Chemistry, Appendix.

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

A Eucharist of Breath

The Father-Mother Seed

The Pre-

Can you not enter into the physical breathing of all that is around you in every kingdom of nature ? Can you not enter into the breathing of our Mother Earth ? Can you not then project this intensity of universal breathing into the spaces and join in the breathing of the stars ? Can you not thus enter into the breathing of your universe, and so join in the breathing of universes uncountable ? Can you know, feel, that nowhere does the breathing stop, and that you are but reproducing in a microcosm that which pervades a macrocosm ? ]

Yes. The Ceaseless Eternal Breath is the formlessness and the form both of undifferentiated infinity and infinite potentiality.

It is the Father-Mother of Silence and of Darkness. It is the heart of that Duration which is the progenitor of Time. It is the seed of that Undifferentiation which is the progenitor of Space.

I have purposely omitted the qualifying clause to the phrase " Ceaseless Eternal Breath," so as to avoid a sense of confusion. But now I must just refer to it—" which knows itself not." I do not feel happy about the comment on this phrase in The Secret Doctrine. 2 This comment seems to me to entangle us among the ordinary definitions of consciousness, applying them to a condition which can only be called the Pre-conscious, using this word in its sense of a transcendence of the totality of that which we call Consciousness. 4< Which knows itself not," to my understanding, means but an absence of descent into its counterpart, reflection, on the plane of relative manifestation. And when we are told in the same comment that " infinity cannot comprehend finiteness," we must be careful not to understand the word " comprehend " in any ordinary sense. Infinity must in some wise comprehend finiteness on its own

1 See pp. 151-52, and " Breath " in Book Five. - I, 85 et seq. (Adyar ed., I, 125 et seq.).

ADVENTURES INTO THE INFINITE POINT 167

plane, for surely finiteness is a mode of the very Being of infinitude. Yet, trarscendentally, we may agree with the statement, just as as we might say that Eternity cannot comprehend Time. The Ring-Pass- | can h e |p y OU no more m these regions. But

perhaps you have already journeyed into them with me, and have known the Ceaseless Breath of God. But in these regions, as in all others, there is a Ring-Pass-Not forbidding us to look beyond, for our very existence' sake.

Chapter 8

THE POINT—OUR UNFOLDED SELF

An Intricate Concept

Forthgomg-Consummation • an Hour-Glass

This is the first truth and this also the last . . The Point came forth before all things • it was neither atomic nor mathematical, being a diffused Point. The Monad manifested explicitly but a myriad were implied There was light and there was darkness, beginning and the end thereof, the all and naught, being and non-being. --Eugenius Philalethes

At the risk of prolonging your attention upon this first symbol of this form of Yoga, I must comment yet a little more on the Point, especially now that you will be finding ways and means of approximating to it somewhat more closely than probably you had thought possible.

I should like to make clear that we must entirely abandon our normal preconceptions regarding space-areas. In these more ultimate regions, neither space nor time have any relevancy. A Point is not, by reason of its supposed size, an elementary concept. Cn the contrary, it is the most intricate concept there is. We call it a Point because of its infinite concentration, be the area infinitely large or infinitely small, and because it is the Centre not only of an infinitude of circumferences, but also of an infinite series both of converging and of expanding rings or globes. In this connection, I sometimes think of an hour-glass lying horizontally, with its series of converging circles on the one side, the Point in the middle, and an expanding series of circles on the other side. The size of the hour-glass depends on what sized circle you represent here and now. But the hour-glass I am looking at extends infinitely on

THE POINT—OUR UNFOLDED SELF

169

foga < -Glas

Hour-Glass

Beyond Causes

Evolution Accelerates

The Infinite " More "

either side of its central Point. The left-hand side of the hour-glass symbolizes the Consummation, while the right-hand side symbolizes the Forthgoing.

You stand at the Point of an hour-glass with expanding circles on either side. From the left-hand side, achieve your Consummation aspect, all that you have ever been. From the right-hand side, draw into yourself all you have yet to achieve of Forthgoing, all you will ever be. Achieve that in the Now of your Eternal Being. For the Point is the primordial symbol containing in its nature all the rest.

Let me also say that in the Point we contact a state of Causelessness—insofar as the word is permissible, which I very much doubt—which does not mean that Cause is suspended, or has ceased to be, but that there is no Cause as we know Cause in these outer regions of the Divine Life. There is no Movement. There is No-Movement, which is as much more than Movement as Darkness is more than Light, and Silence more than Sound. Thus, Causelessness becomes more than Cause.

I want very specially to insist that evolution may be summed up in the one word " More," and that the higher the stage of evolution the greater the acceleration of the " More." As life passes through kingdom after kingdom of nature, its growth accelerates, until in the superhuman kingdoms its rate of advance is more rapid than any rate of growth with which we are familiar. The distances to be traversed become vaster and vaster, but the travelling becomes quicker and quicker.

The Law of Acceleration seems to be in operation first in the last stages of every kingdom of nature, and second the nearer an individuality or Man draws to his Centre. On such occasions there is what may be called a " speeding up " of the evolutionary process, of which the individuality becomes conscious. This is a working of

the real Law of Gravitation, the Principle of Curvature, with the physical counterpart of which we are so familiar.

In the cosmic regions the More is stupendous, and we should be gravely wrong were we to think that anywhere there is real cessation of Movement. If there seems to be a standing-still, it is because the movement is rapid beyond the estimation of every sight that we possess —physical sight, emotional sight, the sight of the mind, the sight of Law, of Light, of Life.

The Point at its own level becomes a specific " More," but of such " More " we can know naught.

The Point I cannot ask you to imagine. It is unimaginable. It must not be imagined from one point of view. In the condition of your highest consciousness you may gain some conception of it.

A Yoga of It is not a negation, but an affirmation, for this form

Affirmation r w • \/ r

or Yoga is not a Yoga of any negation at any time anywhere. It is a Yoga of Affirmation. It is not a Yoga of withdrawal, but it is a Yoga of Gathering-in. In most of the books on Yoga, it is a Yoga whereby you withdraw and withdraw and withdraw. This Yoga is a Yoga whereby you gather and gather aftd gather. You must leave nothing, be it a weakness or be it a strength, be it a light or be it a darkness, be it a sound or be it a silence.

There is nothing to be left behind, for all is experience. But we need not put our feet on rungs on which we have already stepped. How do we know where we have already stepped ? There is a sense which will tell us if only we will give it voice.

Nothing must be left outside but all held for the time when, in this particular form of Yoga, you stand before the Point with the offerings of your fulfilled, completed Majesty, becoming that which you worship.

Our Beginning, For this Point is symbol of the Monad which is Man,

our Way, our J

End or rather, as we shall shortly see, of Man-Woman, 1 which

each one of us is. In the Yoga we are performing we perceive the Point to be our unfolded Self, our beginning, our way, and our end.

The Glory of ^° c '° we become intent on the Glory of God, and

<3od learn to say at every stage on our way : "My God, how

Thou dost glorify me ! " as said Jesus the Christ in the moment of that Crucifixion which He saw to herald a Resurrection.

The Supreme One of the key-phrases of this book is, " How Thou

dost glorify me ! " I do not think there is any mantra L> like it in heaven or earth, because there is a constant glorification. We do not see it, because we are still blind It is good to be able to say it even without seeing it. It has nothing to do with external obstacles, for you invoke not an external but an internal God. " My God, how Thou dost glorify me ! " we all say differently and individually."

1 See Chapter 12 of this Book Two. '• See " Mantra " in Book Five.

* The Source of Measures, Appendix VII, p. 301, gives a scholarly exposition of the passage, " My God, my God, how Thou dost glorify me I " showing how the mistranslation arose, "My God, my God, why hast Thou foraskenme?" The whole argument is quoted in The Secret Doctr/ne, III, 146-47 (Adyared.,V, 158).

Chapter 9

THE WEB THAT IS THE WOMB

The One stirs into the Two

Cosmic Fecundation

Father-Mother spin a Web

And did not one fashion us in the Womb ?— Job, XXXI, 5

The universe hath a Ruler [Rulers collectively] set over it, which is called the Word (Logos) ; the fabricating Spirit is its Queen : which two are the First Power after the One. 1

It is of buddhic matter that is spun the marvellous web of life which supports and vivifies all our bodies. If the bodies be looked at with buddhic vision, they all disappear, and in their places is seen a shimmering golden web of inconceivable fineness and beauty, a tracery of all their parts in a network with minute meshes. — A Study in Consciousness

We shall now see the second symbol of this form of Yoga issuing from the first.

The Silence that was One becomes two. The Darkness that was One becomes two. And the Radiance stirs. The Unity stirs into Duality."'

The Point stirs into its twofold nature.

The Father-Mother J Spirit emerges out of the Silence and the Darkness, and a cosmic fecundation takes place.

We perceive before us the process described in the third of the Stanzas of Dzyan, " Father-Mother spin a Web/' and we enter into it as before we entered into the

1 Quoted in The Secret Doctrine, II. 40 (Adyar ed., Ill, 48).

2 See " Duality " in Book Five

3 The North Pole of the Point is negative stlence, and the South Pole is positive silence, and when the signal comes. Father Silence and Mother Silence give forth Sound. The interaction between the North and South Poles of the Point is of the nature of web-spinning since the Line that is formed first is a Web of Lines with greatest expansion at the middle point, gradually curving towards their own respective poles.

THE WEB THAT IS THE WOMB

173

Inbreathing— Poise—Hush

Vibrant with the Archetypes

The Silent Watcher behind the Web

Behind the Embryo

Silence-Darkness and the still Radiance, becoming poised between the Consummation and the Forthgoing.

We too stir. The inbreathing—the poise— the mighty hush which precedes all forthgoings belonged to the Point as such. The Point stirs into a Web that is a Womb, and yet remains a Point. The Positive of Silence-Darkness fecundates the Negative of Silence-Darkness, as the nature of each is stirred to a mode of differentiation within that One which enfolds them both.

In the Point dwell the consummated forms, colours, sounds of a Divine Perfection, and in these as the very heart of each dwells the eternal archetype of its being which was in the No-Silence and in the No-Darkness, before the Word, before the manifest. The Consummation itself is but the projection of an infinite from the illimitable Beyond, a Son of Being, and a Father of Men-to-be, themselves all Sons of Being, yet needing the Fatherhood of a God.

Vibrant with all these is the Web that is a Womb. Cf their nature is it. Matrix is it of the Eternal Life.

And the Point remains the Silent Watcher l behind the Web that is a Womb. I believe it is right—but I am not competent to affirm it—that the World Mother in some way represents the Cosmic Silent Watcher. Behind Her there is an illimitable infinitude.

The embryo in any kingdom of nature corresponds to the Web that is the Womb, for it is the immanence of potentiality. But just as there is the Point as Silent Watcher behind the Web that is the Womb, so is there a Silent Watcher behind the embryo. And this Silent Watcher, invisible to the outer eye, but visible to the inner, is the eternal Ego, as the Monad or Man is the Silent Watcher behind the Ego. There are wonderful fields of investigation available in these dark regions of Light. 1 See Chapter 27 of this Book Two.

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

Watchers

through

Eternity

The Cradle of Creation

Every Man is a Web-Womb

Self-conscious Divinity as its Forthgoing

Progenitors of a Cosmos

True it may be that the Ego-link between Man, or Monad, and the projection dipped down into matter appears hardly, if at all, before the individualization into the human kingdom. Yet the shadow is ever there, waiting its transition into substance. And I believe that Monad-Men and Individuality-Egos are watchful from the beginning to the very end.

From the Beginning to the End does the Web that is the Womb remain, as does its Progenitor, the Point. Silent Watcher does it become of that to which it gives birth.

Here are we face to face with primordial creation, or rather with the cradle of creation as the Web-Womb most surely is.

Once again must we enter deeply, most deeply, into the spirit of this symbol, for inasmuch as we are the Point, so are we a Web that is a Womb. The Cradle of Life is within us. The Fatherhood and Motherhood of God are within us. As Man we are created. As God we create. As Father we lay a Divine Seed upon the Altar of Godhead. As Mother we lift up that Seed that it may unfold to its Divinity.

Just as the Point is Self-conscious Divinity in its mode of Undifferentiated Infinity, so is the Web that is the Womb Self-conscious Divinity as it begins the mighty journey of its Forthgoing. The creative power of God, of Life, of Nature, is perceived in its apotheosis, so far as we are concerned, in the cosmic act whereby the Point becomes self-divided, 1 and in that self-division establishing a living matrix for a differentiated Infinity-to-be, that is to say, for a manifested evolution.

That Web that is the Womb of the new universe is the setting for the Creative Activity of God, the Father-.Mother aspect of being coming together.

I wonder if you can conceive of yourselves, by a supreme effort of a carefully directed imagination, as 1 See " Symbols through the Kingdoms " in Book Five.

THE WEB THAT IS THE WOMB

175

Within you lies all Experience

The Miracle Matrix

Progenitors—with a capital " P"—of a whole evolutionary process. I wonder if you realize that every moment of your progress and growth is occupied in functioning to this end.

I wonder if you know that in you, as you are, are all the experiences you have assimilated in every kingdom of nature through which you have so far passed, that in you are the Points of the kingdoms of the Elemental Essences, fundamental Chakras or Centres of your Being, that in you are the Points of the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms, also Chakras or Centres of your Being.

We like to say that the kingdom of God is within us, but we do not always remember that this kingdom of God is composed of all the kingdoms of nature that we know and do not know, all the planes of consciousness that we know and do not know, every experience from the Beginning to the End.

I wonder if you know that in you dwells no less every experience through which you have yet to pass. You are the super-man as you are also the sub-man and the man you at present are. You are One, and you are a one. You are also the many. For at every stage of the growth of each one of us not only is there a mode of perfection sounding forth its note of consummation, but the very Consummation itself—the Ultimate Point—may itself be heard in its perfect glory.

One of the great mysteries of evolution is that we have to travel though we have arrived. If we are able to unite the sense of arrival with the sense of travelling, then indeed are we Yogis, knowing without experience, and therefore experiencing for the sake of knowing.

In the far-off distance, when you have reached the Godhead of your Manhood, these Points will glow and become afire with the Divine Life that they are. They will fuse into the Point at which we have been looking. They will constitute the miracle-matrix which I am calling

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

Establish your •Eternity

Think of God the Mother

You are Father-Mother

Live in the Future

the Web that is the Womb. I say " miracle-matrix " because it is indeed a miracle which it accomplishes, for it constitutes the Sound, the Colour and the Form of Eternal Divinity, and thus fashions the manifest-to-be in the living image of its own essential Godhead.

" For God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of His own eternity," chants the Wisdom of Solomon (II, 23).

I do not think you can do better than to give attention to the conception of Motherhood both in its macrocosmic and microcosmic functionings—perceiving the sublime realities of Motherhood in every moment of growth. Motherhood encompasses all life, even though in our ignorance we so often flout it. We need to bring the Mother-Spirit into intimate relationship with ourselves. If we will meditate on God the Mother, and try to trace that stupendous reality from its inaccessible heights into the lesser yet still sublime heights, and into the hills and valleys and plains of our living, into every kingdom of nature, we shall glorify the Motherhood of God as we are accustomed to reverence God's Fatherhood. 1

We are the Point. We are the Web that is the Womb. We are Father. We are Mother. We are but gazing upon our own resplendencies, upon that which is the Self of each of us. Be we man or woman in any particular incarnation, the real " I " is both, in perfect poise and unity.

That which we are contemplating, we ourselves are. Let us live in these Futures" of ourselves, and establish our Eternity by uniting them and all other Futures to the Past and Present of which they form part.

1 See " Motherhood " in Book Five

* Dr Besant writes that she '' heard it said by a very highly advanced Person : ' You talk about the past making your present, do you realize that your future also influences your present ? ' . . the goal that you want to reach works back to the steps that you take in order to reach it, and if you make up your mind to become superhuman, you wiii lead a life that leads in that direction, and so your determination to achieve m the future wtll influence your present, going on now." Some American Lectures, p. 67.

Chapter 10

THE LINE FLASHES FORTH

Sound and Light are Born

The Sound-Motif—a Trumpet-Call

The Colour-Motif—a Plashing Light

And his arrow shall go forth as the lightning • and the Lord God shall blow the trumpet. - -Zechariah, IX, 14

The Point, speaking symbolically, vibrates between centre and circumference, thus making the Line which marks the drawing apart of Spirit and Matter . the two poles between which is spun the web of a universe. -A Study in Consciousness

Let us now pass on to the third great symbol in this form of Yoga—the vertical Line, 1 which is the child of the Web that is the Womb.

This Line is one of the most marvellous of all the symbols- -save that of the thousand-petalled Lotus—for it is at this point that we hear the Sound and see the Light which themselves are born from the Silence and the Darkness.

We hear the Sound that is the herald of the Song of Triumph, which all Gods sing as They achieve Their Godhead, Their Divinity. The Sound-motif of the evolution which is about to be born is heard by those who have the ears to hear. A Call is going forth over the Seas of the Unmanifest, a veritable Trumpet-Call to summon Gods-to-be to begin their entry into their heritage.

The Light is seen suffused as by a glorious Colour— the Colour-motif of the evolution which is about to be born, and it is seen by those who have the eyes to see. A flashing Light is going forth over the Seas of the Unmanifest, a veritable Beacon-Light to summon Gods-to-be

1 See " Symbols through the Kingdoms " and " Line " in Book Five.

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

The Song of Life

A Garment of Glory

The Line flashes North and South

The Driving-Rod of Evolution

to begin their entry into their heritage. It is an Oriflamme behind which an evolution marches forward to its destiny, as the Trumpet-Call mellows into that Song of the newly awakened Life which every living thing sings as it wends its way, sometimes to be heard by those who know how to listen.

The nightingale of life's eternal meaning is ever singing in the hearts of men, as someone has so truly said. That is literally true, because there are Devas and Gandharvas —the Angels—attached to each one of these symbols and manifestations of the Real. And singing the song of the awakening life are the Devas and Gandharvas of the Presence. (See " Devas and Gandharvas " in Book Five.)

At an end, the Song is sung in all its perfect notes of triumph by Him who enters His Godhead. The whole of nature sings with Him, and the Devas and Gandharvas of the Song blend their acclamation into His singing, and echo it through all the worlds of space, through all the systems of the universes

At an end, the Oriflamme becomes His very garment, shining as the rainbow shines, with glorious colours ranged in the order of His unique Being, and the Devas of the Light blend their shining- -how truly are they called Shining Ones—with His Light, and send its rays through all the worlds of space, through all the systems of the universes. All Life is One.

Forth flashes the Line in all its Song-Light from the Centre—the Point—to the North, from the Centre—the Point—to the South, halted at either end, zenith and nadir, by an Infinite Will which bids a Sea of the Unmanifest awaken to its destiny of due appointing.

I may quite appropriately describe this Line as a Piston-Rod, for it seems to flash from North to South and from South to North as the driving force of the machine of the new evolutionary process.

The D.vine Not only does this Line flash forth the Life of God to

Yard-Stick J

vivify the Sea of Life brought within the Circle, but it would

seem to maintain a constant connection between the two poles of the appointed span of evolutionary descent and ascent of which the Line is the Divine Measure or Yard-Stick. And in its aspect of masculinity, it meets in due course the horizontal Line in its aspect of femininity, thus setting the Wheel of Evolution in active motion I refer the reader to the whole of the tenth paragraph of the third Stanza of Dzyan, and indeed to the eleventh and twelfth paragraphs also

The Lme is the Thus is beginning to be born the finite from the in-

Creative Word

finite , from unditrerentiated infinity, manifestation In the

beginning is this Line which is the Word of the evolutionary process. Differentiation is literally churned forth from the unmanifest.

Think of the Sea of the Unmanifest with its infinite modes of manifestation-to-be, and think of one of those modes being called to Self-consciousness by the essential nature of the Line.

Chapter 11 THE SPINDLE LINE

Consider with me that the individual existence is a rope which stretches from the infinite to the infinite, and has no end and no commencement, neither is it capable of being broken. This rope is formed of innumerable fine threads . . . And remember that the threads are living--are like electric wires ; more, are like quivering nerves . . . This illustration presents but a small portion—a single side of the truth : it is less than a fragment. Yet, dwell on it; by its aid you may be led to perceive more. 1

—" The Venetian "

I want you to enter with me as deeply as we can into the measure of this Line, for it is so intimately connected with the evolution we know in our midst.

Child of a The Web that is the Womb seems to project its

Web-nature into the Line which is its offspring, for the Line is spindle-formed and spiral. It seems to be, as it were, a stretching from the Web—a natural conception, for the Line is the Divine Measure " of the Forthgoing, as the Web is its Divine Cradle.

The Axis of a As the Web is the Cradle, so is the Line the Axis

round which the whole of the new universe will revolve. The Line is a multitude—I had almost sad an infinity— of Lines. As it issues forth, it almost seems to multiply. It becomes a veritable faggot of Lines, possibly the ultimate archetype of the Roman fasces.

1 Essay on " Karma " in Light on the Path.

- The mighty force which sets the " measure and axis of growth " of all atoms is that of the Third Logos the Architect whose outpouring is depicted in the ancient glyph, shown as Diagram II in The Christian Creed, by C. W. Leadbeater, as the Divine Line running perpendicular North to South See also A Study in Consciousness, by Annie Besant, Chapter 1, Section 2.

THE SPINDLE LINE

181

An Infinity of Lines

Nowhere are there Straight Lines

Curved Lines Curved Cross

Our Time Symbols are Projections of Infinite Symbols

Appearance of Straightness but Reality of Curvature

I cannot effectively project myself into this strange multiplicity. It occurs to me, however, that it has to do with divisions and subdivisions of the Monads lying asleep in the Sea of the Unmanifest. Just as organs are developed in physical embryos, and racial and other characteristics appear, so are differences forthshadowed in this Rod of Measurement, emanating, as it does, from the Web-Womb, matrix for the life about to be awakened.

Why is the Line spiral ? I am afraid I do not yet know. But I do know that nowhere are there straight lines. This Line we are observing is a stupendous curve, and while it is here limited as to its North and South, on the other hand it is in some utterly incomprehensible way nothing more than a section of a Line which stretches upwards into the infinities — and downwards. I see the Line as a curve, but I see it limitless in its extent.

I am afraid lest I have misled you in giving the impression that the Lines are what we call straight. In all my experiences I have never seen a straight line, and to me the two Lines and the very Cross itself are not straight but curved. How can I describe a curved Cross ? How can I describe a curved Line bisecting a Circle ?

In truth, these Lines with which we have been concerned are projections of infinite curvatures of which I can have no conception whatever. The Straightness is but an appearance due to the weakness of our own perceptions, and to the fact that we are gazing upon a limitation. The very Circle-Globe is but a projection of an infinite Circle-Globe—this itself being but a projection of infinitudes beyond.

Gazing outwards to the Circumference the appearance of Straightness descends upon us. Gazing inwards towards the Centre there is an appearance of curves. Why? Because in the one case we are moving towards a limited Less, while in the other case we are entering into a limitless More.

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

Some Day we shall see Curved

The Yoga of

Essential

Curvature

Action is Curvature

Other-

dimensional

Curvatures

Can Curvature Vanish ?

Matter and Energy not Agents

At our own particular level of evolution we must needs see "straight" lest we should see crooked. But some day we shall see "curved." As we all now know, the earth on which we live is itself a curvature. Space-Time is a curvature. We owe to Einstein the bringing down within the grasp of science a fact generally known to students of Yoga alone.

My Teacher has tried to make me understand this conception of the symbols of Yoga—I should rather say this fact of the symbols of Yoga. But it comes to me only now since He did not think wise to introduce the fact before.

The Point is curved. The Lines are curved. The Circle is curved, infinitely more curved than it appears to us. Symbolic Yoga is the Yoga of Essential Curvature.

And however strange this idea may seem, and strange and incomprehensible it is, nevertheless it is immensely appropriate • to Yoga, for Yoga is Action, and Action is curvature. 1 Let rne quote to you from Sir Arthur Edding-ton's Space, T/me and Gravitation. I must quote at length :

Action is ... mass multiplied by time, or energy multiplied by time, and is more fundamental than either.

Action is the curvature of the world. It is scarcely possible to visualize this statement, because our notion of curvature is derived from surfaces of two dimensions in a three-dimensional space, and this gives too limited an idea of the possibilities of a four-dimensional surface in space of five or more dimensions In two dimensions there is just one total curvature, and if that vanishes, the surface is flat or at least can be unrolled into a plane In four dimensions there are many co-efficients of curvature ; but there is one curvature par excellence, which is, of course, an invariant independent of our mesh-system. . . .

Wherever there is matter there is action and therefore curvature. . . .

Sir Arthur Eddington suggests the possibility of the vanishing of curvature, but it would seem to me that there is no more possibility of curvature vanishing than of light or sound.

Sir Arthur Eddington also states that he prefers " to think of matter and energy, not as agents causing the

1 With action come octaves of vibration which can only be expressed through the Logarithmic Spiral. See " Curvature " in Book Five.

THE SPINDLE LINE

183

The Symbols come to Life

The Symbols Applied

Through Consciousness

degrees of curvature of the world, but as parts of our perceptions of the existence of curvature."

So here we are with our smooth conceptions of truth in symbols all upset because we have been taking for granted that symbols can be drawn on pieces of paper. This we could do and remain satisfied so long as there was no urgent need for the symbols to come to life. We could rest content with the static. But now our symbols rffust more truly reflect that which they are supposed in some measure to represent, for evolution is beginning its action. We are henceforth concerned with movement more akin to our own understanding, and we are thus compelled to revise that which so far has sufficed. It may thus far have been enough for us to be Newtons. We must now become Einsteins, less by denying Newton and more by using him as a stepping-stone to Einstein.

But we shall in due course see how difficult it is to set our various symbols at work in the several states of our consciousness, as is, of course, the purpose of this form of Yoga.

The curved Point must be alive in every state of our consciousness. It must be alive on our tension or physical plane, on our movement or desire plane, on our understanding or mind plane, on the plane of our Law, on the plane of our Light, on the Plane of our Life or Will—insofar as we can contact these higher regions. So must be the Web-Womb. So must be the first Line or Divine Measure of the Future Event. 1 So must be the Circle, the content of the Divine Measure. So must be the second Line, the Line of manifestation. So must be the Cross thus formed, the Divine Measure and the Divine Action revolving within the Ring-Pass-Not content. And so, as we shall see, must be other symbols no less.

1 Is it true that in the mind of the Logos the whole idea of the manifestation-to-be and the Sea of Green Men is as a Future Event-a kind of Point in His consciousness awaiting His attention ?

Chapter 12

THE LINE GIVES A NEW CONCEPTION OF MAN-WOMAN

In its absoluteness, the One Principle under its two aspects. Parabrahman and Mulaprakriti, is sexless, unconditioned and eternal. Its periodical manvantaric emanation, or primal radiation, is also One, androgynous and phenomenally finite. When the radiation radiates in its turn, ail its radiations are also androgynous, to become male and female principles in their lower aspects. 1 —H P. B

This jatent bisexuality is confirmed rather than contradicted by scientific knowledge. Science, however, advances facing backward and in explanation of this mystery can give only the dusty answer, " These are vestiges of a long vanished past." But time is a womb as well as a tomb • the embryo exists in order that it may become a man or a woman ; and a man or a woman to become man-woman Become what thou art / Be ye therefore perfect / That perfection is nothing other than the divine androgyne/'

—Claude Bragdon

I must now disclose one of the most significant features of this Line, offspring—as I want constantly to remind you—of the Web that is the Womb.

Glorious is the The sex-power, so grossly and disastrously abused on

Creative Power r a / /

the physical plane of its expression, is the glorious reflection of the Creative Spirit pervading all consciousness, all life, all being. Glorious is this Spirit in physical spirit-matter, however much we may blaspheme it in our actions. Glorious is this Spirit in feeling-emotional spirit-matter, in mind spirit-matter, and on every higher plane of consciousness.

1 The Secret Doctrine, I, 46 (Adyar ed. I. 83) - The Eternal Poles

THE LINE GIVES A NEW CONCEPTION OF MAN-WOMAN

185

Man is Man-Woman

Every Symbol is Man-Woman

Every living Thing is Man-Woman

From Man-Woman through Man and Woman to Man-Woman the God

But in the highest regions, masculine and feminine are one. Man is Man-Woman, even though we use the masculine for convenience—we might as well have used the feminine. And in the regions of the Ultimates, a masculine-feminine < Unity self-creates its duality-trinity. Father-Mother in One bring forth a child.

The Point is masculine and feminine in one. So, therefore, is the Web that is the Womb. So, therefore, is the Line, and every other symbol of this form of Yoga.

The Godhead is the sublimation of Man-Womanhood. On the Sea of the Unmanifest, it is Man-Woman who is asleep, awaiting the Sound and the Light of the awakening.

Each living thing, and all things are living, is Man-Woman, in whatever form it may assume—elemental essence, mineral, vegetable, animal, human, superhuman. It is, of course, not long before the masculine and feminine elements are separated, for the purpose of more intensive evolution. But even where there are men and women, in whatever kingdom of nature, in each dwells the Man-Woman, whatever be the prevailing emphasis. All unities, all individualities, are twofold—Man-Woman, and therefore, Father-Mother. There is no masculinity anywhere which is not equally a femininity. The man is man-woman. The woman is woman-man. I think there has ever been a realization of this, and quite recently Dr. Jung in an address delivered in South India is reported to have said : " Though we are not quite conscious of it, every woman has in herself a bit of man, and vice versa." 1

While on the way of Forthgoing these two attributes tend to manifest separately, and in various types of sequence, so that we have male and female forms with their respective characteristics, on the pathway of Return these differences tend to coalesce and become one once more, even though in the world of forms one form or the other be 1 The Madras Hindu, 29 January 1938.

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

In the Seventh Race the One

The primordial Progenitor of Sex

Our Sex Concept is limited

Less and less Life

Making of the desolate Wastes a Home

utilized' for purposes which can best be achieved through the special form. At length the perfect inter-poise is attained, and Man-Woman has become God.

This coalescence is foreshadowed in The Secret Doctrine in the third volume (pp. 544-45 ; Adyar ed., V, 517-18) where it is written : " At the end of the next Round, Humanity will again become male-female, and then there will be two spinal cords. In the Seventh Race the two will merge into the one." But the Godhead which I am conceiving is by no means reached even in the Seventh Race.

If you wish, you may remove from your conception of these Ultimates all idea of sex, and from one point of view you will be right. On the other hand, you cannot remove the conception of a Creative Spirit the primordial Progenitor of what we call sex, and within this Spirit lie the seeds of male and female.

Our entire conception of sex has become limited by its expression in these outermost regions of matter and consciousness, where all inner realities become materialized and comparatively lifeless.

Let us be clear that the whole evolutionary process involves extension after extension into less and less truly dense Life, until in these outermost regions there is so little life that it becomes exceedingly difficult to breathe. It is as if we went up into great heights in the atmosphere without more than the minimum amount of oxygen necessary to breathe. We should indeed gasp for breath. On the physical plane we are in truth gasping for life.

We have to learn to gasp for life as the hart panteth after the water-brooks, for only by being bereft of life shall we be able to appreciate it at its true value. We leave home and move away into the farthest regions where, amidst a sense of homelessness, but with the faintest of remembrances of home, we learn how to make our home even in such desolate wastes, thus learning to perceive

THE LINE GIVES A NEW CONCEPTION OF MAN-WOMAN

187

The Great illusion

Dying into Living

Without Memory all is out of Proportion

The Lower Bodies become All-important

We Crave without Finding

everywhere the home which, in fact,, we have never left, but which is round about us even in these seemingly homeless places.

Here we are in the illusion of being in the midst of life. Such is the great illusion, the great Maya. Here we feel we live, and we are even afraid, so insinuating is the illusion, of leaving these comparative illusions of the senses—when in fact our dying is in truth into more living. We cling to life, not really because there is so much of it, but because there is so little of it. There is in fact so little that we fear death will take away from us even that little. So we make the most, sometimes the best and sometimes the worst, of the life-illusion in the midst of which we dwell, and let go of it with fear and doubt.

Everything assumes, therefore, an entirely disproportionate stature, for the simple reason that we have no memory of all the far greater things on the other side of sleep and death.

Our very physical bodies become of paramount importance, and at all costs we seek to preserve them. We are afraid of our feelings and emotions, for we seem in them to dwell in a region of great impermanence. They are here today and are gone tomorrow. We cherish ardently our minds, for they seem as solid and matter-of-fact as our physical bodies, though of another mode of consciousness. Our minds and our bodies are everything to us, and we seek to base our living upon them.

The result is that we crave without finding means to satisfy our cravings. Instead of lifting up our eyes unto the hills whence cometh the help of our higher consciousness, we turn to the mind, and try to assuage our thirst with pride. We turn to the feelings and the emotions, and try to assuage our thirst with sensations which must ever become more and more gross so as to stimulate our increasingly jaded palates.

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

Sex has become Imprisoned

Sex is a Sacrament

On every Plane Sex is at Work

Ever the Immanent Creative Power

Each one of us alone is a Creator

• Thus is it that the whole conception of sex, infinitely marvellous as it is and gloriously beautiful, has in us become small, selfish, uncontrolled, and imprisoned within the narrow confines of the physical plane itself. True indeed, the physical sexual act itself is the faint yet wonderful reflection of the Creative Activity of God. It is a marvellous sacrament reflecting its brother-sacraments which ascend right up to the very Throne of God Himself. But how is it used by most ?

It is a terrible insult to the whole spirit of sex—of the Two becoming One in order that the One may become Two. On every plane of consciousness sex is at work. The One Silence becomes two Silences, and this symbol-truth of Yoga involves the very loftiest conceptions of cosmic sex. And then the Sound becomes two and many, so that the notes of a scale are the children of the union of the two aspects of Sound. So is it with the colours of the rainbow which are the children of the Light in its dual aspect.

I am well aware that we read in many books of that which is sexless or a-sexual. In The Secret Doctrine there is much on this theme. Yet, so far as I have tried to understand, while there may be a One without a Second, still there is implicit in the most abstract idea of an Absolute —we are using words we cannot possibly understand—all that comes forth from the Absolute. Of course, there is no sex such as we know in these lower regions, but there is ever the immanence of creative power.

I wonder if I shall be misunderstood if I say that each one of us alone and by himself is a creator, even though for a special creative act the man-motif must unite with the woman-motif so far as regards the physical plane.

I see so clearly that we need to lay the greatest stress on the fact that in many ways a creative act increases in wonder and glory as it becomes more and more self-contained and Self-contained.

Chapter 13

SEX: A SACRAMENT OF CONSECRATION

Union : a Godly Act

The Black Marriage

Natural things

And spiritual,—who separates those two, In art, in morals, or the social drift, Tears up the bond of nature and brings death, Paints futile pictures, writes unreal verse, Leads vulgar days, deals ignorantly with men ; Is wrong, in short, at all points.

-Browning

Only with mutual understanding will right relationship be restored, and the sanctity of married life, the grace of mutual courtesy, and the fragrance of chivalry give to the world a real civilization in exchange for the veneer which passes for civilization today. —Understanding Is Happiness

Let me repeat that physical union, if permeated by and surrounded with the power and consecration of its mighty prototypes, if a sacrament and an act of reverence in that the glory of God so beautifully shines even in these mayavic regions, is not only an ecstasy of a very high type, but is a living and compelling witness to the fact that we are indeed Gods, and here and now may perform Godly acts. Sex, as we know it out here, is truly our salvation if only we could realize the fact.

Alas ! too often we make it our damnation, more especially when clouded and darkened to desolation by passion and lust. Marriage today is hardly ever a sacrament, but too often a fleeting convenience, and one of the greatest tragedies of modern life is that what should be an enduring sacrament is turned into that most terrible circumstance— the caricature of a sacrament, when dedicated forms are

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

Every Seed the Right to Flower

Let us Beware

Creation is the Blood of Life

Atmo the Reservoir or Creative Power

Through

Intervening

Planes

deliberately refused the life which is the only title to their existence. How inconceivably horrible it is that any of the great sacraments connected with these outer regions can be desecrated as is the sacrament of marriage in its fulfilment. We hear of the Black Mass. There is also the Black Marriage. Every symbol-truth of Symbolic Yoga is an assertion of the sanctity of sacrament, and of the right of every seed to grow into the beauty of its destined flower.

Let us beware of creating prisons when it is our nature to create gardens. Let us beware of being destroyers when in very truth we are creators. Let us beware of giving forth discord when the whole of Life is dedicated to Song.

We are creators. From the beginning creation is the blood of. life. Wrapt in the One Silence are Father and Mother Silence, and when the great Call goes forth that the One shall create, there begins an evolutionary process of the grandeur of which not even the greatest among us has more than a faint conception.

Out pours the creative spirit on to plane after plane of widening circumference, till we reach the confines of the planes of which we have some little information. On the plane of Atma, Will, is stored the great reservoir of creative power for all the planes below, save insofar as every plane has in fact a direct access to the ultimate fountain of power. 1

Let us think of the creative acts of the Will in terms of Nirvana, Life ; of Buddhi, Law ; of Manas, Form invisible and visible ; of Desire, that wonderful realm of attraction and repulsion, of ever unsatisfied longings, of storms and peace ; and then of what should be the final creative act of the Will in physical consciousness, the realm of the instinctive, of the universal becoming individual. Let us 1 See note on " Planes of Consciousness " in Book One, p. 116.

SEX: A SACRAMENT OF CONSECRATION

191

To the Final Creative Act of Will

What of Contraceptives ?

Sex today only a Means of Escape

Unless a Sacrament, Yoga is Disastrous

think of man the creator, learning to create for himself—if I may use the expression—though there is no real creation for oneself. Let us think of the glories which he is capable of creating, and let us contrast these with all that leads up to, or does not lead up to, marriage, and of all that follows after marriage.

How right the Roman Catholic Church is in her instinctive recoil from contraceptives as a blasphemy against the sacrament of marriage, but for the fact that woman in these days of the Kali Yuga needs protection against man. I fear we have to run the risk of the use of contraceptives for the evasion of sacred responsibilities in order that these witnesses to our present degradation may be available to guard against man's lawlessness until he learns reverence. To such ignoble expedients are we reduced !

How far is physical creation in these days from Godliness. Everything contributes to Godlessness - books, the press, the theatre, music, most forms of kiisure, dead-ness in religion, and narrowness in the arts, sciences and philosophies, and the whole setting of economic, industrial and political life. As the world is, the marvel of sex has been degraded to a means of escape from what is so terribly unreal. And the result is a world at war with itself. We are Godless when we should be Godmore.

The would-be Yogi must free himself from all this unreality and sordidness. Physical sexual activity may be his insofar as it is a sacrament and not a lust. But unless it is positively a sacrament, Yoga will be for him disastrous There is for the Yogi but one universal creative activity on whatever plane. If anywhere selfishness enters into it, on any plane, Yoga ceases to function in fact. Nor can the candle of creative activity be burned at both ends. The Yogi is in major measure intent on the higher creative activities—creative activity on the emotional plane, on the mental plane and beyond. For him creative activity on

the physical plane, apart from reproducing in physical plane matter the creations of his feelings, emotions, mind and higher consciousness, must be reduced to a minimum, if he should have any such activity at all.

Chapter 14

THE ALL-EMBRACING LINE

The Plumb-Line of Evolution

Within the Line all Standards

Naught is outside the Line

Thus he shewed me . and behold, the Lord stood upon a wall made by a plumb-line, with a plumb-line in his hand. And the Lord said unto me, Amos, what seest thou ? And 1 said, A plumb-line. Then said the Lord, Behold, I will set a plumb-line in the midst of my people Israel. Amos, VIII, 7

To sum up, let me now state again that this Line is the Divine Measure, the Yard-Stick of descent and ascent of the Life-to-be. It is the Plumb-Line of the evolutionary process, to which the whole process conforms. It is the Standard for both the highest and lowest reaches of the manifested Life, and within it are the lesser standards for the innumerable phases of growth.

Within this all-embracing Line are the Standards for the various divisions of the evolutionary process—for the ten Schemes of our Solar System, for example, for the Chains of each Scheme, for the Rounds and Globes of each Chain, and for every subdivision of these.

Indeed is this Line of inconceivable marvellousness. Naught is outside it. All is governed by it. All conforms to it. Everything is measured by it.

Chapter 15

THE CIRCLE-GLOBE: THE RING-PASS-NOT

The numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 are the successive emanations from Mother [Space] as she forms running downward her garment, spreading it upon the seven steps of Creation. The roller returns upon itself, as one end joins the other in infinitude. 1

As I watch the series of symbols, I cannot halt long at the vertical Line which determines the distance between the Centre-Point and the Circumference, for each symbol seems to flash with extraordinary rapidity into its successor. Flashing forth The Line immediately becomes the diameter of the

Sound Circle ' 2 which is the fourth great symbol in this form of Yoga.

Flashing forth its Damru : * sound to the North and to the South, to the Heavens above and to the Earths beneath, there comes into being the Circle, the Ring-Pass-Not referred to in the fifth Stanza of Dzyan—that Ring-Pass-Not which establishes, in terms of the Divine Measure or Yard-Stick, the mode of the new differentiation of our evolutionary process.

It is not merely a Circle. It is also a Globe and that is the Call to the Sea of the Unmanifest to pour within the Circle of Evolution, within a Ring-Pass-Not of Evolution, a twofold Ring-Pass-Not, which establishes the heights to

1 Commentary on Stanza IX on Cycles, quoted in T/ie Secret Doctrine, 111,231-32 (Adyar ed , V, 235)

2 See " Circle " m Book Five

3 " Shiva, the great Yogi . . is the ' God of Time/ Saturn-Cronus, as his ' drum ' Damaru, in the shape of an hour-glass, shows."—The Secret Doctrine, II, 528 (Adyar ed , IV, 70) See also page 169 where the hourglass is given for a symbol of time, the left-hand side as Consummation, or past, the right-hand side as Forthgomg, or future, blending in the Point of the Eternal Now (in this Book Two)

THE CIRCLE-GLOBE

195

The finite Limitations

The Functions of the Circle

The Compasses of God

which the evolution will proceed, and determines the depths beyond which it shall not proceed, so that it is a Ring-Pass-Not for the macrocosmic activity as well as for the micro-cosmic activity.

The Circle is measured by the Line which is the offspring of the Point in its Web-scintillation. And it is the Line which Madame Blavatsky calls the " Divine Measure, the Yard-Measure."

The Line conjures the finite from the Infinite, and the Circle—Globe as it is in reality—determines the limitations of the finite.

It is very wonderful, when you think of forms, to find that Science seems now to be reflecting that curvature ' principle which is everywhere. There are no straight lines. You will not find any straight-line triangles. I do not know what a triangle is, unless you will allow me a curved triangle. A curved square is of course quite conceivable. Straight or Euclidean geometry is now passing into the geometry of curvature. A circle down here seems to be self-contained. I have never found a circle that is self-contained. There is no question of a finite universe in these regions, for everything is expanding, and it is an expanding Circle that one has to try to understand. One must think of a Globe gradually becoming larger and larger. The spiral is a form of the Circle.

This Circle fulfils two distinct functions. It marks the frontiers of the new evolutionary process, and simultaneously draws round the Point, the Web that is a Womb, and the Line, a sea of undifferentiated matter which stirs into differentiation at the very moment of its enclosing. Thus do the Compasses of God, with one point at the Centre-Point and the other at an extremity of the Line, draw a Circle-Circumference both to describe a limitation and to fill it with a Sea of undifferentiated Life—a Sea

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

At once a Universe of Light-Sound-Form

A Sea of Men

Men-Points

The Colour of the Sea

Where is THAT?

heretofore asleep and now to be awakened by the Call, in terms of Sound, of Form, and of Light, of a God without.

At once, as I see a universe flash into my consciousness, I am conscious of almost blinding Light, of deafening Sound, of overwhelming Form. The Point vibrates into the Web that is the Womb. The Web vibrates into the Line. The Line thrills into the Circle, and flashes forth a Sound and a Colour and a Form which are to be the basic vibrations of the differentiation. A Sea which responds in its own being to this Sound and Colour and Form pours into the Globe—the Globe which includes a multitude of globes.

Of what is this Sea composed ? Of Men, of Monads, in each of whom vibrates the Sound, the Colour and the Form of the awakening.

There is a selectivity which determines the Sea. But of its nature J find myself still entirely ignorant. 1 The undifferentiated matter pours into the Circle which responds to the rhythmic beat of the God who is calling it to awaken. The whole of this evolution belongs to the fundamental Archetype of the Point, that which distinguishes this Point from all other Points, however much must be identical the primordial natures of all Points.

To bring all this down into very physical terms, if this Point be blue, it must needs attract a sea of blue Men, and their Godhead must needs be blue, even though all colours are theirs.

And if you ask me where is THAT which is the very whole of all the scales of Light, the very whole of all the scales of Sound, I can only take refuge, as even the Greatest have taken refuge, in the use of a word which lifts us out even from symbols, for no symbols are available, and say that the word THAT itself is all we can postulate.

THAT is a very good word because it means NOTHING.

1 See note at the end of this chapter.

I cannot tell you the extraordinary bliss of experiencing the consciousness, with a certain measure of development in the meditation, of that primordial beginning. In that Universal Yoga in the lower kingdoms of nature, there is nothing more wonderful than to feel that each single creature is performing his Yoga within the caress, the blessing, the unfoldment of the Universal Yoga which is God. It induces a new reverence for life.

THE FLOWER-PETAL COSMIC SEA l

Each Petal itself Suppose you try to project yourself into the beginnings,

a [Lotus] Flower t ne first impression is this sea of cosmic dust . . An expanse of cosmic unconsciousness is another way of saying the same thing, and in that expanse of cosmic unconsciousness, you perceive the semblance of a flower of which each speck of dust is a petal . . . The sea has the whole appearance of a sea because it breathes ; it is rhythmic in its expression It is, as you look at it, a flower and the flower has an infinitude of petals, so when you project yourself into the beginning, there is this vast flower-sea, and each constituent element is a petal and also, of course, a flower itself.

Into that sea comes a God ... His major constituent elements are twofold—Movement and Light ... A God awake knocks upon the consciousness of an infinitude of Gods asleep, as the God who was awake a myriad light-years ago, aeons ago, knocked upon the doors ... of our own Godfulness . . . We use the spark idea for the beginning, the flame idea for a particular process of unfoldment and the fire idea for the fulfilment.

That unfoldment which takes place as God awakens our Divinity within us is ... partly expansion, the normal mode, and partly explosion . . . The Path of Holiness is the explosion type of growth because of the suddenness of the expansions of consciousness.

1 From a Talk on Education given by the Author.

Chapter 16

THE SEA OF MEN IN THE CIRCLE

A New Symphony of Evolution

Jacob's Ladder

The Ultimate Creative Word

We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown. We have devised profound theories to account for its origin. At last we have succeeded in reconstructing the creature that made the footprint. And lo ' it is our own. —Eddington

Every diamond, every crystal, every plant and star has its own individual soul, besides man and animal . . . There is a hierarchy of souls from the lowest forms of matter up to the World Soul —G. H. Fechner

The raga of a new Life sounds forth. The motif of a new symphony of evolution vibrates through cosmos, through the cosmic sea.

. . . The earth was without form, and void ; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

Thus is said in that wonderful Book of Genesis, which so truly depicts the Yoga of a Forthgoing, the Yoga of a a Godhead sending forth the Men of the Sea on their appointed way, to climb rung-kingdom after rung-kingdom of the Ladder which stretches from the dust of the unconscious up to the diamond of the Self-conscious. And as I see the picture of this climbing, I am reminded of Jacob's Dream l which so extraordinarily sets forth in detail the beginning, way, and end of an evolutionary process.

The Word of the Line is spoken, and the Words of myriad upon myriad of Monads echo in response. I use

THE SEA OF MEN IN THE CIRCLE

199

'From Manhood to Godhead

Men-to-be

Men-Men

God-Men

My own projected Word

the word " Men " or " Monads," for I see in this vast domain of awakening Life Men and Men and Men— Men as we know Men in the human kingdom, Men as we have yet to know them in the kingdoms beyond us, Men as we have still to recognize them in every sub-human kingdom about us. Around me are myriad forms beginning to lisp their Words. 1 Around me in all the worlds are a myriad Men learning through sounds and forms and colours to speak Life's language, and to know the very heart of language in its ultimate creative Word.

In the mineral kingdom are Men. In the vegetable kingdom are Men. In the animal kingdom are Men. We of the human kingdom are Men. And upwards stretches the Ladder of Manhood until it reaches Godhead.

There are the Men who are not yet men— as we watch them growing within the Universal Yoga provided for their earlier wanderings.

There are the Men who are men—as we watch them infinitely slowly attaining their individualized Yogas from out the Universal Yoga.

There are the Men who are Gods- as we watch from afar the splendid denizens of the " Men beyond mankind/' to use the expressive phrase of Mr. Fritz Kunz. There is the Man who is Godhead—as we glimpse through these symbols.

To me it is more than marvellous that as I look out from the windows of my consciousness, I see around me my own projected Word, and the Word of every other thing that lives and moves and has its being in this cosmos of the manifest. Here am I. Around me in myriad forms, at myriad stages of evolution, are " Men " seeking to speak their Words, and with them I am learning to speak mine. The mineral kingdom teaches me, for its Word is mine. The vegetable kingdom teaches me, for its Word is mine.

i See " Alphabets'' in Book Five.

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIAN!

The Man-Motif

Each Kingdom Part and Parcel of Man's Evolution

The

Interdependent

Man-Family

Right Relationship

The animal kingdom teaches me, for its Word is mine. The human kingdom teaches me, for its Word is mine. The superhuman kingdoms teach me, for their Words are mine. The very air teaches me, the earths, the fires and the waters—all teach me, for their Words are mine. And the Silence-Darkness teaches me, for its Word is mine.

It is so true that Man precedes all other growth that one sometimes wonders how there can be any doubt in the matter. The Secret Doctrine, of course, emphasizes the fact in several passages, as for example in the " Preliminary Notes " to the Stanzas of Dzyan. 1 Man precedes all other forms because he is the evolutionary process so far as his order is concerned, though there are other orders with central motifs other than the Man-motif, as, for example, the whole of the Deva or Angel evolution.

Each kingdom of nature is part and parcel of Man's evolution, and as we gaze upon these kingdoms and their inhabitants, we are gazing upon Men evolving through varying forms of externalization. There is no ultimate distinction between Men in the human kingdom and Men in the kingdoms beneath Man, though it is true that in each kingdom there are individualities belonging to different orders of evolution.

And I become impressed by the fact that as I look out upon the world I see a Man-family rather than a human family—a Man-family extraordinarily interdependent. Each member depends upon every other member for his growing, and man-Man needs God-Man, animal-Man, vegetable-Man, mineral-Man and elemental-essence-Man for his growing, and no less vice versa.

This means that Right Relationship—so well expressed

by the Samskrit word Dharma—needs to pervade the

whole of the life of the family, and the fact that it does

not is the cause of every problem, every misery, that

1 Note comment on these Stanzas in " Alphabets " in Book Five.

THE SEA OF MEN IN THE CIRCLE

201

His own Blood-Brother

"Ye are Gods'

besets the living world. The great Law of Adjustment is set at naught, and only as it is sought to be honoured will peace, prosperity and happiness return.

Let me say that this form of Yoga is very specially designed to enable its votaries to perceive with awakened consciousness that Universal Brotherhood is real and immanent. If the student of this form of Yoga is beginning to perceive that every living thing in every kingdom of nature is his own blood-brother, if he reaches this stage with Yoga-clarified eyes, then has he begun to know this Yoga, for he will reverence and cherish accordingly. Said one of the greatest of all Elder Brothers : "You be all of one blood, one source, one goal. Know this truth and live it." 1 And He mentioned various kingdoms of life—from the Elder Brothers Themselves, the Supermen, through men righteous and erring, to the younger brothers—animals, flowers and trees. The magnificent code of living He set forth in such words as these : " Great elder brothers shall you be, if you will, protecting all younger than yourselves blessing them with your tender, wise and strong compassion, giving ever more as those to whom your compassion is due are more and more behind you on the pathway of Life."

When the Christ said : " Ye are Gods," J He was addressing the whole of Life in every realm of its expression. No less is this form of Yoga designed to enable its votaries to perceive in some measure the universal permeation through the differentiation of every single atom, or rather Monad, of it.

1 A Message from an Elder Brother.

2 When questioned by the Jews as to the blasphemy of saying, " I and my Father are one "... Jesus answered them, " Is it not written in your law, I said. Ye are Gods ? "—John II, 30, 34. The reference quoted by the Christ is to be found in Psalms LXXXII, 6 : " I have said, Ye are Gods ; and all of you are children of the most High."

Chapter 17

LIFE ETERNAL SELF-FULFILLED

Cultivate imagination to the point of vision.

—Blake

The great and mighty Hush

Constructive Negation

As I examine this particular symbol of Yoga—the Circle-Globe—I find myself becoming immersed in a condition of consciousness which curiously reflects that great and mighty hush separating the Consummation from the Forthgoing in the symbol of the Point. There seems to be a hush connected with every symbol at a certain stage of its manifestation, or in relation to a preceding or succeeding symbol. And when we come to the Circle-Globe this hush is very marked until the Svastika begins to circle on its appointed way. The appearance of the horizontal Line is as an electric flash, to be immediately followed by a renewal of the hush which preceded its appearance.

I note, in connection with each hush, that the sense of Time entirely disappears, as does also the sense of Space, and of Spirit and Matter. Each hush is an intriguing expression of a most potent and constructive negation, for be it remembered that there is no less positiveness in negation than in affirmation, no less affirmation in negation than in what we call affirmation. A hush such as I am able to perceive becomes a kind of indispensable setting or background for the Movement to follow. There can be no Movement without its background or setting of No-Movement with all its fascinating hush-ness, with its No-Movement antithesis. I often feel myself constrained to think of

203

The No-Symbol Ultimate

Life is a Naught—is an All

this hush-motif as an ever-present memory of Silence, of Darkness, of Formlessness, so that these are ever with us, ever penetrate the most microscopic process of evolution. The hush is the memory of the primordial, of that which is progenital, of the very creative spirit itself. The hush is the memory of Father-Mother, the intimation of the immanence of Father-Mother, almost an incarnation of the Silent Watcher, a No-Symbol of the Ultimate Presence.

A No-Symbol ? Yes ; I attach as much importance in these inner regions of consciousness to the No-Symbol Ultimate as to the Symbol-Ultimates which form the theme of this book. I wish that some day I could write on The Yoga of No-Symbol. While I am penetrated by these inner regions I think I could. But as I return to earth I become paralyzed with an absence of that No-Language whereby alone I could describe the No-Symbol of that which transcends the very formless itself.

The moment I enter the regions--if at all ! have any right to call them regions, but what can I do otherwise—of consciousness which is Hush I find that only as I affirm that Life comes from nowhere, is nowhere, goes nowhere, is a Naught, can I dare rightly to assert that Life is, has its supreme origin, its compelling destiny, is an All. I must swing my pendulum of perception between an affirmation and a negation with regard to very Life itself about the existence of which we have no other recourse in these outer regions than to say that it is axiomatic. But in certain states of consciousness only a swinging between pairs of opposites can give even a modicum of understanding. Between a Yes and a No I must hover poised, and in the poise, lies Truth.

Chapter 18

THE TRIANGULARITIES 1

Every manifested God is spoken of as a Trinity. The joining of these three Aspects, or phases of manifestation, at their outer points of contact with the Circle, gives the basic Triangle of contact with Matter, which, with the three Triangles made with the Lines traced by the Point, thus yields the Divine Tetractys, sometimes called the Kosmic Quaternary, the three divine Aspects in contact with Matter, ready to create. These, in their totality, are the Oversoul of the kosmos that is to be/ —Annie Besant

Now as the Ring-Pass-Not flashes forth, it is to be perceived that the Men of which the Sea is composed are characterized in particular by what I must call triangularity.

There are | find myself hesitating as I suggest that Man, and

other Series of

Symbols therefore God, must be regarded as a triangularity, as

threefold in nature. The moment I think of one particular * figure I think of another figure. I perceive no figure either markedly or, still less, exclusively characteristic of Man and God. True, I have singled out a series of symbols for your examination, for they constitute a definite Ladder down and up which Men and Gods move. 3 But there are doubtless many other series ; and we must be careful, I think, not to allow ourselves to become imprisoned within the limitations of any particular figure, or series of figures.

* In the Turiya state the Triangle is in the Yogi and is felt. Below that state it must have form for representations.— The Secret Doctrine, III, 542 (Adyared , V, 515).

• A Study in Consciousness, Introduction.

3 See the unfoldment of the symbols in the various kingdoms of life and form, as shown in Book Five. Also, Introduction to A Study in Consciousness,

THE TRIANGULARITIES

205

Ananda —the Point

Chit— the Web-Womb

Sat— the Line

Three Great Rhythms

Jamas is Tension

Saltva is Tone

Rajas is Movement

But the threefold concept of Man and God is so general that I have felt I might adopt it. 1

In his aspect of God, man incarnates the Trinity of Being. He is Ananda, as the Samskrit word is, the very Will of the All-One, formless, yet perfectly poised between Being and Non-Being. He is the Silence and the Darkness, the Point in this form of Symbolic Yoga.

He is Chit, the Will of the All-One in Form. He is Forthgoing, Wisdom, as He is sometimes called, Progenitor of knowledge. He is the Web that is the Womb in this form of Symbolic Yoga.

He is Sat, the Creative Spirit, the Will of the All-One in Movement. He is Truth, which is the projection of Being. He is the Line in this form of Symbolic Yoga.

In His aspect of man, God, with these three great rhythms, veils the excess of their Glory in the well-known attributes which reflect the Divine Trinity :

He is lamas, the reflection of Ananda, the unruffled, perfectly reflecting, immobile sea of consciousness, resistant, and seemingly unchanging.

He reflects the Will of the All-One by resisting it. Tamas is Tension.

He is Sattva, the reflection of Chit, the sea of consciousness reproducing in a myriad forms the Wisdom-Forms of the All-One, moved by purpose and design.

He reflects the Wisdom of the All-One by reproducing it. Sattva is Tone.

He is Rajas, the reflection of Sat, the sea of con -sciousness wave-tossed, swaying, disturbed, perhaps turbulent, but sending its life-waves down into its deep.

He reflects the Truth of the All-One by seeking it. Rajas is Movement.

See note on " The Three Life-Streams " on p. 213.

Chapter 19

THE 47TH PROPOSITION OF EUCLID

To Pythagoras is attributed the discovery of the 47th Proposition of Euclid, which now forms the jewel of the I P M in English Masonry, and is the basis not only of a great portion of exoteric geometry but, in a mystical sense, of the whole system of the Mysteries, and indeed of the universe itself. '

—C. W. Leadbeater

Equilateral or | fj nc | myself writing of trianqularities without counting

Right-angled J

Triangle the real cost of the word. What do I really mean by

Triangularities ? Frankly, I do not know. The idea of 44 three " is manifold, and while one naturally inclines to the equilateral mode, I am not at all sure that I should not be nearer to the truth were I to conceive of each triangularity as of the nature of the triangle described in the great 47th Proposition, so-called of Euclid, but really of Pythagoras, wherein it is stated that the square described on the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares described on the other two sides.

What in fact is the square on the hypotenuse, which is to say, what is the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle ? What cosmic symbol is a right-angled triangle ? The Right-Angle | t j s> o f course , the right-anqle which is the essence

is the Essence J 3

of the triangle. The other two angles are sequential.

Symbol of the j ne right-angle is constituted of a vertical and a hori-

Logos * ^

zontal line meeting in a point. The point is the ultimate essential, and the angle is the immediate esssential, of the triangle. I am, therefore, inclined to believe that while

THE 47TH PROPOSITION OF EUCLID

207

Life-Force Form-Force

Vivification Manifestation

Achieved Equilibrium

the equilateral triangle represents the Trinity conception of Life, in all the perfect equilibrium which the Trinity represents, the right-angled triangle takes us a step further into manifestation, giving us the vertical Line of the Divine Measure, the horizontal Line which represents the Descent into the matter-motif, the passing from divine consciousness into man-consciousness, and in the hypotenuse, the Line of the First Logos vivifying at a particular point the ascending individuality.

I then assume that the vertical Line represents the Third Logos, while the horizontal Line represents the Second Logos, the former the life-force, the latter the form-force.

In terms of this interpretation, what then do we mean when we say that the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides ?

I think we mean that the force of the First Logos (Third Life Wave) is, at the moment of its contact with the ascending unfoldment, in perfect proportion to the combined force of the Line of Vivification (the Third Logos) and the Line of Manifestation (the Second Logos), in other words, to the combined force of the First and Second Life Waves. I see in this a very profound truth expressed as an aspect of the Law of Adjustment. There is a very perfect adjustment between the life-power of the ascending individuality and the life-power of the descending First Logos, so that out of the right-angled triangle emerges the equilateral triangle of achieved equilibrium.

Chapter 20

SQUARING" THE CIRCLE

Square r heart of

Right-angled

Triangle

The Circle Projects the Square

O square thyself for use ; a stone that may Fit in the wall is not left in the way.

—Ancient Persian Inscription

The square [a right-angled jewel in Masonry] indicates the Third Outpouring of divine force, from the First Logos, the First Person of the Trinity.' -~C.W.L.

Intimately connected with this right-angled symbol of manifesting Life and its contingent squares is the representation of this symbol in terms of globes or circles rather than of squares. In other words, the Square of the Circle which we call the Hypotenuse is the sum of the Squares of the Circles on the other two sides. It is literally true. I have seen it.' 2

Most interestingly, it would seem that the whole problem of squaring the Circle depends, for at least one of its solutions, upon the basis of a right-angled triangle, with the Square idea as its heart. This solution is due to Archimedes, the Egyptians achieving the same result by a still more complicated mathematical process.

Indeed is it true that, from the standpoint of this form of Yoga, Square and Circle are identical. Essentially one, since they are potentially interchangeable forms, nevertheless the Square is a projection from the Circle, the Circle in a state of manifestation, so that the figure of a Square

1 See note at the end of Chapter 28 of this Bock Two. See " Euclid " in Book Five.

SQUARING" THE CIRCLE

209

Symbol of Law

A Centre from which no Yogi can err

Js the Circle •also a Triangle ?

A " Man " in Everything

within a Circle, or a Circle resting on a Square, represents a mode of manifesting Life.

But I am here using the word " square " in its aspect of a right-angled four-sided figure. This is an extension of the pure right-angle which from time immemorial has been regarded as the symbol of Law, Righteousness, Justice.

And when its point becomes the centre of a Circle and the meeting-point of the two great Lines, then it takes on the mighty characteristic of a sacred spot, combining with its extension into rectangularity within the Ring-Pass-Not of the Circle to form a Centre and a Square from which no instructed Yogi can err.

May I just suggest that the very Circie uself has, in a dimension beyond those of which we have some cognizance, its own triangularity with its central point as one "side," its radius as a second "side," and its circumference as a third " side " ? There is very much more in this than at first meets the eye, but I fear it will not be profitable to pursue further what is a most fascinating pathway of research.

While I do not for a moment say it is right—nothing is right—still at the same time it is an exercise which stretches the consciousness, and it does not do any harm provided it is found interesting, and provided it seems to lead more deeply into the real.

The fact of the matter is that the more one becomes impregnated with the spirit and even the forms of the symbols the more one tends to perceive them everywhere. It becomes impossible to look at anything without seeing a symbol, indeed all the symbols, in it. Furthermore, one cannot look at anything without perceiving that one is looking at an individuality—a Man, may I say ? I am afraid lest this seem so extravagant as to cause a sense of repulsion ; and yet perhaps there is more truth in it than at first meets the eye. I must certainly say that I see in every geometrical

figure a symbol of Man, of Man within a Law, of Man in terms of his evolutionary progress. Geometry a | a m the symbols, each symbol, and they are " I."

Science of Life

If we could have a perfect set of symbols setting forth in detail the stages of the evolutionary process, symbolizing each stage, that is, we should have a symbolic picture of the growth of Man from his unconsciousness to his unfolded consciousness. And I am sure that whether we think in terms of Euclidean or of non-Euclidean geometry we are thinking in terms of symbols which depict Will, and Light, and Law, which is to say, Life. And it would indeed be well if some day a genius were to arise able positively to relate every Euclidean or non-Euclidean figure to an aspect of Man's unfolding life. Geometry must become a science of life, of everyday life, as much as domestic science. And so must every science and every art. Reality is lacking in many of the arts and sciences, and therefore in the college and school curricula. Were these curricula related to life they would cause colleges and schools to be great centres of inspiration instead of being, as many of them still are, and as the curriculum for the most part is, a reflection* of Dickens' Dotheboys Hall.

Chapter 21

THREE LIFE-STREAMS OF THE ONE GOD

Asleep within each Man dwell the Three Logot

The Call

Life Three-in-One

When God is regarded as the evolver of the universe, the threefold character comes out very clearly . . . existence, bliss and intelligence, the three Logoi severally showing these forth with all the perfection possible within the limits of manifestation. In man, these aspects are developed in the reversed order —intelligence, bliss, existence - ~" existence " implying the manifestation of the divine powers. —Trie Ancient Wisdom

Asleep within each Man—undifferentiated, that dwell the three great Logoi, or Life-Streams of the One God, and their counterparts in the gunas, or essential qualities, with which the student of Hinduism is so familiar. These are asleep in these Men without minds, though divine in their consciousness.

So the Logoi who are God call to the Logoi who are Men. The Logos Self-conscious as Three calls to the Logos unconscious as Three. And at this point I think I should try to explain what I mean by these Logoi and how They seem to function.

I would again refer you to Dr. Besant's great work entitled A Study in Consciousness, and to Bishop Lead-beater's Man Visible and Invisible, and also his Christian Creed for a wealth of detail regarding these mighty Forces.

There are three aspects of the Eternal Life—the first is the Life that creates; the second is the Life that builds ; l the third is the Life that vitalizes. All three are in the One Life, and all three are One.

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

The Line that Vitalizes

The Web-Womb that Builds

The Point that Creates

The Coming forth in Time

Yet, when we look from below upwards, we see that each component part or organism or Monad or Man in a Sea of Undifferentiation receives its first impetus from the vitalizing third aspect of the Eternal Life, so that the nature of each is projected outwards instead of remaining inturned. Indeed, the Third Logos without sucks out the Third Logos within—if I may be pardoned the expression. It would almost seem as if the projection of the Third Logos causes a relative vacuum round about each Monad or Man, causing the Life within the Monad to leap out in response. This activity is represented by the symbol of the Line.

Then, the Monad being awake as to its nature, the second impetus goes forth from the form-building second aspect of the Eternal Life, and the awakened nature streams forth into innumerable forms, each series with its archetypal counterparts in the great Progenitor, the Point. This activity is represented by the symbol of the Web that is the Womb.

Then, at a certain stage of the evolutionary process, forms and nature reach that stage of refining at which the higher forces of Life may be begun to be sent forth in ever-increasing intensity. At this point, the third impetus goes forth from the creative first aspect of the Eternal Life in its aspect of Divine Individuality, universal though it has always been in its aspect of Divine Universality. This activity is represented by the symbol of the Point.

So does the Logos which is One and Three pervade a Sea of the Unmanifest. Essentially, there is no time division of Its aspects. The Third aspect does not come first in relation to the Sea of the Unmanifest, nor the Second aspect second, nor the First aspect third. Yet it is true to say that the influence of the Line, the Third Logos, is the first actively to pervade the Sea of the Unmanifest; while the influence of the Web that is the Womb, the Second Logos,«the form matrix, is the second

THREE LIFE-STREAMS OF THE ONE GOD

213

The Voice of Individuality

The Voice of Form

The Voice of Life

Waiting,

Fashioning,

Calling

Substans-Form -Life

actively to pervade the sea of the now manifest; and while the influence of the Point, the First Logos, all-containing,^ takes upon Itself the form of Divine Individuality and awaits the ascent of Man until he knows himself, then touching, with Its own Divinity, the individuality which at last Man has begun to achieve and therefore to know.

The First Aspect, or Logos, is the Voice of the very Essence of Life itself, marking the beginning of the assumption by Man of the Crown of his Divinity. As Man begins to know the nature of his own individual Essence of Life, so does the First Aspect pour down upon him Its Divine Illumination whereby he shall ascend into that Self-conscious Individuality-Universality in which he assumes his Godhead.

The Second Aspect, or Logos, is the Voice of the Form of Life, of the Matrix or Divine Cradle of Life, fashioning the forms wherein Man shall climb upwards to his destiny, to crown himself God.

The Third Aspect, or Logos, is the Voice of the Life of Man, awakening him to Self-consciousness, and sending him forth on his way through the Cradle to the Crown.

So may we say that the First Logos waits, the Second Logos fashions, and the Third Logos awakens.

May we regard the First Logos as the universal Substans—ever universal, but at a divine moment individual—the Second Logos as the universal Form, the Third Logos as the universal Life ? Yet how can I suggest differences of function and appearance, when there is neither difference of function nor of appearance from the standpoint of the Above? Only because we look do we perceive these illusions.

THE THREE LIFE-STREAMS

One must distinguish between the changes of Consciousness through which the First Logos, the One without a Second, becomes the dual Second Logos, from which emerges the Creative Activity, or Third Logos, and the changes in Form whereby these Three Logoi, manifesting in reverse order, create, preserve and regenerate a universe in the Three Great Life-Waves.

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

The first three symbols of this form of Yoga—Point, Web,

Line obviously refer to Logoic unfoldment. After the formation

of the Circle, balance between Life and Form, we find in reverse order the unfoldment of Form, ;.e., horizontal Line which makes the Cross, then the Svastika, followed* by the perfected form— the Lotus. Both perpendicular Line and equal-armed Cross are symbols of the Third Logos. Is the Cross the fulfilment of the Line ? Is the Svastika the fulfilment of the Web ? Is the Lotus the fulfilment of the Point ? Compare A Study in Consciousness, The Christian Creed, etc.

;: :• -:- #

I puzzle very much why Figure 3 in The Chakras, and also the same figure in The Christian Creed, is drawn anti-clockwise. I feel impelled to draw it thus :

PHYSICAL PLANE

Chapter 22

THE FUNCTIONS OF THE CIRCLE

Defining the Extent of Evolutionary Heights and Depths

A Flashing Interplay between Centre and Circumference

He drew a circle and shut me out— Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout ; But Love and I had the wit to win — We drew a circle that took him in.

Edwin Markham

It is important to emphasize, in connection with the functioning of the Ring-Pass-Not, the fact that not only does it, through the Line, establish the nature and limitation of the evolutionary architecture in the matter of its ascent into the heights, but it also determines the limits of descent. I am not prepared to say that such limitations are rigid. I believe that the limitations of height may be transcended, and I think we have evidence that there has already been a penetration below those depths which were originally designed to be ultimate frontiers on the pathway of Forth-going. But in general the Ring-Pass-Not fulfils the twofold function of defining the extent both of evolutionary heights and evolutionary depths.

Furthermore, it seems to me that the Ring-Pass-Not also acts in some mysterious way to maintain a kind of interplay with the Centre, so that there is ever a throwing forth of Light and Sound and Form in terms of Colours 1 and Notes and Shapes from the Centre to the Circumference and from the Circumference back to the Centre. This flashing interplay is part of the evolutionary process, and directly and ceaselessly acts upon the evolving individualities. 1 See Chapter 6 of Book Three.

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

A gorgeous Scintillation of Colour

Giver of Life to your World

The Line-Streak of Divine Fire

And as an interpenetrating background we notice the Blue of the vertical Line, the Green of the Sea, and the Crimson of the horizontal Line, so that, looked upon from outside, the scintillation is supremely gorgeous, especially if we add to all this the majestic cascades of music which thrill the whole atmosphere and make it vocal, not only with its own inherent music, but with the rhythmic chantings of the Devas of Sound, who sing with notes we know not of. So, too, do the Devas of Colour flood the atmosphere with throbbing waves of all the colours we know, and of innumerable other colours we do not yet know. And so do the Devas of Form play Form-melodies and symphonies on those wondrous Form-instruments which entirely elude my understanding.

As Dr. Besant writes in her Evolution of Life and Form :

Colours and notes alike result from vibrations, and are determined by the number of vibrations occurring in a unit of time. As the universe is built by vibrations, colour and sound are factors of the universe at large, and every region is said to have its own colour; the God of that region has his colour—dependent on his vibratory force—which he imprints on the region over which he rules ; so that, if a Rishi looks at the solar system from a higher plane, he not only hears the seven fundamental notes of music, making " the harmony of the spheres," but he sees a gorgeous display of colours, as the sphere of every great Deva, with his own colour, interpenetrates the others, yielding an iridescent splendour of interfering radiances, the marvellous " rainbow that is round the throne of God."

I am hoping that these two symbols of the Line and the Circle will remind you of your own power to be a giver of life to a world, your own individual world, and, as you grow in spiritual stature, to the whole world, and in later ages, as in the case of the Lord Buddha, for example, to a whole universe of worlds and more.

Think of the Line—the streak, I might almost call it— of Divine Fire, round which as in a flash gathers the Circle, in its turn to be filled as in a moment by the Sea waiting the Word which Line and Circle speak together.

THE FUNCTIONS OF THE CIRCLE

217

Stand erect as the Line of Power

Flash forth the Line

Encircle your World

You are a Line of Divine Fire or Light. In you the Life of the third aspect of the Logos pulsates with unimaginable power. Stand erect as the Line. Flash forth your life into your surroundings, into persons, into principles, into communities, into nations, into faiths, into races, into causes, into music, into song, into speech, into painting, into sculpture, into education, into politics, into commerce, into the care of the younger kingdoms. Make one or more than these a sea of life within the Circle of your kingdom.

Stand forth as the Line, flashing through a world you would conquer to its happiness.

Encircle that world with your will, your wisdom, your active love, as God drew a Circle to enclose His universe.

Need I say more as to the application of this stage of the Yoga with which I am concerned ?

Chapter 23

THE CROSS WITHIN THE CIRCLE

The Cross of Evolution

Vitahzation Manifestation

Then the Point, with Line revolving with it, vibrates at right angles to the former vibration, and thus is formed the Cross, still within the Circle, the Cross which thus " proceedeth from the Father and the Son," the symbol of the Third Logos, the Creative Mind, the divine Activity now ready to manifest as creator. Then He manifests Himself as the active Cross, or Svastika. 1

—Annie Besant

So do we come to the fifth great symbol of the Cross 2 within the Circle formed by the horizontal Line which, together with the vertical Line, establishes the Cross. We are at the Cross, the hush as the evolutionary process begins ; for immediately following is the symbol of the Svastika," 1 the whirling Cross which embodies nature's laws at work, and the friction-imbued interplay—play it indeed is—between the evolving Monads.

The vertical Line is the Line of Vitalization, Vivification. The horizontal Line is the Line of Manifestation, Fecundation. I invite your attention to The Secret Doctrine (II, 579 ; Adyar ed., IV, 119) wherein it is said, quoting the Bhagavata Parana :

. . . the Eternal Circle ... on whose plane lie crossways ail the Gods, creatures, and creations born in Space and Time . . .

And I draw your attention to the significant word " crossways."

1 A Study in Consciousness, Introduction.

- See notes at the end of this chapter ; and '' Cross '' and '' Svastika " tn Book Five.

THE CROSS WITHIN THE CIRCLE

219

A Midpoint of Ascent and Descent

The Rod of Power

A Magnetic Equator

The Forces of Fructification

The symbol of the horizontal Line is connected with the descent of the First Logos, 1 to meet the ascending Second Logos, and is itself a kind of middle point separating one from the other two aspects of the descent, and one from the other two aspects of the ascent—two aspects of the Forthgoing, or Nivritti Marga, and two aspects of the Return, the Pravritti Marga.

The vertical Line vitalizes. The horizontal Line equilibrates.

Can you complete the Cross within the Circle by simultaneously expressing the spirit of the two Lines—a beautifully poised lightning flash ? You become as the Rod of Power,- the Rod of Vitalization, and flash in splendid brilliance from its northern to its southern pole. You can almost here the crackling of its electric potencies. You are immensely alive with Life, with the third aspect of the Logos. But there is need for the deflection of the Life to permeate the evolutionary Globe as manifestation begins. And in some inexplicable way this horizontal Line performs the functions of what we call the Equator— itself a Line of high magnetic power dividing in ways unknown to me the northern from the southern hemisphere.

The horizontal Line symbol similarly divides the northern universe from the southern, and profoundly modifies the currents set in motion by the vertical Line. I wonder if I dare suggest that by virtue of the horizontal Line the forces of fructification work from above downwards in the southern region, but from below upwards in the northern region. Which is to say that in the southern region universality is at work, while in the northern region individuality is at work. The whole matter is exceedingly complicated, and I can only put it before you in enigmatic form. 3

1 See Chapter 19 of this Book Two.

2 See " Rod of Power " m Book Five.

J See Chapter 32 of this Book Two, and " Directions " in Book Five.

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

The Cross is a

Universal

Symbol

The Christian Cross

From Birth to Ascension

It is, of course, customary and traditional to confine the Cross idea to the human kingdom, as also to regard it as essentially a Christian symbol. In fact, it is a universal symbol, dating from the beginning of Time and finding a place in most of the great religions. As for its special relationship with the human kingdom, while from one point of view it is true, since it is a symbol of those crucifixions whereby Man swings between Life's twofold aspect—spirit and matter—yet is it fundamental in all kingdoms of nature.

Why does the Christian Cross have its horizontal line so high up on the vertical line ? It is a matter of cosmic significance. It is the beginning of the Lotus. You have first the vertical Line, and then you have the Circle, followed by the Greek Cross of Lines equally bisected. Then you have the Christian Cross, the beginning of the coming upwards from the root, stem down. Then you have the Tau which is the Lotus Flower, whereas the Christian or Latin Cross is the Lotus Bud.

The vertical Line is Father, the Cross is Father-Mother, and the Svastika is the Son. The Christian Cross is the Lotus Bud and belongs especially to man, is man, whereas the Tau is the Lotus Flower and belongs especially to God, and is God.

We are accustomed to imagine that the great episodes of growth l which have as their Christian terms Birth, Baptism, Transfiguration, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension," and have other names in other faiths, are entirely human in their nature, and represent the marvellous workings of the First Logos in ascending Man. So they do. But I have no doubt whatever that they are episodes in every kingdom of nature/ and that we could trace each one in the life of every Man as he passes through kingdom

1 See the chapter on Initiations in Book Four. ' See " The Master Ascended " in Book Five. •* See " Spirals of Evolution " in Book Five.

THE CROSS WITHIN THE CIRCLE

221

Kingship of Form

The Stages of Ascent

Christ the Symbol of the individual

after kingdom—the Birth, for example, being either his entry into the kingdom, or what I may call the beginning of the last stage in the kingdom, as we ordinarily regard the Birth when we are considering it in relation to the human kingdom.

The Ascension is always kingship— kingship of the kingdom, the conquest of its forms and their absorption into the life of the Man who has achieved.

These episodes mark the great stages of ascent in each kingdom of nature. But each kingdom is subdivided into sections, and in each section there is a minor cycle of episodes reflecting within a smaller area their greater counterparts. In the sub-human kingdoms these episodes remain outside the consciousness of the evolving Men. In the human kingdom Man becomes Self-conscious as to them only in the final cycle. One of the greatest services to humanity given by the Christ was the reminder as to the existence of these episodes, not by talking about them, but by actually living them before the eyes of the generations which came after Him.

It is curiously unfortunate that modern Christianity fails to perceive that the Christ symbolized our own individual lives, no matter to what religion we may belong, that He was telling us we too must become Christs, even Gods, and unfolded before our gaze the landmarks on the way.

A PRIMEVAL CROSS

The central atom of the molecule of the more positive forces of Vitality, and of the Primary or Christ-force from the Second Logos, " is all the time in rapid vibration at right angles to the surface . . . springing up from it to a height greater than the diameter of the disc, and then sinking below to an equal distance, but repeating this shuttle-like motion several times in a second," [a vivid instance of a Point becoming a vertical Line], The more feminine force of Kundalini is revolving steadily round and round a circle.

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

When these two forces unite or " marry/' as Bishop Leadbeater describes it in The Chakras, Chapter II, the vigour of both the vertical and horizontal motions is greatly increased, and the resultant Cross-like figure ensues.

The upper half of " the marvellously energetic upward and downward movement of the central atom " seems, says Bishop Leadbeater, "to me to bear a remarkable resemblance to the Linga which is frequently to be seen in front of the temples of Shiva in India. I am told that the Linga is an emblem of creative power, and that Indian devotees regard it as extending downwards into the earth to just the same extent as it rises above it."

THE CROSS AND THE SVASTIKA

" The Greek cross, with equal arms . , . has always been the token of the first outpouring of divine life through the Third Aspect of God, or the third member of the Trinity, called among the Christians God the Holy Ghost, and sometimes the Life-Giver, who brooded over the waters of space . . .

" Sometimes the rose is impressed upon that equal-armed cross, and then we have the Rose Croix . . . The Maltese cross is another form of it, with the arms widening or spreading out r conveying the idea that the force that is pouring out is constantly increasing. Again, we find it with flames shooting out from the ends of the cross; and when it is in active revolution, with the flames trailing at right angles to the arms of the cross, we have the well-known form called the Svastika . . . The First Outpouring, typified by the Greek cross, prepares the world for the reception of life."—C, W, Leadbeater, The Hidden Life in Freemasonry, pp. 110-11.

Chapter 24

THE SVASTIKA OR THE WHIRLING CROSS

The Cross of Salvation

The Father-Mother Cross

Svastika the Son

The Lord dwelleth in the hearts of all beings, O Arjuna, by Maya causing all beings to revolve, as though mounted on a potter's wheel. — The Bhagavad Gita, XVIII, 61

Only, while turns this wheel invisible,

No pause, no peace, no staying-place can be ,

Who mounts may fall, who falls will mount, the spokes Go round unceasingly ! —The Light of Asia

We now come to the sixth symbol of this form of Yoga—the Svastika, the revolving Cross, sometimes very beautifully called the Cross of Salvation or Well-being. 1

The Cross formed by the vitalizing and equilibrating Lines remains. Yet it revolves. How am I to reconcile the apparent contradiction ?

The Cross-spirit is the background of the Svasiika, but it projects its nature into a revolving Cross. In every symbol there is this projection, for the Father-Mother spirit in each must give forth the Son.

I think I should explain that the verticle Line would seem to be the channel of force for God the Father, while the horizontal Line is the channel of force for God the Mother, so that the Cross itself symbolizes that union of Father-spirit with Mother-spirit which, as it were, gives birth to the Svastika—the spirit of the Son, who whirls His way through the evolutionary process, is the evolutionary process.

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

Man becoming God

The Mills of God

The Fire of Evolution

The Line the Father shoots downwards, and in all simultaneity the Line the Mother manifests—may I safely say " rises "—to become with Him a fructifying Soul, a Soul to fructify souls.

In The Secret Doctrine, the horizontal symbol is taken to precede the vertical symbol, and I see clearly the significance of this. 1 I can only say that, in the vision I had, the vertical Line preceded the horizontal. Naturally, The Secret Doctrine has far higher authority trnn I, especially in view of the likelihood of a great margin of error in the case of an individual observer. But I must honestly place on record what I seemed to see.

In this symbol of the Svastika is revealed the marvellous activity of Life, of Man becoming God. Imagine in terms of fireworks a revolving Cross. You will perceive at the extremity the Ring-Pass-Not, the frontiers of its fireful-ness. You will perceive ring after ring of encircling light, and possibly also the faint suggestion of a Cross. And from the revolutions sparks fly out to form a surrounding haze of fire.

This is as nothing compared with the real whirling mass of a stupendous evolution. The Fire of Vitalization is everywhere. The Fire of Equilibration is everywhere. Surging through each Atom-Man the Life of God adjusts him to his Godhead. The mills of God grind slowly, very slowly, but they grind exceeding true, and mould each Man unceasingly, unswervingly, relentlessly, to his Divinity.

How wonderful if you can enter for a brief eternal moment into this Fire of Evolution—losing yourselves in it, expanding yourselves in it, playing in it, revelling in it, as you might in a rough sea, swaying backwards and forwards, yielding to the insistent onrushes of overpowering waves, feeling a new freedom, a new power, a new joyousness, in a sea carefree and tyrannical in its indifference. 1 See Chapter 28 of this Book Two.

THE SVASTIKA OR THE WHIRLING CROSS

225

The Wheel of the Law

Through the Kingdoms to Kingship

The Universal Yoga

From

Childhood to Mastery

15

AH that you feel in the sea you can feel infinitely more in the whirling of the Svastika, for you yourselves are part and parcel of the whirling. The Svastika l whirls because a God has set in motion the Wheel of the Law, and it is as if to its myriad spokes clung innumerable drops—the Men who are to become Gods—to be disintegrated as to their forms time after time until at last a King comes forth to conquer another kingdom.

In the kingdoms of the Elemental Essences the Lightning of God breaks and makes and breaks and makes again. So do the denizens in this kingdom live and die, and become kings.

In the mineral kingdom the earthquakes, erosions and other God-sent cataclysms shatter and form, and shatter and form again. So do the denizens in this kingdom live and die, and become kings.

In the vegetable kingdom vast upheavals and the inexorable, though slow, penetration of Time kill and renew and kill and renew. So do the denizens in this kingdom live and die, and become kings.

In the animal kingdom we speak of ruthless nature, though nature in truth is never ruthless. But in this kingdom again forms are born, live peacefully or tempestuously, and die away. And their substance, with the marks upon it of the happenings, rejoins the parent stock, sharing its experiences—new forms issuing therefrom to clothe the waiting Men. So do the denizens in this kingdom live and die, and become kings.

All this is the Universal Yoga which cares for Men who are not yet men. But in the human kingdom Men begin to become men, though never losing their Manhood, and come face to face with the Yoga which is individually theirs. Still the world and its circumstances surges round and in them. Not until the last stages of the human kingdom are

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

The Inner Will

The Gift of the Svastika

approached do men begin to become the masters of Life from having been Life's children.

By grace of the Svastika and its divine movement, at last the human form is broken never again to be put on by force of outward circumstances, but only by the power of the inner Will, at last beginning to be Self-conscious.

Can you lose and find yourselves in this cosmic process? Can you enter it as children, and in some magic way discover in it that you are kings, and so help your younger brother-kings to move more regally on their way as you will now move more regally on yours ?

This is the gift of the Svastika to you as ordained in this form of Yoga.

Chapter 25

THE MYRIAD-PETALLED LOTUS

Life of Life ! Thy lips enkindle

With their love the breath between them ,

And thy smiles before they dwindle

Make the cold air fire ; then screen them

In those locks, where whoso gazes

Faints, entangled in their mazes.

Child of Light! Thy limbs are burning

Through the veil which seems to hide them.

As the radiant lines of morning

Through thin clouds, ere they divide them ;

And this atmosphere divinest

Shrouds thee wheresoe'er thou shinest.

Fair are others : none beholds Thee ;

But thy voice sounds low and tender Like the fairest, for it folds thee

From the sight, that liquid splendour; And all feel, yet see thee never,— As I feel now, lost for ever ' 1 —Shelley

In the spirit of this whirl of Life, outward and visible signs of which we perceive in the movements of the planets and the suns, in the processions of the Zodiac, and in the restlessness of all things, from atoms to solar systems, we come to the seventh and last of this series of symbols in the form of Yoga disclosed to me by a Lord of Yoga. A Sun, a World, It is the Lotus. 3 myriad-petalled Lotus, with a shining

a God, a Man,

a Universe twelve-petalled heart, a Lotus which was in the beginning,

is now, and ever shall be, a Lotus which is a Universe, a Sun, a World, a God, a Man.

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

The All-Glory

The Archetypes shine

The Universal One

The Perfect iMirror

Where is Divinity Not ?

The Mother-Lotus

The Heart and Consummation

The Lotus-Motif Everywhere

It is a Lotus in which all Life is contained in all glory, yet in which earliest Man himself in all his beginning is no less glorious still.

It is a Lotus in which the archetypes shine forth in perfect Promise, yet in which the Godhead and all that the Godhead is yet to be shines forth in perfect Fulfilment.

It is a Lotus which is the Universal One and every Thought of His.

It is a Lotus, because the Lotus form is the supreme and perfect mirror of the fullness of Life.

Where Divinity is, there is the Lotus, and where is Divinity not?

In the second Stanza of Dzyan we almost see the marvellous setting for what therein is called Matripadma, the Mother-Lotus, the very Soul of Those who are the Mothers of worlds and suns.

. . . Where was Silence ? Where the ears to sense it ? No, there was neither Silence nor Sound; naught save Ceaseless Eternal Breath, which knows itself not.

44 Her Heart had not yet opened," it said of the Mother-Lotus, and in subsequent Stanzas there is further reference to the Eternal Mother. 1

As I gaze upon this perfect form of Divine Motherhood, I wonder how it is I did not see it as the heart of every other symbol, but see it now as their consummation. I think it is that my eyes were not yet ready to see, though it was there in its Eternity, Witness above all other witnesses to the Living Presence of the One without a Second, the One beyond all Ones, the More than Infinite One, the One behind Unmanifest and Manifest, the One who is all and more than All, the One who all things are, but whom no thing knows.

The moment you have seen that Lotus as the seventh symbol of the great symbols, you see it everywhere. You

1 See also references to the Lotus Flower, and "Motherhood" in Book Five.

THE MYRIAD-PETALLED LOTUS

229

The Lotus in Being and No-Being

The Lotus withdrew into the inward Bud

The Lotus stirred into its Outwardness

By the Ceaseless

Breath of God

The Music of the All-One

never again can perceive the Point save also in its Lotus-motif. There is, so to speak, a penetration of the Lotus idea, the Lotus metric, the Lotus measure everywhere. While it is not the Ultimate, the Point is the Ultimate, yet is the Point itself the glorification of the Lotus. I do not know where the Lotus ceases. Nowhere that I have ever seen.

Where is there aught but the Lotus in No-Being or in Being, in sun or in world, in tree or in earth, in bird or in animal, in Deva or in Man, in Svastika, in Cross, in Circle, in Line, in Web that is Womb, in Point, and in the

Infinite Beyond ?

* *

The All-One said: Let there be Silence and Darkness. And the Ceaseless Breath of God drew the Lotus into its Inwardness.

And the Lotus withdrew into the Bud, and the Bud into the Seed. And the Seed was No-where.

And the All-One said : Let Silence beget Sound, and Darkness Light. And the Ceaseless Breath of God stirred the Lotus into its Outwardness.

And the Seed came forth, and through it rippled the tiny stream of Sound and the faint movement of Light.

And above the mystery of Beinglessness came forth a Lotus Bud, stirred by the Ceaseless Breath of God. And the tiny stream of Sound became a river of music. And the faint movement of Light became a hush before the dawning of a Sun.

And the All-One said : Let My Call go forth.

And the Ceaseless Breath of God breathed upon the Lotus Bud, so that it unfolded into the full majesty of its Outwardness.

And from the Lotus Flower the music of the All-One, and all His Sound-Orders of Gods and Men and Devas, sounded forth into infinite distances, and the Light of the All-One, and all His Light-Orders of Gods and Men and

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

In Seven

Sounds and Colours and Forms

Breathed the

Ceaseless

Breath

A Ray of Colour-Sound-Form

Moved upon the Surface of the Infinite

And Infinity Heard

Enfolding in Her Petal-Wings

The Seed-Man, the Flower-God

Devas, shone into infinite distances. And the very Form itself of the All-One, and all His Form-Orders of Gods and Men and Devas, penetrated into infinite distances.

The Seven Sounds of the Inner God were heard and seen, and the Seven Colours and the Seven Forms. Each was heard and seen, for the Sounds gave forth Colour, and the Colours Sound.

In the Music of the All-One breathed the Ceaseless Breath of God, and in His Light It also breathed, and also in Hi$ Form. In the Seven Sounds and Seven Colours and Seven Forms of the Inner God breathed His Ceaseless Breath.

And within the Seven Sounds and the Seven Colours and the Seven Forms a Ray of Sound and a Ray of Colour and a Ray of Form waxed in intensity, and into these Rays the Seven Sounds and the Seven Colours and the Seven Forms pqured their power, so that the Call of the All-One was in the Ray of Sound and in the Ray of Colour and in the Ray of Form, and echoed through Infinity.

The Ceaseless Breath of God breathed forth in the Ray of Sound and in the Ray of Colour and in the Ray of Form which were the Call. And the Breath of God moved upon the surface of the Infinite and called a Finite into manifestation.

And Infinity heard. And out of Infinity the Finite faintly thrilled to the Ray of Sound and to the Ray of Colour and to the Ray of Form.

And the Mother-Lotus enfolded in Her petal-wings a finite Sea of Life, each drop of which was a Lotus Seed, containing within itself its Flower of Immortality.

And the Seed was Man. And the Flower was God. In the Mother-Lotus was the Ceaseless Breath of God, and in the Seed, and in the Flower.

And the Ray of Sound and the Ray of Colour and the Ray of Form which waxed in the Mother-Lotus waxed also in the Seeds which were drops of the Sea.

Matripadma The Lotus-Point is Matripadma resting in Her Seed,

from Seed to .

Flower yet also unfolding in Her Flower.

The Lotus-Web is Matripadma stirring in Her Seed.

The Lotus-Line is Matripadma swelling to Her Bud.

The Lotus-Circle is Matripadma swelling to Her Flower.

The Lotus-Cross within the Circle is Matripadma enfolding Lotus-Seeds of the finite Sea within Her petal-wings.

The Lotus-Svastika is Matripadma nurturing with Her Sound and with Her Light and with Her Form the Lotus Seeds, so that they swell into Lotus Buds, and at an end swell into their Matripadma and go forth no more.

Chapter 26

SOUND, COLOUR AND FORM RAYS OF THE LOTUS

Lamp of Earth ' where'er Thou movest Its dim shapes are clad with brightness,

And the souls of whom thou lovest Walk upon the winds with lightness

Till they fail, as I am failing,

Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailmg ! ' —Shelley

And the Petals of the Lotus are as the Wings of a Bird.

I am afraid this is a very inadequate rendering in words of that which I have seen and heard in colour and in sound. Indeed, it is utterly impossible for one who has not at his command the rich splendours of even the English language to think of painting the glories of this Yoga of the Consummation with the sound, colour and form words at his command. Still, perhaps, some faint idea is conveyed, and from it I hope will be fashioned in his highest consciousness, by the individual student, a splendid vision of the great sweep of an unfoldment. Every Man is But there emerges from such vision as I have had the

on a Sound,

Colour and undoubted fact that every Man, in whatever kingdom of

Form Ray .111^ in 1^1 n

nature, is characterized by the bound-Ray and Colour-Ray and Form-Ray of the universe to which he belongs, and no less both by the Ray of his archetypal order and of his Man-uniqueness.

I am hoping that in due course science will discover the sounds and the colours and the forms of each

SOUND, COLOUR AND FORM RAYS OF THE LOTUS

233

Where are the Jewels ?

Health in Light, Sound, Form

The Colour-Sound-Form of Truth

The Colour-Sound-Form of Nations

Each Child-Man

To Give Life to the Colour-Tone-Forms

human being, and of each distinctive animal plant and mineral.

I am hoping that science will in due course discover where kingship lies in every kingdom of nature to which it has access, what are the jewels of each kingdom, including the kingdom of man.

I am hoping that in due course science will discover how with light and sound, and also with form, as basis, to establish healthy living for all, and cures where healthy living has failed.

I am hoping that in due course religions will discover the colours and sounds and forms of the Universal Truth, and thus, while conceding them all to every great Repository of Truth, show how each Repository specializes in a group of colours and sounds and forms which constitute part of the Universal Truth.

I hope that nations will in due course discover special sounds and colours and forms characteristic of each race and nation, and perceive how the sounds and colours and forms of all races and all faiths constitute in fact a glorious symphony of the Universal Brotherhood.

I hope that teachers and parents will in due course discover the special sound-colour-form note that dwells in each child-Man within their care, so that while his Faith-note-colour-form, his Race-note-colour-form, his Nation-note-colour-form, his rime-note-colour-form, and other note-colour-form qualities specific to him in virtue of his surroundings and world and universe membership, may be stirred to pure expression, also may be stirred in him his own unique Man-note-colour-form, so that he may move the more quickly to his own unique Godhead within the Universal Divinity.

I hope that, wherever note-colour-forms are perceived to shine forth feebly and dully, there will be those who shall know how to give life to both notes and colours and forms.

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

Outpourings of Praise

The Perfect Flower

A Lotus of Fire

I conceive that as wisdom unfolds we shall learn to hear music everywhere, see colour everywhere, perceive form everywhere, so that, while ever making one music as from the beginning, we shall make it vaster and more glorious and true, and while ever making one light as from the beginning, we shall make that, too, more glorious and true. And so also build forms gloriously.

I am hoping that in particular all true artists, in whatever medium of revelation, will lead the way to this new world of sound and colour and form, and therefore of form. Surely is it the dedication of every artist that in his work he shall glorify the Eternal Life, and in it sing forth his Je Deum Laudamus, his Gayatri, hymns to Amen-Ra, to Ahura-Mazda, or to the Sun-God ; his hymns of praise or sutras to Purusha, the Illimitable One, to Narayana, the Self-Moving on the Waters, to Vishnu, the All-Sustainer, to Shiva, the All-Regenerator; his hymns to Hermes—wherever one turns, one finds these beautiful outpourings from Man to Godhead, a few of which are given in the last Section of this book. 1

I have suggested that the Matripadma is to be perceived in terms of Sound and Light and Form, of archetypal Sound and Light and Form, swelling from the Seed, through Bud, into a Perfect Flower of Sound and Light and Form.

But I have also seen the Lotus of Sound and Light and Form as a Lotus of Fire, with its petals as flames, and its centre as heat that is white, so that the white heat at the centre seems to send forth white flames. And in the Fire are rays of innumerable hues—Fire-Colours, and also, I venture to say, Fire-Sounds and Fire-Forms. In the Fire is the Fire-Light. In the Fire is the Fire-Sound. In the Fire is the Fire-Form. It is the Silent Watcher of its counterparts in the evolving Life, for it enfolds the 1 See " Hymns of Praise " in Book Five.

Beginning, the Way and the End, and the very Life, of all that is—manifest and unmanifest.

Indeed, I have accepted the title The Lotus Fire for this book because I think that what has perhaps impressed me most in gazing upon these symbols with their apotheosis in the Lotus Fire is the sense that Fire is the truest description we can reach for an evolutionary process. It is Light. It is Colour. It is Form. But it would almost seem as if all these three were but qualities of that Fire which renders unto each stage of the evolutionary process the things that belong to that stage. Fire renders unto Man the things that are Man's. It renders unto Kings the things that appertain to Kings. It renders unto the Gods the things that are the Gods'. It renders unto God the things that are His. It renders unto Him all things, for all things are His. So, of course, do Light and Colour and Form also. But in some special way Fire seems to minister to that purificatory intent of evolution which consists not in removing, or in what we sometimes like to call " burning away," but in adjusting, so that all things are in their right places and in their right relationships.

Fire disintegrates. Fire consumes. Fire returns. But certainly in the inner regions the inner Fires adjust, and whatever physical-plane Fire may do on the physical plane, its reality, or counterpart within, is a pure agent of our Lord the Adjuster, who is our Lord the Deliverer otherwise named.

Each symbol is a form of Fire the Adjuster. It portrays Fire in its mode of adjusting, of which burning and consuming are but physical-plane expressions of other plane functions of Fire.

And the Lotus is a symbol of Fire Triumphant, of Fire in apotheosis, just as the Point takes us one step further and symbolizes Fire in Consummation. The Triumph merges in the Consummation, as all true victory merges in added righteousness.

The Lotus of his Future Glory

The Triumph-to-be

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

There could be no more precious title for this book than The Lotus Fire, for the Fire of evolution has burned to a glorious adjustment, and into the Mystery of the Point a God enters in order to crown Himself with his Godhead. 1

And what is immensely striking is that, in some mysterious way, at given periods of time in the periodic dipping-down of Man into matter-spirit for the great adjustments to spirit-matter, there flash forth Sound and Light and Form which shape a Lotus, his Lotus, as unfolded up to the moment of the given period, and the Lotus of his future glory.

At birth, and at the passing out of physical incarnation, the Lotus shines as Memory of that which has been achieved, and as Memory, within the Universal Memory of God, of the Triumph-to-be.

Remembering somewhere, if not down here, Man. moves forward on his appointed way to Godhead.

1 See " Fire " in Book Five.

Chapter 27

THE SILENT WATCHERS

The Symbols Breathe

The Cosmic Silent Watchers

Company of the Archetypes

Thou art the Silence of the Point that centres aii; Thou art the Silence of the Womb that broods and builds ; Thou art the Silence of the Line that rules and sways; Thou art the Silence of the Globe that mirrors truth ; Thou art the Silence of the Cross that stands and waits ; Thou art the Silence of the swiftly moving Wheel; Thou art the Silence of the shining Lotus Crown ; Thou art the Silence of the Point that holds all still.

Let me repeat that just as the Point breathes with the Ceaseless Breath of God, so does the Web that is the Womb, so does the Line which is the Divine Measure of the Life-to-be, and so do the rest of the symbols.'

Again, let me say that the Point remains, even though it shadows forth the Web that is the Womb. The Web remains even though it shadows forth the Line. As each symbol-formula gives birth to the next stage of the great Unfoldment, it takes upon itself the function of a Silent Watcher, awaiting the fulfilment of that which it has set in motion, guarding—if I may say so—against any possibility of non-fulfilment. There are these Silent Watchers in the cosmic regions. There are Silent Watchers of universes and worlds. In each Man there dwells his own Silent Watcher, his Star, his Guardian Angel or Deva, his Monad. Each of these is the living Promise of Victory. 2

I think of these mighty Silent Watchers as a great Company of Archetypes who constitute the real government

1 See pp, 151-52, and " Breath " in Book Five.

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

Primordial Heavenly Prototypes

to which we each Belong

Vistas of Unity

of the world. To each estate—cosmic and sub-cosmic, of whatever degree—its Inner Government. To man himself his Inner Government the rule of his Monad, his highest Self.

But when I think of the Point with its infinitely complex construction, of the Web that is the Womb with the baffling intricacy of its tracery, of the Line with its multitude of contributory Lines, I seem to see the primordial prototypes l of the fundamental distinctions we know down here. Out of these multiple complexities comes the fashioning of the Men of the new manifestation or dispensation, even though in the unmanifest itself all such complexities are in embryo. May I not imagine that every Man in every kingdom of nature inherently belongs to one or to another of these archetypes, and is, in the Mystery of the Unity of things, constituent element in one and all of them ?

Just as we belong to all Rays, but to one dominantly, so do we belong to all archetypes, but to one dominantly.

I will not dwell further 2 on this most fascinating topic, lest an inescapable confusion become worse confounded. But through this avenue I think we perceive vistas of a Unity which baffles us by its seeming contradictions, but which compels our attention by our recognition of its truth within us.

As I have said, every symbol is the Silent Watcher for the symbol that succeeds it. So one sees the Cross as the Silent Watcher of the Svastika. The Svastika cannot go outside the Cross. The Cross cannot go outside the Circle. The Circle cannot go outside the Line. The Line cannot go outside the Web-Womb, and the Web-Womb cannot go outside the Point. There is a whole Hierarchy of Cosmic Silent Watchers, and the effect of that in gazing at these symbols, as can well be imagined, is so stupendous

1 See " Prototypes "in Book Five.

2 See chapter on " The Lords of the Symbols " in Book four.

that it has a devastating reaction on the physical body itself. It upsets the whole rhythm of the physical body and other organisms as well. We are taken entirely outside of ourselves. It is only by the magic of the Lord Himself of Yoga that we are able to see even within the protecting web of His own aura. Repercussions are inevitable.

Chapter 28

SUPERCOSMIC SYMBOLS

Seven /Eons of Unfoldment

Into the Realm of the Super-cosmic

. . . Father, which is Boundless Time, generates Mother, which is infinite Space, in Eternity ; and Mother generates Father in Manvantaras, which are divisions of durations, that Day when that world becomes one ocean. Then the Mother becomes Nara [Waters—the Great Deep] for Nara [the Supreme Spirit] to rest— or move—upon, when it is said that 1, 2, 3, 4 descend and abide in the world of the unseen, while the 4, 3, 2 become the limits in the visible world to deal with the manifestations of Father [Time]. 1

\ hope you will have patience with me as I try to pursue the Line a little way along its curvature into the Infinite.

In the first Stanza of Dzyan there is the cryptic phrase : " The Eternal Parent, wrapped in her Ever-Invisible Robes, had slumbered once again for Seven Eternities."

I venture to believe that the conception of slumbering is synonymous for a condition of consciousness entirely beyond the reach of all save those who are Thrice-Greatest, but in fact indicates seven aeons of unfoldment, each sui generis, of which we can form not even the vaguest image.

But it is into these aeons that the Spirit of the Point passes on its upward way, and it is from out these aeons that come what I can only call those Supercosmic Forces which are the very Heart of the Point and of all its derivatives, symbolized as these are in the Web that is the Womb, the Line, the Circle, the Cross, the Svastika, and

1 Commentary on Cycles quoted in The Secret Doctrine, III, 232 (Adyar ed., V, 235).

that glorious Lotus which is at once the shadow of the Point and the Form of No-Being-Being.

bf Wn f f th m AlT Specially do I see the Line reaching downwards out of

One these aeons, curving down from them, and from our point

of view, curving up into them and vanishing from all sight of consciousness. I see the Line both as the Giver of the Life of the Point, nurtured in the Web that is the Womb, and also as the Channel for the Life of the All-One, so that I see a Cosmic Line, but also a Supercosmic Line, as indeed I may see a Cosmic Point and a Supercosmic Point, its Progenitor, and so on in the case of each and every symbol.

The Symbols m | mus t re f er h ere t o the Proem in the first volume of

The Secret

Doctrme Jhe Secret Doctrine (pp. 34-35 ; Adyar ed., 72-73) in which

there are a number of symbols. It is said :

" The first illustration is a plain disk, Q. The second in the archaic symbol shows a disk with a point in it, Q — the first differentiation in the periodical manifestations of the ever-eternal Nature, sexless and infinite, ' Aditi in THAT,' or potential Space within abstract Space. In its third stage the point is transformed into a diameter, Q. It now symbolizes a divine immaculate Mother-Nature within the all-embracing absolute Infinitude. When the horizontal diameter is crossed by a vertical one, ®, it becomes the Mundane Cross. Humanity has reached its Third Root-Race ; it is the sign for the origin of human Life. When the circumference disappears and leaves only the -f-, it is a sign that the fall of man into matter is accomplished, and the Fourth Race begins. The cross within a circle symbolizes pure Pantheism ; when the cross is left uninscribed, it becomes phallic. It had the same and yet other meanings as a Tau inscribed within a circle, Q ; or as a Thor's Hammer—the so-called Jaina cross, or Svastika, within a circle, (g). 1

1 I confess I shudder a little at what I regard as the Svastika turning the wrong way round. 1 know that in orthodox symbology the Svastika appears thus Yet for me it is only thus conceivable if we look, within the veil of illusion, at a Svastika from outside it.

16

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

The Vertical Line First

The'Symbols and«the Logoi

" By the third symbol—the circle divided in two by a horizontal diameter—was meant the first manifestation of creative Nature—still passive, because feminine. The first shadowy perception of man connected with procreation is feminine, because man knows his mother more than his father. Hence female deities were more sacred than male. Nature is therefore feminine, and, to a degree, objective and tangible, and the Spirit Principle which fructifies it, is concealed. By adding to the horizontal line in the circle, a perpendicular, the Tau was formed, J", the oldest form of the letter. It was the glyph of the Third Root-Race to the day of its symbolical Fall—/.e. f when the separation of sexes by natural evolution took place—when the figure became (J), or sexless life modified or separated—a double glyph or symbol. With the sub-races of our Fifth Race it became in symbology the Sacr', and in Hebrew N'cabvah, of the first-formed Races ; then it changed into the Egyptian emblem of life, 9 » anc l still later into the sign of Venus, $ . Then comes the Svastika (Thor's Hammer, now the Hermetic Cross), entirely separated from its circle, thus becoming purely phallic. The esoteric symbol of Kali Yuga is the five-pointed star reversed, with its two points (horns) turned heavenward, thus J^, the sign of human sorcery, a position every Occultist will recognize as one of the ' left-hand/ and used in ceremonial magic."

Still, for me, the vertical Line l precedes the horizontal, the more so as the latter represents " the first manifestation of created nature," to quote H. P. Blavatsky's own words. I am concerned with Life before creation.

I also invite your attention as you study this symbology of the Circle and the Cross, with the central Point, to read the suggestive address on " Symbolism " in Dr. Besant's The Building of the Kosmos. Indeed, the whole book may most profitably be studied as an aid to 1 See p. 224.

SUPERCOSMIC SYMBOLS

243

the understanding of this form of Yoga. She writes : "A student given to meditation may contemplate the Point and Line, Cross, Svastika, and study the connection of these with the Three Logoi."

The reader is also referred to Dr. Besant's illuminating description of the development and unfoldment of Life and Form, as given in the Introduction to A Study in Consciousness.

SYMBOL OF THE MOST HIGH

The Oldest Symbol in the World: "The R.W.M. has as his jewel the square, which indicates the Third Outpouring of divine force, from the First Logos, the First Person of the Trinity, and has therefore the same significance as the gavel, his instrument of government. The symbolism of the gavel is very profound ; to explain it I must draw attention to what is probably the oldest symbol in the world, [first of the figures below] :

oo

44 This long line [perpendicular] with two crossed bars upon it has for uncounted thousands of years been the special sign of the Supreme Being." Bishop Leadbeater then proceeds to show the widespread prevalence of the above symbols among the pygmy race of Africa, and the Cretans, Chaldeans, Egyptians, etc.

— The Hidden Life in Freemasonry, p. 93

THE TRANS-HIMALAYAN SYSTEM OF SYMBOLS

Here the vertical Line seems to have first place. It is not only the First of the two Lines, as mentioned in Jhe Secret Doctrine, I, 153 (Adyar ed., I, 187), but in the Secret Catechism, quoted on p. 40 (Adyar ed., I, 77), it is said :

" The One is the indivisible Point found nowhere, perceived everywhere during those periods; it is the Vertical and the

Horizontal, the Father and the Mother, the summit and base of the Father, the two extremities of the Mother, reaching in reality nowhere, for the One is the Ring as also the Rings that are within that Ring ..."

In this connection it is interesting to note the making of the Cross in the Christian Church with its vertical stroke, head to solar plexus, " in the name of the Father and of the Son," (signifying the Divine Incarnation), followed by the horizontal stroke, left shoulder to right shoulder, " and of the Holy Spirit," (signifying Ascension).

Chapter 29

EACH SYMBOL INVOLVES CREATION

I : Immanence

II . Altar

lit • Birthing

IV . Birth

V : Evolution

VI : Throbbing Creativity

Like God, his Awakener, the soul is called, of his very nature, to create —Gods in the Becoming

Knowing this the blessed one uttered this solemn utterance : " When the real nature of things becomes clear to the meditating Bikshu, then all his doubts fade away since he has learned what is that nature and what its cause. From ignorance spring all the evils. From knowledge comes the cessation of this mass of misery, and then the meditating Brahmana stands dispelling the hosts of Mara like the sun that illuminates the sky." ' —K. H,

Each of the symbols to which I have been drawing your attention involves the creative spirit and leads to creative activity.

The first symbol—the Point—expresses in a wonderful way the positive immanence of creative activity, as I have suggested in other words, creative activity straining at the leash.

The second symbol—the Web-Womb—expresses the setting for creative activity, as it were, the preparation of the altar of sacrifice.

The third symbol—the Line-Sound from the Silences —expresses birth.

The fourth symbol—the Circle-Globe—is a further birth development.

The fifth symbol—the Cross—brings us down into very evolution itself.

The sixth symbol—the Svastika—is the throbbing of the creative spirit in the machinery of its activity. 1 The Mahatma Letters, p. 59.

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

VII: Glorification

Creativeness exalts the Creator

Symbolic Yoga begins from Above

The " Posture" js an Attitude

A Spiritual Rhythm from Heaven

The seventh symbol—the Lotus—is the glorification of the creative spirit.

It is all a going forth, a giving birth. And, as I have said, there is birth on every plane of what we call nature. Only on the physical plane do we need two for certain specific creative purposes, an actual physical plane division. The dual aspect of the individuality is not enough on the physical plane for reproductive purposes. There must be the man-woman and the woman-man. But the principle is the same. Creativeness is for growth. It is dynamic. It exalts the creator or, as on the physical plane, the creators, in revealing Godliness.

I am of the opinion that this form of Symbolic Yoga has an advantage over some other forms in that it begins exclusively from above and not from below. In this form of Yoga the starting-point is the highest region of consciousness available for contact, though there must be a preliminary and rapid fulfilment of lower entanglements. Such fulfilment should be by an act of Will, and as little as possible a matter of slow process of conquest.

In this form of Yoga there are required no physical exercises, no breathing practices, no special physical posture, no recitations of words or phrases, no special times for its expression. Quickly the student retires within to his Highest Self, and there realizes the intent of the posture—a posture which is an attitude and not a physical pose, though for convenience a certain physical pose is later recommended. 1

Thus does he create a standard of forthgoing in the highest regions of his working consciousness, and the creative spirit is pure, holy and sacramental from the very beginning. As he adopts posture after posture of the great forthgoing, the standard is maintained. So is it that from Heaven above a spiritual rhythm is established which 1 See Chapter 33 of this Book Two, and Chapter 5 of Book Three.

EACH SYMBOL INVOLVES CREATION

247

Calls to Earth for Perfect Echo

The Terrible Realms of

" Pan "

Those who flout the Law must be mended by the Law

The Physical World. Life's Slowest Vibration

calls to Earth below for a perfect echo. On the physical plane the echo lives in the physical creative act, and thus can be no other than a noble, holy and veritable sacrament.

Any individual seeking to practise this Yoga in the inner worlds and denying it in the outer worlds is doomed to cataclysmic disaster. He will be terribly consumed by the friction he arouses between the two. The force he must needs generate above, in however slight a measure, will cause him to plunge downwards not only into the negation of life, the inevitable result of pouring the waters of lustful desire upon the fire of creation, but also possibly into the realms of Pan, to which humanity may not belong without incurring madness. These realms are approached and perhaps entered, by the way, whenever there is unrhythmic sexual activity, as is the case in self-abuse or between persons of the same sex.

All this is against the Law, and those who flout the Law, for whatever reason, must be mended by the Law, not as by some outside ruthless power, but by the individual himself as God. He is the Law, and he breaks his lower self for the sake of freeing his higher. It has to be understood, however, that this negation of life may be brought about not only on the physical plane, but on every other plane up to the lower mental. The creative spirit may be turned downwards at any of these stages. We have evidences of this in every field of life at the present time—in politics, in statecraft, in religion, in industry, in the arts, sciences and philosophies. There are men and women who are great on the downward arc, on that arc which involves the slowing down of life's vibrations. For, be it remembered that in the physical world today life has reached its slowest safe rate of vibration. To go still more slowly leads straight to cataclysm. Yet there are those who are thus leading the world to cataclysm through using wrongly the creative spirit.

Chapter 30

THE POINT AND ITS DAUGHTER-SYMBOLS

Pulsating Multidimensional Realities

Formless Lightning-White Waves

And, as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen

Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name. —Shakespeare

How do I " see " the Point ? Of course, I do not see it at all with any outward senses, still less with the physical eyes, nor even with that inner eye which the poet tells us is the bliss of solitude. I see it with the whole of myself, with the all of my Self that I am able to contact. I photograph it, as it were, or it is photographed upon me. It is an impression.

To analyse that impression is almost impossible, for every description limits and distorts it. Indeed, I might almost say that whatever else it may be, it is not that which I describe it to be. It is infinitely more, and infinitely different.

But if I must try to paint some picture, I can only say that I have to reduce to purely physical pigments on to a flat surface a number of whirling, vibrating, pulsating multidimensional Realities, gorgeously rich in colour, sounding forth a wealth of sound in melody and resultant symphony, and manifest in forms of which the forms we know in this outer world are but fragmentary imperfections.

How then do I " see " the Point ? I see it as a formless, pulsating radiation of what I can only call Lightning-White waves, impulses. Note please the word " formless "

which is used in the sense of the antithesis of form, or rather perhaps of a " that " which is the fons et or/go of the formless and the form. At once, you see, I am in difficulties, for I am trying to describe within a formful world a super-formful reality. Still, you must make the best you can of the contradictions and obscurities, for without them I could give no description at all. A clear description would no less be a false description.

I see this radiance as a mighty Bubble contracting and expanding, breathing inwards and breathing outwards under the potency of the Ceaseless Breath of God, to quote the Stanza of Dzyan.

Yet in the Lightning-Whiteness I see every colour of the Eternal Rainbow of Light contributing its uniqueness to the White of the Lightning, yet merged in it imperceptible.

Being a Radiance there is no hard and fast circumference, yet it has its Law which, as one might almost say, circumscribes it.

I see this Radiance as an inconceivable Sun with forth-issuing flames of supernal purity. Concentration And I see the Point as twofold—the concentration of

Manifestation

an evolutionary aeon, the consummation of a Godhead of Divine Majesty, and also as a manifestation of a going forth, of a God giving forth His Godhead that a myriad Gods may in their turn achieve their Godhead.

There is a Consummation That is one aspect of the Point. There is a Forthgoing. That is the other aspect of the Point. A concentration into a Point of infinitude. A forth-going into a sea of heretofore undifferentiated spirit-matter.

We may think of our Lord the Sun as an expression of the Point's Forthgoing. Our Lord the Sun is a Point, but we see Him as giving forth His Godhead that a myriad Gods—ourselves in all the kingdoms of His nature—may in our turn, arising out of the sea of undifferentiated spirit-matter, achieve our Godhead.

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

Supremely Living Life

The Beyond

The Point

makes

Sacrifice

The Point is the most supremely living Life—if I may use these unsatisfactory words—that exists within our ken. It is perpetual, perfect movement. It is perpetual, perfect form. It is perpetual, perfect sound. It is perpetual, perfect colour. And it is suffused with Lightning-White, electric white, I might almost say silver-white. And I would refer you to my observations on its Stillness, its Silence, its Darkness, its Sound, its Light, its Movementless Poise, its ceaseless Radiance.

How helpless I feel to try to describe ! But perhaps in all the inevitable medley someone is seeing Design, in all the seeming chaos, someone is seeing Cosmos.

Now let me say that the Point has a twofold nature in this that it—I ought really to say " She-He," or, better still, an apotheosis of all differentiation—is evolving on its own plane while active on every plane which constitutes a universe.

I see nowhere a completion of the evolutionary process. Everything, however sublime, is a Less compared with a More beyond. So do I cognize in the Point a process of still more marvellous resolution in terms of a Beyond, an adjustment to yet nobler, utterly impenetrable and unattainable heights, heights which are lost in the clouds which veil from us the excess of Glory.

I* add to my seeing of the Point this quality, which I do not in the least understand. Yet it is there, and I register a section of the Spiritual Spectrum beyond the perception of all save those who have reached the beginnings of a vision of that which becomes known when Time ceases to be.

When we gaze upon the Forthgoing, we at once perceive what can only be called a modification, a form-creating vibration which resolves itself into what I have called the Web that is the Womb—the Web which constitutes the Womb of the universe-to-be. It is all within the

THE POINT AND ITS DAUGHTER-SYMBOLS

251

The Nebula. Web

The "I" of the Universe

Point. There can be nothing outside this metaphysical immensity.

There is but a shimmering, a scintillation, a kaleidoscopic movement, and a function of the Point is born, a symbol comes to life, though it has never been otherwise than alive.

The Point makes sacrifice, and symbol after symbol is born. First, the Web that is the Womb—a profusion of web-like, gossamer colour, almost a sack. Out of the Lightning-White the Rainbow is born with every colour sending forth its energy. All that the Point is in radiance, in pulsation, in colour, in form, in sound, in depth, in expanse, that also is the Web that is the Womb, but in a concentration—I might almost say, in a place. The Point blesses an area, and the Web that is the Womb is born.

As I see this birth, I think at once of a great nebula, say the nebula of Orion, or one or another of these mighty spiral Webs which are in very truth Wombs. A nebula is created, crystallized, by the magic of the Point, and it is the Seed of a universe-to-be and of the Gods who are to achieve Godhead.

And, as I think of the nebula, I think of those sublime sweeps of infinite majesty and extent which characterize each one of the symbols, and supremely the Point itself. The vastness of the Point, its immeasurable sweep of sound, of colour, of form, of Silence, of Darkness, are reproduced in each one of its daughter-symbols—if I may so call them. It is so largely because of this that not one of them can be reproduced without offence and blasphemy. All that is vital in each is impossible to express. Only the insignificant can be reproduced.

Within the Web that is the Womb there comes about a concentration, a birth, an immaculate conception, and forth flashes the Line—or should I not more truly say, a curvature which appears as a Line ?—the Divine Measure

of the Forthgoing, in accordance with the measure of which the Ring-Pass-Not circumference will be limited, and the very Call itself directed in some mysterious way to those Men of the Sea, Gods-to-be and Gods-in-the-Becoming, who shall arise from unconscious Divinity to Self-conscious Godhead.

Out of the nebula which is the Forthgoing of the Point is churned the Line of Measurement which is the "I" of the future universe, its Monad or Ego. Into the North ascends the Curvature. Into the South the Curvature descends. From the very heart of the Web that is the Womb it proceeds northwards and southwards in infinite vibrations. Or should I not rather say, the Line flashes upwards to its North, to the true North of the universe-to-be, downwards to its South, to the true South of the universe-to-be ? And the Line is " great " with the Circle which is to come.

Suggestive of my perception of this macrocosmic Line is the figure on Plate 26 in Bishop Leadbeater's The Science of the Sacraments. But the Line shoots upwards and downwards like a piston-rod. I might add that the bubble effects shown in the various Plates are not dissimilar from those of the symbols, except that in the case of all the symbols— save the Point in its Consummation, where there is the tone of Lightning-White—there is a brilliancy of colours compared with which even the most beautiful reproductions are dead, as dead as the most beautifully painted picture in comparison with a sunset. The Spmal | confess I cannot understand the curvature l principle.

Spectrum

for I cannot perceive either the whence or the whither, not even any point in the curvature. I only know that curvature is a law of nature. Straightness is a word coined for convenience, and there can be no such thing as a definition of a straight line, for no line is straight. The shortest distance between two points is a curve.

1 See Chapters 11 and 32 of this Book Two, and pp. 195 and 263.

THE POINT AND ITS DAUGHTER-SYMBOLS

253

Rainbow Symbols

The Symbol Tones

All organs curve towards the Light—be they particles of dust or galaxies of stars. In every organ there is concavity and convexity—concavity of the proximal side and convexity of the distal side. Contraction and retardation are induced by the stimulus of Light upon the former. Upon the latter expansion and acceleration are induced.

I perceive that the spinal column as we know it in various types of creatures is the outward and visible symbol of the Line, and I see that the very spinal column itself is but the visible part of a spinal spectrum which measures each individual's Divinity. If only I could perceive the extension of the spinal column, I should perceive the whole of the evolutionary process of an individual and of the very universe itself.

There is, I suppose, a macrocosmic circle of which the spinal column is but a point. But my many limitations cry halt to me before I have traversed more than a tiny fragment of the distance along the spinal column and its infinite projection.

I have associated lightning-white with the Point in terms of its Consummation. I have associated rainbow-opalescence with the Point in terms of its Forthgoing, and with the Web that is the Womb. The Line seems to reproduce the lightning-white motif of the Point in its Consummation, probably because the Line measures the Con-sumation-to-be achieved by the universe-to-be,

I associate with the Circle, which is the extension of the Line, a yellow and a green of undepictable hues. But as background, there is always the Point and the Web that is the Womb with their characteristics in terms of colour.

Immediately as I write these words there comes the thought that there are sounds no less than colours as characteristic of each symbol. 1 I wonder why I do not seem to be able to elucidate the sound. The thunder-roll is

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

The Whirling

Rhythmic

Dance

Men-

Godchildren awaken to the Call

very clear in the case of the Point in its aspect of Consummation. But when I concentrate my perception upon the Forthgoing, I seem to be thrown back upon my own G note, and there is confusion. Obviously enough, the note of Forthgoing is in each of those who responded to the CalL But I cannot move further along this line, and must wait until my insight is keener and probably more impersonal,

The Point in its dual aspect of Consummation and Forthgoing. Such is the first symbol.

Then flashes forth the Web that is the Womb of the universe-to-be. This is the second symbol.

Out flashes then the third symbol, born in the Web that is the Womb, but conceived by the Point in its aspect of Forthgoing. This is the spine of the universe-to-be— the Line which pulsates from North to South.

Then the fourth symbol, body of the universe-to-be —the Circle, which also flashes forth as an extension of the Line, its projection.

And in an instant of eternity the horizontal Line—a glorious red.

And more and more the forms whirl, pulsate, are torrential in their movements. From the Silence of the Point in Consummation begins the Sound of the Point in Forthgoing. From the Darkness of the Point in Consummation begins the Light of the Point in Forthgoing. And then Sound and Light seem, as it were, to dance as the duality born of the Unity. They dance together, each in its own rhythm, and expressing its own part in the building of the Self-consciousness-to-be.

How can this be depicted on a piece of paper !

I see these sequences as following one another in such instantaneous succession that I find myself omitting to record the event of supreme significance—the response to the Call which fills the Circle with those whom I can only call the Men of the Sea—those heretofore unmanifest,

divine, unconscious individualities sleeping within the immensities of what I must call space, though I do not know what the word can mean at these high levels. These individualities are Men. They are Gods. They are everything, and therefore they are also nothing. The Point in its aspect of Forthgoing is their Godfather in the most literal sense of this much misused word. They are the Godchildren. They are the children who are Gods, for they are the Sons of God. They have belonged from the very beginning to the God who is calling them forth, They have been His from the time when He was but a Man of the Sea. And now His triumph is their awakening. His Call is the summons for which they have been waiting, as there are those who are waiting the summons even of ourselves. They flood the Circle He has established for them, and then He flashes forth the Line which is horizontal, that a Cross of growth may whirl them to their fruition. The Hum of a So do we come to the sixth Symbol—the Svastika.

Universe

Here we have a very rainbow of colour, a wealth of sound and of form, the hum of a universe at work. The universe is now churning out its destiny, and unconsciousness is unfolding into Self-consciousness. The Men are on their way to their Godhead.

One and a The seventh Symbol is the Lotus out of which the

Myriad Lotuses

attar of the Point is distilled—Godhead dawning to its fruition. Now is at work that divine shimmering of the Seeds that are Men into the Lotuses that are Gods, so that the universe begins to be peopled with Gods who are Lotuses, and we begin to see that the whole universe is and was a Lotus. It is as if each symbol contributed towards a flowing of the universe-stream into a myriad Lotuses, and that the universe resolves itself into a Lotus with the Point triumphant at its heart. And then the resolution of the Lotuses themselves, of the Universe-Lotus

itself, into the Silence and Darkness of a Consummation. The Lotus is the apotheosis of form which directly merges into the Fullness of Life.

But I am going beyond my depth—as usual, I might say. There is but One Lotus. Yet there are a myriad Lotuses. There is but One Life. Yet there are a myriad independent Lives. There is but One Breath. 1 Yet not only are there innumerable breathings, there are also specialized aspects of the One Breath. For there is the breathing of the heart of the Lotus, There is the breathing of the head of the Lotus. There is the breathing of each cosmic organ of the Divine Lotus. And the Men of the Sea are differentiated from the beginning as to their ultimate functions in their final consummation. How infinitely out of my depth I am. And yet I suppose I am perceiving a feeble shadow of a Truth which belongs to that Lotus time of my evolutionary process which I have by no means reached, but which I can dimly know for it is very part of me.

I put down in utterly inadequate language that which I perceive, just in the hope that I may awaken a glimmering of understanding in those who are trying to look as I am trying to look.

1 See pp. 151-52, 165-66, and " Breath " in Book Five.

Chapter 31

THE LABORATORY OF IDENTIFICATION

1 probe Realities

In an

Experiment of identification

So much the rather thou Celestial Light

Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers

Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from thence

Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell

Of things invisible to mortal sight. --Milton

Having contacted a number of realities, to a certain extent clarified through symbols, I must now begin to seek how I may probe their constitutive elements, their extents, their heights, their depths. Naturally, I shall bring to bear upon such probing the personal equation of the particular reality to which I now feel drawn—the reality of which the Line is the symbol. I shall tend to endow with Line-ness every one of the realities and to this extent, together with my comparative lack of growth, vitiate their respective purities. But this cannot be helped. The student will take it into consideration, and will guard against it as best he may.

To probe means to identify myself, and to do so is impossible save to the extent to which the Point and I—a Point in the becoming—are one in nature, in essence, with the saving grace of that uniqueness which differentiates each individuality from every other individuality. I can only to the minutest degree turn myself into a laboratory with the necessary equipment to perform an experiment in identification—an experiment which, in all possible permutations and combinations, is going on in every

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

The Laboratory is Myself

I perceive a Point-Intensity

laboratory throughout the world, concealed though its nature may be in a variety of forms.

I want to stress the fact of my turning myself as best I can into a laboratory, for not only is this a true statement of the nature of the evolutionary way, it is also the goal towards which science in all its experiments must work. The occultist is a well-equipped laboratory, and every individual must become a laboratory in growing Self-consciousness so that he ceases to be limited by man-made instruments, marvellous though these undoubtedly are. He must be able to perform within himself every experiment any laboratory can perform and many, many more in addition.

No laboratory on earth can bring me to a conception of the Point. But the laboratory which is my Self can so bring me, within the powers it possesses as a result of the experiences through which I have passed.

I. THE POINT : INTENSITY

Let me then place the Point—I ask pardon for the impertinence—within my laboratory, and let me see what I can make of it as I venture to subject it to those super-physical instruments with which the laboratory is equipped.

I see that it is a Point indeed which I have brought. I could have brought no other form to convey the sense of Pointness, for only the Point-idea gives to me, conveys to me, a sense of an omnipotent intensity which needs no immeasurable vastness, no limitlessness, to contain it. True, its omnipotent intensity can and does indeed pervade limitlessness. But more significant is the fact that its omnipotent intensity can express itself in all fullness within the inconceivably microscopic compass of what we call a Point. And when it does so, there is the entrancing spectacle of an almost perceived identity between the infinitely small and the infinitely large. 1

1 See the next Chapter; also Chapter 7 in this Book Two.

THE LABORATORY OF IDENTIFICATION

259

A Fullness

A Summit

A Grain of Sand

Will. Truth. Movement

To myself, being far more relative than absolute, though I must be absolute no less than relative, a relative is infinitely more conceivable than an absolute. Thus is it that the supreme intensity of what I must from my small hill of perception call an absolute Divinity is more discernible in terms of a microcosm than of a macrocosm. The intensity is better perceived in its quality of illimitable intenseness when contained within the infinitely small than when it is expanded into the infinitely large.

But what is the nature of this intensity ? To me it is as an infinitely compact fullness from which nothing is left out. Strictly speaking, this statement is untrue, for never is lacking a more to any fullness, never is there aught but lessness, on the frontiers of which—and where are frontiers not ?—a. more is awaiting absorption.

But the Point represents that which, to the loftiest conceptions of achievement available to human or to superhuman ken, is towering above them all in that which, even from the loftiest below, seems to be a supreme finality, an end, a height which is as an ultimate summit.

And to increase beyond all gauging the sense of its finality it discloses itself as a Point, not as a distance but as a here, not as an eternity but as a now, not as a space but as an atom, not as a mountain but as a grain of sand. And in that very disclosure it asserts, as otherwise it could not assert to my so limited understanding, its omnipresence, its omniscience, its omnipotence. In its very illusion of limitation it asserts, as otherwise it could not assert, its universality. And because it is a Point it is a universe and literally infinitely more.

But its intensity is a fullness crammed with that Will, that Truth, that Movement which are the apotheoses of the whole gamut of the experiences encountered in every kingdom of nature, in the unknown kingdoms no less than in

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

A Convergence

Crammed with Divinity

A Hush of Consummation

The Call of Forthgoing

the known. And the Will is Purpose, the truth is Law, and the Movement is Glory.

I see that I am right in my convergence idea, in the conception that there is a concentration into a Point, or rather a convergence which demands the Point-idea for its fulfilment. When I translate my perception into sound terms, I see all sounds, all combinations of sound, converging from all regions of the expanded universe-individuality into a Point which becomes vibrant with them all. The Point is a music-intensity, is crammed with music as if there could be room for naught else.

And when I translate my perception into colour terms or form terms, I see all colours, all forms, all combinations of colours and forms, converging from all regions of the expanded universe-individuality into a Point which becomes vibrant with them all. The Point is a colour-intensity, a form-intensity, is crammed with both as if there could be room for naught else. As the poet beautifully describes earth as being crammed with heaven, so is the Point crammed with Divinity, a Divinity of which we can have no conception save to the extent to which such Divinity is Self-conscious within us.

Into Silence, into Darkness, into No-Sound, into No-Colour, dissolves the many-origined intensity. Into supreme Form, into No-Form, dissolves the many-origined intensity. And the ecstatic Hush of Perfected Divinity is the supreme Apotheosis and Fulfilment. Such is the Consummation. But there is no long waiting, save as the Hush is indeed eternal, for the Forthgoing, for the Call to the Men who wait within the Sea of Undifferentiation.

Within the No-Form is the Call born. Within the No-Sound is the Call born. Within the No-Colour is the Call born. Within the Silence and the Darkness is the Call born. These are the Divine Parents of the Call, and They send forth the Call to the Men who have the ears to hear it.

THE LABORATORY OF IDENTIFICATION

261

Vibration-rhythm of Self-projection

Essence and Sum-total

Of the Temple of Experience

The Point quivers into a Rainbow

What is the Call ? It is the composite vibration-rhythm of the constituent elements of the Point in its Consummation aspect. The Call is a self-projection, a sending forth of a perfect rhythm upon the Sea of the Unmanifest. To adapt the third verse of Genesis, the Spirit of the Point moved upon the Sea of the Unmanifest. And those who were from the beginning appointed to be children of the Point arose from the Sea and entered into the Ring-Pass-Not Circle-Globe which had been prepared for their growing.

So do we perceive that the substance of the Point is the essence of an evolutionary process which has led a Man to become a God. It is the sum-total of every unfoldment of his consciousness from the moment of differentiation-manifestation, through every stage of growth, until Self-conscious Divinity has been thus achieved. It is as if each step of his way resulted in the fashioning of a brick of experience-matter to be assigned to its due place in the Temple of Divinity in which the Man will dwell when he becomes a God.

As the Way of Experience is trodden, the material for the building accumulates, and little by little the Temple itself begins to assume its predestined form. At last the Temple is complete, and a God dwells therein, and from the inner shrine His Call goes forth to those Men who from time immemorial are of His Line to begin the building of their Temples and to call forth their Godhead in the fullness of time.

II. THE WEB-WOMB : CREATIVENESS

I then come to the sequences of the Forthgoing, beginning with the Web that is the Womb. At this point the absolute whiteness of the Point, a whiteness nowhere known on earth since it is the whiteness of heaven, quivers—this is the best word I can think of—into its constituent elements, in terms of colour, of sound, of form. It is colour that gains my attention, and I see an opalescence, a

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

Differences are created

The Span of Growth

The Limits of Experience are plumbed

rainbow, of colours, though I also see an opalescence, a rainbow, of sounds and of forms.

This Web that is the Womb is the Point in its creative aspect, as sui generis it is the Point in its Intensity aspect. All I have just described as constituting the Point's Intensity is alive with creative potentiality. The quality of creative-ness exists in every form, in every sound, in every colour. I do not like to say " reproductiveness," for my experience is that the whole spirit of creation is not to multiply sameness, not to multiply identities, but to call differences to awaken, to call into Self-consciousness innumerable variations on a specific theme. The creative aspect of the Point, therefore, lies in the sounding of a fundamental theme—so much concession may we make to the element of sameness—so that all life that is like-themed may hear and awaken, but no less that such life may awaken to its variations on the theme, that each Man-individuality thus aroused may express his difference, his uniqueness, his specific variation.

The very opalescence which distinguishes the Web that is the Womb from the Father-Mother Point is a Call to difference, while the primordial concealed whiteness is a Call to identity.

III. THE LINE: MEASUREMENT

What is it that becomes created ? Measurement. When a child is born on the physical plane, it is born unto a measurement. Its span of growth is predetermined. And we may thus say that a measurement incarnates, a particular fragment of the evolutionary way is measured out, is appointed, for treading.

But in the case of this cosmic symbol there is born a measurement for the universe-to-be, a Divine Yard-Stick, a Plumb-Line, as I have called it.

Is it not constituted of what I can only call Matrix Experience, Archetypal Experience, Measurement Experience,

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Centres of Attraction and Forth-welling curve the Symbols

infinite Measurement

whereby are set the limits of experience—up into the heights, down into the depths ? The evolutionary waves cannot extend outwards beyond a certain point. They cannot rise beyond a certain point. There cannot be depths of descent beyond a certain point.

Will is dominantly characteristic of this symbol, so we find it coloured by what may be called the colour of Will— electric blue.

I am stating that the Line is curved, indeed that curvature is characteristic of each and every symbol. 1 This Line, a Line of Universe Measurement, must needs be curved because of gravitational attraction of a nature which entirely eludes my understanding. In every universe there is a Centre of Attraction towards which the whole universe converges. And this is true of any multiplication of universes, whether in arithmetical or geometrical progression (which reminds me that I seem to see some universes working according to arithmetical and other universes according to geometrical progression). The principle of curvature depends upon the fact of Centres of Attraction, if I may so call them, though in fact they are probably, almost certainly, Centres of Forth-welling even more. But there is a peculiar relation between the Forth-welling and the Attraction which I can only express by the picture of a man finding his way to a well and drawing water therefrom. He is irresistibly drawn to the well, but the well blesses him with its water. There is the curvature. But there is also a response to the curvature, so that we may say that the very curvature itself is part of the evolutionary process.

Hence, this electric blue Line is a section of a Super-cosmic Line, is a fragment of a still more infinite measurement by which vaster vastnesses are measured, and to vastness there seems no end.

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

The Science of Friction

The Science of Spinal Diagnosis

The Silent Watcher

Like the Point it is experience. May I say that like the Point it is purified Friction ? Which is to say, it is Fire—Lotus Fire and Point Fire. Experience is fire, be the fire the Fire of the Point, the Fire of the Web that is the Womb, the Fire that is the Line, the Fire that is the Circle-Globe, the Fire that is the Cross, the Fire that is the Svastika, the Fire that is the Lotus—this being the supreme expression of Fire outbreathed, just as the Point is the supreme expression of Fire inbreathed, indrawn, withdrawn. How little we have studied, especially in Yoga, the Science of Friction. Yet is it the very heart of growth, of that duality which holds together in friction.

This Line, as I have so constantly to be saying, is represented in the human form as the spine, and some day we shall find a science of medicine arising which will make the spine its fundamental basis, and read the constitution of the individual in terms of his spinal condition and curvature. The astrologer, too, will begin to recognize the spine as a very vital element in casting a horoscope. The spine is largely ignored because it is not understood, and ignorance of it causes much to lie hidden of essential value in the determination of an individual's nature, past, present and future.

IV. THE CIRCLE-GLOBE : LIMITATION-PROTECTION

The Line being determined, there is instant occasion for the appearance of the Circle which is the Ring-Pass-Not for the evolution-to-be. The same elements constitutive of the Point, the Web that is the Womb, and the Line, constitute the Circle. The Circle embodies, as it seems in particular measure, the vibration-octaves, the rhythm-octaves, of that Call which produces both the response from Men of the Sea and the whole machinery for their unfoldment. The Circle is in a sense, but only in a sense, irresponsive to all vibrations, all rhythms, outside those

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Green-Yellow Matrix

Guardian-Womb

octaves of which it is composed, rejects them whether they come from outside or from within. We may indeed call the Circle the Silent Watcher of the evolutionary system now being brought into activity. And since it gives birth to innumerable circles identical with it, we have the universe-globe, of which the various world-globes form part, from which they are duly derived. But it would seem that there is always a possibility of a movement beyond the appointed octaves, reflecting, as far as I can perceive, the very important fact that there are octaves beyond the octaves of any individual universe, and that these octaves are necessarily inherent in every universe on the principle of the unity of all life. The whole gamut of cosmic octaves of every nature is present in the restricted gamut of any individual universe. Hence the need for the Ring-Pass-Not. Hence the great principle of the Silent Watcher. Hence, indeed, the probably occasional variations from an appointed octave, not necessarily involving the intervention of the Ring-Pass-Not or the Silent Watcher, but definitely involving a variation from the set theme.

I am identifying with the Circle-Globe a green-yellow colour-scheme. But I am for the moment unable to determine its particular sound-octave or its form-octave either. I wonder why the colour conception stands out so much more prominently than the sound or form scheme, especially since I regard myself as a " sound "-man.

Let me repeat, however, that the substance of the Circle-Globe seems much more definite—static, I was about to say—than the substance of the preceding symbols. Perhaps its Guardian function involves this, Oh the other hand, it definitely reflects the Web that is the Womb, for a Globe is a Web. It is a Womb. It is a Web-Womb for the fructification of a Wave of Men out of the Sea of the Unmanifest

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

The Fiery Line

its Origin the Web

Why the balanced Cross ?

V. THE CROSS: CREATIVE READINESS

Frame-work of Stability, Frame-work of Balance, Stability-Sacrifice, Life's Crucifixion, the Setting of the Stage.

We then come to the horizontal Line, fiery red in colour, though to me unidentifiable as to sound and form, which flashes forth almost instantaneously with the coming into being of the Circle.

What is its nature ? What is its origin ? Its origin is clearly the Web that is the Womb. It is the twin of the vertical Line. It completes the principle of duality for the growth that is about to begin. It unites its fiery red with the electric blue of its—shall I say—older twin, and the resulting purple safeguards the transition from Man-God to God-Man—the very purpose of the duality. Purple the colour of uplift, of protection, of the arising of the Lotus through mud and water to air, of the dawn of sunlight out of the darkness. Purple is always the herald of constructive catastrophe, of release, even though the appearance may be that of destructive catastrophe.

The Cross, with the male perpendicular Line and the female horizontal Line, symbolizes creative readiness within the great Circle of Limitation, of Purpose, of Definition. Such is its nature. Inevitably one wonders why the perpendicular Line is bisected, is not crossed at a lower level. If a Cross can have deep meaning when the horizontal Line is well above the middle point, should it not also have a corresponding meaning when the horizontal Line is well below the middle point ? I am inclined to think it has, and that the movement of the horizontal Line upwards on the vertical Line is a symbol of the evolutionary process, so that at a certain evolutionary point we reach the crucifixion, the crux ansata, the Tao, whence it is but a step to the resurrection and the ascension—to use the Christian terminology. On the other hand, the vertical Line bisected by the horizontal Line represents in the Cross thus formed duality

in a perfect harmonization between its two constitutive elements, the perfect balance between the two. This perfect balance reveals the essential identity of the two, and it is the whirling of the perfectly balanced Cross that ensures the steady pulsation of the evolutionary process to its consummation in the Point. First is established the perfect Cross—perfect, that is, from the point of view of balance— and then within such perfect Cross the horizontal Line begins below and rises stage by stage to the heights of the true crucifixion at which the God in man glorifies the manhood in God, " My God, how Thou dost glorify me ! "

VI THE SVASTIKA: FRICTION WHEEL OF SALVATION From Cross From the static to the dynamic there is but a flash of

static to Cross

dynamic that cosmic sequence whereby one symbol is differentiated

from another, and the Cross static transmutes itself into the Cross dynamic—the Svastika. It is at this point that I see so clearly the distinction between the form and the life of each symbol. In a sense each is both form and life, though in the case of the Point and the Web that is the Womb the life side seems to be in, and the form side out of, perspective. The Line seems to sound the form side with great definition, as does the Circle-Globe, though indeed the life side has really equal prominence. But when I come to the Cross, and still more when I come to the Cross in movement, I perceive an inexorableness which is the very incarnation, the direct expression, of Law, of Light, of Life, of the very Will of God. It is the Life of God beating upon the Life of Man, with no intercession, no intermediary, of form. Of course, the form is there, but it would seem to be there simply because it must be there. There could not, in these regions, be life without form, even though, as it were, the form has little to do. I see, therefore, as substance of this whirling Svastika, a Law-Light-Life combination of ingredients which gives a very special appearance of relentlessness

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

Life-lnterpene-tration : Life-Matter Friction

What are the Cosmic Octaves ?

to the movement of the Svastika and to its effect upon the Men of the Sea whom it frictions into ever-increasing Self-consciousness. The well-known phrase "broken upon the wheel "—that horrible physical torture of earlier periods of history, perpetuated in modern days in terms of the mind, so that the inquisition spirit of today is breaking its victims on the wheel of the mind, a terrible desecration of the Wheel of the Law as has been this mighty power from time immemorial—occurs to me, for indeed is it ignorance which is broken upon the Wheel of the Love of God, the Wheel of His Salvation, the Svastika.

I must insist, for I fear the fact may escape recognition, that I can make no distinction between matter and spirit in considering the substance of any of the symbols. Tangibility is characteristic of the substance of each, though not that physical tangibility which we sometimes think to be the only tangibility. There are no intangible regions anywhere. And more substantial are the substances of these symbols than the substance we are pleased to call Matter. I have only differentiated between life and form for convenience' sake, for form is a mode of life, nothing more and nothing less. So that when we think of life as ensouling form, we are in fact thinking of one mode of life as ensouling another. Hence, when we think of the Svastika revolving within the Circle-Globe crammed as this is by the Men of the Sea, we are thinking of life as friction-ing upon life, of matter as frictioning upon matter— interpenetration, perhaps, but no less a frictioning on that account.

Thus, at the most, the difference between one symbol and another is but a difference of mode of life, a ringing of the changes upon the great octaves of life—which brings us into a fascinating consideration of the nature of the octaves of life, of the octaves of the universes, of the octaves of the octaves far beyond all these of what must

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The Joy of Seeking

Treasure-house of Experience

be innumerable cosmic octaves of ... of what? In this form of Symbolic Yoga, the symbols presented to me constitute an octave, 1 but the relation of this octave to other octaves of similar rate of vibration is beyond me altogether, just as the actual rate of vibration of the symbols lies in deepest obscurity.

But I am trying to discover little by little the vastness-es that are'hidden from me, and in the fullness of time I hope to know more. For the moment the joy of seeking is its own reward. I have no particular ambition to find, for I know that every discovery must be a less compared with the discovery which lies immediately beyond ; and there is as much satisfaction of the right kind in seeking as in finding, for seeking is finding. How well I am aware that every word I have written in this book conveys but a dark shadow of the truth, even with the most generous interpretation placed upon it. But I try to keep on saying so, that the reader shall as soon as may be hurry away from the book and its unveiling, such as it is, in order to seek, find and tread his own way of revelation.

VII. THE LOTUS: FIRE-FLOWER OF FRUITION

It is but an extension of the whole conception of the symbols now to perceive to appear the very Lotus form itself as symbol of the entry of the Men of the Sea into the Godhead of each of them. The Lotus is the integration of the symbols preceding it, the treasure-house of the sum-total of all the experiences, of all the friction, of all the distillation of the experiences into a Law, a Light, a Life or Will. The Lotus is the symbol of Fruition, and there remains now but the distillation of that fruition into the Intensity of the Point, whereby a Consummaton is achieved, Divinity is accomplished, the Way is set for the attaining of still nobler heights, and the time comes for a 1 See chapter on " The Symbol-Octave of Manifestation " in Book Four.

manifestation of a God in terms of His Forthgoing, of bringing to those who have been waiting for Him in the Sea of Undifferentiation the mighty awakening which shall lead them to achieve the lightning-white of Divinity within the purple enfoldment of His protection. 1

1 For colour-ideas of the symbols, see Chapter 6 in Book Three

Chapter 32

THE YOGA OF INFINITUDES

What is it that ever is? —Space, the eternal Anupadaka [Parentless]. What is it that ever was ?—The Germ in the Root. What is it that is ever coming and going ?•—-The Great Breath Then there are three Eternals ?—No, the three are one. That which ever is is one, that which ever was is one, that which is ever being and becoming is also one : and this is Space.

Explain, O Lanoo [disciple].—The One is an unbroken Circle [Ring] with no circumference, for it is nowhere and everywhere ; the One is the boundless Plane of the Circle, manifesting a Diameter only during the manvantanc periods ; the One is the indivisible Point found nowhere, perceived everywhere during those periods; it is the Vertical and the Horizontal, the Father and the Mother, the summit and base of the Father, the two extremities of the Mother, reaching in reality nowhere, for the One is the Ring as also the Rings that are within that Ring Light in Darkness and Darkness in Light: the " Breath which is eternal." It proceeds from without inwardly, when it is everywhere, and from within outwardly, when it is nowhere ... It expands and contracts [exhalation and inhalation]. 1 —Occult Catechism

The above extract came to me after I had already written that which follows. It seems to me to be very appropriate to the general theme which I am trying to elaborate.

What is In Symbolic Yoga the Point represents an attempt to

Infinitude ?

convey in the form most acceptable to the student an idea of a certain mode of Infinitude, since the achievement by man of his Godhead is an entry into a Self-conscious Infinitude out of a dwelling in an Infinitude with regard to which there has been little, if any, Self-consciousness—at the most intermittent flashes of such Self-consciousness.

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

An Infinite Contraction-Expansion

Inbreathing Outbreaking

Localized Infinitude

The Point describes Infinitude in terms of the almost inconceivably microscopic, so as to convey the impression that the conception of Space does not in fact enter into the idea of Infinitude. Therefore, Infinitude may be an infinite expansion or it may be an infinite contraction. Furthermore, the whole of the evolutionary process is concerned with Infinitude, either as the microscopic or as the macroscopic. What we may call an undifferentiated particle of consciousness may possibly not be at all undifferentiated. And what we call finite may in truth be not at all finite. But there is very little that can be said about this since we cannot know what Undifferentiation or Infinitude really mean. They are just words, terms, ideas, inferences.

Hence, if I speak of the expanding and contracting power of Infinitude, I am trying to convey the idea that Infinitude-ness is everywhere, which is not, I think, as much of a truism as it appears. Within what may be called limitless contraction there is Infinitude, no less than within the limitless expansion with which we are much more accustomed to associate the idea of Infinitude. In that Ceaseless Breath of God to which reference is made in the Stanzas of Dzyan, we conceive of an Infinitude of outbreath-ing and equally of an Infinitude of inbreathing. Indeed the very word God is a formula for some sort of Infinitude-Self-Consciousness.

The Point conception has the advantage, as it were, of localizing Infinitude, thereby enabling us to enter more effectively into the spirit of it, since we ourselves are very much creatures of locality. It is easier for us to conceive of Infinitude in terms of apparent limitation, even though the very phrase involves a contradiction in terms. Indeed, the very contradiction stimulates comprehensibility, for contradictions are our meat and drink, we live in the very midst of them.

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Perfection-to-be

The Absolute is Static

So the Point remains the most convenient expression of an Infinitude. 1 It represents that limitless contraction which is the reverse process of limitless expansion. Limitless expansion is outbreathing. Limitless contraction is inbreathing.

I have said that Infinitude dwells within the least differentiated particle of evolving consciousness. I wish to convey that, at every stage of the evolutionary process, and in every particle of consciousness, there is an Infinitude-ness which is the reflection of a Perfection-to-be. It is what I should like to call Absolute Perfection, in the sense that it is perfect where it is, it is relatively absolutely perfect—I offer no apology for the juxtaposition of these adverbs—it represents a complete mode of Perfection. The evolutionary process fulfils its nature, fulfils itself, at every stage in every least particle of its consciousness. The evolutionary process is succeeding all the time, is attaining a goal all the time, even though it be not attaining the Goal. We may therefore speak of every distinct moment of evolution as containing within itself an Absolute Perfection, though this Perfection is undoubtedly only relative when we compare it with that which has yet to unfold. Indeed, I think that such sense of Absoluteness as it is at all possible for us to conceive depends upon the establishment of a static condition of consciousness. We can conceive of an Absolute when we contemplate a " still " of the evolutionary moving picture. When movement takes place, the Absoluteness disappears.

Therefore do I say that for us, at our present stage, it is the relative which is dynamic, and that our conception

1 "That alone which is Immensity is Happiness. Verily that Immensity extends from below, it extends from above, it extends from behind, it extends from before, it extends from the South, it extends from the North—of a truth it is all this." Yet " within the habitation of Brahman, there is a small lotus-like chamber, and within it a minute point of space. Verity as extensive as space, so is the point of space within the heart. Both the earth and the heaven exist within it. Both Agni and Vayu, both the sun and the moon, as also lightning and the stars, and whatever else exist in this (universe), as well as what do not—all exist within this point of Akasha.''— Chhandogya Upanishad.

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

A Series of

innumerable

Perfections

Dynamic in Forthgoing

Contraction-Intensity

of the absolute must ever be associated with the static. I know full well that this statement is inherently wrong, but perhaps its very expression of a contradiction may convey to us some dim sense of over-thoughts beyond our normal powers of thinking.

I conceive of an Absolute Perfection in connection with the Consummation aspect of the Point, and an Absolute Perfection not merely with regard to the Point as a whole, but also with regard to every constituent element of that whole. To put this idea somewhat more plainly, I conceive of a God as being not only perfect in His wholeness, but also as having perfect constituent elements built into every aspect of His consciousness. The least particle of a God is perfect at its stage, so that the substances composing Him may be looked upon as a series of innumerable Perfections. Of course, there is a Perfection in each one of us, in every living creature, when we look at a certain achieved level of growth. But the pure Divinity aspect only manifests in every part of being when the individual himself achieves Divinity.

When we look at the Point in its Consummation aspect, we are looking at it as a static state, though in fact it is, of course, dynamic, for not only is it evolving on its own plane of consciousness, but it is also moving to the Forthgoing. It has its higher dynamic in its own growth at its own level. It has its lower dynamic in the Forthgoing.

I find myself wondering how I am able to associate the static with the Consummation. I think the illusion is produced through a slowing-down of Time-Movement to imperceptibility, so that Time enters into a condition of extreme intensity. The phrase occurs to me that the Expansion-Infinitude of Eternity becomes reversed, or transmuted, or modified, into the Contraction-Infinitude of Time. Here again, while the idea seems confusing, I

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Concentrated Essence of Time

A Call of Absolute to Absolute

venture to think it is suggestive of an over-thought beyond the peaks of our thinking. But I must not leave the reader with the idea that Time alone can thus deepen into intensity. Eternity speeded up—if the expression is at all intelligible—becomes no less Infinitude-intense than Time when slowed down. Is the intensity of Eternity the intensity of Time turned inside-out ? In any case it is an intensity of outbreathing as contrasted with an intensity of inbreathing.

I seem to , the Point in an illusion of its being, a concentrated essence of Time. It is the gathering together of all the time that has been used to produce it. It is a mode of Eternity, but it is not Eternity. And we make an effective pretence of its being some kind of a " still/' just as we might at a particular point stop dead a motion-picture reel, so that we may give ourselves the impression of looking upon something which is in the nature of an Absolute. Stopping a sequence of relatives, we gain a sense of an Absolute. Perhaps this idea may suggest to us a tremendous thought-vista in the idea of Movement as consisting of a multitude of sequential Absolutes. Does the Absolute theme run through the whole of a relativity series ?

In the light of all this, I postulate the thought that the Forthgoing aspect of the Point is a Call which is composed of Absolutes. It is a Call from Perfection, which is static, to unconsciousness which is also static. On the other hand, we may regard this aspect of the Point as dynamic, contrasting it with the Consummation, because while it may be composed of that which is static, it is a Call, and a Call must ever be composed of Movement. Because of the Call, apart from its nature, the static unconsciousness of the " Men of the Sea " of undifferentiation is changed into the beginnings of dynamic consciousness as they hear the Call and awaken.

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

A Call to

Gods-in-the-

Becommg

Symbols are Reflections of Absolute Symbols

The Line Function of Measurement

Let it be further said that this Call is not alone to the denizens, or rather to some of the denizens of the Sea of Undifferentiation. It is no less a Call to itself as Point, to prepare the evolutionary way of those who are on the threshold of being active Gods-in-the-becoming, so that their path may be made straight.' Thus is the Call twofold. Therefore, those whom we may call the " Men of the Point " awaken, and the Point itself awakens in itself the mighty function of Father-Motherhood.

The Web that is the Womb flashes forth. And we see in this very flashing that its form is, as are all forms, predetermined. This Web that is the Womb is a very marvellous reflection of that Infinite Web that is the Infinite Womb. We thus at once come to the conclusion that all symbols, however much we may bestow upon them the title of " Ultimates," are part reflections, perhaps, of reflections, and 'of Absolute Symbols, if such there be. Or shall I say that every finite symbol—and all the symbols of Symbolic Yoga must be deemed to be finite in a certain sense of the word—is a reflection of an Infinite Symbol, from which there descends an infinite series of symbols, contracting from Infinitude into the most microscopic individuality of which we can conceive ? Every individuality is a Symbol, is a Formula, is a Mnemonic, is an Act of Remembrance. It is for this reason that we may so rightly speak of the Yoga of Remembrance. I have used the word 14 Ultimate " in connection with the symbols I describe. Obviously I cannot mean that these symbols are absolutely ultimate but only relatively ultimate—ultimate within a certain universe of understanding.

This Web that is the Womb brings forth, as child, the vertical Line. I have said that this Line stretches out into Infinitude, Yet with all its curvature into Infinitude it must be remarked that it expresses a limitation—a limitation of expansion and a limitation of contraction. The Line is a

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277

The Point determines the Circle

These Symbols could be presented Otherwise

Divine Standard, a Yard Measure, and it measures. Perhaps I ought to have said that it measures rather than it is limited. Its measurement-function gives an idea that it is limited. But in reality it may have no limitation, but only be exercising a faculty when it measures for the evolutionary process with which I am associating it. " With which I am associating it," yes. For how do I know that there is in fact an actual giving birth to a Line ? May it not well be that the Web that is the Womb is giving birth not to a Line as such, but to a quality of the Line which is the Line for all evolutionary processes, which is the Universal Yard-Stick raying forth individual aspects to suit individual evolutionary processes ? It may not matter which idea is nearer the truth. But these meditations are part and parcel of dynamic Yoga, for the true Yogi penetrates and penetrates and penetrates, and does not care much whither he is going so long as he is going.

In any case the Line is the justification for the Circle, though how this is drawn I do not know, since it flashes into being without the slightest indication as to any process. Of course, the Divine Compasses take into account the Point, start from it, for it is the Point which determines the Circle even more than the Line itself. Some day our mathematicians may be able to tell us exactly how much more important the centre of the circle is even than that other point which gives us the half-diameter stretch.

I find myself thinking about the expansion and contraction Infinitudes in relation to all these symbols. In the case of the Point we have what I can only call a Contraction-Infinitude, which is camouflaged for us in a Point presentation. We must by no means think that the symbol could not be presented otherwise than as a Point, or indeed that any of the symbols could not be presented otherwise than they are. The presentation of each symbol is a convenience, though none the less a truth. On the other

hand, I am not suggesting that they do not have a real existence, independent of this particular conception of them, nor must I say that each one is not an accurate reflection of its Reality. It is very difficult in these most distant regions of consciousness to be at all positive as regards forms, and to say that one form is true and that another form is false. I know perfectly well that the forms whereby I have described the various symbols are true forms ; but I must not say that they are the only forms. I have described the Consummation-Forthgoing in terms of a Point. I could have described it in terms of an Expansion-Infinitude. I have described the Web that is the Womb as a scintillating network, perhaps as I am noxv seeing it in semi-ovoid form. But I by no means feel restricted to this particular description. I see, for example, other forms— the welling up of a fountain, a long half-opened lily-like chalice of force-petals of iridescent light, heaven-turned, resembling the conventional lotus form which arises out of old Egyptian pillars, which one sees reproduced in many beautiful flower-vases made today.

I speak about a Point when perhaps I should rather speak about a Potency. I speak about a Line when perhaps I should speak about a myriad Lines which themselves establish a Circle at their extremities. The Point radiates and there are Lines. The Lines revolve and there is the Circle.

The Line could well be described as an infinite Circle, while the Circle itself could have flashed into existence at once as a Globe. But I have described the symbols as I saw them when disclosed to me by my Teacher. I am only touching upon the possibility of other descriptions in order that the reader may not feel himself in any way tied down to the specific forms which were the first to come to me.

' n an y case> we must ac ' m ' t ^at ever Y symbol only tells half the story of itself, for it has to be a Contraction-Infinitude rather than an Expansion-Infinitude, or we should

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Curvature is rooted m Relation

The Web has Infinitude, has Curvature

not understand it at all. There is no contraction which has not its expansion aspect, no infinitely-small which has not its infinitely-large, no movement, or colour, or form, or sound, which has not its infinite counterpart, its corresponding Expansion-Infinitude, assuming that each represents the contraction aspect, So are we compelled to play with contradictions, but we are safe if we know that they are contradictions and only tell, at the most, half the story of their being. Let us be clear that there is no Infinitude in one direction which has not its counterpart in an equal and opposite direction.

I have written of the curvature of the Line, and I have also referred during the course of the book to curvature as inherent in all forms. I think that this universal existence of curvature has its root in the truth of Universal Relationship, outside which there is nothing. Such Relationship, in some wonderful way, demands curvature. In very microcosmic terms we speak of Reverence. Reverence is curvature in its very essence. So, in fact, are also Goodwill and Compassion—the three being the essential qualities of curvature. The very curvature of Light is its expression of Reverence, though we shall have to define Reverence very much more acutely and accurately if we are to use the word for the macrocosmic as well as for the microcosmic. I think I must leave this fascinating problem at this point, or I shall be entering regions in which I cannot at my stage of evolution have any bearings.

I see that I can call each symbol a Point, as from one aspect each undoubtedly is. But I do not do so, because there are other terms available for the understanding of the symbols. For example, the Web that is the Womb has very much kinship with the emotion-ideas and thought-ideas which constitute our stock-in-trade for the process of adjustment which our incarnation into the outer world involves. This symbol can be easily expressed in terms with

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

Every Symbol is a Point

The Circle lays down the Law

What is the Cross ?

which we are familiar, in terms of which we have quite a definite conception in the birth and growth of the embryo. 1 But the Web that is the Womb has its Infinitudes no less than the Point. And equally its curvature. Had it not these qualities, the Line could not possess the quality of Infinitude or of Curvature.

In the case of the Line, its Point idea will certainly be familiar to students of mathematics, for, as I conceive it, the Line is indeed a series of Points. And what is not a series of Points ? I have already suggested that each symbol is from one point of view a Point.

The Circle may perhaps be described as a quality of the Line, or as the outward and visible sign of the Universal Line in a mode of its limitation. The Circle is the child of the Line, but it is also a mode of the Line, for I find myself conceiving of the Line in its principle of curvature as an infinite Circle, of which the Circle symbol is a mode of expression—incarnation, if you will. The Circle, too, has its Infinitudes which may be studied with very great profit. One especially notices that the Circle lays down the Law. Of course, all the symbols lay down the Law. They are embodied Law, because they are embodied Life and embodied Light. We perhaps rightly call the Circle a Ring-Pass-Not, and think of the Circle as symbolizing a special application of the Law-Universal to a universe in particular.

We now come to that most interesting and in many ways perplexing symbol, the Cross, which flashes into being by the appearance of a horizontal Line which bisects the vertical Line. As I look upon the Cross in the light of the experience I have gained, I find myself irresistibly coming to the conclusion that all I have said about it is indeed inadequate. And I find nowhere any explanation or definition which satisfies my present vision of it.

1 See " Symbols through the Kingdoms " in Book Five.

THE YOGA OF INFINITUDES

281

An Infinite Soul enters a Limited Body

The Lines have

Infinite

Extension

What is the Cross ? It is, of course, the negation of undifferentiation. It is an Infinitude in incarnation. It is a soul-body. The vertical Line symbolizes Infinitude. The horizontal Line typifies Limitation. You will perhaps tell me that I have described the vertical Line as a Divine Measure, a Yard-Stick, a very expression of Limitation. Such indeed it is. But the horizontal Line might no less be described as an Infinitude. It is. It curves into infinity on its own plane just as the vertical Line curves into infinity on its own plane. Yet, while the vertical Line stands for a definite limitation, declaring where the new evolutionary process ends, both as to its North and as to its South, it asserts the Infinitude idea, the Infinitude element in life. The horizontal Line, while expressing Infinitude, puts on the garb of limitation, and we seem to perceive it far more in terms of limitation than the vertical Line. Both are the same, though on different planes. But one, while expressing Limitation, intimates Infinitude. The other, while expressing Infinitude, intimates Limitation. I am afraid this is very metaphysical, but it is all I can truly perceive with regard to the Cross. The vertical Line descends into the horizontal Line as an infinite soul enters a limited body. The Cross is thus the incarnated soul, and in the Svastika we have the symbol of its growth.

Both the vertical Line and the horizontal Line must be conceived of as extending infinitely beyond the Circle-Globe, and yet while the conception is easy so far as regards the vertical Line, and both necessary and right, we cannot help perceiving that the horizontal Line permits itself to be definitely Circle-Globe limited. The vertical Line attends to the Circle-Globe but lives in the outer regions far more. The horizontal Line, though also living in the outer regions, seems, as it were, to take up its abode in the Circle-Globe and to dwell therein.

The Magnetisms | a lso see this horizontal Line as performing a kind

of the r 3

Hemispheres 1 of dual function. It is the East-to-West diameter just as the vertical Line is the North-to-South diameter, but the horizontal Line is also in some strange way that I find difficult to understand, the Equator, and an Equator which in some way separates the Northern Hemisphere from the Southern so distinctly that it is almost impossible not to feel that they are different worlds even though they belong to the same world. 2 I wish I had the knowledge to understand how this equatorial division affects the whole of the life on the one side and on the other. I am afraid to speculate lest my imagination—or may I say my intuition—runs away with me. But it occurs to me that there are periods of northern evolution, of southern evolution, of eastern evolution, and of western evolution, and that each kind of evolution differs from all the other kinds in that each is affected by different types of magnetisms. Certainly this seems abundantly true as regards the North and the South, for even the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms seem definitely affected by the differences of the two magnetisms.' 5 I think the same may be postulated to be true with regard to the human kingdom. There is a different mode of evolution in the North from that which there is in the South, but we have yet to understand its nature. In any case, we see at once that the horizontal Line is a very potent factor in the evolutionary process, and may be rightly regarded as representing the Mother principle, just as the vertical Line may be rightly regarded as representing the Father principle.

The Alpha and The Svastika needs, I think, no further comment, nor

Omega

the beautiful symbol of the Lotus, except that I might well

1 See " Directions " in Book Five.

- In some way I find myself identifying the East with the Heavenly North and the West with the Heavenly South, as if the East takes up the work of the North and the West the work of the South.

8 This pull of the vertical and horizontal was felt by the poet Gabrielle d'Annunzio, who said that he grew increasingly tired of living horizontally and felt that he wanted to live vertically.

say, as the very title of this book suggests, that while from one point of view the Point is a common principle inherent in all symbols, the Lotus and its Fire constituent is indeed no less inherent. In one way, the Point is the Alpha of the process, while the Lotus is the Omega.

Chapter 33

A PHYSICAL POSTURE

Do Postures aid?

The two Basic Postures

The Upright Bridge between the Fires

The heart of the earth is one pole of Kundalini, the sun is the other. Now the awakening of Kundalini is tantamount to making oneself the Rod between the two. In one sense one is ever a Rod, but the Rod is not yet alive, awake. — Kundalini

You will, I think, ask me if there be a posture on the very physical plane itself, and on the inner planes too for the less visible bodies, a poise, an athletic bearing, which shall make the ascent easier. Are these symbols contacted more easily through postures such as are recommended in many books dealing with other forms of Yoga ?

There are but two postures which at present I wish to associate with this form of Yoga, at all events until the student has penetrated far. One, the sitting posture, cross-legged, as indicated in the Hindu Scriptures, or in a position of relaxed ease as, for example, in a chair. The other is a posture of standing, the posture of a Line, of the " I." Under certain conditions the first is somewhat easier, but for deeper penetration the other, which is a standing posture, is far better.

When an individual, a Man, reaches the human kingdom, 1 passes its pons asinorum or middle point, and enters the last stages in that kingdom, becoming ready for conscious individual Yoga, as heretofore his Yoga has been unconscious and universal, he will know how to stand erect as a Line, upright, drawing from his North the Fire of

A PHYSICAL POSTURE

285

The Rod of Power

The Esoteric Spine

A Live Wire between Heaven and Earth

Heaven, and from his South the Fire of Earth. So doipg, he reflects the third great symbol of this form of Yoga, the Line, the forthpouring of the Third Logos in fecundation of the as yet Sea of the Unmanifest. But the Line position may be used for action in connection with each of the symbols. Indeed, it is the primordial posture in this form of Yoga.

The moment you look at an individual with the two circles he forms, at either end of the Line—one formed by the head and the breast, and the other by the feet—in that moment you see the beginnings or shadow of a Rod of Power, 1 to be perfected only after an incalculable period of time. And this is but a reflection of the circle of his Heaven-consciousness and the circle of his Earth-consciousness united in his individuality, again the Cosmic Rod of Power.

The spine is the best reflection we have of this Rod of Power, though in its upright nature it is not so well reflected in the lower kingdoms of nature. The spine is our Rod of Power, rather perhaps the esoteric than the exoteric spine. To the inner spine belong the Ida and Pingala and the Kundalini Fire. 2 If you will go as high as you cdh go, you will perceive that the spine is but the putting into perspective of a portion of the infinite Line of individuality, of your own individuality. The physical spine is your Rod of Power during your few years of life. There is another spine and that is a projection from your infinite curvature. I cannot follow it, but see that it is so. In meditation you may sit or stand at ease, but your spine must be as straight as you conveniently can make it without discomfort.

A certain erectness, if you are able to achieve it, lifts you entirely out of all the sordidness of earth, and yet

1 See " Rod of Power " in Book Five. * See foot-note on p. 98.

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

The Link between the two Ways

Man stands Upright

The Marriage the Fires

of

The Standing Posture -

keeps you in touch with the Mother Spirit of Earth, so that it is almost as if you are a child between the Father, who is the Sun, and the Mother, who is the Earth. You are literally a live wire between heaven and earth, between the heaven of your future and the earth of your present and past.

Man in his highest spiritual reaches, as he approaches the Way of Holiness * and treads it successfully, turning his face homeward, is in some way the middle point of the evolutionary process. Beyond him stretches the great Way of Return. Beneath him stretches the great Way of Forth-going. He is a middle point in the great curvature of growth, not its consummation, but the link between the two Ways. The achievement of the human kingdom gives him his first safety, even though the Crown of Victory is not assured to him until he achieves the second safety—entry into the Law-consciousness of Life or, as we sometimes call it, Initiation. But let it be said that he has been safe for ever, from the very beginning, even though we may think of him now as more safe than ever.

Man as man stands upright in the beginnings of Self-consciousness, as does no other aspect of his individuality.

Thus standing, through the marriage of the Fires, the aspirant lifts his lower consciousness into the higher, and causes his higher consciousness to flood the lower—and less by slow effort, as set forth in the ordinary books on Yoga, more by the resolution of a quick and magic will.

He will stand erect, stilled from all outer contacts, yet potent with them all, arms loosely hanging down and close to the body, feet together, head absolutely erect. He will stand lightly, with as little sense of weight as possible, the breathing even, regular, deep, but, above all, natural, unhurried.

1 See the chapter on Initiations in Book Four. 0 See Chapter 5 in Book Three.

A PHYSICAL POSTURE

287

A single Whole-movementless Poise

Lose yourself in the Larger Consciousness

Establish a Perfect Rhythm

Drench yourself with the Elements

The Use of the Postures

The student should, as far as he can, think of himself as a single whole, stand with the whole of himself, breathe with the whole of himself, in a spirit of movementless poise. But again I insist upon perfect relaxation, so that if a seated posture is more comfortable, it may be adopted. But there must, of course, be no lounging or sprawling, The student must sit upright.

Surroundings must melt away. The eyes should see into vague far-off distances, through all intervening objects. And the more the student is able to lose himself in an undefined larger consciousness, in a consciousness entirely unfurnished save by vibrations of space, the more will he be able to identify himself with one symbol of Yoga after another.

Thus established in as perfect a rhythm as he is able to achieve at his particular stage of evolution, this Yogi-in-the-becoming may try to identify himself with symbol after symbol as may be expedient, or he may remain poised in a particular symbol, changing himself, transmuting himself, into the essence of the symbol, seeking in a spirit of perfect imperturbability and quiet will to become one with it, pouring it forth, as it were, through the nucleus that is his individuality.

He drenches himself with the earth, air, fire and water of the symbol, and with their inner counterparts, and then causes these to flow through him—either to a particular place, or throughout the world. Or he may cause the symbol to go before him as an oriflamme, as a star, so that in the process of the progress the symbol-oriflamme, the symbol-star, may effect on its way an adjustment to the Real.

The sitting posture may be suitable for what is to be no more than—if I may use this utterly improper suggestion —a consciousness identification with one of these cosmic Ultimates. But where such identification is to be followed

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

invocations through Form, Colour, Sound

Majesties of Sound

by an extension of the act of Yoga, it is better to begin from the beginning with the standing posture. There are a number of aids to the truer performance of this Yoga, the nature of which depends opon the particular form of rhythm to which the individual is attuned.

The form-Yogi may be immensely helped by the invocation of particular form-rhythms appealing deeply and strongly to him. The colour-Yogi may be immensely helped by the invocation of particular colour-rhythms. The sound-Yogi—to which company I belong at its lowest levels —will equally be immensely helped by the invocation of sounds which he will send vibrating through his consciousness at all its various levels.

Indeed, I associate with each symbol a special music-motif. I associate, for example, the wonderful principal motif in Schubert's " Unfinished Symphony " with the Line symbol. I associate with the Point, in its cosmic hush of poise between the Consummation and the Forthgoing, the Prelude to Act 1 of Wagner's " Lohengrin."

Thus, in performing acts of Yoga in connection with one or another of the symbols, I call to my aid the great majesties of sound which I happen to associate with them, and so intensify the purity of my meditation. And I also try to beg the aid of those mighty Masters of Sound, the Gandharvas, the Angels of Music, who sing and otherwise send forth in glorious sound the evolution-motif of each individuality in every kingdom of nature. They do more than this, of course. They sing the song of every expansion of consciousness as it takes place in every life, and they supply as it were a running commentary on each Individuality's upward climbing to his Divinity—remembering his past, recording his present, and bringing to this very present the most marvellous sound-intimations of his Divinity-to-be. Most beautiful is it to hear how out of the sound-pattern for the moment being woven these Masters

A PHYSICAL POSTURE

289

Seek out the Eternal Self

Only Hints may be given

of Sound draw the threads which shall at long last be woven into the pattern of a God.

It is, of course, the same with forms and colours. The principle is identical, though the material is different. And the student of this form of Yoga must seek out his Eternal Self and call upon it (or should I say upon Him-Her) to give the cosmic sweep of its mighty form, the gorgeous aurora of its rainbow colours, the glorious notes of its music-heaven.

Thus atmosphered, thus keyed in perfect attunement to his eternal reality, the student may well hope to perform in true synchronization his act of union—his Yoga—with one or more of the cosmic Ultimates which this form of Yoga invokes into these regions of time.

I have purposely left vague the actual technique of such acts of union, for this is very much a matter for each individual student to develop for himself. I have hinted at the principle, and I have given just a suggestion as to my own individual way of going about this particular aspect of the work. On the whole, only hints should be given, for this form of Yoga is a mode of Self-expression, and the Self-expression of one must not be the Self-expression of another.

I shall, however, be very glad to receive from students brief descriptions of their experiences, with special reference to any colour, form or sound associations. I am also very specially anxious to receive from Hindu and Mussalman students any comments on their own experiences with their own great musics.

19

THE "MAN" HIERARCHY

I think I ought to make clear that I am only concerned with the " Man " aspect of the particular form of Yoga disclosed to me in some small measure by the Lord of Yoga who so graciously helped.

The Life, represented by the symbols I have been trying to describe, is inconceivably complicated, dealing with almost innumerable orders or hierarchies of lives. The " Man " hierarchy is only one among them, and both the Consummation and the Forthgoing of an evolutionary process involve streams of force nfinitely complex in themselves and no less complex in their relationships with one another, to say nothing of their links with other evolutionary processes altogether

It must not be assumed for a moment that, because I have emphasized the " Man " hierarchy, therefore there is no other of any importance associated with the evolutionary process. The contrary is true. But it was my duty to bring into perspective the human evolution on this earth, here and now, and to focus attention on that aspect of Symbolic Yoga which specially concerns the " Men " of the evolutionary process.

Stirring to From the beginning, therefore, it has appeared that the

^°j? s< -' ous whole objective of the Forthgoing was to stir " Men " to their

° dment conscious unfoldment, and I caused the Sea of the Unconscious to

seem exclusively peopled with " Men," there also apparently being

naught but the Call of the All-One to cause the stream of " Men "

to flow.

I should also add that I have made no reference to the successive waves of the evolutionary process which fill one kingdom of nature after another and so produce succession in the evolutionary process, establish a ladder on each rung of which are evolving Men. Here again, to avoid complexity, I have written as if there were but one awakening of Men of the Sea out of the Undif-ferentiated, and that these Men constitute the whole of the evolutionary process.

The Call goes forth, and wave after wave of response enters within the Circle and moves successively upon the Way

Again, as all students of Theosophy know, the setting in motion of the Wheel of Evolution involves the co-operation of innumerable Beings of ail types, from the smallest atom creatures to the mighty Devas and other Rulers of worlds, from the dwellers in earth, air, fire and water, and in all other elements, up to the Logos of a solar system, and beyond.

Were I to have attempted to weave all these strands into my picture, I should have entirely frustrated the object of the Lord of Yoga in trying to convey to me this small fragment of His mighty Science.

So I have removed from practically all its adjuncts the " Man " cross-section of the evolutionary process, isolating it from its setting, so as to concentrate the student on the actual working of the Yoga in relation to Man. 1

1 See " Man " in Book Five.

Chapter 34

A GREAT ACT OF YOGA

The Mountain Vision

Vibrant Ease

Poised for the Signal

Perfect Man in Perfect Setting

The Splendour of Kingship

The Symbols flash forth

As a lamp in a windless place flickereth not, to such is likened the Yogi of subdued thought, absorbed in the Yoga of the Self . . . For a Sage who is seeking Yoga, action is called the means ; for the same Sage, when he is enthroned in Yoga, serenity is called the means. — The Bhagavad-Gita, VI, 3, 19

On one occasion, watching the Teacher, who has been trying to impress upon me somewhat of this mighty form of Yoga, I saw Him standing and looking out from His home across the vast spaces of the Himalayas, ridge upon ridge of these mighty kings of the mineral kingdom stretching backwards into unfathomable distances.

He was perfectly still ; His state of vibrant ease seemed to compel the homage of His surroundings, and tune them to the peace which was theirs to enjoy.

He seemed poised as a runner is poised, waiting the signal for the race.

A Perfect Man was set in perfect surroundings. Into His surroundings He blended, and into Him His surroundings were as if drawn by the magic of the Unity of Life.

Outwards He breathed His Kingship, and in all life around Him it found thrones. Inwards He breathed His Kingship, and in Him all life infinitely far round Him found refuge, peace and a Godhead. I am afraid I am very crudely expressing this mystery of a higher consciousness. I can only say that He was in all things, and all things were in Him.

In this perfect serenity, shone forth, flashed forth, some of the great symbols of this form of Yoga—He was

SYMBOLS LIVING AND RADIANT

The whole World thrilled to His Yoga

The Song of Life rises to its Triumph

Life grows in Terms of a Rainbow-Song

showing me some of those elements of the Science which I might possibly understand.

And since He, a Nataraja, an Orpheus,* a Lord of Movement was performing a Yoga, the whole world thrilled.

In each living thing the Song of Life sends forth its notes of joyous unfoldment: in the murmuring of the stirring sea of Life awakening enriched and glorified by the Voice of God ; in the melodious chantings of mountains, hills, seas, rivers, rocks, plains and precious stones ; in the first vague intimations of some individual song in trees, in flowers, in fields of corn and rice, in grass ; the chanting unfolding to stronger purpose, in clearer song, in creatures of the kingdom next above, the animal—the chanting thus gaining further power and moving to clearer purpose in the animal kingdom ; and then the Song of Life at last emerging, halting but recognizable—yet halting only to the outep ear, true reflection to the inner—into human individuality. The human kingdom is reached, and in its higher regions we hear from every denizen a veritable Song of Life blending into the Chant of Life's approaching triumph. 2

We know our lives and growth in terms of bodies and of space and time. But our lives are lived no less in terms of sound and colour. We can hear life grow in terms of music. We can see life grow in terms of colour. We can hear a singing which little by little unfolds into the perfect melody, containing within itself all other sweetness of sound. We can see a rainbow little by little shaping itself into a perfect sequence of colours, containing within itself all other sweetness of light. 3

1 See page 103.

2 Our Lord the Sun sings His Song for all His universe. Our Mother the Earth sings her answering note, the note of life unfolding on her bosom. So does our Lord the Sun send forth His colour, and our Mother the Earth, in ail her colour, shines forth radiance in answering homage.— Kundalini, p. 97.

3 Cf. " Colour is the sum total of the experiences of light on its journey towards earth.' '—Goethe.

A GREAT ACT OF YOGA

293

He floods the World with Gladness

His Magic and Ours

His

Inconceivable

Majesty

Forthgoing and Consummation become one

Each Symbol is an Act of Remembrance

Thus was it when my Teacher caused a mighty Yoga to flood His being. The whole world thrilled. Each living thing sang as it had never sung before. Each living thing arrayed itself in colour-light it had never worn before. Performing an act of Yoga, He brought gladness to all life in all the worlds.

Such was His magic. How infinitely less must needs be ours. Yet must we begin, for He too began !

And while I revelled in the gladness, myself rejoicing, I saw that my own joy and the joy of all that lived came from His wondrous stillness. His background was of Silence and of Darkness, but of a Silence and a Darkness of which I knew I could have no conception. It was in the midst of such a setting that His Sound and Light flashed forth in symbol after symbol, and the relation between the setting and the jewels of His forthgoing was itself a vision of inconceivable majesty.

At last the Man of the Forthgoing and the God of the Consummation had become one, at least to all vision within my power to command ; though I knew that even He had not attained that final Consummation of which the symbol in this form of Yoga is the Point, the Majesty of Man Self-conscious in His Godhead.

So by this act of Yoga He fulfilled in Himself each symbol He used, and caused it to glow in all life. He released for each Man-wanderer, travelling to his Godhead, a great Act of Remembrance, the memory that he is God and naught but God. Each symbol is indeed an Act of Remembrance, and together they give not just memory, but Divinity.

A WARNING

I feel I ought to offer a word of apology as the reader enters upon these most difficult chapters of Books Three and Four. Indeed, I have more than once thought I should be better advised to drop them altogether as being in the nature of most immature investigation in which there will be much more wrong than right. On the other hand, even the gropings of a tyro, such as I certainly am, may have some value, as much in what may be wrong as in that which may be right.

I have made a sketch of certain sublimities, and the sketch is feeble. But it remains a sketch, and may be suggestive. It ^may evoke certain lines of thought in the field it sketches, and it may bring the reader, in its very inadequacy, into contact with lines of force with which he may be far better able to deal, which he may be far better able to understand, and therefore to manipulate.

In these forthcoming chapters I am out of my depth more, I think, than elsewhere. But I have allowed them to appear, for it is, perhaps, better to wade in and to find oneself out of one's depth than never to wade in at all. I definitely believe that there is some positive truth in what I have experienced and described. It is for each reader to wade in for himself and to find where he, too, is out of his depth. It may not be the depth which is too deep for me. He may find his feet in it. So much the better. But there will probably be some other depth which will be too deep for him. Perhaps there may come an occasion for us to pool our wadings, and more truly to chart at least a portion of these depths.

Book Three—Symbols Released and Dynamic

SYNOPSIS OF BOOK THREE

Chapter 1

THE LOTUS FIRE

The purpose of subfimation of state after state of consciousness, the purpose of symbol after symbol in this form of Yoga, is to enable the student step by step to gain a real glimpse of that sublime Trinity-in-One of Seed-bud-flower—the Lotus Fire, the Earth-Heaven which is Man, which is God, which is Logos.

Chapter 2

YOGA FOR THE MAN IN THE WORLD

An individual may perform his Yoga in any centre of himself, and in any aspect of himself, and in any place. But there are also places outside the individual which are very powerful aids to the right performance of Yoga. Symbolic Yoga is for the man and the woman in the world, but not for the man and woman of the world. And in the world of Yoga, Truth is sought that it may be shared with others.

Chapter 3

THE YOGA OF ENFOLDMENT

God is Life-Giver. And you cannot know your Self save as you give life. You cannot enter into the spirit of any of the symbols of this form of Yoga save as you give forth the life you have achieved. This is called the Yoga of Enfoldment, for the heart of this Symbolic Yoga is its insistence on the essential unity of life.

Chapter 4

THE YOGA OF RECEPTIVITY

What is your ray, your colour, your note ? With such self-discovery the Yogi is able to send forth his own nature more effectively. He associates with each symbol certain virtues, and strengthens them. He sends forth his Yoga through loved ones and cherished things of his own circle, and fortifies it with splendours from other kingdoms or circles.'

Each symbol glows with the spirit of Universal Motherhood, and in every kingdom of nature he sees the holiness of motherhood. He studies the great Yogas of life in every kingdom of nature, and helps all to fulfil their own Yoga. In a word, he walks discreetly and reverently amid all forms of life, and around him spreads peace. The student must begin to live such a life, and pursue it even though he must often fail.

Chapter 5

THE YOGA OF ART

Art is one of the supreme forms of revelation. Where art is great it hints at the larger states beyond the present form of its embodiment. The true artist seeks and disdains to achieve. Modern art must be judged by the nature of the artist. Bohemianism is not art. The artist must pay for touching the heights by contacting the depths ; he swings between virtues and weaknesses. But he must ever remember that graciousness is an essential attribute of art, and graciousness includes reverence, devotion and sacrifice. Art is wherever the holiness and glory of God, of Nature, of Life, are made manifest to man through sound, colour or form; so all are artists and pnests-in-the-becoming of holiness and glory. But for the dedicated artist there is a special Yoga of Art. There is a single theme on which the universe is based. Only a master-artist can give even the feeblest echo of such a theme. For the student-artist there is a posture to practice, which resolves ignorance into wisdom, and expands the individualization of Yoga.

Chapter 6

COLOUR-IDEAS AND JEWEL-IDEAS OF THE SYMBOLS

The symbols suggest an octave of non-earthly colours . lightning-white, opalescence, electric silver-blue, sapphire, golden-yellow with flashes of green, rose-red, rainbow, lightning-white—and this octave forms a circle. The jewel-octave is : no-stone, amethyst-opal, diamond, topaz, emerald, ruby, unknown gem, no-stone. Seek out the octave-circle of the seven sounds. I often see in people around me the colours of their jewel-glories, I hear the sounds of their growing, and I perceive the building of their forms. I see their Suns within them—drops of glory from our Lord the Sun,

Chapter 7

COLOUR-TONE IN DAILY YOGA

A green thought-form may always be safely used to help an individual or a cause. But each day has its individual colour. So the use of a colour on the day to which that colour belongs will intensify the .strength and purity of the colour, and possibly link it to extra-terrestrial forces. Each day has also its note and its form.

SYNOPSIS 299

Chapter 8

THE COLOUR-RAGA OF AN ALPHABET

The symbols are for use, and not to be just looked at. The student must learn to harness the spirit of the symbols to a number of modes of self-expression in terms of colour and sound and form. For life is so much these three. By learning to associate certain colours and sounds and forms with the letters of an alphabet, we may release the powers of healing and harmonizing.

Chapter 9

AUM : THE FORMULA OF THE ALL-ONE

The Point is the one-syllabled Aum, the formula of the All-One. But this one-syllabled Aum unfolds into three syllables in the Web, and thence in the Line, at which stage we begin to hear that other formula : Aum Mam Padme Hum. This formula of Forthgoing runs like a wondrous thread through the seven symbols.

Chapter 10

A YOGA IN SOUND

This piece of music was sketched for my own use, to help to bridge the gulf between an inner and an outer Yoga. Each student should, of course, build his own music bridge with the material of his own uniqueness. There are innumerable bridges. A Yoga in Sound is one of them.

Chapter 11

A MASTER-CHANNEL OF MUSIC

I see a splendid orchestra. It is being conducted by a great musician, and some of the most gorgeous music, relayed from the Heaven of Music through a master-channel is being played. The music will thrill into symbol-form after symbol-form, and thrill through the worlds, helping to make a heaven of earth. Listening to it, I may even pass beyond symbol, and find a Peace in which the river of my being disappears into the ocean of Reality.

Chapter 12

THE COSMIC DRUMS

1 have heard one or two notes of the Cosmic Drums, the beginning of ail things. And they are rolling, beating, vibrating all the time within you no less than outside you. While always maintaining the eternal roll,

that roll varies subtly according to the needs of the world. The Cosmic Drums are impersonal, all-permeating, silent, with elements of resistless power and immanent compassion. We may hear them if we first learn to be silent, and then try to hear with impersonality, with imagination, with our Self. Later we may become their channels to help the world.

Chapter 13

THE RHYTHMS OF MAN

The laws of Nature are laws or rhythms of Man. The seven primary rhythms are : the Rhythm of Existence, the Rhythm of Unity, the Rhythm of Universality, the Rhythm of Hierarchy, the Rhythm of Movement, the Rhythm of Difference, the Rhythm of Self-containedness. In other words, life is ; life is one ; life is everywhere ; life is a ladder; life is movement; each life is unique ; God is everywhere and every one. Besides these primary seven, there are other rhythms.

Chapter 1 THE LOTUS FIRE

What then is Time?

Our Certainties must fade away

A symbol does not subject the infinite to the finite, but renders the finite transparent. 1 —Radhakrishnan

As you concentrate on this Lotus symbol, growing from the soil of» experience, ascending to its flower, imagine yourself as a great White Lotus with petal-powers extending in all directions. Already the seed is in you, the bud is slowly opening, and you are beginning the Flower, the dream that God has wrought.

Let me now state what I seem to have perceived with such senses as Yoga may have additionally bestowed upon me—that the Lotus Fire is Seed, Bud and Flower in one, and that inherent in it are its time and space, whatever these terms may mean." They do mean something, or I should not use them, .but as St. Augustine said in his Confessions:

What then is time ? If nobody asks me, I know . . . but if I try to explain it to one who asks me, I do not know.

I have been wandering with you in these highly uncharted regions; because I want to create in us all a specific impression. I want that we should feel utterly lost and confused, for we cannot embark upon any real understanding of Yoga unless and until we deliberately cut ourselves adrift from persons and principles, from books and discourses, from authorities and experiences. We must be alone in a tunnel of darkness, and see no light at either end. Our preconceptions must be shattered. Our

1 Jhe Cultural Heritage of India, Vo». I, p. xxv. - See Chapter 9 of Book Four.

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

We are Men-Gods

Appearance a Facet only of the Diamond of Reality

The Illusion of the " Curved-straight "

Through Symbol from Man to God

certainties must fade away. Our conventionalities must be destroyed. Our crutches must be cast aside.

But the purpose of all this iconoclasm is not to show the valuelessness of all that has been ours. It is not to show that our certainties, our preconceptions, our conventions, our crutches, have been in vain.

It is to show us that while we are Men we are no less Gods, and that in the fullness, not of time, but of Eternity, we shall Create, Nourish and Regenerate universes.

It is to show us that we have very far to go before we learn to distinguish between the appearance-Realities, in which for the most part we are content to live, and the Reality-appearances, which we have yet to reach. We must not for a moment imagine that because of our deep cherishing, an appearance is an ultimate Reality, that it is more than a dim, imperfectly reflecting facet, if that, of the diamond of the ReaL

There are many optical illusions to show that we know little as to the relationship between appearance and Reality, but I think we have to learn that all appearances are Realities and all Realities appearances. Every appearance is a mode of the Real, and every Real is a mode of appearance. Hence there is far less difference between the two than " appears." 1

Particularly have I in mind the von Recklinghausen illusion, which is an illusion of direction whereby " a circular diagram enclosing chequers formed by perbolas instead of straight lines " gives the appearance of an actual chessboard if the eyes be concentrated upon the centre.

So does the curved become in appearance straight, and we begin to realize how much is appearance concerned with Reality, and Reality with appearance.

But no less do we begin to realize that the wisely controlled intervention of the human will may result in a quicker

1 There is an instructive book on this subject by Mr. Bradley under the very name Appearance and Reality.

THE LOTUS FIRE

303

The Point • the Limitless Unity

Web-Womb. Divine Duality

The Triune Line

progress from appearance-Reality to Reality-appearance, from imprisonment within forms to freedom in all forms, which progress is caused by the will of man coming into contact with the Will of God. The appearance of the symbols may lead us to a Reality of Life. And I therefore feel that the association of the symbols of this form of Yoga with the human will in its various states of consciousness from the physical inwards may have the effect of producing valuable constructive adjustments, enabling me to gain some small measure of entry into conditions of consciousness ordinarily outside all penetration.

If I can rightly concentrate upon the Point, I may gain a conception of undifferentiated infinity, animated by the Ceaseless Breath of God, of a Consummation and a Forth-going in One. I may adjust my various states of consciousness to these ideas, and effect a quite extraordinary vivification, so that in a sense the limited takes on the will-vesture in an aspect of its relative limitlessness. The limited thus reflects in truer measure its own Point of immeasurable infinitude.

If I can rightly concentrate upon the Web-Womb, I may gain a conception of that Duality which proceeds out of the Unity and is the setting of the archetypal creative act, from which all other creative acts depend. I shall be able to adjust my various states of consciousness so that in each of them is reflected the Divine Duality in terms of their respective vibratory rates.

If I can rightly concentrate upon the Line, I may gain a conception of the Divine Measure whereby I live and move and have my whole being, and the heights to which I can ascend, the depths below which I dare not, and in some cases cannot, descend. Having established within myself the Unity of the Point, the Duality of the Web-Womb, and the Trinity of the Line, I incline my nature in its threefold aspect to the Three Logoi, its Divine Prototypes. / curve my nature to Them.

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

The Orcle-Olobe : Unity in Diversity

The Point of innumerable Points

Men-Globes and Universes

If I can rightly concentrate upon the Circle, I may gain a conception of the mystery of the Diverse and the Universe, so as to establish accurately that spirit of interdependence, of interrelation, and of unity in diversity which is in some incomprehensible way a fundamental law.

It is at this point that I begin to realize that the Point at which I have been looking is in no state of isolation, is by no means just a Point all by itself It has seemed to me to be all by itself because my attention exclusively concentrated upon it as a unity.

But the further concentration which the symbol of the Circle-Globe affords, reveals to me that not only is the Point but one of innumerable Points, 1 so that I begin to flounder in a maze of undifferentiated infinitudes, but that in its own being it is packed full of Points, of the nature of which I can only surmise that they somehow form part of the Being of the Point. Are they His capital, which He will in due course partly invest in the contents of the Circle-Globe ? Are they the stuff of His consciousness ? That they are cells in His organism I feel fairly clear.

Interestingly enough, I find myself using the personal pronoun, as it were, all of a sudden. It is because the Circle gives me a new conception of the Centre.

Why do I thus begin to realize that the Point is itself a multiplicity of Points, and no less one among innumerable Points ? Because the contemplation of the Circle-Globe thrusts upon my notice both the fact that it is crammed full with those Men of the Sea who themselves are globes and universes and that it is itself a Circle-Globe among an infinitude of Circle-Globes. That which is so patently characteristic of one symbol must at least be implicit in all other symbols. So when I observe a dominant characteristic in one symbol I am forced to relate it to every other symbol.

1 See " Symbols through the Kingdoms " in Book Five.

THE LOTUS FIRE

305

One among Many

Multiplicity in Simplicity

Within the ?omt all Symbols

In Lofty Regions the Web

The Point must therefore be a multiplicity of Points, and one among many Points. The Web that is the Womb must be constituted of a multiplicity of Webs that are Wombs, and one among many Webs that are Wombs. The Line must therefore be a multiplicity of Lines, and one among many Lines. There cannot be a characteristic of one symbol that is not inherent in every other symbol.

I wish I could carry this conception much farther, but the way so to do eludes me entirely for the moment.

In his Principles of Nature and Grace, Leibniz draws attention to the fact that

simplicity of substance is by no means inconsistent with the multiplicity of the modifications which are to be found together in that same simple substance, and these modifications must consist in a variety of relations to the things which are outside. It is as in the case of a centre or point, in which, although it is perfectly simple, there is an infinite number of angles formed by the lines which meet in it.

My experience endorses every word of this statement, for while on the one hand I perceive a wonderful simplicity as characteristic of every symbol, giving an impression of ultimate unity, on the other hand there is in each a complexity of lines producing a Web-like effect. In fact, each Line to my seeing is a Web, and I sometimes wonder if I could see behind the Web into No-Web, whatever No-Web may be. Even the Point, as I know it, is instinct with the Web into which it vibrates in outer form when the appointed time has come ; and therefore the concept of the Line is no less instinct in the Point, in its Silence and Darkness, within the Ceaseless Breath of God. So is it with the Circle which is but the Line extended, and with the Cross, the Svastika, and the very Lotus itself.

Possibly there may be a Line, not the Line with which we are here concerned, of which the Point is but a point* But still the Web-idea pursues us even there. And we are now gazing into regions of which we can have no conception.

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

The Cross all in Readiness to evolve

The Tossing Law of Adjustment

The Svastika Cadencies and Rhythms of Well-being

The Lotus Fire

if I can rightly concentrate upon the Cross, now formed with the flashing into being of the horizontal Line, I see that all within the Circle is set in readiness to evolve. The Centre, the Point, is ready to bear the whole weight of the evolutionary, of the revolving, process. The Web-Womb is there as the indestructible Matrix. The Line is there as the unchangeable Divine Measure. The Circle is there as the Ring-Pass-Not, and as the mighty frontier throwing evolution back upon itself, as the mystic phrase seems to be—a glimpse of the sea of evolution surging outwards to the Circumference through the power of the Centre, and surging backwards to the Centre through the power of the Circumference. 1 The surging of evolution is out to the Ring-Pass-Not from the Centre, surges up against the Ring-Pass-Not, and is thus thrown back to the Centre—an eternal process of outbreaking and inbreathing. It is as if the Triangle-Men constituting the sea of evolution were, or rather are, continuously being tossed from the Centre to the Circumference, and then back again from the Circumference to the Centre. And this tossing is the working of the Law of Adjustment whereby Men become Kings and Gods at their Centres of kingdoms stretching forth to far-off Circumferences.

Out of this restless poise comes the Svastika—Salvation, Well-being. The churning of the Cream of Fulfilment from the milk of experience. If I can rightly concentrate upon the Svastika, I may gain a conception as to the nature of Well-being, and establish its harmonies and rhythms, its cadencies and its vibrations, in each one of my states of consciousness.

In so doing I may gain my first real glimpse of that sublime Trinity-in-One of Seed-Bud-Flower—the Lotus Fire,

1 " The centripetal force could not manifest itself without the centrifugal in the harmonious revolutions of the spheres, and all forms and the progress of such forms are products of this dual force in nature."—H. P. Blavatsky,. Tfie Key to Theosophy, Section X.

THE LOTUS FIRE

307

Establish the Symbols in the Heart of your Consciousnesses

the Earth-Heaven which is Man, which is God, which is Logos.

Such indeed is the purpose of sublimation of state after state of consciousness. Such indeed is the purpose of symbol after symbol in this form of Yoga. Such is the purpose of establishing in perfect Will, and Wisdom, and Fructification, each symbol in the very heart itself of each ring of consciousness, from the Centre to the Circumference.

When we can see God the Lotus, and know ourselves to be as He, then do we begin in reality to tread the Way of Yoga that we may become its Lords.

THE LOTUS

" The significance of the tradition that Brahma is born from or in the Lotus, is the same. The Lotus symbolizes a world-system, and Brahma dwells therein representing action , he is therefore called the Kamal-asana, the Lotus-seated. The Lotus, again, is said to arise from or in the navel of Vishnu, because the navel of Vishnu or all-knowledge is necessary desire, the primal form of which, as embodied in the Veda-text is May I be born forth (as multitudinous progeny). From such central and essential desire, the will to live, arises the whole of becoming, all the operations, all the whirls and whorls, of change and manifestation which make up life." —Bhagavan Das, Pranava-Vada, I, 82

" Activity on one plane is consonant with rest on another. The jiva is tireless, but the vehicles tire and wear out. Hence, that the body may sleep, the jiva, leaving it, energizes another vehicle, and is active through it on another plane. And also, Maha-Vishnu, sleeping in the ocean, is active in ideation on the creative plane, and the result is the growth of the Lotus, and the appearance of Brahma, the creator on the planes of manifestation."

—Annie Besant, Pranava-Vada, I, 374

Chapter 2

YOGA FOR THE MAN IN THE WORLD

Yoga in any Centre

Individualization

for

Universalization

Yoga in any Place

This is the Yoga of the Marketplace

He that laboureth right for love of Me Shall finally attain. But, if in this Thy faint heart fails, bring Me thy failure I

— Jhe Song Celestial

You may perform your Yoga in any of and in all the centres of your being—in your heart, in your mind, in your will, in any chakra, in any of and in all your vehicles. You may perform your Yoga in terms of your Ray, be it of Sound or of Colour or of Form.

But, as I have already said, you must be overflowing with the fruition of your Yoga, for your individualization of Yoga must be to the end of its universalization.

Where will you perform your Yoga ? In your home, in the garden, in some quiet spot in the house, perhaps even in the very midst of all the bustle and noise of its activities.

Perhaps a flash of it as you go on your way to business, or in your office, or in a moment snatched from its duties.

This form of Yoga is not for him who renounces the world, not for the so-called ascetic, but for him who fulfils the world, lives in it, and shares life with it. It is the Yoga of the man and the woman in the world, though not of the man or woman of the world. It is the Yoga of the market-place and not the Yoga of the forest, though some day it will lead to the forest which is in the market-place.

YOGA FOR THE MAN IN THE WORLD

309

Yoga for ail Workers

The Yoga of Kingship

The Yoga of Liberation

Stir in each his Liberation

The Yogi Shares his Yoga

Yoga of Blessing

Become the Sound, Light and Form

It is the Yoga for the family, for father and mother, for husband and wife, for the business man, for the artist, for workers in all departments of human living.

It is the Yoga for all in whom an intimation of their essential kingship is stirring, and who are at least dimly discerning that in every living creature there is kingship too, not yet perhaps human kingship, but a kingship appropriate to his stage on the evolutionary way.

It is a Yoga of Liberation. But those who follow it seek its potent adjustments in themselves not for themselves alone, but for all Life. They seek its blessing that they may share it with their fellow-lives. And they know that the achievement of true Liberation, even by a single individual, lifts all other individualities a step higher on its Ladder. There is no entry at any time into true Freedom save as others are entering into theirs.

So is it that its votaries are intent on stirring in every form of life in every kingdom of nature its own Yoga of Liberation, knowing that such intent is vital in their own individual Yogas.

The sign of the true Yogi is that in his acts of Yoga he enfolds life outside his own. He shares his Yoga with his fellow-Yogis, be they of the mineral, vegetable, animal, or human kingdoms.

Nothing is more remarkable in the great acts of Yoga of Lords of Yoga than the fact that they are performed as blessing and as service, and not as self-seeking.

In the outer world the pseudo-Yogi seeks for himself alone. In the world of Yoga the Truth is sought that it may be shared with others.

Become the Sound and Light and Form of your race, of your nation, of your faith, of your community, of your Manhood and of your Godhead. So do you fulfil the individual Yoga of your uniqueness and the Universal Yoga of the One Life.

Yoga is Union

Forthgoing, Return and Journey's End

Powerful Yogic Centres

Mount Everest

Silence and Darkness

Torrential and Abysmal

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

And as fulfilment is thus expressed in course of its unfolding, all needful shall be added unto your search for the Truth that is Life.

Yoga is Union—union between yourself as Man and yourself as God, between your Self and all other Selves, to the greater glory of the Unity of Life.

The Yoga of the Forthgoing is Universal Yoga. The Yoga of the Return is Individual Yoga. The Yoga of the Journey's End is both.

I have said that an individual may perform his Yoga in any centre of himself and in any aspect of himself.

But there are also places outside the individual which are very powerful aids to the right performance of Yoga, and those students who know how may utilize such places.

The Niagara Falls are one such region, and Mount Vesuvius another. In Africa there is more than one region, including the Victoria Nyanza Falls. There is a place for special forms of Yoga in the North Sea. Both in northern and in southern America there are centres for Yoga practice. Sacred places are often powerful magnetic areas, and in the Himalayan range of mountains there are many places dedicated to Yoga from countless ages in the past.

But the region of most profound potency is, I think, Mount Gaurishankar, 1 miscalled Mount Everest.

Those who in super-physical bodies have dwelt in Yoga on the summit of this stupendous King tell us of the most marvellous Silence and Darkness they have there experienced.

The Silence is torrential. The Darkness is abysmal. Cataclysmic vastnesses of Silence and of Darkness surge through a Cosmic Space and seem, as it were, thick with unfathomable power. The Darkness dazzles with its Light-lessness. The Silence overwhelms with its Soundlessness. The whole atmosphere is awe-ful in its impenetrable intensity.

1 See note at the end of this chapter.

YOGA FOR THE MAN IN THE WORLD

311

Rends

Inconceivable

Heights

The Yogi Sees

A Shadow of the First Logos

The Spirit of Everest

The power of Gaurishankar rends inconceivable heights and fades away into infinities ; and the Yogi who is serene amidst it disappears into consciousness far beyond his reach, and is only halted by a Ring-Pass-Not of his present limitation, extended though this be by the magic of his setting.

But when the Yogi is thus truly set, he sees. And before his gaze appear sublimities, forthshadowings of the Realities I have been endeavouring to portray in symbols.

I think each place of Yoga has its appropriate experiences, its channels to different regions of Reality. It occurs to me that Gaurishankar is a shadow in its own kingdom of the First Logos.

Often and often my thoughts turn to this glorious witness to God's awesome Divinity— Mount Everest, as we so unfortunately term this mighty King of the mineral kingdom, holding sway as he does over many denizens of the vegetable and higher kingdoms themselves.

Often and often I think of the great Spirit of Everest, of Him who makes Everest His home, and who holds the holy Mountain in holy keeping for its high purposes.

I think of the times when I go far, far down into the depths of Everest, and enter into a section of the laboratory of the world. I think of the times when I ascend and ascend, up to the very summit itself, up to the windswept, storm-tossed apex of the Mountain. And I enter into an Abode of Tapas, of Meditation, where dwells the Guardian, and to which have access those who are Sons and Lords and Kings of Tapas.

Would that I were an artist to paint the supernal glories of this Place of Bliss ! The soft, caressing plains that encircle it, the first slight risings of the ground, then a more insistent ruggedness, accompanied by a nature utterly distinct from the nature of the plains and of the earlier slopes. Then the sharper ascents, until we come to very bulwarks

of denial, only to be overcome by the intrepid and fearless. At last we leave behind us all gentler forms of life, we surmount the bulwarks themselves, and we force our way up into the dwelling-places of catastrophe and unleashed, unrestrained forces, before which physical bodies must needs recoil and in the end bow defeated and destroyed.

Here indeed are the regions of turmoil, of clashing tumult, of shadows of cosmic movements, furious yet purposeful, irresistible yet moving lawfully towards an end. Only in our subtlest bodies dare we ascend to these awesome regions, for we are in the midst of great sweeping movements of the will, of torrential avalanches from on high. Only the strongest vehicle may encounter these and remain whole.

Yet the very cataclysms and tempests themselves call us to that Silence of the Summit which is one of the most glorious things on earth, veritably a wonder of the world infinitely more wondrous than any of the seven wonders which man recognizes as such.

The Soul of For in that Silence dwells the Soul of Yoga, or should I

perhaps rather say, an abode of the Soul of Yoga, for it has more than one focus in this outer world, and the Soul of Yoga is infinite.

It is the Silence of Everest that is its glory. The storms, the cataclysmic avalanches, the dark mysterious-nesses, the whirlings of powers—all these are but preludes, ante-chambers. They are the outer court. The sanctum sanctorum is the Silence, and in this Silence are Yogis made, and Lords of Yoga perform their stupendous functions.

MOUNT GAURISHANKAR OR EVEREST

Though this whole group of mountains is sacred to Gauri-shankar (Parvati and Shiva), and Mount Everest has been so designated by those who worshipped Shiva, in the naming of each

individual peak, Mount Everest has been put as Peak XV and Mount Gaurishankar as Peak XX of the official Survey. The Tibetans call Mount Everest " The White Lady of the Glaciers." Early western discoverers of this magnificent group of mountains attempting to ascertain the Tibetan name of this peak of greatest glory were told, " The Mountain is Nameless " ; so sacred was it in their eyes. In 1865, no name being found, the Survey deviated from a well-established principle, i.e., always to use a local name, and gave the mountain the name of the Survey Director, Colonel Everest, a brilliant mathematician and geodesist, whose genius and inspiration made the Survey possible.

Since then conflicting reports of various Tibetan names have been given by travellers —Chomo Kankar, Chholungbu, Chomo Lungmo or Lungma, Chomo Uri, Lapchi Kung, and Milarepa seems to have known it as Lapchi Chubat [between mountains]. One name, Mi-ti Gu-ti Cha-pu Long-nga, means "the summit that cannot be seen from near, but afar from nine directions, and that blinds the bird that soars aloft to its peak," or more literally, " No line—nine lines—flying bird blind." Cho^Lord of Lords, and Cno-Mo =J.ady of Ladies— again the Gaurishankar idea of a dual Lord. Uri — Turquoise Peak.—See Professional Paper No. 26, Survey of India.

" Does anybody know who actually discovered Mount Everest, the highest peak in the world ? The Indian World, the new Bombay monthly, states that the actual discoverer of the peak was Mr. Radhanath S.kdar, and suggests that the peak should be renamed Mount Sikdar In his account of the ' Progress of Physics in India,' contributed to the volume published by the Indian Science Congress Association, Prof. M. N. Saha mentions that ' in 1845, Radhanath Sikdar, the head computor of the Trigonometric Survey and an accomplished mathematician, found from mathematical reduction of the observations made some years earlier of an obscure-looking peak of the Himalayas, that this was actually the highest peak in the world.' As these observations were made during the regime of Colonel Everest who was then the Surveyor-General, the peak was called after him in disregard of the claims of the actual discoverer."

— The Hindu, Madras, 19 August 1938

Chapter 3

THE YOGA OF ENFOLDMENT

From the Yoga of Meditation to Everyday Living

Our Yoga must flow from Centre to Circumference

The Symbols be established in our Lives

The Gods adore Thee, They greet Thee,

O Thou the One Dark Truth, the Heart of Silence, the

Hidden Mystery,

The Inner God seated within the Shrine, Thou Producer of Beings, Thou the One Self' We adore the souls that are emanated from Thee, that

share Thy Being, that are Thyself. O Thou that art hidden, yet everywhere manifest, We worship Thee in greeting each God-soul that cometh

forth from Thee and liveth in us. 1

It is most important to understand that our Yoga must be within the circumstances of our everyday living. It must not be exclusively confined within a certain time or to a certain place. We may have both a time and a place for special meditation and contemplation. But this must be but as the centre, and its power must radiate to every point on the circumference.

We cannot be Yogis at one time and in one place, and not Yogis at other times and in other places. Yoga may begin at a centre, but it cannot end there. The Yoga of God is universal within His vast domain. The Yoga of each one of us must become universal within our microscopic domains, within our individual lives.

The spirit of each of the symbols must be established in our lives, and permeate each field of our living, and no less each plane of our consciousness.

THE YOGA OF ENFOLDMENT

315

We can reproduce the Point

The Tangibility of Silence and of Darkness

Silence and Darkness flood

On Waves from afar

Melting into < Rhythm

I achieve a

Movementless

Poise

A Matrix of Consummation Past, Present, Future

If we begin with the Point conception, we see at once that we have wonderful connections to make between its sublimities and our actualities. But we must clearly realize that there is nothing of the Point which we cannot in some way or other reproduce in ourselves.

When we think of the Silence and Darkness of the Point, we can sense a measure of its reflection in our physical and super-physical bodies.

May I remind you of the tangibility of the Silence, and of the Darkness ? I want you to try to establish within yourselves a contact with that tangibility, so that you actually feel something of a Silence which is infinitely more than a stillness, something of a Darkness which is infinitely more than an idea of blackness.

In my own experience, the sense of such tangibility is produced in my consciousness by a certain variation from my normal rhythms, so that the vibrations around me cease to register, and other vibrations from afar, as it would seem, replace them and cause me so to contact a Silence and a Darkness that these flood me and overflow into my far beyond.

Of course, these other vibrations may not necessarily come from " afar." In any case, their strangeness gives this impression.

Thus do I find myself melting into a rhythm which gives the sense of a Silence and a Darkness not of the substance of these worlds, not of their matter, but of their soul, of their substans.

I achieve a movementless poise composed of an infinitude of waves, all within my breathing of the Ceaseless Breath of God.

Into this matrix, if I may so call it, we pour a sense of that Consummation which is so inherent in the Point. Into this sense is distilled the summation of our own stupendous past together with an aura of the future. We plumb our

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

Fusing Time and Eternity

With the Help of Gods, we may achieve the Symbols

A King of Life

We are the Triune Gods

The Discovery of the Creative Spirit

God-Discovery

fathomless past, our inscrutable present, and our fathomless future, and there is a something which leads us to a tangible contact with the cosmic Consummation itself. Running through our evolutionary process have been many smaller consummations, many lesser kingships, and the attar 1 of these wafts us up into the supreme Kingship of Godhead.

Under the blessing of the Eternal, the individual will gains power to fuse the element of Time into the substance of Eternity.

By ourselves all this is impossible. As Men we can only achieve this on the divine plane of Manhood.

As men the achievement is beyond our power. But, as Gods, with the help of God, we can do it, and we do it.

But Consummation moves onwards into its Father-Mother state of Forthgoing that Man may become king of all kingdoms of life, and ascend into his Godhead as a very King of Life. I think it is quite possible to sense this state of consciousness if we will try to discover in ourselves a reflection of the Creative Spirit.

We are Gods. We are Creators. There is no individuality in any kingdom of nature who is not God tha Creator, God the Nourisher, God the Regenerator.

Our education should have discovered in us our creative spirit. Probably it has not, and we are left to discover it for ourselves The artist in whatever field is making his discovery. We all are artists. There is no " corner " in art for a particular set of people. Art is not exclusive to the few. It is the individual heritage of every living creature. What is the spirit of your Forthgoing, not in terms of the future, but in terms of the Here and the Now ?

Where has your Manhood discovered in your manhood your Godhead ?

1 See " Attar " in Book Five.

THE YOGA OF ENFOLDMENT

317

Give forth of your Life

Vivify Nature

Stimulate Kingship

The Heart of Symbolic Yoga

Take all of Ourselves with us

Take the whole World

The Aura of any Man is a Yogic Shrine

Each has his Beloved in every Kingdom

Seek and you shall find. Knock with the power of your Yoga and the vision of your creative genius shall be opened unto you.

But you shall not find, nor shall there be any opening, save as you know how to seek and how to knock.

God is Life-Giver. You cannot know your Self save as you give Life. You cannot enter into the spirit of any of the symbols of this form of Yoga save as you give forth the life you have so far achieved.

You must remember the kingship you have achieved in kingdom after kingdom of nature, and you must vivify each kingdom with that which you have gained from it.

You must try to remember how you became a king, and give wise help for kingship to those who have yet to attain it.

This is what I find called the Yoga of Enfoldment, for in many ways the heart of this Symbolic Yoga is its insistence on the essential Unity of Life.

I have said in the earlier pages of this book that we must take all of ourselves with us as we prepare for Yoga—not a withdrawal from but a gathering in, a harvesting rich and all-inclusive.

But not only must we take all of ourselves with us, we must try to take the whole world with us, and every kingdom of nature. For the moment this may be an impossible task, but we certainly can travel on our way with more right attachments than the number accompanying us now.

And I have reserved for this point the fact that Yoga is not only to be performed in some special places highly magnetized for the purpose, but also within the aura of any Man in any kingdom of nature, for he is God and therefore sacred.

Each one of you has, I expect, a deeply loved individuality in every kingdom of nature, and not only

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

Contemplating these, perform the Yoga of Enfoldment

Vivify, Fructify, Glorify

In a Magic Memory perform your Yoga

Through constant Practice

Every Symbol should glow in Radiance

The Unreal is but the Other-Real

in the human kingdom ; possibly even more than one, many.

A special flower, a tree, a shrub, a rock, a landscape, a precious stone, some much-loved earth, some animal or other denizen of the animal kingdom, a bird from the Deva kingdom, a human being : for one or another of many evolutionary reasons you may have round you a veritable family of " Men " at different stages of evolution. Contemplating one of these in turn, or being physically very near them, you may with deepest respect perform this Yoga, perceiving in each, as in the symbol, the glories

of the Eternal Life.

•

And each will cry aloud in its own language the utterance of the Christ : " How Thou dost glorify me ! " l How wonderful an utterance to hear! Yet how true, for through the magic of our own individual Yogas we enter into the consciousness of each of these individual Yogis, and vivify it, fructify it, glorify it.

And we may perform this Yoga even in the spirit of a memory of some cherished event, or in the magic evocation of a look, of an appearance, of a fragrance, of a sound, of a colour, or of a form.

The time comes when, through constant practice, the Yoga comes quickly to us, needs at times but little preparation, flashes upon us almost unawares, and baptizes us into power.

I have so far been dealing with this form of Yoga-practice in the light of the symbol of the Point. But is it not clear that every symbol-conception must no less be drawn into the intimacies of our lives, each symbol in turn receiving the attention of our consciousness and thus glowing into radiance.

And remember that each symbol has its reality in every Man dwelling in every kingdom of nature. Naught 1 See page 171.

THE YOGA OF ENFOLDMENT

319

In a Flower dwell ail the Symbols

The Flower a Universe

Our Yoga in the Flower

The Line of Vitalization

is there but the Real anywhere. What we are pleased to term the Unreal is but other-Real, that Real which is no longer to be in the vanguard of our living, not even in the main army, but in the no less vital rearguard.

In a flower ] dwells the Point, for the flower is a Silence and a Darkness, a Consummation and a Forthgoing. In the flower moves rhythmically the Ceaseless Breath of God. In the flower dwells the Web that is the Womb. In the flower is that Line which shoots forth from the Centre to North and South. The flower is a very universe in itself, is encircled by its own self-contained nature. The flower contains within itself the Svastika of its own individual growth, reflection of the Svastika of the universe. And every flower is mysteriously the shadow of Matri-padma, the Mother-Lotus of us all.

I am vividly reminded of the exquisite verse of Blake, that really great Yogi :

To see a World in a grain of sand, And a Heaven in a wild flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand, And Eternity in an hour.

So, as we perform our Yoga, the flower, and every other Yogi in all kingdoms of nature, is stirred to the very depths of its being, and stirs us to the depths of ours. However much we may be in the midst of our individual Yoga as climbers three-quarters way up the human mountain side, reinforcing our Yoga with this symbolic form, nonetheless do we retain our essential membership of that Universal Yoga in which all life lives and moves and has its being, particularly concerned though it be with the subhuman kingdoms and a large proportion of humanity, for all its apparent individualization.

From personal observation I would say that there is nothing to exceed in glory the flashing Line of Vitalization as it shines forth in every Man in every kingdom of nature*

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

The Perfect •Rod of Power

The Joy of all Things

Acts of Yoga

Acts of Yoga should be Simple

In many ways I select this as, to me, the most extraordinary demonstration of the symbols at work, or rather of the life of the symbols at work. It is indeed a revelation to perceive this wondrous Line, a vertical Light of perpetual movement flashing upwards into the Heavens and downwards into the Earths, making of every Heaven an Earth, and of every Earth a Heaven.

It is a revelation to see this Line in every atom as a kind of vertical axis, in every form, in every living thing, in ourselves—a perfect Rod of Power whereby the flower on earth reaches up into its heaven of delight.

I see this Line to be the joy of all things. All Men in every kingdom of nature have their contentments, their bliss, their peace, their aspirations, even though they may also have their pains and sorrows. And while the life in every symbol brings to them the wherewithal to praise their living, in some special way, possibly because I may belong to the Line Archetype—though I do not at all know —the flashing, sparkling, dancing, perpetually moving Line rejoices me more than the life of any other symbol, save that which makes the Lotus Fire so glorious.

I wish I could have suggested acts of Yoga appropriate to each plane of consciousness—helping to an un-foldment of each symbol in terms of each state of consciousness, from the physical within. I feel, however, that my Teacher intervened and intimated that neither could I do this, nor any who might study this form of Yoga. We know exceedingly little about the various planes and states of consciousness, and we should soon become lost in a maze of inextricable and disturbing confusion. This would undo any good which any simpler approach, such as we have been undertaking, may be able to achieve.

We must perform our acts of Yoga in the simplest possible manner, and in the most general terms. I have sketched above a few suggestions in connection with the

THE YOGA OF ENFOLDMENT

321

When are your most Smoothly flowing Moments ?

Sunrise, Sunset, Noon

symbol of the Point. Each student may develop these as he finds most suitable, and he must devise other exercises for other symbols, and for differing states of consciousness, as he grows more and more familiar with the elements which have been set forth above—though I am bound to say that even the suggestions I have been able to make are not as simple as they might be and require the deepest relaxation and most harmonious poise.

I have said that no special times are necessary for this form of Yoga. Yet, since every advantage must be taken of favourable external conditions, the student should endeavour to obtain from some competent astrologer a reading of his most smoothly flowing moments, so that day by day he may synchronize his Yoga with these. When does the Man-Woman perform most easily his Yoga ? When the Woman-Man ?

I should also recommend that sunrise and sunset and noon, crucial or flux times of downpouring, are the best times of day for any meditation, with, of course, a pervading sense of ease, of quiet and of peace.

FAVOURABLE PERIODS OF TIME

" When yang [the Positive Force] has reached its greatest strength, the dark power of yin [the Feminine Force] is born within its depths; night begins at midday when yang breaks up and begins to change into ym," says l-Ching in The Secret of the Golden Flower.

Yang, therefore, is Lord of the period from Midnight to Noon ; Y/n, the Lady of the period from Noon to Midnight.

Social activities usually take place between noon and midnight when Ym is dominant; hard and strenuous labour, where men live naturally, in the early morning and until noon. In Bulgaria, where there are many peasants who work strenuously and actively, and yet live to celebrate their hundredth birthday, there are whole villages who go to sleep at six in the evening with the fall of dusk, and awake shortly after midnight, working from then till noon. Many occultists find the " wee sma' hours of the morning " an excellent time for adventurous research.

Compare also the injunction that Ceremonial or Seventh Ray Activity be performed " when the Sun is at its meridian " [9 a.m. to 3 p.m.] ; the fact that the Sixth Ray Consecration of the Offered Host must be completed before noon, masses usually being performed between 6 a.m. and noon ; and the fact that some contemplative orders find their most favourable conditions at midnight, as do also, by the way, most forces working against the movement of the Wheel of the Law.

TRUE RENUNCIATION

" The liberated individual has the consciousness of the timeless infinite and with that as his background, takes his place in the temporal world. He has what the seers called trikaladrishti, an intuition of time in which past, present and future exist together for ever in the self-knowledge and self-power of the eternal. He is no more swept helplessly on the stress of the moments. He lives in the consciousness of the universal mind and works for the welfare of the world in an unselfish spirit. True renunciation is not abandonment of action, but unselfish conduct."—The Cultural Heritage of India, Vol. I, p. xxx.

" The householder shall have his life established in Brahma, shall pursue the deeper truth of all things, and in all activities of life dedicate his works to the Eternal Being. Thus we have come to know that what India truly seeks is not a peace which is in negation, or in some mechanical adjustment, but that which is in Sf)/Vam, in goodness ; which is in Advaitam, in the truth of perfect union ; that India does not enjoin her children to cease from karma, but to perform their karma in the presence of the Eternal, with the pure knowledge of the spiritual meaning of existence."— Rabindranath Tagore, The Cultural Heritage of India, Vol. I, p. xv.

Chapter 4

THE YOGA OF RECEPTIVITY

Discover the Rays and the Zodiac

Determine your

dominant

Colour-Tone

I see God each hour of the twenty-four and each moment there.

In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass.

I find letters from God dropped in the street,

Every one is signed by God's name,

And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoever I go

Others will punctually come for ever and ever.

—Walt Whitman

Entering further into the detailed practice of this form of Yoga, I suggest you study the whole subject of Rays, 1 realizing that you belong to them all, but also beginning in due course to perceive that you belong to one in particular, and then to another next in its significance to you, and so on throughout the seven so far given to us, and possibly on into the twelve if you are able to venture forth to their discovery, seeking to identify each with one of the signs of the Zodiac.

With such self-discovery, you will then be able to impress each of the symbols with your own colour-sound-form-scheme, and vitalize your own nature more effectively*

Obviously, in order to do this, you must be at work determining your dominant colour 2 in the scale of colours, your dominant sound in the scale of sounds, and your

1 See note at the end of this chapter; also notes and articles on " Colour," "Jewels " and the " Zodiac" in Book Five.

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

Spiritual Intensification through the Symbols

The Virtues of the Symbols

Power with each Symbol

dominant form in the scale of forms—we have quite enough scales at our present disposal to enable you to do this.

You will then, as you strive to identify yourself with symbol after symbol, both for your own spiritual intensification and for the spiritual intensification of life around you, associate with each symbol certain virtues. These you will find more easy to strengthen as you vivify your own life with the symbol-life you are for the moment energizing.

Perhaps you would like to know how I have noticed the association of virtues or qualities with particular symbols :

The Point: Silence, Reserve, Quietude, Will, Peace, Poise, Grace, Dignity, Self-Restraint, Attentiveness. The Spirit of Creation, Glory of Infinity, Unit of Life.

The Web that is the Womb: Purity, Consecration, Dedication, Sacrifice, Reverence. The Spirit of Receiving-to-Give, Creation-Becoming. The whole spirit of the response of Mary the Mother: " Behold the handmaid of the Lord ; be it unto me according to Thy word." 1 This symbol may seem to be specially relevant to woman, but there is equal relevancy to man—for where is the essential difference, even though there may be time-differences in physical construction ?

The Line: Aspiration, Steadfastness, Perseverance, Poise, Balance, Order, Virility. Will Incarnate. Kingship.

The Circle : Understanding, Brotherhood. The Kingdom of Future Glory. Protection.

The Cross: Sacrifice, Truth, Law, Righteousness. Experience, Balance, Stability.

The Svastika : Courage, Daring, Venturesomeness, Lawfulness, Salvation, Well-Being.

The Lotus : Self-Realization, Fragrance, Fruition.

Maybe you will add others, or subtract, or radically change. But be busy about associating power with each symbolic form. 1 Luke, l t 26,

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325

Send forth your Yoga through an Individual Focus

Fortify your Yoga from other Kingdoms

Majestic Mountains

Reverent Flowers

Glorious Manlike Qualities of the Animal

I have elsewhere suggested to you that it is convenient to send forth your Yoga through some special individual in the various kingdoms of nature.

My own personal choice is as follows :

The mineral kingdom : Mount Everest, the Opal.

The vegetable kingdom: The Lotus, the Rose, the Banyan Tree.

The animal kingdom: The Elephant, the Horse, the Cow, the Cat, almost any young creature.

The human kingdom : Those specially near and dear to me, my intimate fellow-workers, my spiritual elders in this kingdom, certain world personages of this and of other ages, and other persons chosen for a variety of reasons.

But I will also fortify my Yoga with splendours from other kingdoms as well as from my own.

From the mineral kingdom I receive the majesties of its mountains, the pure blessings of its kingly jewels, the immortality of its ageless rocks, the spirit of ceaseless play in its impersonal seas, the relentless depth of life in its ordered structure, the gracious spirit of Motherhood from its soil.

From the vegetable kingdom I receive the calm nobility of its trees, and in particular of the poise of venera-bility from the banyan tree, and the silence of its forests, the ardent reverence of its flowers, the marvels of its forms. 1

From the animal kingdom I receive, for example, the quality of grace from the deer, of devotion from the dog, of dignity from the lion, of independence from the cat, of poise from the horse, of wisdom from the elephant, of Motherhood from the cow. And from the birds I receive, curiously enough, the quality of dauntlessness allied to the Mother-spirit of protection.

1 See, for example, the truly marvellous book Art Forms in Nature, by Blossfeld (A. Zwemmer, Charing Cross Road, London), and Design in Nature (3 vols.) by J. Bell Pettigrew.

Ruskin on Birds

A Vista of Air, Fire. Water

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

One of the great Yogis, Ruskin, has written so exquisitely about birds, and so truly, that I cannot but quote at a little length an utterance which should reveal to you how Godlike is Man, be he man such as ourselves, or Deva such as shall be the birds.

His theme is that the Air incarnates in the bird and you get a tremendous vista of Air, Fire and Water incarnating and evolving :

" [A bird] is little more than a drift of the air brought into form by plumes ; the air is in all its quills, it breathes through its whole frame and flesh, and grows with air in its flying, like a blown flame : it rests upon the air, subdues it, surpasses it, outraces it :— is the air, conscious of itself, conquering itself, ruling itself.

41 Also, into the throat of the bird is given the voice of the air. All that in the wind itself is weak, wild, useless in sweetness, is knit together in its song. As we may imagine the wild form of the cloud closed into the perfect form of the bird's wings, so the wild voice of the wind into its ordered and commanded voice; unwearied, rippling through the clear heaven in its gladness, interpreting all intense passion through the soft spring nights, bursting into acclaim and rapture of choir at daybreak, or lisping and twittering among the boughs and hedges through heat of day, like little winds that only make the cowslip bells shake, and ruffle the petals of the wild rose.

41 Also, upon the plumes of the bird are put the colours of the air : on these the gold of the cloud, that cannot be gathered by any covetousness ; the rubies of the clouds, that are not the price of Athena, but are Athena ; the vermilion of the cloud-bar, and the flame of the cloud-crest, and the snow of the cloud, and its shadow, and the melted blue of the deep wells of the sky—all these, seized by the creating spirit, and woven by Athena herself into films and threads of plume; with wave on

THE YOGA OF RECEPTIVITY

327

From Humanity its Destiny

its Shrines

The Gifts of the

Superhuman

Kingdom

wave following and fading along breast, and throat, and opened wings, infinite as the dividing of the foam and the sifting of the sea-sand—even the white down of the cloud seeming to flutter up between the stronger plumes, seen, but too soft for touch.

" And so the Spirit of the Air is put into, and upon, this created form ; and it becomes, through twenty centuries, the symbol of divine help, descending, as the Fire, to speak, but as the Dove, to bless."

From the human kingdom I receive all that makes it the splendid kingdom it is designed and destined to be.

I receive the courage of the hero, the grandeur of the genius, and the compassion of the saint. I receive the patient and dignified endurance of countless obscure dwellers in village and in city who build their Jerusalems, their Meccas, their Kashis, their Buddha Gayas, amidst grinding poverties and often destitutions, but with smiles of contentment born of that friendship and that love which no disaster, no hardship, can ever break. I receive from the child his fairyland, and from the mother her praise.

And what do I receive from the kingdoms beyond the human ? For the most part I receive gifts I know not of. I receive blessing I cannot comprehend. I receive glories which sound in me the eternal tension-thrills of my Divine Purpose. Those of the superhuman kingdoms are content to give and bless and exalt. It is not response that They are seeking, nor the smallest atom of gratitude or acknowledgment. For They give that which we are still unable to measure or appraise. They seek but our quickened following after Them into the heavens in which They successively dwell, that each heaven may become perfect by the abiding in it of Their brethren who tread the way They have trodden in kingdom upon kingdom of nature.

Yet now and again I sense a fragrance from Their blessing, and my heart reaches up in loving reverence. All

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

Admission to the Holy of Holies

The Spirit of Motherhood

Motherhood Universal

that I receive from the kingdoms of nature below my own, and from my own, I receive from Them in sublimation. From these kingdoms I receive the certainty of Kingship, that in every kingdom there is Coronation after Coronation. But from Them I receive intimation of the certainty of my supreme Kingship in Self-conscious Divinity, and of a Coronation which is the final glory of this evolutionary stage of the Eternal Ascent.

From every kingdom of nature I receive admission into that Holy of Holies common alike to them all—that sanctuary of Motherhood so gloriously honoured by every living creature, save, I fear, some in the human kingdom who have forgotten their childhood, if ever they had any, and who are passing through the sad stage of ruthlessly treading holiness into hell.

And how mightily does each symbol glow with the spirit of the Universal Motherhood it reflects!

The Web that is the Womb is saturated, I can think of no other word, with the Mother-spirit. And while the Ceaseless Breath of God is No-Breath in the Point, in the Web that is the Womb the Breath vibrates with Motherhood. Do I in any way contact the nature of this Breath quality ? I think I find myself contacting the conception of intensity, of resistlessness, of a strength and power which rise above all obstacles. I see that this glory of Motherhood shines forth into all things, and everywhere makes Motherhood most wonderful.

I bring down this conception into an expression of Motherhood infinitely common, praise be to God, yet of supreme exquisiteness. There could be, it seems to me, no more certain witness to the universality of the spirit of Motherhood than this gem of gems, this gem in exce/s/s, so rare because of its glory, yet so common because it is life.

M I was on my way home from hunting, and was walking up the garden avenue. My dog was running on in

* *

front of me. Suddenly he slackened his pace, and began to steal forward as though he scented game ahead. I looked] along the avenue ; and I saw on the ground a young sparrow, its beak edged with yellow, and its head covered with soft down. It had fallen from the nest (a strong wind was blowing, and shaking the birches of the avenue) ; and there it sat and never stirred, except to stretch out its little half-grown wings in a helpless flutter.

" My dog was slowly approaching it, when suddenly darting from the tree overhead, an old black-throated sparrow dropped like a stone right before his nose, and all rumpled and flustered, with a plaintive desperate cry flung itself once, twice, at his open jaws with their great teeth.

" It would save its young one; it screened it with its own body ; the tiny frame quivered with terror ; the little cries grew wild and hoarse ; it sank and died. It had sacrificed itself. What a huge monster the dog must have seemed to it! And yet it could not stay up there on its safe bough. A power stronger than its own will tore it away. My dog stood still and slunk back disconcerted. Plainly he too had to recognize that power. I called him to me ; and a feeling of reverence came over me as I passed on."

Perfect m Yoga This is from the Russian author Tourgueniev quoted in

my The Life Magnificent. And to know that the glory of this

little sparrow is the glory of all things, your glory, my glory !

Would that we could be Yogis as was this sparrow,

perfect in our Yogas as he was in his !

The Yogis of Some day, when seers return to earth, we shall have

every Kingdom

unveiled to us marvellous visions of the great Yogas of Life in every kingdom of nature.

But Ruskin lifts for us the outer veils, discloses to us the outer forms of the Yoga whereby citizen mud becomes

King Sapphire, citizen clay King Opal, citizen soot King Diamond : The Yoga of "... take merely an ounce or two of the blackest

Jewel- '

becoming slime of a beaten footpath, on a rainy day, near a manu-

facturing town. That slime we shall find in most cases composed of clay (or brickdust, which is burnt clay), mixed with soot, a little sand, and water. All these elements are at helpless war with each other, and destroy reciprocally each other's nature and power; competing and fighting for place at every tread of your foot; sand squeezing out clay, and clay squeezing out water, and soot meddling everywhere, and defiling the whole. Let us suppose that this ounce of mud is left in perfect rest, and that its elements gather together, like to like, so that their atoms may get into the closest relations possible.

" Let the clay begin. Ridding itself of all foreign substance, it gradually becomes a white earth, already very beautiful, and fit, with the help of congealing fire, to be made into finest porcelain, and painted on, and be kept in kings' palaces. But such artificial consistence is not its best. Leave it still quiet, to follow its own instinct of unity, and it becomes, not only white, but clear; not only clear, but hard ; not only clear and hard, but so set that it can deal with light in a wonderful way, and gather out of it the loveliest blue rays only, refusing the rest. We call it then a sapphire.

" Such being the consummation of the clay, we give similar permission of quiet to the sand. It also becomes, first a white earth ; then proceeds to grow clear and hard, and at last arranges itself in mysterious, infinitely parallel lines, which have the power of reflecting, not merely the blue rays, but the blue, green, purple, and red rays, in the greatest beauty in which they can be seen through any hard material whatsoever. We call it then an opal.

" In next order the soot sets to work. It cannot make itself white at first; but, instead of being discouraged, tries harder and harder; and comes out clear at last; and the hardest thing in the world ; and for the blackness that it had, obtains in exchange the power of reflecting all the rays of the sun at once, in the vividest blaze that any solid thing can shoot. We call it then a diamond.

" Last of all, the water purifies or unites itself ; contented enough if it only reach the form of a dewdrop; but, if we insist on its proceeding to a more perfect consistency, it crystallizes into the shape of a star. And, for the ounce of slime which we had by political economy of competition, we have by political economy of co-operation, a sapphire, an opal, and a diamond, set in the midst of a star of snow." Acts of Yoga I wish I had the magic wherewith to unveil the Yoga

are in every , . , j r

Form whereby every Man in every kingdom passes upwards trom

an unconscious citizenship in the beginning to a conscious kingship at the end. Look where you will, gaze upon any form, and you are seeing an act of Yoga performed before your very eyes.

The Yoga of Perhaps in the human kingdom you see this act most

clearly ; for at the beginning there is the savage—from one point of view at a level lower than that of a king in the animal kingdom, since he is only an unconscious citizen of his new kingdom, though from another point of view, of course, higher—who slowly through incarnation after incarnation ascends the human scale, becomes what we call 11 civilized," and at long last ascends the throne of human evolution, and passes thence to citizenship of a kingdom far more glorious. So is it everywhere, and some day when the Yoga of Life is unveiled to us more than heretofore, we shall know how glorious is Life everywhere, how perfect are Life's Laws, and how there is no darkness at all, neither shadow of turning, even in the blackest of tragedies or despairs.

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

We are the Laws of that Life which Descends. Ascends, Transcends

We may function in Life's Blacknesses

We can serve the Law

and help Yogis fulfil their Yoga

The Servers reverence all Forms of Life

And what is perhaps the most glorious fact of all, still unknown to most of us today, is that we ourselves form part of those very Laws whereby Life descends, ascends and transcends.

We are the Life and the Law, and when we know this, it becomes our heaven-sent privilege to help to cause the Law to function in those very blacknesses which seem to deny all Light, and in those very floutings of Law which seem to deny Law's power.

The most glorious thing for the human kingdom is that we are the Life and know it, we are the Law and know it, we are the Light and know it. That is the Yoga of the human kingdom.

Without us, the Law will work to its appointed end. With us, the Law will work more quickly. And so it is that there are those in the world who are beginning to know the Law and serve it—the reformers, the philanthropists, the saints, those who stand for Law against wrong r for Law against cruelty, for Law against persecution, for Law against injustice, for Law against tyranny.

The servers of the Law help Yogis everywhere to fulfil their Yoga. They help the clay to become the sapphire, the sand to become the opal, the soot to become the diamond, the water to achieve its unity in a star of snow.

They walk discreetly and reverently amidst all forms of life. The very paths and streets they tread are trodden with grace and dignity, not thoughtlessly but thoughtfully, not unconsciously but attentively. They notice the Yogis growing around them—grass-Yogis, earth-Yogis, rock-Yogis, mountain-Yogis, flower-Yogis, tree-Yogis, the Yogis in the animal kingdom, and no less those of the human kingdom. They strive to help each Yogi on his way, be he unconscious in the Universal Yoga, or growing into Self-consciousness in the higher reaches of the human kingdom.

THE YOGA OF RECEPTIVITY

333

and express it through a Reverence of Touch and Sense

Friends and Helpers of all Life

Each can become a Real Yog.

They use their senses delicately—the sense of touch, the sense of hearing, the sense of smell, the sense of sight, and any other senses that may be open in them They will radiate that reverence, even in touching an object, in handling it, which is one of the truest signs of an awakening Yoga.

All evolving life will know them to be friends and helpers, and around them will spread that quietude and peace which Ruskin has so beautifully described as an essential part of the growth of clay and sand and soot.

We are still far away from living such a life as I have suggested to be characteristic of the real Yogi. But we can always make a beginning, and pursue it, even though we must often fail.

THE RAYS

In Gods m the Becoming I have endeavoured to suggest certain characteristics of each Ray, those whom each Ray most affects, those who are candidates for service on each Ray, the temperamental weaknesses of those on each Ray with corrective qualities, and the ideal of each Ray.

Briefly, Ray One is the Ray of Kingship, though also highly and purely and instantaneously creative. On this Ray a thing is done when it is begun. It is a Ray of profundity, of crystal-clear-cut purpose. Ray Two is the Ray of Direct Realization or Intuitional Wisdom, a wide, all-embracing conception of Reality, unimprisoned by form The First Ray marks the Release of Will. The Second Ray, the Release of Wisdom or Law and its perfect application to every circumstance.

The five remaining Rays may be considered as One Ray, the Activity Ray, in which the Release of Fire or Life is the marked characteristic.

On the Third Ray, Will-Wisdom, Truth, while yet formless, is becoming differentiated so that it may inhabit all forms. This is the Ray of Creative, Spiritual, Abstract Law and Science, and is peculiarly cosmic in outlook. As on this Ray the intimate relationship between all things is keenly realized, it has been called the " All Things to All Men " Ray.

In the consummation of the Fourth Ray, there is beauty and harmony and balance, but there are tremendous storm and conflict channels involving that consummation. Those on this Ray are

by nature non-balanced, so that they can ascend to heights and depths in order to bridge the two. It is a Ray of Creative Adjustment, and links the macrocosm to the microcosm. It gives diversity for unity, for the one divides itself into the many, and then again comes back into the One Ray, the Ray of Subjective Symbol.

From the F/fth Ray, that of Scientific Accuracy, is disseminated Pure Knowledge, so that through Knowledge man may ascend to Wisdom. On this Ray there is the search for Truth as Truth in Form. It deals with the descent of Archetypes into Form. The whole evolutionary process in its man-woman idea.

The Sixth Ray is one of Burning Fire, Purification, Creative Aspiration and Exaltation. Those showing the marked characteristics of this Ray are God- or ideal-intoxicated. It gives the capacity of Triumph-m-Failure.

The Seventh Ray is that of a Magic Bridge between various evolutions —human, angelic, sub-human, etc. Truth is seen in terms of formulae, symbol, relationship. Creative activity in terms of art, beauty, spiritual magic, real ceremonial. It has to do with the construction of channels whereby Life may flow to its appointed destinations. The Ray of the Creative Imagination, the making of the unreal real.

Much significant information on the Rays is to be found in Trie Matters and the Path, and The Science of the Sacraments (1929 edition), both by Charles W. Leadbeater.

Compare also material given in the Glossary of the Adyar edition of The Secret Doctrine, VI, under " Rays," " Sevens," " Planetary Logoi," and their cross-references.

Chapter 5

THE YOGA OF ART

A Supreme Revelation

The Dangers of Art

Art is the Divine coming down and becoming one with the body, emotion, and mind. Religion is Divinity expressed inwardly ; Art is Divinity expressed outwardly. —Rukmini Devi

Art is related to life much as mathematics are related to discovery : that is, as a direction-finder and foreshadower of things to come. -Claude Bragdon

Very sacred is the vocation of the artist, who has to do directly with the works of God, and interpret the teaching of creation to mankind. All honour to the man who treats it sacredly ; who studies, as in God's presence, the thoughts of God which are expressed to him , and makes all these things according to the pattern which He is ever ready to show to earnest and reverent genius on the mount. —John Brown '

Art is one of the supreme forms of revelation, of the intimation of the more in the regions of the less, of freeing the imprisoned from their ignorance and fear-hardened limitations.

But art is as dangerous to the artist as it is to him who looks upon the art.

An artist, instinct as he may be with all that is art, intimate as he may be with the spirit of revelation, with the grandeur of the more, with the glory of release, may yet become a prisoner in his own home because he has allowed himself to adopt a posture of self-identification with the expression of himself in some particular form. He has be* come a prisoner because he has become a part of himself, and thus is lost in himself, so that little by little he ceases 1 English Biblical Commentator.

to be able to find himself and can only find a part. He can play parts wonderfully. He can portray their forms. But he cannot forthshadow their life. He becomes a splendidly malleable static creature, with great capacity for flowing into a form, but with no capacity for flowing out of it, and, what is worse, with no capacity for revealing within the form the life, within the individuality its eternal movement towards its larger self.

The True Artist An artist is ever in danger of losing himself, when he

should ever be in process of fulfilling himself, and of revealing in his very portrayal of a part the universal spirit of fulfilment. The true artist is never satisfied with the depicting of Being. He must always paint around it the dynamic colours of Becoming, so that his picture is an inspiration because it accurately discloses the movement of Truth. To the true artist a circumstance, a person, a creature, a tree, a landscape, a building, an object of any kind, is always more than it appears, is always "moving," and so must he paint it, play it, sculpture it, draw it, compose it. To the true artist form and sound are interwoven, so that in sound he hints at form, in form he hints at sound. How many artists, save those in the highest reaches of their science, thus reveal the unity of God to the diversity in man ?

The true artist ensouls the object of his artistry. He displays at once its finiteness and its infinity. He paints its inevitable imperfection by dynamically contrasting this with its own individual more which he imaginatively and intuitively deduces from the less, animates from the less, in the spirit or intimation of his own unfrontiered freedom and infinite uniqueness. He reveals the more, intimates it, releases it, even though it may be expedient to leave it in the shadow lest it distract too much attention from its less.

To hint at heights in depths and greater heights in lesser is the apotheosis of all true art.

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Intimations of « larger State

The Messenger of Release

The less must have its portrayal, but the true artist subtly suggests the impinging more, the release-to-be, even though but in utmost faintness. The real artist is a votary of ceaseless movement, and can never rest content with depicting less than movement. Even in the portrayal of a point there must be the intimation of a line.

Furthermore, no interpretation of any kind is artistic save as in some measure it stirs to Reverence, or to Admiration, or to Compassion. Even when some horrible object has to be portrayed for the sake of art, also for the sake of art must the true artist evoke the silver lining of compassion round the darkness of the horrible. The light of the artist must ever shine even in the darkness appropriate to his picture. There must ever be to all artistry, whether it be in terms of sound or colour or form, a background of the goal of its fulfilment, even if the picture depict futility. As he paints the night, the true artist hints the dawning and the rising of the sun. And as he paints the day, the true artist hints its zenith.

Art is the messenger of release, and where art is great it hints at the larger state beyond the present form of its embodiment. Thus does art ever create and make new, leaving its watchers with the impresbion of movement, never with a sense of futility, nor with a sense of gazing upon an inescapability, a tragedy out of which there is no release. The true artist always suggests a right, lawful, and therefore noble, ending to his artistry.

Be any form of art what it may, the test of its truth lies in its declaration of resurrection as the inseparable concomitant even to an actual crucifixion.

As Truth itself never halts, ever speeding on its unfolding way, so art never halts, nor the artist with it. They move onwards and upwards, registering the less, but instantly acknowledging the more, limning the form but ever shadowing forth the evolving soul It is dangerous

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

The ever-flowing River

A complex Radiance

Archetypal Colour, Sound, Form

to be true to form alone. Safety mainly lies in truth to life.

The true artist gives the sense of an ever-flowing river, or of unfathomable depths of lake or ocean, never of a stagnant pool, stagnant because of its quickly attainable limitations.

The true artist senses the glory of the growth in all things, and reveals the glory both to the living and to the dead—to those who are learning to revel in their glory, and to those who are still blind in it.

The true artist seeks, and disdains to achieve. Others may deem he has produced this, that or the other masterpiece. For him there is no masterpiece, only stepping-stones on a way which to him is all the more glorious because there seems to be no goal to be attained.

And let us realize that each one of us is an artist, a creator, a dynamic force, a depository of unimprisona-ble, because ever-growing, freedom.

As an artist begins to tread the heights of his existing universe of art, he begins to perceive the necessity for form and colour and sound in every picture he paints. Even though he is unable actually to express sound on his canvas, or colour from his musical instrument, or movement in either, still he sees, and in every sound or colour he seeks to cause others to see also, one picture, in which movement, colour and sound breathe forth as one. In the lesser reaches of Yoga, sound, colour and form issue forth as one, while in the higher reaches they form—though the verb is entirely misleading—an intangible complex radiance from an all-pervading yet imperceptible nucleus.

The artist whose consciousness is not confined to the lower regions of manifestation must needs suggest the archetypal in his form, and the question may well arise as to how far the archetype is one for all forms of artistic expression. Light is doubtless the archetype for colour. Is the

lotus the archetype for form ? Is the humming of the bee the archetype for sound ? Is there a descent from all these in the colours and forms and sounds we use in the outer world ? According to his environment and temperament, each artist will, in all probability, use what may be called a sub-archetype of the essential archetype in his work. A western artist will be influenced by a motif different from that of an eastern artist. Only as the artist transcends local colour, local sound and local form, will he rise into what may be called ultimates, though the word " ultimate " has no real meaning for us time-restricted creatures.

The Struggle Modern forms of art are often struggles, some of them

towards ....

Freedom but vague gropings, to escape the conventional limitations

of art. Art can have no limitations. There can be no man-formed code of art or of artistic appreciation. In art it cannot be said that this is right and that is wrong, for immediately a static condition thereby becomes induced. And, while from one standpoint a piece of art must convey form and colour and sound, even if there be form alone, from another standpoint there enter the elements of self-expression and of perception. A child's so-called crudity may be far more full of meaning, may be far more artistic, than the so-called finished product of the conventional artist.

In what are called futurist or cubist or surrealist productions there may often be an apparent flouting of form or of colour or of sound, that is to say, a flouting of the accepted conventions with regard to all these. Yet either they may be expressions of a longing to escape from the restrictions of existing forms and colours and sounds, or they may be gropings towards, possibly in, regions of consciousness normally shut off from the intrusions of man— explorations into, for us, virgin consciousness ; or they may also be reflections of those downward tendencies in living to which a proportion of humanity seems ever to be addicted.

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

Masters of Life or Death ?

The Priesthood of Simplicity

Music of East and West

Epstein, for example, genius as he is, is a master of death rather than of life. We cannot help being fascinated by his works, while we are turning away from most of them with the feeling that they are wrong, even though greatly wrong. It is because of the greatness in the wrong that we feel the morbid attraction. It is because of the wrong that we feel repelled. He takes our reverence, our admiration, our compassion, and smashes them to pieces against the impenetrable walls of his perversity. We are left greatly lifeless.

Observing art as life, that is to say, observing in life its constructive positiveness, in its natural forthflowing, it seems that its truest expression—or should we say, its most original expression—lies in a simplicity vibrant with complexity. The single note, purified into its essential simplicity, the single colour purified into its essential simplicity, the single form purified into its essential simplicity—these are, perhaps, the truest reflections in these lower worlds of ours of life at its highest. But in each simplicity an infinite wealth must be inherent, to be revealed on due occasion.

To express this idea in common terms, it may be said that while a melody is the final simplicity in sound, yet unless it be vibrant with unrevealed yet immanent harmony it has not achieved its real purity. The creative spirit, and intimations of the creative spirit, must animate all things.

Hence, the true artist seeks the simple, but remains uncontent until he has found that simplicity which throbs with unborn changes. His the priesthood of such simplicity. At its altar he worships. Priest of its communion is he to those who have learned to kneel, even though they have not yet learned to minister.

Simplicity must indicate the many, even though normally it reveals but the One.

Music in India, for example, most naturally tends to archetypal simplicities, to melody apparently unpregnant

with harmony. In India we are always going back, or rather going inwards, to the One, be it through the avenue of philosophy, or of daily living, or of science, or of music, or any other of the science-arts, or of industry. Samskrit, the very gift of the Gods to men, is greatest in its simplicity, as disclosed, for example, in the Bhagavad G/ta, and its whole complexity is reducible to a single sound, to a single form ; to a single colour too, no doubt.

Yet to the ears of the instructed, Indian musical simplicity is infinitely rich both in a multitude of overtones and also in a wealth of as yet unincarnated harmonies, which it will be the task of the future to reveal.

Music in the West, on the other hand, equally naturally invokes complexities, for ever does life go forth to seek the many and to give the many a rich manifestation.

Western music is marvellous in its complexity. Eastern music is marvellous in its simplicity. The West must seek the One in their music. The East must seek the many in theirs. Indeed, one of the greatest problems at present confronting the East is how to seek and find the many without losing touch with the One. Simplicity must ever reign supreme in India, as in most other eastern lands, even while homage is offered to complexity.

The problem of the West is to establish the One in unrivalled splendour while rejoicing in the richness of its rainbo.w.

Sunlight or Any particular form of art must, therefore, be exam-

ined both in terms of the One and of the many. Even though it be an expression either of the Sunlight or of the Rainbow, it must be immanent with the other, as also must it hint at those essential forms other than the form or forms in which it finds expression.

A drawing must not be form alone. It must hint at sound and colour. Music must not be sound alone* It must hint at form and colour. The intimations of

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

Conventional Codes are only Landmarks

The Element of Graciousness

the whole must mingle with the utterances of the part or parts.

A gesture must be alive with all that is not expressed. A note must vibrate with its counterparts in form and colour, and with all the rest of its universe of sound. Infinity is everywhere, and the discerning must hear it, see it, feel it, sense it, in all that seems finite.

So-called modern forms of art, those which we should call revolutionary and bizarre, must be judged to no small extent less by that which they may seem to be, and more by the aspiration, the groping, the real nature of the individual responsible for their expression. The conventional codes of art as set forth in schools of art, or in the decisions of the hanging committees of the Royal Academy or the Paris Salon, have no eternal nor even essential value. They represent a landmark on the way of evolving art, no more than this. The fact, therefore, that a picture is totally at variance with such canons of art in no way necessarily condemns it. The test of its real worth should not lie in the measure of the artist's cleverness, for an artist has no business to be clever unless he is many other things as well and pre-eminently. Nor should it lie in its conformity to approved standards. But it must lie in the extent to which the picture displays that element of graciousness, the very fragrance of all life, the presence of which is the hall-mark of true fineness, and the absence of which discloses a lack of art despite all cleverness with which the lack of art may be concealed.

Graciousness is one of the essential attributes of art, and only the hand m which gracious elements obtain can give expression to it through the brush. Graciousness covers a multitude of incapacities, but its absence is a denial of art. Graciousness may incarnate in many modes. Reverence is a mode of graciousness. Devotion is a mode of graciousness. Sacrifice is the apotheosis of graciousness.

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343

The Artist swings between Depths and Heights

The Artist must be alone

Good manners are graciousness insofar as they are natural and sincere.

Do surrealism, or futurism, or cubism, reveal gracious-ness in their exponents ? Of what nature is the man or woman ? Then shall we begin to know if she or he is an artist. Not " by their fruits ye shall know them/' but by their roots ! Bohemianism is not always art. It is too often a pose to hide a lack of art. The real greatness of his art depends upon the character of the artist, and by the word " character " is not meant conformity to some conventional moral and ethical code, neither does it mean a perfect avoidance of weakness and a perfect observance of virtue. It means an absence of all touch of sordidness and meanness, of pettiness and vulgarity, of selfishness and self-centredness, of all depreciatory pride and self-satisfaction. It means a full measure of generosity, of unaffected humility, of undiscriminating friendliness, of eager aspiration, of glowing enthusiasm, of happy graciousness, of constant search for inspiration, of life-giving discontent.

All these will be in a state of instability, for the true artist, with the ever-widening swinging of the pendulum of his being, must for the time being pay for touching the heights by contacting also the depths. In the artist, the true artist who is reaching upwards, this instability is inevitable, it is part of the nature of his growth. He swings between the weaknesses of the depths and the virtues of the heights. But he swings.

In any case, the average individual should refuse utterly to be dominated, even though he may be influenced, by the canons of art as laid down by its conventional interpreters. We all are artists in one way or in another, of one type or of another. We must seek to release our own individual artistries, to give them their own freedoms, to stir them to their own fulfilments. An artist can never be part of a crowd. He must be alone. There should

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

The eternal Flowering

in God the Artist

We are all

Artists

Holiness and Glory of Art

never be a " school " of artists, expressing the genius of some particular artist, establishing a particular line of art. An artist, if he be a real artist, must be unique. There must always be something different about him, distinguishing him from all other artists, causing him to bring his own rare gifts to the world.

An artist is the consummation, in varying perfections, of the individuality. No individual attains his eternal flowering until he has become an artist sui generis, a God wonderfully different from all his fellows, bringing to the Universal One that which no other individual life can bring.

Perfect art is perfect sacrifice, for it discloses the holiness of God in His innumerable diversities.

We must try to avoid the idea that the artist is in a class apart. God is the supreme Artist, and He creates works of art out of that sea of clay which is life unconscious, We are His works of art, and the glory of His creative power lies in making us artists too, and all life in every kingdom of nature.

Every human being, therefore, is an artist, the nature of his artistry varying with his innate uniqueness. For anyone to say he is no artist is to deny his very nature. The human body itself, even in its least evolved forms, is a veritable work of art, and the highest reaches of art are attained in the many modes of consciousness which use it. The soul of man is Art personified. Let no one, therefore, say he is not an artist.

But in some the universal life of art has found channels through special forms of manifestation; and in a few it shines in specialized magnificence. Some are great artists. But all are artists.

Art is wherever the holiness and glory of God, of nature, of life, are made known, made manifest, to man, through sound, through colour, through forms of many shapes and modes.

The greater the artist the more does he perceive this holiness and this glory, and the more does he seek to cause them to shine through the specialized medium of his individual homage.

This holiness and this glory are indeed the very substance of all Life and of all living. In every kingdom of nature dwells the holiness and glory of God. It is every* where for all to see. But only he who is an artist above and beyond all normal artistry has access to this holiness and this glory, even though but spasmodically—when the " mode " is on him. Only he may conjure it down into sound, colour, form.

His conjuring, his revealing, is according to his individual artistic mode—through music, sculpture, painting, dancing, acting, speaking, craftsmanship, teaching, ruling, ministering, service, ceremonial, sacrifice, writing, discovering, and through the silences of pure being.

He is a priest of the holiness and glory of Life, and no sound can be uttered, no colour painted, no line drawn, in which there is not some intimation, however soft and far-off, of his worship. For, being a priest, he must needs be a messenger, to bring the beautiful wisdom of God to the poor ignorance of man.

The Priest of He who stops short at ignorance, without hinting at

its resolution into wisdom, is no artist in reality (save as we all are artists), however much he may be called an artist. Where there is no vision splendid the peoples perish. The artist is a priest of its remembrance.

The Yoga of Art But while all are born artists, all are priests in the

becoming of holiness and glory, there is for him who would dedicate himself to special modes of artistic manifestation a veritable Yoga of Art, a Ritual of Art, to help him to become established in strength in the eternal Real, to be in the outer world of storm and stress and doubt a shining lighthouse of impregnable and imperishable strength.

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

The Embodied Word

The Great Theme

For the Master-Artist only

" In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," In this magic sentence lies the whole fundamental simplicity of Yoga and of all the most elaborate Ritual. The deep student of Yoga knows what this Word is, and how it is to be uttered. But in the beginning was this Word not just as Word, as a combination of letters. It was Sound—Sound which the Word embodied. And not only was it Sound. It was also Colour—Sound and Colour in terms of archetypal Form.

The complicated universe we see around us, the apparently infinite complexity of its manifestation, the awesome wonders of the cosmos vibrant in the minutest individual life : all constitute but an infinitude of variations upon a single theme, the theme of the unfolding of this universe of ours. Only the greatest among the Master-Artists can ever have come face to face with this theme whether In terms of its radiant colour—majestic component of the White Light of the Eternal ; or in terms of its pure note—a magic unity pregnant with its perfect Song ; or in terms of its simple form—matrix-form of all unfoldment.

Only the greatest among the Master-Artists know how to gaze upon pure abstract Being, necessarily through at least one veil of Becoming, whereby to capture the Art of the Eternal within a sketch of time.

Only a Master-Artist can give even the feeblest echo of such a theme.

But we are told that this theme is itself a reflection of that Eternal Theme of the Infinite in movement, of the Infinite swinging towards its Southern Pole from Northern Heights of cosmic Poise.

We are told that this theme-reflection is the outward and visible sign of the stirring of our own universe from its own North to the South of its inclination, ere turning homewards to the North once more. 1 1 See " Directions " in Book Five,

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347

The Sleeping Sea stirs

The Symbols •appeal

The Great Teachers as Symbol

In essence it appears that this theme is the bridge of contact between a Heaven of Bliss and an Earth of Unfold-ment, that it is primordial movement, that it is the Pledge of God in the Purpose of Life.

In terms of sound it is the note of fulfilment. In terms of colour it is the aura of achievement. In terms of form it is the father-mother of all forms.

Fulfilment is not yet there. Achievement is not yet there. No birth is there yet of the myriad forms which shall crowd the formful worlds. But the sleeping Sea stirs from its trembling hush, and thrills faintly with glorifying voice, with rainbow colours, and with forms uprising to God.

Here is the essence of all Yoga, of the Yoga of the artist, as of all other individualizing life.

It is the Point, the Point of Being, in terms of form, of colour, of sound. Round the Point thus vibrating gathers the circumference of its totality. Within the circumference of its totality it stretches upwards and downwards, and the Line of Fertilization or Becoming is formed. Within the circumference of its totality it stretches outwards to its farthest frontiers, and the Line of Manifestation is formed. The Line of Fertilization or Becoming is the standard of Manifestation, while the Line of Manifestation is the actual mode of Manifestation itself. And in the Cross-Svastika thus formed the Earth of Unfoldment flowers into the Heaven-Lotus-Fire of Bliss.

The Lord Buddha is on the Lotus-Cross of Spirit and glorifies the Lotus in its Fire-Flower. Shri Krishna as He sounds His flute builds the fiery bridge between Heaven and Earth. Shri Krishna glorifies the Lotus in its eternal Fire-Roots. The cosmic Christ, in Yoga at all events, encompasses in triumph the whole circumference of evolution, fulfilling, in His perfect uprightness, the Line of Fertilization, or Becoming, and the Line of Manifestation in His perfect unity. There are, of course, no portrayals of the Lord Muhammad. But His life

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

Those " who know the Lotus

Between Heaven and Earth

A Focus-point

too was the Life of Consummation, while in the life of Zarathushtra are uniquely glorified the very substance of Point, of Lines, of Universe : Fire the Creator, the Upholder, the Regenerator.

We are told that the myriad-petalled white Lotus is perhaps the supreme manifestation of perfected Life. It is the Form of all forms, the Fire of all flames, the Infinite Theme containing within itself all themes of all universes and worlds. Hence its overt relation to some of Those who " know the Lotus."

For the purposes of human Yoga within the limitations-of the lower consciousness, we are told we must recognize that man is typical of the middle point of a stage of the evolutionary process. Heaven is beyond him, though lying, in a mode of its being, about him in his infancy. Earth is round about him as he treads his upward way. Heavens have to be made for him, since he does not yet know how to make them for himself. Hence religions, philosophies, sciences, and all the glories revealed and unveiled to him.

There is a pull from below to arrest his growth. Hence there is inspiration from above to hasten it. In every department of life man stands as a focus-point for higher and lower forces. Hence all the ills that afflict the human world and the sub-human worlds by fact of consanguinity. Hence the problems. Hence the despairs. Hence the sense of impermeable darkness. Hence also, however, all that is well with the world, and that in truth all's well with the world.

Man is still a creature of earth, though he be wending his way towards heaven. Our Father the Sun is the earthly man in perfect consummated realization. Our Mother the Earth is the earthly man in perfect rhythmic movement towards such realization.

The Mother cherishes. The Father gives life.

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349

Pioneers of a New Age

And man oscillates between heaven and earth, while as yet bound to earth. He dips down to earth for adjustment, and what we call death lifts him into heaven, also for adjustment. Indeed does he constitute a middle point, swinging between the two adjustments. Earth seeks to keep him, and the forms he is learning to leave would restrain him from his ascent. Hence jazz. Hence all the degradations of art. Hence all the selfishness and hatreds. Hence man's frustration in the problems which in part he has created round about him. The forces to drag him down are almost as potent as those to lift him up, at this middle point.

Theosophy and The Theosophical Society, the pioneers of that New Age which shall be the beginning of departure from the middle point, the great movements for peace and brotherhood, the great discoveries for the amelioration of the lot of man, the gradual drawing of the lower kingdoms of nature within the magic circle of the Universal Brotherhood—all these are signs of the activity of the Universal Yoga generated by the Elder Brethren of the world.

But the individual man who is intent on transcending

the middle point of one of his great journeys may also

perform his Yoga, his own individual transmutation of the

less into the more, may create his own crucible and fire for

'the purifying of the forces of which he is the battle-ground.

The First Posture

For the particular type of Yoga with which I am concerned in this book, the individual who is intent upon Yoga concentration is required to stand perfectly erect with his feet together, with his arms stretched downwards, hands In line with the fingers together and the thumb contiguous to the index finger, with his head erect and eyes gazing outwards steadfastly. His consciousness, however, is not looking out through the windows of his eyes, but is, as it

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

Cosmic Postures

Invoke the Fires of Heaven and Earth

were, established from the top of the head downwards to the base of the spine, and the eyes themselves are outward gazing but in that condition of no-seeing which is so akin to all-seeing. This is the first position in this form of Symbolic Yoga, and I have already written about it in Chapter 33 of Book Two. It is the position both of receptivity and of forthgoing, linking heaven and earth in sympathetic and increasingly perfect accord through increasingly perfect purity of channel.

But I wish to emphasize less the actual standing posture and more the erectness of the spinal cord with its consummation in the head. Though at an infinitely higher level, the posture of Shri Krishna, as He plays His flute, is akin to the posture I have been describing. But Shri Krishna has, of course, sublimated the whole of Yoga concentration. The posture of the Lord Buddha seated in meditation and benediction is no less akin, again at an infinitely higher level, than the posture I have been describing, and so is the posture of the Christ on the Cross. In the case of these Great Ones there is an actual revelation, to those who have the eyes to see, of an apotheosis of individualized Yoga, indeed of so mighty an individualiza-tion that it merges in Universalization, but in a Universaliza-tion scintillating with individuality. I am afraid that language somewhat fails me here to describe these Cosmic Apotheoses.

Obviously only the student who has an inner knowledge of heaven and earth will be able to attain the required intensification of consciousness. But he who is beginning to practise this form of Yoga may hope, with the aid of great purity of body, emotions and mind, to begin to awaken the Fires of Heaven and of Earth. And let me say that I am thinking of Fires other than those of the Kundalini of the individual. I am thinking of the Cosmic Fire of Heaven, and of what I may perhaps be

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351

The Posture of Ritual

Fundamental through the Kingdoms

allowed to call the Cosmic Fire of Earth. Only those who know both heaven and earth can successfully chant the mantra of their arousing.

This preliminary practice with its appropriate posture is one of the goals of all practices of whatever nature. The great Yoga of Dancing has, I believe, this upright posture as its fundamental key-note. The Yoga of Music, of the Arts, Sciences and Philosophies, have this form as fundamental, even though it may be expressed in terms of sound or of colour. Through this posture, even though it may not be constituted physically, man proceeds on his road of individualization from the earliest kingdoms to that End which itself is a new Beginning. This posture, whether the body be standing or seated, is the initial posture of all true meditation, for it adjusts the physical and other bodies to their true relativities. The physical and all other bodies begin to be made real—real in themselves and real in their relationship to their surroundings. In Freemasonry this posture is recognized as fundamental, though it is modified to suit masonic rhythm. In the more accurate rituals of ceremonial religions it has its place, here again with the necessary modifications. It is a practice which must be observed with the utmost regularity at those times of day which provide conditions of least resistance, 1 and in due time the ph/sical body will gain rhythm and smooth channelship.

Cosmically, we may possibly conceive this posture to be subsequent to many more fundamental still. There are hints to this effect, but they are beyond my understanding. For us this posture is fundamental, and may be regarded as archetypal in every kingdom of nature of which we have cognizance. But having said this, I am not prepared to say how we are to perceive it in the animal kingdom, though this North and South spindle line is shown in the 1 See page 321.

earliest forms of animal and plant life, and is repeated throughout the higher forms in embryonic life, while in the mineral kingdom this posture expresses itself in lines of cleavage. 1

In the vegetable kingdom it is patent, as also in the human kingdom. The erect posture is the posture of most Men in the vegetable kingdom, and of all in the human kingdom.

I am not prepared to deny that there are postures other than this particular posture which I have described. But this one is fundamental and entirely adequate to the needs of all save those who may be working in the higher reaches of the plane of Yoga.

The Only Safety I do not think there is any more potent resolver of

ignorance, nor of the ills which come from ignorance to every vehicle of consciousness, than this posture regularly practised and caused to become vibrant with Reality. But it has no effect whatever, or should I say it has disastrous effect, save as the physical body and other bodies of consciousness are being actively purged of all dross. Purity is safety. Coarseness is even more than danger. And it cannot be too strongly insisted that the eating of meat and the drinking of alcohol, as also smoking, make Yoga impossible, for they coarsen everything that is to be refined. Anyone who tries to combine Yoga with these practices is assured not only of failure but of producing results which are the very antithesis of those which Yoga gradually evokes. Hell is said to be paved with good intentions. It is also paved with powers sought to be developed before their time, that is to say, in defiance of the Law.

1 See " Symbols through the Kingdoms " in Book Five.

Chapter 6

COLOUR-IDEAS AND JEWEL-IDEAS OF THE SYMBOLS

Thus Vala [the demon, conqueror of Indra and His celestials] yielded up his life for the good of the universe and the welfare of the Gods, and behold, the severed limbs and members of his sanctified body, became the seeds of gems . . . Then the Gods and the Yakshas and the Siddhas and the Nagas eagerly rushed to collect those precious seeds, and there were mighty flutterings of celestial pinions and rustlings of celestial garments in heaven.

— The Garuda Purana, LXVIII, et seq.

How very beautiful these gems are ! It is strange how deeply colours seem to penetrate one like scent. I suppose that is the reason why gems are used as spiritual emblems in Revelations . . They look like fragments of heaven. George Eliot

I am a little hesitant to remove any of these symbols from their designed nebulosity, for it is my Teacher's wish that no external form should be impressed upon any student. Yet it may help if I try to suggest my own individual reaction to them. The Pomt Taking the Point, for example, I receive no impression

Intimations ^

from afar other than that of a change in my own consciousness,

which 1 interpret as I have written in these pages. A mode of consciousness emerges which I translate into such details as impress themselves upon me—a Consummation, a Forth-going, a Silence, a Darkness, a Radiance, and so forth. But there is little else, for my very highest consciousness does not at all stretch anywhere near the lowest manifestation of the Point as Point, if we may talk at all of manifestation. I can only receive intimations from afar, from infinitely far, 23

*> -•.

and I am in the position of an astronomer nes to dis-

cover all manner of details of the life of . , the light of which is reaching him after millenia. Hew, from No-Number, No-Colour, No-Sound, No-Rad ; .ance, No-Being, am I to deduce even a fragment of che Reality of the Point ?

I think I do not want to deduce anything. ! want to be as sensitive as I possibly can, to receive all I can, to cause my own Being to be permeated as far as it can be with the Positive-Negative of the Point.

I would also venture to make a suggestion as to the jewels which are significant in connection with each symbol. The Point. No- The Point, of course, can only be associated with what

one must call No-Stone. It is that synthesis which dissolves all contributing elements into their collective essence. It dissolves Sound into Silence, and Light into Darkness. It dissolves Radiance into No-Radiance. It no less dissolves jewels into No-Jewel.

The On the other hand, I seem to see the Point as

Undiscovered . . . , . f . .

Stone associated with some precious stone or a material not

available to us down here. There are, of course, substances we have yet to discover, and the jewel-substance associated with the Point would seem to be one of these. 1

Lightning- The lightning-white of the Consummation aspect of

the Point brings us to the recognition of a jewel which is more-than-diamond. It may well be of the diamond nature, but it occupies a place deeper in the No-Stone octave than the diamond, for it is the very theme of this octave. It is indeed more than lightning, and more than white, even though I feel constrained to call it lightning-white in order to try to convey some sense of its nature. But more than lightning-white it is No-Stone.

1 Jhe Garuda Parana describes at least two stones that commentators prefer not to attempt to translate • one is the Bhishma Stone, not a crystal, but resembling a diamond. Also under Pearl, there is a heavenly variety that obviously cannot be obtained on earth. See " Colour " and " Jewels " in Book Five.

COLOUR-IDEAS AND JEWEL-IDEAS OF THE SYMBOLS

355

Corruscates into Amethyst

Opalescence

The Diamond Line Electric Silver-blue

For some strange reason I am unable to fathom—1 expect I have missed some vital fact—it is not the diamond that comes next in this octave at the head of which stands the No-Stone. Next comes an amethyst-opal corruscation— the Forthgoing merging into the Web that is the Womb. The amethyst appears to be a stone of protection or of messengership. I find myself wondering if the amethyst be the messenger-jewel in the jewel kingdom, the Mercury of the Jewels.

In any case, its rich violet or purple colour connects it with the spirit of Motherhood and Blessing, and it seems to be of the nature of the Forthgoing and of the Web that is the Womb which is the projection of the Forthgoing. First the No-Stone. Then a corruscation of an amethystian quality. Then, let us say, the amethyst. Then comes the opal of the Web that is the Womb. I look upon the opal as an incarnation of the amethyst, as the amethyst is an incarnation of the No-Stone. And in each successive jewel, the jewels which have gone before it are immanent, so that inherent in the jewel of the Lotus are all the jewels of the great line of unfoldment. Opalescent indeed is the Web that is the Womb. And interestingly enough, the great rolling of the Drums which is the sound of the evolutionary process at work is to be heard almost as a gentle caress, as the herald of the great envelopment which shall draw into the Net of the Fisherman the Fish-Men for His nourishing.

Now comes the diamond—the vertical Line that is born in the Womb of the Web. Forth it shoots, a flashing piston-rod of electric fire, from out the very heart of the being of the Web that is the Womb. Forth it shoots— upwards to the North, downwards to the South. It is silver-blue, and has its direct relation with the No-Stone of the Point in its aspect of Consummation. It is born of the Web, but its power is as the power of the Point.

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

The Perfect Spindle

The Sapphire Theme

Topaz Golden-yellow Circle

An Emerald-green Circle

It is a Line of electric silver-blue, choosing as it were this ray from the opal richness of the Web, and sounding octave after octave of colour, octave after octave of music, as it forms the perfect spindle, swelling at the centre, tapering as it flashes to Northern and Southern Poles. The nature of the Line is indeed this electric silver-blue. Yet it robes itself in the octaves of colour and sound which are to be the base of the impending evolutionary process.

This vertical Line is the Diamond.

Halting at its due extremities the Line enters what I can only call a hush of briefest duration.

This vertical Line vibrates in terms of a sapphire 1 theme. But after an instant of cosmic hush there flashes forth the Circle—topaz-yellow, and very child of our Lord the Sun in His nature as God of a universe. Gazing upwards to Him we perceive as shadow of the very Point itself in its aspect of Forthgoing, and this Circle is He in incarnation, for it is Globe no less than Circle.

The formation of the Line is succeeded immediately by lightning flashes at the top and bottom, and round the Line plays the Circle—golden-yellow, with flashes, as it seems to me, of gorgeous emerald-green. The Circle emphasizes the topaz-theme in its golden-yellow richness, though in some most beautiful way there is a blending of the silver-blue, the golden-yellow, and in particular the emerald-green : an opalescent effect reminiscent of the Web that is the Womb. The Sea within the Circle emphasizes the emerald-theme, and its Sea-content gives us the emerald.

1 " The sapphire," according to a Buddhist writer, " will open barred doors and dwellings (for the spirit of man); it produces a desire for prayer, and brings with it more peace than any other gem ; but he who would wear it must lead a pure and holy life " Now a series of investigations by Amoretti into the electrical polarity of precious stones (which we find reported in Kieser's Arch/a, Vol. IV, p. 62) resulted in proving that the diamond, the garnet, the amethyst, are—E, while the sapphire is 4-E. Orpheus tells how by means of a loadstone a whole audience may be affected. Pythagoras, whose knowledge was derived from India, pays a particular attention to the colour and nature of precious stones ; and Apollonius of Tyana, one of the purest and grandest men who ever lived, accurately taught his disciples the various occult properties of gems.—H. S. Olcott.

COLOUR-IDEAS AND JEWEL-IDEAS OF THE SYMBOLS

357

The Flashing Sea of Colour

Chakra of the Point

With Web-Womb Heart

Lotus Seed, Bud, Flower

The Ruby Horizontal Line

The Cross

Electric-blue,

Rose-red,

Golden-yellow,

Emerald-green

The Svastika

achieves

Iridescence

And then all becomes a Sea, with every colour flashing forth, but deferentially to those three I have mentioned, though I am bound to say that the silver electric-blue hardly seems a colour at all. It is a Mother-Spark scintillating down into countless hosts of flashing children.

And as I look upon this Sea, I perceive it to be as a Chakra, a Centre, within the Point which is its being.

Yes, it is a Chakra, a Centre, whirling unto its purpose and destiny. It whirls in spirals. Its heart is the Web that is the Womb, and through this Web it receives the life of the Point. And I see that it breathes with the Ceaseless Breath of God, and that it radiates with the very radiance of the Point out-turned.

It is a Lotus Seed. It becomes a Lotus Bud. It spirals upwards into a Lotus Flower.

In this Sea, this Chakra-Centre, comes the Cross which is the mother of the Svastika. A horizontal Line appears, rose-red in colour, again as I see it, and emphasizes the theme of the ruby. It is the Line of Fecundation, as the vertical Line is the Line of Vivification. Father and Mother meet, and the Cross is born which becomes the Svastika.

The Cross appears as a composite theme, as also does the Svastika, and as such does not seem to give specific jewels, partly because they already express the diamond and the ruby, and partly because by their very nature they are concerned with all the jewels. The Cross does not appear to me merely as two Lines—one electric silver-blue, the other rose-red. It seems to be shot with golden-yellow and with emerald-green, while the opal of the Web shimmers against the background of the No-Stone Point.

Then the Svastika—a veritable swirl of colour of indescribable beauty, but with silver-blue, golden-yellow, emerald-green, and rose-red definitions—a magnificent corruscation of flashing jewels of colour. And it whirls against the

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

The Lotus Flower • the Consummation

An Aspect of the Point

Lightning-white Opalescence

The Caress of Rolling Drums

The Apotheosis of Silence

iridescence of the Web which itself has the pervading background of the Point which is the All and the None.

At last, in Consummation, the Lotus Flower—fulfilment, glorification, of the Svastika. White ? Yes, if I may call it lightning-white, or rather in comparison with the Point, the mother-hue of white. Not any white as we may know white, certainly not milk-white. Yet a white which expresses the consummation of all the colours, the Consummation of the evolutionary process.

The Jewel ? The Unknown Jewel we have yet to discover.

And I see now that in a certain way this lightning-white is an aspect of the Point viewed in a measure of its unveiling. If words are to be used at all in connection with that which is indescribable by any forms, we may perhaps think of a lightning-white about which play opalescences, as often on a warm clear night lightning flashes and plays here and there in the sky.

There is all the Silence and all the Darkness, all that is more than any all we know down here. But if at all we measure with words the immeasurable, as a concession to human craving for form, the best I can do is this vague cloud of lightning-white about which shimmers an opale-scence. But I feel how utterly inadequate this is, and little short of a desecration.

I have suggested that the Forthgoing, shining in the Web of opalescence, is accompanied by the rollirtg-caress of great Drums. I say " caress " because I feel a sense, I hear a sense, of enfoldment, of rounding, of encircling, and then, by way of translation into more homely terms, a protecting, a mothering. The rolling is as the ceaseless waves of the sea, billow upon billow. 1

Let us try to lose ourselves in that mighty apotheosis of Silence as the Drums cease their rolling. That Silence, that

1 See Chapter 12 of this Book Three.

COLOUR-IDEAS AND JEWEL-IDEAS OF THE SYMBOLS

359

The Drums cease

The King-God enters No-Colour : the Anointing

The Shrine of No-ls.s

Pralaya is Re-creation

In Reverence say Naught

An Octave of Colour

rebound from the rolling of the Drums, is the Point in its aspect of Consummation. The Drums roll sweepingly through an age of evolution, never ceasing from the very outset of the Forthgoing. Richer and richer in tone and colour become their cadencies, more thundering and compelling, almost cataclysmic, often catastrophic, stormy, peaceful, but ever moving onwards to their divinely appointed end.

And then the King Is crowned. He becomes a God, God.

The Drums cease.

And in the aftermath of their cessation, in that Silence which indeed is more than Sound, infinitely more, the King-God enters that Samadhi of No-Number, of No-Sound, of No-Form, of No-Colour, of No-Radiance, enters what we call a Pralaya, but which to me is in fact an Anointing for an Exaltation which even colours and sounds are entirely inadequate to describe.

We do not truly speak of Rest at any time in these regions of Ultimate Realities. I do not think we can speak of Rest in any regions. But well may we speak of Anointings, of Dedications, of the opening by the magic of unheard-of Forces of Gateways to Beyonds wherein No-lsis dwells enshrined.

Pralaya is not Rest. It is not a waiting. It is a Recreation, an Anointing in very truth.

Thus do I say Lightning-White, when in reverence I ought, perhaps, to say naught. Thus do I say the Silence of the Ceasing of the Drums. Thus do I say Opalescence. Thus do I say the rolling-caress of great Drums.

I cannot say more, though somewhere there is a more for which neither words, nor forms, nor colours, nor sounds, nor silence, nor darkness, avail.

And here is an octave of manifestation: Lightning-White, Opalescence, Electric Silver-Blue, Sapphire,

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

An Octave of Jewels

Search for the Octave of Seven Sounds

A many-faceted Crystal

In Jewel-glories a Central Sun

Golden-Yellow with flashes of Green, Rose-Red, Rainbow, Lightning-White—an octave of colour, though not as we know octaves, for these octaves form a circle.

Again, the jewel-octave : the No-Stone, the Amethyst-Opal, the Diamond, the Topaz, the Emerald, the Ruby, the Unknown Jewel, and then, of course, the No-Stone, an octave higher, to complete the octave. And each jewel-note has its own individual sub-octave into which fit those jewels which are not the heads of their octaves, yet are within the hierarchy.

As for sounds other than those I have already suggested, I think I must leave these to the growing uniqueness of each who reads this book. If I have given colour-ideas, it is just as a hint, fearing as I do lest even the hint may become for some a tyrant.

But search the deep aloofnesses of your Beings for the octave of the Seven Sounds which are the Seven Symbols.

Seek out the octave-circle of the Seven Sounds.

# # * #

There are very many ways in which it is possible to epitomize or otherwise to symbolize a complex idea. Each of us, according to his own individual uniqueness, will use one or another of the ways. For myself, in thinking of a Man, at whatever stage of his evolution, I think of a many-faceted crystal or of the particular gem or jewel to which I deem him to belong.

I perceive within that crystal-jewel a central Sun, the Sun of his Eternal Individuality, which shines through the crystal as a whole and through each of its facets. I often see people around me in this way. I see the colours of their jewel-glories, I hear the sounds of their growing, and I perceive the building of their forms. I see their Suns within them, drops of glory from the shining of our Lord the Sun.

COLOUR-IDEAS AND JEWEL-IDEAS OF THE SYMBOLS

361

An Incarnation is a single Facet

The Diamond Love of God

The Monad Crystal

In a particular incarnation the Sun shines through one facet alone, though, of course, there is an overshadowing in some degree by the whole, by all the facets, by the light that shines through all of them. How strange it is that so many of us down here, most of us, deduce the whole of ourselves from the one single facet through which our Sun is but dimiy shining. We are but shadows of shades. Yet we deem ourselves the whole realities of our Selves. How proud we must all be ! How ignorant! And how insignificant a conception of the Whole of each of us each one of us has.

My jewel, so far as I can at present see, is the Diamond, the stone which by its very name is supposed to convey the idea of the love of God. But for this particular physical incarnation of adjustment, the adjusting stone is Jade. Perhaps my readers are thinking of their own precious stones. It is well that they should seek them and draw through them the Light of God.

In the Ratna Shastras there is much valuable material regarding the kings of the mineral kingdom as precious stones are. If we are able to contact our kingship in these mineral regions, we shall in all probability be the more accurately able to determine the nature of our approaching kingship in the human kingdom, and perhaps also to trace our kingship in the vegetable and animal kingdoms. What is the diamond in the vegetable, in the animal, in the human kingdom ?

In any case, this crystal with its central Sun is the very Monad of ourselves, whence are derived what is called the Ego or Individuality and its dependant, the Personality. In this book on Yoga I have more or less identified the Monad with what I have everywhere called the Individuality, There is the Monad-Individuality. There is its reflection in the changing Ego. There is the periodically incarnating Personality, the Mask which the Ego changes time after time for the purposes of its growth.

Monad, Ego, This is Man's Triangularity—with the Monad Individuality at the apex, and with the Ego and its Mask as dependants. But Triangularities are also Lines, curved, of course, and from the Monad, through the Ego, Masks become alive, have their day, perform their functions, and cease to be.

Chapter 7

COLOUR-TONE IN DAILY YOGA

To Smoother) the Way

Emerald-green

These devotees of the green Temple are not actually philanthropicat in the old sense of the word, though their hearts are filled with sympathy with their fellow-men which expresses itself in the most beautiful shade of their characteristic colour . . . Their schemes are all plans for helping people, or for the improvement of conditions in some way . . . When the time of aspiration comes, each offers his plan ... as the fruit of his brain, which he lays before the Lord ... a sacrifice for the sake of the Logos. Once more we get the same magnificent effect, the splendid sheet and fountains, the great glowing sea of pale luminous sunset green, and among it the flames of darker green shooting up from the sympathetic thought of each member present. 1 —-C. W. L.

I have been trying to see how the use of colours may smoothen the way of the student of Yoga—please note that I emphatically do not say " the Yogi," for we are not likely, any of us, to be actual Yogis for a long time to come.

Esoterically, for example, the earth seems to be green in colour. Therefore, if we would help the earth or any life upon it, there must be a green tinge to our offering, whatever other colours we may use to meet special needs. If we wish for Peace, or for Disarmament, or for some special Relief to enfold an area of need, we should think a green thought, or rather a thought tinged with emerald. This will induce receptivity and healing. Those who have at heart Causes which they believe will help the world to happiness should, when directly working upon them, either in the activity of work on the physical plane or in the 1 The Beginnings of the Sixth Root Race, pp. 72-73.

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

A Safe Colour

Colour-note for each Day

With Symbol-Heart

And Tones

Two Unborn Senses. Colour, Sound

activity of meditation, suffuse them with the purest of emerald-green. The introduction of other colours will depend upon the nature of the Cause and the need it is designed to satisfy.

If an individual is to be helped, green may always be used in safety, though again the addition of other colours will depend upon the actual need. A green thought-form may always be used whatever the colour of the life within.

But each day has its individual colour. So the use of a colour on the day to which that colour belongs will intensify the strength and purity of the colour, and possibly link it to extra-terrestrial forces. Each day has also its note, and in sending forth our help we can, therefore, utilize sound as well as colour. If we have the necessary training we may imbed in our thought-form a miniature symbol as its heart, choosing the symbol according to the nature of the service to be rendered.

Monday, from Sunrise, is Violet Day.

Tuesday is Crimson Day.

Wednesday is Yellow Day.

Thursday is Blue Day.

Friday is Indigo Day.

Saturday is Green Day.

Sunday is Orange Day" In terms of Sound :

Monday is Si Day (N/ in Indian music).

Tuesday is Do (Sa).

Wednesday is Mi (Ga).

Thursday is Sol (Pa).

Friday is La (Dha).

Saturday is Fa (Ma).

Sunday is Re (Ri).

When we add to our normal five senses the two which are yet to come—the inner sense of colour and the

COLOUR-TONE IN DAILY YOGA

365

Months, Years of Colour-Tone?

For Service

Heart and Will Knowledge

inner sense of sound—we shall have at our disposal forces far more potent than at present we can even dream.

I have no doubt that an intuitive astrologer could work out months and also years in terms of their respective colours and sounds.

It would be both interesting and profitable to know in what different colour-and-sound-and-form ways the months and years are at our special disposal. I think that we could be much more effective in our help were we able to use the colour of the year to aid our philanthropic work.

But as the world is at present, such knowledge is not available, for Men are still much more men than Gods, and use their powers for selfishness rather than for service.

I feel I have already gone as far as I ought in suggesting the use of colours and sounds, for where one individual will use the knowledge in the service not only of his fellow-men but also of his brother-Men in other kingdoms of nature, there will be a hundred who will seek to turn the blessings of God to selfish ends.

Those who are ready to begin the Path of Yoga will for themselves discover the powers they have become fit to wield. The others must wait until they know Life's lessons more by heart and by will rind less by mind.

Chapter 8

THE COLOUR-RAGA OF AN ALPHABET

In all Things Colour, Sound, Form

Alphabet Potencies

Associate Colour and Tone with Alphabet Letters

Purifying, Harmonizing

—'Tis written—" In the beginning was the Word." —

Already at a stand—and how proceed!

Who helps me ? Is the Word to have such value,

Impossible—if by the spirit guided.

Once more-- " In the beginning was the Thought." —

Consider the line first attentively,

Lest hurrying on the pen outrun the meaning

Is it Thought that works in all, and that makes all ?

--It should stand rather thus—" In the beginning was

the Power." —yet even as I am writing this A something warns me we cannot rest there.

—Goethe, Faustus

I want to emphasize the fact that in all things there are colour, sound and form. In some things the existence of these saute ai/x yeux, jumps to the eyes, to use the virile French phrase. But in some other things, the existence of these attributes of Divinity is not so obvious.

For the moment I am specially thinking of the letters and words of alphabets. But I am not thinking, however, of what may be their actual colours or sounds, but of the colour-and-sound endowment we can give to them.

Most potent magic can be released even if we can do no more than in our own minds to associate certain colours and sounds with the vowels of an alphabet to start with, and afterwards with every other letter as well.

If we can do this to some small extent, and then use our Yoga to reinforce such sounds and colours, not only can we construct in ourselves a great power of healing, but also a great power of combing out tangled vibrations,

THE COLOUR-RAGA OF AN ALPHABET

367

The Raga of the Alphabet

Language is Life

howsoever these may have arisen—from quarrelling, from hatreds, from irritabilities, from misunderstandings, and other disharmonies.

To be truly scientific, especially from the occult point of view, it might be necessary to study with great care the actual relations between the various letters of the alphabet and the sound and colour scales, and we should have to try to discover the whole cosmic or inner meaning of an alphabet, trying to listen to its raga, its motif, its symphonic picture.

Language is derived from Life, is an expression of Life. Its constituent words express the varying modes of Life, divided as these may be into the great threefold division of Will, Wisdom and Activity. Similarly there are the words which depend from these three principal divisions. For example, the words of the higher and the lower mind, and of the intuition, are words dependent from Wisdom. Similarly there are the words of emotion and of feeling which largely depend from the Activity aspect; inasmuch as they suggest towards or away from, they are essentially words of movement, while the words of the mind are more words of analysis and synthesis.

It would be very interesting to be able to classify the words of a language into their respective divisions, and if ! wished to be a little bolder still, I should like to try to classify words according to their Rays. After all, Language is Life, and must have the characteristics of Life.

It is especially interesting to me, in connection with Symbolic Yoga to think of the letter " I" as indicating the individual or individuality, 1 also in its aspect as a vertical Line reminding us of what is the primordial birth in the marriage of the symbols I have described. The Point gives birth to the Web that is the Womb. The Web that is the Womb

1 In the languages of the West where individuality is dominant, the "I," " J " (once drawn as an "I") and " Y " are to be found associated with the first person singular.

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

Each Language • its Unique Significance

The Faiths and Yoga

Express your Colour-Sound

Harnessing the Spirits of the .Symbols

gives birth to the vertical Line, the " I," and there is this birth that immediately sets going a new evolutionary process, and is the direct means whereby the innumerable " I's " within the Sea of Undifferentiation start on their Self-conscious way. I think there must be something more than a coincidence in this.

Another question I might ask : What individual part do the vowels, the life-element of a word, play in the language of a people ? Why, for example, does the " oo " sound run through the Aryan tongues as expressive of the second person singular, while we note the " ee " sound in the Dravidian and Chinese tongues, perhaps derived from Atlantean heritage ?

I am very clear that while there is a common background for all component parts of all languages, each part has its own unique significance, according as to whether the language is Samskrit, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Urdu, German, French, English, Dutch, Italian, and so on. There is a common essence, of course. But I am sure there are distinct shades of meaning varying as the language varies, and therefore as the class varies in the world school.

The understanding of the symbols of this form of Yoga will vary according to the nationality, according to the f^fch, according to the individual idiosyncrasies of the students. And this is all to the good, for without differences there can be no solidarity.

I want to take advantage of the existence of such differences to urge each reader to express his own difference in terms of colour and sound, both in the words he uses and in his application of the symbols to such words. For I believe that part of the Yoga consists, as it were, in harnessing the spirits of the symbols to a number of modes of self-expression, in particular to letters of the alphabet, to words and to phrases, with the aid of colour and of sound. I should be very glad, therefore, if each

THE COLOUR-RAGA OF AN ALPHABET

369

The Symbols are for Use

Sound-ful and

Colour-ful

Living

Construct an Alphabet of Colour-Sound

reader were to be able to identify for himself a specific colour and a specific sound with each symbol, so that he acquired the habit of associating definite sounds and colours with the symbols as he uses them.

It must be clearly understood that these symbols are for use, and not just to be looked at. They must be used so that the student merges himself in each as occasion seems to demand, as circumstances evoke one or another, and in a very positive way becomes the symbol, breathing forth the very soul of it.

A student who can even to a certain extent do this will then be able to use the symbols in and through all kinds of media, including letters of the alphabet, words, phrases, objects of all kinds, and in particular through denizens of the various kingdoms with whom he may be specially en rapport.

I urge that words and all other modes of expression be made colour-ful and rich in sound, so that the smallest concomitants of our daily lives themselves become sound-ful and colour-ful. Life is little else—is it anything else ?—save colour and sound and form, for in Father-Mother Sun, the Supreme Lord of Colour and of Sound and of Form for this universe, we live and move and have the very whole of our being.

A student of this form of Yoga may well occupy part of his time for study in constructing for himself an alphabet of sounds and an alphabet of colours, and include in it the extraordinarily rich literature of sound in the musical works of the great Masters of Sound, and of colour in the paintings of the great Masters of Colour ; and no less in the great works of architecture and of sculpture of the great Masters of Form. Though in reality, of course, sounds, colours and forms are one and indivisible on an ultimate plane. (See " Alphabets " in Book Five.)

Chapter 9

AUM : THE FORMULA OF THE ALL-ONE

It has been said that Om is the word which represents the-name of the Logos, the Ineffable Name, in our Fifth Root Race, and that the word used in a similar way in the Fourth Root Race was Tau. —C. W. Leadbeater

To Devi, Shakti-Energy of Shiva, } the Poet sings -

" O Mother ' whoever contemplates Thee along with the generators of speech, Vasini and others, those ones resplendent like the freshly cut moon-stones, becomes author of great Kavya-s, replete with words erudite and sweet with the fragrance of the lotus mouth of the Goddess of Learning . . O Mother! glory to that tongue of Thine, which is of the colour of the Japa flower, and which unceasingly mutters prayers, reiterating the glorious achievements of Thy Lord, while the crystal-like, bright-white body of Sarasvat? seated at its tip becomes transformed into a ruby."

— Saundarya-Lahari (Ocean of Beauty)

I feel I ought to draw attention to the great formula for the All-One composed of the three letters of the alphabet—A, U, M.

The Formula for Rightly pronounced, this formula reveals the utmost

ty heights and depths of what we can only call consciousness.

Pronounced as one syllable, it declares the nature of the Self (A), the Not-Self (U), and the interplay between them (M). Pronounced otherwise, it has other significances. But it is the formula for totality, the Alpha and Omega of existence, of non-existence, and of the relation between them. AU to O to M The A and the U become O, and this O throbs, or

thrills; outwards to all distances in the M, which is as the hum of the bees. 1 The Aum.

AUM : THE FORMULA OF THE ALL-ONE

371

The Becoming

The Point is One-syllabled

The Triune Web-Womb

The Line

The Lotus

Forthgomg Hum!

Man, the King of the Lotus-Flower

Lotus-Wombs

When it is pronounced as three syllables, it is, as Dr. Besant points out in her Introduction to Jhe Science of Peace, " the Becoming, the world-process."

In this particular form of Yoga we have this formula represented by the Point. The Point is the one-syllabled Aum, But this one-syllabled Aum unfolds into three syllables in the Web that is the Womb, and thence in the Line, at which stage we begin to hear that other formula— Aum Man/ Pacfme Hum. The Aum is everywhere. But now God as Universality incarnates as God as Individuality— Man/, the Jewel, the King, the Dewdrop of Individualized Immortality. Yet is God as Individuality ever cradled in the Lotus-Motherhood of the All-One—Pacfme.

Let this supreme Truth have release in the Hum of Forthgoing—Aum Man/ Pacfme Hum !

Man is the King in the Lotus, be he mineral, vegetable, animal, human, or superhuman.

How deep with Truth are the last lines of Sir Edwin Arnold's inspired poem, The Light of Asia:

Ah ! Blessed Lord ! Oh, High Deliverer I

Forgive this feeble script, which doth Thee wrong,

Measuring with little wit Thy lofty Love,

Ah ! Lover! Brother! Guide ' Lamp of the Law !

I take my refuge in Thy name and Thee I

I take my refuge in Thy Law of Good '

I take my refuge in Thy order! OM '

The Dew is on the Lotus !— Rise, Great Sun !

And lift my leaf and mix me with the wave

Om Mani Padme Hum, the Sunrise comes !

The Dewdrop slips into the shining Sea !

Om / . . . The Finite-Infinite, the All-Cause . . . The Dew is on the Lotus. . . . Men who are Gods are born in a myriad of the Lotus Wombs. The Lotus swells into Her Motherhood.

Rise, Great Sun. . . . And the Giver of Life, the Om, rises in His Light upon each cradled life.

And lift my leaf and mix me with the wave. . . . mingling His Glory with each soft light within. Om Man/

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

Men become the Lotus-Word

The Point, the Web, the Line

The Circle

The Jewel-Dewdrops

The Cross and Svastika

The Lotus

Padme Hum. . . . O Infinite THAT ! send forth Thy Hum, Thy Damru Sound, and cause Thy Lotus to give forth Jewels of Thy Godhead.

The Sunrise comes! . . . The Light shines. . . . The Drum of Forthgoing rolls. . . .

The Dewdrop slips into the shining Sea / . . . And in the Mystery of the One who is the Many and the Not-One, Men who are Gods become Gods within the Word which is the Lotus. In the beginning was the Lotus, and the Lotus was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word became Gods. Om Mani Padme Hum !—the magnificent thread running through all the symbols. The Seven Symbols are strung on the thread of that sacred Mantra.

Om / From the Om which is the Point, goes forth the Aum which is the Web that is the Womb, and the Line which is born of the Web that is the Womb.

Om Man/ / And from the Line comes forth the Circle, and within the Circle stir the Jewels of God, the Dewdrops of Seas-to-be.

Om Man/' Padme ! And through Cross and Svastika the Jewel-Dewdrops are within the Lotus and become the Lotus.

Om Mani Padme Hum ! And, in the mighty Tension-Thrills of Becoming, of the Cross and of the Svastika, Men who are Gods in the Lotus know God the Lotus.

In the beginning was a Consummation and a Forth-going. In the end there shall be a Consummation and a Forthgoing.

Chapter 10

A YOGA IN SOUND

A Bridge between an Inner and Outer Yoga

Building Material for the Self

The Damru Thunder-roll of Evolution

Music wakes the soul, and lifts it high, and wings it with sublime desires, and fits it to bespeak the Deity - Addison

There is no truer truth obtainable By man, than comes of Music.

Browning

I sketched a little piece of music l for my personal convenience as a means of helping to bridge the gulf between an inner and an outer Yoga. It is written for the pianoforte, but I have added a few suggestions in this text for possible orchestration, since the piano is utterly inadequate to give expression to that Real within me, that music of myself, of which the composition is but a feeble and specific reflection.

The music, while appropriate to me personally, may not at all suit any other builder of bridges between the inner and the outer worlds. It fulfils my individual requirements for such a channel, so far as my musical frailty permits me to build. It does supply some of the material necessary for the building, and other material, as will be seen, is supplied by a group of Deva friends.

The theme-sketch opens with such reproduction as ( am able to manage of those lofty, cosmic thunder-sounds which permeate all life. These thunder-sounds constitute the Damru roll so wonderfully depicted in the ancient Hindu Scriptures. But even with real drums the effect must needs be infinitely poor.

India.

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

The Key-Tone

4, Q »

A Touch of Discord : Manifestation

The Dipping-down

Motif of Consecration

Flowing Water

Deva Bridge Builders

The Call

The Recognition

The scale is that of G, for G is my own note, and I could use no other for any personal affairs. The thunder-motif should be played with slow, deep majesty, the richness of each note being reproduced by great sensitivity of touch—each note being caressed to its perfect expression. There should be no sense of " striking " either of note or of chord, but rather of a magic conjuring and release of sound.

The thunder-notes die away, releasing just one touch of semi-discord to break the Silence and the Darkness of the Cosmic Drums. In orchestration I should like both basses and violincellos to play the melody, with here and there a touch of the cymbal, especially at the point of the discord.

The ensuing short melody—mainly for violins—constitutes a kind of dipping down from heaven to earth, to evoke an act of Reverence. Thus follows the motif of Consecration—the response of man to his Higher Self. Violas and violins may be introduced here. And the effect should be that of straining, eager yearning. In a somewhat different form this motif is reproduced a little later, and the passage concludes with an unresolved Offering—suggesting that all true offering is ceaseless.

A little echo thrills through the world, for the offering of one is an offering from all, and flutes and oboes should be used to help to give an effect of flowing water—clear, rhythmic, limpid.

With this prelude, this laying of foundations, as it were, the time has come for the invocation to the Angels or Devas, that they may help to build as they alone can build. The notes—E Bb—are well-known notes of Deva invocation and Deva music generally, and a ripple of sound is added as part of the pure material for their building.

Then a pause, and then comes the Response, the Assent to the building, from Those who are in authority over Angels. Instantly reacting to the permission, a group of

A YOGA IN SOUND

375

Chord of Fulfilment

The Channel is builded

This is but one Bridge

Use Tone for Sublimation

Use also Colour -and Form

Expand a Motif to Infinity

Contract it to a Point

Angel builders dances with joy, laughing light-heartedly, and up rises a bridge from my earth to one of my heavens. The building is complete, signified by a Chord of Fulfilment:

F » F 8 A » c » F «

There is a peculiar relationship between this chord and the tone of the preceding dance-building.

The channel is ready, and through it, now to the heights from below, now from the heights downwards, flows the Yoga force, making that Union, which is the very meaning of the word " Yoga."

Each student of Yoga should, of course, build his own music bridge with the material of his own uniqueness. And there are innumerable bridges. This Yoga of Sound is

only one bridge among very many.

* x * *

It may be helpful to some students of Yoga if they make use of some musical instrument to aid them in gathering together their experiences for the process of sublimation. They might sound it to its utmost capacity at both extremities of its range, and then with the aid of the imagination carry the sound still farther in themselves. The same may be done in terms of colour, even reaching the black, which is not the denial of colour but the affirmation of its slowest motion in manifestation. Is black but white in slow motion?

The same may be done, not only in terms of forms, but in terms of the extension of them, again with the aid of the imagination, to their infinities, or rather to such limits as each individual student is able to reach.

It is an interesting experiment, for example, to take a musical motif, or raga, and first to expand it to its utmost expression, once more with the aid of the imagination, so that it seems almost to expand into infinity, and then to contract it to its Point of infinite concentration or as near to this as the student can approximate.

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

From Motif to Symphony and Opera

And also Colour and Form

The Ecstasy of a Point of Tone

The Genius-Artist

Point-Simplicities, Lotus-Fulfilments

From

Reverence-Seed to Reverence-Flower

A Starting-point for Brotherhood

The great Bridge between Man and his Godhead

Some experience having been gained in this, the musical student then proceeds to do the same with some definite composition, while the really deep student of music will try to do the same with a symphony or an opera.

A colour-scheme and a form-scheme may be treated in exactly the same way.

In the various Heaven-worlds of colour, music and form, wherein are archetypes and apotheoses, a whole opera, indeed a whole cycle of operas, will find expression in an ecstasy of one single note ; a wealth of colour, a marvel of form-structure, in an ecstasy of a single line— each a Point with indescribable intimations of radiance.

The genius-artist, the genius-musician, the genius-builder of forms, draws down into himself these Points, expands out of them a cradle Web, whence flashes forth a motif Line, wherefrom he builds his creation in a Circle-Globe, gives it life in Cross and Svastika, and lifts it up as Lotus offering in homage to the Heaven whence it came.

The same experience may be attempted with some feeling, emotion or thought, with some aspiration, with some mode of seeking. These may be reduced to their Point essentials and to their Lotus expansions—so far as the student is able to go.

He may take a feeling or an emotion of reverence, reduce it to a reverence-seed, unfold it to a Reverence-bud, expand it to a Reverence-Lotus Flower, fulfil it in a Point of Reverence.

It is thus that we are often able to make an individual affection or reverence, confined to a single object, a starting-point for an intimate sense of brotherhood with all life.

Yoga is Union. Yoga is the great bridge between Man and his Godhead, between the One and His many— the many which are in the One—between the beginning and the end of every age of experience.

Chapter 11

A MASTER-CHANNEL OF MUSIC

From the Heaven of Music

Symbol-themes thrill through the World

The Lotus Cup of Offering

And all things stayed around and listened The gulls sat in white lines along the rocks , on the beach, great seals lay basking, and kept time with lazy heads ; while silver shoals of fish came up to hearken, and whispered as they broke the shining calm The wind overhead hushed his whistling, as he shepherded his clouds towards the west; and the clouds stood in mid-blue, and listened dreaming, like a flock of golden sheep. And as the heroes listened, the oars fell from their hands . . . and they dreamed of bright still gardens, and of slumbers under murmuring pines, till all their toil seemed foolishness, and they thought of their renown no more. -Charles Kmgsley

I see a splendid orchestra. It is being conducted by a great musician, and some of the most gorgeous music, relayed from the Heaven of Music through a master-channel, is being played. If I know the music well, I shall find myself using symbol after symbol of this Yoga as theme after theme of its music is played and thus evokes the Life and the symbols.

The music will thrill into the symbol-form, and as the Aurora Borealis is a thought from our 'Lord the Sun, so will the symbol—a thought of the Eternal Life—thrill through the worlds in the streams and rivers and falls of music which the master-channel sought and found in Heaven, and with which he helps to make a heaven of earth.

But if I do not know the music well, or if I do not know how to relate the music to one or another of the symbols, I shall perchance in the music of my Yoga make of the Lotus a formless Cup, and in that formless Cup offer

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

Pure Music-fire ascends and outpours upon a World

Rainbows, Tones and Perfume

\ build my Lotus

Throbbing with the Power of the Line

1 build the Line of Life

conductor, musicians, composer and audience in praise to the Giver of Music who is the very Lord of Life.

And forth from the Lotus, from its seed within and from its petals without, will flow pure music-fire rising up to the Heavens in Awe and pouring down upon the Worlds in Sacrifice.

Can you not see the rainbow colours ? Can you not hear the throbbing notes ? Can you not sense the thick clouds of fragrances, enveloping sounds and colours in auras of exquisite perfume ?

As I listen to theme after theme, to picture after picture, to form piling upon form in mighty music-structures of praise, / build my Lotus with the substance of my hearing, and in it as upon an altar lies an offering to the Divinity of Nature from Men who are becoming Gods.

Perchance the music may cause me to remember the Line, that Piston-Rod of Power, ceaselessly descending into matter, ceaselessly ascending into spirit. The music may be the music of the Line. In such music do heaven and earth unite, and in the very hall itself, through human agency enriched by non-human choirs, the world is lifted up into heaven because the magic of human genius has conjured heaven down to earth. Down pours the Line horn Heaven. Up pours the Line from Earth.

In my Yoga I help with the substance of my hearing to build the Piston-Line so that it shall give Life to life, and I praise the Giver of Music who is the Giver of Life.

So may we do when the music from without echoes the eternal music of any symbol, calling it to incarnate its blessing in the form which we build for its dwelling.

Or / may pass beyond all symbols and find a Peace in which the river of my bemg disappears into the ocean of silent, dark Reality.

Chapter 12

THE COSMIC DRUMS

Octaves of 'Drum-vibrations

The Silence within the Drum

But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can,

Existent behind all laws, that made them and, lo, they are ! And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man,

That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound,

but a star Consider it well : each tone of our scale in itself is nought ;

It is everywhere in the world—loud, soft, and ail is said : Give it to me to use ! I mix it with two in my thought;

And there ! Ye have heard and seen : consider and bow the head ! —Browning, Abt Vogler

Akasha is pure Sound. The sound of Air blowing on the seashore is from Akasha. The bhug-bhug sound of blazing Fire is from Akasha. The bulbul sound of Water is from Akasha. The kata-kata sound of Earth is from Akasha. Akasha is that which gives Sound to all the elements. —Cf. The Taittiriya Upanishad

Their feet flash as they dance upon the prostrate Head of Pride, embodied in the Lord of Death. They drum upon the skull-drums of the Wisdom of Equality, with a peculiar, sharp, tapping sound . . . Hum ! Hum ! Hum ' . . . The Precious Dakini Mother Goddess cometh from the South, carrying the Spear of Great Compassion. — Tibetan Yoga

How many of you have ever heard the Cosmic Drums, the beginning of all things ? Out of octaves, I have disentangled one or two of these cosmic notes.

The Point is represented by the stillness to be disentangled from the rolling Drums. I wonder whether in a deep meditation you could hear the rolling of the Drums, and perceive within that rolling the Silence which is the very background and origin of it.

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

The Drums of

Immanent

Compassion

The Birth of Symbol-Sound

Full Rich Darkness

The Drums of Nemesis

The Drum Eternal

The Drum Impersonal

The Cosmic Rolling

When we come to the Web-Womb, the rolling Drums assume a caressing note. There is a sense of unfoldment, the Drums of immanent Compassion.

When we come to the Line, there is, as it were, the beginning of the focussing of the Drum-motif upon an evolutionary process-to-be. There one enters into extreme difficulties, because the rolling Drums have to give birth to the Sound of the universe, and not only to the Sound but to the Symbol of the universe. How that is done I do not know.

I do not wish to suggest that there is an actual drum which is beaten. It is the kind of full rich darkness of the beating of drums. I am trying to arrive at the darkness of the drum-rhythm. Those who play the Drums in the higher realms play with their very being.

A curious thing, for the moment I can only hear the crescendo, the gradual increase in intensity of the Drums of Nemesis.

The real Drum, the sound of which you hear on the higher planes, is the Drum of Life, but it varies in its majesty. While always maintaining the eternal roll, that roll varies. A subtle difference takes place according to what may be a dominant need of the world at the time, so that you may hear an emphasis on the Drums of Relentless Power. Those you do in fact hear all the time—they are the great Sounds which keep evolution moving.

Why drums ? Because the drums are the only impersonal instruments. All other instruments are personal, with their own individualities, singing their own melody, but the drums are above melody, above harmony.

According to the dominant need of the world, so is a

subtle difference introduced into this cosmic beating, this

cosmic rolling. There is nothing to compare it with down

here. We shall be able to perceive the nature of the

• Drum if we try, in our meditation or in any Yoga we may

THE COSMIC DRUMS

381

Within You, within All

The Devas of the Storm

With Relentless Power and Boundless Compassion

The Drums of Heaven fill the Earths

perform, to contact those rolling Drums which are just as much within us as without. They are rolling, beating, vibrating within us no less than outside. 1 We can hear a Drum in a flower or in a jewel. It is easy to hear the Drum in the thunder, the lightning and the storm. We have perhaps seen or sensed those Devas with their streaming hair, and with their whole appearance of lightning intensity, blazing to and fro in their slim bodies with skin entirely radiant and eyes of tawny and golden hues. The streaming hair seems a part of the very body, and we see them playing about magnificently in storms. If we cannot see them, let us try to imagine them.

Apart from the all-permeating of that resistless—one would like almost to say relentless—power, there are two other elements which we perceive, knowing thereby all is safe. Even though we may be immensely preoccupied by the world-situation, it is within the rolling of the Drums.

First, as I have said, there is the spirit of relentless power, so perfect and omnipresent that we have the Christian phrase : " Vengeance is Mine, saith the Lord, I will repay." The perfect rhythm of the Drums in Heaven fills all the earths with its resistless adjustment. It would seem as if every manifestation of Life at any time is in some way an incarnation of these Divine Drums, which are the sounds of growth, just as we might perceive, if we could, the colours of growth no less. Indeed, as I have been pointing out, seeing and hearing are in truth interchangeable factors. We must be able to see sounds and to hear colours, to hear colours in the rhythm of the Drums and to see sounds in the flashing of the rainbow. The rainbow Drums are as to colour as the sound Drums are as to sound. I wish I could make myself more clear, but the perception involved is so very much within, and defies externalization.

1 One can faintly hear these throbbing drum-like sounds by closing the ears with the first fingers of either hand.

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

If only we will Hear

The Rolling of the Waves

The Language of the Drum • Samskrit

An Act of Yoga

Then there is the spirit of boundless compassion which gives to relentlessness its cosmic value. Relentless power— yes. But with God, with One who has achieved the spirit of the Point, the glory of the relentlessness, which with us might well be called a Nemesis, or a vengeance of a ruthless nature, is pure and perfect compassion.

Thus these Drums have a twofold nature—relentless power and boundless compassion.

If only we will hear them. We can. Both Drum-qualities are within us. If we will only break through the personal element, we can reach them, and we must break through all our recognized limitations. If anyone says: " I cannot," the Drums will not be heard by him. If anyone says : " I will try," the Drums may be heard by him. Most people living in the smaller self say: " I cannot, I cannot, I cannot," and they do not or will not Let us use our imagination and use our Self. Assuredly, there is nothing more magnificent in heaven or in earth than this ceaseless rolling.

Let us listen to the rolling of the waves. That may perhaps be our ante-chamber. We can intensify and magnify for ourselves the sea-waves constantly beating upon the shore. That brings us into comparatively immediate contact with the Reality, because the waves, like the drums, are impersonal.

Again, the Samskrit language is nearest to the rolling of the drums, and is, therefore, the most beautiful. The Samskrit language is the drum-language, and if it can be chanted as the drum sounds, with the impersonal variations that are appropriate, thereby can we enter into these Realities. Every day I stand at noon where I would focus the two Drum-qualities and let them roll through me. Of course they are rolling there without me. But I can concentrate them. There is nothing like being a Drum down here. Of tremendous value is just one flash of the Drum-vibration.

THE COSMIC DRUMS

383

These Drums are very Silent

Talking

Imprisons

Reality

The Drums of Life's Eternal Meaning

The Orchestra of the Hierarchy

The word drum itself is good, almost an onomatopoeic word. To aid in this world-situation, we do not need to be damming this, or against that. If we can get into the spirit of the relentless power, compassion and perfect impersonality that is needed for channels of the Drums, we need not be against a living soul, we merely need to assert the Drums.

Only one thing I would say : these Drums are alive with Silence. Perhaps we are already perceiving how silent they are. Even though they be Drums of Sound, they reflect the Silences and Darknesses of Life. Therefore, we have to learn to be silent. Energy is frittered away in needless talk, and we cannot get near the Drums unless we have learned to speak with the Voice of the Silence. If people would only have little " silences " together instead of chats, how they would grow! While the tongue wags, the Drums cannot be heard, because the click of the tongue is cacophanous as compared with the music of the Drums. The more one talks, the less one knows. Even that which one does know may be taken away, if one talks too much. With talk one imprisons and loses Reality. It is more important to be than to talk. It is dangerous to talk.

But we should always remember that the Drums of relentless power and of boundless compassion are rolling through each of us, and the more we listen to them, the more we cannot help hearing them, until they become constantly sounding in our ears. The Drums of Life's Eternal Meaning are sounding, vibrating piston-like up and down the spine, 1 in the heart, in the current of Kundalini, because Kundalini is a sound as well as a colour, a sound-drum as well as a colour-drum.

It is when we are conscious channels for the Drums that we are beginning to become real servants of the Hierarchy, because the Drums are Theirs and God's.

When the King Think of the great Trumpets of the Head of a

is Crowned

Hierarchy, followed by the infinitely deep yet dull rumbling of a thunder-cloud. That is the Damru Sound. The Drums do not cease their rolling rhythms until the King is crowned and becomes a God. Then a Hush, or an apparent Stillness, and then the Clarion Notes of His unique Divinity. Yet never do the Drums cease their rolling, nor are the Clarion Notes unsounding.

Chapter 13

THE RHYTHMS OF MAN

The Law-Rhythms

Self-imposed Necessity

What are the Fundamental Rhythms ?

A sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky. And in the mind of man, A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. —Wordsworth

I wish I could dig deep enough into Man's consciousness at its various stages of unfoldment, through what are called the Kingdoms of Nature—what is nature but man ?—so as to perceive the working of what we call the Laws of Nature, which are, of course, nothing but the Laws of Man—the Rhythms of Man, as I should prefer to designate them.

The idea of a Law involves the conception of a Necessity, a ruthless and resistless Necessity. And while I believe in such Necessity, I feel sure that it is self-imposed, that Man imposes upon himself his own Necessity, manipulating it in a spirit of Freewill. The very nature of Man is his Necessity. His greatest Necessity is his nature, his naturalness. He cannot escape himself. He cannot escape his Divinity. His unfoldment to his Godhead is his Necessity, but his freedom lies, within the limitations of his self-imposed Necessity, in modes and duration of such unfoldment.

But if we think of Rhythms instead of using the word " Law," so liable to be misunderstood, we shall more accurately perceive the conditions under which unfoldment

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

The Rhythm of the Ceaseless Breath

Both Movement

and

Movementless

It is the Essence of the Symbols

The Rhythm of Existence

Outflow and Inflow

The Breath of the Jellyfish

takes place. What are the great Rhythms of Man, of Nature ?

First, it should be clear that all Rhythms, all Laws, are pulsations of the Ceaseless Breath. 1 There is certainly a Something more subtle even than this Ceaseless Breath, Something of which the Ceaseless Breath is but a reflection. But of this Subtlety we can have no conception at our stage of unfoldment. For us the Rhythm or Law of the Ceaseless Breath is surely not only one of the Ultimates, but perchance even the Ultimate.

I shall not hesitate to say that it is the Rhythm both of Movement and of Movementlessness. It is the substans of THAT. Where rhythm is stilled to its uttermost, is at its slowest, there remains Ceaseless Breath, even though the vacuum seems almost complete. Where rhythm is infinitely vibrant, there is the Ceaseless Breath.

It is the rhythm that pervades every one of the symbols used in this form of Yoga. They depend upon it. It is their Life. It is their Being, their Essence, their Alpha and Omega. In each of the symbols the Ceaseless Breath pulsates at its divine rate of vibration.

Among the rhythms dependent upon this Ultimate of the Ceaseless Breath, I give first place, and for obvious reasons, to the Rhythm of Existence, the most important characteristic of which is its Ceaseless Breath.

It is Outflow and ft is Inflow—it outflows to its circumference, whatever and wherever that may be, it inflows to its centre, again whatever or wherever this may be. I often think, as I have said before, of the jellyfish as an admirable example of the Ceaseless Breath within an individuality, in terms of Life. It seems to breathe with the whole of itself. It is, as it were, one whole breathing or breath. This is what all individualities are, even though they may not so appear. Each individuality breathes 1 See Chapter 8 of Book Four, and " Breath " in Book Five.

THE RHYTHMS OF MAN

387

A Sorrow too is a Breathing

Life is

Unity • Life is One

Universality . Life is Everywhere

Movement before Life ?

ceaselessly with the whole of itself, whatever may actually be its organs of breathing. And neither death nor life can affect the ceaselessness of breathing.

And ceaselessly, too, this breath is at work, is function-ing, in every state of consciousness. A thought is a breathing. A feeling is a breathing. An emotion is a breathing. An aspiration is a breathing. A sorrow is a breathing, often dominantly a series of sharp breath-in-takes. Actions are breathings. Each of these is an out-breathing to some point, followed by an inbreathing to a reservoir. Every state of consciousness is a movement between a centre and a circumference, is an outgoing, and therefore an ingoing, breath.

I sum up the essential implication of this rhythm, the Rhythm of Existence, by saying that Life is.

I give second place to the Rhythm of Unity, which perhaps needs no other description than to say that Life is One.

I give third place to the Rhythm of Universality, of Life as universal, the rhythm most interestingly expressed in certain of its differences in the three higher states of consciousness which are more or less within our cognizance.

This rhythm may be expressed in the words : Life is Everywhere.

I wish I could have rightly given my first four rhythms as follows :

1. Life is.

2. Life is One.

3. Life is Everywhere.

4. Life is Movement.

But I could not do this, for somehow the Rhythm of Movement seems in quite an incomprehensible way anterior to Life itself. Movement would seem to be more than Life, though, of course, Life is Movement. It is necessary for me, therefore, to give priority of place to

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

Monadic, Nirvanic, Buddhic Planes

Not lost but fulfilled

The One into the Infinite Many

The Triangle

that wonderful conception of being which is described in the words " Ceaseless Breath."

Reverting to the Rhythm of the Universality of Life, we find a threefold expression of this in what are called in Theosophical terminology the Monadic, the Nirvanic and the Buddhic plane. There is on the Monadic plane the expression of pure Universality, or, let me suggest, Every-whereness. One stage below there is the rhythm expressed in terms of the Infinity, the many enfolded in the One, and the One pulsating both in terms of the Ceaseless Breath and of the expression of that Ceaseless Breath in its mode of Life. It is so impossible to describe these states of consciousness with form-words, that I wonder if I shall be understood when I say that in this state of consciousness there is that radiance which returns the many to the One.

It will be seen here how the false idea of Annihilation has come into usage. In understanding the true nature of Nirvana, it has been thought that when an individuality merges in a Universality, the individuality is lost. It Is not lost. It is fulfilled. And a veritable merging takes place between Individuality and Universality with results far beyond the power of description. Of individuality in this state of consciousness it will be very true to say " not lost, but gone before." I must leave the reader to try to understand this cryptic statement. Thus on the Nirvanic plane is expressed one aspect of the pure Universality of Life.

Then there is the rhythm of the One projected forth into the infinite many, this expressing the second aspect of Pure Universality—on the Buddhic plane.

Thus we have a perfect triangle with the Monadic consciousness at the apex and these two aspects of it at either end of the base. I must, however, point out that this is true only from one point of view, since while the

THE RHYTHMS OF MAN

389

The three

Rhythms

reflect

themselves

downwards

Adventures into Consciousnesses

! found my One in all the Many

Monadic consciousness is at the apex, the Nirvanic and Buddhic consciousnesses succeed one another in a direct line of descent, the former taking incarnation in the latter,

Within, therefore, this Rhythm of Universality, of Life as Everywhere, dependent as this rhythm is upon its predecessor Lite is One, we perceive first the reflection of this latter rhythm in all its purity on the Monadic plane as it descends downwards, then the rhythm of the Many in the One, and then the rhythm of the One in the Many. On lower planes of consciousness there is, as it were, a play upon these three relatively primordial states. The plane of the Mind reflects all three. The plane of the Emotions reflects all three. The Physical plane reflects all three.

But we may look upon this rhythm from another point of view, not from above downwards, but from below upwards:

I remember many years ago sitting on the veranda in an hotel in Taormina (Sicily). I was gazing aimlessly over the orange grove beneath, and into the distances of the sapphire-blue Mediterranean Sea. Suddenly I found myself projected into a particular orange tree below, I found myself living in that orange tree. I was the orange tree, yet had I contact with myself. A gardener came along and plucked some of me away. I felt a loss. I had become less in some entirely incomprehensible way. I had ceased somehow to be a fulfilment. I had ceased to be complete. And a restlessness stole over me, so that there had to be a renewal of an urge. Of course, I could not understand all this, in my capacity as an orange tree. As the tree I could only sense the need of a more, not even the need for a beginning again. A less had taken the place of a more, A more must take the place of the less.

But I could understand this as my consciousness flashed back out of the tree into my human self. And I could particularly understand that the evolutionary distance

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

The One of all Ones

The Stillness of Life

The Heart of Rhythm

between my human self and the self of the tree was really only a matter of time, not a matter of actual consciousness itself. The consciousness of the tree was less, but the same as mine in quality in every respect. Realizing this, I found I could project myself into every living thing around me, into trees and flowers, into animals, into the earth, the rocks, the stones, and the sea itself. I found my One in all the many.

Such is an aspect of the Buddhic consciousness. Many years later, in the course of a meditation, I found that not only could I project myself into the many, but that the many could be resolved into my One. Instead of my going forth into the orange tree, into the trees and flowers, into animals, into the earth, the rocks, the stones, the sea, all these could come to me and be one with me. And I and all of them could merge into the One of all ones. The two experiences are the same from one point of view, but very different from another.

And then there is neither going forth nor entry. There is a stillness uniting both. There is just Life, with no need, as it were, to use any qualifications such as " everywhere." It is Life.

This is one aspect, but only one, of what is called the Nirvanic consciousness.

As Man learns more and more to become a rhythm unto himself, to grow without the need of the crutches of outer sanctions, he begins to discover that that rhythm which he Is to himself is the rhythm everywhere, though the " everywhere " may by no means yet be conscious of the fact. Having begun to become a rhythm unto himself, he thus enters, or rather moves outwards, into the eternal spirit or heart of Rhythm everywhere, and gains flashes and later on a permanent light from the Buddhic state of consciousness, the state of consciousness which opens out to him the third of the truths of the Universality of Life.

THE RHYTHMS OF MAN

391

All Rhythms are Within

The Rhythm of Individuality

law, Light, Life

As he continues his growth, Man begins to learn of the ineffable mystery that all rhythms are within him, and he and all are within the One Rhythm. Simultaneously, as it were, all Life flows into him, the One becomes his One, and he flows into all Life, his One becoming the One. He gains the understanding that there is but the One Life everywhere, and that all individualities are within that One Life. Thus does he gain flashes of the Nirvanic state of consciousness, the state of consciousness which opens out to him the second of the truths of the Universality of Life. Passing out of the human kingdom altogether, Light (Nirvana) becomes the waking state of his consciousness, as the principle of Rhythm—as Law, Order and Purpose (Buddhi)—should so become as he enters the final heights of the human kingdom itself.

Thus the Rhythm of Universality is a very near approach to those infinitely lofty regions which must needs be entirely outside our reach for many millenia.

But I must quickly give next place to the Rhythm of Individuality, for from the higher aspects of consciousness there is little, if anything at all, to choose between Universality and Individuality, and I have already been assuming Individuality.

Individuality is Universality writ microscopically. Look through one end of the spiritual telescope and you will see Universality. Look through the other end and you will see Individuality. And yet the Individual, the Man, is unique, is an eternal Himself, and never loses his Individuality, however much it may become merged in Universality.

The Individuality, becoming a Law unto himself, discovers that there is the same Law in all. The Individuality, the One, journeying forth into the many to find his Law in them all, goes on to discover that there is the same Light in all, that he is that Light, and that that Light itself is the shining of the Universal Life.

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

The Rhythm of Obedience

The Highest Freedom

Through Obedience he discovers Being

Instinct-Intuition

But how does the Individuality grow nto the knowledge of Universal Law and Universal Light ? How does he learn to become a Law unto himself ?

There are other rhythms of his Being which slowly, gradually, but undeviatingly, change him into the required Self-consciousness. I cannot give these rhythms in the order either of their importance or their operation. The reader must sort them out for himself.

There is the Rhythm of Obedience, which is the—I should say " a "—reflection of the Rhythm of the Universal Life and of all Individuality within such Life.

We are obedient to ourselves, from the earliest kingdoms right to the very end, seeking to be more and more obedient even in our anarchies and rebellions, in our revolutions and challenging denials, until we discover that in perfect obedience to Law and Light and Life lies our highest freedom

In the earliest states of consciousness there is unconscious realization of this truth, for Obedience and Freedom are one, as they ever are on the heights. In the middle states of consciousness, as in most regions of the human kingdom, the two that are one become two,, and recede one from the other to opposite poles, and now one, now the other, gains ascendancy. Freedom, grossly misconceived as it is, is for the moment the shibboleth of Men in the earlier reaches of the human kingdom, and civilization is often said to be characterized by freedom.

Perhaps this freedom may from one point of view be regarded as obedience to the fleeting self, while true freedom lies in obedience to the Self Eternal. Be this as it may, at last Man reaches Obedience, and through it discovers the Law, the Light and the Life of Being.

Instinct is an aspect of the Rhythm of Obedience, for God gives us instinct until He can awaken in us intuition.

THE RHYTHMS OF MAN

395

The Rhythm of Insatiability

The Insatiability of Electricity

The Rhythms of Acceleration and Retardation

Then there is the Rhythm of Insatiability, of ever-hungriness. Within the seed vibrates the extraordinary Rhythm of Insatiability which insists on expansion into bud and flower, and then into self-reproduction. From more to more each Individuality must inevitably grow. The grass and the flowers and the trees vibrate with insatiability as the birds seek them and as the winds caress them. In the earthquake, the hurricane and the eternal restlessness, is the response of God to the challenging insatiability of earth and stone and rock. In the eager curiosity of the newly-born animal is the Rhythm of Insatiability at work, and the very lives of the older creatures are not merely quests for food, but unconscious urgings of this Rhythm of Insatiability, which might well be called the Rhythm of Restlessness. In-man the Rhythm of Insatiability becomes more rapid, until in the Men who are more than men the rapidity of the Rhythm of Insatiability enters a Silence and Darkness of rapidity beyond all merely human sight.

Perhaps the most wonderful insatiability of all is the insatiability of what we call electricity, as is to be seen in that descent of lightning which is but the call of the leashed lightning below for release from above, as the leashed lightning above calls for release from below. The call from above and from below are almost simultaneous, and the lightning of earth meets the lightning of the skies. There flashes forth a satisfaction, to be followed, under the Rhythm of Obdience, by an insatiability once more.

Then there are the two Rhythms of Retardation and Acceleration, each operating simultaneously with the other. The Light of the Sun retards as it accelerates, the superiority of one over the other depending upon a variety of circumstances connected with the Man upon which the Sun shines. Substantially, the Rhythm of Acceleration predominates, and becomes more and more marked as Man grows from more to more. Acceleration is a mode of the More,

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

The Rhythm of the More

The Rhythm of Balance ?

The Rhythm of Silence

Of the Eternities

The Rhythm of Memory

They remember their Godhead

and the more the More, the more rapid the acceleration. In his wonderful researches, Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose has revealed the operation of these two rhythms as they act upon the life of plants.

I might have united these two rhythms in one Rhythm of Balance, but the balance of nature seems to lie in somewhat of an unbalance.

Then there is the Rhythm of Silence and Quietude. This, to me, is one of the most marvellous of all rhythms, for it is the rhythm of the eternal depths of life in all living things. There are the surfaces we see, and the depths which so often escape us. This rhythm is essentially of the Eternities rather than of Time. How wonderfully is this rhythm to be witnessed in the sub-human kingdoms of nature, and especially in all young things who spend their earlier growings in the accelerations of the Silences and the Quietudes. How protective is the Rhythm of Silence and Quietude as a hawk hovers above some small creature upon the earth, which instantly enfolds itself within this Rhythm of Invisibility. How protective is this rhythm always and for all. How essential to the student of Yoga.

Then there is the Rhythm of Memory. In every state of consciousness Man remembers. The rock remembers. The precious stone remembers. The earth, the very mud and slime and dust, remember. The tree remembers. The flower remembers. The weed itself remembers. Every insect remembers. Each animal remembers. And Man in the human kingdom remembers, too.

What do they remember? They remember whence they have come, where they are, whither they are wending their way. They remember the past, the present, the future. Indeed is it true that this Rhythm of Memory is the magic thread upon which the beads of living are strung. Indeed is it true that Memory is the Saving Grace of Life, even though ignorance sometimes causes memory to

appear painful. But where would Man be without that memory which is the outward and visible sign of his Godhead ?

Everywhere Men are remembering. In every kingdom

Memory is at work. We live, we hope, we strive, we

endure—because we remember, because we are constantly

putting together that which so often seems apart.

The Rhythm of Then I may refer to the Rhythm of Curvature. 1 Every-

Curvature or

Gravitation where Life bends. Nowhere is Life straight, whatever it

may appear within a limited area. Every individuality bends to all other individualities. We may, if we like, call this rhythm the Rhythm of Gravitation. But I personally prefer to emphasize the principle of Universal Curvature. The Rhythm of Gravitation or Curvature is a rhythm inherent, as are, of course, all other rhythms, in every Man in every kingdom of nature. It is a state of consciousness no less than any other state of consciousness such as a thought or a feeling, and it is part of all states of consciousness. The Rhythm of Curvature is no more outside of us than any other rhythm. There is nothing outside us which is not within us, for there is omnipresent Universality.

The Rhythm of Gravitation or Curvature is the link between the ever-above and the ever-below. The below gravitates towards the above, but we may think at the same time the above also gravitates, though in quite a different way, towards the below. It could not be otherwise as we gain understanding of the Rhythm of Unity. This Law of Gravitation is among those rhythms which I would venture to call dependent, rather than primary.

The Rhythm of There is another rhythm which I confess I do not at

Projection

all understand. I must call it, for want of any better terminology, the Rhythm of Projection. There would seem to be inherent in all Life a quality of projectiveness, so that while on the one hand the whole of Life, the whole of a

1 See Chapter 11 of Book Two, et seq.

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

The Symbol-Projections from Ultimates

The Rhythm of Adjustment or Interplay

The Rhythm of

Uniform

Response

Forthgoing, as I have suggested in the second aspect of the Point, is itself a projection from some infinitely vaster Life in its aspect of a mightier Forthgoing still, on the other hand each Individuality, each Man, is himself both a projection and a projector. In his universal aspect he projects. In his individual aspect he is projected. He is a projection from a Line which is his ancestral Line.

The Web that is the Womb gives birth to a Line, to a Cosmic Line. But this Line is composed of an infinite number of Lines, a bundle of Lines as I have called it, and for every Individuality there is the Line of his descent— itself the projection from a Line more ultimate still.

Every colour we see is a projection from a Cosmic Colour.

Every sound we hear is a projection from a Cosmic Sound.

Every form on earth and in the heavens is a projection from a Cosmic Form.

The Rhythm of Projection is universal, and as I contemplate it, I seem to see the whole universe as a mass of interrelated funnels, narrowing down from an impenetrable Beyond.

We may also notice the Rhythm of Adjustment or Interplay. What are called the Laws of Karma and Reincarnation are constituent elements in the Rhythm of Adjustment. It is under the influence of this rhythm that Universal Brotherhood enters into the Concrete out of the Abstract. Universal Brotherhood is a reality, but it becomes visible under the Rhythm of Adjustment, whereby each Individuality achieves in terms of Self-consciousness that which it for ever is in terms of consciousness.

Then there is the Rhythm of Uniform Response. The One Life ever responds in the same way to all stimuli, to all impacts upon it in its innumerable modes of Individuality. God economizes, I have already said. No less true is it

THE RHYTHMS OF MAN

397

The Rhythm of Continuity

Seven

Primordial

Rhythms

Life is a Ladder

that God simplifies. Everywhere everything grows in the same way in the very midst of its individual uniqueness. As Man grows in the human kingdom, so does he grow exactly in every other kingdom of his nature. The quality of the growing may vary. The quality of the response may vary. But the nature of growing and of response is one.

Then there is the Rhythm of Continuity. There is growth all the time, not part of the time.

Even the Rhythm of Retardation expresses a continuity of growing. Nature abhors all vacua in growing, and indeed does not permit any. Growth is constant and without hiatuses, even though the French proverb so truly says— quelquefois il faut reculer pour mieux sauter. Some day we shall find, as Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose has told us, that there are no frontiers between the sciences, no frontiers between physics, physiology and psychology, no frontiers between states of consciousness, no frontiers between kingdoms of nature, no frontiers between life and death of any kind. One ceaseless and unending stream, and perhaps there is not even that digging of holes in space which Fohat 1 is supposed to do.

When was Man not ? When did he ever cease to be ? Is not Life anathi ?

I wonder if I dare single out seven primordial rhythms, the permutations and combinations of which give us all the rest:

I have already indicated the Rhythm of Movement, the Rhythm of Existence, the Rhythm of the Unity of Life, the Rhythm of the Universality of Life, and then have followed with rhythms which depend partly upon these four and partly upon three others :

The Rhythm of the Hierarchy of Life. Life is a Ladder, and this fact expresses one of the great modes of the evolutionary process. 1 See page 163.

SYMBOLS RELEASED AND DYNAMIC

The Rhythm of Difference

The Rhythm of

Self-

Contamedness

Then there is the Rhythm of Difference, or if you like so to call it, the Rhythm of Uniqueness. This is a rhythm complementary to the Rhythm of Unity. There is infinite scope for meditation on this rhythm, so as to learn how to make the great reconciliation between difference and identity.

Then comes the seventh primordial rhythm, the Rhythm of Self-containedness. This rhythm is one of the most wonderful of all—though all are, of course, wonder-ful—because it tells us that every Man of the Sea, every Individuality, has, under the divine dispensation of the Point in its aspect of Forthgoinq, within himself all that he needs for the next step he has to take. All that he needs for his immediate growth is within his reach.

How we are to understand this I really do not know, for it involves the fact that end and beginning, beginning and end, are one, and that the means between the two is inherent in both. It comes to this that every living creature is endowed at any and at every moment of his existence, no matter in what kingdom of nature he may be dwelling, with all the equipment he needs for the next step he has to take on the evolutionary way. Life is Self-contained and also self-contained, if I may avail myself of the subtle difference offered by the change from capital letter to what is called lower-case. No one is left starving for want of the necessary sustenance to strengthen him on his way. The kingdom of God is within each and every one of us.

I feel that the more we realize this Rhythm of Self-containedness the more shall we grow healthily, harmoniously and healthily, and indeed Yoga is in part for our perception of this and all the other rhythms, so that we may sail upon the waves of their vibrations to the shores of fulfilment.

Let me now state these seven rhythms one after another :

1. Life is.

2. Life is One.

3. Life is Everywhere.

4. Life is Hierarchy.

5. Life is Movement.

6. Life is Different.

7. Life is Self-contained.

Movement is These are to me the fundamental rhythms, the

" Matter of J

Life seventh being in a sense the most important in that com-

plementary to the individual uniqueness of every life there is the pregnant truth that each such life has within it and accessible outside it, without it, all that it needs for the next step in the evolutionary process which it has to take. Each life is in fact a universe, perfectly equipped for the whole of its growth, The fifth rhythm might, perhaps, have been placed higher up. But I have not troubled to try to give each of these rhythms its accurate place. The first rhythm is, of course, the Rhythm of the Existence of Life, and because of this I have said that in a sense Movement seems to be anterior to very Life itself. Without Movement no Existence. Movement is the father-mother of Existence, from the point of view of cosmic realities. Existence is dependent upon Movement, not Movement upon Existence. But then must we not postulate the Movement of No-Existence ? Yes, we must. The Ceaseless Breath of God is primordial and is independent of Life, independent of Existence. Movement is the " matter " of Life, of Existence.

Then come the other rhythms, among which I have noted the Rhythms of

Obedience

Insatiability

Projection

Adjustment

Uniform Response—God simplifies

Continuity

Curvature or Gravitation

Silence

Memory

Acceleration

Retardation

Individuality

Some of these may be one or another of the Seven Rhythms stated otherwise. But it is very difficult to perceive where one rhythm begins and another ends. They are as much fused into a whole as they are independent. They are as much one as they are many. Inevitably, therefore, confusion may arise as we try to distinguish that which from one aspect is indistinguishable.

Book Four—From the Symbols to No-Symbol

SYNOPSIS OF BOOK FOUR

Chapter 1

YOGA AS BRIDGE FROM WEAKNESS TO STRENGTH

I reiterate that the central theme of this form of Yoga is Fulfilment —the gathering together and taking with one of all one has garnered throughout the evolutionary process Thus weaknesses have their place in it no less than virtues. And we fulfil both by cremating them by burning them into their essential purities, dancing with joy as their pure ashes are flung into distances by the winds of creation, and as their gold enters our being to become part of the setting of its future glory

Chapter 2

THE MACHINERY OF YOGA

I begin with a purification by fragrance (incense), continue with a purification by sound (my own music), and then actually begin the Yoga itself with a posture-symbol, always a Line posture, for the Line gives me majestic conceptions. I rest in a single symbol or pass from one symbol to another. I emphasize that the student will not approach anywhere near Yoga, simply because he is perfect in posture, breathing, or performance of some magic.

Chapter 3 SUNLIT FOOD

In addition to the need for right food, there is the need for quick assimilation and elimination. There can be dead sunlight in the body. There can be radiant sunlight in the body. It is the latter that the Yogi needs. The body should be healthy, light, and as delicate as a highly sensitized negative plate.

Chapter 4

THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP

Sleep is for physical re-creation, as well as for transferring the waking consciousness from the physical to inner planes. The Yogi is active on the inner planes, and so he plans out the whole 24 hours of

day and night as if they constituted one spell of living. The student may well try to do this. There are rhythms that help him to earn to glide into sleep with ease and grace, and to remember when awake work done on an inner plane and requiring attention on the physical plane. Quiet will and inexhaustible patience are needed.

Chapter 5

THE SYMBOLS IN CENTRE-RADIANCES

The symbols may be correlated to centres in man or in the universe. Thus, the Point corresponds to and is in the Heart; the Web-Womb to the Navel Chakra which begins the stem of the Lotus ; the Line corresponds to the spine and includes the Throat Chakra—the spine is spiritually a circle and thus constitutes a chakra. The Circle-Globe is in every chakra, and corresponds to the aura which includes all the bodies of man. The Cross corresponds to the Root Chakra, and the Svastika to the Spleen Chakra. The Lotus as Bud corresponds to the Brow Chakra, and as Flower to the Crown Chakra.

Chapter 6

AWAKENINGS INTO YOGA CONSCIOUSNESS

Even the little doings of daily life are grist to the evolutionary mill of the Man within- who is becoming God And I have found apparent trifles stirring some higher consciousness, so that a veil is lifted for a moment, and I see into a beyond. Two principles emerge from such a vision, first that God is a Universal Mother, and secondly that God economizes.

Chapter 7

THE SYMBOLS AS A ZODIAC

I see the symbols as forms of the Formless, as causes of the Causeless, as movements of the Movementless; but also as static from the dynamic, as successive and as simultaneous, as omnipresent and as archetypes, as appearances from Reality. And I see them as having spatial relationships in the heavens, just like the signs of the Zodiac. Are we born under one or another of these symbols also ? Are we servers of a particular symbol ?

Chapter 8 SCIENTIFIC ULTIMATES

The symbols are primary qualities of life. Therefore their essential quality of Ceaseless Breath, Rhythm or Movement is everywhere, in every particle of nature. Nature is constituted by Points, and each Point is an expanding universe, a microscopic seed evolving to Divinity.

A Divinity or God reproduces Gods, not in His own image, but able to become images of their own eternities. The Rhythm of Universal Unity demands an all-pervading curvature for its accurate expression.

Chapter 9

SOME NOTES ON SPACE AND TIME

Time is a quality of Being, and so of all beings. Space is the Sea of the Unmanifest, and so a quality of all Men of the Sea Space and Time are the Father and Mother of Individuality the first and second dimension, all other dimensions being the children of Space-Time. Space is both individual and universal Individuality becomes crucified in order to know its individual Divinity, knowing which it also comes to know its divine Universality, and returns to Space. Thus we have first the Yoga of Universality, then the Yoga of Individuality, and finally the Yoga of Individuality-Universality Space is substance, and Time is movement—but the two must be one. Unmanifest Space is more solid than the manifested physical plane. And Time accelerates in the higher reaches of evolution. Does evolution involve rarefication or intensification ? I see that there must be an octave or many octaves of Space and of Time And I have no doubt that our Teachers are able to play with their beings these octaves of Time and Space.

Chapter 10

THE WINGS OF DIVINE DISCONTENT

In the beginning Man had Wings, but he had to learn to use them. The process of learning occupied the period of seven kingdoms of nature. At the end of the seventh kingdom Man flew to the heights of heaven, then back to earth, and took up the task of helping others to learn to fly. I hope my readers are very conscious of their Divine Discontent, and this book will help to stir their consciousness more deeply.

Chapter 11

THE GATES OF HEAVEN

The wagon of our being is already hitched to the star of our Divinity. We have but to make them move in perfect unison. Then we knock upon Doors—so mightily exalted in the Scriptures of every faith, as giving entry into the glories of that Ineffable Mystery which, in veil after veil, meets the Soul as it moves from fulfilment to fulfilment.

Chapter 12

INITIATIONS ON THE PATH OF FULFILMENT

Initiations are expansions and explosions of consciousness which either occur in the normal process of evolution, or may be hastened towards the end of the human kingdom. The first Initiation is birth into

spiritual life ; it intensifies feeling, and reflects the Web symbol. The second Initiation begins youth of spiritual life ; it intensifies the mind and gives power, and it reflects the Line. The third Initiation begins the manhood of spiritual life, it brings tests and transfigurations, and it reflects the Circle-Globe. The fourth Initiation means maturity in spiritual life ; it gives the power to make heavens of hells, to embody unity in a variety of ways, and it reflects the Cross and the Svastika. The fifth Initiation takes the individual to Wisdom, Truth, Self-realization ; He is now a Master and enters the superhuman kingdom The Lotus has flowered.

Chapter 13

THE SYMBOL-OCTAVE OF MANIFESTATION

The symbols form octaves of all kinds. This book deals with the octave of manifestation, of the evolutionary process, each symbol sounding a note of change of consciousness : Point, forthgoing; Web-Womb, preparation ; Line, vivification ; Circle-Globe, limitation . Cross, manifestation ; Svastika, evolution ; Lotus, fruition ; Point, consummation. There is a sound, a colour and a form fundamental to each individual, and also to each seven-year period of his life.

Chapter 14

THE UNITY OF LIFE

Each one of these symbol-formulaa is a scintillation of God. Therefore must I see and hear each one of them in every God in every kingdom of nature—as I bring each one of them little by little into perspective in my own being. And their pulsating rainbow colours and sounds and forms lift me into a world in which each colour and sound and form speaks its word of power, offering the homage of its glory at the throne of its God. It is wonderful indeed to know one's colour, sound and form, and use them to sing one's own unique song of joy unto the Lord. This Yoga will help to such knowledge.

Chapter 15

THE LORDS OF THE SYMBOLS

Every Man, in every kingdom of nature, is a reflection of a far-off divine event—of a divine Ultimate. Every colour, sound, form and fragrance has its Lord. Each of the seven symbols has its Lord and His priests, and its servers who are ourselves. These Lords are indeed " nearer than hands and feet." They are concerned with us even in the details of our living, and attend the chief or ceremonial events, the majesties, of our lives. There are Lords or Guardians of races, of faiths, of nations, of countries, of cities, of places of worship, of great monuments, of great waterfalls and mountains. To which Life-symbol, and so to which Lord, do you belong ?

Chapter 16

THE THREE GREAT PURPOSES OF YOGA

Yoga is Wise Action, that action which serves the three great purposes of Creation, Nourishment and Regeneration. But whichever his purpose, the Yogi is ever a channel between the life of Yoga and all living things. He builds bridges, and every bridge is a bridge between a less and a more, from a darkness to a light, over a chasm of ignorance to an abode of truth and peace. He glorifies, in his Yoga, sound, form and colour so that they become the Voice, the Image and the Garment of God.

Chapter 17

FULFILLING THE SYMBOLS IN YOGA

In fulfilling the Yoga of each symbol we incarnate its mystery-reality in ourselves, and in every detail of the Yoga we have chosen to perform. And each must discover for himself how he shall fulfil each symbol in and for himself The Yoga of one is not the Yoga of another, so must each of us learn to know for himself his Yoga of each symbol. Only general suggestions may be given by another.

Chapter 18

THAT : THE SYMBOL-LESS !

The conception of No-Symbol is our safety-valve, for without it there is danger lest we become a slave to symbols instead of using them as means to an end. There is in us the very THAT which is beyond all symbols. THAT registers our Yoga, in which the Yogi fades away, and Yoga alone remains. Let us stand for a moment, if we can, in the Presence of THAT. Some day we shall so stand for ever.

Chapter 19

YOGA WITHOUT END

At times i find myself so close to the centre that the whole of myself and my surroundings become integral parts of the symbols - of each separately and of all together. Yoga is everywhere round me, Yoga fills and is the universe. Yoga is oneness, Yoga is individuality, Yoga is life. I am a Yogi, every one is a Yogi, and every atom in every kingdom of nature is a Yogi at a certain stage of unfoldment. And then I try to venture out of bounds, despite Rings-Pass-Not of safety, to ascend the ultimate heights and depths. What presumption, you say. No, I am but treading the Way of the Self.

Chapter 20

THE SYMBOLS AS BULWARK AGAINST BARBARISM

The symbols are for the service of the world as well as for contemplation. They are to be foci for Power, Wisdom, Glory, no less than symbols of fundamental Realities. Thus vibrant mantras are available which enable the Yogi to use each symbol as an individual bulwark against the barbarism of ignorance, of cruelty, of dishonour. For the symbols are part of such a world-wide bulwark Further, the soldier-Yogi may fuse himself into the Universal Bulwark without any particular reference to the symbols

Chapter 21

THE ENDLESS GLORY

People talk of freedom and make new shackles for themselves Life has limits, within which each of us can be unique Our Theosophy is a petal of the Lotus of Theosophy, as our universe is a petal of a Cosmic Lotus. Divine Wisdom is revealed to us that we may seek and find it within ourselves. Theosophy gives a Plan and bricks to build it. We may experiment with these, but the time must come when each of us will make his own Plan and choose his own bricks, using Theosophy and the Masters as Givers of Light -for our inspiration and illumination The Masters expect this of us

Chapter 22

THE LIFE MAGNIFICENT

What is the nature of Life ? There seem to me two ways for the student to discover this. He is Life, and if he can intensify Life, become Life-ful, he may know something of Life first-hand and be able to describe it—a breathless process. Thus come perception upon perception of the vistas and details of Life, as veil upon veil lifts from the inner eyes. The second mode is to go back and back from Form and penetrate, as it were, into the shadow of Life. Thus i see myself as a projection, an offspring, of Life, resembling Life in every particular. I now find that Life is Symbol-less though in a way it is Symbol-ful Life is Yoga-less, though Yoga is a mode whereby Life in individuality gathers up all modes of Life's vibrations and gazes upon their Universality. And Yoga is the fulfilment of all things as Life. Yet, what is Life ? In a word, each one must know Life, not I who must know Life for him. The end of this chapter is to leave the reader free , and the purpose of this book—Fulfilment and Release.

Chapter 1

YOGA AS BRIDGE FROM WEAKNESS TO STRENGTH

Strength the Flower of Weakness

Scientific Sublimation of Weakness

Appraise Weakness as retarding Evolution

I know as my life grows older,

And mine eyes have clearer sight, That under each rank wrong, somewhere

There lies the root of right, That each sorrow has its purpose

By the sorrowing oft unguessed, That as sure as the sun brings morning,

Whatever is, is best. - -Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Roaming in thought over the universe, I saw the little that is Good steadily hastening towards immortality. And the vast all that is called Evil I saw hastening to merge itself and become lost and dead Walt Whitman

It is very important to reiterate—even at the cost of redundancy and tiresome repetition—that in this form of Yoga weaknesses have their place no less than virtues. Yoga is a bridge between a weakness and its corresponding strength, and carries the weakness onwards into the strength which is its flower.

Indeed, this is one of the most helpful characteristics of this form of Yoga, for it regards a weakness scientifically, not as anything to be abhorred, but a something to be understood, to be recognized as having its due place in the evolutionary process, but needing in its own good time to undergo a transubstantiation, a sublimation, a fruition, no less than any virtue of whatever degree.

The student of Yoga must learn to appraise his own individual weaknesses—it is assumed that he has reached the stage of definitely knowing some of them—to perceive

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

Hatred is a protective Force for the Savage

An Individual may need Hatred

The Yogi places Hatred in the Reservoir of Experience

He makes his own the Objects of his Hatred

their place in his unfolding, and to understand that they are no longer accelerating but are actually retarding his rate of evolutionary movement.

If we take the weakness of hatred as an example, we shall find that it is a weakness, because having fulfilled its purpose we still retain its now retarding and deadening effect. Hatred has its place in the life of the savage, for not only does it give clearer definition to the individuality he has just achieved, but it also protects him against elements which for the time being are unfavourable to his growth. He needs hatred at his stage of evolution. And even beyond the actual savage stage, hatred may have to survive for a variety of protective purposes.

The individual who says that he hates wrong may still need hatred in order to protect him from wrong. The individual who is able to say that he hates injustice, tyranny, persecution, and any other circumstance evocative of his disapproval, may actually need to hate them because hatred of them is his way, at his stage, of knowing that he must avoid them, and that they have had their day and must now cease to be.

The student of Yoga, however, examining any hatreds he may still have—I cannot imagine any student of Yoga having any hatreds, and am only supposing the almost impossible—will see that hatred is for self-protection, will know that he should have reached the stage of needing no such self-protection, and will therefore place it in the reservoir of his experience, as part of the material once used in the building of his Godhead. But he will have it on hand for the understanding of his fellows, so that instead of hating their hatred, or disapproving it, he will impersonally gauge its positive value to those whom he is trying to help.

Should he by any chance feel hatred towards an individual or towards some opinion, activity, or custom, he will either see that he is weakening himself by putting on

YOGA AS BRIDGE FROM WEAKNESS TO STRENGTH

411

The Yogi raises Sex to sublime Heights of creative fxpression

The Yogi creates

Splendours with Feeling and Hind

Tfte Yogi retains the Memory of his Weaknesses for Service and •Understanding

armour when he needs none, or he may see that his hatred is a form of pride, in that he lacks the lessons such opinions, activities, or customs teach, and repels that which shouts aloud his defect!veness. He will then, if he be of the stuff of which Yogis are made, deliberately take into himself the objects of his hatred and make them his own,

Similarly in the case of the force we call sex. The Yogi will look upon its manifestation in himself with all dis-passion, neither with abhorrence nor with self-justification. He will see that the high purpose of sex in these outermost worlds, and of sexual activity, is not merely for the sake of the perpetuation of the race, though it is used for this purpose, but also to cause men and women to remember in the very midst of the sexual erstasy that it is the infinitely wondrous living witness to the Creative Spirit which dwells in all, so that they may offer it in reverence, and learn to raise it to the sublimest heights of creative expression, as do the world's greatest—the geniuses, the saints, the heroes.

The Yogi will know what he has to do with his power of sex. He will know that not only may there be occasion for creation on the physical plane, but that such creation is only a very partial expression of the Divinity of Creation, that he must learn to create splendours, wonders, with his feelings, with his emotions, with his mind, with every form of higher consciousness in which he is able consciously to dwell, that he must in terms of his own individual uniqueness become an artist, a scientist, a philosopher, a restless seeker after Truth. So does he lift up that creative power which so beautifully expresses itself in all real and dedicated marriage, into height after height of achievement, until at last, as God, He creates a magic Call to an evolving life.

The true Yogi looks his weaknesses in the face, perceives that he calls them weaknesses because somewhere in himself he knows he needs them no more, registers the

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

God's Memory our Strength

Weaknesses are

Reversed

Virtues

A Fearful "I'

The Yogi has outworn Hatred

worth they have been, dissolves them into their essential light, and retains the memory of them to be channels of service and understanding between him and those who perhaps still need their ministration.

Indeed is the Memory of God the strength of His creatures. So should be our memories—a strength to all around us, so that the nearer we approach unfoldment into our full flowering, the closer do we draw in strength and service to all seeds and buds and little flowers of the great Brotherhood of Life to which we belong.

Weaknesses are reversed virtues. Hatred is a form of self-centred love, and so all its major and minor permutations. And so often do we seek to immolate those around, us upon the altar of our selfishness, the worst desecration of all being that of the immolation of woman to satisfy the lust of man, or perhaps the perpetration of cruelty upon the defenceless—the preying by the human upon the kingdoms below, in special measure upon the animal kingdom. As I have already said, a Man who enters the human kingdom seems to need to establish his newfound individuality by this centring of love upon himself, or upon those immediately around him. He hews his individuality out of the universality in which he has heretofore been nursed. He hates for self-protection. He lusts for self-experience. He fights for self-preservation, At every moment of time he is saying " I ... I ... I ..." and it is a very small, suspicious and aggressive "I." It has memories of universality and it is fearful of returning thither. It is afraid of being lost in a multitude of " I's " constituting a " We." It wants to be an " I " alone, or with a little family, and at most possibly also with a tribe of families.

Hence hatred and all other " virtues " of this class, for us and very specially for the would-be Yogi, are outworn.

YOGA AS BRIDGE FROM WEAKNESS TO STRENGTH

413

Irritability a Survival of Self-centredness

Man needs the Larger Pride

" Leaving behind rft foreign to this Yoga

This Yoga sacrifices in a Spirit of Fulfilment

Jn Virtue Strength, in Weakness Brotherhood

The Joy-Dance of the Burning-ground

Even the lesser weaknesses, such as, for example, irritability, are survivals of an erstwhile self-centredness.

Some sort of pride must, of course, remain for a very long length of time, even with the Yogi himself, for Man needs pride in the human kingdom almost to the very end of his sojourn in it. But when he is already a Prince of the human kingdom, even if not yet a King, he will turn his pride outwards so that he becomes proud of his fellow-creatures and proud of his power to be of wise service to them. He will take pride in himself for the quality of his service and not for a superiority which can crush.

I sometimes think that I might use the idea of cremation instead of the idea of sublimation when I try to convey the central theme of this form of Yoga—the gathering together and the taking with one of all one has garnered throughout the evolutionary process. It is the idea of withdrawal which is foreign to this form of Yoga, of leaving behind, of renunciation.

This Yoga comes in a spirit of fulfilment, not in a spirit of renunciation. To sacrifice is not to give up- -the very idea of giving up dims the fineness of the sacrifice by introducing into it a discordant note of spiritual bargaining. To sacrifice is to make holy and beautiful in a spirit of joy and gladness. He who loses his life for the sake of another is beginning to fulfil it unto life eternal. 1

In our virtues we may find our strength. But in our weaknesses we may find and know our brotherhood. We do not withdraw from our weaknesses, nor do we turn our backs upon them. We use them for comradeship's sake. We draw near to all our fellows because of them, as some day we shall draw still nearer to our fellows because we have fulfilled them.

How are we to fulfil them ? By cremating them. By burning them into their essential purities, dancing with joy

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

Which Flames rise highest ?

To cremate a Weakness releases its Fire-Strength

To cremate a Virtue releases the Splendid Self

God's Memory makes certain the Goal

as their pure ashes are flung into distances by the winds of creation, and as their gold enters our being to become part of the setting of its future glory.

The flames of a weakness rise as high as those of a virtue, and who shall say which ashes are more pure ?

We regret no weaknesses, for we strive to use them in service as from time to time they sit upon our thrones. Every weakness is a strength in the becoming, and to cremate a weakness is to release the fire of its strength. Neither are we our virtues, save as now and then they master us, nor are we our weaknesses, save as now and then they master us. We are the Will, and well may we not only cremate our weaknesses that they may show forth their strength, but well also may we cremate our virtues that these may show forth their more splendid selves.

We must treasure the memory of our weaknesses, and the strength to which they have led. We must treasure the memory of our virtues, and the strength to which they have led. It is the Memory of God that makes certain the goal of life. It is our memories of all things that give us strength to continue on our ways and to help those who, perchance, are finding their ways hard and dark.

Memory is Light, not Darkness. Only is it the latter as we remember ill.

Chapter 2

THE MACHINERY OF YOGA

A Colour-Sound-Form-Fragrance Structure for Yoga

Differences in Temperament

Om ! the way of chanting will we now declare : Sounds (or colours), rhythm, length, strength, balance, and the union of sounds. The lesson thus on chanting is declared. . . . But they who zealously perform the mystic practices, in faith, in forest (or hermitage), at peace, with wisdom, keeping the beggar's rule they, free from stain, fare forth, by the sun's gate, to where there is that deathless Man, the very Self that no man can exhaust.

—Upanishads

It would be immensely interesting were I able to correlate in even more detail the colours, sounds, forms and fragrances which are but modes of Life in its unfolding.

Would that I could discover the colour of the universe, the note of the sun, the perfume of the world. I am well aware that successful Yoga practice depends to no small extent upon a favourable disposition of colours, sounds, forms and fragrances. 1 And I see clearly that if t could build a structure for my Yoga composed of colour material, sound material, form material, and perfume material, weaving into these the universe colour, the sur> colour, the world colour, and my colour, and similarly in the case of sounds and forms and perfumes, I should be making very straight my Yoga pathway.

I think I must leave to the imagination of my readers the choice of colours, sounds, forms and perfumes, which seem to be most concordant, for differences of temperament cause immense differences of choice.

1 See notes and articles on Colour, Colour-Tone, Fragrance-Essences, and Music in Book Five.

My Note

Colour-Symbol

Fragrance

•Purification by Fragrance and Sound

The Yogic Postures

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

For myself, the note of G is my basic note, as will be noticed in the little musical theme, to which I have elsewhere referred. 1

Then as to colour, I think purple affords me the most constant satisfaction, and gives me the most vivid inspirations.

As for forms, the curved Plumb-Line, if I may be permitted an apparent contradiction, is most provocative of majestic conceptions, for I see it as basic in such widely different splendours as the great image of Nataraja, 2 the Lord Shiva, Lord of the Dance, as the glorious Winged Victory in the Louvre, and the statue of Moses, by Michael Angelo, in Rome. I see it also in Thorwaldsen's magnificent and real image in Copenhagen of the Christ. Perhaps my idea of a Plumb-Line differs from conventional conceptions.

My choice of fragrances largely depends upon the nature of the activity in which I happen to be engaged, My choice, for the most part, varies between a particular form of incense used in Eucharistic services, sandalwooC and the perfume of newly-mown hay.

For everyday use lavender appeals to me, as alsc jasmine and attar of roses. But of course there musl not be a trace of alcohol in any perfume. In the Wesl perfumes are rendered almost useless by this desecration. For actual Yoga activity I should certainly use Eucharistic incense, drenching with it the place I may have chosen for its expression.

In fact I should begin with a purification by fragrance, continue with a purification by sound, possibly using m> musical theme, and then making an actual beginning of the Yoga itself with a number of posture-synribols. Each one o\ these postures is a Plumb-Line posture, in that the Line, the vertical Line of Vivification, is its fundamental form, making a channel from North to South, thus sending through me

1 See Chapter 10 of Book Three. ~ See page 103.

THE MACHINERY OF YOGA

417

A single Symbol or more

A Real Yogi treads the Path to Kingship

'Powers but the Foam on Yoga's Sea

the power of the Line, and constituting me a Piston-Rod from Heaven to Earth and from Earth to Heaven.

Thus is the machinery of my Yoga set in motion, and either I rest in a single symbol, or pass from one to another as may seem expedient.

But I would emphasize that a student of Yoga is far from even beginning to achieve Yoga as he is perfect in posture, competent in adjusting the laws of nature to the performance of tricks of magic which mean very little to the true Yogi, or as he plays about with consciousness with the aid of modes of breathing.

A real Yogi is neither acrobat nor juggler. He is treading the road to a kingship whereby he embodies and wields the powers that make for righteousness, that make for a strength and independence of character which are man's most precious aids as he moves on his way to become Superman. 1

A true Yogi may have occasion, as he embodies and wields these powers, to perform what are wonders to the uninstructed. Madame Blavatsky had such occasion. But these are at most but the foam on the sea of his Yoga.

27

Chapter 3 SUNLIT FOOD

An urgent Need for quick Assimilation and Elimination

Sunlight Dead and Radiant

Sensitivity rather than Endurance is needed

Our Lord went on, teaching how fair

This earth were if ail living things be linked

In friendliness and common use of foods,

Bloodless and pure ; the golden grain, bright fruits,

Sweet herbs which grow for all, the waters wan,

Sufficient drinks and meats . . .

Seeing that knowledge grows, and life is one,

And mercy cometh to the merciful —The Light of Asia

It has been borne in upon me during these studies of Yoga that in addition to the urgent need for right food, there is as an accompaniment to that urgent need, the need for quick assimilation and elimination. The waste-products of the body, for the Yogi at least, should as soon as possible be eliminated, and assimilation should take place as quickly as possible, so that those foods which can be so assimilated should be chosen in preference to any foods which cannot.

The reason for this is that it is highly necessary for food's sunlight to pass through the physical body as quickly as possible, so that there may be an ever-upwelling, or descending, of fresh sunlight from which the light has not yet been *taken. There can be dead sunlight in the body. There can be radiant sunlight in the body, It is the latter sunlight that the Yogi so imperatively needs.

It is, in my judgment, less an endurance that the true Yogi needs, and far more an immense sensitivity to the larger consciousness with all its subtle rapidity of vibrations.

SUNLIT FOOD

419

Health without Exaggeration

Poods to keep the Body Light, Strong, Dynamic, Sensitive

Of course, the physical body should be as healthy as possible, but it should be healthy without any exaggerations. It should be healthy, light, and delicate as a highly sensitized negative plate.

Foods, therefore, should be chosen to these ends, and so too should foods for the feelings and the emotions, foods for the mind, foods for the higher states of consciousness. All should be chosen for their power to keep the body light yet strong, to keep the body dynamic and ever-moving, to keep the bodies in that state of eager tension which receives the thrills of the Gods and spreads them abroad among men.

Chapter 4

THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP

Why Sleep for the Yogi ?

There is but

one

Consciousness

Night is the magic time . . when joyously one drops the weightier vehicles and ventures forth into the land of the Unknown— that land which yet seems in some strange way, the Very Well-known. . . . —The Adventure of Night

That which is the night of all beings, for the disciplined man is the time of waking ; when other beings are waking, then is it night for the Muni who seeth. - The Bhagavad Gita II, 69

The question of sleep must also be considered. For what purpose should a student of Yoga go to sleep? Partly for physical re-creation, to help the purely physical consciousness, such as it is, elemental and elementary, to have time for the necessary re-creation without the active penetration of other-consciousness activities. But partly also for the purpose of transferring the waking consciousness from the physical plane to inner planes.

Material dealing with the purely physical aspects of healthy sleep is abundantly available. But an effective transference of the waking consciousness from the physical plane within depends partly on the establishment of a Rhythm of Silence and Quietude throughout the consciousness, partly on a harmonization of the posture of the physical body with those waves of magnetism which will most conduce to fruitful results both to the physical and to the inner vehicles, and partly on a very active recognition of the fact that whether the waking consciousness be working on the physical plane or elsewhere, there is but one consciousness, and more and more should the waking

THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP

421

Glide into Sleep

Maintain constant Contact with the Inner Planes

Be free in the Rooms of our Consciousness

Head to the North

consciousness need no transference, but be everywhere simultaneously.

It is very important to learn how to fall asleep with a minimum of effort, how to glide into sleep by letting go easily of the waking consciousness. It is necessary to learn how to cast oneself free from one's physical-plane moorings with ease and grace, in as effortless a manner as possible.

One of the best ways of learning to do this is constantly throughout the period of waking consciousness on the physical to maintain contact with the inner planes. It is very useful to acquire the habit of periodically withdrawing from the physical plane while functioning on it. Let the physical plane from time to time be " blackened out." Let it go out of perspective from time to time. Let thoughts and feelings be elsewhere than on the physical plane. Let the physical plane cease to exist for a time, so that when it reappears it is a little difficult to adjust oneself to it, just for a moment.

In this way we shall accustom ourselves to live in a number of different rooms in our house, not in one alone. We shall become able to go from one room to another during normal residence in one particular room—say the room of the physical-plane consciousness. Thus we shall the more easily pass, through what we curiously call sleep, from one state of waking consciousness to another. And when we have come through the doorway of sleep to another state of waking consciousness, we shall again find it comparatively easy to go to sleep from that state of waking consciousness to a state still further within.

Sleep will thus become a convenient mode of changing from one mode of waking consciousness to another within such planes of consciousness as we may be able to reach.

I advocate, as I believe is generally advocated for yogic practice, the placing of the physical body with the head to the North, wherever the North may be. I think

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

A Plan for the Day

Plan for

extra-physical

Work

We can project Feelings and Thinkings

The True Yogi plans his Night Work as his Day

that magnetic currents flow most effectively through the physical body as it is thus placed.

Then there must, as far as possible, be a plan of living which includes what is called the sleep period no less than the so-called waking period. Indeed, I personally find that I am much more awake within than without. And I plan my living from the other side of sleep, and carry out the plan as best I can as one purpose, to be fulfilled in one way on the physical plane and in other ways on the various other planes on which I may be able to function. But if memories from within tend to become stifled, as they seek to emerge without, then I would suggest that in the waking consciousness on the physical plane, a plan be prepared to include work on the physical plane, work on what we call the astral plane, work on the mental plane, and work on any other plane on which we have any capacity whatever to function.

For example, there will be the work we have to do on the physical plane. We shall, of course, allow for this in our plan. But apart altogether from such work, we shall probably be able to do a certain amount of feeling work, and a certain amount of thinking work, independent of the feeling and thinking work we must do in the course of our normal physical occupations.

We can send out feelings in various directions, and we can send out thinkings too. We can send them to some particular person or place, to affect some particular condition, or we can send them out in a general way to perfume the world or a people. We can do much building work with our thoughts and feelings from the physical plane, but independently of it. We can help immensely with our feelings and thinkings, altogether apart from our actual physical proximities.

But our plan must include an extension of this work in more definite and practical ways as we are released, for the

time being, from the confinement of the physical body. We can help quite effectively from the physical plane. But we can help still more effectively from the feeling-emotion and mental planes. We may say to ourselves: I will do this and that during the functioning of the waking consciousness on the physical plane. But when I transfer this waking consciousness, when I get to another side—I must not say the other side, since there are many other sides—I must see about this and that, I must go here, and I must go there. I must pay a special visit to this place and to that. And as a matter of excursion, I should very much like to see if I cannot get into touch with So-and-So, and with such-and-such. I wonder if I could study the symbols of this form of Yoga while I am awake on an inner plane, so that when I go to sleep on the inner plane and wake up on the physical plane there may be some memory, or at least some change in consciousness, so that I may be able to remember somehow or other.

Thus shall we plan out the whole twenty-four hours of

day and night as if they constituted but one spell of living.

The true Yogi always does this. We who are students of

Yoga may well try to do it.

For the Yogi Thus is the night planned as well as the day, for there

Night is lighter » r /

than Day is no difference at all between night and day, so far as

growing is concerned, and the more we become Yogis, the more do we turn day into night and night into day. For the Yogi night is by no means a time of darkness. In truth, for him it is lighter by night than by day.

The Yogi asks It may be thought that I have entirely left out of

for Naught, his J * J

Prayer is Praise account the opportunities there may be on the other side of physical-plane sleep for contact with our Elders. Such omission has been deliberate, for the true Yogi is intent on work and on fitting himself for better work. He knows that if an Elder wants him, He can send for him ; and he has no intention of being among the ignorant importunate who are

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

Set up your Rhythm for the Night

The potent Rhythm of Determination

always asking for blessings and boons. If the Yogi prays, it is praise. His prayer is in the spirit of the magnificent Te Deum Laudamus of the Christian faith—one of the truest acts of that only real Love which is Praise with which I am acquainted. The true Yogi knows that as he works hardest, and with utmost wisdom and steadfastness, so does he draw most near to his Lord.

It is well to set a certain rhythm for the night, and to make provision for remembering in the waking consciousness any matters requiring physical-plane attention.

There is, of course, a varied choice of rhythms for use according to individual temperament. The rhythm of a particular form, the rhythm of a particular note or group of notes, a motif or theme of music, the rhythm of a colour-scheme or special colour, the rhythm of a particular piece of poetry or prose, of a song, the rhythm of a memory or an aspiration, of a sacred word or sentence or group of sentences, the rhythm of one of the symbols of this particular form of Yoga, the rhythm of a fragrance, the rhythm of one's own particular colour, sound, form or fragrance—ihese and many others may help us to open quietly and truly the door between the physical and the inner planes, or between one inner plane and another, and if necessary to close it gently afterwards, until the time shall have come when there are no more closed doors in our living.

There is also the rhythm of a determination—the determination to do this or that when we have passed through the doorway. I regard this as a particularly potent rhythm, for it is so often a response to a call from within, and invokes that Rhythm of Gravitational Curvature which, draws us irresistibly over the threshold. But even if it be not a response to a call, it will probably be a determination of the Will " I want to do this as soon as I can cut my* self adrift from my physical-body moorings. I must do it

THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP

425

Through the Rhythm of Projection we may become Effective Workers

The

Technique of Remembrance

as soon as possible, i must go here. I must go there. There is no time to lose." Of course, there must be no agitation over such a determination, or its object will be defeated. It must be quiet and steady, infused with an understanding as to how most smoothly to glide through the doorway.

When the world is sorely beset by troubles and tragedies, by wars and tyrannies, by persecution and violence, there is most urgent need on the other side of the doorway for awakened workers. And I refer the reader to C. W. Leadbeater's Invisible Helpers for a wealth of detail regarding this department of activity. 1

But I think I ought to make quite clear the fact that it is by no means necessary to go to sleep in order to do the wonderful things that sometimes seem exclusive to the other side of the doorway. In whatever state of consciousness we may be, it is possible for us to function no less effectively on the physical plane in any other state into the kingdom of which we may have been able to enter during sleep. Similarly, it is by no means necessary to be physically awake in order to attend to the things of the physical plane. True, it is necessary at a certain stage of evolution to live in waking consciousness on a particular plane, however much we may be self-conscious on other planes, too. But under the Rhythm of Projection we learn how to project our life, our will, our thought, our feeling, to any distance, and to make it active in its projected form. We ourselves, on any plane, are projections. So lies it within our power to project.

One more point: the technique of remembrance or rather of accurate remembrance. Here again there is another rhythm which will help us if we will try to contact it in its all-pervading reality in our being. The Rhythm of Memory will help us to remember, and the quickest way of 1 See also Chapter 20 of this Book Four

accurate remembrance is to enter into the spirit-rhythm of Memory, so as to enable it to stimulate the particular kind of memory we need, the channel we need between one plane and another. It is a matter of time and regular practice, without any feeling of hopelessness, even when impressions filter through into the waking consciousness which seem utterly absurd. In nature there is nothing absurd, even though there sometimes are distortions. When we have a nightmare we have a distortion. When we have something quite ridiculous, we have a distortion. And the distortion is generally due to a number of different experiences becoming mixed up, for reasons into which I need not enter here. The confusion is sometimes funny. It is sometimes rather terrifying. But if we will take the necessary trouble to dissect the remembrance, we shall probably be able to trace a number of its elements to different sources, and solve the riddle. Only those with Above all, it is vital to be endowed with unwearying

inexhaustible

Patience are patience, for remembrance of any worth may take years

ready for Yoga

to achieve. But only those are tit tor Yoga whose patience is inexhaustible. The fruits of Yoga only come to those who are happy to sit by the seed as it grows into a leafy stem, to continue to sit by the stem as it becomes a sturdy shrub, to continue to sit by the shrub as it becomes a small tree, and to continue to sit by the small tree as it becomes ready to give forth fruit. Then they are happy to sit under the tree to receive the fruit as it falls into their outstretched hands. And then they eat of the fruit, of the fruit of the tree which has become for them the Tree of Truth, and so themselves become Trees of Truth, to send forth seeds into the ground and to call to sit beside them those ready for Yoga.

Chapter 5

THE SYMBOLS IN CENTRE-RADIANCES

The Linear Spme

The Curved Spine

The Universal Lotus

When a man begins to develop his senses, so that he may see a little more than everybody sees, a new and fascinating world opens before him, and the brilliant colouring and the rapid and incessant movement of the chakras are among the first objects in that world to attract his attention. . . . The chakras or force-centres are points of connection at which energy flows from one vehicle or body of a man to another. — The Chakras

Just as the vertical Line is, to use a word employed in Hindu terminology, the stick round which the new evolutionary process is to evolve, so is the spine of a human or of any other form of being the stick round which he in his turn evolves, and maybe revolves ! And just as a universe has its great centres or chakras connected with this Line, which we may regard as the spine of the universe, so has every being, human and otherwise, correspondences in terms of centres or chakras which also have their definite connections with his spine which is his Line.

It is interesting to note that just as the Line which establishes the Yard-Stick of a universe is curved, so is the human spine, so that the phrase " curvature of the spine " as used in medical parlance is true of the healthy spine, though an excess of curvature will, of course, be highly detrimental to health.

Furthermore, as the whole universe is in very truth a Lotus both as to itself and as to every single element of its constituent parts, so is every Man in every kingdom of nature a Lotus, as is also every single constituent element.

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

The Macrocosm and Microcosm

The Divine Measure

The Spine as a Chakra

C. W. Leadbeater, in his absorbing book The Chakras, shows this very clearly with regard to the great centres of energy in the human body. But every atom is a Lotus, as some day science will discover.

Following the exposition given in The Chakras, I seem to correlate in the following manner the symbols used in this form of Yoga :

The Point is, of course, primordial, and is expressed in the heart. If you think of the Point, as I have tried to describe it, with its twofold aspect of Consummation and Forthgoing, with Silence and Darkness, and then with the all-pervading, Ceaseless Breath in the heart, you will begin to draw near to the Man in the heart, whom possibly you may or may not have met. If you mean " Man " with a capital " M," he does live there, though I doubt that with physical eyes you could see him. This Point which is the essence of the primordial Point is in the heart, and the symbol is there.

The Point is the whole background of Man, physically and in all other ways. It is Man, the Ultimate Macrocosm. The Web that is the Womb is Man's immediate cause— macrocosmically and microcosmically.

I should then regard the spine, together with its non-physical expressions and counterparts, as the Divine Measure or Yard-Stick, round which is drawn the Circle of his being. In the case of the physical being, the spine is an incarnation of the Divine Measure or Yard-Stick, growing year by year to its predestined measure. In the case of the super-physical being, there is the spiritual spine of Man, which is the counterpart of the Line of the universe to which he belongs. The spine itself, however linear it may appear, is nevertheless spiritually a Circle. In some mysterious way, entirely unapparent to us, it seems to curve in upon itself, and thus constitutes a form of chakra. It is part of the immense Circle of the Line of the universe, as is every other spine of every Individuality in the universe, the outward

THE SYMBOLS IN CENTRE-RADIANCES

429

The Circle in every Chakra

The Root and Spleen Chakras

The Naval Chakra

The Heart Chakra

and visible sign of the Line curved to infinity. But we are here out of our depths. The throat is also the Line.

The Circle, that topaz-golden Circle which is the Ring-Pass-Not in the heights ^s in the depths, is the body, not only the physical body, but the feeling-emotion and all the bodies with the extensions and limitations of their auras. This Circle is a chakra, and is in every chakra.

Then comes the chakra called by C. W. Leadbeater the Root Chakra—corresponding to the symbol of the Cross. The Spleen Chakra is the setting in motion of the Wheel of the Law, the Svastika. And it is significant that C. W. Leadbeater tells us that this particular chakra " is devoted to the specialization, subdivision and dispersion of the vitality which comes to us from the Sun." It is, of course, the Sun, the Lord of our system, who sets in motion this wheel.

The next chakra, the Navel Chakra, is a complementary chakra, fulfilling the activity of the Spleen Chakra. It represents the Web that Is the Womb. " Father-Mother spin a web "—the solar plexus. It has much to do with the earth. The activity of the Sun in setting in motion the Svastika in its Spleen aspect must needs evoke the Sun in its Earth aspect, and I regard this Navel Chakra as expressing both the physical birth of the physical body and the spiritual birth of the spiritual body. The Navel Chakra is the beginning of the stem of that Lotus Flower which is Man's apotheosis. It is to be noticed that green predominates in this chakra, intimating the influence both of the physical and of the spiritual earth.

The Heart Chakra is an extension of the Svastika symbol, as is the Navel Chakra. I think it specially reflects the spirit of the Point, and therefore of the Life of the Sun, as the Spleen Chakra reflects the activity of the Sun, and the Svastika is there focussed. The Heart Chakra embodies

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

The Throat Chakra

The Brow Chakra

The Crown Chakra

the principle of Universality—the Perfect Man, the Universal Man.

The Throat Chakra embodies in the Svastika the Line principle, as its colours so clearly indicate (See The Chafcras, Plate VII). It represents the Line.

The Brow Chakra is the Bud of the Lotus Flower, the beginning of the Crown Chakra. The Navel stem is at last giving forth its Flower, and the Bud appears as the Brow Chakra.

Finally, in consummation, comes the Crown Chakra, the very Lotus Flower itself, so finely described in the first chapter of The Chakras. Everything is the Lotus—that is the primordial form. All is Lotus-formed, the physical-plane Lotus or any other form however unlike the Lotus, And Lotus-forms from ultimate depths to ultimate heights —in endless permutations !

The Heart Chakra, forthshadowing the principle of Universality and of the Perfect Man in the microcosm, leads directly to the Crown Chakra in which the Universal and the Perfect Man resolve into the Macrocosm which they reflect. From the Universal to the Individual. From the Individual to the Universal. The Yoga of the Universal gives birth to the Yoga of the Individual. The Yoga of the (ndi-vidual exalts in full Self-consciousness the Yoga of the Universal.

Chapter 6

AWAKENINGS INTO YOGA CONSCIOUSNESS

When, at the head of the grade, tumultuous out of the

cutting, Pours the belated Express, roars at the night, and draws

clear Redly obscured or displayed by her fire-door's opening

and shutting— Symbol of strength under stress—what does her small

engineer ? Clamour and darkness encircle his way. Do they deafen

or blind him ? No '—nor the pace he must keep He, being used to

these things, Placidly follows his work, which is laying his mileage

behind him, While his passengers trustfully sleep, and he, as he

handles her, sings '

When, with the gale at her heel, the barque lies down

and recovers ~~ Rolling through forty degrees, combing the stars with

her tops, What says the man at the wheel, holding her straight as

she hovers On the summits of wind-screening seas, steadying her as

she drops ? Behind him the blasts without check from the Pole to the

Tropic, pursue him, Heaving up, heaping high, slamming home, the surges he

must not regard ; Beneath him the crazy wet deck, and all Ocean on end

to undo him ; Above him one desperate sail, thrice-reefed but still

buckling the yard;

Under his hand fleet the spokes and return, to be held or

set free again ; And she bows and makes shift to obey their behest, till the

master-wave comes

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

Casual Awakenings into Yoga

I hold myself in .Reserve

Concentrate with Inner as well as Outer Consciousness

The God-Man

And her funnel goes under in thunder and smoke, and

she chokes in the trough of the sea agam— Ere she can lift and make way to its crest; and he, as he

nurses her, hums ! These have so utterly mastered their work that they work

without thinking , Holding three-fifths of their brain in reserve for whatever

betide.'

The student of Yoga, as he moves through the daily routine of his life, should ever be on the alert for any awakenings into Yoga consciousness which apparently chance or casual circumstances may afford.

It has been my experience that if I hold much of myself in reserve for unforeseen external eventualities, and for communications with the inner worlds, even though I may have to be intent on some outer world activity, not only shall I be more efficient in such activity, but I shall be the less likely to miss opportunities which escape all but those who are looking for opportunities of any kind.

To concentrate attention on a piece of outer work means much more than to concentrate just the attention of the mind or of the emotions. This is only a partial concentration— the concentration of the outer consciousness. But what of the inner ? There is all the inner consciousness with what I have called its Law, Light and Life aspects—Buddhi, Nirvana, and the consciousness beyond Nirvana. In most of us such consciousness may be little more than asleep. But a flash of each may from time to time be available to those who are at work in ways worthy to receive these higher blessings.

We live more fully than we know. As we move about in our ordinary humdrum avocations, doing the duties of the home, walking in the streets, playing our games, busy in our offices, visiting the cinemas and theatres, talking with friends and acquaintances, studying, creating, worshipping, relaxing—as we do all these things, there is more

1 " Nurses " from Land and Sea Tales for Scouts and Gurdes, by Rudyard Kiptng.

AWAKENINGS INTO YOGA CONSCIOUSNESS

433

The Mills grind slowly

The Whole of Oneself

Alert to the extra-normal

An Insignificant Happening may arouse the Self

A Veil is Lifted

28

of us engaged in them than just the ordinary consciousness in which we are in the habit of functioning. In all these things a Man is growing who is a God, a Man who is infinitely more than just the shadow of him to which we give a name and an address.

And even though it is customary to say that the higher consciousness is not always attentive to the activities of the lower, the fact, I am sure, remains that even in the smallest details the Man who is God is growing, and that each circumstance of however microscopic a nature is grist to his evolutionary mill. The mills of a God grind slowly, but they grind even the smallest pieces which are fed to them.

And my point is that there are many more pieces strewn upon a Man-God's way than he sometimes picks up wherewith to feed his mill.

He may well learn to act with the whole of himself, not merely with his lower consciousness. And he may well learn so to act even in the small details of eating and sleeping and playing and sitting and walking and looking.

But he may also be on the alert for that which is extra-normal, outside the ordinary frontiers of his consciousness.

An apparently insignificant happening, of no perceptible importance whatever, may start a tiny vibration in him destined to affect his consciousness in a quite definite manner.

The stirring of a leaf, a sound in the street, the fact of a passer-by, the rumbling of a vehicle, a faint odour, the hum of conversation between some strangers, a stepping of feet, the stillness of a landscape, the view of a hill or of a mountain, the passing of a cloud in the sky, the crawling of some insect at my feet, an object in a room, the intentness of a f'owing stream or fall of water, a gesture—all these and many more apparent trifles I have

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

Major Stimuli still further rouse the Self

The Eternal Man descends into his Time Self

His Future beckons him

Irons in the Evolving Fire

We express

Multitudes

found affecting not only my feelings and my mind, but stir-ring, too, some higher consciousness, so that a veil of some kind is lifted, if only for a moment, and I see into a beyond. Of course, the awakening becomes more forceful in the case of stimuli of major power. Listening to potent music, watching a provocative play, sitting in the midst of a crowd swayed by some fascinating game, feasting my eyes and my ears upon some earnest orator, moving through some great building, setting my feet upon a sacred soil, reading some gem of poetry or of prose, exalted by the sight of a glorious painting or piece of sculpture, a flash of gracious memory—thus inspired, the Man-that-l-am-forever descends into his man-for-a-time, and Divinity is just for a moment wafted through his being. He knows, just for a moment, what it is to be a God. His future, looks back upon his present and beckons him to make a greater speed.

I ought also to say that most of us, not, of course, the undeveloped individual, are working much harder than we realize in our physical waking consciousness. We are doing many things at once. Part of our available consciousness will be working with the affairs which find expression on the physical plane. But other parts of our consciousness will be at work on possibly many different activities on one and on possibly more than one of the planes of consciousness on which we are able to function. It may be unwise for us to try to do too many things at once on the physical plane itself. It may be very unwise for us to have too many irons in the fire. But from the standpoint of the larger consciousness we are likely to be doing many things at once, and doing them well, too. And we might well be regarded as sluggards had we not quite a number of irons in our evolving fire.

Hence, while from one point of view I am right to say that there is more of us engaged in the things of the

physical plane than just the consciousness which we think we perceive to be at work, it is no less true that we are simultaneously at work on several of the other planes. We are vast and we can express multitudes — to adapt Walt Whitman, who thought more of all we could contain than of all we could express. We are It is very useful, therefore, to practise this power of

Omnipresent

simultaneity, and to accustom ourselves to live in our larger consciousness so that we use it for activities other than those on which our waking consciousness happens to be concentrating. While we are sitting at our desks writing it is by no means unlikely that we are in other parts of the country in which we live, and that we are also in other countries as well, doing all kinds of jobs - -helping here and there, establishing thought-forms of various kinds, making consciousness channels for various purposes, trying to influence this, that and the other person, succouring the wounded, receiving the so-called " dead," investigating conditions, striving to expand our own consciousness in various directions, being present at meetings, at religious activities, taking directions from our Elders, possibly even preparing for our next incarnations, paying visits to the moon and possibly even somewhat farther afield.

Some of us may be able to do as much as this, some of us less, just a few of us more. And we can do all these things while we are seated at our desk, or walking in the street, or giving a lecture, or enjoying ourselves at cinema or theatre.

We do not remember—at least sorre of us may not. Perhaps it is just as well. We might well break down under the strain of remembering. But we do more than we think we do, and we use more of ourselves for what we are doing than we think we are using.

For a special form of activity I may refer the reader to my A Guardian Wall of the Will l in which will be found

1 The Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar, Madras, India.

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

suggestions for a mode of effectively helping the world under certain conditions.

The Symbols the Heart of the Event ?

Universalities stir within

" Our Mother who art in Heaven "

Give and Receive

Each Symbol glows with Motherhood

And if the symbols I have been trying to describe have reality for this student of Yoga, one or another will occur to him as perhaps the heart of the event—little or large—which has adjusted him in his kingdom of time to the rhythm of the Eternal, which has adjusted the earth of man to the Heaven of God.

Interestingly enough, I have found two principles common to such stirring. The first is the immanent universality of the Mother-spirit of Life. The second is the no less immanent universality of what I can but call Economic Purpose.

These stirrings, these awakenings, these temporary unions of Heaven and Earth, disclose to me how wondrously all things are mothered by Life, even as we may think them to be most motherless. The Motherhood of God, remembered in Hinduism most beautifully, and beautifully too in what is called the Roman Catholic aspect of Christianity, has been forgotten in some other religions and sects. Yet no less precious than " our Father who art in Heaven " is " our Mother who art in Heaven."

And to him whose ways of life and living are reverent is revealed in every tiniest life, and living round him, the all-protecting Motherhood of God.

How much safer we should be, how much happier we should be, how much freer we should be, how much more peaceful we should be, were we to remember this Motherhood—receiving it and giving it.

Each symbol in this form of Yoga is indeed glowing with the Motherhood of the Point, whatever may be its specialized functions.

God the Creator. God the Preserver. God the Regenerator. God the Mother in them all.

AWAKENINGS INTO YOGA CONSCIOUSNESS

437

God Economizes

I must husband my Yoga

As for Economic Purpose, I see how carefully husbanded are Life's resources, even amidst the seemingly most extravagant.

I have said that God economizes. I see how true this is, for even when there seems to be recklessness, prodigality, extravagance, waste, in truth it is that through all these lies the quickest way available. And the Purpose suffers in no way from the Economy.

I, therefore, see how vital it is that I should be economic no less than purposeful in my Yoga. I must use my Yoga, not abuse it. I must husband to the utmost even the smallest puff of force.

My Yoga must In me fulfil its Economic Purpose, for its power is not mine, nor its purpose, but His who awakened it in me.

Chapter 7

THE SYMBOLS AS A ZODIAC

Reality in Appearances

Dynamic Appearances

A Saviour is a Vision rather than a Tradition

The contemplation of celestial things will make a man both speak and think more sublimely and magnificently when he comes down to human affairs —Cicero

Whither shall I go from thy spirit ? or whither shall I flee from thy presence ? If I ascend up into heaven thou [art] there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou [art there] [If] I take the wings of the morning, [and] dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. -Psa/ms. CXXXIX, 7-10

Einstein's general theory of relativity, given to the world in 1915, most interestingly seems to confer reality upon appearances, for, first declaring that the motions of bodies are in fact but apparent changes, he proceeds to tell us that since we can give no meaning to the word " absolute," reality must rest in appearances. Thus do we enter a world of relativities, of appearances which to all intents and purposes are real. And I think there is very much to be said for this mode of world perception.

On the other hand, while it seems clear that we cannot affirm any absolute whatever, we can at least demand a conception of life which is so dynamic that it involves a constant movement away from all appearances. Appearances must be subject to growth, to decay, to regeneration, and with the changing appearances must come the changing realities.

I think that one among the many great functions of science is to permeate religion with the dynamic, so that

THE SYMBOLS AS A ZODIAC

439

Face to Face with God

The Symbols are the Appearances

invoke the Reality of the Symbol

The

Transcendent

Causes

every religion grows more and more to the Divine Measure of its Founder—forward to the Founder, not back to Him, for a Saviour is ever a Vision rather than a Tradition.

Einstein's relativity applies with very great force to religion, for in the first place it exalts the spirit of movement, while giving purpose (reality) to movement-points, but in the second place it brings man face to face with God, abolishing the intermediary of the apparent absolute, in whatever form the apparent absolute may be presented— whether as dogma and doctrine, or as articles of faith, or as a body of tradition, or as the essential channelship of the priest, or as some man-made conception of God, or as some anthropomorphic confinement of the life and teachings of a Saviour within some idol-form and hall-mark of authenticity.

The symbols with which we are here concerned must also be regarded as appearances, with the proviso that somewhere there may be, must be, reality correspondences infinitely more real than any reality they may have as I present them, or as they may be understood.

If readers of this book will in some faint mode of vision try to gain a glimpse of each symbol as an abstraction transcending entirely the descriptions I have been giving, and if then they will try to give something of a concrete form to each abstraction, somewhat of a tangibility to each, making the effort with the whole force of their individual uniquenesses, not with their minds but with their Selves, then perchance each will be able to evoke from every symbol that appearance which is its highest meaning for him, however different may be the appearance to one from the appearance to another. Reality lies in appearances.

Yet behind the reality of appearances lies another reality, the reality of the transcendent causes of the reality of appearances.

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

The Kingdom of Causes

Forms of the Formless

Symbols spatial in the Heavens

Meinong, in his fascinating Theory of Ofa/ects, points out that " behind the immanent object lies the transcendent object, the real thing itself; of this we can know nothing except that it is the cause, or part of the cause, of the presentation of the immanent object . . ."

The symbols are all immanent objects. Behind them lie their transcendent causes, out of which each student may evoke the appearances appropriate to his Man-uniqueness. Out of their transcendent causes I have fashioned immanent objects of my own. It is written that God made man in the image of His own Eternity. No less is it true that man makes God in the image of his own individuality, and he is right so to do, for his very individuality is a shadow of God and of his own Godhead.

Often and often I send forth my will on the road to the transcendent, to the kingdom of causes. But as I look into those distances in which the road loses its form and shape, as a river loses form and shape as it merges into the ocean, I wonder If I am looking at mirages, into self-constructed distortions of causes, or at intimations of the very causes themselves.

Am I looking at my projected self, or am I indeed, seeing ?

I see these symbols as forms of the formless, as causes from the causeless, as movements from the move-mentless, but no less as the static from the dynamic, as appearances from Reality.

I see them as successive, but no less as simultaneous. I see them omnipresent, but no less as archetypes.

But what intrigues me most of all is that I see them as having, together with other symbols not used for the purposes of this book, spatial relationships in the Heavens, just as there are signs of the Zodiac. As we enter sign after sign of the Zodiac, do we also enter sign after sign objectivized by these symbols and others not mentioned ?

THE SYMBOLS AS A ZODIAC

441

Is there Movement of the Symbols ?

Servers of the Symbols

The " Family" of Lord Buddha

The Great Consummation

Ail Men are Servers of the Symbols

Are we born under one or another of these symbols, as we are born under one or another of the signs of the Zodiac ?

If so, then in all probability there is actual movement on the part of the Realities which these symbols forth-shadow. For it is said that the Zodiac itself moves forward at the rate of about 54 seconds a year. But I am, of course, entirely out of my poor little depth.

In any case, I feel impelled to believe that among the constituent elements of each symbol are the servers of its Power, the messengers of its Glory.

It is also borne in upon me that in a Divine Consummation into a Point, there is also a gathering into the Consummation of a number of those who have accompanied on His journey the Man now become Self-consciously Divine.

When the Lord Buddha achieved the Great Liberation, a number of individuals were gathered into it, though, of course, at a far lower level. They become Arhats. I do not know if they had some intimate personal connection with Him. But that they would thereafter join His Family I have no doubt, whether or not to be closely related.

Similarly, at the Great Consummation there will be an entry into the Family of Him who thus fulfils the measure of our Divinity.

Such servers will be among the greater Adminstrators of the whole evolutionary process, and will help to preside over its passage through the signs of its unfolding. Among them will be members of many Orders of the Divine Spirit —including the whole range of the Angel or Deva kingdom.

But there are also Administrators who " belong " specifically to certain departments— such being additional to the Servers of the manifestation as a whole. There are the Servers of the Web that is the Womb, Servers of the Line, Servers of the Circle-Globe as such, Servers of the

Cross, Servers of the Svastika, and Servers of the Lotus in its lesser aspect of the seventh symbol. 1

It seems to me that quite apart from, or in addition to, the differentiations of function typified in the Rays and otherwise, there is this larger differentiation, to each division of which members of all the divisions with which we are familiar will belong.

But this takes us into regions which, so far as I am concerned, are purely speculative, and I am perhaps making a constructive confusion worse confounded, not better confounded, as I introduce elements which are more visionary than visions."'

1 See Chapter 15 of this Book Four.

'-' See articles on the Zodiac in Book Five.

Chapter 8

SCIENTIFIC ULTIMATES

Symbol Primaries of Life

The Ceaseless

"Rhythmic

Breath

All things are full of souls and of divine spirits . Gods are mortals, men are immortals, each living in the other's death and dying in the other's life. - Herakleitos

Those inert atoms in the primeval slime which first began to foreshadow the attributes of life were putting themselves more, and not less, in accord with the fundamental nature of the universe. Jeans, Jhe Mysterious Universe

Motion is the root of all. Life is motion , consciousness is motion. And that motion affecting matter is vibration. The One, the All, we think of as Changeless, either as Absolute Motion or as Motionless, since in One relative motion cannot be ... When the One becomes the Many, then motion arises; it is health, consciousness, life, when rhythmic, regular, as it is disease, unconsciousness, death, when without rhythm, irregular. For life and death are twin sisters, alike born of motion, which is manifestation." —Annie Besant

If there be any truth in my conception of the seven symbols associated with this particular form of Yoga, then it must follow that they are primary qualities of all that we call Life. They must each and all be inherent in atom, in particle of dust, in universe, in spirit and matter (insofar as we may care to distinguish between the two), in time, in space, in light, in sound, in form.

It must also follow that everything which is inherent in the symbols must also be inherent in Life, since they are Life.

Primary in them is the Ceaseless Breath, whatever this may actually mean. We may call it Rhythm. We may

1 See " The Symbols in Physics " in Book Five. • Thought-Power : Its Control and Culture.

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

Movement is Universal

Consummation-Accumulation and Forthgomg-Discharge

Closed or Expanding Universes -and Points ?

call it Movement. At least must we call it Restlessness, even though we may not know what Rest is.

It is inconceivable to me that any particle of any nature, any force of any kind, can be without movement of some kind. Even in the most perfect vacua known to occultism, ultimate movement is present. Nature does indeed abhor a vacuum, and refuses to have one in the sense that she insists upon universal movement, however imperceptible.

Both Einstein and Minkowski declare that " we must take care not to ascribe a state of motion to the ether." * This is, of course, assuming a distinction between what Einstein calls "gravitational ether" and "the electromagnetic field," " or—as one might call them—space and matter." To the electro-magnetic field, movement must be ascribed, though Lorentz postulates elementary particles of matter, non-electro-magnetic in character, which do not possess the attribute of movement.

Still the time will probably come when science will unite this space and this matter into one state of consciousness, and this will then give us the universal Ceaseless Breath which to Yoga and occultism is fundamental.

But the Ceaseless Breath is primordial in what we can only call a Point. I do not really know what a Point is. But I might hazard as a definition the statement that a Point is composed of a positive and a negative characteristic —the positive characteristic of what I am calling a Consummation, an accumulation, and the negative characteristic of a Forthgoing, a discharge. And insofar as we may speak of anything being self-contained, a Point is an ultimate self-containment of these two elements. I have read somewhere that Einstein regards the universe as a closed space of finite size. I do not see the Point as of this nature, essence of a universe as it is, though we are almost

1 Einstein, The World as I See It. pp 199-200

SCIENTIFIC ULTIMATES

445

A Progressive Consummation -and Forthgomg

Points or Particles

What is Divinity ?

compelled to tolerate such assertions while living within the illusion of form. Fortunately, there are other scientists who speak of expanding universes, as I am quite certain this universe and all other universes must be, and their constituent Points no less. A Point, such as I have been endeavouring to describe, is indeed an expanding universe, expanding both as to its Consummation and as to its Forthgoing, the two being in fact interdependent. The Consummation is only such as we view it in terms of cosmic time. It is a Consummation in a state of movement. It could not be otherwise, formed as it is of the Ceaseless Breath. It is a progressive Consummation, as its complementary characteristic is a progressive Forthgoing. And the Point moves, grows, in terms of its two constitutent elements. Whether or not the Consummation keeps pace with the Forthgoing, or vice versa, I have no means of knowing. While they are interdependent—this must be true— the nature of the interdependence is entirely hidden from me.

We may then perceive that if the conception of the Point be primordial, then the whole of nature may be expressed, and must ultimately be expressed, in terms of Points, or, if we like, of particles. Waves are points in a state of energy. And the nature of the wave is determined by the nature of the point, or particle, or mass--call the ultimate microscopic end of the universe what you will.

This ultimate microscopic end is endowed with all the characteristics of the macroscopic end, and there is nothing outside, Its activities are its characteristics. The process of evolution consists in the intensification of these characteristics, so that—and at this point I feel myself to be halted, for it is hardly explanatory if I say, so that--a Godhead is achieved, a Divinity is reached. For what is a Godhead, a Divinity ? I feel myself to suggest the idea of Reproduction in exce/s/s. What else can a God profitably do but produce Gods ? There is no satisfaction in the idea

that He goes on becoming more and more God, save as His creative power becomes more glorious. So far as we know, reproduction is the supreme attribute of all evolving life, and by evolving I do not at all mean copying. And if I say that a God can best reproduce Gods, I mean, therefore, that He can best do unto other " Men " that which has been done unto Him—not " to create Man to be immortal and make him an image of His own Eternity," but to set Men on their road to immortality and to aid them to become images of their own Eternities. An All- We then come to another fact which definitely seems

pervading

Curvature to emerge from a study of this particular form of Yoga,

namely that the geometrical conceptions of the ancient Greeks, as expressed, for example, in Euclid, deal with what must be regarded as abstractions having an unknown, if at all knowable, relation with occult observations. I must not say that straight lines and straight-lined figures do not exist. But they seem to me entirely at variance with such reality as I think I have encountered. The Rhythm of Universal Unity would seem to demand an all-pervading curvature, to which principle I have not perceived any exceptions, for even in the symbols of the vertical and horizontal Lines curvature is inherent, and the Cross, therefore, is a curvature. As Einstein has said, " the fundamental concepts of the ' straight line,' the ' plane,' etc. . . . lose their precise significance in physics." The Law of Spiritual Gravitation seems to demand curvature as an element in its accurate expression.

Chapter 9

SOME NOTES ON SPACE AND TIME

What is Time ?

(s it an Individuality ?

A Quality of Being

Nor Aught nor Nought existed ; yon bright sky Was not, nor heaven's broad roof outstretched above. What covered all ? What sheltered ? What concealed ? Was it the water's fathomless abyss ? .

Thou wert. And when the subterranean flame, Shall burst its prison and devour the frame, Thou shalt be still as Thou wert before And know no change, when time shall be no more. O endless thought, divine Eternity

— Rig Veda (Colebrooke)

Tyndall was wise in recommending what he called the scientific flight of the imagination, for that power of imagination is a most useful thing. Never clip the wings of your imagination when you are employed in your scientific work ; for it may often give you glimpses of truths that without its aid you would never find

— Annie Besant

I have been trying to discover what really is Time. It seems to me that it is something very difficult to discover, since it is a quality rather than a substance, and a quality which is quite impossible to isolate so that you can look at Time by itself, just as you might look at a colour or hear a particular sound.

I expect that the quality of Time itself has in some mysterious way a kind of individuality just as we know that a machine has an individuality of its own, or at least is associated with an organism which we may call an entity. This is a very difficult pathway to pursue, and is hardly relevant, perhaps, to my present interests.

Time Seems to be a definite quality of Being, both of Being as unmanifest and of Being in its aspect of the

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

Space and Time as Dimensions of Individuality

The Substans of Individuality

evolutionary process at work. Hence, Time is a quality of each individuality, whether asleep, awakening, or awake. Whatever else we may predicate of Individuality, we must certainly predicate Time. I find it difficult to define this quality which is a veritable dimension of Individuality. Perhaps I might call it " expansion " or possibly " movement," and I might say that Time is the expansion quality or movement quality of Individuality. But even where there is no expansion, no movement, Time must still persist— " asleep " as is the statement in the Stanzas of Dzyan. Without the quality of Time, there can be no expansion or growing or moving on the part of Individuality. Take Time away and Individuality has nowhere to go.

I regard Time as the second dimension of Individuality, and, of course, of all that constitutes Individuality. Space I regard as the first dimension, so that Space is, as it were, the Father of Individuality, and Time is the Mother. How shall I define Space ? It is to me that Sea of the Unmanifest -Manifest which is universal, all-pervading. When the Call goes forth, of which I have been writing in this book, it goes forth to Space, and such Space as is qualitatively equipped to answer responds to the Call, and enters within the Ring-Pass-Not of the Circle-Globe. In other words, it undergoes a change of consciousness through the awakening of Time. The Father is alone, but when the Call comes, He finds that it is not good to be alone, and Time, the Mother, comes to join Him. Let us beware of pursuing the path of enquiry as to what happens when a certain quality of Space passes out of the unmanifest into the manifest. All that can be said is that it is not less Space than before, but not Unmanifest. I must leave it at that. This Space is the substance of Individuality, and therefore its dominant quality. Individuality is fundamentally spatial, it is impregnated with Spatiality, for it has been part of the Sea of the Unmanifest. May we say then that

Individuality is Space become objective, the Unmanifest become manifest, a portion of the Sea of the Unmanifest become lashed into waves of awakening consciousness ? So far as I can see, the Unmanifest is a kind of Substans of Individuality, as well as it is substance. It is Substans in the sense that there is to each individuality a background of Space unmanifest. And through this very association with the manifest, the Unmanifest moves onwards in the direction of manifestation, just as all particles constitutive of an Individuality grow by reason of their sharing of its life. Space may be defined as the atomic Substans and indeed substance of Individuality, of Consciousness, and its potency is all the more tremendous and unimaginable because in it leashed dwells the essence of that irresistible power which makes for Self-conscious Divinity. One realizes to the full the frightful danger which might arise if it became within the competence of man to let loose the power within an atom. However much bombardment of the elements science may undertake, the very unfitness of humanity will bar it from making those ultimate discoveries which are for Gods alone. How truly does the first Stanza of Dzyan tell us that " Space is the Eternal Parent." Space is the Father and Time the Mother, and all other dimensions are but the children of their Union—length, breadth, height and so on. The We must not forget to notice that Space is inherently

Individuality, both universal and individual. It is the Father of Individual-

mversa» y .^ ^ .^ .^ ^^ ^ p at h er o f Universality. So is it that

Individuality and Universality are complementary characteristics of every Man of the Sea, to use a phrase current throughout my book. There can, in fact, be no Individuality without Universality and no Universality without Individuality. As I have been suggesting, the first process is the Yoga of Universality, the second process is the Yoga of Individuality, while the third process is the Yoga of In dividuaiity-Universality. 29

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

Space, the Father; and Time, the Mother

The Heartbeats of the Symbols

Substance-Movement

I wonder how true it is for me to say that in the beginning there was Space, and that Time, the Mother, lay asleep on the breast of Space. And Space stirred and Time awakened. And from Space-Time was born Individuality and the quality dimensions of its nature. And Individuality became crucified on the wheel of evolution, thus learning to know its individual Divinity. And knowing its individual Divinity, it also came to know its Divine Universality. And so returned otherwise to Space which sent it forth.

I can see so clearly, as I think of these things, how deeply imprinted upon Space is every symbol of the form of Yoga with which I am concerned in this book. The symbols are formulae for the discoveries of the qualities of Space, and they are formulae as well for the discovery of the qualities of Time, upon which they are no less deeply imprinted. They tell the Time—the macrocosmic and the microcosmic Time. They measure Space—Space universal and Space individual. I wish I could help you to gain some imaginative or intuitive or other type of vision of Space the Unmanifest, so that you might perceive within such vision the very heart-beats of symbol after symbol in the series disclosed to me by my Teacher. You might well see in the whole of Space the spirit of the Point both in its Consummation and in its Forthgoing. You could see in it the potency of the Web that is the Womb, the tremendous vibrating power of the Line, and so on. I refer you to my descriptions of the symbols for relating them to Space. And remember also that they can be no less truly and wonderfully related to Time. They show the intensity of Time in its most microcosmic nature. But they also disclose the Eternity which is the Universal Mother, parent of the time-mothers which minister to all evolutionary processes. We may look upon Space as the Substance dimension of Individuality and on Time as the Movement dimension, realizing, if we can. that both Substance and Movement

SOME NOTES ON SPACE AND TIME

451

The Solidity of the Inner

From Solidity to Solidarity

are different expressions for what is fundamentally the same. There is a parent, or no doubt a duality, which gives forth Substance-Movement. But we cannot go into that here.

I am interested to notice that the ultimate Solidity, or Density, visible to our inner gaze, ib Space itself, and Space Unmanifest at that. 1 Unmanifest, or unconscious. Space is more solid than Self-conscious Space, than Space in process of evolution. Evolution seems from one point of view to involve a rarefication, so that the physical plane we know around us is a rarefication of Unconscious Space —giving the physical plane the power to interpenetrate Space just as the inner more rarefied planes of consciousness are able to interpenetrate the physical plane of consciousness itself. And yet, from one point of view, as I have said in the course of my book, there is a greater density, or intensity, on the inner planes than on the outer. One seems to contact a greater solidity within than without. I come to the conclusion that while from one point of view there is greater intensity, and therefore more apparent solidity, as evolution proceeds and we pass from outer to inner planes of consciousness, on the other hand and from another aspect, we proceed from the Supreme Density of Space Unmanifest to ever-decreasing densities as Space becomes influenced by the activity of Time.

We have also to notice that Time moves under the Law of Acceleration, so that in the higher reaches of evolution, there is a Time which moves more speedily than in the lower reaches. It is all very peculiar as one looks at it, and therefore probably indicative of some missing link whereby we should be able to reconcile the rarefication of the evolutionary process out of solid Space with the increasing intensification out of that very rarefication which certainly gives the impression of increasing solidity which,

in the inner regions, takes on the quality of what we call down here Solidarity. Octaves of | suppose we really do not know what we me^n when

Solidity and rr J

Movement we talk of " solid." There must be an octave or many

octaves of Solidity, so that we begin with Unconscious Space at one end of the octave and ring the changes to Self-conscious Space at the other end of the octave of the scale of Solidity. And I suppose that the quality of Solidity changes in each note of the scale. I wish I could in some way establish this octave of Solidity of Space in the great circle of its being. I no less wish I could establish an octave of Time. There are, of course, many different times, not only one Time, even though from one point of view Time is One without a second. We shall only be able to understand Time when we are able to see that there are a number of Time-octaves on each of which there is Movement, on each of which there is Substance, Individuality, Progression ; and even then we shall have to learn to perceive the relation between each of these octaves. How wonderful it will be when in the far distant future an instrument is constructed on which we can play the octaves of Time, and another instrument is constructed on which we can play the octaves of Space. I have not the slightest doubt that our Teachers are able to do this, without instruments at all.

Chapter 10

THE WINGS OF DIVINE DISCONTENT

Oh that I had wings like a dove ! [for then] would I fly away and be at rest Lo [then] would I wander far off [and] remain in the wilderness Psalms, LV, 6-7

For before this I was born once a boy, and a maiden, and a plant, and a bird, and a darting fish in the sea . . From what honour and how great a degree of blessedness have I fallen here on the earth to consort with mortal beings ? . . . But at last are they prophets and hymn-writers and physicians and chieftains among men dwelling on earth ; and from this they grow to be Gods, receiving the greatest honours, sharing the same hearth with the other immortals, their table companions, free from human woes, beyond the power of death and harm.- Empedokles

The Wmgs of | n the beginning Men had Wings, and could stretch

them gloriously to their full measure, but they did not know how to fly. Yet they knew that Wings were for flying. So they asked of God how they should learn to fly.

And into His Hands God took each Man and sent him forth into the kingdoms of His own Nature.

In the first kingdom the Wings of Man stirred faintly. In the second kingdom they stirred a little more. In the third kingdom they stirred yet a little more.

In the mineral kingdom the Wings of Man began slightly to flutter.

In the vegetable kingdom the Wings of Man moved him to and fro.

In the animal kingdom the Wings of Man lifted him from the ground.

In the human kingdom the Wings of Man caused him to begin to fly. And when his Wings took him up into the

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

One Potential Rhythm . Man

Wave after Wave

Descending, Ascending

heavenly regions, Man flew away from the human kingdom into the kingdom of Heaven itself.

So he flew up into the heights and down into the depths that he might help his brethren to learn to fly as he had learned.

In the end Man and his Wings were one.

^ * * £

I think I ought to state by way of clarification that I am resting on the assumption that the Sea of the Unmani-fest, which has been brought within the Ring-Pass-Not Circle for alchemical transmutation into manifestation, is composed of but one potential rhythm—that which is to energize a wave of " Men " who shall pass, through kingdom after kingdom of unfolding, through Manhood, to Godhead.

For the purposes of this form of Yoga, it is enough to concentrate upon this one wave. 1

On the other hand, it should, I hope, be clear, even if only from a gaze of circumspection, that by no means only one wave characterizes the Sea as it thrills into manifestation. As one wave ripples through kingdom after kingdom of unfoldment, there is another wave following closely after it, as it ascends from one kingdom to another. As we see so clearly around us with regard to the kingdoms we have already traversed and conquered, not one kingdom is left untenanted. Below us there are Men who are animals, below them there are Men who are trees and flowers and other denizens of the vegetable kingdom. Behind these are the denizens of the mineral kingdom, who in their turn precede Men who are as yet within the limitations of the still younger kingdoms.

Wave after wave of the manifested Sea passes into kingdoms below as wave after wave ascends into the kingdoms above.

1 See note on " The Man Hierarchy " on page 289.

THE WINGS OF DIVINE DISCONTENT

455

Super-human Sub-human

The Svastika of Evolution

We help the Wheel to turn

The Many-armed Svastika

And we do not yet perceive, even though there would be no difficulty in seeing had we the eyes to see, that there are kingdoms beyond us tenanted by Those who have belonged to waves preceding that to which our present humanity as a whole belongs. Super-human Men have gone before us, and we follow after Them, as there are sub-human Men who follow after us.

By no means am I suggesting that this is an unending process. It has its limits. But I do not think any useful purpose will be served by going into a matter fraught with intricacy. It is necessary to assume that there is wave upon wave of successive Life impulses. But I need not go further, although the interested student may be recommended to study Man : Whence, How and Whither, by C. W. Leadbeater and Annie Besant, The Pedigree of Man, by Annie Besant, First Principles of Jheosophy, by C. Jinarajadasa, etc.

Within certain limits, therefore, no kingdom of unfold-ment is left untenanted, so that while there is constant movement everywhere, the great Svastika of Churning is ever fed with Men that it may churn them into Gods as it revolves. Perhaps its very revolutions are caused by wave upon wave of Men weighing downwards, and thus causing to rise upwards, its multitude of arms. Thus do we perchance see that, while on the one hand we are helped by Those who have gone before us, we are no less helped — I hope the words " no less " do not seem an exaggeration —by those who come after us. On every spoke are those who consciously or unconsciously help the Wheel to turn.

I emphasize the fact that the Svastika is many-armed, not merely four-armed as is the Cross. The Cross is the Mother of the Svastika. The Cross sets in motion the many-spoked Wheel l of Evolution which bears upon each

1 See the eighth book of Sir Edwin Arnold's Light of Asia in which the Wheel has many profound descriptions " A mighty whirling wheel f strife and stress," etc.

of its spokes a wave of " Men," which under the Law of Adjustment it dips down, lifts up, and at last releases from its rhythmic and benedictory bondage as each wave in turn reaches the appointed height. The Symbol The Cross is the Silent Watcher of the Svastika. It is

Incarnations

ever the Divine Measure of the Svastika, for the Svastika

is its child. So do we see, as I have said before, that these symbols of Yoga are incarnations of their predecessors, and hold within their living the spirit of their progenitors.

The Point incarnates into the Web that is the Womb, yet remains the Point.

The Web that is the Womb incarnates into the Line, yet remains the Web.

The Line incarnates into the Circle, yet remains the Line.

The 'Circle incarnates into the Cross, yet remains the Circle.

The Cross incarnates into the Svastika, yet remains the Cross.

The Svastika incarnates into the Lotus, yet remains the Svastika.

The Lotus incarnates into the Point, yet remains the Lotus.

The Point incarnates into that which is More-than-Point, yet remains the Point.

Each symbol, however, is an individuality in itself as well as a symbol of other individuality. Not only this, but this very individuality, this unique life, is active everywhere —be the " everywhere " what it may. The symbol is symbol, and it is an independent individuality as well.

Once again do I seem to be measuring with words the immeasurable. But I am constantly hoping that the measure is elusive, so that while, as we seek it, we discover it, yet we have it not.

THE WINGS OF DIVINE DISCONTENT

457

The Great Mystery

The Rhythm of

Divine

Discontent

Sleeping, Dreaming, Awakening, Conscious

Surely is it unnecessary to say that the great rhythm of Life is an unfathomable and impenetrable Mystery, as indeed it must be, for we are seeking to measure Ultimates with microscopic insignificances.

All we can do is to obtain a vague impression, so incomplete and so inaccurate that even though from below it may seem as a brilliant light, from above it appears but as a feeble, flickering dimness.

If such impression dissatisfies and even confuses, it is well. We have to look for our painting materials, to discover them, and to learn their respective absolute and relative uses, before we can hope to begin the painting of a picture of merit and truth.

I shall be happy if some of my readers declare as they read this book: " Come now. This will not do at all. It is all otherwise from my point of view." I shall be far more happy if they say this or something short of this than if they say: " How wonderful! " and then go to sleep. In any case, I do not want them to say it is wrong. It may be, but it is not for anyone to say so save as he adds " from my point of view." This is the saving grace of all true criticism.

I am hoping that this book will knock at the doors of the Divine Discontent which lies within the hearts of all my readers, indeed of all Men in all kingdoms.

In the pre-mineral kingdoms this Divine Discontent will be in deep, untroublable sleep. In the mineral kingdom it will be stirring out of its unconscious sleep. In the vegetable kingdom the Divine Discontent will be in the realm of dreams. In the animal kingdom it will be awake and will even be beginning to know. But in the human kingdom Divine Discontent is not only awake, does not merely know, but is awakening to know that it knows. It is becoming Self-conscious. And as development in the human kingdom proceeds, Divine Discontent grows increasingly conscious of its glorious nature.

Ever-deepening | hope thfct the vast majority of my readers are very

Living

conscious of their Divine Discontent, and that this book has helped to stir their consciousness more deeply. Gropmg toward | hope it has that maqic which all real books have—

Divinity r J

of stirring its readers to seek their own conceptions of Life, and constantly to subject these to the compelling scrutiny of ever-deepening living.

Chapter 11

THE GATES OF HEAVEN

Lift up your heads, O ye gates ,

And be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors ,

And the King of glory shall come in

Who [is] this King of glory ?

The Lord strong and mighty, The Lord mighty in battle.

Lift up your heads, O ye gates ,

Even lift [them] up, ye everlasting doors ;

And the King of glory shall come in.

Who is this King of glory ? The Lord of hosts. He [is] the King of glory.

—Psa/ms, XXIV, 7-9

*

Each one of us must serve his Manhood by ardently seeking to fulfil the fine rhythm of his human state, as he has fulfilled in kingly fashion the fine rhythms of the kingdom he has so far conquered.

But he must no less serve his Godhead by groping inwards towards finer rhythms still, those of the highest reaches of the kingdom he has still to conquer, end those of the kingdoms beyond the human.

The wagon of his being is already hitched to the star of his Divinity. He has but to make them move in perfect unison. Ceaseless ' So to do demands a ceaseless refining of every ele-

Refming and 9

intensification ment of consciousness, a ceaseless intensification of its rhythmic beats, so that from learning to know Light and Sound in all their octaves, the dedicated seeker may at

last stand upon the threshold of the Darkness which is more than Light, of the Silence which is more than Sound, of a Radiance which is more than Rhythm.

At the Doors of So standing, he knocks upon Doors which have been

the Ineffable y r

Mystery mightily exalted in the Scriptures of every faith. He gives

that knock to which alone the Doors respond, and passes onwards into the Dark and Silent Glories of that Ineffable Mystery which, in veil after veil, meets the Soul as it moves from fulfilment to fulfilment. In the earlier stages indeed are the veils heavy. But they lift one after another, even, though Sir Edwin Arnold causes the Lord Buddha to say :

Veil after veil will lift—but there must be Veil upon veil behind.

The "Door" One of the other many significant biblical references

to the Door as a symbol is found in Ezekiel, XLVI, 1-3 :

Thus saith the Lord God; The gate of the inner court that looketh toward the east shall be shut the six working days ; but on the sabbath it shall be opened, and in the day of the new moon it shall be opened.

And the prince shall enter by the way of the porch of [that] gate without . . . then he shall go forth ; but the gate shall not be shut until the evening

Likewise the people of the land shall worship at the door of this gate before the Lord in the sabbaths and in the new moons.

And that significant parable where the Christ warned His disciples that only through the "door" should they enter the fold, saying : "I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture." *

St. Paul uses this symbol of the Door: " For a great door and effectual is opened unto me," " a door was opened unto me of the Lord.' ~

In Revelations we find the significant phrases: "Behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man. can shut it " (III, 8). " After this I looked, and behold, a

1 St. John, X, 9.

* f Corinthians, XXI, 9 , 2 Corinthians, II, 12.

THE GATES OF HEAVEN

461

The Portals of the Path

Behold, there is Someone who Knocketh

door [was] opened in heaven " (IV, 1). And those well-known words of the Christ: "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock : if any man hear my voice, and open the door, i will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me " (III, 20).

This symbol has been used in its fullest significance by Dr. Annie Besant in depicting the Five Great Portals on the Path of Initiation. In The Ideals of T/ieosophy, towards the end of the book, she writes :

" But when the White Brotherhood sent its messenger, the great disciple, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, who had laboured so long, so nobly, in the service of her Master; when she in turn found another of the ancient group, Henry Steel Olcott, and linked her hands with him in the great work of founding in the world a Society, which stood out as a messenger from the White Brotherhood and re-proclaimed the Gnosis in face of the triumphant agnosticism of the latter days of the nineteenth century; when in Europe it pointed to the ancient Hermetic Mysteries; when in India it pointed to the ancient Brahmavidya ; when within itself it founded its Esoteric Section—then again that cry went out * ' Awake, arise, seek the great Teachers and attend.' For again the reality of the Teachers was proclaimed ; again the fact that They could be found was announced ; again the outer gateway was shown beyond which stretches the path that leads to the inner; so that once more the narrow ancient Way was pointed to, without doubt, without hesitation. Since that day some have entered the outer Court, have passed onward to the inner Court of the Temple, onward still until they have entered the Holy of Holies, where the Teachers stand to give the o!d Initiation. 1 . . .

4 'What are the credentials for coming through that outer Gate ? . . . What must you do to enter the outer

Gateway, to become a candidate for treading the narrow ancient Path ? The way to knock at that outer door is the knock of Service to your fellows. That is the knock which arouses the guardian of that Portal; that is the word which is the Word of Power which makes him unlock the Gate. You say : ' But what of prayer, what of meditation, what of all the rites and ceremonies of religion, what of withdrawal from the outer world, what of the jungle, and the cave, and the life of renunciation ? You talk of service, but that must be carried on in the outer world; that takes up time and thought and energy. How should service be the way, when it must be carried on in the haunts of men ? ' Quite true, and yet it is the way. . . .

"It is the care for the welfare of the people, the bringing of strength to the weak, and help to the helpless — that i§ the knock which sounds through the Courts of the Temple, and makes the dwellers therein say: ' Behold, there is someone who knocketh at the Door.' "

Chapter 12

INITIATIONS ON THE PATH OF FULFILMENT

Expansions of Consciousness

An Examination in Truth

And my toga of brilliant colours

I cast around me, in its whole breadth

I clothed myself therewith, and ascended

To the gates of salutation and homage ,

I bowed my head and did homage

To the Majesty of my Father who hard sent it to me r

For I had done his commandments,

And he had done what he promised,

And at the gate of his princes

I mingled with his nobles ;

For he rejoiced in me and received me,

I was with him in his kingdom.

And with the voice of ...

All his servants glorify him.

And he promised that also to the gate

Of the King of kings I should speed with him,

And bringing my gift and my pearl,

I should appear with him before the King

Hymn of the Robe of Glory

It is important to realize that what we call Initiations are in fact expansions of consciousness which either occur in the normal process of evolution, or may be hastened by special process of meditation, study and action.

Just as there are individualities at various stages of unfoldment in the human kingdom—some savage, and others at various degrees of civilization beyond, so towards the end of life in the human kingdom an individual may hasten his growth and gain mastery over a wider range of consciousness. He may, if he so chooses, place himself for training under a wise teacher, and through age-old study, discipline and activity fit himself to receive from

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

Examinations for Initiation

Continuous Unfoldment

The Second Birth into Spirit

Apprentice of the Hierarchy

without the help of a Master of Wisdom by passing what can only be called an examination—the main feature of which is the testing of the candidate's power both to seek truth successfully and to share it generously with all who are in need.

Each of the examinations is followed, if successfully passed, by an Initiation such as is described below, at least so far as regards the first four. There is little if any information as regards the mysteries beyond, and it would be improper for us to try to find out.

But I should like to suggest that, while of course the Initiations, as are given below, are confined to those members of the human kingdom who are nearing the end of their long human pilgrimage, there are expansions (and explosions, too) of consciousness taking place in every kingdom of nature. In the animal, vegetable, mineral and sub-mineral kingdoms expansions of consciousness are continuous, for the unfoldment of the life in the dust into the life in the diamond is one long expansion of consciousness, and I doubt if there are any short-cuts up the mountainside of growth in any kingdom save the human, towards its close, and possibly also in the animal, towards its close.

There are also, of course, complementary expansions of consciousness, both general and specific, in evolutions other than human. THE FIRST INITIATION

The first of the greater Initiations has a twofold result. It is the birth of the individual Self-consciously into the spiritual world, and is therefore his second and real birth, the first being his physical birth into the material world. And just as life after life up to a certain point he needs to undergo birth into matter, so does he also, life after life up to a certain point, need to undergo the second birth into spirit. This second birth accords to him entry into apprenticeship to the great Hierarchy of Those who are Heads and

INITIATIONS ON THE PATH OF FULFILMENT

465

Communion with the Law of Life

A strenuous Vigil of Preparation

The Web that is the Womb

Assistants in the real Government of the world, being expert agents of the Law. This Hierarchy is called the Brotherhood that lives from Eternity to Eternity. He can hardly be called a member of this " Communion of Saints," but I think we may say that he is in communion with the Saints and the great Fellowship of God.

The second result this Initiation produces is that it intensifies the powers of consciousness, especially in the realm of feelings, desires, emotions and aspirations. Indeed has such intensification its great dangers as well as its great possibilities. And such intensification lifts the individual into momentary communion with the Law of Life in the One and the Many. He cannot hold this communion save at intervals and in brief flashes. But the experience he has changes him for ever.

Therefore is it that a strenuous vigil of preparation is enjoined, and the guidance of a Teacher, extending over many years. The kind of preparation involved is set forth in simple and beautiful language in At the Feet of the Master, a booklet available at any Theosophical Publishing House.

This Initiation reflects in the individual the principles of the Web that is the Womb. He is born into the Life of the Spirit, and becomes in that Life a happy wanderer, freeing himself from limitations. He is beginning a conscious treading of his way to the Point.

First Initiation:

Hindu: Parivrajaka, the Wanderer [between earth and heaven].

Buddhist: Sotapanna, he who enters the stream [that leads to the farther shore].

Christian : Birth of the Christ Child [the Buddhic or Love-Wisdom Principle] within the Cave of the Heart of a Virgin Mother; " Salvation "—with Love-Wisdom the Initiate is " safe " in the evolutionary scheme He has become as a " little child," and entered " the Kingdom of Heaven."

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

From Birth to eager Youth

The Vertical Line

From Youth to young Manhood

He prepares to Descend

Egyptian: At Initiation, from the Mysteries of Isis, the Virgin Mother, the candidate passed into the Mysteries of Serapis which covered the first three Initiations The symbol was that of the " Birth of the Child Horus " from Isis, and Osiris, the Father God, or of the Mother and Father Principles of Divinity.

THE SECOND INITIATION

The second of the greater Initiations takes the individual from birth to eager youth. His apprenticeship is proceeding, he is gaining experience, and a further intensification takes place, after due examination, now in the realm of the mind. He has justified his birth into the life of the spirit. He has found himself in that life. He has established himself in it, and, while still a wanderer, has in it a definite habitation of his own construction, his " hut " or 11 home " in which he is beginning to live. He is beginning to learn to wield power, and has to beware of the dangers of pride, of self-conceit, of self-satisfaction.

This Initiation reflects in the individual the principles of the vertical Line, for power descends upon him.

Second Initiation .

Hindu: Kutichaka, the Hut-Builder, he who has reached a state of peace in the inner worlds.

Buddhist : Sakadagamin, he who need return but once more [to the weary round of birth and death].

Christian: Baptism [by the Fire of the Dove or Holy Spirit] followed by the Temptation in the Wilderness, [wherein the Initiate is taken unto a high mountain and offered all that ambition or pride could desire, but he refuses to take aught for himself].

THE THIRD INITIATION

The third of the greater Initiations takes the individual from youth to manhood, though not yet to real maturity. Still, of course, his apprenticeship is proceeding, he is gaining still more experience.

At this particular stage there is a preparation for great testings as to his power to descend into the very depths of Life, into Life's prisons, yet remain unimprisoned and able

INITIATIONS ON THE PATH OF FULFILMENT

467

Transfiguration and

Comradeship with the Saints

The Circle round the Centre of Kingship

From Manhood to Maturity

to carry his own Light into the dark places. In other words, he prepares himself to descend into innumerable hells, remain in them undisturbed, and even help to release from durance those whose time for release has come.

This stage is marked in the Christian Scriptures by the Transfiguration, for to help the individual to bear in peace and fortitude the opportunities that are to come to him, he becomes, at all events for the time being, aware of his comradeship with the Saints and Saviours of the world, and thus is indeed transfigured.

This Initiation reflects in the individual the symbol of the Circle—the beginning of the establishment by him of a dominion over the kingdom that shall one day, in the infinitely distant future, be his. This is the first faint beginning of a drawing of his own Circle round the Centre of his Godhead, of his Kingship-to-be, the beginning of a kingdom of which some day he will be God.

fhird Initiation -

Hindu . Hamsa, a Swan, he who knows Soham-- " That am I."

Buddhist : Anagamin, he who need not return, for he must achieve the next Initiation in the same incarnation, and then, it would appear, need not return into human incarnation.

Christian: Transfiguration on the Mount of Holiness, in company with Moses and Elias, symbol of his conscious unity with the Brotherhood of the Saints and the Prophets. The Voice from on High testifies, " This is my beloved Son hear Him." The shining with " exceeding whiteness " is symbol of the descent of the Monad who transforms the Ego into the likeness of his own Glory. But that this Initiation is only a preliminary for the next is hinted in the injunction to the disciples " to tell no man what things they had seen, till the Son of man were risen from the dead."

THE FOURTH INITIATION

The fourth of the greater Initiations takes the individual from manhood to maturity, to the maturity of the experience he has garnered through many lives of unfold-ment with the aid of the three preceding Initiations.

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

He must enter Meils and Heavens

He must Embody the Law where absent

He glimpses the Nirvanic Light

He goeth forth no more from the Centre

He knows the Hells of others and Releases them therefrom

He descends in joyous Triumph

Still his apprenticeship continues. But the time has now come for him to test his own powers as they have never been tested before. Constantly has he been rising into the heights, with only the lesser falls to give him further strength.

Now he must win Eternal Light, the Light that is called Nirvana. Now must he enter Heaven for ever by making a heaven not only out of all the joys of the world, but no less out of all the hells of the world.

He has glimpsed the Law of Life, that Law which declares the unity of the One in all the Many.

Now he must embody the Law, and in his own person vivify its action even in the darkest and most remote of regions, where Light and Law would almost seem to be absent Does the Writ of God run in such regions as these ?

And to help him comes a glimpse of the Light of Heaven, *as at his second birth there came to him a glimpse of the Law of Heaven. Now he perceives, perhaps only momentarily, that the many, all the many, are in the One, as aforetime he saw the One in all the many.

At his second birth he went forth from his Centre and found himself everywhere, Now he dwells in his Centre and finds all life within him.

So he himself is now fortified to experience hells such as he has never known before, and is at peace in them. So does he experience the hells of others, strengthen them to endure their hells insofar as the time has not yet come for their release, and have the inestimable privilege of being the instrument of the release of those whose time has come, through the expiration of the obstructing force and his own right of redemption, to be free once more in the normal rhythms of Life. 1

He descends into his own hells and into the hells of others, not in fear, nor in gloom, nor in any manner of

1 See " The Call of the Arhat " in Book Five.

INITIATIONS ON THE PATH OF FULFILMENT

469

Down into Crucifixion and up into Resurrection

The Cross and the Svastika

A shadow-miniature Universe is being born

doubt, but in joyous triumph. And thus descending he ascends with the human imprisoned sheaves he has gathered, first into their heavens which now they may know once more, and then into his own heaven of Nirvana, of the Eternal Light.

Down into his own crucifixion, and among the crucifixions of his fellow-men, and into those too of his younger brethren in every kingdom of nature. Up into his own resurrection, thus drawing his comrades, indeed the whole of Life, nearer the resurrections which shall some day be theirs. 1

The Buddhic consciousness now must become his for ever. Now shall he learn to know the very essence of Life. This Initiation reflects in the individual the two symbols —that of the Cross, the Crucifixion, and of the triumph of the Cross, the Svastika, the Resurrection. In him, even at this stage of his unfoldment, coming events are already beginning to cast their shadows, their glories, before.

In miniature he has begun to know the Web that is the Womb, the Line, the Circle, and now the Cross and its immediate apotheosis—the Svastika, the Fiery Cross. A universe in shadow-miniature is being born, to come out of the shadows as from the Point shone forth the Web that is the Womb.

The individual who is ready.for the fourth Initiation can safely descend into the uttermost matter of Hell, because there has been achieved a perfect purity in the great Lines of his Cross of Crucifixion—the vertical of Vivification, the horizontal of Fecundation. He may now be stretched on the Cross of Fulfilment, for he is ready to arise in Resurrection, thence to pass into his Ascension, typified by the fifth Initiation, the beginning of the Lotus flowering.

1 Cf. Lord Buddha said " Let all the sins of the world fall on me and let the world be saved."—Quoted by Kumarila in Tantravarttika.

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

From Maturity to Wisdom

He is Master

The Life itself

The Fourth Initiation:

Hindu: Paramahamsa, he who is above the Hamsa, the Swan, the Bird of Life.

Buddhist: Arhat, the worthy, capable, venerable, perfect, [he who has entered Nirvana].

Christian : Crucifixion and Resurrection Crucified on the cross of the woes of the world to save his fellows, symbolized by the two thieves with whom he suffers. He descends into the lowest hells, for none must remain outside his tender compassion. He reascends as the " resurrected one "

Egyptian - The Initiate enters the Mysteries of Osiris during which he experiences mystical death and rebirth in an entranced state.

THE FIFTH INITIATION

The fifth of the greater Initiations takes the individual from maturity to Wisdom, from knowledge to Truth, from experience to Self-Realization. He has conquered the supreme heights of the human kingdom, and ascends therefrom to the superhuman kingdom beyond, there to be born again in the mighty third birth of the evolutionary process. 1

The Law is His. The Light is His. Doing the Will of God, He now sets His feet upon that Way which leads Him to become the Will of God, thus becoming the very Life of God. He is a Master, a Man who has entered into the veritable, regions of Godhead.

He is no longer an apprentice. He is a member of the Hierarchy, of the Great Brotherhood, of the Inner Government of the world.

Entering into the Law of Life, He rose into the Light of Life, and now is beginning to be Life itself. He is becoming both Centre and Circumference. Not only is He

1 Dean Stanley has said that all the Gods of ancient mythology were once men, and he traces for us the evolution of a man into a hero, the hero into a demi-god, and the demi-god into a divinity. By a slow process, the natural man is divested of all our common faults and frailties , he is clothed with superhuman attributes and declared a being separate and apart, and is lost to us in the clouds.

the One in the Many. Not only is He the Many in the One. He is the Many and the One.

™ e Lotus This Initiation reflects in the individual, in the Man-

Flower

God, the symbol of the Lotus Flower. An Octave of Jhus, in this scale of Initiation, is played an octave of

the Symbols r J

the symbols of this form of Yoga, the Point being its Alpha and Omega in one, the Beginning and the End of Life, and on the octave which these symbols constitute, we may string any beads we choose—the birth of a child, his baptism, his confirmation, his transfiguration, his crucifixion, his resurrection, or perhaps the beads of a life or of an age.

The Fifth Initiation :

Hindu: Jivanmukta--the Liberated One

Buddhist : Asekha -he who has no more to learn, the Adept, disciple no longer.

Christian: Ascension—he is taken up into "heaven," becomes one with the Holy Ghost or Divine Activity of the Logos, and at a Feast of Pentecost, pours down tongues of fire upon the heads of his followers, who were given marvellous powers, because of the touching of the fire " upon each of them " [Acts, II, 3]

THE SEVEN PATHS OR CHOICES

Seven Paths of Service open before the Adept:

1. To enter the bliss of Paranirvana, taking the Dharmakaya (Monadic) vesture, retaining triplicity but dropping even the Nirvanic nucleus, to become perchance, in some future world, an Avatara, or Divine Incarnation.

In Buddhism, this is called " entering the void of Clear Light," or " the uncreate, unshaped, unmodified."

2. To enter Nirvana " on the Spiritual Period," a phrase covering unknown meanings, among them " probably that of taking the Sambhogakaya vesture, retaining the Nirvanic body and permanent atom, but none lower.

In Buddhism, this is the Divine Body of Perfect Endowment, in which the five Dhyani Buddhas overshadow and bless mankind.

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

Divinity

The Godhead-Point through Sacrifice ascends the Ladder

3. To remain with humanity as a Nirmanakaya, one of the Guardian-Wall of Saints who fill the spiritual reservoir of power—a path of great sacrifice.

4. To join the Staff Corps of the Logos, training himself to do any type of work needed in any part of the solar system, a very difficult path to which an aspirant can dedicate himself at the Fourth Initiation. 1

5. To pass on to the next Chain of Worlds (or incarnation of the Planetary Logos) to aid in the building up of its forms.

6. To join the Cosmic Elemental Devic Hosts to work where stationed in the solar system as distributors of Power and builders of Form.

7. To remain with humanity as an Official of the Hierarchy, a path which requires constant physical incarnation.

AND BEYOND

I know that there are what may be called Initiations beyond even those to which there is passing reference below. I believe that the Godhead as unveiled in the Point still further unfolds the mighty Divinity already achieved. Indeed, if there be any word at all positively conveying the idea of infinitude, it is the word Divinity.

I am also disposed to conjecture that, in some way entirely beyond my understanding, that process whereby a new evolutionary era is set in motion is part of an Initiation in which the Godhead-Point reaches yet another height. It seems to me that in making the great sacrifice of the Web that is the Womb and the great sacrifices of the Line, the Circle, the Cross, the Svastika and the Lotus, the Godhead-Point is ascending a Ladder rung after rung. For sacrifice in its truest meaning of making holy is the royal road, the Yoga road, to union and to power.

1 See also Nirvana by George S. Arundale.

INITIATIONS ON THE PATH OF FULFILMENT

473

Transcendental Tapas

He Makes Holy

He opens the Doors of the Sanctuary

The Holy of Holies

Temple after Temple

Therefore, it seems to me, we watch a God performing a transcendental Act of Yoga, thereby reaching an Initiation of inconceivable grandeur, as we see His Tapas of the Web, His Tapas of the Line, His Tapas of the Circle, His Tapas of the Cross, His Tapas of the Svastika, His Tapas of the Lotus.

And the mass of lives He thus " sacrifices," makes holy, with His own Divinity, rise up to bear witness to His Yoga as the power which set in motion the Wheels of their Divinity.

You and I, and all life in every kingdom of nature, bear witness to His sacrifice as we learn to understand it. So does He justify the opening to His entry of the Doors of an Inner Sanctuary, and so do we ourselves, thus testifying, earn the right to turn our eyes to one of the Outer Courts of one of the lesser Sanctuaries, that we may move towards it and some day knock in the way appointed for the opening of its Doors.

As we study this form of Yoga and other forms, and grow in the spirit of their pathways, so do we cease to look in vain or in doubt for an Outer Court of Refuge and Truth. Our footsteps are guided by those who have gone before us on one or another of these pathways, and at last we see in the distance tha shadow of a Temple, dim almost as a mirage, elusive almost as a will-o'-the-wisp, yet slowly gaining definition, and at last shining into our eyes in gorgeous colours and majestic lines. Then do we hasten still more quickly, and in a supreme moment we give the knocks of a call which cannot be denied, and, with the help of our guide, we pass within to receive in a Holy of Holies, and in a sublime setting of colour and of sound, a jewel for the Crown of Kingship which shall one day be ours.

And so do we continue our pathway until we reach another Temple, and in its sacred shrine win yet another jewel. Into a little Crown—a Coronet—these jewels are

set as channels for the very power of God in music and in rainbow. 1 The Coronet At last the Coronet, now laden with jewels, becomes

becomes a

Crown a splendid Crown, and we pass away from the human

kingdom yet not leaving it behind !

And then away, and away, and away.

FURTHER INITIATIONS IN THE HIERARCHY

The Sixth Initiation :

That of Chohan, among whom are the Heads, Channels and Focussing Points of the Seven Ray-Streams of Life, a reflection of the Seven Spirits before the Throne, described " in the vision of St. John the Evangelist, who said . ' And there are seven lamps of fire burning before the throne.' "

The Seventh Initiation:

On the Ray of Will . Tfie Manu who sets the type of and literally fathers a Race, the " brain " of the Lord.

On the Ray of Love-Wisdom : The Bodh/sattva or World Teacher and Head of all Religions, the " heart " of the Lord [He is spoken of as " dual . . whose male form is Kwan-shi-ym,

the Lord Maitreya, and whose female form is Kwan-ym "]

On the Rays of Activity: The Mahachohan, Commander-m-Chief of the Mighty Forces, " verily the Arm of the Lord stretched out into the world to do His Work." He directs the culture and civilization of a race.

The E/ghth Initiation :

On the Ray of Will: The Solitary or Pratyeka Buddhas, who act as transformers for the Force of the King, and also as His Lieutenants.

On the Ray of Love-Wisdom : The Buddha, who is one with the life of the Second Logos, and sends down His Divine Wisdom to mankind through the Bodhisattva, who is in a mysterious and very literal way His vehicle and expression.

The Ninth Initiation and Higher:

The King or Lord of the World, one with the Divine Will of the First Logos, and the Direct Representative and Focus for the Consciousness of the Planetary Logos. He is " nearer to us than breathing, closer than hands and feet," for in His causal Aura, He enfolds the World. He is the One Initiator, without whose approval no one can enter the Brotherhood.

1 See " The Master Ascended " in Book Five.

Three of these Mighty Lords in turn rule a world-period. The tremendous task of the Third Lord of the World is "to round off satisfactorily that period of evolution, and to deliver over the countless millions of evolving creatures into the hands of the Seed-Manu . . The Third Lord of the World, having fulfilled this duty, takes another Initiation entirely outside of our world and its Hierarchy, and attains the level of the Silent Watcher "

The Silent Watcher: '

" In that capacity He remains on guard for the whole period of a Round, and it is only when the Life-Wave has again occupied our planet and is again ready to leave it that He abandons His strange self-imposed task, and hands it over to His Successor "

" Why does the Solitary Watcher remain at His self-chosen post ? . Because the lonely, sore-footed Pilgrims, on their

journey back to their Home, are never sure, to the last moment, of not losing their way, in this limitless desert of Illusion and Matter called Earth-Life Because, in short, He has

sacrificed Himself for the sake of Mankind, though but a few elect may profit by the Great Sacrifice "

References for the notes given in this chapter are

Jhe Masters and the Path The Science of the Sacraments Jhe Hidden Life in Freemasonry Glimpses of Masonic History

—all by C. W Leadbeater Talks on the Path of Occultism

—by C. W Leadbeater and Annie Besant Esoteric Christianity Jhe Ancient Wisdom Jhe Masters of the Wisdom

—ail by Annie Besant And The Secret Doctrine, I, 229 [Adyar ed , I, 256]

1 The term " Silent Watcher " is also used of the Monad, or God-Self.

Chapter 13

THE SYMBOL-OCTAVE OF MANIFESTATION

Octaves of Symbol-Notes

The Symbol-Notes

God is a circle whose centre is everywhere, and its circumference nowhere. —Empedokles

The number seven, or the Heptagon, the Pythagoreans considered to be a religious and perfect number. It was called Telesphoros, because by it all in the Universe and mankind is led to its end, / e., its culmination. The doctrine of the Spheres ruled by the seven Sacred Planets shows, from Lemuria to Pythagoras, the seven Powers of terrestrial and sublunary Nature, as well as the seven great Forces of the Universe, proceeding and evolving in seven tones, which are the seven notes of the musical scale. 1

—H. P. Blavatsky

It is interesting to note as one studies these symbols how they do in fact form octaves of all kinds. In various degrees of modulation they form a whole range of symbol-notes, of which the Initiation-octave is only one among many.

This book deals with the octave of manifestation, or of the evolutionary process, the octave of Initiation being a sub-octave within it. Each symbol is sounding a note of change of consciousness :

I The Point

II The Web-Womb

III The Line

IV The Circle-Globe

V The Cross

VI The Svastika

VII The Lotus

VIII The Point

Forthgoing

Preparation

Vivification

Limitation

Manifestation

Evolution

Fruition

Consummation

THE SYMBOL-OCTAVE OF MANIFESTATION

477

Circle of Ascent and Descent

The Cycle-Octaves for the individual

The Universe Colour-Note and others

Sound and Form Notes

Colour-Men, Sound-Men, Form-Men

But we could also view this symbol-octave in an aspect of a Circle of Descent as well as in an aspect of a Circle of Ascent, But so to do would involve us in intricacies not germane to this form of Yoga.

The theme of octaves, and the whole conception of the fundamentality of colours, sounds and forms leads to very interesting speculations as to the octave principle being at work in all the principal spans of living.

Bacon, in his garb as Shakespeare, gave an octave of the ages of an individual life. I find myself constantly thinking of a colour, a sound and a form octave as characteristic of every seven-year period of an individual's life- -the nature of the colour, sound and form depending upon a number of important considerations.

First, there is the Universe note and colour and form, distinguishing it from other universes. In terms of colour, this will be typified by the colour of the Sun- orange. Then there is the colour of the Earth—green. Then there is the colour of the individual Man himself. Then there is the colour of his Ego, his agent-in-charge of the personality and its various vehicles. Then there is the colour to the intensification of which any particular incarnation is dedicated, so that in due course a Rainbow may be established with one colour dominant and another colour sub-dominant.

The same applies to sounds and forms—the Universe sound and form. The Earth sound and form. The sound and form of the individual Man himself; the sound and form of his Ego ; the sound and form to the intensification of which any particular incarnation is dedicated.

And even when we have shown how elaborate is this whole idea both in terms of colour, sound and form, we have still to remember that some Men are sound-Men, 1

1 While for many years educational psychologists have recognized the responses of visual, auditory and motor types, Dr. Montesson in her recent courses classified these as Visual reaching its apex in the Chromatic (colour) faculty ; Auditory with its apex in the Musical , Stereognostic or Motor with its apex in the Tactile faculty, the ability to sense form

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

A Twin-Soul in other Universes

To each Colour, Sound and Form its Lord

A " Luther Burbank " for other Kingdoms

Stimulating

Kingship

everywhere

Restoration of Health through Colour-Sound-Form

others are colour-Men, and there are also form-Men, as to their dominances. Men are exceedingly complicated creatures, since not only do they vary as above suggested, but ir* each case the dominant note has either a colour, a sound or a form as sub-dominant, and so on.

If I wanted to be very confusing indeed, I might most truthfully add that there is an intimate relation between every single Man of this universe and some corresponding Man in some other universe. The twin-soul idea has a farther-flung reality than we generally imagine.

And, of course, all this involves the very significant fact that each colour, each sound, each form, has its Lord on earth, in the universe, and in the Beyond—-a Hierarchy of Lords.

Some day there may arise a scientist who will discover how to distinguish, in every kingdom of nature, between the colour-Men and the sound-Men and the form-Men, establishing the nature of their respective differentiations.

Then will arise a Luther Burbank to devise wonderful ways and means whereby the growth of each type on its own pathway may be rightly stimulated, not only in the vegetable kingdom, but in the mineral and animal kingdoms.

I conceive of the discovery of those who are the kings of these sub-human kingdoms, as, for example, the jewels of the mineral kingdom, and through these wilt flow the great forces of fructification, so that the older Man in each kingdom will be caused to stimulate with his awakened kingship the less opened kingship of his younger brethren.

And then I conceive of an /Esculapius giving a new direction to the establishment, maintenance and restoration of health through colour, sound and form, and through the connecting of each Man with his dominant note as the most potent force to help him. It is interesting to note that singing is now said to bring relief to blood-pressure.

THE SYMBOL-OCTAVE OF MANIFESTATION

479

Each Man a Servant of a Symbol

Each Symbol the Servant of a Cycle

The Web-Womb

The Line

The Circle

The Cross and Svastika

The Lotus

If you are at all wondering as to the purely form-octave, I may suggest to you that there are Point Men ; Web Men ; Line Men, among whom I count myself; Circle Men, Cross Men, Svastika Men and Lotus Men. Of course, each one of us is all these, but some of us are dominantly one or another of these forms. I am Line, Sound and Colour, in this actual order.

I will leave you to ponder over the significance of this form idea, asking you to bear in mind that a partial key to it lies in the conception of each Man as a servant of a Colour, a Sound or a Form, on the way to become a Lord of one or another of these.

But to return to the successive seven-year periods of an individual's life, may we not conceive that while there is a sound, a form and a colour fundamental to each period, no matter what the actual nature of the individual Man, each Man has his own individual colour-note, sound-note and form-note presiding over a seven-year period. Individual needs determine the nature of these colours, sounds and forms.

Each symbol is the servant of a Cycle. So far as forms are concerned, it is borne in upon me that the first seven years of a child's life are dominated by the Web that is the Womb ;

The second seven years by the conception of the Line within the Web;

The third seven years by the birth of the Line ;

The fourth seven years by the flashing of the Line;

The fifth seven years by the establishment of the Circle;

The sixth and seventh seven years by the formation of the Cross, and its consummation in the Svastika ;

The eighth seven years by the birth of the Lotus, and the remaining period by such flowering of the Lotus as is possible.

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

Meagre or Splendid Cycles

Marred in the Web Period

To be young in Lotus Time

Those of us who are over fifty-six have the supreme felicity of being in our Lotus time. I wonder, do we all take full advantage of this Lotus time of ours ?

There is a sound, a colour and a form motif for each seven-year period, and the richness of its expression entirely depends upon the stage of advancement of the individual. His Lotus time may be a glory, or it may be almost entirely bereft of the Lotus spirit, just the shoot, no leaf nor flower. His Svastika time may be splendid in its sweeping majesty, or it may be lamentably sluggish. His way of the Cross may be beautiful in its spirit of service and sacrifice, or it may be a way of selfishness. His Circle may be far-reaching, or it may be shrunken. His Line may flash in splendid aspiration and idealism, or it may be dim and low.

And in the Web period he may well be made or marred, so that the forms will shine in their radiance or be dull in their futility. Many an incarnation of an individual has been utterly marred by the ignorance, or even worse, by the selfishness, of those who should be the friends of the growing God--his parents, guardians and teachers.

Many geniuses die young in years because they hasten through these divisions more quickly, so that Lotus time, a time of deep beauty, comes to them early. To be young in Lotus time is one of the glories of life, for the Lotus amidst a setting of youth is far more splendid as a rule than a Lotus in a setting of old age. I say "as a rule," for a flowering Lotus in the majestic setting of age is no less wonderful than a flowering Lotus in the quickening setting of. youth. Where there is the consummation of age in the spirit of youth, there indeed is the Lotus in perfect form.

Chapter 14 THE UNITY OF LIFE

Not alone the plant,

Of stately growth, and herbs of glorious hue, Which strike even eyes incurious, but each moss, Each shell, each crawling insect, holds a rank Important in the plan of Him who framed The scale of beings. holds a rank, which, lost, Would break the chain, and leave behind a gap, Which nature's self would rue.

—Thompson

The Symbols | t j s profoundly interesting to note that once we enter

flash forth in r / a

each one deeply into the realities which these various symbols em-

body as formulae, we seem to find ourselves in a region of Reality and perceive it everywhere. We perceive the whole gamut of this series of symbols in ourselves and in all around us, It is by no means difficult for me, for example, to see in those around me, in each one of them, a flashing forth of these formulae in all their brilliance of colour, sound and form. In each individual all are simultaneously present as concentrations of force. Each formula expresses in its own terms the Ceaseless Breath of God, so that it becomes clear that this Breath is the very Life of God Himself.

It may well be asked what I mean by the word " God " which I feel constrained so constantly to use. Have I any thought of an anthropomorphic God, a God fashioned in the likeness of Man? Yes, if the words " God" and " Man " may be regarded as interchangeable terms. For (jod is Man and Man is God. There is no

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

A Movement to Transcendence

"God" a Speck of Dust and a Galaxy of Stars

Each Symbol a Scintillation of God

Each Colour-Sound speaks its Word of Power

The Divine Incarnates

Man but God. There is no God but Man, using the word "Man" to signify every evolving individuality of every order.

But I am using the word "God" to signify Man of every order of evolution, raised to the nth power. I use the word to indicate that Transcendence which we sometimes call the Absolute—a word which we can only dare use as we indicate by it our recognition of a Beyond the Relative, or at least the possibility of such a Beyond. And such recognition implies the realization inherent in every individuality of a Beyond outside all limitations, whether actual, imagined or ideal. In other words, there is inherent in each one of us that movement which is as ceaseless as the Breath of God.

I use the word " God " to imply such ceaselessness, but I feel at liberty to use it to indicate a speck of dust or a galaxy of stars. God is everywhere. God is everything. God is individuality, universality, totality. And He is the negation of all these no less.

If I pray to God, I am praying to myself. If I pray to myself, I am praying to God.

Each one of these symbol-formulae is a scintillation of God. Therefore, must I see each one of them in every God in every kingdom of nature. And as I bring each one of them little by little into perspective in my own being, so do my eyes slowly become accustomed to seek them and find them in the beings of others. So, too, do my ears slowly become accustomed to listen for them and to hear them in every being. And their pulsating rainbow colours and sounds and forms gradually lift me into a world ir> which no voice need be heard, but in which each colour and sound and form speaks its word of power, offering the homage of its glory at the throne of its God.

Each symbol, because it is real, has its Lord, who is the Lord of its Purpose, its Divine Purpose. Each symbol

THE UNITY OF LIFE

483

The Unique Song of Joy

This Yoga an Approach to the Lord

Compose the Essence of your Being in Beauty

The Glory of the Revealer of Beauty calls to us

A Rembrandt is also our Universal Selves

has its courtiers of sound, its courtiers of colour, its courtiers of form, who attend upon it and do its Will. These courtiers form its court, because they incarnate in diverse ways its nature.

How wonderful it will be when Man, in the higher reaches of the human kingdom, knows his colours, his sounds, his forms, and uses each and all of them wherewith to sing his own song, his unique song, of Joy unto the Lord, His Lord, Himself!

This form of Yoga is, I venture to think, a very direct approach to such knowledge. It is indeed a Yoga of forms, of colours, of sounds, and no less a Yoga of fragrances.

And it will be well performed when its students have learned to compose the essence of their beings in the musics of colour, of sound, of form and of fragrance.

We are privileged to have about us the mighty revelations of their greatest selves in the paintings, the sculptures, the pieces of architecture—frozen thought-forms as these have been so truly called—the music, the words, the actions, the daily lives, of men and women who have discovered their own essential natures beyond the discoveries the rest of us have made.

Those who are masters in their revelations of the splendours of their being reveal themselves in a measure of glory, and call from their glory to ours.

A master-painter does not merely paint marvellously, with an inconceivable genius of creative power. His pictures are marvellous and have their own unique marvellousness. But they show him forth in his own essential glory, even though they have a glory all their own. When we look at a Rembrandt we are looking at Rembrandt. And what is more, we are looking at ourselves in terms of a mode of that Universal Rhythm outside which there is naught.

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

A Wagner expresses our own universal Rhythm

The Orator speaks our own Fiery Words

A Beautiful Life is the Pattern of our Godhead

It is the same in the case of the musician. When we are listening to a Wagner, we are listening to Wagner himself, we are listening to a mode of his very being. And we are listening to ourselves in terms of a mode of that Universal Rhythm outside which there is naught.

It is the same when we listen to a mighty orator. We are listening to his words, but we are also listening to his very self in a mode of its expression. And we are listening even to ourselves, though we may be violently disagreeing with the actual form his oratory takes.

It is the same when we look upon a life being beautifully lived, perchance in utmost obscurity. The individual may be doing this or that, living in this way or in that. But if it be beautiful living, in whatever terms, we are looking at a Man drawing near tc his Godhead. And we are looking at ourselves, perhaps as we are even now, perhaps as we shall be sooner or later—sooner, I think, because God is shining upon us through and in one who is approaching a mystery of life.

If you imagine the symbols I have been trying to describe, you are imaging yourselves. And to imagine oneself in a glory is to become glorified.

Universal Bombardment

'Universal Exchange

One of the most beautiful sights is that universal bombardment of every individuality by every other which so demonstrably declares both the Unity and the Universality of Life.

There is not a single individuality in any kingdom of nature which, through its emanations of itself, is not streaming forth its nature. It thus projects itself into its surroundings as infinitely as an atom dropped into the ocean forms an infinitude of circles.

This being true of all individualities everywhere, we see at once how there is a marvellously universal exchange of the natures which constitute Nature's universality. Thus

THE UNITY OF LIFE

485

Light-Fire

Each lives by

receiving,

giving

Together Difierenl

itly

is it that Universality and Individuality become indissolubly blended.

The Universality as such—may I say, our Universality ? —and the infinite number of Universalities constituting Space manifest and unmanifest, constantly bombard each single Individuality constituting the infinitude of Individualities manifest and unmanifest, though of the nature of such bombardment I understand nothing at all save that the bombardment consists of Life in its universal aspect.

So also is each Individuality ceaselessly bombarding Universality, all Universalities, as well as every other Individuality. The stars you perceive in the heavens, and those which you do not perceive, are bombarding you. You give to every star. You receive from every star. The whole world and all the worlds constitute a gorgeous display of fireworks in which the smallest atom and the whole of space are full of Light-Fire—a universal, pulsating rainbow with every colour alive with Life.

There is no such thing as isolation. There is no such thing as independence. Nothing can live alone, whether a grain of dust or a royal diamond, whether a humble weed or a noble tree, whether the smallest insect or the most majestic animal, whether an atom or a person, whether a race or a kingdom of nature, whether a faith or a nation, whether a world or a star.

In each is Life individual and Life universal. And each lives by receiving and by giving.

Let each individual take heed of these great Truths of Life. Let each faith know that it is alive only as it gives to other faiths and receives from other faiths. Let each nation know that it cannot live in isolation or independence, but only in comradeship with other nations. Let every race know its need of other races and the need of other races for it.

Death comes in the wake of all that makes for isolation and' independence. The motto of Life is, as I have

chosen to be the spirit of my work—" Together . . . Differently."

All persecution, all tyranny, all oppression, all demand for isolation, belongs to dying and not to living.

The indifference of the world as a whole to activities which emphasize comradeship, as, for example, the League of Nations, is a sign of decay. And do we not see the world decaying under our very eyes ? Let those of us who know be awake, alive, and eager for the spread of Life, eager for that Togetherness the very wealth of which is the diversity which composes it.

Chapter 15

THE LORDS OF THE SYMBOLS

Secretly He sends His message

Swiftly through the flowering years. . . .

In a child's resplendent laughter

And a woman's tender tears. . . .

Sunset fires are dancing, dancing

To the music of His feet.

In the burning breast of sunrise

I can here its footsteps beat. . .

Lo I His splendour bursts like lightning Through the burning mystic space. . . . Shadows dance upon my pathways To the light upon His face. . . . Silver stars are visible twinkles Of His clear transparent touch. He is moving every moment To the world He loves so much ' —Chattopadhyaya !

Shrine of the | wonder if by this time it has occurred to a.ny among

Symbol

the more discerning readers of this book on Yoga that to each of the seven symbols in this form of Yoga is its Lord, His priests, and in the outer court around the Shrine wherein the symbol dwells, innumerable Men who, from the beginning until the uttermost ends, are its worshippers, its servers, and at last its priests, those who are evolving under the magic of the Man who has achieved His Godhead, and who form, as it were, His Court.

1 think I have some vague conception of the Spirit of each of the symbols, of the Lord who is its Cause, and to whom each symbol owes its projection, its embodiment, its vehicle, its incarnation.

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

A Mighty College of Spiritual Heralds

The Rhythm of Projection

For Each his Lord

God Geometrizes

Under the Rhythm of Projection every Man, every Individuality, in every kingdom of nature, is a reflection from a far-off Divine Event, from a Divine Ultimate. The veriest fragment, as we may regard it, looking through one end of the telescope, traces back its ancestry to a Divine Ultimate, to a far-off Divine Event. To the divine nobility of all things the mighty College of Spiritual Heralds—a. very actual and living body—bears emphatic and irrefutable testimony. And while from one point of view, all Lords are one, all symbols are one, all Lords are within us, all. symbols are within us, from another point of view each one of us traces his descent from one specific symbol, from one individual Lord. But all Lords are one. All symbols are equal in their differences.

Under this Rhythm of Projection, every Man traces himself back to a Sound and to its Silence, to a Colour and-to its Darkness, to a Form and to its Formlessness, to a Fragrance and to that Heart whence all Fragrances come forth.

Every Sound has its Lord. Every Colour has its Lord. Every Form has its Lord. Every Fragrance has its Lord.

There is the Lord of the Point that is the All, the Lord of the Web that is the Womb, the Lord of the Line that is the Awakener, the Lord of the Circle that Guards, the Lord of the Line that heralds the Movement, the Lord of the Svastika that Revolves, the Lord of the Lotus that is Glad,

But there are also the Lord of the Square ; the Lord of the Triangles, with no doubt Assistants who preside over all subordinate abstractions depending on the Abstr^t Triangle ; the Lord of the Cross in all its many aspects, and as the Consummation of the two great Lines of Vivification and Fecundation ; the Lords of the great geometrical figures such as the Platonic Solids ; the Lord of the Pentagon, as also Lords of other figures of the same race.

THE LORDS OF THE SYMBOLS

489

Guardians of the Holy Places

The Lotus Flower of India

The Human Shape Glorious

God geometrizes, and His mighty Spirits endow His geometrizations with His Life.

There are also, as may perhaps be more evident, Lords of Races, of Faiths, of Nations, of Countries—these sometimes in groups—of Cities, of Rays. Also are there Guardians—Guardian is the same as Lord—of places of worship, of great monuments, as, for example, the Cenotaphs, the Lincoln Memorial, the Holy Sepulchres in Jerusalem, and Mecca, Lourdes, Chidambaram, and many others.

There are also Lords of great incarnations in the mineral kingdom, such as the Niagara and the Victoria Nyanza Falls, certain of the greater ranges of mountains, pre-eminently the Himalayas, about which could be written a volume of extraordinary information by any seer who knows the Himalayas * for that which they really are—both the Mother Line of India and the Lotus Flower from her stem.

But I must return to the symbols with which this* form of Yoga is connected.

First, I had better make clear that, so far as I know, each of the Lords or Guardians of the symbols has somewhat of a deva-human shape, but a deva-human shape glorified, and in certain of its aspects unbelievably intensified. In addition to the all-pervading glorification which causes the human shape to become intensely radiant, I notice that the hair, the eyes, the mouth, the nose, the hands and the feet assume a special quality indicative of the particular rhythm to which the Lord belongs. In some cases, for example, the hair streams like a flowing rainbow, all shimmering colour—golden, purple, dark. In other cases the hair is, as it were, more severe, long or short, but more restrained. The eyes may be of any colour, including gold, but will be as surfaces hinting at unfathomable depths, or penetrating as rapier thrusts, or suffused with Mystery. 1 See Chapter 2 of Book Three, and " Lotus " m Book Five.

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

Inadequate Descriptions of Magnificences

Why the Human Shape ?

Apotheoses of Sex

The mouth and the nose will be specially expressive in ways I find most difficult to describe. The mouth will never be hard, but there may play about it a sternness or a softness, a smile or an ascetic reserve. The nose will reproduce many different aspects of force—the Ruler, the Sage, the Warrior, but always the Saint in His Holy Poise. The hands and feet always seem to be vast reservoirs of magnetism, glowing with magnetic force which flows from them in constant streams. This fact gives both hands and feet an appearance of length greater than usual.

But as I write these things I feel myself to be guilty of a most reprehensible impertinence, as if I were dissecting Them for the benefit of curious readers. I only give these brief and utterly inadequate descriptions so that the reader may have some little idea of Magnificences he will some day meet and reverence.

Why partly the human shape, 1 in any case ? Because it is on the whole the most economical and effective for high-powered Individuality. Any other form would be less adaptable to the strain which must be placed upon it. The male form seems to predominate. But the female form is also used to a certain extent.

The Lord of the Point combines in " Himself " the two lines of force which we call male and female, words whose ordinary connotations give an entirely misleading idea as to what masculinity and femininity really are. The two lines of force are balanced in Him. But when we come to the other symbols there is a curious alternation. The Web that is the Womb gives predominance to the feminine force, so that its Lord would seem to emphasize what we call feminine characteristics. The Lord of the Line (vertical) on the other hand is typically masculine. The Lord of the Circle reflects the characteristics of the Lord of the Point, while the Lord of the Line (horizontal) reflects the characteristics 1 See *' Man " in Book Five.

THE LORDS OF THE SYMBOLS

491

The Meeting-Point in Form

Of what Symbol are you a Projection ?

Reach out to each Symbol

of the Lord of the Web that is the Womb. The Lord of the Svastika reflects masculine characteristics. The Lord of the Lotus has the characteristics which are dominant in the case of the Point and the Circle. So we have most interesting sequences—Beyond-sex, Feminine, Masculine, Beyond-sex, Feminine, Masculine, and then Beyond sex once more., 1

Each symbol is so eternal and fundamental that a God, a Lord, a Guardian, becomes as it were attached to it, embodies it in that deva-human form which is far more the apotheosis of form than it is at all possible for us to realize. From a certain point of view the human form is the meeting-point of all forms, a kind of central exchange, a middle point between the North and South of the evolutionary process. Hence, from the very beginning we speak of Men, whose middle point is man, and who become Gods.

I think that a student of this particular form of Yoga will be well advised to consider to which Life-Symbol he seems to belong, allowing for the probability that he will be unable for a long time to come to any accurate conclusion as to the precise inclination of his curvature, the more so since we all belong to all symbols even though specially to one.

I should certainly recommend the practice of a deep and well-formulated Silence before each of the symbols, a reaching out to each, an invocation of each, not merely as an act of homage, but also as a mode of examining the relative intensity of depth achieved with symbol after symbol. This may afford some indication as to the particular symbol of which the student is a projection.

1 It is interesting to note that C. W. Leadbeater in The Science of the Sacraments, p. 243, observed this play of sex also in the Rays, stating " the fourth and fifth Rays are predominantly masculine, the third and sixth Rays predominantly feminine, the second Ray dual but about equally balanced, the first Ray dual but with the masculine intensified, and the seventh Ray dual but with the feminine intensified."

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

1 ' See '' each Symbol in Everything around

Apotheosis and Heart of all Symbols is the Lotus

The Lords Immanent

In the veriest Detail of Life

They attend the Majesties of our Incarnations

Furthermore, as I have already suggested, it is very useful to " see " each symbol in everything around, first one symbol and then another, and then the symbols together —as in oneself, in others, and in the Individuality-lives in every kingdom of nature. Each symbol is inherent in the evolutionary process, both as to its broad sweeps and as to its minutest details.

If you ask me as to what shape the composite symbol takes, the symbol which expresses all the symbols, I can only answer that such a symbol is not a conglomeration of all the forms of all the symbols, but is the heart of them all, and to me the Lotus symbol somehow emerges as the Symbol composite. I see it everywhere—in the Point, in the Web that is the Womb, in the Lines, in the Circle, in the Cross, in the Svastika, and in itself as the apotheosis of them all. The Lotus vanishes into the Consummation and appears-again in the Forthgoing.

I should like to insist on the immediacy of these great Lords in all living. There may be a tendency to regard Them as far-off abstractions. They are the very reverse of this. They are indeed " nearer than hands and feet." They are more intimate to us even than ourselves, for They are our Selves.

Let me suggest to you that in our very individual lives, indeed in the lives of each Individuality in every kingdom of nature, these great Lords are Immanent. They are concerned with us even in the details of our living, and attend in ways incomprehensible to us the majesties of our incarnations. *

When a child is to be born, the Forthgoing of the Point is invoked to set in motion the vibration of Descent. The Lord of the Point gives the assent. A man and a woman spin a Web, becoming father-mother, and a Line is drawn between Heaven and Earth—a child is the uniting Rod of Power.

THE LORDS OF THE SYMBOLS

493

Our Lords through the Angels of their Presence are round about us

From the simple Notes of Striving to the Thunder Notes of Conquest

The Ashramas of the Symbols

What is called in Christianity the Baptism is the Circle which forms itself about the Line. In every faith this Baptism, this dedication of the child to the high purposes of his descent into physical matter, is observed, however much in ignorance of its effect.

Over the spinning of the Web presides the Lord of the Web that is the Womb, and the wondrous Angel of His Presence, She who is so truly called the World Mother, is round about the birthing, a veritable Heaven lying about the child in his infancy. But the Lord of the Line makes

the contact between Heaven and Earth that the vehicles of

«

a Man may be formed therethrough. The Lord of the Circle presides over the Baptism, while the Lord of the Line of Fecundation attends that which is called the Confirmation, whereby the child is intended to achieve Self-consciousness. As a Rod of Power between Heaven and Earth the child is established upon earth. As the Cross the child is established in strength, receives the Holy Ghost " for the sweet savour of a Godly life," and is linked with Holy Oil to his very salvation itself. So does he become a Cross within a Circle, and his Lords, through Angels of Their Presences, are round about him.

Then begins the life of the youth, and the Lord of the Svastika appears to help him on his way. Splendidly revolves the Svastika of his Being, its colours flash from light to light, its rhythm waxes from the simple notes of striving to the thunder notes of conquest. At last there looms before him the radiant and majestic Figure of the Lord of the Lotus, for he should have achieved a Lotus Flower as his incarnation's end. Sad will it be if no Lotus be his. I would fain think that there is no life of any kind anywhere which does not blossom into some form of Lotus.

In Hinduism there are what are called the four Ashramas or Houses, reminding us of the Houses of

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

A New Cycle of Marriage

A Real Marriage

Ceremonial brings inner Union

Astrology, the four divisions of a life's span. There is the House of an individual's Youth, marked by the symbols of the Point, the Web that is the Womb, the Line, the Circle, the Cross within the Circle. Then there is the House of the Householder, in which the individual lives the family life with all its responsibilities, anxieties and joys. In this House the Svastika whirls, as it does in the next House—the House of the Individual as he begins to look forward into the vaster future, releasing himself from the more earthly ties, yet still belonging to earth to give of his wise counsel and experience. At last he enters the House of the Lotus, the House of one who prepares for an Ascent into that heaven from which he descended, but a heaven more glorious because of his Descent into earth. Still does he dwell on earth, but Heaven is rising above his horizon and he prepares to move onwards on his way, gathering in the sheaves of his harvesting, and taking them with him on his farther journey.

Brahmachari — Grihastha — Vanaprastha — Sannyasa : these are the Samskrit names for these great Houses or Ashramas.

In the midst of this cycle it is likely that a new cycle of Forthgoing will be begun when the appropriate period for marriage is reached.

It ought to be quite unnecessary to insist that a marriage without ceremonial concomitants, such as a purely civil marriage, withholds much if not most of the wonderful benefit a real marriage confers not only upon the actual participants but no less upon each and every Man ^incarnate through it.

Apart altogether from the benedictory activity of the Lords I have already mentioned, reduced to a minimum if available at all in a civil marriage, the ceremonial of marriage, no less than the ceremonies of birth, baptism and confirmation, make certain changes in the inner bodies of

THE LORDS OF THE SYMBOLS

495

Reverence is Key-note of the Ritual

The Whole of Life is a Mantra, a Magic, a Ceremonial

the man and woman concerned, so that the union of the physical bodies may be preceded by a union of certain of the inner bodies themselves. There comes about a certain commingling of the astral bodies of the participants, and also even of the mental bodies—a union of these —so that the holy covenant which is made on earth may be but the outward and visible signs of holy covenants made within.

It will, I am sure, be understood that a civil marriage does little to make these deep changes, though even a ceremonial marriage, as a ceremonial baptism or confirmation, may not do much more. So much, of course, depends upon the reverence of the two persons as they approach the Sacrament of Marriage. It is the spirit of reverence which is so lamentably lacking in these days, and if so many marriages end in rupture, it is largely because of an all-pervading irreverence. " With this ring I thee wed ; my truest love I thee pledge ; with my body I give thee reverence, and with all my strength I thee shield," says the real ritual of marriage. Yet, as we see, almost every marriage is an occasion for crude ostentation, fashion and other irreverences.

It cannot be expected that any of the great Lords who help to make straight our evolutionary pathways will participate more than to the smallest extent in unrealities, if indeed They will participate in them at all.

The whole of life is one great sacrament, one wonderful ceremonial. It is an act of magic, a mantra. And there are occasions when it rises into heights, as in the case of all the sacraments I have mentioned. At such times Heaven draws near to Earth, and the Lords of Life draw near to Their sons. If then there be desecration and degradation, what wonder the condition of the world with its wars and hatred. So true to life is ceremonial, provided it be real and not the artificial substitute so devastating

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

Marriage is an Act of God

Ceremonials of Citizenship :

Adoption by the State at Birth

today, that, if all outer ceremonial be denied to him, Man must needs make his own. And even those who reject all ceremonial, often for most understandable reasons, still find it necessary to them, though they may not call it ceremonial. We ourselves are bundles of ceremonies and ceremonial.

In all other kingdoms of nature marriage is indeed the Act of God, or Nature. In the human kingdom it has largely become the act of man. It must become the act of Gods. So will it become once more the Act of God.

I should like to advert to the importance of realizing that the Nation-State should have its ceremonial activities no less than the individualities composing it, so that the Lords of Life, and in particular the Lord of the Nation-State, may be able to function more effectively from above as aid .comes to Them from below in the form of constant reverence.

The birth of an individuality should synchronize with a Ceremony of Adoption into the Nation-State. Elsewhere I have written : " The ceremony of entry on the civic roll takes place at birth. On a day set apart, say, the first Sunday afternoon of each month, the State's newest citizens are recognized. In a ceremonial hall, a Hall of Fame, which every city should possess, decorated with portraits of the world's great people and the nation's noblest, a representative of the State, or a leading citizen, delivers a short address of congratulation to the parents. A handsomely engraved certificate of citizenship is then presented. A small book of a simple nature dealing with the responsibilities and ideals of citizenship is given to the parents, to be handed to the child as soon as they consider he can understand it. The ceremony concludes with the parents reciting the Affirmation of Allegiance in the children's behalf." !

1 Who's for Australia, 3-9-1930.

THE LORDS OF THE SYMBOLS

497

Junior

Citizenship to <Full Citizenship

'Matrimony .Holding Office

The Roll of Honour

The State's .Farewell

There may well be music and some actual form for the receiving of the child into membership of the Nation-State %

I have suggested that at the age of fourteen years there should be admission to Junior Citizenship in some formal and happy way. Then, either at eighteen or twenty-one years of age there should be admission into Full Citizenship.

In due course there should be a recognition by the Nation-State of the ceremony of Matrimony.

Every taking of office in the Nation-State should be the subject of some small official event, including an Obligation to serve the Nation-State honourably and wholeheartedly.

At a certain age all citizens who have rendered signal service to the Nation-State, or at any time if desirable, should be admitted to the Roll of Honour of the Nation-State. Faithful service of any kind should always have great honour.

And then there should be the State's Farewell at what we call death.

Such activities will certainly draw nearer to the community its Guardians and true Rulers.

Chapter 16

THE THREE GREAT PURPOSES OF YOGA

True Yoga is Wise Action

The Glory of the Yogi is in Channelship

He remembers his Everlasting Life

Nature cannot enslave the Soul that by Wisdom has gained Power, and uses both in Love. —Annie Besant

The pupil has to turn himself inside out, and maintain a constant attitude of giving in affection and service We have in the pupil, therefore, a man whose higher vehicles are a funnel open to the highest influences from his Master, while his lower vehicles at the bottom of the funnel have been trained into the constant habit of radiating those influences out upon others This makes him a perfect instrument for his Master's use, for the translation of His force to the outer planes — C W. Leadbeater

I want to make very clear that true Yoga is the Yoga of Wise Action, that action which serves the three great purposes of Creation, Nourishment and Regeneration.

Creative Activity may be in any field of consciousness. Nourishing Activity may be in any field of consciousness. Regenerating Activity >may be in any field of consciousness. But it is of urgent importance to remember that the true Yogi is a channel between the veritable Life of Yoga and all living things. He may derive individual benefit from, being a channel. He may grow in spiritual and other stature from being a channel. But his glory is in his channelship, that he is privileged to be a means of communion between the Heaven of Happiness and Fulfilment and the Earth of Endeavour and Hope.

He learns to forget himself, or rather to remember his everlasting Self, in the life which is poured through him. upon a parched world.

THE THREE GREAT PURPOSES OF YOGA

499

Choose your Yoga

Fashion the Cup of Aspiration

Live to Earn the Thankfulness of Men

Make the Symbols Living

Will you Create ?

Will you Nourish ?

Will you Regenerate ?

Will you be a Bridge-Builder?

Will you Dedicate your Yoga?

" May I be true to Thee, O everlasting Life in every form, and serve Thee well in Thy Forthgoing." This is the prayer of the Yogi who is true to Yoga.

Each student who reads this book should choose his Yoga, should choose those to whom he fain would be a channel, thus to enter into Yoga in a spirit of dedication.

If, to use that splendid Yoga simile of the Holy Grail each one of you will fashion himself in all his bodies into a pure and holy Cup of Aspiration and Dedication, then indeed will the Wine of Power be poured into the Cup to overflowing, and while the Cup will be ever full, it will be so filled to overflowing that a constant stream of Power will descend upon the field of the student's Yoga and fructify it with the mighty blessing of Those to whom all fields are dear.

Let each student choose the mode of his Yoga and live each day and night so that, being worthy of the blessing of the Gods, the spirit of grateful thankfulness rises up as incense on his pathway from men and from all other living things.

Let him choose the mode of his Yoga, and make living in his life the symbols of its eternity. Where will he erect the altar of his Yoga and worship thereat ?

Shall he join those who create, and in the very present fashion the glories of the future ?

Shall he join those who nourish, and in the very present glorify the Laws which make for Righteousness ?

Shall he join those who regenerate, and in the very present remind each living thing that it is God, and that no darkness on earth can ever quench the Light of its Divinity ?

Shall he be a Builder of Bridges in the spirit of such choice ?

If he chooses the first path, will he dedicate his Yoga to his art, to his philosophy, to his science, to his ardent dreams for the happy and eager living of life

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

Will you choose All Paths ?

What Bridges will you build from Less to More?

The Building-Stuff is of Understanding

Will you build a Bridge—

in every kingdom of living, to the making of a heaven upon earth ?

If he chooses the second path, will he dedicate his Yoga to the making of all things reverent of Law and Order and Purpose, so that Righteousness may reign among all things and between all things ?

If he chooses the third path, will he dedicate his Yoga to the spreading of the virtues and actions of Victory in each living thing as it struggles on its upward way—the virtues and actions of Courage, of Hope, of Peace, of Simplicity, of Harmlessness, of Grace ?

Perhaps in a way will he choose all three paths. But there will ever be one trodden by his immortal soul, and perhaps he already knows to which his feet have been consecrated, even though in these days of need it behoves us all to tread all ways, since all are but forms of the all-including Way of Yoga.

What bridges will he build as through his Yoga the material of the building of bridges comes to him ?

Every bridge is a bridge between a less and a more. Every bridge is a bridge from a darkness to a light. Every bridge is a bridge over a chasm of ignorance, whatever shape the ignorance may take, to an abode of truth and peace.

Of what nature is this material which shall enable him to build a bridge, or maybe many bridges ?

Always is it of the stuff of the understanding which is truth, of the understanding which is Dharma, 1 of the understanding which declares that all life is one, that each life needs and is needed by all other lives, and that just as the Beginning was one, so is the End, though the Ways may seem to be many.

Will he build a bridge to the Beauty-to-be through his Creative Spirit ?

1 See note at the end of this chapter

THE THREE GREAT PURPOSES OF YOGA

50t

To the World of the Shining-Ones?

The Kingdoms of Nature ?

Your Fellow-Man?

Your Elder Brothers ?

The Glory of your Country, of your Faith ?

The Glory of Sound, dolour, Form ?

Will he build a bridge to the Righteousness-to-be through his Spirit of Lawfulness ?

Will he build a bridge to the Peace-to-be through his Spirit of Truth ?

In his Yoga will he build a bridge to the Angels or Devas that they and men may live together in brotherhood and peace, as they do with the denizens of every lower kingdom of nature ?

In his Yoga will he build a bridge to the creatures growing in the mineral kingdom that in their happiness man may find his own ?

In his Yoga will he build a bridge to the creatures growing in the vegetable kingdom that in their happiness man may find his own ?

In his Yoga will he build a bridge to the creatures growing in the animal kingdom that in their happiness man may find his own ?

In his Yoga will he build a bridge to the creatures growing in the human kingdom that in the happiness of others each may find his own ?

In his Yoga will he build a bridge to Those who are glorious in Their kingdom that in Their service men may find their peace ?

In his Yoga will he build a bridge to the glory that shall be his country that in its righteousness the world may find its peace ?

In his Yoga will he build a bridge to the glory that was and shall be his Faith that in its revealings man shall be helped to find his way to God ?

In his Yoga will he glorify Sound that it may become as the Voice of God ?

In his Yoga will he glorify Form that it may become as the Image of God ?

In his Yoga will he glorify Colour that it may become as the Garment of God ?

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

Will you exalt Motherhood ?

Life is God's Act of Yoga

Conscious Channel of Blessing-Reverence

The tiniest Fragment of Life rests in the Blessing of God

Through Yoga we join God's Messengers

In his Yoga will he exalt Motherhood and cause the Wings of Motherhood to spread in blessing and protection over all living things—beloved of the Eternal Mother as all things are—to become revealed through the very magic of his Yoga ?

Yoga is universal. Life is God's Act of Yoga. Goof and Man worship at the Altar of Yoga—God in Blessing, Man in Reverence.

The true Yogi must become a channel between the Blessing of God and the Reverence of Man. Unconscious channel is every participant in the Universal Yoga. Conscious channel must each be whose Yoga is becoming his own.

And let us ever remember that wherever there is life there are the ministering servants of God. The tiniest fragment of life in every kingdom of nature is encompassed by the blessing of God bestowed through one of His servants—a spirit of His Spirit.

In our Yoga, through our Yoga, we join the mighty army of God's ministering messengers, thus, by serving God, becoming Gods and gaining the power to rule a world ourselves.

DHARMA

" Dharma " is variously translated as Law, Truth, Duty, and is usually considered to apply to " the obligations into which every man is born, the obligations which surround him from the moment of his birth ... to the family, the community, the nation ... It is not an arbitrary thing but a natural one . . . Out of that fundamental idea of Dharma comes the thought that the first thing in human life which makes it possible is the fact that that obligation is recognized and righteously discharged."—Annie Besant.

Dharma also means that innate Law of a man's own being, his own Truth, his own Righteousness, which marks the line he must take to fulfil his future goal. It is in this sense that the Bhagavad Gita says : " Better is one's own duty (Dharma) though destitute of merit than the well-executed duty (Dharma) of another" (XVIII, 47).

Dr. Besant commenting thereon says . " There is a subtle difference in these words, here used almost interchangeably. Karma arises from the past; Dharma also so arises, but implies also the law by which the next step in evolution is made." For the shloka continues : " He who doeth the duty (Karma) laid down by his own nature incurreth not sin "

Chapter 17

FULFILLING THE SYMBOLS IN YOGA

The Point . the Eternal and Changeless Presence

We Incarnate this Mystery-Reality

The Father-Mother

The Sun Divine throws off spark-suns . . . These sparks burst into colour. Rainbows with sun-hearts . . God's light imprisoned in form. And the sunlight, which is the light which is free, shines upon the sunlight which is the light imprisoned, lights the wanderer in the darkness, until the light within and the light without blend into a perfect whole. -Nirvana

For there are great forces pouring down upon your world ; the gates of the heavenly world are open, and life and power pour down upon the world of men Well is it for you that your karma has brought you to birth in these happy days ; well for you to be in them ; but a thousandfold the better, if within you the intuition which is the voice of the Spirit speaks, so that you may answer to the call of the Masters and find your way to Their Feet.

—Annie Besant, The Mysteries

How then shall you apply this form of Yoga to these splendid purposes ?

How shall the symbol of the Point help you to achieve them?

The Point reveals to us the Eternal and Changeless Presence of God, of the Good, from Age to Age, from Eternity to Eternity, from Silence to Sound, from Sound to Silence, from Darkness to Light, from Light to Darkness, and beyond and beyond and beyond.

In fulfilling the Yoga of the Point we incarnate this Mystery-Reality in ourselves, and in every detail of the Yoga which we have chosen to perform.

The Point is the symbol of God the Everlasting, Omnipotent, Omniscient and Omnipresent Father-Mother.

FULFILLING THE SYMBOLS IN YOGA

505

The Silence and the Darkness

Self-Discovery for Fulfilment

How shall we fulfil the Web-Womb?

God as Creator

A Web of the very Form of God

The Matrix of Creation

As we reflect the Point in ourselves, we raise ourselves to our eternal majesties, and perceive and exalt the majesties in all things. We bow in reverence before the Silence and the Darkness, before the End of a Beginning and the Beginning of an End, and we are uplifted into the Ceaseless Breath of God.

The mighty Spirit of them all we remember in ourselves and remember in all that is the subject of our Yoga.

And each must discover for himself how he shall fulfil the Point in and for himself, and for his high purposes of Yoga.

The Yoga of one is not the Yoga of another, so must each of us learn to know for himself his Yoga of the Point. Only general suggestions may be given, as have been given above.

How shall the symbol of the Web that is the Womb help you to reveal the splendid purposes of Yoga ?

The Web that is the Womb reveals to us God as the Creator, in a universe, in a system, in a world, in every living thing, of His Eternal and Changeless Presence. He causes such Presence to be the Matrix of Life, the essence of Life's fashioning.

In fulfilling the Yoga of the Web that is the Womb we incarnate this Mystery-Reality in ourselves, and in every detail of the Yoga which we have chosen to perform.

In ourselves we know that we are Gods-to-be, for in ourselves we have sought and found the Promise, the Web that is the Womb instinct with the Presence of God.

In all around us we perceive no less this Promise, a Web instinct with the very Presence of God, fashioned in the very form and substance of God.

The Point declares that God Is. The Web that is the Womb declares that God is with and in us.

We bow in reverence before the Matrix of Creation^ before a Beginning containing within itself its End.

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

The Line his Limitation as Man

The Beginning, the Way, the End

The Line a Point m an ineffable Curve

The Divine Measure

The Moment of Achievement

We remember in ourselves our matrix, and remember it in all that forms the subject of our Yoga.

And each must discover for himself how he shall fulfil the Web-Womb in and for himself, and for his high purposes of Yoga,

The Yoga of one is not the Yoga of another, so must each of us learn to know for himself his Yoga of the Web that is the Womb.

How shall the symbol of the Line help you to reveal the splendid purposes of Yoga ?

The Line reveals to us God in His glorious limitation as Man. He descends into the Himalayas of a Godhead and causes these loftinesses to brood upon great valleys, plains and hills of evolution. He descends into a heaven, and builds an earth that Man may climb to Him in Heaven.

The Line reveals the Beginning, the Way and the End, and discloses that all three are in every living thing.

As the Point is but a reflection of Point after Point of waxing magnitude, as the Web-Womb is but a reflection of Matrices of waxing glory, so is the Line but a veritable point in a curve of unfathomable unfoldment.

Yet it is the Divine Measure for our evolution, and is the living standard dwelling in all that grows. In all upon which we gaze, with whatever eyes, of the Law, of the Life, of the Will, of the Mind, of the Emotions, of the very physical body itself, we see, with our Yoga, the Line at a moment of its fulfilment.

In fulfilling the Yoga of the Line, we incarnate this Mystery-Reality in ourselves, and in every detail of the Yoga which we have chosen to perform.

In ourselves we know that our Way is certain and true, however much we may linger and wait in the attraction of experience. We are the Way. It is in us to its end, and within the Will of God lies'the moment for the achievement of the goal.

FULFILLING THE SYMBOLS IN YOGA

507

The

Encirclement of the Protecting Will

The Cross of Descent and -Ascent

And each must discover for himself how he shall fulfil the Line in and for himself, and for his high purposes of Yoga.

The Yoga of one is not the Yoga of another, so must each of us learn to know for himself his Yoga of the Line.

How shall the symbol of the Circle-Globe help you to reveal the splendid purposes of Yoga ?

The Circle, Globe as it is indeed, reveals to us God in His gathering of Men to form His kingdom, and to set about His chosen people the encirclement of His protecting Will.

And His kingdom is fashioned in the Divine Measure of the Line.

Everywhere we see this kingdom. Naught is outside it, and it is safe.

How true it is that the " kingdom of God is within us," and within all that lives.

In fulfilling the Yoga of the Circle-Globe we incarnate this Mystery-Reality in ourselves, and in every detail of the Yoga which we have chosen to perform.

And each must discover for himself how he shall fulfil the Circle-Globe in and for himself, and for his high purposes of Yoga.

The Yoga of one is not the Yoga of another, so must-each of us learn to know for himself his Yoga of the Circle-Globe.

How shall the symbol of the Cross help you to reveal the splendid purposes of Yoga ?

The Cross, formed by the bisection of the vertical Line of Measure and of resultant Life by the horizontal Line, Line of Manifestation, reveals to us God at work in His universe. God is ever at work. But the Cross is the Cross of His descent and of Man's ascent. In the middle of the Cross God and Man meet, for there is the Point of Eternal Being.

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

Svastika Spirit-Matter Churning to Divinity

The Symbol of all Symbols the Lotus Flower

Eternal Promise and Fulfilment

Meeting-Point of Heaven and Earth

Singing the Song of Man with the Voice of God

This symbol of the Cross is for us almost indistinguishable from its incarnation in the Svastika, the Fiery Cross, the Revolving Cross, Spirit as Matter and Matter as Spirit churning to Divinity within God as limitation.

In fulfilling the Yoga of the Cross-Svastika we incarnate this Mystery-Reality in ourselves, and in every detail of the Yoga which we have chosen to perform.

In all life we perceive the Cross and its movement, and we know that, thus moving, Life wends its appointed way to the End.

And each must discover for himself how he shall fulfil the Cross-Svastika in and for himself, and for his high purposes of Yoga.

The Yoga of one is not the Yoga of another, so must each of us learn to know for himself his Yoga of the Cross-Svastika.

So do we come to the symbol of all symbols, the Alpha and Omega of symbols, the symbol that was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. In the beginning was the thousand-petalled Lotus. The Lotus was God. And God breathed upon the surface of the waters of the unmanifest, and behold ! a myriad Lotuses rose from the waters to begin their pilgrimage of high Self-consciousness. The Lotus of Eternal Being. The Lotus of Eternal Promise. The Lotus of Eternal Fulfilment. The Seed with the Flower within. The Bud with the Flower within. The Flower with the Seed within.

The Lotus—meeting-point of heaven and earth, the light of the sun descending upon the ascending dust of the earth, and as by a miracle conjuring a flower therefrom. The Lotus with its thousand petals of perfect whiteness singing the Song of Man with the Voice of God, weaving the form of Man in flashing colours, containing within itself Man in his ^beginning and Man in his end as God.

FULFILLING THE SYMBOLS IN YOGA

509

Each Symbol .but its Shadow

Each of us a Lotus Petal of a nobler Lotus

Each symbol we have seen is but a shadow of the Lotus cast upon an awakening Sea of Life.

In fulfilling the Yoga of the Lotus we incarnate this Mystery-Reality in ourselves, and in every detail of the Yoga which we have chosen to perform.

In ourselves we know that in us dwells the Lotus life, the Lotus soul, and that perchance the very Lotus form is ours.

Indeed may it be that just as the whole universe is a single Lotus, and each world a petal in Lotus form, so is each of us a Lotus petal of a nobler Lotus, an earthly fragment of a heavenly form.

But for each of us is this discovery. Each one of us must discover for himself how he shall fulfil the Lotus in and for himself, and for his high purposes of Yoga.

Jhe Yoga of one is not the Yoga of another, so must each of us learn to know for himself his Yoga of the Lotus.

Chapter 18

THAT: THE SYMBOL-LESS

The Darkness encompasseth us.

Ignorance enfoldeth us with her dark wings, lest the Light return us to Himself in the power of His ruthless Universality.

We see not We know not We gaze We think. We feel We move outwards and outwards.

We dwell in our narrow resting-places. We hope. We recoil We seek. A sense of certainty sustaineth us

And all the while compassionate Ignorance enfoideth and cherisheth us with her dark wings, lest the Light return us to Himself in the power of His ruthless Universality.

The Darkness encompasseth us and is our salvation, for the Light knoweth no distinction of growth. He shineth alike upon all that lives. But the Darkness tempereth His blazing Radiance to each unfolding ray of His Glory.

Let us not therefore rebel against Ignorance, nor denounce the Darkness.

Rather shall we fulfil our Ignorance in reverence for her veiling, fulfilling the Less even in its partial reflection of the More.

So also shall we fulfil the Darkness in reverence, for is he not the child of Light and His Messenger ?

The Point The whole conception of the Point reminds me of

poised between irr rtN

Eternities that phrase in the first Stanza of Dzyan, " the Visible

that was, and the Invisible that is." The Visible that was— the evolutionary process which has brought forth into consummation a God. The Invisible that is—the poise of God between eternities, between the eternity of an age that was and the eternity of an age that is to be. I had almost wished that the stanza had included the words, " and the

THAT: THE SYMBOL-LESS

51f

No-Beginning to No-End

Being +

No-Being

Completeness

The Point as Nucleus of a Solar System

Nucleus Electricity

Vortex Point

The

Establishment of an

Evolutionary Scheme

Invisible that is to be." Then indeed would the Point have been perfectly described.

The Point encloses within its awesomeness a beginning, wrapped in a mystery of No-Beginning, and an end in a mystery of No-End. Let us contemplate the Point and become surrounded with an atmosphere within which dwells No-Atmosphere.

How true it is that the comprehensibility of what we are pleased for some reason or other to call Being intimately depends upon an immediate reference to No-Being. Being is incomplete without No-Being, Light without Darkness, Sound without Silence, Day without Night, Right without Wrong, Man without Woman, Beginning without End, Centre without Circumference, Everywhere without Nowhere, Life without Death.

The Point symbol may be regarded as an aspect of that solid centre which forms the nucleus of a solar system, electric as we know electricity, but electric in modes of electricity on higher planes of which we have no conception, whatever. I cannot help thinking of this nucleus being somewhat in the nature of a block of ice, of electric ice, if I may use the expression ; not in any sense cold, save as in an intensity which seems to unite heat and cold in one.

But this block of nucleus electricity is in a condition of inconceivable movement, so inconceivable that we characterize it as movementless, and associate with it poise, and the Silence and Darkness of that No-Sound and No-Light which is More-than-Sound and More-than-Light.

I might almost describe the Point as a vortex, a vortex which at once stirs its constituent elements into the Web that is the Womb, and sends forth from such Web the Line which is the Divine Measure of the evolution-to-be.

For the purpose of concentrating attention on the essentials for the Yoga with which I am concerned, I have, of course, avoided reference to the exceedingly complicated

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

l No-Symbol

Our Safety-Valve

'From the Stepping-stone of Forms

To the central Sun of No-Symbol

Bubbles in Boundlessness

Penetrate into the Symbols

considerations involved in the establishment of an evolutionary process—of the nebulae, of the rings, of the physical and non-physical planets, of the Sun, of the Chains, of the System, and so forth.

But viewed from a certain angle, ! think I have not made any misstatement in the way in which I have tried to show the emergence of Man.

And I am now going to test the student's stability, such as he may have achieved, in these various symbols which I am in process of revealing to him, by inviting his attention to the immense importance in the right understanding of symbol to conceive, pan passu, No-Symbol.

The conception of No-Symbol is our safety-valve, for without it there is danger lest we become slaves to symbols instead of using them as means to an end.

Every symbol I have been tracing is but a form of the formless, and if we know forms it is that we may know No-Form even more. But I think that most people, though by no means all, need the stepping-stone of forms in order to attain the heights of the formless.

Therefore, intent though I should wish the student to be upon these or upon any other symbols which may to him express the Real, I ask him from time to time to adjust his world of symbols to that universe of No-Symbol of which it is a shadow, in which it is as a planet to a central Sun.

Marvellous, unfathomable, as the Point indeed is, and is every other of these symbols of the Real, it and they are but tiny bubbles on the Sea of Boundlessness.

From time to time let us shatter our symbols, or perhaps I had better say, penetrate within them, and stand symbol-less in the very Presence of THAT l which cannot be described in any words, in any language, in any forms.

1 See note at the end of this chapter

THAT: THE SYMBOL-LESS

513

Stand Symbol-jess in the Presence

In us is THAT

In THAT Yoga alone remains

Even THAT is changed as we stand

A Flash of Standing

I wish that we should stand in the Presence of THAT which is not even Silence or Darkness, Being or No-Being. Will any experience befall us ? Will any change take place in us ? Can we even stand symbol-less, transcending all attributes with which we seek to gain some glimmering of understanding of the Incomprehensible ?

I say that in each of us, God and more than God as each of us ultimately is, there is in us the very THAT which is beyond all symbols, beyond all attributes, beyond all Being and No-Being, beyond all in us born of the Creative Spirit.

I say that such THAT registers—it is the only word I can think of, that I dare use—an inexplicable Yoga, in which the Yogi, fades away, and Yoga alone remains.

Dare I say that the THAT which is nameless, because it is all names and no names, is Itself changed because we stand silently, without form or sound, beyond the uttermost regions of our selves, because we just stand, neither reaching out, nor invoking, nor acting in any state of consciousness, because we stand and lose even the posture of our standing, though I have used this word in no sense as suggestive of actual standing ?

Yes. Thus do we assert our ultimate heritage, from which we are now infinitely far away.

Some day we must so stand, for the THAT in us must come into Its own. Some day we shall so stand for ever.

Today we may so stand, for the THAT in us makes possible tha impossible, if I may use this apparent contradiction. It is not as untrue as it may seem.

But it can only be a flash of so standing, even though it may seem to last an eternity.

And we must stand and then cease to stand, and turn not our thoughts, nor feelings, nor emotions, nor speech, nor even our will, upon our standing.

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

We stand and forget your Standing

We stand in our Godhead

The Naught of No-Being

We stand and forget our standing. For our Yoga—it is perhaps the highest of all Yogas of all forms—will be of no avail, indeed will do us injury, if we seek to measure with even a single thought that which is beyond all thought, if we seek to measure with even a single feeling or emotion that which is beyond all feeling and emotion, if we seek to measure with even a single word that which is beyond all words, if we seek to measure even with our will that which is beyond all will.

Only as we stand in the Silence and Darkness of our Soul and cease to stand, breathing no word of it, thinking no thought of it, feeling no movement from it, having no will from it, shall we become strengthened in our Godhead.

In such a region of unutterable attributelessness there is the Naught which is No-Number, No-Silence, No-Darkness, No-Being.

Let us stand in it if we can. But let it be as Naught when we emerge from it.

And as I say these things, I myself stand aghast at my temerity.

Yet, for the sake of helpfulness, I may knock on the Ring-Pass-Not which ever surrounds such impenetrabilities.

THAT

I find myself using the word JHA J when in fact it is one of the least suitable of words to use, for it definitely conveys the idea of a something external to oneself, when in reality the word to be used should be all-comprehensive, involving affirmation, negation, and the relation between them, whatever this relation may be. Perhaps I had better take refuge in the Samskrit TAT —the knowable rootless Root. The vaguer the actual conception in the minds of my readers the more is the conception true. Indeed I make no apology for any vagueness in rny observations

which leaves a reader intriguingly confused, for. as I have already said, the Yoga of one individual cannot be the Yoga of another, though a Yogi—and I certainly cannot claim the appellation -if he has real Yoga, his very own, can knock with it upon the consciousness-door of another and call the Yoga within to awake, to arise, and to attend.

Chapter 19

YOGA WITHOUT END

From Centre to Circumference

Memory becomes the Bridge

Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. -—1 Corinthians, II, 9

Since in man abides His very Self, who shall forbid him to pass within the Veil, and to see with " open face the Glory of the Lord " ? —Annie Besant

All Human Forms identified, even Tree, Metal, Earth and

Stone , all Human Forms identified, living, going forth and returning

wearied Into the Planetary lives of Years, Months, Days, and Hours ;

reposing,

And then awaking into His bosom in the Life of Immortality.

—Blake

In this form of Yoga, as, of course, in all other forms, there occur those inbreathings and outbreathings which indicate a swaying between the centre and the circumference.

At times I find myself so close to the centre that the whole of myself and no less the whole of my surroundings become integral parts of the symbols—of each separately, of all together, as all really are in that Eternal wherein past, present and future have only essential meaning. The whole of my being, from the highest of my conscious consciousnesses outwards, is symbol, and there is no one and another. Hence, no less is symbol all that is external to me, if there be anything external in point of truth so far as this closeness to the centre is concerned.

At other times I find myself away out into the regions of remote circumferences, and the symbol-idea grows dim

and almost unreal. But even when I find myself in this outer court, Memory survives and waits to become the bridge which shall draw centre and circumference into oneness.

The aeroplane, the wireless, the electric telegraph, television—all are bridging the gulf between the Eternal and Time, between the Centre and the Circumference. Some day we shall transcend all space limitations not only within our world, but also between our world and other worlds. The universe is one, and its unity waits to be realized.

lte<l™ M " So is !t with S y mbolic Y °9 a - The symbol is the key

to the Oneness of Life. It is the formula of that Oneness. And each symbol is a constituent element in the formula. The symbol does not merely express Universal Brotherhood. It goes beyond Brotherhood into Unity, and establishes Unity as the essence of Life.

When I am as it were centrifugalized, then is disclosed to me this Oneness.

I shall watch everything around me break up—I can think of no more appropriate expression—into its constituent individualities, but I shall also gain a glimpse of the nature of the Sea of the Unmanifest as a picture appears of that which is before the disintegration takes place.

There is a oneness in all around me. It is a one without a second. There are walls. These are onenesses. There is a carpet. This is a oneness. There are chairs. These are onenesses. There is the pianoforte. This is a oneness. There are the pictures, the various objects in the room. There is the room. All are onenesses, and all the onenesses form together a " one," And I see them as " un-manifest "—I mean unmanifest from the point of view of a certain condition of consciousness. They become resolved back into their unmanifestness. Unmanifestness is as much their quality as manifestness. All are unmanifest-manifest,

and I can see them as one or the other. But it is too difficult to see them as both simultaneously, and even to see one or the other is but to use these two terms relatively. Black is only black relatively. Similarly, the un-manifest is only unmanifest relatively. And the manifest is only manifest relatively. The Sea of the Unmanifest ! Just five words of indeterminate meaning. The word " Sea " is only a relative term. The word " Unmanifest " is only a relative term. All are words to give an illusory haze to a certain condition of consciousness which we cannot contact unless it has some substance, outline, perceptible to our blindness. We must pretend we can say something about it. The Many This Unmanifest round about me is not unmanifest save

afire with

Symbols as I gaze upon it in the terms of the Unmanifest. The

moment I enter into a condition of centrifugalization, the scene qhanges as in a flash, and from unmanifestation I am plunged into a vision of manifestation. Out of unity appears diversity. Out of the one appear the many. Out of universality appears individuality. As I have said, everything breaks up while remaining within the unity. The wall is a conglomeration of individualities veritably afire with symbols, incarnating symbols. The carpet is a conglomeration of individualities veritably afire with symbols, incarnating them. And so with everything in the room. There is an aliveness which might be terrifying and blinding but for the fact that there seems to be—no, I must say, there is—nothing less than a Yoga of Symbols, a Yoga in Symbols, marvellously, miraculously, incredibly, stupendously at work, at play, unfolding, growing, evolving. rse 5 the Y °9 a everywhere around me. Yoga fills the universe.

Yoga is the universe. Yoga is oneness. Yoga is individuality. Yoga is Life. And here am I telling the world of my ascent into Yoga, of the revelation of Yoga to me by a Teacher! And I seem to suggest that there must be preparation for Yoga, that Yoga is not for everybody, that it is

YOGA WITHOUT END

519

Every Atom is a Yog.

Object-Yogis

The Vision of the Centre

a science which must be studied, practised, and for which there must be purificatory preparation !

How true this is from one point of view, but otherwise, how very false. I am a Yogi. I have ever been a Yogi. In the beginning was Yoga. To life without end there will be Yoga. And every single element in life, every single atom in every kingdom of nature, is a Yogi at a certain stage of unfoldment of Yoga.

My room becomes alive with Yoga as the centrifugal-ization functions. My room becomes alive with Yogis, with individuals no less individual in essence than myself, some more individual than others, some less, just as I myself am more individual than some, and less than others.

What a comradeship of Yogis- -my room and I. How the symbols which constitute me and the symbols which constitute the individuals of the room blend into one, are one, emphasize the oneness in our very diversity.

And then I long to commune with these Yogis—these wall-Yogis, if I may so term these entities, these carpet-Yogis, these piano-Yogis, these object-Yogis. I know I am expressing myself in what will be thought by some to be a most ridiculous absurdity. But the absurdity dwells only when centre and circumference are very far away, and when our abode is in the far-off regions of the circum-ference.

In one of the Hindu Scriptures a number of blind men try to describe an elephant by touching him—one at one place, others at other places. One says he is a snake. Another says he is a drum. A third maintains he is a broom. A fourth insists that he is a thick column. And so on. But the man of vision tells them it is an elephant, and shows how the animal uses as a living creature each of the objects described.

So do I see a wall, four walls, a carpet, a piano, a number of objects. But when the vision of the centre

comes to me, I see Yogis. I cannot hold the vision for long, for I am not yet a God of the Centre. I am still a Man of the Circumference. I have not yet conquered the Circumference, so as to be able to take it back with me as I travel homewards to the Centre where the Circumference most truly dwells.

In each constituent individuality the Point reigns in all supremacy. But each is a product of the Web that is the Womb. Each is a Line. Each, within a Circle, has in him the Circle-spirit. Each is a soldier of the Cross, of that Cross which is the Father-Mother of all Crosses as we see them used in the faiths of the world. Each is a whirling Svastika. In each a Lotus Seed is warming into unfoldment. Then the Lotus Fire. And the Point which goes forth returns home.

A Comradeship I wish I could describe all that a room looks like

of "Men"

when it has transcended its mere room-ness, when it is

a room because its constituent elements need " room " for their growth, but when it is more than a crowd, is a comradeship of " Men " within, enfolded by, a Heavenly Man.

I know full well that innumerable " incontrovertible " arguments may be advanced to demonstrate the gross falsity of all I have just written. I know it may well be described as the phantasmagoria of an utterly diseased and uncontrolled imagination. I know I cannot argue its probability. I know I am helpless before common sense, because I have only uncommon sense to 'offer. I know many must put down my book as not only unscientific but as anti-scientific, even though Eddington tells us that theories matter as much as observations, and that even our most authenticated "facts" are nothing more than inferences. For my own part, in all humility I venture to believe that I am highly scientific, though perhaps in the realms of another science. At least I have observed to the best of my

power, and I cannot help it if there be none to support me in the outer world.

My Symbol- | see Yogis round about me when my eyes, be they

inner or outer, are open to " see." Once the Symbol-motif stirs in me to quicken my Reality, I am a Yogi manifest in a series of symbols, and around me are my kind, my very flesh and blood, my very symbol-mates. How far I have to travel until I know these symbol-mates for whom they are. I look here. I look there. I see a Yogi of the mineral kingdom. I see a Yogi of the vegetable kingdom. I see a Yogi of the animal kingdom. I see a human Yogi. I see a Yogi who has transcended all human limitations. And even can I see far beyond into realms of Yoga where dwell Yogis Divine in their Yoga. But of what nature is each of these ? What is the different Way of each ? What is that oneness within which these manynesses live and move and have their evolutionary being ?

The And then it is as if I were trying to venture out of

Secret bounds—there are bounds beyond which an individuality

seeks to pass at his peril, there are bounds beyond which he cannot pass. There are Rings-Pass-Not hedging in for his safety each and every individuality. And here am I seeking to follow the Point in His upward way, seeking to follow the Line in its infinitudes, seeking to know the Circle in its relation to the Sea of the Unmanifest, seeking to know who are the Men of the Sea, seeking to know the form, the sound, the colour of the Call, seeking to know the Cross, and the Way of the Svastika, and the Secret of the Lotus !

But do I not seek to know more ? Do I not seek to know something of evolutions which are different from the evolution to which I and my fellow-Men of the Sea belong ? I want to transcend all limitations. I want to overcome all barriers, I want to be free to ascend the

ultimate heights and depths. I want to be able to travel into the infinitudes of distances. I want to know and to BE! Leash after What presumption, you say. Yes, but God created

Leash gives way

man to be immortal and made him an image of his own Divinity. He, God, looked upon me and knew that I am also God. So did He create me to be my immortal Self. So did He make me to be an image of my Divinity. Therefore do I strain at leash after leash until leash after leash gives way. Therefore do I ever strain until I become divinely free, and there is naught which I may not, which I shall not, become, for I am immortal, I am God, I am all that is Eternal and Infinite. Presumption ? No ! I am but treading the Way of the Self.

Chapter 20

THE SYMBOLS AS BULWARKS AGAINST BARBARISM

The greatest Service

The Call of the Yogi to a New World

The guardian wall, or the wall of protection : It is taught that the accumulated efforts of long generations of Yogis . . . have created, so to say, a wall of protection around mankind, which wall shields mankind invisibly from still worse evils

—Tfie Voice of the Silence

No greater service could any man or woman or youth of goodwill render to the world in its present dire straits than to form part of the bulwark against barbarism which the Elders of our race are raising everywhere—a universal Siegfried or Maginot Line, to be a defence of the world against barbarism in whatever forms it may be displaying itself. I think it is worthwhile to note that the great symbols of this form of Yoga are in very truth part of this bulwark, visible to those who have the Yoga eyes to see.

And each symbol is not only part of this universal world-wide and world-permeating bulwark, but it is also in very truth an Oriflamme which the Yogi may carry before him as he seeks to place his Yoga at the service of a distracted world.

It is to a new world that the Yogi must call in the spirit of each of these symbols separately, and all of them together as a mighty Unity. It must be very clearly understood that the service of the world demands that these great, though only relative, Ultimates must be brought into

increasingly close proximity to the conditions obtaining at any particular time. The symbols are for use as well as for contemplation. They are to be foci for Power and Wisdom and Glory, no less than symbols of fundamental Realities.

I can see the Yogis who belong to this particular A 'Burning-Glass f orm o f Yoga using each symbol as a kind of burning-glass into which the mighty forces of the Real converge that they may issue forth as means wherewith to burn away all weeds of wrong so that the flowers of right may have freedom in which to grow.

I hear the Yogis of this form of Yoga sending forth their Call through symbol after symbol :

/ call the New World in the Conceiving of the Point, and the New World hears the Call and awakens.

I establish the Cradle of the New World in the spirit of the Web that is the Womb.

I invoke the Line which measures the splendours of the New World.

I endow the New World with its mighty Individuality in the magic of the Circle.

I impress upon the New World the Sign-Manual of its Purpose, the Holy Cross.

I send forth the New World on its Svastika Way.

I lead the New World to its Flowerdom in Lotus Fire.

And its flowering gives to Life a new perfume, a new melody, a new colour, a new form.

Another Point is born into Divine Self-Consciousness,

The Spirit of | n varying ways do I hear this magic being performed,

Birth

and I see how the whole spirit of the great evolutionary process is a spirit of Birth, of an Awakening, of an apparently not-ending series of expansions of consciousness.

The Point is bom of the Lotus Fire.

The Web is born of the Point.

The Line is born of the Web.

The Circle is born of the Line.

The Cross is born of the Circle.

The Svastika is born of the Cross.

The Lotus Fire is born of the Svastika,

Each gives birth as it receives birth.

Each is an Awakening within the Circle of

Fulfilment.

Each is the Less of a Transcendent More. The Whole is the Less of a Transcendent More.

The Call to But not only do I hear the Call of the Yogi who

belongs to this particular form of Yoga in the terms in which I have described it, but I hear a Call which seems almost more incisive, more compelling, more direct, more, perhaps, directed to the awakening of the world's fundamental needs in such times as these:

/ call the world to Remembrance of its

Divinity. I call the world to Remembrance of its Divine

Motherhood. I call the world to Remembrance of its Divine

Stature. I call the world to Remembrance of its Divine

Brotherhood. I call the world to Remembrance of its Divine

Purpose. I call the world to Remembrance of its Divine

Way. I call the world to Remembrance of its Divine

Glory.

Vibrant Mantras

Qualities

Power, Wisdom, Glory

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

Each of these seems to be a vibrant mantra which, as it were, thrills the world into synchronization with its sound, colour, form, pattern. Indeed, I feel that anyone to whom this form of Yoga is utterly congenial could use these sentences as a daily invocation to the world for Self • Remembrance. There may be either an utterance of them all together, or each may be used, sent forth, as occasion and place may seem to demand.

Finally, if we desire to know very specifically what quality each symbol brings to the service of the Universal Bulwark against barbarism, I might suggest the following :

The Conceiving of the Point. The Motherhood of the Web. The Divine Measure of the Line. The Safety of the Circle. The Witness of the Cross. The Way of the Svastika. The Victory of the Lotus. The Silence of the Point.

Thus with all the Power and Wisdom and Glory which an understanding of these symbols can put into them, each can be used as an individual bulwark against the barbarism of ignorance, of cruelty, of dishonour; or all may be used as one ; or the Soldier-Yogi may fuse himself into the bulwarks against barbarism and use a great Wall 1 to save the world without necessarily any particular reference to the symbols.

1 As I have suggested in my book, A Guardian Wall of Will : a Form of

Chapter 21

THE ENDLESS GLORY 1

An Illusion of Freedom

The Sleeping Values of Life within

We are

Expressions of a Greater Life

I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble, or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. --Newton

We talk so much about freedom in these days, so much about the urgent need for breaking all chains of enslavements, about being free to be, to think, to feel, to speak, to do, and yet—so often, when we free ourselves from one enslavement, or think we are so freeing ourselves, in fact we are but exchanging one enslavement for another, one tyranny for another, one authority for another. Becoming different, we allow ourselves to be caught in an illusion of freedom, for we cast off old shackles, or think we do, and do not yet perceive that new shackles are gathering round about us.

We do not yet realize that we must give our lives their own meanings and their own values, and that we must discover these within, asleep as many of them may be, though the awakening may be facilitated through the intense living of an individuality outside us.

I have no doubt whatever that there is a Life outside which we cannot nor do we live. We are inherent in that Life. We are expressions of it. We cannot express that which is outside this Life, for the simple reason that it would be unnatural for us so to do, beyond our own nature

1 This chapter, written for this book, appeared in the " Watch-Tower " of The Theosophist for April 1938.

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

A single Petal of the Lotus of Theosophy

In it we see a Mystery Flower: the Lotus of Wisdom

A Cosmic Lotus

A Fragment of the Divine Wisdom

itself. But within that Life we can express its infinite Rainbow of Sound, of Colour, of Form, and each one of us is magnificently unique, a one without a second of identical expression.

I verily believe that there is a Universal Theosophy, an ultimate Science of the Divine Wisdom, outside which there is no religion, nor philosophy, nor science. But I verily believe no less that even the magnificent aspect of that Theosophy which Theosophists of the modern world call Theosophy, and which finds description in what I call " classic Theosophical literature," is but one single petal of the vast Lotus of Theosophy which is the whole of the Goodness of the Majesty of God.

A Petal has been disclosed to us. We see how glorious it is, how perfect it is, and in it we perceive, by Divine Grace, the very whole of the Mystery Flower of which it is a shooting flame. Verily does it contain within itself the essence of the Lotus, the fragrance of the Lotus, the form of the Lotus—within it is the life of the Lotus. And to us, so rightly, it is the Lotus Flower of the Divine Wisdom of God.

And yet it is but a petal. And the Lotus of God, of Eternal Life, is myriad-petalled. Our very universe itself is but a petal of a Cosmic Lotus, enfolding a solar system, and the solar system itself is but a petal. . . .

We have had revealed to us a fragment of the Divine Wisdom, a form of it, an aspect of it. Within that very fragment are truths other than those with which we are comparatively familiar.

With what are we concerned ? Is the revelation enough for us ? Is it for us alone ? Is it perchance for the whole world ? Is it a perfect, an ultimate, revelation ?

We may well be deeply grateful for the revelation, as for any other revelation coming from any heights, be these the heights of a man or of a God.

THE ENDLESS GLORY

529

The Vision calls us to the Heights

Theosophy demands from you no Worship

No Belief, only

laughing

resistless

Determination

to achieve your

More

But however splendid these heights may be seen to be, be they the heights of a faith, of a philosophy, of a science, of a person, the vision of their glory is but to cry out to us that there are heights after heights within ourselves which we must climb, which we must challenge, which we must conquer.

"Seek ye the heights within you," declare these heights without. " Know yourselves to be plains, and valleys, and hills, and mountains, and ranges of mountains, of summits supreme, yea, even hells which lift you up intb your heavens . . . Know yourselves to be Moons and Suns and Stars, and all that is more even than these . . ." Yet, to whatever splendours you climb, there remain glories beyond ; and while you may revel in rest, you will rejoice still more to climb. Thus tells you the Divine Wisdom, the Theosophy of all Theosophies, the Truth within all truths and within all so-called falsehoods too.

Not a single word is uttered in Theosophy for which your acceptance is desired, far less demanded. Not a single idea is placed upon an altar that you may worship it Nowhere are you asked so to spread Theosophy that others shall incline before it. Nowhere is there one single doctrine or dogma or form of orthodoxy in any true presentation of Theosophy.

You are not asked to believe, nor are you asked to accept. It is hoped you will study. And it is eagerly wished that through such study you shall come to beautiful, inspiring, tremendous conclusions about yourself, conclusions which ardently satisfy you from the point of view of the widest possible vision of your Eternal Self, yet which stir in you nothing less than a divine discontent with yourself as you are, and a laughing, happy,, resistless determination to achieve that More of which, with the aid of a Theosophy, you have caught a stirring glimpse.

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

You yourself are a Truth

The Purpose of The Secret Doctrine

With your own Bricks build your Lives

Fashion your Plan from yetr own Living

You yourself are a Theosophy. You are a world. You are a God. You are a Truth. The kingdom of yourself is round about you. It is yours. And all that any individual can do, any religion, any philosophy, any science, is to call your attention to your own essential kingship, to say to you : " You can," and to speed you on your way of self-discovery.

For what purpose was The Secret Doctrine written, that Book of all books ? To set before you descriptions which you must take as facts, at least believe, and make into a pack of cards with which to play a game of life, using them as a beginner might play the game of bridge, having carefully learned the rules ; or perhaps observing them as an animal might perform tricks taught him by his trainer, having no knowledge of their real meaning ?

The Secret Doctrine was given by Those who knew its statements to be true, but who did not want you to believe them to be true, but to find out for yourself whether they are true or not, and perchance even to make of some of the statements use other than that to which they were put in the book itself.

Build your own lives with your own bricks and according to your own plans. Theosophy may tell you that such and such is the standard Plan, and that here and there are the best bricks to use. Maybe you yourself will in due course find that that Plan is indeed true, and that there is no other Plan. Maybe you yourself will in due course find that Theosophy knows where the best bricks are. You want the best bricks and the best Plan. Theosophy has them.

But maybe also that the Plan, as at present set forth in Theosophy, is not complete, could not be complete, because it can be understood by us only in its incompleteness. Maybe, too, there are other bricks as well as those recommended. Personally, I believe that this is so. And

THE ENDLESS GLORY

531

Fashion Bricks of Worthy Substance

Seek

everywhere for Help in the Building

The Mansions of the Father

I still more believe that there can be no Plan for any one of us which is not a Plan that he fashions out of his own living, and that there can be no bricks for any one of us that are not bricks of our own personal making.

Each one of us may look at the Plan revealed to us, and say how glorious it is. Each one of us may examine the bricks and delight in their obvious perfection. We may say that we know the Plan to be really ours, the bricks to be such as we wish that we ourselves could fashion.

But if there be divine elan in us, a deep and unquenchable longing to be architects and builders of our own Houses of Being, then we shall look to see if we cannot make a glorious Plan of ourselves, and fashion bricks worthy to be its material substance.

And we shall seek everywhere for that which shall help us to plan, to make and to build. We shall seek in religions, in philosophies, in all the sciences and the arts, in all modes of living, among all races and nations.

We shall seek among those who claim that they have discovered their own plans and their own bricks, among those who declare that they have yet to find, among those who will tell us there is nothing to find, and among those who are so eager to find but cannot.

Everywhere we shall seek, not to use in blindness, neither in authority, but that we may add to our selves from other selves, and add to other selves from our selves, whenever there is happy occasion so to do.

" In My Father's House are many mansions "—the innumerable mansions built by hands in every kingdom of nature, mansions which each son of God in every kingdom of nature is fashioning, building, brick by brick, from the material of every kingdom of nature, and according to the Plan of Himself as Man with which He journeyed forth from Heaven on His way to His own individual Godhead.

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

We may Experiment

Some Day we shall Discover

Life is a Battlefield

And yet we are Free

And I am sure that each mansion has its own different individuality with which it helps to form the Heavenly City.

But I am not for a moment saying that we may not up to a certain point experiment with the plans and building material of others, especially of one whom we recognize as farther on the evolutionary pathway. I think we may do much building with the aid of the plans and the bricks of others. But sooner or later the time must come when we shall in some measure at least refashion our structure to suit those vital needs of ours which we have at last discovered. Until we know ourselves we shall need the help of those who have discovered themselves. When we have discovered ourselves, we shall fashion a " mansion " in the splendour of that uniqueness with which at last we have come face to face, but even then we shall be grateful for help, which, far from dictating to us, far from imposing authority upon us, far from making invidious comparisons between one form of the Science of Life and another, will be but as a surrounding light, lighting us on our way, and not deflecting our steps to another.

I yield to none in my reverence for those whom I have found to be wiser than myself—and how many there are— and in some small way I think I have the spirit of a soldier, eager to receive and to obey all directions from such wiser friends as these, concerning service beyond my power to understand. I do indeed believe that the authority of the wise is so often the very salvation of the ignorant. I know that life is a veritable battlefield, I hope a Kurukshetra, and I am proud and happy to recognize my Generals and to serve under Them, as I hope I should a physical-plane superior in a righteous war.

On the other hand, I find naught of this incompatible with my freedom, and as I work year after year in The Theosophical Society and for Theosophy. I find my freedom

THE ENDLESS GLORY

533

The Masters would have us make our own Discoveries, know our own Truths

becoming stronger and my individuality richer, even though more than ever I am

Waiting the word of the Master,

Watching the Hidden Light; Listening to catch His orders

In the very midst of the fight.

But I find also that the occasions are rare indeed for the hearing of the Word of the Master, and rarer still for the receiving of what is called an " order."

The Masters know far better than ourselves how vital is self-dependence, how essential is the spirit of self-reliance, how imperative it is that we should seek for ourselves and make our own discoveries of Life's worthwhileness.

They know so well how each one of us must know his own Truth. There may be occasions for constant guidance, as in the case of our Society in its infancy and very early youth. Such guidance They gave most richly. Even now They watch over a Movement which is above all else Theirs. But we have over sixty years of acquaintance with Theos-ophy, and with a Society which is splendidly virile. To those of my readers who have the inestimable privilege of membership of The Theosophical Society, I would say: Let the real Founders see what we can do with Theosophy and with Their Society — standing on our own feet, engaging in our own quests, discovering our own truths, enriching the world with our own wealth, not alone with Theirs.

Chapter 22

THE LIFE MAGNIFICENT 1

I evolved the evolving of evolutions . . I uttered my own name as a word of power . . . and I straightaway evolved myself. \ developed myself out of the primeval matter, which has evolved multitudes of evolutions from the beginning of time. Nothing existed on this earth then, and I made all things. I performed all evolutions there by means of that divine Soul (the One Life) which I fashioned. - From the ritual in The Coming Forth into the Day, the so-called Book of tfie Dead.

, So man looks out in tree, and herb, and bird, and beast, collecting up the scattered portions of his immortal body, with the elemental forms of everything that grows." For " in every bosom a Universe expands."

Each grain of sand, Every stone in the land, Each rock and each hill, Each fountain and rill, Each herb and each tree, Mountain, hill, earth, and sea, Cloud, meteor, and star Are men seen afar.

—Blake

There the Eternals are, and there The Good, the Lovely, and the True, And Types, whose earthly copies were The foolish broken things we knew ; There is the Face, whose ghosts we are ; The real, the never-setting Star; And the Flower, of which we love Faint and fading shadows here ; Never a tear, but only Grief ; Dance, but not the limbs that move ;

1 I have chosen this title as suitable for a chapter which seeks to hint at those majesties in the great Heights which are so wondrously reflected by living creatures in the plains on which we Itve—reflections which I have described in a pamphlet bearing the same caption.

THE LIFE MAGNIFICENT

535

The Symbol of all Symbols

The Part cannot know the Whole

The Swing of the Pendulum

Songs in Song shall disappear; Instead of lovers, Love shall be ; For hearts, Immutability ; And there, on the Ideal Reef, Thunders the Everlasting Sea '

—Rupert Brooke

Throughout this book of Endless Groping, I see that I have failed to give that which should be its essence and the heart of all descriptions. I see that I have failed to disclose the Symbol of all symbols, of that Life without which there would be no symbols at all. I have indeed written of Life in innumerable of its qualities, of its quality as the Sea of the Unmanifest-Manifest, of its quality as Individuality and Universality, of its quality of Space, of Time, and of other dimensions. I have written of Life in its aspect of the " Men of the Sea." And I have striven to depict the resultant symbol-formulae of an evolutionary process which is also Life.

But in so doing have I actually described Life as Life is? Have I anywhere hinted even at the very symbol of Life itself?

Must I confess that while I may know a little about the qualities of Life, I do not in fact know what Life is, that I have but a vague idea of some of its processes? I think I must make this confession. The part cannot know the Whole, and an infinitesimal part, as in my case, can have but an idea of Life as fashioned in its own microscopic image. Such a limited conception is all that even the deepest science, religion, philosophy, art can have ; though, from one point of view, heights of knowledge may be reached which no individual can attain, especially where the truly Great have been at work in revealing Life through science, religion, philosophy and art.

On the other hand, the individual can in his own mysterious way approach Life directly as neither science, nor religion, nor philosophy, nor art can do. He /$ Life, and if

in some strange way he discovers a means to intensify Life in himself, so that he becomes Life-fui—or should I say, more Life-conscious—then such intensified Life-Being may cause him to know a little more of the nature of Life, at least as expressed in his own particular rate of vibrations. He can at least know something of Life at first-hand. Through all these other modes of approach, he can at best know Life at second-hand. But as I seek thus to intensify Life in myself, I find myself slipping away from Life in terms of Individuality into Life in terms of Universality, so that while to a certain extent I can become Life, I find myself less and less able to describe Life. Only through an endeavour to swing a pendulum between Life as Individuality and Life as Universality, can I, at the point where the pendulum is at Individuality, hasten to try to describe what it brings with it from Universality before it swings thereto again. The process is, therefore, not a little breathless, and unless I can very carefully steady my various vehicles, not only shall I do myself more harm than good but I shall also be in no condition to transmit the impressions produced by the swing of the pendulum at its Individuality pole.

Self-empty | find I must at first void myself of such expressions

of myself which in any way tend to limit the expressions of Life as Life is. I must subtract from myself all growth-emphasis, all becoming-emphasis, all emphasis on past, present and future, even of all individuality-emphasis so far as this is at all possible. I must learn to slip into the Sea of Universality without, however, closing my way back to the river of my individuality. I must be able to pass to and fro between the two. But I must be very careful not to allow the river to dominate the sea, so that I look upon the sea as but a glorified river.

I can flood my | think that I am able to do this to some small extent. I

River

think that I can hold on to the river while exploring the

sea, and what is far more important, I think that I can

spasmodically give the river a sea effect, that is to say, I can flood my individuality with Universality, at least at rare intervals. I see at once that the river is constituted in no way differently from the sea, that Universality and Individuality are one and the same, the distinction being—and it is essentially a distinction without a difference—that the river is fresh water, while the sea seems to be salt water, though in fact in essence the sea is water both salt and fresh, while the river is only fresh. The idea of the Salt l of Life comes to me. There is a saltness about Life which I have to try to find and if possible to describe. Universality is different from Individuality by virtue of some saltness about it—a saltness which Individuality possesses only potentially, and which it has to achieve in order that it may enter into the Yoga of Universality without losing the Yoga of Individuality. I am afraid this is not very clear, but I have to leave it without any attempt at elucidation since it depicts the nature of a mode of consciousness into which I enter as I wend my way to Life.

A Concentration | am afraid I can only place upon this canvas of my

Movement description here and there just a splash of feeble colour. A

picture is impossible. But here and there an impression may possibly be conveyed. In the mode of consciousness which I have been entering I find an Unendingness, with No-Beginning and No-Ending, and in a sense with No-Movement, for there is an entirely inexpressible and incomprehensible concentration of All-Movement into what looks like a point of No-Movement. There is a complete Unity-Diversity of Affirmation-Negation. I can find no other sentence wherewith to describe this All-Noughtness, this perfect identification of a Universal Yes and a Universal No. It is evident that I have to use words ; but words, even though aspects of life, are limitations of life ; and I am trying to escape from as many limitations as I can. I am. 1 See "Salt" in Book Five.

trying to catch Life, and I have to fashion a net wherewith to catch it, thus finding myself giving the names of the net to that which the net is intended to catch. Of course, Life cannot be caught. There is only the illusion of catching. Yet, without the illusion, there would seem, at our level, to be no possibility of any understanding whatever. The only names Life can have for us are the names whereby we seek to imprison it.

A Mask of Life Thus, as I strive to meet my pendulum as it brings

gifts from Universality to Individuality, it becomes clear to me that never can I really describe Life as Life appears through the net of its capture, through a great illusion which nevertheless is real ! As I thus perceive Life, I am, of course, perceiving what Life looks like through the Arundale illusion. The Arundale personal equation ventures, with undoubted impertinence, to describe Life in terms of it* own individual insignificance. But I suppose that this is all any can do who are still Life-in-the-Becoming, Are there Those whom one can characterize as " Life-Become " ? I do not know.

"I do not It is curious how much the phrase "I do not

•know "

know" is the constant motif of all my endeavours to seek out the nature of Life. As I try to understand, even if some understanding seems to come to me, still there is the background of "I do not know." And I have come to realize that this phrase is valuable as no other phrase could possibly be. It is only by being able at all times to say "I do not know " that our knowledge is likely to become more and more. Indeed, I am almost inclined to be conceited enough to think that the fact I hear this phrase so constantly is in some way testimony to the fact that I am moving in the right direction and am beginning to know a little more safely. For only as with increasing knowledge we find more insistence on the " ' do not know," is the inadequacy and inaccuracy of the

knowledge clear to us, so that we become safe in humility rather than in danger through pride. What , s God? | find myse | f toyjng wjth t he idea of God, probably

because much of the air we breathe is impregnated with a tremendous confusion of vague or hard conceptions of a Beyond which we call " God " as a matter of convenience, as a convention. But I find that all this atmosphere must be swept away if I am to see clearly along the lines at which I am at present working. I am seeing nothing at all, so far as my consciousness and experience are concerned, if I say " God." Doubtless there are large numbers of people who need such translations of the idea as may be congenial to them. They need the idea of God as a crutch, but what do they really know ? Many probably will regard me as blasphemous because I do not at all accept their conveniences and conventions. I do not accept them. On the other hand, I do not at all regard myself as an a-theist, for I cannot deny that of which I have no experience. I certainly am an a-gnostic. I do not know what the word " God " means save as interpreted by those who are very likely as ignorant as myself. Hence, the God-conception has no meaning for me in these regions of adjustment. If I look for God, I can only find either a tremendous variegated thought-from, fabricated out of the conceptions which the millions of God-believers hold in their various consciousnesses, or in tremendous contrast I see some exalted Personage who is, in fact, as mighty a Being as any of the noblest God-conceptions that may exist, but who never receives an appellation which is so exclusively man-made.

God from No, I must retrace my steps from this blind alley. I

below, Life from

above must tread again the broad highway which may lead me to

discover Life. God is largely an appearance from below. Life is a Reality from above. God is a localization. Life is a universalization.

The Symbols | se e that the symbols which I have been endeavour-

point to Life

ing to describe in the course of this book are not only

symbols of landmarks on the great Evolutionary Way, but are also compasses which point as unerringly to Life as the compasses we know down here point to the North. These symbols are variations on the theme of Life. They are naught but Life, and from the standpoint of Life have, I should imagine, no separate existence, though I cannot perceive them apart from their individuality. Somehow, they are so tremendously individual that when the pendulum swings over to Individuality, its Universality gifts seem to be drowned, unless this intimation of their Oneness is in reality that which the pendulum brings from the Universality Pole. The Symbol of A S I write, I am trying to perceive, since the moment

seems propitious, that Symbol of Life which is the summation of the great symbols revealed to me by my Teacher. Each symbol is now pointing, as ever, of course, directly to Life. There is a fusion of pointing. What do I perceive in the fusion ? I cannot answer this question. To answer is to limit. I can only sense a Pre-ness which ! so call because while in it is the whole of Manifestation, also in it is the Unmanifest. In this Pre-ness is Life as we know it and Life as we do not know it. And since the Unmanifest is so infinitely more than the Manifest, I must needs sense the Greater far more than the less. I use the word Pre-ness to suggest an infinite background of which the Manifest, as we know it, and the Unmanifest, as we do not know it, is but a mode. I use the word Pre-ness so as to convey my sense of an almost unimaginable—perhaps I ought to say, quite unimaginable—boundless Ocean of positive Darkness, Silence, Formlessness, containing within itself infinite Light, infinite Sound, infinite Form. In the Darkness is the Light, In the Silence is the Sound. In the Formlessness is the Form. I have been tempted to use the word Potent/af/ty, but this would be a grave mistake. The only word I

THE LIFE MAGNIFICENT

541

could possibly use is Actuality, for in this great Ocean everything is actual, even though I am constrained to emphasize the Darkness-idea, the Silence-idea, the Formlessness-idea, because I want to convey the impression that the stupendousness of Life, as we know it especially, perhaps, through astronomy and through physics, is as nothing compared with that reserve Stupendousness, of which the stupendousness we know is practically as nothing, life's Toys We may be amazed at the marvels of the universes, of the

galaxies in the inconceivably astronomical distances, of the magnificent laboratories of Life. But all these seem to be as the playthings of Life—Life's toys. As this experience streams through my being, I feel utterly ashamed of having in the beginning of this chapter written about the casting of the net in which to capture Life. Fortunately I had the decency to describe Life in terms of the net. But what did my net catch ? Just a few conceptions—Unendingness, No-Beginning, No-Ending, No-Movement—which, as I am seeing now, have no relation whatever to this Pre-ness save that there may be some small modicum of truth in them. In any case I must have some kind of net in which to capture the un-capturable.

The Essence of I think that in the above experience I have entered

life ?

as far as I can go into the Essence of Life. And as I

write these words I find myself being told that I am nowhere near the Essence of Life, that it is an impertinence for me to have imagined for a moment that I could enter into Life's Essence, even on its frontiers. The suggestion is that I have seen a shadow—nothing more. How true this is, as I now see. But I leave on record the evidence of the impertinence.

Life is Vertical If I return to regions with which I am able to have

more acquaintance, it is curious how insistently I feel myself compelled to say that Life is vertical in addition to those

characteristics of Unendingness, of Unbeginningness, of Wholeness—whatever these may mean. I now add the adjective " vertical," because I see that my net has this characteristic in addition to the others. I think that I say " vertical " because in these lower regions Life must needs be characterized by a sense of its resistless Downpouring. The avalanche-idea is part and parcel of any conception of Life which it is possible to gain in these regions. On the other hand, I think I ought to say that in manifestation Life is vertical, and therefore the adjective is not quite as remote from accuracy in a certain sense as I have perhaps suggested.

The Line of Life If I look at this earth of ours from the mountains of

ihose inner regions in which I am for the time dwelling, I see that it is a bead threaded on a downpouring of Life. 1 Indeed, I see all other worlds also as beads threaded on a great Downpouring Line of Life. Neither this earth nor all other worlds and universes seem to be dotted about in space as they look from down here. They seem to be beads on a Line of Curvature. For it must be understood that when I use the word " vertical," I am not thinking of anything straight. I know of no straightness but only of curvature. And with regard to this particular earth, I see the downpouring of the curved Line of Life, rushing through the North Magnetic Pole, then streaming through the earth in all its parts and streaming out through the South Magnetic Pole. 2 But I find myself immensely disliking the idea of a streaming in and of a streaming out r for while I have been writing of downpouring, in very

1 Compare the idea of the Sutratman, the Thread-Self, on which the permanent particles are threaded as " beads on a string," of which Dr. Besant, in A Study in Consciousness, Chapter IV, has said : " This term is used to denote various things, but always in the same sense, as the thread connecting separate particles. It is applied to the reincarnating Ego, as the thread on which many separate lives are strung , to the Second Logos, as the Thread on which the beings in His universe are strung ; and so on. It denotes a function, rather than a special entity, or class of entities."

2 See " Directions " in Book Five.

truth I might equally have written of up-pouring or upwelling.

And this great Line of Life may be seen as Spindle-curved and Fasces-formed through the magnetic influences of the Northern and Southern Poles. There is deflection, or inclination, or curvature, as the Line of Life enters the mass of the earth.

Poles of Life I should very much like to correlate the Magnetic Poles,

the true Poles, with the so-called North and South Poles, which seem to me to be true from the standpoint of Form, as the Magnetic Poles are true from the standpoint of Life. There must be a very definite relation between the North Magnetic Pole and the North Pole, just as there must be a very definite relation between the South Magnetic Pole and the South Pole. Similarly there must be a very positive relation between all four Poles. And I find myself wondering if the North Poles represent what we call the Sun, while the South Poles represent what we call the Earth. 1 I seem to perceive a positive Sun-ness in what we call the North and a positive Earth-ness in what we call the South. And just as in the physical body, the earth forces upwell through the feet, so do the Cosmic Earth Forces upwell through the South Poles. If this be true, it must therefore follow that just as the sun forces downpour through the head, so do the Cosmic Sun Forces downpour through the North Poles. It thus becomes a little more clear how the various magnetic swirls are fed both by Southern-Polar Magnetisms and by Northern Polar Magnetisms. We may, however, go a step further and perceive the Equator as in no sense an imaginary line, but as formed by some junction effect of the Southern and the Northern Magnetisms. There must also be some relationship which I am unable to perceive at all between the Southern Magnetic

1 See references to The Secret Doctrine under "Directions" in Book Five.

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

The Ceaseless Breath of God

The Interplay between the i Poles

A Fusion into One

Curvature and Manifestation

Pole and the North Pole, and between the Northern Magnetic Pole and the South Pole. I almost seem to see some kind of geometrical figure emerging with the four Poles as its four Points.

All this interaction is an expression of the vibrations of Life, for, while I have described Life in terms of various qualities, I must also describe it in terms of movement. But I must hasten to add that this movement is Pre-movement, the progenitor of Movement, and must not be at all conceived in terms of movement as we know it down here. It is, of course, the Ceaseless Breath of God, to which I have made frequent reference throughout this book. But I dare not try to define the nature of this Breath, lest I take away from its Pre-Movement-ness.

One very important consideration enters into all this, though it is a consideration the implications of which I do not at all understand. There is a very definite measure of inclination—or shall we say Curvature—between these four Poles. They interact, and the interaction looks like the interplay between Life as such (the Magnetic Poles) and Form as such (the ordinary Poles). But in the regions in which I find myself for the time being, there is, of course, no essential distinction between Life and Form.

Herein lies much of my difficulty, for in Life there is no distinction, such as we draw, between pairs of opposites. The Pairs of Opposites are fused into one, even though the Arundale illusion, and probably all other illusions too, require a distinction to be drawn between downpouring and upwelling. However, for the moment, I must think of this Curved Line as streaming downwards through the earth, and I dare not confuse the issue by suggesting simultaneity of upwelling. Yet the fact remains, though I must recede from it if I am to be intelligible down here.

I want to venture upon the observation that if there were not this curvature of the vertical, it would seem,

in some strange way, as if there could be no manifestation. There is a very definite relationship between Curvature and Manifestation, between the curvature of Life and the universes and worlds as we know them. In the fact of Curvature lies Manifestation-Potentiality, for I find that the act of manifestation involves adjustment—I do not think I ought to say, modification—in the essential Curvature of Life, in what I might call the essential Cosmic Curvature. All forms have inherent in them the Life of the spirit of Curvature. Life geometrizes, and I seem to see this geometrization as an incarnation of that Curvature for which another very significant word is " inclination." Reverence is Interestingly enough, if I try to draw this Curvature-

Curvature

Inclination from the centre to the circumference, I find that one of its expressions, but, of course, only one, is the whole idea expressed in the word Reverence. Reverence is an outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual Curvature-Inclination. It becomes so clear, as one lives momentarily in these inner regions, that there is nothing even at the outermost circumference which does not reflect the very soul of the centre. Every symbol described in this book depends, among other dependencies, upon the Curvature of Life. Even the Point, formless as we conceive it to be, in some formless way reflects Curvature. Indeed, it is a concentration of Curvature. Of course, we could not visualize, still less describe, any symbol without bringing it into our perspective by endowing it with this quality of Curvature. Endow it as we may with all those negations with which we describe the universe beyond the uttermost limitations of our affirmations, each symbol must be to us as explicit as we can make it.

Life Surgmgs One of the most interesting effects of this downrush

and upwelling of vertical Curvature is to be seen in those

magnetic lines of force which emerge from the Magnetic

Polar Centres. I see that the great Rulers of the World

35

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

Used by the Inner

Government of the Worid

The Vortices o f Life

The Line-Force

distribute the life which surges through them, which is available to this particular world, partly through the three magnetic lines of force—isogonal, isoclinal and isomagnetic. I must refer the reader to any book on terrestrial magnetism, or to the Encyclopaedia Britannica of various editions, for such detailed descriptions as are so far available of these extraordinary forces with all their most intriguing variations from decade to decade. Indeed, I hope that some instructed Theosophist may some day examine these forces with special reference to world vicissitudes.

In any case I feel I must make bold to say that the Inner Government of the world uses this avalanche of Life for the purposes of world evolution, and that the strange magnetic geometrical swirls of force, sometimes open and sometimes closed, which are in part given in magnetic maps are in fact this Real Government's manipulation of the available Life Forces, so that Life in manifestation on the earth may be stimulated to all lawful extent.

Both Poles are vortices on the vertical Line of Life, and the function of the entry vortex is comparatively clear. But the function of the exit vortex, if it be an exit at all, remains obscure. But I also see that while this earth is, as it were, attached to this Life Line, the Life Line itself continues on its way, coming from the North of Being, rushing onwards and onwards, threading innumerable universes and worlds, innumerable spaces and times, innumerable Men, sub-human, human, super-human, non-human—all as it would appear in one endless Line, globes though we may think we see, circles, forms, shapes innumerable.

I see Life as a vertical curved Line. But I see also that by the word line, as by the symbol Line, I must mean Force, and that the quality of Curvature frees this Line from our ordinary conceptions of Line-ness. In this quality of Curvature, Line-Force becomes applicable to an infinite number of permutations and combinations of

Line-Force—giving us all the sciences, all the arts, all the laws. The basis of every science is Curvature. 1 The basis of every art is Curvature. The essence of every atom is Curvature, or it could not grow."

Seeing crooked Straightness is a convenience of ignorance. As I have

said before, we try to see straight when it would be far more useful if we tried to see crooked. We must beware of thinking at any time that we have come to conclusions. At any stage of evolution there are no conclusions, only expedients, theories, conveniences, inferences. There can be no dogmatism of any kind. Always, when we utter the phrase : "At least we can say this , . . ," we are in all probability—I think I would say, in all certainty— affirming when at the most we should only postulate. I cannot think of any affirmation in any department of life which might not, which in all probability will not, be subject to drastic modification.

The Lotus Bead | h ave wr jtten of this Life Line threading innumerable

universes. I am inclined to believe that there are many stages of perception with regard to all things.

When our faculties are at perception temperature O°, then we perceive not at all. We are, but we are not aware. Whatever impingements may be upon us, they evoke only negative response in the waking consciousness. But the temperature rises as we grow, and we perceive differently according to our stage of unfoldment. This is true as to all sight—physical and every other. And when we come to the more cosmic perceptions this truth remains. We are told that the universe appears to advanced perception as a mighty Lotus, with the worlds at the tips of the petals. I can quite well believe this, even though I have never seen it. But at a still further stage of perceptual unfoldment I

1 See "Symbols through the Kingdoms (Physics)," and also " Curvature," in Book Five.

2 Cf. "I still have doubts as to whether space is finite or infinite, whether it is curved or flat."—Jeans.

venture to think that perhaps the very Lotus itself becomes resolved into a bead upon a Line, perhaps a Point upon a Line. And who knows? There must be perception upon perception beyond, as veil upon veil lifts from the inner eyes. But have I now, adding all this, come nearer to the knowledge of the nature of Life ? What is Life?

Whence Life's | am trying to find, as it were, a " piece " of Life by it-

Changes ?

self, as far as possible unconcealed by forms. Thus, groping,

I begin to see that if I can somehow go backwards from Form, I may be able to some small extent to penetrate into the shadow of Life. I am standing up. Immediately previously I was sitting down. The connecting link between the two, so far as channels are concerned, were the activities in the brain which produced muscular modifications, and a number of other modifications at the scr^e time more or less noticeable—more noticeable under certain conditions as, for example, those of ill-health, less noticeable under certain other conditions as, for example, those of free equilibrium. But whence come these changes ? Whence is their immediate origin ? They may immediately originate in the desire consciousness, or in the mind consciousness, or in a combination of the two. 1 They may immediately originate in the instinctual consciousness. And they may also originate in a super-mental state of consciousness. But if I go farther back than that, I see a channel between myself and the curved vertical Line of Life, of which I am a projection-counterpart. I am a curved vertical Line—by which I mean that the Life concentration which in this aspect of its projection we call, for the moment, George Sydney Arundale, and which is linked by a pipe to the reservoir which we call Life, is, literally, an offspring of Life, resembling Life in every particular, in every one of its qualities.

1 Compare A Study in Consciousness, Chapter VII of Part I, and Part II.

^ Ut '* ' 3 ° * arther kack than t ' iat ' ' discover myself gradually leaving behind the mechanism aspect of life, and penetrating into THAT which is its soul or Life. I seem to see a Line between myself and the curved vertical)' Line of Life of which I am a projection -counterpart. And down this Line, which is, of course, Life itself, there flow what are so rightly called " wavicles " and also quanta, spurts or wave particles of Life, which constitute my Life, an individual concentration out of a universality expansion. I am in the region of relatively ultimate vibrations, that is to say, vibrations out of which all vibration-expressions which we know down here issue forth. Desire is a mode of these ultimate vibrations. The physical-plane consciousness itself is a mode of these ultimate vibrations. So is the mind consciousness. So is the very mechanism itself. So are all Life's shadows in this shadow world of life. The result is that, within the limits of the concentration that is George Sydney Arundale, there is Life. I, George Sydney Arundale, am a curved vertical Line, and I have all the properties of the curved vertical Line, in miniature.

am Life Thus it would seem that I have to go no farther than

myself for an understanding of Life. I can perceive Life, naked — if the expression be permitted — when I remove the whole of the mechanism of standing up and seek to face that which sets the mechanism in motion. Truly, the mechanism is part of Life. It is inseparable from Life. But it is Life in a mode of vibration. I seek to isolate, so to speak, that which gives rise to modes.

But, as I have said before, this isolating requires that I shall rush to hold the pendulum of Life as, swinging from the Pole of Universality, it comes for a moment within the . range of my Pole of Individuality. I must be alert to note the flashing change which the pendulum produces upon my consciousness, before it swings back again. I am afraid

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

The Churning of Consciousness

I see Darkness,

Silence,

Formlessness

lest these words confuse the reader, but I am writing down as best I can the nature of the impacts upon my consciousness as a whole.

There is aroused in me a rapid oscillation of my own consciousness between myself down here, or out here, and the eternal, essential, stuff of me. I can say that the swinging of the pendulum within my consciousness so stirs up my consciousness that, as it were, the lighter parts float to the surface, while the heavier parts descend to the bottom. I write in these terms for there is a sense of such a happening. But more truly might I write of a separation of the modes of my consciousness, so that I am able to perceive foreground modes and background modes, with emphasis on the latter.

And then I recede from the foreground modes and pass into those background modes which reflect, and in truth embody, the Universality which the pendulum has brought streaming with it, and which, therefore, form an area of reconciliation between those pairs of opposites which function in apparent irreconcilability in the area of Individuality. It is indeed an event of major significance for me to perceive, with the aid of the magic pendulum, a veritable identity between all pairs of opposites, so that there is a Oneness out of which my individuality is constantly seeking to snatch me. And what is very specially curious is that the very insistence of my individuality almost, but not quite, compels me to describe this very Life which is one without a second, which is the " All " and not any part, which is Life in toto, which is the Father of all dualities and trinities, in terms of the more remote of the pairs of opposites, so as to give me a sense of getting away from modes and forms as much as I can. Not only do I find myself calling this Life darkness, but I also find myself seeing darkness. Not only do I find myself calling this Life silence, but I also find myself "seeing "

THE LIFE MAGNIFICENT

551

I see—I am

in the Beginning was the Word

The Pre-ness of life

silence—and this is quite possible, remember. Not only do I find myself calling this Life formless, but I also find myself " seeing " formlessness—which again is quite possible, remember.

The result is that I am not seeing Life, for I am imprisoned by the mode of me which looks. But with a very great effort I can for an instant of time break supremely loose from this mode, I can be free, I can be released, just for a lightning-flash, and then I see that substans which is darkness-light, which is silence-sound, which is formless-form. I am seeing this now before I start to write. I lean back upon my chowki (a kind of little platform) and I " see " which means I AM. But I am compelled to return. I cannot stay where I am and at the same time be here—not, that is to say, at my present stage of evolution and in my present mode of consciousness. So I must come back, and I " see " no longer, and have to take refuge in the remotenesses of darkness, silence, formlessness. . . .

On the other hand, I can remember the vaguest of intimations, and I can make statements which are true to me although I can neither describe them, nor can I say down here that I know them in my waking consciousness. But at least I remember, or perhaps it is that I still " see," what I have called Pre-ness, for it is that which is the Before-Background which remains in the waking consciousness, that Before-Background out of which streams the whole of the foreground. The foreground is Individuality. The background is Universality—the Pre-foreground, and I think of this, in relation to the foreground itself, as having the inherent quality of antecedence. " In the beginning was the Word. ..." This is the antecedence, the Pre-ness.

I thus feel I have been right in emphasizing the Pre-ness, though I see very clearly that even this is a mode. Yet it takes us out of those modes, with their

permutations and combinations, which form the complex world in which we live and move and have our being. This Pre-ness is, of course, essence ; but it is universal essence. It knows no distinction of Macrocosm or Microcosm, because it is both. It knows no distinction of Light or Darkness, because it is both. It knows no distinction of Sound or Silence, because it is both. It knows no distinction of Form or Formlessness, because it is both. It knows no distinction of Vibration, because it is all vibration. It is Father-Mother in unity and in duality. It is Father-Mother-Son in trinity as well as in unity. The Christ Himself was gazing upon Life when He said : " I am the way, the truth, and the life." It is a Life which is Movement and at the same time Movementless. It is an infinitude of Vibrations and at the same time a universal and perfect Stillness. It is unending and unbeginning. It is a Whole both infinitely microcosmic and infinitely macrocosmic, and neither in the microcosm nor in the macrocosm is there any Ring-Pass-Not. The Ring-Pass-Not is but a mode among its literally innumerable vibrations. Life is none of | have spoken of the Point with its Consummation and

these, its

Modes Forthgoing. Life has neither, though in its modes it has

both. I have spoken of the Creative Web-Womb. Life is uncreate and uncreative, though in a mode it creates, k have spoken of the Divine Yard Measure of the Line. Life is immeasurable, though in a mode it measures. I have spoken of the Limitation of the Circle-Globe. Life has no encirclement, though in a mode it encircles. I have spoken of the horizontal Line of Manifestation. Life is unmanifest, though in a mode it manifests. I have spoken of the Cross which is the heart of an evolutionary process. Life is without heart, though in a mode it has heart-beats. I have spoken of the Svastika, the Whirling Cross, the Fiery Cross, the Cross that churns, the Cross of sparks. Life is none of these, though in a mode it is all of these. I have

THE LIFE MAGNIFICENT

553

Life is Symbol-less, Symbol-ful

Yoga is Fulfilment

Life a King-point

Life-Expression

spoken of the Lotus with its petals of Fire, issuing from a glowing seed. Life is no Lotus, though in a mode it is this Perfect Form and all other forms in the modes of its heavens and in the modes of its earths.

I have spoken of Symbols. I now find that, where I am, Life is Symbol-less, though in a mode it is Symbol-ful. I have spoken of Life as Yoga. Life is Yoga-less, though Yoga is a mode whereby Life in individuality gathers up all modes of Life's vibrations and gazes upon their Universality.

Indeed do I seem to see that I am right when I say, as I said in the beginning of this book, that Yoga is neither denial nor relinquishment, but is the fulfilment of all things as Life.

We may call this X which effects the change from a sitting to a standing posture Life, but Life in a mode of kingship not in a mode of a servant. Truly, there are innumerable kingships beyond this kingship in the great line of Life as king. But this Life is a king-point in the line, at all events with reference to its servants of the mind, of the feelings and emotions, of the physical-plane consciousness as in the brain and in all the systems dependent from the brain.

We may call this mode of Life by the name of Will or Self-Expression or Self-Determination. It is a mode of the living of Life. It is a mode of the spirit-matter of Life. All we see around us is Life-Expression, nothing more, but nothing less. In every kingdom of nature—itself a mighty form-concentration—we see innumerable dependent form-concentrations. Manifestation itself is Concentration, either in formless or in form concentration. And if we choose we can use the word " Will " as conveying more to our limited understanding than the word " Life," since we used to be—I hope we have ceased to be—foolish enough to think we could distinguish between Life and Death, between the organic and the inorganic. Sometimes, when I am told that so-and-so is no more, I feel

FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

Life is Substans

He who seeks to reverenca seeks safely

irresistibly impelled to answer that at any rate he is no less, for this is the truth. Life is universal, and there is no Death but change, but metabolism, if you will, or equally truly— adjustment.

The most so-called, and unscientifically called, inanimate object is supremely animate, Life-ful. A table is not only a piece of Life, but a colony of lives. So is every form in every kingdom of nature. Life lives in colonies, in groups of individualities. And Lrfe is substans which is the essence of Life, or an essence, and substance, which is the —or rather a—form of Life. Will, therefore, is substance with its pervading substans. But what more can I say about it ?

I do not think I can say anything *nore about it, for its power is not only ultimate (relatively) but sacrosanct. And only to the holy shall the things that are holy be revealed. The scientist shall never know in the region of ultimates until he is holy, until he seeks, not for knowledge even, for the pursuit of knowledge even for its own sake is one of the most dangerous of paths—a path which has led to the prostitution of science to most ignoble ends ; not for humanity's sake—how many crimes are committed against love in the so-called service of humanity ; but for the sake of his own richer equipment to serve the whole world in all its kingdoms of nature, in all its modes of life—a service which can never be at the expense of one form of life for the sake of another form of life. At present many of our scientists discover and then give their discoveries to the world, reckless as to whether good or ill comes of their gifts. The world needs knowledge, they say. Knowledge alone, they say, can serve the world. So let knowledge go forth at all costs. These are not holy men. They are men who may have deep knowledge, but have little wisdom. So do they become a menace to all living things. They are children who play with dangerous toys, but who do not

THE LIFE MAGNIFICENT

555

The Purpose of this Book: Fulfilment and .Release

know that they are children, for the world acclaims them as great and loads them with honours. A little knowledge, and it is all that any of them has, is indeed a dangerous thing. But it may lose its dangerousness if with the aid of reverence and love it be constantly distilled into wisdom. No scientist is worthy of his knowledge unless he has reverence and love as his dominating qualities. To seek for the sake of knowledge is not enough. Only he who seeks that he may reverence more and more, and love all living things more truly, seeks safely.

So is it that I cannot say more about Will, about Life. Render unto men the things that are theirs, but only to the

godly the things that are of God.

•##-**

Have I failed to give the description of Life which I may have led the reader to expect ? In a way I have failed, because I have not been precise. But in another way I venture to think I have succeeded, for as this chapter has proceeded, it has altered perspectives. It has perhaps taken the reader beyond mechanism, beyond modes, beyond all pairs of opposites. But at the same time it has in no place taken away the reader's essential freedom. It is he who must know Life, not I who must know Life for him. In any case, this I cannot do. But if at the end of this chapter the reader feels free, as perchance he has not felt free before, if the spirit of Consummation and Forth-going are beginning to be radiant in him, if he becomes, as never before, dynamic in the treading of his way, then he may deny this book as he will, laugh at it as he will, ridicule it as he will, forget it as he will, yet will it have achieved its purpose, which is FULFILMENT and RELEASE.

From the void of Non-Existence to this dwelling-house

of clay I came and rose from stone to plant; but that hath passed

away I Thereafter, through the working of the Spirit's toil and

strife, I gained, but soon abandoned, some lowly form of life :

That too hath passed away !

In a human breast, no longer a mere unheeding brute, This tiny drop of Being to a pearl I did transmute :

That too hath passed away '

At the Holy Temple next did I foregather with the throng Of Angels, compassed it about, and gazed upon it long :

That too hath passed away !

Forsaking Ibn-i-Yamin, and from this too soaring free, I abandoned ail beside Him, so that nought was left but He :

All else hath passed away !

—Ibn-i-Yamin (Sufi mystic)

MY ADORATION OF SHRI NATARAJA

How could ye know him ? Ye were yet within The narrower circle , he had well nigh reached The last, which, with a region of white flame, Pure without heat, into a larger air Up-burning, and an ether of black blue, Invests and ingirds all other lives . . .

- Tennyson, Wakeful Dreamer

In scintillating rainbow rhythms streams forth the hair flowing thickly from His head, as a divine waterfall dancing in the rays of the Sun, or as dancing Ganga Mai, messenger from Heaven to Earth.

With pearl-like light glows the crescent moon on His mighty brow.

His deep-set eyes shine with the blue fire of the thousand-petalled Lotus at noon-time.

His smile is an ever-flowing radiance of highest Blessing, and in His hand is the Divine Drum rolling its thunder-notes throughout the worlds, yet soft is this hand as the young leaf, perfect in its shape.

He wears a tiger-skin as the garment of His Power, and His uplifted hand sends forth its Protection.

The Jewels of Immortality sparkle in the bhell-like ears of His perfect Understanding, and His Holy Thread is sacred witness to His achieved Divinity.

His body is as the sacred coral consecrate to the Sun.

His skin is noble and strong as the skin of the mighty elephant. As armlets are twined about Him the Serpents of His Wisdom, and upon His ankles are the Bells of Divine Music, the Music of the Gandharvas themselves.

558 FROM THE SYMBOLS TO NO-SYMBOL

In Cosmic Dance He moves, with His holy feet bending and rising in rhythms of Heaven and of Earth.

And as He dances the Divine Parvati gazes upon Him with gladness in Her heart and with smiling lips.

So is He !

When shall I see Thee thus, O Lord ? When shalt Thou deem me worthy to have vision of Thy Holy Dance, O Thou who art the Lord of the Universe, who art clothed with infinite Space, who holdeth very Infinity itself within Thy grasp, who art the Lord of the Dance of Universes and of worlds, who art the very Bliss of Life ?

Book Five-- Symbols at Work

THE AUTHOR QUESTIONS THE READER

I am hoping that those who are learned in the Arts and in the Sciences will be able to instruct me as to the series of fundamental symbols epitomizing the various departments of life which we associate with the Arts and Sciences Where possible, I should be very glad if correspondences could be suggested between my series of seven symbols and a series in each of these departments insofar as an intuitive survey might lead to an emergence of such a series.

What, for example, is the central, or relatively ultimate, symbol of mathematics ? I am afraid I could not be satisfied with the reply that there is no such symbol. At the most the reply must be that such a symbol or formula has not so far been discovered. Is the Point in Symbolic Yoga the relatively ultimate mathematical symbol, and if it be so considered, then how will it be defined mathematically ? Can we associate conceptions of other symbols with the fundamentals of mathematics? In other words, is mathematics a universe, and is it a growing universe- — invariable though its laws may seem to be or be in actuality ?

For my own part I cannot help feeling that while from one point of view this great science is already, but entirely beyond our grasp, a science of relative fundamentals and ultimates, from another aspect it is a growing organism in ways I am, of course, unable to understand; and I feel that given the necessary developed intuition, it would be possible to perceive the various Symbol-Laws or Formulas which are related to the science of mathematics in the same way as the symbols I describe are related to the growth of a universe.

Within the intelligence of man, within his intuition, within his power of self-consciousness in the realm of theory, mathematics is a growing science, at least in the sense that day by day new discoveries are made with regard to it, enabling the student to proceed from a less to a more in his understanding of it. I conceive that the matter mathematics represents—and it does express a mode of life and therefore of matter—is itself an evolving entity, and that its expression in terms of its relevant science changes as it grows Such invariableness as we may conceive with regard to it may be represented by whatever in mathematics is called the Point. But apart from that, changes take place along the lines of the other symbols, which entitle us to conceive that however much from our limited and exacting point of view mathematics is an exact science, it is none the less a growing science

Is natural law immutable and final ? For us the answer must be in the negative, for we cannot know the real nature of natural law. We can only know natural law as our present development permits, and that which is most natural and

immutable to us is assuredly less than its ultimate naturalness. I think this will be admitted. We have no means at our disposal to declare that such and such is a natural law from which there can be no variation. We can say we have no experience of variation. But that is not saying very much. Change, unfoldment, is universal so far as we are concerned, and we are constantly discovering that there is nothing so certain as uncertainty.

It may be that there is an absolute Law, an absolute science, an absolute art. But I do not think we can know them. And such experience as I have had in the regions beyond the physical forces upon me the conviction that as all else grows so does Law, so do the very laws of nature.

Is it possible, then, to establish a growth in terms of symbols in every science and in every art ? Or at least, as I have already asked, is there some central or relatively ultimate symbol in each, of which it is possible to have seme conception, and to which some kind of expression can be given ?

As I ask in the case of mathematics, so do I ask in the case of every other science, and so do I ask in the case of every art.

And I would ask, too, from individual students how far they are at all able to determine their own symbolic unfoldment, their own unfoldment in terms of symbol sequences. I shpuld be very happy to receive from a student a symbol series radically different from my own, and an intimation as to which symbol in the series he feels he belongs, as I feel I belong to the Line (vertical).

And I would like to insist that while hints are always welcome in these, for us, so uncharted regions, all discovery must eventually be truly self-discovery, and not the impulse of a moment or two, but an intuitive perception checked and re-checked. It is not enough for a student to say that he has always felt this, that or the other. He must study. He must undertake investigation with the help of all the best rules of investigation he can get hold of. He must experiment. He must experience and experience, until he cancels out the spasmodic and irregular and retains only the constant. This is what I have tried to do in connection with my studies in Symbolic Yoga, for these studies are by no means just the result of a sudden incursion into the regions of the science.

In any case, it is appropriate to insist again that however much I may have been using the word " Ultimates " as if there were no beyond and no change, I can only use the word in a relative sense, for only the relative is at all self-conscious in me, not my absolute, whatever it may be—if there be any absolute at all.

There may be those, moreover, who are able to tell me of the great symbol of the vegetable kingdom, of the symbol in which animals live and move and have their being, of the symbol of our Mother Earth Herself, and of Her special family—Her mountains, Her seas, Her valleys, Her very atmosphere itself. I feel I could know something of these symbols were I as near to Mother Earth

as I know some of Her sons and daughters to be. There are symbols of races and nations as well as of faiths, and there are symbols of families as well as of individuals Often, but not invariably, the flag of a nation may be intimately related to the nation's actual symbol—a shadow of it in colour-form.

After all, a symbol is a formula, a multum in parvo, an essence, an archetype, an Eternal Now, which by those who understand may be unfolded into past, present and future.

There is nothing existing that cannot be unfolded, kneaded, poured—whichever verb is most suitable—into its mould, or which cannot be reduced to a physical formula so that out of the formula into which the object has been reduced it may be reproduced in its original state. It is a matter of the removal of dimensions and yet of retaining dimension-potentiality.

Similarly, everything living should be capable of reduction to its symbolic formula, to its state in terms of symbol. This should be possible not only with regard to a single symbol, but with regard also, to the symbol-series to which it belongs. To the occultist, for example, an individual man should be reducible—or should I say, expansible—to his symbol terms, or to any one of them, and thereby be gained a complete real history of the Man of the Sea concerned. He should be traceable through every phase of his unfolding consciousness—pre-mineral, mineral, vegetable, animal, human, superhuman, and the great science of Astrology should add to this local knowledge a knowledge of his planetary affinities based on symbol identity so that his place in the macrocosm may be determined as well as his place in the microcosm.

The Astrology known even by the most erudite astrologer is but a shadow of the fringe of one of the mightiest of sciences, the Science of Cosmic and Sub-Cosmic Formulas, the Science of the nature of Individual Uniqueness within a Universal Unity. We have yet to gain even a slight glimpse of the intimate relation-ship between this tiny and insignificant earth of ours and every other sun and planet in the known and unknown universes ; between each individual life imprisoned on this earth and the totality of all other individual lives. I confess that my consciousness reels at Ue thought of the immensities forthshadowed by what I believe is a veritable Unity of Life—a unity of the veriest details no less than a unity of the mightiest of forces.

In fact, as, of course, the symbol of the Point reveals in all clarity, the question of size has no meaning in the worlds of symbol, and less and less meaning as we leave the regions of slow motion and gain increasing access to the regions of more rapid vibrations, thus approaching, though certainly not contacting, those realms in which the Eternal lives in the unmodified terms of its own nature.

I should not deny to size a relative reality, for all is real just as all is Life. Perhaps I may have to say that even the word relative should not be used, inasmuch

as all things have their absolute values, however much it may be convenient to postulate relativity about them. I should not deny to colour, sound or form a relative reality, or, if you will, an absolute reality. But colour, sound, form, size, space, time, dimension seem to lose their particular and varying significances as first we transcend the regions of form, whether concrete or abstract, and as thence we transcend that radiance, that forthflowing, out of which the abstract-concrete worlds are born. I do not like the words " radiance " or " forthflowing "—they seem still to hold us within abstract-concrete regions. If only languages possessed abstract and super-abstract equivalents to their form-words, I should be able to draw upon these for descriptions of the abstract and super-abstract conditions of consciousness.

I have deliberately brought every symbol down into the outer worlds of colour, form and sound, though I certainly have avoided size Each symbol has, for me, clothed itself—or should I not rather say Himself—with the splendours of the outer worlds, reflections as these are of the still more splendid glories of the inner life. But I should like it to be known that if I raise myself to the very highest regions I am capable in any way of contacting, these very symbols are to be contacted in states of consciousness beyond every single one of the attributes with which they have been associated for my remembrance and understanding.

There is a region in which each symbol, whatever be its individual nature and purpose, exists as an existence, wherein there is, it may be presumed, a differentiation from the existences of all other symbols, but about which one dare not predicate more than the word " existence." I will admit, however, that in my own individual consciousness pure existence— using the word " pure " as I might use the word " vacuum" to hint at, for us, a state of non-existent existence—has certain sublimities connected with it. There is a sublimity of overwhelming, irresistible potentiality. With this I associate the spirit of a sublime hush—an existence crammed with overpowering silence. So I find the words " overpowering " and " overwhelming " by themselves sufficiently indicative of a certain aspect of these existences. They transcend mountainously, stormily, lightningly, and in a sublime depth of thunderousness. But the words " overpowering " and " overwhelming," even if raised to their nth significations, are not enough. These existences also convey to me the sense of impenetrable solidity—a solidity that brooks no resistance, that, as it were, advances crushingly as in a spirit of nemesis, though the word " nemesis " is entirely inappropriate. And with all this there is no contradiction when they also convey to me the sense of infinite lightness, inconceivable tenuity, 'Etherealness

Indeed, in these existences contradictions become complementaries and •necessary one to another. In these regions all contradictions are resolved into their identities.

G. S. A.

Corroborative and Supplementary Articles and Notes in Glossary Form

IMPORTANT NOTE

The correlations to be found herein have been made by interested students, and are only to be regarded as a stimulus to the minds of other students to make their own correlations. Where unsigned, they should be given no more weight than would be accorded the findings of any thoughtful piece of tentative research. In no sense should they be regarded as authoritative, but merely suggestive.

" Analogy helps us because it gives us a picture; and all real things, all force, all life, all spirit are more easily understood by pictures than by any language. For spiritual truths are not taught by language, spiritual teaching is not by words, but, as it were, by pictures recognized by direct intuition." }

ALPHABETS 2

The Initiates (Sons of God) gave the early alphabets to humanity not only for the perpetuation of human thoughts and ideas, but as scientific sequences of glyphs and symbols which would reveal to brother Initiates with the sevenfold " Key '" the secrets of Creation, human and cosmic. .

As Sound, the Word, the Tone (with its essential Rhythm), is the Creative Potency behind all manifestation, each letter representing one aspect of this Potency. Thus were expressed the 7 and 49 forces and states of matter.

The Senzar and Samskrit alphabets, and those of other occult tongues (Egyptian, Chinese, Chaldean, Hebrew, and even Greek and Roman, etc.) besides other potencies, have a number, colour { and distinct syllable for every letter. To

1 Annie Besant, The Pilgrimage of the Soul. - See also Mantra 3 See Co/our.

make any special syllable operative, it is necessary to produce mentally the colour as well as concentrate on the potency to be invoked.

The very shape of the letter also conveyed its meaning, some hints of which are still preserved in our modern alphabets, e.g., the letter I stands for Man (the body erect); add a head and you have P (Paternity, Potency, etc.) The letter Y indicates the left or right-hand path of magic, according to which fork is shaded.

The sound of the letter conveyed the feel of the hidden potency, I.e., the F being a cutting sound like air rushing quickly through space, and is correctly used in such a word as Fury.

Thus each word and each letter was to the Initiate a mantric song or invocation, a formula or succession of basic numbers, and an ideographical picture.

Every word was the true name of that to which it was applied, and the Initiate could discern its hidden implications at a glance. When sounded, it actually invoked the potencies involved, and thus arose the tradition that one's true name should never be revealed, nor should the true name of the Gods be spoken, but rather should They be mentioned only in allegory by substitute names.

The mystery or " Secret Doctrine " Language—Senzar—from which the Stanzas of Dzyan were translated, was universal in olden days before the confusion of the " Tower of Babel," brought about by these same Initiates to protect their sacred mysteries from an untrustworthy humanity. The Stanzas themselves are said to be not so much an account, but rather a Manual of Creation. 1 Senzar was the 41 Mother-Samskrit" reported to have been brought from Venus by the great Kumaras. Each letter in Senzar is made to yield several meanings, according to a sign placed at its commencement. The Circle, the Circle with the central Point, the Diameter, the Equal-armed Cross, the Tau, the Svastika, the Triangle, the Quaternary, the Pentagon, etc., representing the Cosmic Self-moving Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, etc., were important characters of this universal script and have been Jcnown as such to the learned of all ages.

The Devanagari (Gods') script of Samskrit is a scientific arrangement of the seven and forty-nine potent sounds. It includes the sum-total of human sounds which are considered as a materially extended expression of the One Creative Sound, and like the sacred Aum (the sound of which begins in the back of the mouth with A, traverses the centre with U, and ends upon the lips in M) it represents all creative speech and powers. The 16 vowels, the spirit or soul of words, contain the most occult and formidable potencies, as did the seven Gnostic vowels which represented the seven Rays. The 35 consonants, the formal element of the words, had innumerable combinations. The Laya or Mantric System of Yoga relates the letters to the chakra petals as follows : The vowels to the Throat; Ka to Tha to the Heart ; Da to Pha to the Navel; Ba to La to the Spleen; Va to Sa to the Root; Ha

1 See pp. 23-40.

and Ksha to the Brow ; the whole alphabet twenty times over to the Crown chakra. Samskrit was said to have been invented by Sarasvatl, the wife or energy of Brahma, the Creator.

As the cosmological process was revealed by Thoth, or Hermes, some 35,000 years ago, to neophytes during Initiation, they perceived and wrote down the symbols relating thereto, which became the Natar Khari or hieratic Alphabet of the sacerdotal speech of the Egyptians, a Devanagari into which Senzar largely enters. It was also during Initiation that the Chinese Alphabet was created (which serves too as the script of Japan). The modern 7arot is a dim reflection of the original Alphabet of Thoth, which can be studied in its complete symbology on the Babylonian cylinders or divining wheels in the British Museum, and elsewhere. The Mayan script is almost identical with the Egyptian.

The Chaldean and Palmyrian with their child, the Kabalistic Hebrew script, and its 22 letters, were regarded as the visible expression of the divine forces inherent in the universal name of the Logos. As the letters also stood for numbers, each word was on its face a number. Gematna was the science of applying to the letters of a word the sense they bear as numbers and as shape. Jemura was permutation, by shifting letters to obtain their anagrammatical meaning, etc.

An example of this science of Numbers is revealed in the word Alhim, the mystic name for E/ofi/m, the creative Gods, which read anagrammatically yields 31415, the Greek TT. (the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter being 3.1415 to 1). This is a significant number (1st) in the relation of its successive digits, i.e., the Triad, the " First or Vertical Line," the Quaternary, the " Second Line " and the Pentagon ; and (2nd) in that the Elohim, the emanations or opposing radii (" diameters ") from the Central Point, mark out the " Ring-Pass-Not " or Circumference of the Universe.

Referring to the Book of the Golden Precepts, Madame Blavatsky says in the Preface to The Voice of the Silence:

" The original precepts are engraved on thin oblongs ; copies very often on discs. These discs or plates are generally preserved on the altars of the temples attached to centres where the so-called ' contemplative' or Mahayana (Yogacharya) schools are established. They are written variously, sometimes in Tibetan, but mostly in ideographs. The sacerdotal language (Senzar), besides an alphabet of its own, may be rendered in several modes of writing in cipher characters, which partake more of the nature of ideographs than of syllables. Another method (lug in Tibetan) is to use the numerals and colours, each of which corresponds to a letter of the Tibetan alphabet (thirty simple and seventy-four compound letters), thus forming a complete cryptographic alphabet. When the ideographs are used there is a definite mode of reading the text; as in this case the symbols and signs used in astrology, namely, the twelve zodiacal animals and the seven primary colours, each a triplet in

shade,—i.e., the light, the primary and the dark—stand for thirty-three letters of the simple alphabet, for words and sentences. For in this method the twelve animals five times repeated and coupled with the five elements and the seven colours, furnish a whole alphabet composed of sixty sacred letters and twelve signs. A sign placed at the beginning of the text determines whether the reader has to spell it according to the Indian mode, when every word is simply a Samsknt adaptation, or according to the Chinese principle of reading the ideographs. The easiest way, however, is that which allows the reader to use no special, or any language he likes, as the signs and symbols were, like the Arabian numerals or figures, common and international property among initiated mystics and their followers."

THE ORIGIN OF LETTERS

" As soon as a child is born and its mouth opens, the sound proceeding is ($[$ " 3?F ") a, as in smart; by its prolongation and curving (3) or u, or oo, as in ooze, is formed when the lips are nearing to meet each other. And no sooner the lips meet than the sound of (fl) or m generates itself and merges (33) into aJcasf). Thus the sacred (sjf) Om is naturally uttered by the opening and shutting of the mouth. The opened mouth or circle is the visible symbol of eternity.

" To proceed : Beginning with ( . ) point, and forming (——-) /me, or sign of (a?), we come to (3) or unfinished circle, and enter the point ( , ) or (*?) when the circle is complete which is another form of eternity, i.e , disappearance of sound or shabd into eternity, ($If9) or cipher, point or akasfo-

" The original framers of letters kept the broken or unfinished circle ( ) ) of (3) u for the sound or svar it represents.

"Now by combining these three 3f ( T ), 3 (J and *T ( . ) we get a-figure ([), i.e., a line passing through the circle dividing it in any two segments. By placing the different parts or portions of the figure in several positions we get •

" (i 17) or tfJT, one of the chief names of Vishnu or Maha Vishnu. Thus our Vaishnavites repeat and worship (3ff) Om in a modified form and name suitable to them and sacred to their Deity.

" ( tj ) or IT, separately represents Lakshmi or consort of Vishnu : i.e., Tl represents Shakti and is one-letter Mantra of Shaktas or followers of Shakti— the common name of every representation and manifestation of Maya or t{ or Mother.

" TOR represents Maheshvar also.

" On shutting the opened mouth the closing svar or sound is (*}), ; e , the sound merges into Akasn or Vyom and Shiva is Vyomesh.

11 Taking the two sides of the circle with and without line separately [) (] Shiva and (f^fl) Shiva, both are represented. Shaivites have thus taken and formed their deities' names from the same common origin. All the three principal sects derive the symbols representing their names from the circle and the line.

" Originally all the alphabets were crudely shaped by taking separately or combining together the broken portions of the figure (J). Gradually, and as time rolled on, symmetrical and polished shapes evolved out of the Samskrit alphabets, and those who trace the origin of all the known alphabets and their different transformations to Samskrit letters stand on firm ground.

" From the Samskrit or Devanagari alphabets, it is very easy to shape any characters Our Southern Indian characters are but different combinations of circle and line in their original simplicity, and the point is the constant quantity all over the world.

" Reversing the order we have the point ( . ) the Paramatma (Spirit), the (Q) Infinite Prakriti, and the ( ------ ) which is nothing but force or Shakti and which

appears as dividing the infinite circle or causing differentiation.

" From sound they come to symbols, from symbols to well-shaped characters and names of Deities. The letters and Upasanas of Devas originated simultaneously as it were

" The Evolution (or creation), / e., the activity of Prakriti on the physical plane,

is represented by circle (Q) and Involution or laya by point ( . ), OM TAT SAT,"

— From the Prasnottara, or Journal of the Indian Section of

The Theosophical Society, Vol. VIII, Nos. 84-95, pp. 123-25.

THE ORIGIN OF SAMSKRIT

" . . . that ancient sacerdotal language ... a language known to all occultists. not a language of letters, as letters are understood in our modern tongues, a language of signs, of symbols, of colours, of sounds, which rings out in music as well as shines in colour, and which takes its own forms, which every Initiate can recognize and translate into the lower languages of the intellectual world. It has sometimes been called the Zenzar. It has sometimes been called the Deva-Bhashya. . .

" Many names have been given to the language ; names matter not, for they vary with every tongue ; but the essential thing is that such a language exists, that it is known today as it was known a million years ago, that people learn it now as they learned it then, that occult instruction is given in that language, and not in the clumsy sounds articulated by a physical tongue, and that from that language truths are translated into the most ancient intellectual tongues derived from it. The Vaidik Samskrit is the most ancient intellectual echo of that

archaic language, and the Zend of the Iranian has the same root, comes from the same fount." —Annie Besant, Four Great Religions

ANGELS

See Devas and Gandharvas.

AT JAR of Experience

ANNIE BESANT : " And it is elsewhere said that Atma is like the breeze which plays over a garden of flowers. It does not gather the flowers, it does not pick the blossoms, but when the breeze has entered the garden and played over the fragrant blossoms, it picks up from each blossom its peculiar fragrance and carries that fragrance onwards, so that when it leaves the garden, it is enriched with the varied fragrance of the different flowers. No longer as it came in, without scent, without sweetness, but gathering up the scent of the flowers it goes on, retaining the fragrance it has garnered.

" And so with Atma in the world of manifestations. It does not gather phenomena themselves, it does not take as it were the experiences themselves, but by a subtle process it uses the bodies, the bodies of action and of feeling, for the gathering of experience, and then the Soul gathers up the fragrance, the aroma as Jt were, the ideal reflection of the experiences, and carries them forward with it till the pilgrimage of the Soul is over." — Jhe Pilgrimage of the Soul

See also Experience

BREAJH

ANNIE BESANT : " We find ... in a great Indian book put into the mouth of God the words : ' I am the Life-Breath.' The thought would be more familiar to you if I quoted them from the Hebrew scripture, where it is written : ' By the word of the Lord were the heavens made ; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth' (Psalms. XXXIII, 6).

" Now Breath is sometimes said to be Life and Life to be Breath, and in those lofty regions the word Breath is not an ill-chosen word to use, for the great out-breathing of the divine Life which, gathering together from the boundless realms of space a certain quantity of that far, far-off matter, makes, as it were, a ring round it, in which He is going to build up His new system, and breathes His life into that enclosed root-matter, as it is sometimes called ; and by that Breath—if I may take a very common illustration from right down here in the physical world, as you may, if you breathe into a glass of water, create little vacua which are not really vacua, but are filled with your breath and shelled with a little film of water—creates the matter out of which He will build His special system, His worlds.

" In that form, subtle beyond our thinking, minute beyond our imagination— and yet if for a moment you will think of that building of a single form to which I just now alluded—you will know that from a single cell you get a whole group of cells by the forming within that simple cell of little lines of division, not separating them off into separate things but making a mass of conjoined, adherent cells, so bodying forth for us under our eyes, as it were, the great picture of creative activity —first Unity, the One, then within that Unity the delicate lines of separation, making the many, still in union, these marked-out parts of future difference being still joined together, and then, later, in some forms of living creatures you may see the breaking asunder of these subdivided cells, and there you come to the picture of the great separative principle, the intellect, at work, with its offspring of the mind. And then still further, passing downwards ever, you come to the appearance, in still denser form of matter, of what we call attraction and repulsion, of what we call love and hate when we come to human beings. And when you examine those, you begin to realize that the Life, which is one, is ever seeking to reunite itself with the several portions of itself that the impulse has divided coming down, but that the Life in each separated form seeks the Life in other separated forms and tries to draw them together, and the forms resist it, and the incongruous forms repulse it, and a constant struggle goes on between the Life which is seeking reunion and the forms which are insisting on their separateness ; and you see how the forms gather in fresh material in order that by grasping they may grow, and how the Life is ever seeking to give itself out to find union with other lives, until we find ourselves down here in a physical world of matter, and see its constant struggle, its constant opposition between the indwelling Life desiring to unite and the forms resisting, for fear that in the union they should lose their individuality and no longer know themselves as living beings." —Britain's Place in the Great Plan, pp. 33-35

C. W. LEADBEATER : " In the seven Planetary Logoi certain cyclic changes periodically occur, which correspond perhaps to inbreathing and outbreathing, or to the beating of the heart down here on the physical plane."

— Jhe Masters and the Path

" [The Atlanteans] knew that every atom beats as a heart, and they considered that the sun had a similar movement, which they connected with the sun-spot period. . . . They thought . . . that the earth breathes and moves, and it is certainly true that quite recently scientific men have discovered that there is a regular daily displacement of the earth's surface which may be thought of as corresponding in a certain way to breathing." —Talks on the Path of Occultism

CIRCLE

H. P. BLAVATSKY : " The Incorporeal Intelligences (the Planetary Spirits, or Creative Powers) were always represented under the form of circles. In the primitive

Philosophy of the Hierophants these invisible circles were the prototypic causes and builders of all the heavenly orbs, which were their visible bodies or coverings, and of which they were the souls. It was certainly a universal teaching in antiquity. As Proclus says [/n Quint. Lib. Euclid] :

"'Before the mathematical numbers, there are the se/f -mo ving numbers ;

before the figures apparent—the vital figures, and before producing the material.

worlds which move in a circle, the Creative Power produced the invisible circles.' "

—The Secret Doctrine, II, 579 et seq. (Adyar ed., IV, 116 et seq.)

See also " From Line to Circle " under Line.

COLOUR

It is interesting to compare the first-hand observation of the colours of the Great Symbols, with the first-hand observation of the colours called forth at the censing of the Ray Candles quoted by C. W. Leadbeater in The Science of the Sacraments, 1929 edition, p. 105 et seq.

As is carefully stated by the observer of the censing, " It is not asserted that these are the colours of the Rays, for it would require a very competent clairvoyant to arrive at these with any certainty. The difficulties in the way are great, for various-reasons. It seems likely that each Ray has a fundamental colour which can be attributed to it, but this is overlaid by many others. There is perhaps some arrangement by which they correspond with the colours of the spectrum, and they probably modify their colours according to the needs of the world at the moment, which depend on cyclic changes . . .

" However, we can give the colours outpoured at the censing without touching the question of the absolute colours of the Rays."

Ray I " has thin pencil of intensely bright gold, which is surrounded by the wonderful and shining silvery electric blue, which is so often seen in connection with this Ray. The surface of this outpouring is covered with silver sparkles, which it is continually shooting off with a hissing noise."

Ray //: As this Ray is considered as the Altar itself, and the three principles of the Trinity are there censed, it is difficult to judge just what is presumed to be the colour of the Ray. The first triple swing to the central cross and picture produces a pure milk-white, which " glows with a sweet softness." " The next three swings induce a similar outrush of blue, from the Christ; and the last set bring down the crimson of the Holy Spirit."

Ray /// " emits a fine sky blue and emerald, which suggest the colours of certain blue and green opals—like shallow sea water over a sandy bottom, when the sun shines through it."

Ray IV : In some cosmogonies considered as representing Maya or the Un-manifest which takes on various influences as they play over it. " This has its core of

a curious indescribable colour which approaches most nearly to a sort of translucent magenta pink—a strong colour, but with a very delicate shell tint. The pink itself shades off by imperceptible degrees into an opalescent aqua-toned aura. The body of the power is a splendid mingling of dark blue and green like a peacock's breast; and on the surface we see the same colour as at the heart, except that there are only flecks of the magenta and much more of the opalescent effect. The contrast of the magenta, seen against the dark ever-changing rush of mingling deep blues and greens seems to make this curious cloud-like halo of opalescence look almost like a beautiful aesthetic grey, but when one looks closely, one sees that there are many soft colours in it which gleam out as the ever-restless stream throws them more to the surface, and that the greyishness is only the result of the contrast between the strong almost metallic sheen of the darker colours, and the gentle aura of this odd pink.

" Possibly some of the colours of this Ray's power are due to its long association with Egypt They may also have to do with its position as the central or balancing position between the two sets of three on either side of it "

Ray V " produces a downpouring with a centre of a rich apricot red -there is orange in it and Martian red —and a surrounding body of a beautiful and singularly pure yellow. On the surface we have tiny flecks of the central colour apricot."

Ray VI "in the centre is pure Martian red—very strong and fiery—the colour that inspires martyrs. The main volume of the outpouring, that which surrounds this central jet, is the most lovely rosy crimson—the tenderest and purest carnation shade—really quite indescribable. Perhaps the nearest one can come to it in physical colours is seen in certain very fine rockets. . . . The Martian red shows itself again in surface flecks."

Ray VII: " This downpouring is silver in the middle, a specially gleaming, living silver which differs from the first-Ray silver in that the latter looks more like the actual metal surrounded by white fire ; while the former is more like a stream of mercury which seems to exhale other tints as though it reflected them. This has a more human and a softer feeling than the first-Ray power which is so intensely positive strong as a line of lightning. Around this core, the seventh-Ray outpouring is a marvellous, transparent amethyst —a regal colour which makes the heart sing and speaks of the splendour of sunsets shining into stormy tropic seas; but the dark blue of those restless waters at or after dusk, is also there, and the flash of moonlit wavelets is suggested by the myriad flecks of silver which, as with the first-Ray influence, dance off its surface."

When the censing has been completed, the Ray jewels " are fairly bursting with radiations of light and glory."

The delineation of the 47th Proposition of Euclid in octahedra of living colours, sapphire, emerald and crimson, surrounding a hexahedron of gold, as shown in Jhe Hidden Life in Freemasonry, by C. W. Leadbeater, is also an interesting study in colour and living symbol, used by the angelic forces to exchange greetings with other worlds. This book has many other symbols used throughout the mysteries which make a comparative study of value.

See also Colour-Ray correlation in Man : Whence, How and Whither, p. 21 & et seq.

COLOURS LIGHTNING-WHITE, GOLD-GREEN, AS REFERRED TO IN NORSE MYTHOLOGY

Symbolic Yoga tells us of Green Men.

Astronom/ca/ symbolism as given in The Secret Doctrine and elsewhere gives the colour of Saturn as green, and connects him with the Bridge which is in and outside man, and is his battlefield and his way to Godhead.

Norse mythology tells us of the Bridge Bifrost which was the path from the World of Men (Midgard) to the World of the Gods (Asgard) which in synthesis was rainbow-coloured, yet where men beheld it "in the East" of their world it was " brightest green," and at its crest or height stood its Guardian-Heimdall (meaning Heavenly One) whose armour shone as " white light" and whose hair, teeth, mane of his horse, etc. were golden. One poetic version gives it:

" Bifrost the east shone forth in brightest green ;

On its top, in snow-white sheen, Heimdall at his post was seen." This does not give the lightning-white effect, but other references to it do give exactly this quality and stress its brilliant Light within its whiteness.

—E. Pinchin.

COLOUR-TONE

See charts in The Secret Doctrine, III (Adyar ed., V, 571-73 has additional charts).

CROSS

" Another symbol of creation is the cross inscribed within the circle, showing how the Divine in manifestation is crucified upon the cross of limitation, willingly suffered that the world might come into being . . . Amongst the medieval Rosicrucians the four arms of this cross were taken to symbolize the four elements, water, fire, air, and earth ..."

—The Hidden Life in Freemasonry

CURVATURE

575

CURVATURE

Simple Harmonic Motion. "If a body moving with constant speed in a circular path is observed from a distant point in the plane of the circle, it appears to oscillate back and forward in a straight line.

" The kind of vibratory or oscillatory motion that the particle appears to have in this case is known as simple harmonic motion, it may be defined as the projection upon a straight line of uniform motion in a circle.

" There are other kinds of vibratory motion that are not simple harmonic, such, for example, as the particle would appear to have, in the above instance, if it moved around the circle in any manner whatever except with constant speed. Simple harmonic vibration is, therefore, one particular mode of oscillation ; but it is by far the most important, for it is the most common of all, and all other modes of vibration may be expressed as the resultant of a sum of simple harmonic vibrations as was shown by the French mathematician Fourier. . . .

" The amplitude of the vibration is the distance that the vibrating body moves on each side away from its central or mean position.

" From the laws of dynamics as well as from experiment there is reason to believe that a simple tone, to which a resonator of only one certain pitch will respond, is one in which the vibrations of the air are simple harmonic."

Circular and Elliptical Polarized Light. "... consider first what happens when a beam of plane polarized light of one wave length passes through a crystal plate. In figure 609 the beam of polarized light is supposed to be coming up toward the eye of the reader. To avoid confusion, the crystal plate and analyser, instead of being shown superposed on the polarizer as they would actually appear to one looking along the beam, are represented as shifted to one side so that each may be seen separately. The incident light is supposed to-be vibrating in the direction shown by the lines at P, with simple harmonic motion, since it is supposed homogeneous. On meeting the crystal it sets up vibrations in the same direction in the face where it enters as represented by the line AB.

Polarizer

Crystal

Analyzer

0 1 i 4 4 3 -i $ \

Fig. 610

" But let us suppose that the crystal plate is placed with its axis in the direction DA or BC, at 45° to the direction of vibration in the incident beam. Then the incident vibration, represented in amplitude and direction by A B, may be resolved into the two equal components AC and BC, one of which (BC) is parallel to the optic axis in the plate while AC is at right angles to the axis. These two components are transmitted with different velocities, and consequently the relation between their phases changes as they advance through the crystal.

" As the difference in phase of the two components increases the resultant vibration passes successively through the forms shown in figure 610.

" When the thickness of the plate is such that one component is retarded one-eighth of a period on the other, the light emerges elliptically polarized, as shown in the second figure in the above diagram. In that case the analyser resolves it into vertical and horizontal components and transmits only the horizontal component, as shown in figure 609 at N.

" If the crystal plate is of such a thickness that the difference in phase between the two components is a quarter of a complete period, the resultant vibration as it emerges is circular. The emergent beam in this case is circularly polarized, and will be resolved by the analyser into two components of equal intensity, one of which will be suppressed and the other transmitted, and there will be no change in the intensity of the transmitted light as the analyser is rotated.

" When the retardation of one component or the other amounts to a half wave length, the emergent light is plane polarized at right angles to the direction of the incident beam and is completely transmitted by the analyser ; while if the relative retardation amounts to a whole wave length the light emerges vibrating just as it entered and is entirely suppressed by the analyser."

— Kimball, College Physics, pp. 81, 204, 667-68

See Tfie Symbols through the Kingdoms.

DEVAS AND GANDHARVAS

Gandharvas (gandha- fragrance). Angels of Song, the chief of whom was regarded as parent of the first pair of human beings. Assistants of Indra, Lord of Heaven.

Deva (root c//V~to shine, be bright or splendid , pcs. originally-to shoot forth as a ray of light; to sport, to play). A Shining One, a Divine Being, God; or as Devi, a Goddess.

Angel (Gr. angelos — a messenger or envoy, from Hebrew root-divine or human messenger). A non-human agent of the Creative Logos, of whom nine great orders are recognized in the Christian Church. See Angels in the Glossary of The Secret Doctrine (Adyar ed.. VI).

DIRECTIONS

The true earthly North and South are obviously fixed by the North and South Poles, concerning the influence of which Madame Blavatsky has written in The Secret Doctrine. See II, 418-19 (Adyar ed , III, 399-400) , II, 829 (Adyar ed , IV, 353) ; I, 225-26 (Adyar ed., I, 253-54); and other references.

But what is East and West? The Tibetan, Hindu, Christian, Chinese, Masonic and many other Faiths and Philosophies have ascribed certain influences to East and West, North and South, which obviously seem difficult to understand if the arbitrary " O " longitude of Greenwich is taken as a standard.

The student is advised in encyclopaedia and atlas, as well as in the journal on Terrestrial Magnetism, to observe carefully the magnetic hemispheres. There he will find the Northern and Southern Hemispheres are fairly consistent to the Polar Hemispheres, though the Magnetic Poles lie at great distances from the geographical Poles. But the Eastern and Western Magnetic Hemispheres are changing decade by decade with even daily fluctuations. The student will see that the " O " or agonic lines of division between East and West are usually near India and mid-United States. In fact the Americas seem a backbone continent with India as the heart of the world.

But many are the changing rhythms of these magnetic hemispheres. For example, great waves of Eastern Hemisphere poured over Europe during the Renaissance, while Western Magnetism is now flooding Asia and India.

The Theosophist will be intrigued to note that at 1882 and 1907 Adyar was in the laya centre between North and South, East and West, and that at the time The Theosophical Society was founded the whole of the United States was " Eastern." He will also see with interest that those places reported by occultists to be the cradles of the Sixth Sub-race all lie normally in a common Hemisphere—the Eastern.

This unexplored field will yield fruitful returns if investigated by the occult student who can correlate the great events of the world with the changing spheres of magnetic influence. —A. H. P.

DUALITY

ANNIE BESANT : "It is this begetting of the Son, this appearance of the Second Logos, the Wisdom, which is marked in the world of Form by the 37

differentiation, the drawing apart, of Spirit and Matter, the two poles between which is spun the web of a universe; the separation, as it were, of the neutral inactive

Electricity which may symbolize the First Logos—into the dual form of positive and

negative symbolizing the Second—thus making the unmanifest manifest. This

separation within the First Logos is vividly imaged for us in the preparation for cell-multiplication that we may study on the physical plane, wherein we see the processes that lead up to the appearance of a dividing wall, whereby the one cell becomes two." ! — A Study In Consciousness

" Electricity manifests only as positive and negative; when these neutralize each other, electricity vanishes. In all things electricity exists, neutral, unmanifest; from all things it can appear, but not as positive only, or as negative only ; always as balancing amounts of both, over against each other, and these ever tending to re-enter together into apparent nothingness, which is not nothingness but the source equally of both. . . . There is no such thing as a conscipus unit which does not consist of this inseparate duality, a magnet with two poles ever in relation to each other." —Op. c/t., Chap. II

TIBETAN : "According to the Great Perfectionist School, the Father is that which appears, or phenomena, the Mother is that which is conscious of the phenomena Again, Bliss is the Father, and Voidness perceiving it, the Mother; the Radiance is. the Father, and the Voidness perceiving it, the Mother; and, as in our text here, the intellect is the Father, the Voidness, the Mother Voidness-the unborn, uncreated, unshaped Primordial."

41 The chief deity personifies in himself the female as well as the male principle of nature, and hence is called the Father-Mother—depicted, as described by the text, in appropriate symbolic colours, on the corresponding illuminated folio of our MS., as the Divine Father and the Divine Mother in union (;'.e , in divine at-one-ment.)"

44 The Samskrit term Shakti (literally ' [Divine] Power') refers to the female or negative phase of that divine force or power concentrated in or personified by the consort of a god, the god representing the positive phase; the Tantric worshipper of Shakti (Power), or divine universal forces, personified as a,

Mother-Goddess, being called a shakta. The Tantrics—like the ancient Egyptians

exalt right knowledge of the reproductive processes, as no doubt it should be exalted, to the level of a religious science ; and in this science, as illustrated in the Bardo Th6cfo/, the union of the male and female principles of nature, in what is called in Tibetan the yab (Sk. deva) -yum (Sk. shakti) attitude, symbolizes completeness, or at-one-ment. Power symbolized by the male (yab, or deva), and Wisdom, symbolized by the female (yum, or shakti) are said, esoterically, to be ever in union." — The Jibetan Book of the Dead, pp. 95, 106, 2\T

1 See Symbols through the Kingdoms ; also Breath.

EUCHARISTS OF POWER

EASTERN : AN INVOCATION

An Invocation used in the Bharata Samaj Pu/a, an eastern Eucharist, taken from the Purusha and other Sutras in the Rig Veda .

1 Om ! Purusha of a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, a thousand feet,

He, who encompassing the world all round, remained t»»n fingers still beyond?

Purusha, All that Is, that Was, and is to Be!

Lord of Immortality, and of whatever by food grows

This much His Vastness, yet greater still:

One part of each created thing is of His [Mortal Form], three parts in Him Immortal [firm-fixed] ever in the World of Light.

* Om ! that Transcendent Peak of Vishnu, that ever the enlightened Ones in Radiant Heavens see as an Eye [Omniscient] l

THAT, the inspired, the devoted, the awakened kindle—the Supreme Step of the Lord of Work. 1

' Om ! Hail to Thee, O Thou Adored One ;

To Thee, O Lord of all the Worlds I

To Thee, O Mahadeva ;

To Thee, O Three-Eyed Lord ;

To Thee, O Regenerator of the Triple Fortresses ,

To Thee, O Consuming Fire of Three Worlds;

To Thy Fire, O Rudra, Flaming Liberator;

To Thee, O Lord Blue-Throated, [who for us transmutes all poison],

To the Conqueror of Yama ;

To Maheshvara, Lord of All;

To Thee, O Ever-Blissful Shiva;

To Thy Majestic Glory, Greatest among Shining Ones ;

To Thee, Namah : Hail!

GAYATRI, THE UNIVERSAL PRAYER IN INDIA

A First Ray Eucharist in which the Worshipper becomes the Sun-God : &> ^: Om Bhuh [O Earth, the Becoming]

3£ gsf: Om Bhuvah [World of Desire]

&° §*: Om Suvah [Shining or Fiery World]

& ^: Om Mahah [Root or Causal World]

1 X. 90, 1. * I, 22, 20. » Lit , " spread out or extended."

4 Vishnu, lit., " the Worker." 5 A Khita mantra.

•£*> gjrf; Om Janah [the Birth-Giver or Generator]

^ rff: Om Tapah [the Maintainer, that which keeps afire

and holds fast]

'& *K3JI Om Satyam [the Immortal World of Truth]

Om Tat Savitur Varenyam Bhargo Devasya Dhimahi, Dhiyo Yo Nah Prachodayat !

A ^le translation usually given :

" C. ' Upon that glorious effulgence of the Shining One, O Savitur, we meditate. May it quicken and energize our intuition."

Bhagavan Das in a note in Pranava-Vac/a, gives a richer translation :

" May we contemplate, receive, absorb, or assimilate the radiant effulgence, the glorious energy, of the divine and all-creating Sun, so that it may stir up, quicken, illuminate, inspire and vitalize our intelligences." He notes the collective " we " — each individual praying for the whole of humanity.

Gayatri is completed by a series of words which will be more intelligible to the student of the Book of Dzyan than to one who looks only on externals

Om ! Apa Jyoti Raso Mntam Brahma.

Om ! The Waters, the Light, the Elixir, 1 the Immortality, BRAHMAN— the ONE.

Bhuh-Bhuvas-Suvar Om '

Earth, Desire, Heaven, (Fire) Om '

It is not advised, say some authorities, that all the seven planes be invoked in this Mantra which brings down or up the light of the Sun from wheresoever it is in space at the moment. Dr. Besant says in a note in Pranava- Vac/a that the first four words naturally correlate with the Earth, the Astral, Lower Mental and Causal planes, that the last three lokas are located on the Buddhic plane, and above that plane are located Brahma -loka, Vishnu-loka — Vaikuntha and Goloka, with Shiva-loka — Kailasa.

" As all Theosophists know, it is an invocation to the Sun—of course, really to the Solar Logos, who stands behind that greatest of ail symbols; and the great shaft of light which immediately pours down upon and into the reciter comes as though from the physical Sun in whatever direction that Sun may happen to be.

1 Root. Taste or feeling : derived : Desire or fondness for, Elixir or anything fluid.

The effect is especially curious when the Sun happens to be below the horizon, for then the shaft comes up at once through the earth f This shaft is white just slightly tinged with gold ; but when it has filled the very soul of the reciter he promptly shoots it from him again in seven great rays having the colours of the spectrum. It is as though the singer acts as a prism ; yet the colour rays which dart forth are of a shape the reverse of what we usually find in such cases. Commonly when we send out rays of spiritual force they spring forth from a point in the body—the heart, the brain, or some other centre as th ~.ase may be ; and as they shoot out they steadily broaden fanwise, as do • ,e shining from a lighthouse. But these rays start from a basis wider than the w ,i himself— a basis which is the circumference of his aura, and instead of widening out they decrease to a point, just as do the rays of a conventional star, except that they are, of course, cones of light instead of mere triangles Another remarkable feature is that these seven rays do not radiate in a circle in all directions, but only in a semicircle in the direction which the reciter is facing Furthermore, these rays have a curious appearance of solidifying as they grow narrower, until they end in a point of blinding light. And a still more curious phenomenon is that these points act as though they were living ; if a man happens to come in the way of one of them, that point curves with incredible rapidity and touches his heart and his brain, causing them to glow momentarily in response. Each ray appears to be able to produce this result on an indefinite number of people in succession ; in testing it on a closely packed crowd we found that the rays apparently divided the crowd between them, each acting on the section that happened to be in front of it, and not interfering with any other section

Fig. 1

"... All the triangles which radiate from him have the diameter of his aura as their base. That which shoots out straight in front of him is an isosceles

triangle; all the others on each side, having the same base but a different inclination, are increasingly smaller and narrower as they are farther from the middle line.

" These are of course really cones ; and the size of the base of these cones is determined by the size of the aura of the reciter. If he happens to be a quite ordinary person with an aura extending perhaps eighteen inches from his physical body on all sides, the base of the cones will be an oval, some nine feet in length by five in width. If, however, he is a more developed man, with an aura extending fifty yards on every side of him, that base will be almost a circle, as the difference between the height and the breadth of his physical body would be practically negligible in proportion to the size of the whole aura. As we are looking down from above, we must draw a horizontal line through the middle of the man's aura to represent the base of our triangles; but as the force flows out horizontally in front of the man, the circle which defines the base of our cone must be thought of as a hoop standing not horizontally but upright about the man—as an arch over his head, involving of course a similar inverted arch beneath his feet.

" That is a curious fact regarding the aura which is very often forgotten ; it is built of astral and mental matter, which of course freely interpenetrates everything physical; so to whatever height a man's aura extends above his head, it has an exactly similar extension into the earth beneath his feet . . .

Fig. 2

" If a number of people chant the Gayatri together, only one shaft of much greater diameter comes down from on high. The auras of the singers are for the moment welded into one, and the diameter of that blended aura forms the base of tSe cones.

" . . .An endeavour to trace the origin of the mantra and all the peculiar arrangements made with regard to it brings us into the presence of the Lord Vaivasvata Manu Himself, before He led His hosts over the Himalayas.

"As to the question of the language of the mantra, it seems to be of minor importance. The recitation of the words in English having the full intention behind

them produced the full effect. The recitation of the same thing in Samskrit with the same intention brought about exactly the same result, but in addition built round the radiating shafts a sound-form resembling a wonderfully intricate kind of carved wooden frame-work; it provided us with something which might be imaged as a seven-fold gun through which the rays were shooting out. This sound-form extended only for a short distance and did not seem to make any difference at all to the power or size of the rays."

—C. W. Leadbeater, Trie Jheosophist, April 1926

WESTERN . THE EUCHARIST OF THE PARSIFAL

One of the most significant symbolic stories of the Eucharist is the Parsifal Opera of Richard Wagner. Amfortas, the King, representing humanity, was given two treasures to guard—the Holy Cup or Grail, representing Divine Love, and a Spear, the Spiritual Will. Tempted by Kundry or Desire in a fight against Klingsor, the principle of Resistance, he loses the Spear, and is given a terrible wound, which must be his until a Saviour appears to heal him.

Still in the Temple at Monsalvat, the Eucharist of the Grail is performed, but \t gives its priest the greatest anguish to uncover the Grail without the Spear, its sacred guardian. In the words of Amfortas : " The hour is nigh. A ray descendeth on the Vessel divine. The veil is raised. The sacred stream that flows in the crystal glows with strength and radiant lustre. Filled with anguished delight, I feel this heavenly flow of power pour into my heart. My own life current's sin-defiled flood in delirious flight backward within me rushes, and toward the world where sin has might with wildest dread it gushes . . . ."

But at last a guileless boy, Parsifal, seeing the suffering of the King goes forth to search for the Spear. Innocent, desire-free, he withstands the wiles of Kundry, Klingsor's agent, and regains the sacred weapon.

At long last when the Knights of the Grail and the King have grown hopeless with waiting, and the King refuses now to uncover the Grail, the Saviour Parsifal, symbol of the Divine Christ Principle incarnate, enters the Temple. Saying, " One Aveapon only cures. The Spear that pierced can heal thy bleeding wound," the Parsifal makes whole the stricken King.

Raising aloft the Spear of the regained Will, there comes the magnificent conclusion to this true Eucharist—that of Love and Will in union :

" Behold the Spear. O Knights, it is your own ! O mighty miracle of Bliss I The power pouring from the Spear, yearns to join the fountain glowing, whose pure tide in the Grail is flowing. (To the guardians of the Grail): So hid be no more the cup divine, Unveil the Grail! Open the Shrine."

Revivified with the vital Life of the Spirit, the Knights chant in prayer : " Holy healing Wonder ! Praise ye the Lord, Our Redeemer."

584 EUCLID

SYMBOLS AT WORK

NEW STATEMENT OF PYTHAGORAS' THEOREM

The circle described on the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle as diameter is equal in area to the sum of the two circles similarly described on the sides containing the right angle.

Let hypotenuse BC = a units, CA = b and AB = c Circle on BC as

TT a 2 diameter = — A —

(byEudidl47)

Tfb 2

4-

7T C

= sum of circles on CA and AB as diameters.

Q. E. D

It could also be expressed by saying that in any hemisphere, the great circle (on BC as diameter) equals in area the sum of any two small circles obtained by sectional planes cut through AB and AC, A being any point on the surface of the hemisphere in a plane rectangular to the plane of the great circle.

— Helen Veale

EXPERIENCE

ANNIE BESANT : " The life of the jungle, for those who know the many lives of men, is never the last life of a saviour of his race Sometimes such a life will be one of the many lives through which he goes to gather universal experience ; sometimes a time of gathering strength together and accumulating the power that hereafter is to be used ; but the life of the Christs of the race is the life in the world,

and not the life in the jungle. Though we may profitably go sometimes into seclusion, the manifested God walks in the haunts of men. For only there is the great work to be done, there the trials to be faced, there the powers to be opened up When all our powers are brought*out, when we are all of us Christs, ah ' then we can go out of the outer life of the world to become part of its inner which shapes and moulds the outer activity ; but those who are only growing to that stature must grow by the law of growth, and that is the law of experience. But only the perfect may pass behind the veil and thence send out the spiritual powers unfolded in the life of the world " —Spiritual Life for the Man of the World

See also Attar.

C. W. LEADBEATER: "Yet in ail this strange advance [of the Ego] there is no loss of the sense of individuality, even though there is an utter loss of the sense of separateness. That seems a paradox, while yet it is obviously true. The man remembers all that lies behind him. He is himself, the same man who did this action or that in the far-off past. He is in no way changed, except that now he is much more than he was then, and feels that he includes within himself many other manifestations as well ... To each it would seem that it was he who had absorbed or included all those others " Jhe Masters and the Path

FOHAT

H P. BLAVATSKY : " The constructive Force of Cosmic Electricity . . polarized . . . into positive and negative electricity " born at any point of friction or union as the relation between polar opposites.

—Jhe Secret Doctrine, I, 169 (Adyar ed , I, 201)

FRAGRANCE-ESSENCES

C. W. LEADBEATER : " The use of incense is perfectly scientific ... All occult students are aware that . . . there is no such thing as really dead matter, but that everything in nature possesses and radiates out its own vibration or combination of vibrations. Every chemical element has thus its own set of influences which are useful in certain directions and useless or even hostile in others. It is irv this way quite possible, for example, to mingle certain gums which, when burnt as incense, will strongly stimulate the purer and higher emotions ; ' but one could just as easily make another mixture whose vibrations would promote the most undesir * able feelings . . .

'• The incense used in the [Masonic] Lodge tends to purify that part of man's nature which is sometimes called the astral body, as it is made of gums which give off an intensely cleansing vibration ... It has also the effect of attracting denizens

1 Cf. The Mahatma Letters, pp. 283 and 323.

'586 SYMBOLS AT WORK

of the inner worlds whose presence is helpful to our working, and of driving away those which are unsuitable . . .

" If the incense is intelligently magnetized its strength is increased enormously ; for example, by putting into olibanum the definite force of the will in the direction of calmness and devotion, its influence may be increased by perhaps a hundredfold. That is why the incense in church is always taken up to the celebrant to be blessed, and why in the Lodge it is brought to the R. W. M. in order that he may magnetize it with whatever special quality he thinks will be helpful for the work of the day. 1 The sprinkling of holy water in a church is another way of producing a similar effect, but incense has the advantage that it rises into the air, and wherever a single particle goes, the purification and blessing is borne with it ...

" Practically all the religions of the world use incense in one form or another, it appears in the temples of the Hindus, the Zoroastrians, the Jains, and in the Shinto of China and Japan. It was used in Greece, in Rome, in Persia, and in the ceremonies of Mithras All these people, including the Roman Catholics, avail themselves of it, because they know it to be a useful thing ; why then should not we?"

— The Hidden Lite in Freemasonry, pp. 129-33

Censing the Individual. The censing of an Individual in a ceremonial has the effect of "charging him with power" for the work his rank qualifies him to do.

" Then the clerics, choir and people are censed in the order of dignity. There is a threefold object in this : first, to show respect to them, as is evidenced by the variation in the number of swings given ; second, to include them all within the magnetic field; third, to evoke whatever latent power of love and devotion there is (in each, that he may take his full share in the great work which is about to be done. The act of censing establishes a condition of rapport, of synchronous vibration, which may be utilized to expedite the flow of force either outward or inward."

—The Science of the Sacraments, p. 174

Angels of Incense. " In considering the many benefits which we gain from the use of incense, we must not overlook the aid of the special orders of Angels and nature-spirits which work by its means. The Angels of the Incense are of two quite distinct types—neither of them readily comprehensible except by those who have devoted much study to such subjects. Such investigators know that there are Angels of Music—great beings who express themselves in music just as we express ourselves in words-—to whom an arpeggio is a greeting, a fugue a conversation, an oratorio an oration. There are Angels of Colour, who express themselves by kaleidoscopic changes of glowing hues, by coruscations and scintillations of rainbow light. So also are there Angels who live in and express themselves by what to us are perfumes and fragrances—though to use such words seems to

degrade, to materialize the exquisite emanations in which they revel so joyously. A sub-division of that type includes the Angels of the Incense, who are drawn by its vibrations and find pleasure in utilizing its possibilities . . . Incense is always efficient in attracting the attention of any Angels who may happen to be in the neighbourhood . . .

" There is also another kind to whom the title of Angel is less appropriate. They are equally graceful and beautiful in their way, but in reality they belong to the kingdom of the elves or nature-spirits. In appearance they resemble the child-angels of Titian or Michael Angelo, except that they have no wings. They do not express themselves by means of perfumes, but they live by and on such emanations, ancl so are always to be found where fragrance is being disseminated. There are many varieties, some feeding upon coarse and loathsome odours, and others only upon those which are delicate and refined. Among them are a few types which are especially attracted by the smell of incense, and are always to be found where it is burnt. When we cense the Altar and thus create a magnetic field we enclose within it a number of these delightful little elves, and they absorb a great deal of the energy which is accumulated there, and become valuable agents in its distribution at the proper time."

When the priest later says : " As this incense rises before Thee, O Lord, so let our prayer be set forth in Thy sight. Let Thy holy Angels encompass Thy people and breathe forth upon them the spirit of Thy blessing," " it is a most beautiful sight to see them swoop down the church shedding their influence over the congregation, carrying with them the essence of the perfume and sending it surging out in great waves as they pass. The chief purpose of their effort is expressed in the words used by the Priest as he returns the censer: ' May the Lord enkindle within us the fire of His love and the flame of everlasting charity.' " As the Angels rush out over the congregation, " they extend the influence of the magnetic field hitherto kept to the Altar to include the whole church, but this is more definitely completed and brought down to the physical level by the censing [before described], first of the clergy and then of the congregation."

—The Science of the Sacraments, pp. 104, 174, et seq.

Fragrances in Individual Life. The sense of smell is very intimately related to the physical body, and scientists have long known what a large area of the cerebral content in the case of the animal kingdom is devoted to this sense. A beautiful fragrance gives a thrilling uplifting sense obtained in its own unique way. Conversely there is nothing so repelling as an evil odour. Occultists tell us that as people advance on the Path of Holiness, their bodies become more and more fragrant and that the " odour of sanctity " clings to an object handled by such a one.

In his investigations into this intriguing field of incense-perfumes, Bishop Leadbeater tells us how we can use their potencies to magnetize large areas

(The Hidden Side of Things, II, 218). In his investigations he also found that some incenses were purifying, some stimulating and inspiring, some sympathetic and soothing, while some were definitely undesirable in effect, as, for example, amber, musk, calamus root, galbanum, dragon's blood, etc., which attract a distinctly low class of elemental.

Synthetic oils seem to have a similar though not so potent an effect as the natural essential oils. 1

From a comparison of the subtle colours given for the various perfumed 1 incenses by Bishop Leadbeater, it appears that these follow closely in most instances the physical colour of the flower itself, and this released colour has its effect upon all persons in its aura to arouse the corresponding qualities.

This close relationship of sound, colour and fragrance with the principles of man is hinted at in The Secret Doctrine, III, 463 (Adyar ed , V, 442-43) •

" All the mental, emotional, psychic and spiritual faculties are influenced by the Occult properties of the scale of causes which emanate from the Hierarchies of the Spiritual Rulers of the planets, and not by the planets themselves. This scale leads the student to perceive in the following order:

" 1. colour;

" 2. sound;

" 3. the sound materializes into the spirit of the metals, i.e., the metallic Elemental ;

" 4. these materialize again into the physical metals ;

11 5. then the harmonial and vibratory radiant essence passes into the plants, giving them colour and smell, both of which ' properties ' depend upon the rate of vibration of this energy per unit of time ,

" 6. from plants it passes into the animals ;

" 7. and finally culminates in the ' principles' of man."

PURIFYING INCENSE'

Most good incenses were found to have at least vaguely purificatory effect. Especially potent is Benzoin which " is almost savagely ascetic and purifying ; it deals trenchantly with all the grosser forms of impure thought and is excellent for use in a great cathedral crowded with somewhat undeveloped individuals." * It is a steely blue-grey colour. Ba/sam of Peru has a milder but similar effect to Benzoin. Verbena Leaves is rather brutally purifying, savagely ascetic. Camphor is like " an

1 To obtain these or natural oils, it is necessary to get in touch with some manufacturer or importer, as all perfumes are diluted some thirteen times with spirits, thus rendering them absolutely unfit for occult purposes. " Absolute" essences are even more fragrant than distilled '' attars'' as they express more of the fragrant " esters,'' but assure yourself that the '' Absolutes " were obtained through the ether volatile process rather than that of animal fat extraction. Perfumes sold in the bazaars are rarely pure oils.

- Compiled from books and talks of C. W. Leadbeater.

* The Science of the Sacraments, p. 94.

astral chloride of lime." Lemon has a very special purifying and clarifying effect on the mental body, and is chrome yellow with a touch of green. Cloves also seem to have a purifying effect on the mental body with their light yellow hue. Aloes Wood Oil with a greyish green colour clears the brain.

STIMULATING AND INSPIRING INCENSE 1

Rose Attar, petals, etc., give a beautiful rose colour and open up the astral body to love of a high type.

Sandalwood is a chord of deep blue purple and golden yellow ; it gives devotion of a very high type, and also has vibrations which will cut up and clear away impunties. Too strong a concentration of sandal oil, like rose o//, has a tendency to prematurely open the web protection between the physical and astral planes.

Nero// or Orange Blossom Oil mingles a delicate rose and violet, plays upon the higher astral, laying it open to buddhic influence, so to speak, approaching " from the other side to Rose." It quiets the physical body and is rather good if one has a headache

Jasmine, with its rose, pale green, and possibilities of lower octaves arouses an oriental or Sufi type of devotion. It is distinctly a feminine or Astoreth scent.

Lavender has the effect of " fidelity, remembrance, patience, and sweetness . . a staying quality." It has a rainbow effect of pale blue violet with touches of rose which comes out in parallel lines with concentric circles.

Bergamot has a very elusive greenish blue or turquoise colour with a lower chord of " more crimson lake than anything else ; rather like the spectrum, but it has a line of strong yellow, crimson base, a greenish top, and a kind of bar of light flashing out of the yellow in the middle " This interesting scent from the Citrus Bergamia tree complements the Neroli scent.

Gum Animi, a crimson scent, would stir an emotional composer or poet, or devotee.

Coumar/n and Tonquin Bean is fresh and bracing for a person fatigued ; its effect is chiefly mental and etheric but pleasant on the astral, its colour is a greenish yellow, astrally and mentally a rather sharp green, etherically a greyish green.

Cinnamon Oil is stimulating and works largely along astral lines arousing affection, sympathy, joyousness and good feeling through its maroon colour with almost dark crimson flashes in it.

Mastic, a warm green, is etherically stimulating; Thus works chiefly on the etheric as a health-giver and cleanser.

Storax, an indigo colour, arouses a rather unintelligent devotion of the militant type.

1 Compiled from books and talks of C. W. Leadbeater.

SOOTHING AND SYMPATHETIC INCENSE'

Olibanum, " the special incense of devotion ; its fragrance tends strongly to awaken that feeling in those who are at all capable of it, and to deepen and intensify it where it already exists." It is dark blue and soothing.

Cinnamon Wood, burnt sienna, has an effect like olibanum.

Juniper Oil, dark blue, also cleansing and soothing.

Indian Jatamansi or Spikenard, violet-blue, with a touch of mauve, sympathetic, soothing.

Powdered Sugar, dull crimson, soothing and relaxing to the astral body.

Oil of Rosewood, a rose-madder, mildly affectionate.

Geranium Oil, " a rather pretty greenish brown " but with a touch of the personal about its sympathy.

Cascar/l/a, a sympathetic yellow green.

SOME BALANCING BLENDS 1

Sandalwood and Rose ; Jasmine and Sandalwood ; Rose and Lemon the

latter a particularly happy blend because the lemon, so severely mental, is softened by the rose.

Number Eleven: This blend of Sandalwood 2, Rosewater 2, Benzoin 5 grs., Sugar-candy 7 grs., oil of cloves £ gr., was pronounced as very fine for a " T, S. meeting " yielding chiefly violet-rose and golden, "a glory in the scent world, almost overpowering in its splendour on the astral; the rose calling up to the mind and feeling the all-embracing love of God." Many variations were tried of this recipe but none seemed an improvement save the addition of Olibanum gr. x per dram which built up the lower octave of the astral.

" C. W. L.'s own Rec/pe," furnished by L. W. Burt of Sydney: 1 Ib. Olibanum, J Ib. Benzoin ; £ Ib. Gum Thus. Grind and mix together. Any or all of the following Oils may be added : Bergamot, Geranium, Lemon, Cloves, Sandalwood, Rose Attar, one table-spoonful to the quantity of Incense. Mix well. (If we dip a stick of Adyar incense in oil, we need not specially compound any incense.)

These potencies are in our hands to use at will. Just as the great Angels of the Rays flash Their response to Their Altar Censing during the Eucharist, so will our principles flash their response to these fragrant lovelinesses. We do not need quantities of perfume for this purpose. If we rub lightly a common stone or shell with our favourite essential oil, for weeks it will return to us an elusive scent of other-worlds.

HARMLESSNESS

ANNIE BESANT: "There is a Christian legend that as the Christ hung dying in agony on the Cross, He felt against His tortured right hand, pierced by 1 Compiled from books and talks of C. W. Leadbeater.

the cruel nail which held it to the wood, the soft rustle of tiny fluttering wings ; He opened weary eyes and glanced, and there a little brown bird hovered, trying with feeble bill to draw out the firm-fixed nail; His life-blood had stained the tender breast-feathers ; He smiled and blessed ; and, ever after, the crimson breast was the mark of all the robin-race, and they became the Robin Red-Breasts, best-Joved-of English birds.

" Another legend of love of animal to a divine Man in sorrow, this time Hindu : when Ramachandra cried aloud in anguish seeking His ravished wife, a little squirrel of the woods ran up upon His breast, to tell what he had seen of Ravana's flight; and Rama stroked it tenderly with gentle hand, the tiny loving-beast; and all the squirrels since that day have worn the dainty stripes that the divine fingers made in those caressing strokes.

" In all religions the love of the animal for the man, of the man for the animal, has found due place and fit consecration. Go back as far as you will, and you will find animals sanctified by divine contact on the steps by the divine throne. In Egypt Apis manifested as Bull, Pasht as Cat. The Hindu honours the Bull of Mahadeva, the Swan of Brahma, the lordly Eagle of Vishnu Among the Parsis Mithra had His Bull, and the Chaldean Cannes had His Fish. Among the Christians a favourite symbol is the Lamb, and what more loving and tender name is ascribed to Christ than that of ' the good Shepherd ' ?

11 Everywhere we find the same idea ; and why ? In order that by the holiest sanction religion could give, the animal might be encircled with the halo of divinity, and a tie wrought between the Deity and the brute. Man is a thoughtless and a hasty being, apt to tyrannize over the weak who serve him, apt to forget all he owes to the strong and silent helpfulness of the animals he owns; to recall that debt wise men have lifted the animal into the radiance of the Divine, that the sacredness given to a few might spread out over the animal world. Therefore is this worship so widespread, and the love of the animal interwoven with the holiest feelings of humanity, so that men and women of every creed might admit the righteousness of the holy mission, when any came to voice the needs of the inarticulate, the suffering that could only moan, not complain. If there be one thing more than another that stirs the heart of every right-feeling man and woman, it is the suffering of the helpless who cannot plead for themselves, the suffering of the child in humanity, of the animal in the lower world. These are indeed fit objects of compassion, and those who ignore the claims of the helpless need not hope to receive either justice or mercy for themselves.

" . . . Indians are naturally gentle and kindly, and treat animals well . . . The men and the animals are friends, although masters and servants. The-cattle, goats, sheep, donkeys, need no driving from place to place; they follow their owners to the fields or back to the home. You see a peasant returning from

labour with his bullocks behind him ; look at the eyes of the animals, and you will find them untroubled and friendly. This harmonious relation of man and beast grows out of religious feeling ; the Hindu believes in One Life, One Consciousness, in vegetable, animal and man, so that the animal shares the Life that lives in the man. The Hindu is taught to see God living in the animals round him . . . The cow is regarded as the mother, and is fed and tended as a religious duty . . ,

" The results of indifference to animal-suffering are far-reaching. The animal has a claim on every one of us for personal care and personal protection. . . . Every act of cruelty which we see and do not try to check forms part of our destiny in days to come ; we share in the cruel action we do not hinder, and we must share also in the inevitable reaction of pain to the doer. . . . Every act of cruelty which a man sees and does not seek to hinder falls into the mills of God, and is ground out as pain to himself. . . .

" On the more evolved lies the burden of guiding evolution in his own sphere, and society goes upward, or begins to descend in evolution as cruelty is, or '\3 not, inflicted or tolerated. The qualities that distinguish man from the brute are mercy, tenderness, gentleness, compassion. Human bodies are formed to express these, and their nervous system is builded as an apparatus for this expression. It is no excuse for human cruelty that the lion kills the stag, the cat the mouse, that 4 cruelty is in the scheme of nature.' It is not in our part of the scheme. Human beings are higher than animals. . . . Where indifference to cruelty is found it •means the decay of society, its entrance on the downward grade , where acquiescence in cruelty is found—under whatever name the cruelty may shelter itself—that society is decadent and has no future, unless it changes its way ; the bodies born into it will become coarser, generation after generation, until it has sunken into savagery.

" . . . It is ours to teach the animals with which we come into contact— they are future human beings- to develop their intelligence and train their faculties, •in the same spirit—though on a lower level—in which we train our children. You are not brutal to your own children, though you call them yours. Oh I be tender and compassionate to these younger souls encased in animal bodies, and let your superiority be the measure of your gentleness. Then shall the whole atmosphere of your surroundings change, and cruelty, ill-treatment, indifference will give place to mercy, gentleness and tenderness. Animals have their rights, and we have duties towards them, for rights belong to the weak and duties to the strong.

" Go forth, then, as knights, for the protection of the weak. . . . Take tip as your personal duty the protection of every animal that comes in your way . see to it that no avoidable suffering is inflicted upon any. So shall you deserve and

•win that noblest of ail titles : ' The friend of ail creatures.' " The Protection of

Animals, a Lecture delivered in Calcutta, on a Good Friday

HYMNS OF PRAISE

TE DEUM LAUDAMUS Antiphon

People : Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart and with all thy strength.

Priest: We praise Thee, O God: we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord. All the earth doth worship Thee: the Father everlasting. To Thee all Angels cry aloud • the heavens and ail the powers therein. To Thee Cherubim and Seraphim : continually do cry, Holy, Holy, Holy : Lord God of Hosts. Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty. of Thy glory. The glorious company of the Apostles • praise Thee. The goodly fellowship of the Prophets : praise Thee. The noble army of Martyrs : praise Thee.

The Holy Church throughout all the world : doth acknowledge Thee; The Father : of an infinite Majesty ; Thine honourable, true : and only Son ; Also the Holy Ghost : the Comforter. Thou art the King of Glory O Christ. Thou art the everlasting Son : of the Father. Thou sittest at the right hand of God : in the glory of the Father. Thou art Alpha and Omega: Thou first and last of all. Offspring and root of David : Thou bright and morning Star. Day by day we magnify Thee.

And we worship Thy Name : ever world without end. Thou who from both dost come : O God the Holy Ghost. Thee, too, O Paraclete : we worship and adore. Thou art the Fount of life : the living Fire of love. Three in One: most holy Lord and God. Co-equal, co-eternal: before beginning and without an end. We Thy servants live in Thee : and all we have is Thine. We bless Thee, we magnify Thee : most joyously we serve Thee. O mighty, glorious Trinity: let all the people praise Thee. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son : and to the Holy Ghost; As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be • world without end. Amen.

People : Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart and with all thy strength.

Priest: The Lord be with you. People : And with thy spirit. 38

SAINT FRANCIS' SONG OF PRAISE

Most High, Omnipotent, Good Lord ! Honour, glory, and praise

And all blessings are Thine alone. To Thee a hymn I raise,

Though to utter even Thy name all are unfit always.

Praised be Thou, my Lord, for all that Thou for us hast made.

Praised be Thou for Brother Sun, who to dispel night's shade

Bringeth us the day and its light, so beautiful, so bright,

And whose splendour is symbol of Thy glory to our sight.

Praise to Thee, my Lord, for the Moon, whom as Sister we greet,

And for the Stars with which Thou dost heaven's glory complete.

Praise to Thee, my Lord, for Brother Wind, and for Air and Cloud.

Praise to Thee, be sky serene, or tempest rage aloud,

Mid strife and calm, calm and strife, all things are sustained in life.

Praise to Thee, my Lord, for Sister Water, humble, holy,

Rend'ring service, much prized, to all, e'en to the most lowly.

Praise to Thee, my Lord, for Brother Fire, so cheerful and bright,

So mighty, so strong, by whom Thou illuminest the night.

Praise to Thee, my Lord, for our Sister, dear Mother Earth,

Of all the protector, nourisher, and keeper from dearth,

Who to grass, and fruits, and flowers of divers hues, giveth birth

Praise to Thee,' O my Lord, for all who for Thy love's sake

Each other pardon, and of hardship and suffering partake.

Blessed are they who mid tribulation in peace are found.

For by Thee, most High, they shall with eternal joy be crowned.

Praise to Thee, my Lord, for Sister Death, claiming us all,

No man living escapeth her; ail must obey her call.

Woe to them who die in mortal sin ' But they who are found

In accord with Thy will most holy, shall be blest and crowned ;

The second death shall not them harm, so will their joy abound

O praise ye and bless ye my Lord, and ever thankful be,

And serve ye Him with faithful hearts in great humility.

# * * :;:

This Song of Praise, the greater part of which was first recited by Saint Francis when he was ill at San Damiano, is sometimes called " The Song of the Creatures/' inasmuch as Saint Francis in its verses gives voice to the praises ever ascending from all creation to the Creator. Saint Francis himself calls it " The Song of Brother Sun," and in its early lines recognizes the Sun as a source of light and beauty, and as transcending in its splendour all other sacramental symbols of the Divine Presence in the world.

—From Saint Francis and His Friends. Rendered into English from Franciscan Chronicles, by Horatio Grimley, M.A., p. 261

THE SONG OF PRAISE TO THE >EON

Hail unto Thee, O Thou All-Cosmos of aethereal Spirit!

Hail unto Thee, O Spirit, who doth extend from Heaven to Earth, and from

the Earth that's in the middle of the orb of Cosmos to the ends of

the Abyss! Hail unto Thee, O Spirit, who doth enter into me, who clingeth unto me or

who doth part Thyself from me according to the Will of God in goodness

of His heart! Hail unto Thee, O Thou Beginning and Thou End of Nature naught can

move !

Hail unto Thee, Thou Liturgy unweariable of Nature's Elements ! Hail unto Thee, O Thou Illumination of the Solar Beam that shines to serve

the world !

Hail unto Thee, Thou Disk of the night-shining Moon, that shines unequally! Hail, ye Spirits all of the asthereal Statues of the Gods! Hail to You all, whom holy Brethren and holy Sisters hail in giving of their

praise !

0 Spirit, Mighty One, most mighty circling and incomprehensible Configuration of the Cosmos, hail!—celestial, aethereal, water-like, earth-like, fire, like, air-like, like unto light, to darkness like, shining as do the Stars - moist, hot, cold Spirit'

1 praise Thee, God of gods, who ever doth restore the Cosmos, and who doth

store the Depth away upon its Throne of Settlement no eye can see, who

fixest Heaven and Earth apart, and coverest the Heaven with Thy

golden everlasting wings, and makest firm the Earth on everlasting

Thrones! O Thou who hangest up the /Ether in the lofty Height, and scatterest the

Air with Thy self-moving Blasts, who mak'st the Water eddy round in

circles ! O Thou who raisest up the Fiery Whirlwind, and makest thunder, lightning,

rain, and shakings of the earth, O God of /Eons ! Mighty art Thou, Lord God, O Master of the All!

—Poemanc/res, I, 408, 409

A SONG OF HERMES

Let all Nature accept the utterance of my hymn.

Open thou, Earth. Unlock the Treasures of the Rain. Stir not,

ye trees.

For I am going to hymn Creation's Lord, the Father of All, the One. Ye Heavens open, ye winds be still, and let the deathless circle of the Gods

receive my words. For I will sing the praise of Him who created all things, who fixed the Earth,

who hung up the Heavens, who commanded the Ocean to afford sweet

water to the Earth, the world inhabited and unhabited, for the nourishment and use of all beings ;

Who commanded the Fire to shine on Gods and Men, in all their deeds. Let us together give Him praise, Sublime above the Heavens, Lord of all the

Universe. 'Tis He who is the Eye of the Mind ; may He accept the praise of all my

powers. O all ye powers that are within me, praise the One and Father of all. Sing

together with my will, all ye powers that are within me. O Holy Wisdom, by Thee illumined, I magnify the Light which Mind alone

perceives; I rejoice in the joy of the Mind. Sing praises, all my powers , sing praise, my self-control, sing praise, my

uprightness, the praises of the Righteous ; sing thou, my concord, the

Concord of the Universe. Through me sing, Truth, Truth's praises. Praise thou, O Good, the Good.

O Life and Light, from us to you our praises flow. Thanksgiving to Thee, O Father, the energy of all my powers. Thanksgiving to Thee, O God, the power of all my energies. Through me Thy Word sings praises unto Thee. Receive through my words

this reasonable oblation. Thus cry aloud the powers within me ; they praise Thee, Father of All; they

do Thy Will; Thy Will from Thee and unto Thee. O Father of All, accept from all beings their reasonable sacrifice. The Godhead that is within us, O Life, preserve it; O Light, illumine

it; O God, inspire it. Like a shepherd. Thy Mind tendeth Thy Word ; O Creator-Spirit, who be-

stoweth the Spirit on all Thy creatures. For Thou art God ; Thy man crieth aloud his praises unto Thee, through Fire,

through Air, through Earth, through Water, through Spirit, through all

Thy creatures. In Thy Eternity I have found the gift of praise ; and in

Thy Will, the object of my seeking, have I found rest.

—The Divine Pymander TO ALLAH !

Glory be to Thee, O Allah ; and Thine is the praise, and blessed is Thy name and exalted is Thy Majesty and there is none to be served besides Thee.

Allah is one ; Allah is He of whom nothing is independent; He begets not, nor is He begotten and none is like Him.

Allah is the greatest of all. Glory to my Lord, the Great. All prayers and worship rendered through words, actions and wealth are due to Allah. Peace be on you, O Prophet, and the mercy of Allah and His blessings. Peace be on us and the righteous servants of Allah.

HOMAGE TO OUR LORD THE SUN. THE SPLENDOUR OF ATON

The dawning is beautiful in the horizon of heaven,

O living Aton, Beginning of life !

When thou risest in the eastern horizon of heaven,

Thou fillest every land with thy beauty ;

For thou art beautiful, great, glittering, high over the earth ;

Thy rays, they encompass the lands, even all thou hast made

Thou art Re, and thou hast carried them all away captive ;

Thou bindest them by thy love.

Though thou art afar, thy rays are on earth ;

Though thou art on high, thy footprints are the day.

Night

When thou settest in the western horizon of heaven .

The world is in darkness like the dead.

They sleep in their chambers,

Their heads are wrapt up,

Their nostrils stopped, and none seeth the other.

Stolen are all their things, that are under their heads,

While they know it not.

Every lion cometh forth from his den,

All serpents, they sting.

Darkness reigns,

The world is in silence,

He that made them has gone to rest in his horizon

[Thou makest darkness and it is night,

Wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth.

The young lions roar after their prey ,

They seek their meat from God - Psalms, CIV, 20-21]

Day and Man

Bright is the earth,

When thou risest in the horizon,

When thou shinest as Aton by day.

The darkness is banished,

When thou sendest forth thy rays,

The Two Lands (Egypt) are in daily festivity,

Awake and standing upon their feet,

For thou hast raised them up.

Their limbs bathed, they take their clothing ;

Their arms uplifted in adoration to thy dawning.

Then in all the world, they do their work.

[The sun anseth, they get them away,

And lay them down in their dens.

Man goeth forth unto his work,

And to his labour until the evening.—Psa/ms, CIV, 20-23]

Day and the Animals and Plants

All cattle rest upon their herbage, All trees and plants flourish, The birds flutter in their marshes,

Their wings uplifted in adoration to thee.

Ail the sheep dance upon their feet,

All winged things fly,

They live when thou hast shone upon them.

Day and the Waters

The barques sail up-stream and down-stream alike. Every highway is open because thou hast dawned. The fish in the river leap up before thee, And thy rays are in the midst of the great sea.

[Yonder is the sea, great and wide,

Wherein are things creeping innumerable

Both small and great beasts.

There go the ships ,

There is leviathan, whom thou hast formed to sport with him.— Psalms, CIV, 25-26]

Creation of Man

Thou art he who Greatest the man-child in woman,

Who makest seed in men,

Who giveth life to the son in the body of his mother,

Who soothest him that he may not weep,

A nurse (even) in the womb.

Who giveth breath to animate every one that he maketh,

When he cometh forth from the body,

. . . on the day of his birth,

Thou openest his mouth in speech,

Thou suppliest his necessities.

Creation of Animals

When the chicklet crieth in the egg-shell,

Thou givest him breath therein, to preserve him alive.

When thou hast perfected him

That he may pierce the egg,

He cometh forth from the egg,

To chirp with all his might;

He runnneth about upon his two feet,

When he hath come forth therefrom.

Ihe Whole Creation

How manifold are all thy works !

They are hidden from before us,

O thou sole god, whose powers no other possesseth. 1

Thou didst create the earth according to thy desire.

While thou wast alone :

Men, all cattle large and small,

All that are upon the earth,

That go about upon their feet;

All that are on high,

That fly with their wings.

1 The other hymns frequently say, " O thou sole god, beside whom there is no other."

The countries of Syria and Nubia,

The land of Egypt;

Thou settest every man in his place,

Thou suppliest their necessities.

Every one has his possessions,

And his days are reckoned.

Their tongues are divers in speech,

Their forms likewise and their skins,

For thou, divider, hast divided the peoples.

[O lord, how manifold are thy works '

In wisdom hast thou made them all ,

The earth is full of thy creatures. Psalms, CIV, 24]

Watering the Earth

Thou makest the Nile in the Nether World,

Thou bringest it at thy desire, to preserve the people alive.

O lord of them all, when feebleness is in them,

O lord of every house, who risest for them,

O sun of day, the fear of every distant land,

Thou makest (also) their life.

Thou hast set a Nile in heaven,

That it may fall for them,

Making floods upon the mountains, like the great sea ;

And watering their fields among their towns.

How excellent are thy designs, O lord of eternity I

The Nile in heaven is for the strangers,

And for the cattle of every land, that go upon their feet;

But the Nile, it cometh from the nether world for Egypt.

Thus thy rays nourish every garden,

When thou risest they live, and grow by thee.

Jhe Seasons

Thou makest the seasons, in order to create all thy works ;

Winter bringing them coolness,

And the heat (of summer likewise).

Thou hast made the distant heaven to rise therein,

In order to behold all that thou didst make,

While thou wast alone,

Rising in thy form as living Aton,

Dawning, shining afar off and returning.

Beauty due to Light

Thou makest the beauty of form, through thyself alone.

Cities, towns and settlements,

On highway or on river,

All eyes see thee before them,

For thou art Aton of the day over the earth.

Revelation to the King

Thou art in my heart,

There is no other that knoweth thee,

Save thy Son Ikhnaton.

Thou hast made him wise in thy designs

And in thy might.

Even as thou hast made them.

When thou hast risen, they live ;

When thou settest, they die.

For thou art duration, beyond thy mere limbs,

By thee man liveth,

And their eyes look upon thy beauty,

Until thou settest.

All labour is laid aside,

When thou settest in the west,

When thou risest, they are made to grow

for the king

Since thou didst establish the earth,

Thou hast raised them up for thy son,

Who came forth from thy limbs,

The king, living in truth,

The lord of the Two Lands, Neferkhepru-Re, Wan-Re,

The son of Re, living in truth, lord of diadems,

Ikhnaton, whose life is long ;

(And for) the great royal wife, his beloved,

Mistress of the Two Lands, Nefernefru-aton, Nofretete,

Living and flourishing for ever and ever.

—J. H Breasted, A History of Egypt, pp. 371-75, 761.

Ikhnaton deserted Thebes and the worship of Amon, the Sun-God, and set up his Court at Tell-el-Amarna, on the other side of the Nile, and there he established the religion of Aton, the power manifested in the Sun, from which he took his name. As a religious reformer Ikhnaton temporarily destroyed the worship of Amon—he accounted it sinful to shed blood and to take life , he " promoted the idea of universal brotherhood and conceived of a beautiful world pervaded by universal peace." (Donald Mackenzie in Egyptian Myth and Legend.) Aton was the First Cause manifested by the Sun, from which all things came, and from which ever issued forth the life-giving and life-sustaining influence symbolized by rays ending in hands that support and nourish human beings. Professor Flinders Petrie says : " No such grand theology had ever appeared in the world before, so far as we know, and it is the forerunner of the later monotheist religions, while it is ever more abstract and impersonal, and may well rank as scientific theism. ... If this were a new religion, invented to satisfy our modern scientific conceptions we could not find a flaw in the correctness of its view of the energy of the solar system. ... No rag of superstition or of falsity can be found clinging to this new worship evolved out of the old Aton of Heliopolis." The finest surviving version of this great hymn was found in the tomb of a royal official at

Tell-el-Amarna, and Dr. Breasted's recension is the recognized standard for ali translations. —The Australian Jheosophist. 15 July 1927, p. 8

A HINDU HVMN OF PRAISE

Here is a magnificent hymn of praise given by Hari (the yellow or tawny one) to Rudra in answer to the prayer.

" O Lord, O Janardana, (O Generator), do thou describe unto me the Great Being by reciting whose name a man may cross the dreadful ocean of Samsara (matter)."

Hari: " Reciting the thousand names of Vishnu, the Demiurgus, the great Brahman, the Absolute, Undecaying Self, a man attains to emancipation ... He is the slayer of heroes, the great hero and the great Ishvara adored of all. He is the soul, the great soul, the inward self and above the sky. He is lotus-navelled, the Pad ma-niddhi, the lotus-handed and the holder of club (mace). He is the Great, above the elements, the foremost Purusha and the Demiurgus. He is lotus-waisted, Pundarika, wears a garland of lotuses and is beloved of all. He is lotus-eyed, (and is identical with Brahma) Padmagarbha. born from a lotus, Parjanya (God of Rain) and seated on a lotus. He is devoid of thirst, Padya, (permeating all), the Purusha and Prakriti (Nature) He is Pradhana (Intelligence), the lotus, the earth, the lotus-navelled and. the giver of desirable objects. He is the lord of all, present everywhere, the All, Omniscient, the giver of all and the great. He is identical with all and the entire universe, the witness and upholder of all. He is the Deity who shows favour unto all and is stationed in the hearts of all creatures. He is the protector of all, is adored of all, and is saluted by all the deities. He is at the root of the entire universe, is the destroyer of all and the fire He is the protector of all, pervades all, and the cause of all causes. He is meditated on by all, the friend of all, and the holder of the various forms of the deities. He is the object of the study of all, the commander of the celestials, and is adored of the Gods and Asuras ... He is refuge of the world. ... He is like unto a blue cloud, is pure, and resembles a cloud at the end of a cycle. He is smoky cloud, of yellow hue, of various forms and without any colour. He is of a distorted figure, [crucified or maimed as sacrifice ?] the giver of forms, and is white-hued. He is of all colours, the great yogin, the sacrificer. He is gold-hued and is called gold. His body is made of gold and he puts on a golden girdle. He is the giver of gold or parts of it. He is fond of gold and houses made of gold. He is beautiful and of huge wings and the creator of Suparna. . . . (He plays on the lyre, and is himself the lyre). . . .

"He is perpetually and universally the same. His form is transparent and he is devoid of any form.

" He holds the conch-shell in his hand, is undecaying, and holds also the club and Shranga bow in his hands. He is dark-blue, the image of knowledge . . .

SYMBOLS AT WORK

He is Govinda, the lord of kine and the giver of felicity unto the cow-herds . . . He has one foot, many feet, beauty of foot, a thousand feet, four feet, two feet. . . .

"... He is Pranava, the lord of Pranava, and is adored with Pranava. He is Gayatri ... He is ... upholder of the mount Govardhana ... He is the giver of food, of the form of food, the eater of food, and the ordainer of food. ... He is effulgence, personal grace, radiance, pure and like unto crystal. He is above perception, white-coloured, the all and pure ... He is without any form, without any cause, without any fear, and without any help.

" O bull-emblemed deity (Rudra), I have thus described to you the thousand names of the Lord (Maha) Vishnu destructive of all sins. By reading them a Brahmana attains to Vishnu-hood, a Kshattriya acquires victory, a Vaishya acquires riches, and a Shudra is endued with reverential faith in Vishnu." — Garuda Purana

INCENSE

See Fragrance-Essences.

INTUIJION

G, S. ARUNDAlE, in a lecture on 16 May 1937, gave the following comparisons:

Intuition compared with Intellect

The Lift The Staircase

Direct Realization or Ratiocination

Experience of Truth Wisdom The Bomb of Truth

Intuition, the flute

Intuition

Grows increasingly stronger and more vital

compared with

Knowledge

breaks into the fragments of

intellectual activity is not to be drowned by

Intellect, the drum.

Impulse Waxes and wanes

ANNIE BESANT : Intuition is " a deep inner conviction " of truth which corresponds to " eyesight on the physical plane ... the faculty of buddhi, pure reason." —Talks on the Path of Occultism, p. 210

C. W. LEADBEATER ; " A flash of the real knowledge of the spirit which cannot express itself on any level lower than the buddhic plane. These priceless flashes bring us a knowledge which we feel to be absolutely certain, though in many

cases we cannot give any intellectual reason for it. ... Intuition is always connected with something unselfish." —/6/cf., p. 798

" Intuition can scarcely ever be invoked except when the man is utterly willing to receive its behests as the best and most acceptable guide, without intruding his personal desires." —/bid., p. 367

C. JINARAJADASA : In " this new method of cognition which is intuition . . . a second method of knowledge is recognized, that by unifying the knower with the facts to be known. It is this knowledge by unification which is one of the characteristics of intuition."

And again : " The specific character of intuition is idealism , it judges, not by what is now, but by a fore-ordained future towards which the individual and the event are tending. . . . Intuition never needs correcting, though new facts are discovered ; it has anticipated their occurence. It is as if the intuition had read the future, and its judgments were therefore true for all time." — Karma-less-ness

JEWELS l

C. W LEADBEATER :

Ray Jewel at the Substitutes

Head of Ray

1. Diamond Rock Crystal

2. Sapphire Lapis Lazuli, Turquoise, Sodalite

3. Emerald Aquamarine, Jade, Malachite

4. Jasper Chalcedony, Agate, Serpentine

5. Topaz Citrine, Steatite

6. Ruby Tourmaline, Garnet, Cornelian, Carbuncle,

Thulite, Rhodonite

7. Amethyst Porphyry, Violane.

" Above is a list of the stones peculiar to the seven Rays. It must not be assumed that it is an exhaustive list, because all precious stones are on one or other of the Rays ; these which I have given in the first column stand at the head of their respective Rays in the mineral kingdom, and so are their most appropriate representatives. Why they are so, we do not yet know ; it is apparently not on account of their chemical constitution, for in that respect the sapphire and the ruby are practically identical, yet the forces flowing through them are radically different. Possibly the colour * of the stone may be an important factor. Further investigation will no doubt in time clear up these points; in the meantime, our Priests may depend upon the accuracy of the list, as far as it goes. In a second column I add the names

1 See also Rays and Vishnu. • See Colour.

of some stones of less value, which may be substituted when those in the first column are unobtainable ; but the stones of this second list would need to be larger in size if they are to be equally effective." — Jhe Science of the Sacraments

JEWELS IN HINDU AND OTHER TRADITIONS

Garuda Parana, Chapter LXVIII et seq , is literally a mine of information about precious stones. The story is told of a valiant demon, Vala, who conquered the god Indra and the celestials. Vala was finally bested by a trick and gave up his body on the altar of sacrifice. " Thus Vala yielded up his ghost for the good of the universe and the welfare of the gods, and behold, the severed limbs and members of his sanctified body were converted into the seeds of gems."

Diamond. From his bone came the Diamond, one of the greatest of treasures to the Ruler, though certain colours of diamonds were appropriate to each caste. It was thought better that women should not wear diamonds " as they possessed the mystic virtue of making them sterile and unhappy ... A king wearing a diamond dazzling with lightning flashes is sure to subdue the prowess of his neighbouring monarchs and to exercise an unbounded control upon his vassals and liege subjects."

Ancient medieval lore also lists the diamond as precious above all other natural bodies, Paracelsus stating that the power of the diamond was so fatal that no remedy could correct its venom. India links it with Venus, the white lotus, the east and the Pea of Delichos.

Pearl. From the teeth of Vala came the Pearl, which protects from evil influence. The western ancients believed that the pearl especially fortified a mother's heart and helped her to nourish her young. The pearl is believed in India to be sacred to the Moon, in the West to Venus.

/$ this one of the unknown jewels ? Garuda Purana tells of a " cloud-grown pearl which rarely reaches this mortal globe . . . Outshining the combined effulgence of the fire, the moon, and the myriads of scintillating stars, such a pearl, like the dawn of day, can dispel the gloom of even the darkest night on earth. The whole earth, girdled by the four oceans containing innumerable gems in their fathomless depths, cannot be deemed as the adequate price of such a pearl, even if she be covered over with layers of pure gold. A man, born in indigence and of humble parents, but happening to be the possessor of such a pearl, ... is sure to be the paramount sovereign of the entire surface of the Earth . . . and no evil would ever strike the land to the extent of a thousand Yojanas round the place of his birth."

Ruby. From the blood of the demon was born the Ruby seed, which by the " effulgence of its own stirring and sterling properties " protects a man from even

deadly enemies. It was also believed by both East and West to protect from disease or plague. The medieval tradition is that the ruby changed colour and became obscured when danger threatened, recovering its brilliancy when the peril passed away. India linked it with the ruby-sun, the red lotus and wheat, placing its direction in the centre.

Emerald. From the bile of Vala was born the Emerald. It is significant in view of the correlation of the emerald to the Sea of the Circle that Garuda Parana says : " The wise and the intelligent should wear an emerald set in gold at the time of religious ablution, or of rinsing the mouth with water on the occasion of a religious sacrifice, or during the performance of protective incantations, or at the time of making gifts of cows and gold, or during the performance of obsequious rites done unto the gods and one's departed ancestors, or for the cure of diseases, brought about by the deranged condition of the vital winds, or incidental to the effects of poison. . ."

The Hindu almanac links the emerald with Mercury, the white Malabar Glory lily, the lentil pulse and the north-east direction

The alchemists of the middle ages wore an emerald with a scarabaeus thereon carved as a certain remedy against all poison, also for the purpose of obtaining favours. It had a calming effect upon the tempests

Sapphire From the eyes of the lord of the demons, which resembled the full-blown blue lilies, were born the Sapphires about which " learned men, wise in the wisdom of the Shastras, are loud in ... praise."

In the West it was sacred to Apollo, gave courage, had power to reconcile people at strife, kept its wearers from falling into the ambuscades of enemies, and preserved its wearers from madness and the bleeding heart that cometh of anguish. It lightened the body and preserved the limbs.

In India it is considered sacred to Saturn and is linked with the blue lotus or water lily, sesamum and the west.

Lapis Lazuli. From the thundering war-cry of the lord of the demons, when the bosom of the primordial ocean was violently agitated, there came forth a formation of packs of sable clouds and Lapis Lazuli were formed under their influence, as of so many effulgent shootings off from that primordial sky.

In India this is linked with Rahu, the ascending Node of the Moon, as also with the coral tree, thorn apple, mandara, black gram and the south-west.

Topaz. From the skin of Vala's body came the Topaz whose virtue consists in removing the sterility of a woman and in crowning her with the glory of maternity. It is linked with Jupiter, jasmine, Bengal gram and the north in the Indian pantheon.

In the West it was considered to have calming and sedative influence, and especially a good effect against melancholy, evil thoughts and bad dreams.

Is this the Opal ? From the nails ' of the deceased Vala, " scattered by the wind in the lovely tufts of the lotus plants, were transformed . . . the seeds of the gems known as the Karketanam [Opal ?], the most prized of all gems in the world.

" A Karketanam is usually found to be possessed of a hue like the colours of honey, blood and the moonbeam blended together, and shines with a peculiar dazzling effulgence of a yellowish copper-tinged shade. A Karketanam which is blue or white or lustreless should be looked upon as of inferior quality."

The very best of these stones without cracks, fissures, etc., due to a deranged . . . process of crystallization in the course of their growth, should be looked upon " as extremely rare and the holiest of the holies."

" A Karketanam, set in an article or an ornament of gold, and appearing as if glowing with the blaze of a living fire, acts as the greatest known panacea, and should be regarded as endued with the mystic virtue of increasing the progeny and duration of life of its wearer, and of bringing happiness to his household by destroying the evil propensities of his mind. . . . Men who use such a Karketanam gem of high and wonderful virtues . . . are sure to be the masters of untold wealth, and are glorified in the world and enjoy universal fame and perpetual felicity amidst the unsolicited affections of many a true, tested and devoted friend, ..."

In the West the opal partaking of the colour of every other gem, was supposed to possess all their virtues. In its presence the witch muttered her incantations in vain ... it enabled the wearer to walk safely in the midst of pestilence and venom.

Is this Stone perhaps the Unknown Gem of the Point ? From the seeds of the lord cast into a country situate north of the Himalayas was born the Bhishma-stone " of a white colour like that of a conch-shell and resplendent like a ray of the unclouded sun, while the one of a comparatively later origin is sometimes mistaken for a diamond.

" The man who devoutly wears a pure Bhishma-stone set in gold about his neck perpetually meets with the good in life, all fierce beasts flee him, the libations he offers to the dead give satisfaction for years to come, poisons readily yield to him, he is immune to the dangers of water and fire alike, and thieves dare not intrude upon the precincts of his house."

Pu/aJcas, another unknown stone, probably a type of jasper or agate from description, were also born of the nails of the demon, and are deemed to grant

increase of wealth and progeny to the wearers.

>»

The Agate in the West was highly esteemed for the power to avert accidents, calm tempests and stay violence. The Jacinth or ladnth also took the same line as the agate, of calming, soothing, and increasing mirth. 1 Both the finger-nail and the opal use silicates in their formation.

Gold was considered as the first production of the sacred element Fire.

On the Aqua Marine, sea captains carved Neptune for safety.

The Sardonyx rendered men discreet in valour. The Cornelian had power o reconcile people at strife. The Beryl incited courage even in the timid. The Amber was supposed to be a natural protective for young children, The Carbuncle was a singular protection against plague.

The Bloodstone, sacred in the West to Mars, in the East was regarded as being the outcome of the complexion of the lord of the demons and was deemed to be, like the sapphire, wealth-increasing.

The Cora/, which came forth from the entrails of the lord of the demons, was another stone of good fortune, judged as sacred to Mars, the Jackbread tree, the dal (gram), and southern direction

The Crystal which arose from the fat of the demon king was judged as being the highest stone to absolve man from sin.

The Amethyst, not specifically mentioned in Garuda Purana, was a stone much valued in the West, as that of Bacchus, and as having power ever the elements.

While much superstition came to be attached to these various sacred jewels, undoubtedly the story of Vala is an allegory of esoteric significance, had one its key.

KALI YUGA

" Once on a time the sages assembled and discussed at what season the least morality obtained the greatest reward, and by whom it was most easily displayed. In order to terminate the discussion they went to Veda Vyasa to remove their doubts . . . Being thus accosted by the ascetics, Vyasa smiled and said to them . . . ' The fruit of penance, of continence, of silent prayer, and the like, practised in the Krita age for ten years, in the Treta for one year, in the Dvapara for a month, is obtained in the Kali age in a day and night; therefore I did say: " Excellent, excellent is the Kali age." The reward which a man obtains in the Krita age by abstract meditation, in the Treta by sacrifice, in the Dvapara by adoration, he receives in the Kali Yuga by merely reciting the names of Keshava. O pious and great ascetics, in the Kali age, by very little exertion men attain to exalted virtue, and it is for this reason I speak highly of the Kali Yuga ... in the Krita and other ages great were the toils of the regenerate to perform their duty.' [Said Parasara] I have also communicated to you, O excellent Maitreya, the secret—this one great virtue of the otherwise vicious Kali age." — Vishnupuranam, Part VI, Section 2

KEYS JO THE SECRET WISDOM

H. P. BLAVATSKY: " All this is very puzzling to one who is unable to read and understand the Puranas except in their dead-letter sense . . . [Footnote] Yet this

sense, if once mastered, will turn out to be the secure casket which holds the keys to the Secret Wisdom. True, a casket so profusely ornamented that its fancy-work hides and conceals entirely any spring for opening it, and thus makes the unintuitional believe it has not, and cannot have, any opening at all. Still the keys are there, deeply buried, yet ever present to him who searches for them."

—The Secret Doctrine, II, 618 (Adyar ed, IV, 156)

KRISHNA, SHR;

The Divine Youth, Avatara or Incarnation of Vishnu, whose flute awakens the world to rapturous ecstasy. Occultists say this was the First Incarnation of Maitreya Bodhisattva as World Teacher.

LAY A CENTRE

See Point quoting The Secret Doctrine. I, 607 (Adyar Ed. II, 280).

LINE

• VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL

Vertical Polarization : A special puja performed by those devoted to Shiva is to maintain a perpendicular position of the torso for twenty-four hours on the day of His great tapas, Mahashivaratri. Even the ordinary householder worships Shiva in His tapas by thus refraining on this one day from placing his body in contact with the horizontal currents of Mother Earth.

This same discipline is an occasional practice observed by the Buddhist bhikku; the younger among the brethren for one to three nights in a month, the elder for a week, and the most holy whose temperament attracts them to this discipline spend decades of their lives, entirely in the perpendicular, thus polarizing their bodies to the North and South heavenly currents rather than to the East and West mother currents. This does not mean sleeplessness, for the body adjusts itself to the new regime, only the very young monks needing to wear the breast strap to maintain the upright position of torso in sleep.

In the Northern Buddhist Dorje or Sceptre Posture, the spinal column is visualized as a pile of metallic coins one above the other.

See also Rod of Power and Vishnu.

FROM LINE TO CIRCLE

The Ankh-Tie. The Secret Doctrine, quoting from Gerald Massey's The Natural Genesis, which Madame Blavatsky said contained " more information ... on the cross and circle than any other work we know of, " : " The wheel emblem unites the cross and circle in one, as does the hieroglyphic cake and the Ankh-tie

This Ankh-tie is compared with the " Pasha, a cord which the four-armed Shiva holds in the hand of his right back arm . . . The Pasha is held in the hand in such a way that the first finger and hand near the thumb make the cross, or loop and crossing."

Though this symbol is so vividly depictive of early embryological development (see the Symbols through the Kingdoms) The Secret Doctrine states: "As an emblem of ' door, gate, mouth, the place of outlet' it signifies the ' strait gate ' that leads to the Kingdom of Heaven, far more than the ' birthplace' in a physiological sense.

" It is a cross in a circle and Crux Ansata truly ; but it is a cross on which all the human passions have to be crucified before the Yogi passes through the ' strait gate,' the narrow circle that widens into an infinite one, as soon as the Inner Man has passed the threshold." —II. 576 (Adyar ed., IV, 116 et seq.)

The Serpent swallowing his Jail. Before the inner vision of Kekule, who had been vainly trying through the theory of the Chain or Line formation to solve the problem of the union of certain chemical elements of equal valency, there flashed the picture of the Linear Serpent swallowing his tail. He saw the answer at once, set up his theory of close or circular formation which opened up the field of Aromatic Chemistry, now one of the most important branches of the Science.

In The Secret Doctrine, attention is also called to this very old symbol of the Linear Serpent becoming the circle through swallowing his tail, a symbol which is to be found in the Seal of The Theosophical Society. The "first and earliest cross and circle " was so formed, and is described in Bhagavata Parana :

" At the extremity of the tail of that animal, whose head is directed toward the south" —note the vertical orientation—"and whose body is in the shape of a ring [circle], Dhruva [the ex-pole star] is placed; along its tail are Prajapati, Agni, Indra, Dharma, etc.; across its loins, the seven Rishis." [The placing of the oldest of the Deities on the perpendicular Line is significant.]

The Cat Posture. The Line of the body was rolled into the Circular form in certain types of meditation :

" 'Deus en/m et circulus est,' says Pherecydes, in his Hymn to Jupiter. This was a Hermetic axiom, and Pythagoras prescribed such a circular prostration and posture during the hours of contemplation. ' The devotee must approach as much as possible the form of a perfect circle,' prescribes the Secret Book . . . and Pliny says: ' During our worship, we roll up, so to say, our body in a ring- -totum corpus circumagimur.' "

The Secret Doctrine also says that " one of the mystic reasons " why a cat was held sacred was " because of its body being rolled up in a circle when asleep. The posture is prescribed for occult and magnetic purposes, in order to regulate, in

39

a certain way, the circulation of the vital fluid, with which the cat is preeminently endowed. ' The nine lives of a cat' is a popular saying based on good physiological and occult reasons." —II, 576 (Adyar ed., IV, p. 116 et seg.)

LOTUS'

" Every Temple has its Lotus pool for the Lotus has always been the symbol of a true priest. Though its roots grow in the mud beneath the water, it opens in the sunlight, and through its stalk the root knows of what the flower has seen

" Mankind between birth and death knows of the earth body : and that is the roots of the Lotus. All leave their bodies when they sleep, but few there are whose memory of what they do away from earth is not washed away by the waters of Forgetfulness. Some go to the places from whence the Light shines • but only those who have a channel of memory, which is the stalk of the Lotus, can bring-back to Earth what they have seen in the Light." —Joan Grant, Winged Pharaoh

" The Lotus is the product of heat (fire) and water (vapour or ether) ; fire standing ... as a representation of the Spirit of Deity, the active, male, generative principle ; and ether, or the soul of matter, the light of the fire, for the passive female principle, from which everything in this Universe emanated. Hence ether or water is the Mother, and fire is the Father." ,

— The Secret Doctrine. I, 87 (Adyar ed., I, 127)

" While for the Orientalists and profane masses the sentence, Om Man/ Padme Hum, means simply ' Oh the Jewel in the Lotus,' Esoterically it signifies ' Oh my God within me.' . . . For the Lotus is the universal symbol of Kosmos. as the absolute totality, and the Jewel is Spiritual Man, or God."

— Jhe Secret Doctrine, III, 475 (Adyar ed., V, 453)

THE FIVEFOLD FOOTSTOOL (Padukapanchaka)

" Introductory Verse: I meditate on the Guru in the Lotus of a thousand petals, who is radiant like the cool rays of the full moon, whose lotus hands make the gestures which grant blessing and dispel fear His raiment, garland, and perfumes are ever fresh and pure. His countenance is benign. He is in the Hangsa in the head. He is the Hangsa Himself.

"1. I adore the wonderful White Lotus of twelve letters [petals] which is within the womb of, and inseparable from, the pericarp of the Lotus in which is the Brahmarandhra, and which in adorned by the channel of Kundali.

" 2. I adore the Abode of Shakti in the place where the two pericarps come together. It is formed by the lines A, Ka, and Tha , and the letters Ha, La, and Ksha, which are visible in each of its corners, give it the character of a Mandala [that yantra wherein Divinity is summoned and worshipped]

1 See also Svast/ka (The Tibetan Wheel of the Law), Symbols, Vishnu, and Hymns of Praise,

" 3. In my heart * I meditate on the Jewelled Altar (Manipitha), and on Nlda and Bindu as within the triangle aforespoken. The pale red glory of the gems in this altar shames the brilliance of the lightning flash. Its substance is Chit.

"4. I intently meditate on the three lines above it (Manipitha), beginning with the Line of Fire, and on the brilliance of Manipitha, which is heightened by the lustre of those lines. I also meditate on the primordial Hangsa, which is the all-powerful Great Light in which the Universe is absorbed.

" 5. The mind there contemplates the two Lotuses which are the Feet of the Guru, and of which the ruby-coloured nectar is the honey. These two Feet are :ool like the nectar of the Moon, and are the place of all auspiciousness.

" 6. I adore in my head the two Lotus Feet of the Guru. The jewelled Footstool on which they rest removes all sin. They are red like young leaves. Their nails resemble the moon shining in all her glory. Theirs is the beautiful lustre of otuses growing in a lake of nectar.

" 7 This hymn of praise of the Fivefold Footstool was uttered by Him of : ive Faces [Shiva who is the four directions and also the Centre Ishana]. By (the •ecitation and hearing of) it is attained that good which is gained by (the recitation and hearing of) all the hymns in praise of Shiva. Such fruit is only attainable by great labour in the Wandering (Sangsara)." —Arthur Avalon, Jhe Serpent Power

In the Commentary written by Shrikalicharana on Verse 6, are quoted other lymns of praise to the Lotus Flower.

The Purashcharana-rasollasa has the following dialogue :

" Shri Mahadeva said : ' There in the pericarp of the wonderful everlasting .otus of a thousand petals meditate always on your own Guru.' Shri Parvati said : The head of the Great Lotus of a thousand petals, O Lord, is always downward urned; then say, O Deva, how can the Guru constantly dwell there ?' Shri Mahadeva said : ' Well hast thou asked, O Beloved. Now listen whilst I speak to Thee, "he great Lotus Sahasrara has a thousand petals, and is the abode of Sadashiva and s full of eternal bliss. It is full of all kinds of delightful fragrance, and is the place >f spontaneous bliss. The head of this Lotus is always downward, but its pericarp is ilways upward, and united with Him is Kundalini in the form of a triangle.' "

The Kangka/a-Ma/»n/ says : " Meditate on the excellent Antaratma in the .otus of a thousand petals, and on the shining throne which is between Nada and Jindu, and on it (the throne) meditate constantly upon your own Guru, who is like a fountain of Silver."

The Yama/a says : " Meditate (on your Guru) in the Lotus of a thousand >etals. His cool beauty is like that of the full moon, and His Lotus hands are lifted ip to grant boons and to dispel fear."

» 1 The heart is said to be connected with the twelve-petalled heart of the Crown Lotus.

•by the Greek and Latin Churches, who made .of it a messenger, as do now the Christians, who have replaced it with the water-lily.'

" The importance and significance of the Lotus, in the eyes of our revered founder, Madame Blavatsky, may be understood by the following quotations from The Secret Doctrine:

" ' The Lotus plant exists not only as a miniature embryo in its seed (a physical characteristic), but its prototype is present in an ideal form in the astral light from " dawn " to " night" during the manvantaric period.'

" In speaking of a reference given to the Fourth Race ' Flower of Power,' in the Stanzas of Dzyan, she says : ' The Flower of Power is now the Lotus; what it may have been at that period, who can tell ? '

"This is borne out by Dr. Besant and Bishop Leadbeater, who from their earliest observations revealed to us the marvellous fact that the invisible meditation form, created by meditation on divine self-sacrifice, was the half-opened Lotus bud ; that our force-centres of the body take the form of Lotus blossoms ; while the whole solar system seen with inner vision is a Lotus flower.

" Many concepts have been given to man's mind and heart through the Lotus symbol. The following are some mentioned in Jhe Secret Doctrine :

" Trie Lotus Seed.. ' The seeds of the Lotus, even before they germinate, contain perfectly-formed leaves, the miniature shapes of what they will become one day, as perfected plants . . . which typifies the fact that the spiritual prototypes of all things exist in the immaterial world before these things become materialized on earth '—true symbol of evolution.

" Jhe Growing Lotus. ' The Lotus plant grows up through the water, having its root in the ilus, or mud, and spreading its flower in the air above. The Lotus thus typifies the life of man and also that of the Cosmos; for the Secret Doctrine teaches that the elements of both are the same, and that both are developing in the same direction. The root of the Lotus sunk in the mud represents material life, the stalk passing up through the water typifies existence in the astral world, and the flower, floating on the water and opening to the sky, is emblematical of spiritual being.' Thus the growing Lotus has long been a symbol of man's life in the three worlds.

" The Lotus Plant. ' The Hindu trimurti or trinity ... in the world of Jdeas, . . . Creation, Preservation and Destruction, or Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva ; in the world of matter. . . . Earth, Water and Fire, or the Sun, (is) symbolized by the Lotus, a flower that lives by earth, water, and the sun. The Lotus, sacred to Isis, had the same significance in Egypt, whereas in the Christian symbol, the Lotus, not being found in either Judea or Europe, was replaced by the water-lily.'

" The Lotus Flower. ' The Lotus flower, carried in the hands of an angel or a •god, has always meant the idea of Duality or Creation and Generation. In the

Christian religion, in every picture of the Annunciation, Gabriel, the Archangel, .appears to the Virgin Mary, holding in his hand a spray of water-lilies. This .spray typifying Fire and Water, or the idea of Creation and Generation, symbolizes precisley the same idea as the Lotus in the hand of the Bodhisattva who announces to Maha-Maya, Gautama's mother, the birth of Buddha, a World Saviour. Thus also were Osiris and Horus constantly represented by the Egyptians in association with the Lotus flower, both being Sun-Gods or Gods of Fire.'

" Another quotation as to this duality :

" ' One of the symbolical figures for the Dual Creative Power in Nature (matter and force on the material plane) is Padma, the water-lily of heat (Fire) and Water (vapour or Ether): Fire standing in every philosophical and religious system, •even in Christianity, as a representation of the Spirit of Deity, the active generative principle ; and Ether, or the soul of matter, the light of the Fire, for the passive principle from which everything in this universe emanated. Hence, Ether or Water is the Mother, and Fire is the Father.'

" As a symbol of duality, surely, then we can understand why ' He who ever incarnates when faith begins to die out in the world. . . . Padmapani, the Avatara/ representative of the Divine Second Logos, is pictured and called ' He who holds a white Lotus,' ' Saviour of the world,' or simply ' The Lotus Bearer,' for He bears back to a world without faith the Divine Dual Christ Principle—' The Lotus Flower' (for whether this Christ Force works in our aspirations of self-sacrifice, or the Chakras or centres of our bodies, it builds for itself a form to work in—a Lotus flower).

" But back of these many relatively exoteric lessons taught through our Fifth Race ' Flower of Power/ is that underlying esoteric principle of which the Lotus is a true symbol. For we are told that the Lotus is represented as growing out of Vishnu's navel, and on the green pads of which Brahma sits in meditation to create a Universe. In those ancient Stanzas of Dzyan, the world's oldest scriptures, the Lotus is the symbol of the divine Idea of manifestation in the mind of the Logos, in the seed of which is the perfect form of a universe as yet unborn. It is the symbol of the divine Ideal of a universe in the heart of God, our Father, before as yet the creative Logoi had seen within it archetypal forms to copy in the building and fashioning of a manifested universe. The Perfect Universe, the Lotus, existed within the Logos' consciousness before even the beginnings of the coming forth into actual, tangible manifestation. It is the symbol of cosmic creation, cosmic birth. True then is the sight of those who, with inner vision awakened, have seen our solar system as a Lotus flower.

" Its jewel is Man, or God, and when one chants : ' Oh, the Jewel in the Lotus/ one says the age-old prayer : ' Oh, the God within me.'

As this divine and perfect form in God's consciousness becomes the cosmic womb of the manifested universe, the correlation is thus clear as to why in ancient Egypt ' the goddess Hiquit, in the form of the amphibious toad enshrined in a Lotus flower,' is the symbol of resurrection or rebirth, this symbol enduring until early Christian time when it was engraved on the church lamps with the simple words, ' I am the resurrection.'

" As the Lotus in its most ancient meaning symbolized birth, most fitting it is from this standpoint that the day chosen for us to celebrate the passing from us of the objective form of our Founders, should have been called by Madame Blavatsky ' White Lotus Day/ for she herself writes : ' Whether as the Lotus or water-lily it signifies one and the same philosophical idea; namely, the Emanation of the Objective from the Subjective, Divine Ideation, passing from the abstract into the concrete, or visible form.' Thus she gave to those who grieved for her passing the promise of her future objective work in the world, her rebirth, in this symbol of resurrection—the white Lotus." --A. H. Peterson, World Jheosophy, May 1932

MAN

ANNIE BESANT : Man is that being in the Universe in which Highest Spirit and lowest matter meet in Mind or Intelligence.

" Such Units are called technically Monads [Selves]. These are the Sons, abiding from everlasting, from the beginning of a creative age, in the Bosom of the Father, who have not yet been ' made perfect through sufferings ' ; each of them is truly ' equal to the Father as touching his Godhead, but inferior to the Father as touching his manhood ' [Athanasian Creed], and each of them is to go forth into matter in order to render all things subject to himself; he is to be ' sown in weakness ' ; that he may be ' raised in power ' ; from a static Logos enfolding all divine potentialities, he is to become a dynamic Logos unfolding ail divine powers ; omniscient, omnipresent, on his own second plane, but unconscious, ' senseless,' on all others, he is to veil his glory in matter that blinds him, in order that he may become omniscient, omnipresent, on all planes, able to answer to all divine vibrations in the universe instead of to those on the highest only."

" Yet is the Monad very near to us, our SELF, the very root of our being, the innermost source of our life, the one Reality."

" This spiritual Triad, as it is often called, Atma-Buddhi-Manas, [Will, Wisdom-Love, Activity] is described as a seed, a germ of divine life containing the potentialities of its own heavenly Father, its Monad, to be unfolded into powers in the course of evolution. This is the ' manhood ' of the divine Son of the First Logos, animated by the ' Godhead/ the Monad—a mystery truly, but one which is repeated in many forms around us " — A Study In Consciousness

ANNIE BESANT AND C W. LEADBEATER: "Man is the stage (in the unfolding of the Ray of divine Splendour which comes forth from Divinity) in which spirit and matter struggle for the mastery, and when the struggle is over and Spirit has become Lord of Matter, Master of life and death, then Sp ; rit enters on his superhuman evolution and is no longer man, but rather Superman."

— Man : Whence, How and Whither

H. P. BLAVATSKY: Jhe Secret Doctrine : " When we say human, this does not apply merely to our terrestrial humanity, but to the mortals that inhabit any world, i.e , to those Intelligences that have reached the appropriate equilibrium between matter and spirit, as we have now, ever since the middle point of the Fourth Root Race of the Fourth Round was passed. Each Entity must have won-for itself the right of becoming divine, through self-experience."

—I. 132(Adyared., I, 167)

" The word ' men ' at least indicates that these beings were ' manus,' thinking entities, however they differed in form and intellection from ourselves,"

- I, 197(Adyared., I, 227)

An " ancient Commentary " classes Man " as the highest physical and ultimate form on this Earth." -I, 206 (Adyar ed., I, 235)

Another significant statement from the Commentary : " The One [Deity] becomes Two [Deva or Angel], and Two becomes Three [or Man]."

. J, 227 (Adyar ed., I, 254)

The Kabalistic statement is endorsed that " the Angels aspire to become men ; a Perfect Man, a Man-God, is above all the Angels."

—I, 265 (Adyar ed., I, 290)

" In sober truth . . . every so-called ' Spirit ' is either a disembodied or a future man. As from the highest Archangel (Dhyan Chohan) down to the last conscious Builder (the inferior Class of Spiritual Entities), all such are men, having lived aeons ago, in other Manvantaras, on this or other Spheres ; so the inferior, semi-intelligent and non-intelligent Elementals are all future men. The fact alone, that a Spirit is endowed with intelligence, is a proof to the Occultist that such a Being hnust have been a man, and acquired his knowledge and intelligence throughout the human cycle."

—I, 297 (Adyar ed., I, 320)

MANJRA, MANJRAM

(Instrument of thought, sacred speech; derivation doubtful, possibly from Samskrit man=to think or create + tra = to protect Cf. also man = to sound) A series of syllables which, when correctly intoned, unleash potent forces.

An example of a mantra is

Om Mani Padme Hum! (Om = Aum or Pranava, the sacred syllable in its triple form, denoting the Hindu Trimurti. Mani = the Jewel; also the positive Male Principle, from root man^to sound; Padme = Padma, the Lotus, derivation doubtful, from padmat^nch m stalks, or pad^to fall, to attain; Hum = a mantra syllable of power. Many six-syllabled Tibetan mantras begin with Om and end with Hum ) 41 Hail to the Jewel in the Lotus! " or " Hail to Him who is the Jewel in the Lotus ! " The essence mantra of Chenresi (Avalokiteshvara), the patron-god of Tibet, said to liberate even those who recite it in ignorance of its hidden significances. But see The Secret Doctrine (AdyaY ed., pp. 418 et seq.)

—The Adyar Edition of The Secret Doctrine, Glossary

See also C. W. Leadbeater's The Masters and the Path.

MARRIAGE

H. P. B.: The true Yogi respects the creative function. "... the Esoteric teaching . . . adds moreover that, although those descended (spiritually, of course) from the ' Sons of Will and Yoga ' became in time divided into opposite sexes, as their ' Kriyashakti' progenitors did themselves later on ; yet even their degenerate descendants have, down to the present day, retained a veneration and respect for the creative function, and still regard it in the light of a religious ceremony, whereas the more civilized nations consider it as a mere animal function. Compare the Western views and practice in these matters with the Institutions of Manu, in regard to the laws of Grihastha, or married life. The true Brahman is, thus, indeed ' he whose seven forefathers have drunk the juice of the Moon-plant (Soma),' and who is a ' Trisuparna,' for he has understood the secret of the Vedas."

—The Secret Doctrine, II, 297 (Adyar ed., Ill, 297)

MONAD

See Man.

MOTHERHOOD

THE GRAIL OF MOTHERHOOD

" Even more glorious than the sacred offices of King, Priest and Teacher is the priesthood of every woman without exception--priest of the Motherhood of God, and of the Love of God in mysterious exaltation. This Motherhood may be a Motherhood in pure Will, or it may be a Motherhood in pure Wisdom, or it may be a Motherhood in Creative Activity. Ever is it the heart of Life and the Holy Grail of all noble virtues. Hear the words of the mighty Lawgiver of the Aryan Race, Him whom Hindus call Lord Vaivasvata the Manu :

" ' Where women are honoured, the gods rejoice. Where they are not honoured, the family perishes. The teacher of the higher knowledge exceedeth ten teachers of the lower knowledge in the title to respect; the father exceedeth him a hundred times ; but the mother exceedeth the father a thousand times in the weighty virtue of teacher, and in the right to reverence. The order of the householder supports all other orders, even as the air supports all living things, and the mother is the heart of the household/

" In every religion throughout the world God incarnating as Mother shines no Jess gloriously than God incarnating as Father, or as Son, or as the very Fire of Life, the Holy G-host. God the Creator, God the Sustainer, God the Regenerator—in all three dwells God the Mother as heart of each. 1

" Almost is the priesthood of Motherhood too holy for any act of dedication in the merely human world. The very physical body of a woman is an altar already

1 Associated with and inseparable from each aspect of Deity is a Shakti, His Will or outgoing Power, said in exoteric allegory to be the "wife" of the God As the God is represented as •Positive or Male, so His power going forth into matter becomes Maya, Negative, Female This dual manifestation of every greater and lesser aspect of consciousness is expressed by the concept. Every Deva has his Devi, every Shakta His Shakti.

Compare also worship of the Third Person of the Trinity in Egypt as Isis and in Christianity as the Holy Ghost, the emphasis of aspect in Egypt being the " Mother of all that lives " whose symbol was the moon and whose influence outpoured upon her worshippers was " to the music of the shaken sistrum " and " of brilliant blue light veined with delicate silver, as of shimmering moonbeams, the very touch of which brought uplittment and ecstasy," while the Christian conception is that of God " the Encourager, Strengthened or even Helper " and the ecclesiastical colour is the magnificent amaranth-red blending the pure crimson of love and the scarlet-lake of courage in heartening and warming vibrations [Vide The Science of the Sacraments and Glimpses of Masonic History, both by C. W. Leadbeater] This duality in Hinduism of the Third Person or Creative Activity is expressed through Brahma and his Shakti Sarasvati.

The principle of God the Sustainer and Preserver finds its expression in Hinduism through Vishnu-Lakshmi, and in Buddhism we find "the dual Bodhisattva, whose male form is Kwan-shi-ym, the Lord Maitreya, and whose female form is Kwan-ym, the mysterious companion and shakti of the former in almost all religions." (Vide Talks on the Path of Occultism, by C. W. Leadbeater, page 579.)

God the Regenerator is worshipped in Hinduism as Shiva whose Shakti Parvatl Power as Protection— is adored as World Mother.

This Man-Woman duality of each principle is apart from the consideration of the First Principle itself as Man-Woman with an emphasis on Man, the Third Aspect as Woman-Man, with an •emphasis on Woman, and the Second Aspect as blending the two in perfect balance. (Vide The Science of the Sacraments.)

consecrated to a sacrifice. She is a bright shadow of God the Mother, and about the sacred acts of her ministering, of the exercise of her priesthood, hovers in sure benediction the Queen of Motherhood herself. . . .

" Alas that this supreme priesthood is remembered in no consecration, though the sacred Acts of Motherhood, or their spirit in those who bear no physical children, are living homage to God the Mother. . . .

41 Each year should be marked by a great Festival of Motherhood, of the Motherhood of the individual, of the Motherhood of the State, and of very Life herself And at an appropriate age every girl citizen should receive, at the hands of those who themselves have received it, some form of outer consecration to the beautiful and spiritual mission of her sex. . . . And the education of girls is education for Motherhood, be it actual physical Motherhood or its spiritual complement. A woman may become a mother of children; but she certainly should be a mother to children, to all young life, and to unhappiness and need everywhere. A woman is a divinely appointed channel for Motherhood to the world. She is the accredited representative of Motherhood even in the very building of her physical body. And to the end of her life she remains such representative and such channel, even though, in the ways so terribly prevalent throughout the world, she may befoul and desecrate her channel, making it almost, but never utterly, dry, even though she may dishonour her ambassadorship from Life the Mother. Never does she lose all of her sacredness. Never is the Fire in her of Motherhood irretrievably extinct. And if in her early years of womanhood we tend that Fire with reverence and wisdom, maybe it will burn in growing brightness to spread far and wide the warmth of happiness and peace. . . . The Spirit of Motherhood, in its wonderful glories, should brood over each girl from the very beginning of her more conscious life in the outer world. . . .

" How true it is that the world is heading towards disaster as its women forget their dedication to the Spirit of Motherhood, whether physical or otherwise, to that Spirit of Sacrifice which unveils the holiness of living, and to that Spirit of Aspiration which adds the greatness of the Past to the nobility of the Present, that both may find their consummation in the Glory of the Future. How true it is that the world is heading towards disaster as its men forget their dedication to that Spirit of Chivalry which is reverence in active expression, to that Spirit of Service which spreads contentment far and wide, and to that Spirit of Aspiration which plans upon the foundations of the Present a Future of Happiness and Peace. . . .

14 The woman is the guardian of life's unbroken chain of growing from less to more She is an ever-living holy grail for all that has made life noble and beautiful in the past, that in her own pure living she may pour the fructifying waters of its greatness upon the present, and yield unsullied to those who shall come after her the holy cup of ideals and sacrifice.

" Thus, in form of woman, a God moves steadily onwards to the goal which

knows both man and woman as one. There are not two Gods man and woman.

There is but one God, who becomes man today and woman tomorrow for quicker movement to Divinity." - -Gods in the Becoming

" So far as I am aware, in every great faith the Mother-Principle finds noble and wonderful expression, perhaps as Power-Sacrifice, impersonal, ' awful' in the true sense of the word, or perhaps as Purity-Sacrifice, an ideal woman, such, for example, as we have in Christianity in Our Lady.

" In terms of Nirvana I seem to perceive a Mother-Light and a Father-Light, each a component part of the Lightning-standing-still. . . . The Mother-Light impresses me first of all with a sense of ... Restraint, reserved Power, Refuge, Protection. I seem to see within the glorious embodiments in the outer world of this great Mother-Light a radiant sea of Light, and the image comes to me of a vast expanse of still and silent ocean . . . glittering in the soft light of the full moon, the slight ripples causing a ceaseless shimmering. Think what the ocean is. Remember its tremendous, irresistible power. But this ocean of the Mother-Light is never lashed into storm; it remains ever peaceful, ever calm, inscrutable, deep beyond the power of words to express, yet shimmering, scintillating, with that Love-Light which is a mighty mountain peak of Wisdom-Compassion.

" In this great sea of Mother-Light lives every woman in the world, in all worlds. Its Light permeates her and its sea upholds her, so that she rests upon it, is enfolded in it. How calm is this sea of Light, how utterly safe, how wondrously about every woman in all worlds ! Every woman is one with this mighty sea, is indeed a holy and consecrated channel through which it flows outwards to generate and to fructify all life: Mater Generatrix. As broods the Mother-Light over every act of renewal in every kingdom of Nature, so should every woman know herself to be the priestess of this Light Divine to every kingdom of Nature. What a mission ' How splendid an office! Woman the Fire of Creation.

" At this point let me for a moment place in juxtaposition the Father-Light. What do I perceive . . . ? Action, a flashing-forth, may I say a storm-ridden sea, pulsating with mighty outpourings ? The Positive complementary to the Negative; the two mighty Poles of manifested Being. Entering the essence of these two great Lights I see the One ... a More-than-Light. ... But I realize how both Father-Light and Mother-Light must together express this More-than-Light as it assumes the shadow of manifestation. . . . How long shall it be before the body of the little child is in very truth the sacred consummation of blended Mother-Light and Father-Light, dedicated to noble purposes because conceived in holy aspiration ?

" . . . | have been abiding awhile in the Real, and I have been living in the intense yearning of the World-Mother that Her children may draw nearer to Her, so that She may press them to Her Heart. Where there is sorrow, grief,

despair, agony, there is the World-Mother, tending, cherishing, comforting, as many a pain-stricken mother knows, as many a lonely child knows, too. Yet She could do so much more, would womanhood but turn to Her. . . . Downward shines the Mother-Light through every World-Mother this earth has ever known. Once again do They come near to the world which aforetime They have mothered. Once more They stir in the heart of every woman, summoning her to light again the sacrificial Fire in the temple of her being. . . .

" Each faith has its Power, its Wisdom and its Love. Within all three lies enshrined Motherhood—directing the Power, enlightening the Wisdom, beautifying the Love

" How wonderful is the Motherhood of God, the Mother-Principle of Life . . . a glowing Glory, a glowing Triumph, a glowing Tenderness, a glowing Sacrifice, a glowing Understanding, a glowing Power to guard and cherish. The Light which is this Mother-Principle flashes forth many-hued, encircling the world, radiating upon all things In every kingdom of Nature shines this perfect Light. Upon every act of creation it rests in priceless benediction Of this Light Our Lady, this Universal Mother of us all, is the Epiphany, the embodied Form. She is a Being, a Person, who has trodden this glorious road to Divinity, and has reached at-one-ment in Motherhood. . . . She is no abstraction, no pure Principle, but Mother-Light in glorious Form. By the side of every mother does She stand as the mother bears splendid witness in her own physical body that she is a Temple of the Living God, and that in her this Sacrifice is mirrored anew for the wonder of this world. It is Our Lady who is the High Priestess in this holy sacrifice. It is Our Lady who touches the agony and makes it joy, who offers the sacrifice and makes it bliss.

" Each mother-to-be is a Temple made ready for Our Lady. Never does She fail to come when the offering is upon the altar, an image of God to be sent forth into the world on a further journey in the Great Quest. And even beforehand come Angels of Her Presence, ministering, comforting, encouraging, glorifying. Can you perceive from this great sacrament of birth, how great indeed, how solemn, is the sacrament that precedes it, the sacrament of marriage ? Over every marriage, truly, broods Our Lady's Blessing. The married couple become Her children, united for that beautiful sacrifice of birth-giving which they prepare in shining love for offering by Our Lady. As in the Bread and Wine of the Eucharistic Service is the Real Presence of our Lord, so in every child-birth is the Real Presence of Our Lady. How glorious the role of woman—temple, priestess, altar, chalice in one ! . . . May every man bow in reverence before Her temples, may every woman cause Her light to shine upon the world. So shall the Mother-Light heal the wounds of the world, and make it new." — Nirvana

See also Duality.

MOUNTAINEERING

" Mountaineering is a search for beauty. There is beauty all about us, and the more we develop our vision, the more do we perceive Beauty is as necessary to a man as food and drink. Spiritually he cannot exist without it

" The force that drives man towards the summits of the highest hills is the same force that has raised him above the beasts He is not put into this world merely to exist, he is put there to find love and happiness, to express and to create. . . . The highest hills demand the best that is within man, and something more. They are gifts, but not gifts to be lightly given. They demand not only a striving but a purpose. To climb on them, whether successfully or unsuccessfully, is to put yourself in phase with the supreme forces of the universe.

" Another thing that my own experiences on the highest hills have made me realize very forcibly is the wrongness of an approach in a conquering spirit . . . the highest hills have taught me that a man cannot conquer Nature. Such a word as ' conquest' to express his relationship with Nature breathes of egotism and smacks of a conscious superiority which in itself suggests a lack of affinity with Nature. Nature is not a thing apart, something to be stormed and conquered, it is a part of us, an all-prevailing beauty and magnificence in which we strive to realize ourselves, and in realizing learn the true import of existence. To climb the highest hills is to realize an akinship with Nature. . . .

" The greatness of mountaineering on the highest hills lies in the fact that no single man is capable of reaching a summit by his own efforts. It is this that segregates the greatest peaks of the world from peaks of lesser altitude as mental and physical problems."

—F S. Smythe, The Sp/r/f of the Hills. Preface and pp 152, 156

MUSIC

THE KUNG OR TONE OF MANIFESTED NATURE

" Hast thou attuned thy heart and mind to the great mind and heart of all mankind ? For as the sacred river's roaring voice whereby all nature-sounds are echoed back, so must the heart of him who in the stream would enter thrill in response to every sigh and thought of all that lives and breathes "

— The Voice of the Silence, p. 72

Commenting on the above, H. P. B. wrote : " The Northern Buddhists, and all Chinamen, in fact, find in the deep roar of some of the great and sacred rivers the key-note of nature. Hence the simile. It is a well-known fact in physical science, as well as in occultism, that the aggregate sound of nature —such as is heard in the roar of great rivers, the noise produced by the waving tops of trees in large forests, or that of a city heard at a distance —is a definite single tone of quite an appreciable

pitch. This is shown by physicists and musicians. Thus Professor Rice (Chinese Music) shows that the Chinese recognized the fact thousands of years ago by saying that the waters of the Hoang-ho rushing by intoned the kung, called ' the great tone ' in Chinese music ; and he shows this tone corresponding with the F, ' considered by modern physicists to be the actual tonic of nature.' Professor B Silliman mentions it, too, in his Principles of Physics, saying that ' this tone is held to be the middle F of the piano, which may therefore be considered the key-note of nature." C. W. Leadbeater has written in The Hidden Side of Things, p. 211 : 41 There is a yet higher point of view from which all the sounds of nature 'blend themselves into one mighty tone—that which the Chinese authors have called the Kung ; and this also has its form—an inexpressible compound or synthesis of all forms, vast and changeful as the sea, and yet through it all upholding an average level, just as the sea does, all-penetrating yet all-embracing, the note which represents our earth in the music of the spheres—the form which is our petal when the solar system is regarded from that plane where it is seen all spread out like a lotus."

NATARAJA

Shiva, as Lord of the Dance, who in His Lila or sport, creates and destroys a universe that He may again rebuild.

OCCULTISM

" Occultism is not magic. It is comparat/Ve/y easy to learn the trick of spells and the methods of using the subtler, but still material, forces of physical nature ; the powers of the animal soul in man are soon awakened ; the forces which his love, his hate, his passion, can call into operation, are readily developed. But this is Black

Magic Sorcery. For it is the motive, and the motive alone, which makes any

exercise of power become black, malignant, or white, beneficent Magic. It is impossible to employ spiritual forces if there is the slightest tinge of selfishness remaining in the operator For, unless the intention is entirely unalloyed, the spiritual will transform itself into the psychic, act on the astral plane, and dire results may be produced by it. The powers and forces of animal nature can equally be used by the selfish and revengeful, as by the unselfish and the all-forgiving ; the powers and forces of spirit lend themselves only to the perfectly pure in heart—and this is Divine Magic.

" What are then the conditions required to become a student of the ' Divina Sapientia ' ? For let it be known that no such instruction can possibly be given unless these certain conditions are complied with, and rigorously carried out during the years of study, This is a sine qua non. No man can swim unless he enters deep water. No bird can fly unless its wings are grown, and it has space before it and courage to trust itself to the air A man who will wield a two-edged sword, must be a thorough

master of the blunt weapon, if he would not injure himself or—what is worse— others, at the first attempt.

" To give an approximate idea of the conditions under which alone the study of Divine Wisdom can be pursued with safety, that is, without danger that Divine will •give place to Black Magic, a page is given from the ' private rules,' with which every instructor in the East is furnished. The few passages which follow are chosen from a great number and explained in brackets:

" 1. The place selected for receiving instruction must be a spot calculated not to distract the mind, and filled with ' influence-evolving ' (magnetic) objects. The five sacred colours gathered in a circle must be there among other things. The place must be free from any malignant influences hanging about in the air.

" (The place must be set apart, and used for no other purpose. The five ' sacred colours ' are the prismatic hues arranged in a certain way, as these colours -are very magnetic. By ' malignant influences ' are meant any disturbances through strifes, quarrels, bad feelings, etc., as these are said to impress themselves immediately on the astral light, i.e., in the atmosphere of the place, and to hang ' about in the air.' This first condition seems easy enough to accomplish, yet—on further consideration, it is one of the most difficult ones to obtain.)

" 2. Before the disciple shall be permitted to study ' face to face,' he has to acquire preliminary understanding in a select company of other lay upasaka {disciples), the number of whom must be odd.

" (' Face to face/ means in this instance a study independent or apart from others, when the disciple gets his instruction face to face either with himself (his higher, Divine Self) or—his guru. It is then only that each receives his due of information, according to the use he has made of his knowledge. This can happen only toward the end of the cycle of instruction )

" 3. Before thou (the teacher) shalt impart to thy Lanoo (disciple) the good (holy) words of Lamrin, or shall permit him ' to make ready ' for Dt/b/ec/, thou shalt take care that his mind is thoroughly purified and at peace with all, especially with his other Selves. Otherwise the words of Wisdom and of the good Law shall scatter and be picked up by the winds.

" (' Lamrin ' is a work of practical instructions, by Tson-kha-pa, in two portions, one for ecclesiastical and exoteric purposes, the other for esoteric use. ' To make ready' for Dubjed, is to prepare the vessels used for seership, such as mirrors and crystals. The ' other selves' refers to the fellow-students. Unless the greatest harmony reigns among the learners, no success is possible. It is the teacher who makes the selections according to the magnetic and electric natures of the students, bringing together and adjusting most carefully the positive and the negative elements.)

" 4. The upasaka while studying must take care to be united as the fingers on one hand. Thou shalt impress upon their minds that whatever hurts one should 40

hurt the others, and if the rejoicing of one finds no echo in the breasts of the others, then the required conditions are absent, and it is useless to proceed.

" (This can hardly happen if the preliminary choice made was consistent with the magnetic requirements. It is known that chelas otherwise promising and fit for the reception of truth, had to wait for years on account of their temper and the impossibility they felt to put themselves in tune with their companions. For—)

" 5. The co-disciples must be tuned by the guru as the strings of a lute (vina), each different from the others, yet each emitting sounds in harmony with, all. Collectively they must form a keyboard answering in all its parts to thy lightest touch (the touch of the Master). Thus their minds shall open for the harmonies of Wisdom, to vibrate as knowledge through each and all, resulting in effects pleasing to the presiding gods (tutelary or patron-angels) and useful to the Lanoo. So shall Wisdom be impressed for ever on their hearts and the harmony of the law shall never be broken.

" 6. Those who desire to acquire the knowledge leading to the Siddhis (occult powers) have to renounce all the vanities of life and of the world (here follows enumeration of the Siddhis)

" 7. None can feel the difference between himself and his fellow-students, such as ' I am the wisest/ ' I am more holy and pleasing to the teacher, or in my community, than my brother,' etc.,—and remain an upasaka. His thoughts-must be predominantly fixed upon his heart, chasing therefrom every hostile thought to any living being. It (the heart) must be full of the feeling of its non-separateness from the rest of beings as from all in Nature ; otherwise no success can follow.

" 8. A Lanoo (disciple) has to dread external living influence alone (magnetic emanations from living creatures.) For this reason, while at one with all, in his inner nature, he must take care to separate his outer (external) body from every foreign influence : none must drink out of, or eat in his cup but himself. He must avoid bodily contact (i.e., being touched or touch) with human, as with animal being. " (No pet animals are permitted, and it is forbidden even to touch certain trees and plants. A disciple has to live, so to say, in his own atmosphere in order to individualize it for occult purposes.)

" 9. The mind must remain blunt to all but the universal truths in nature, lest the ' Doctrine of the Heart ' should become only the ' Doctrine of the Eye/ (i.e., empty exoteric ritualism).

11 10. No animal food of whatever kind, nothing that has life in it, should be taken by the disciple. No wine, no spirits or opium should be used ; for these are like the Lhamaym (evil spirits), who fasten upon the unwary, they devour the understanding. «' (Wine and spirits are supposed to contain and preserve the bad magnetism of all the men who helped in their fabrication; the meat of each animal, to preserve the psychic characteristics of its kind.)

"11. Meditation, abstinence, the observation of moral duties, gentle thoughts, good deeds and kind words, as goodwill to all and entire oblivion of Self, are the most efficacious means of obtaining knowledge and preparing for the reception of higher wisdom.

" 12. It is only by virtue of a strict observance of the foregoing rules that a Lanoo can hope to acquire in good time the Siddhis of the Arhats, the growth which makes him become gradually one with the Universal All.

"These 12 extracts are taken from among some 73 rules, to enumerate which would be useless as they would be meaningless in Europe. But even these few are enough to show the immensity of the difficulties which beset the path of the would-be ' Upasaka,' who has been born and bred in Western lands." '

— H. P. Blavatsky, Practical Occultism

See also Yoga,

ORPHEUS

The Fourth Bodhisattvic Incarnation of Gautama as Lord of Song in Greece (Thrace) about 7,000 B. C.

PLANES

See note on " Planes of Consciousness " in Book One, p. 116.

POINT

ANNIE BESANT . " The Logos -not yet a first, since there is yet no second—is seen as a Point irradiating a sphere of Matter, drawn round Him as the field of the future universe, flashing with unimaginable splendour, a true Mountain of Light, as Manu has it, but Light invisible save on the spiritual planes. This great sphere has been spoken of as primary Substance : it is the Self-conditioned Logos, inseparate at every point with the Matter He has appropriated for His universe, ere He draws Himself a little apart from it in the second manifestation ; it is the sphere of Self-conditioning Will, which is to lead to the creative Activity: ' I am This/ when the ' This,' the Not-Self, is cognized." — A Study in Consciousness

THE ZOHAR: " The indivisible Point or Supreme Point sends forth a light of such transparency, limpidity and subtlety that it penetrates everywhere. Around the Point, the penetration of its own light forms a ring or Palace . . . emanating from the Supreme Point, all the degrees of creation are but envelopes, the one for the other."

1 " Be it remembered that all ' Chelas,' even lay disciples, are called Upasaka until after their first initiation, when they become Lanoo-Upasaka, To that day, even those who belong to Lamaseries and are set apart, are considered as ' laymen.' "

€28 SYMBOLS AT WORK

PROF. ALEXANDER WILDER, quoted in The Secret Doctrine : " The Divine Being is the All, the source of all existence, the Infinite; and He cannot be known. The Universe reveals Him and subsists by Him. At the beginning His effulgence went forth everywhere. Eventually He retired within Himself and so formed around Him a vacant space. Into this He transmitted His first Emanation, a Ray, containing in it the generative and conceptive power, and hence the name IE, or JAH. This in its turn produced the tikkun, the pattern or idea of form; and in this emanation, which also contained the male and female, or generative and conceptive potencies, were the three primitive forces of Light, Spirit and Life. This Tikkun is united to the Ray, or first emanation, and pervaded by it: and by that union is also in perpetual communication with the infinite source. It is the pattern, the primitive man, the Adam Kadmon, the macrocosm of Pythagoras and other philosophers."

—Neo-P/aton/sm and Alchemy, p. 10, quoting the Kabalistic viewpoint

H. P. BLAVATSKY, The Secret Doctrine : " The mathematical Point, called the 'Cosmic Seed,' the Monad of Leibnitz, which contains the whole Universe, as the acorn the oak ... is the first bubble on the surface of boundless homogeneous Substance, or Space, the bubble of differentiation in its incipient stage. It is the beginning of the Orphic or Brahma's Egg. It corresponds in Astrology and Astronomy to the Sun . . On the Lower Pole it is the terrestrial Embryo . . ."

- Ill, 441 (Adyar ed., V, 422)

" The point in the hitherto immaculate disk, Space and Eternity in Pralaya, denotes the dawn of differentiation. It is the Point in the Mundane Egg, the Germ within it which will become the Universe, the All, the boundless, periodical Kosmos— a Germ which is latent and active, periodically and by turns."

—I, 31 (Adyar ed., I, 69)

"The term 'Point' must not be understood as applying to any particular point in Space, for a germ exists in the centre of every atom, and these collectively form the ' Germ '; or rather, as no atom can be made visible to our physical eye, the collectivity of these (if the term can be applied to something which is boundless and infinite) forms the noumenon of eternal and indestructible Matter."

—I, 87 (Adyar ed, I, 127)

"That 'point,' [into which an entire universe may concentrate itself], invisible on our plane of perception and matter, is quite visible to the eye of the Adept who can follow and see it present on other planes."

-1,531 (Adyar ed., II, 212)

Referring to the Point as dwelling in the physical body: "The spot in the heart which is the last of all to die is the seat of life, the centre of all, Brahma, the first spot that lives in the foetus and the last that dies. When a Yogi is buried in a trance it is this spot that lives, though the rest of the body be dead, and as long

as this is alive the Yogi can be resurrected. This spot contains potentially mind, life, energy, and will. During life it radiates prismatic colours, fiery and opalescent. The heart is the centre of spiritual consciousness, as the brain is the centre of intellectual But this consciousness cannot be guided by a person, nor its energy directed by him until he is at one with Buddhi-Manas; until then it guides him- - if it can. Hence the pangs of remorse, the prickings of conscience ; they come from the heart, not the head. In the heart is the only manifested God, the other two are invisible, and it is this which represents the Triad, Atma-Buddhi-Manas "

-III, 582 (Adyar ed., V, 555)

The Secret Doctrine corroborates the Keely idea of a " neutral centre " on which the foundations of the universe rest, an atomic centre, for example, of a planet which " carries the full load of any accumulation from the start, and remains the same, for ever balanced in the eternal space." H. P. B. concludes: "This is what Occultists understand by a laya centre." -- I, 608 (Adyar ed.. II, 280)

EUGENIUS PHILALETHES (His Magical Aphorisms).

" This is the First Truth and this also the last.

" I. The Point came forth before all things: it was neither atomic nor mathematical, being a diffused point. The Monad manifested explicitly but a myriad were implied. There was light and there was darkness, beginning and the end thereof, the all and naught, being and non-being.

" II. The Monad produced the Duad by self-motion, and the visages of the Second Light manifested through the Triad.

" III A simple, uncreated fire sprang forth, and beneath the waters assumed the garment of manifold, created fire.

" IV. It looked back on the primeval fountain and taking this as a pattern set its seal upon the lower in triadic form.

" V. Unity created the one and the Trinity divided into three It is thus that there arises the Tetrad, as the bond and link of reduction.

"VI. Among things visible the water first shone forth, the feminine aspect of brooding fire and fruitful mother of figurable things.

"VII. She was porous inwardly and variously clothed with skins: in her womb were interfolded heavens and inchoate stars.

" VIII. The Artificer, who parts asunder, broke up the womb of the waters into spacious regions; but when the foetus appeared the mother vanished.

" IX This notwithstanding, the mother brought forth resplendent sons, who overran the Land of Chai.

" X. These in their turn generated the mother anew : in the wood of wonder her fountain sings.

"XI. This is the Steward of wisdom : let him be clerk who can.

" XII. He is Father of all created things and forth from the created Son, by a living analysis of that Son, is the Father brought forth anew. Herein is the highest mystery of the generating circle: Son of the Son is He who first was Father of the Son."

— The Works of Thomas Vaughan: Eugemus Philalethes, edited, etc., by A. E. Waite, and published by T. P. K, London in 1919. (Page 306.)

PRACTICAL OCCULTISM

See Occultism. PROTOTYPES

" • . . Yoga—union with Brahma, exoterically—is the supreme condition of the passive infinite Deity, since it contains all the divine energies and is the essence of Brahma, who is said, as Brahma, to create everything through Yoga power. Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva are the most powerful energies of God, Brahma (neuter), says a Pauranic text. Yoga here is the same as Dhyana, which word is again synonymous with Yoga in the Tibetan text, where the ' Sons of Yoga ' are called 4 Sons of Dhyana,' or of that abstract meditation through which the Dhyani-Buddhas create their celestial sons, the Dhyani-Bodhisattvas.

" ' All the creatures in the world have each a superior above. This superior, whose inner pleasure it is to emanate into them, cannot impart efflux until they have adored [i.e., meditated as during Yoga]'."

--Jfie Secret Doctrine, II, 122 (Adyar ed, III. 124)

See also Circle.

RAYS

See Colour and Jewels and the Zodiac ; also note on " The Rays " on pp. 333-34.

ROD OF POWER

C. W. LEADBEATER: " This wonderful symbol is in some way a physical centre or fulcrum for the forces poured forth by the Planetary Logos, and was magnetized by Him millions of years ago, when first He set the human life-wave in motion round our chain of globes. We are told that it is the physical sign of the concentration of the attention of the Logos, and that it is carried from planet to planet as that attention shifts—that where it is, that is for the moment the central theatre of evolution, and that when it leaves this planet for the next, our earth will sink into comparative inertia. Whether it is carried also to the non-physical planets we do not know, nor do we understand exactly the way in which it is used, nor the

ROD OF POWER, SACRIFICE 631

part which it plays in the economy of the world. It is kept usually in the custody of the Lord of the World at Shamballa, and so far as we know this Wesak Festival is the only occasion on which it ever leaves His care. It is a round bar of the lost metal orichalcum, perhaps two feet in length and about two inches in diameter, having at each end a huge diamond shaped into a ball with a cone projecting from it. It has the strange appearance of being always surrounded by fire—of having an aura of brilliant yet transparent flame. It is noteworthy that no one but the Lord Maitreya touches it during any part of the ceremony." -The Masters and the Path

See also Svastika.

SACRIFICE

" The Law of Sacrifice is everywhere present in Nature, because the Lord is the Lord of Sacrifice, and the first sacrifice is the sacrifice of Himself . . . The Disciple's heart is an altar, love to his Lord the flame burning on it, all his acts, physical and mental, are sacrifices offered on the altar: and once offered, he has with them no further concern."

—Annie Besant, Hints on the Study of the Bhagavad Gita

With the following words Dr. Besant in 1896 introduced a series of discourses on the Law of Sacr/f/ce, published for the benefit of Famine Relief as a pamphlet:

" Not very long ago, one of the great Teachers—I mean the Masters—made the remark that the understanding of the Law of Sacrifice was as important for man's spiritual growth as that of the law of Karma."

It would well repay the reader to carefully peruse the most comprehensive study therein given on this fundamental Law, especially as at work in the various kingdoms.

Another splendid article on " Sacrifice " is to be found in the March and April 1931 issues of Jhe Theosophist, written by C. W. Leadbeater in which he reviews the entire subject and its practice in various Faiths. Therein he says :

" Never forget that, though we so often use the word in that sense, ' to give up something ' is not the real meaning of sacrifice. Sacrificio in Latin means ' I make holy,' so to make an offering of anything is the main idea. When you write a poem or a book, you should do it as a sacrifice. You should offer it up to God as the work of your brain, of your hands, for in that way you are really making it a sacrifice, you are making it holy. You truly live only when you are a channel for the divine force. This other life, this life of the separate self, in which every one is trying to grasp something for himself, is just a dream ; it is not a real life at all. To be giving out always is the only true life."

Other lectures by Annie Besant on the Law of Sacrifice are : " Discrimination and Sacrifice," the Fourth Lecture in Hints on the Study of tfie Bhagavad-G/ta ; the

Third Lecture, " The Law of Sacrifice," in The Laws of the Higher Life, an extract : rom which is quoted below ; " Karma Marga " in The Three Paths; chapters in The Ancient Wisdom, The Spiritual Life, and many others.

A magnificent section on Self-Sacrifice as the highest standard for the Theosophist is to be found in The Key to Theosophy by Madame Blavatsky, p. 184 et seq.

" The Brotherhood of Sacrifice," written by A. P. Sinnett for the June 1921 issue of The Theosophist, is a very illuminating article on a Brotherhood existing to make vicarious atonement in the world.

" In view of this marvellous distribution of Himself in ' space/ the familiar concept of the ' sacrifice of the Logos ' takes on a new depth and splendour; this is v His ' dying in matter,' His ' perpetual sacrifice,' and it may be the very glory of the Logos that He can sacrifice Himself to the uttermost by thus permeating and making Himself one with that portion of koilon [root-matter] which He chooses as the field of His universe " —Occult Chemistry, Appendix, p. x

" The man who lives by the Law of Sacrifice realizes the unity of the Self, and recognizes only a difference in the containing vessel and not in the indwelling life ; hence he only gathers wisdom and knowledge into his separate vessel for the sake of sharing what he. gathers with others, and for others; and he loses utterly the sense of separate life, and becomes part of the Life of the World.

" As he realizes this, and knows that the only value of the body is to be a channel of the higher, to be an instrument of that life, he slowly and gradually rises above all thoughts, save the thought of unity, and feels himself a part of this great suffering world. Then he feels that the griefs of humanity are his griefs, the sins of humanity are his sins, the weaknesses of his brother are his weaknesses, and thus he realizes unity, and sees through all differences the underlying One Self.

" Only in this way can we live in the Eternal "

—Annie Besant, The Laws of the Higher Life

" There is a profound truth in that great Christian teaching of a Lamb slain —when ? On Calvary ? No, ' from the foundation of the world ' That is the great truth of sacrifice. No Divine sacrifice, no universe. No Divine self-limitations, none of the worlds which fill the realms of space. It is all a sacrifice, the sacrifice of love that limits itself that others may gain self-conscious being and rejoice in the perfection of their own ultimate Divinity. And inasmuch as the life of the world is based on sacrifice, all true life is also sacrificial; and when every action is done as sacrifice, then the man becomes the perfect, spiritual man."

—Annie Besant, Spiritual Life for the Man of the World

" Every good work is charity. Thy smiling in thy brother's face is charity , thy bidding what is good is charity ; thy forbidding what is wrong is charity ; thy putting a man in an unknown land on the right road is charity for thee ; thy assisting.

a man who has a defect in the eye is charity for thee ; thy removing stones and thorns and bones from the road is chanty for thee ; and thy emptying the bucket into the bucket of thy brother is charity for thee " — The Lord Muhammad

SALT

Such an essential element in the body that its loss in body hemorrhages or undue perspiration must be immediately replaced with salt solution or death-like fatigue results. It controls the liquid balance in the body and without adequate salt the tissues shrivel for want of fluid. Salt is an age-old symbol of Life, as Dread is of form ; and so the Bread and Salt ceremony of olden rituals was equivalent to the Wine and Bread of the eucharistic communion.

SAMADHI

C. W. LEADBEATER : " Contemplation is concentration at the top end of your line of thought or meditation "

It " may be like piercing a cloud or fog, out of which the new vision will gradually form itself, or from which it may come like a flash of lightning." It is an attempt " to go into the subjective meaning " of the object contemplated.

—Talks on the Path of Occultism, p. 354, 393

See also Yoga

SHIVA

The Apotheosis of the Will or Bliss Aspect of Deity, the Eternal Yogi, Regenerator. See also Natara/a.

SPIRALS OF EVOLUTION

C. W. LEADBEATER : " The spirals of evolution are still more far-reaching, so that the successive divisions of human life give us an epitome of the kingdoms of nature. The human embryo in the course of its growth takes on the appearance of each of the earlier kingdoms in succession ; and besides that, in the development of the human body the gestation period reflects the downward course of the elemental kingdoms mentioned in Theosophical literature ; from birth to about the age of seven we have a time in which the wisest educationists consider that the child's physical nature should receive more attention than the emotional and mental; next up to the age of about fourteen, there is an epoch in which the right development of the emotions should have chief consideration ; then follows another term to the age of about twenty-one when the teachers should appeal especially to the unfolding powers of the mind. These last three ages may be taken to correspond to a certain extent to the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms. . . . There is then a long period of middle life—the real human career. That is followed in turn by the epoch

of old age . . . being but an adumbration of the superhuman heights of future attainment." — The Hidden L/fe in Freemasonry

SUN

" The sun is the mighty source from which proceed all the forces which set in motion the earth and its life. It is its heat which causes the wind to blow, the clouds to ascend, the river to flow, the forest to grow, fruit to ripen, and man himself to live. The force constantly and silently expended in raising the reservoirs of rain to their mean atmospheric height, in fixing the carbon in the plants, in giving to terrestrial nature its vigour and its beauty, has been calculated from a mechanical point of view ; it is equal to the work of 217 billions 316 thousand millions horsepower ; 543 milliards (543,000,000,000) of steam engines, each with an effective power of 400 horses, would have to work day and night without intermission • such is the permanent work of the sun upon the earth.

" We may not think so, but everything which moves, circulates, and lives on our planet is the child of the sun. The generous wine whose transparent ruby cheers the French table, the champagne which sparkles in the crystal cup, are so many rays of the sun stored up for our taste. The most nutritious foods come from the sun. The wood which warms us in winter is, again, the sun in fragments ; every cubic inch, every pound of wood, is formed by the power of the sun. The mill which turns under the impulse of wind or water revolves only by the sun. And in the black night, under the rain or snow, the blind and noisy train which darts like a flying serpent through the fields, rushes along above the valleys, is swallowed up under the mountains, goes hissing past the stations, of which the pale eyes strike silently through the mist—in the midst of night and cold, this modern animal, produced by human industry, is still a child of the sun ; the coal from the earth which feeds its stomach is solar work stored up during millions of years in the geological strata of the globe, As it is certain that the force which sets the watch in motion is derived from the hand which has wound it, so is it certain that all terrestrial power proceeds from the sun. It is its heat which maintains the three states of bodies—solid, liquid and gaseous ; the last two would vanish, there would be nothing but solids, water and air itself would be in massive blocks, if the solar heat did not maintain them in the fluid state. It is the sun which blows in the air, which flows in the water, which moans in the tempest, which sings in the unwearied throat of the nightingale. It attaches to the sides of the mountains the sources of the rivers and glaciers ; and consequently the cataracts and the avalanches are precipitated with an energy which they draw directly from him. Thunder and lightning are in their turn a manifestation of his power. Every fire which burns and every flame which shines has received its life from the sun. And when two armies are hurled together with a crash, each charge of cavalry, each shock between two army corps, is nothing else but the

misuse of mechanical force from the same star. The sun comes to us in the form of heat, he leaves us in the form of heat, but between his arrival and his departure he has given birth to the varied powers of our globe.

" Presented to our mind under their true aspect, the discoveries and generalizations of modern science constitute, then, the most sublime poem which has ever been offered to the intelligence and the imagination of man. The physicist of our day, we may say with Tyndall, is incessantly in contact with marvels which eclipse those of Ariosto and Milton ; marvels so grand and so sublime that those who study them have need of a certain force of character to preserve them from being dazed.

" And still all this is nothing, or almost nothing, in comparison with the real power of the sun ! The liquid state of the ocean, the gaseous state of the atmosphere , the currents of the sea ; the raising of the clouds, the rains, storms, streams, rivers; the calorific value of all the forests of the globe and all the coal mines of the earth ; the motion of all living beings ; the heat of all humanity ; the stored-up power in all human muscles, in all the manufactories, in all the guns- all that is almost nothing compared with that of which the sun is capable. Do we think that we have measured the solar power by enumerating the effects which it produces on the earth ? Error! profound, tremendous, foolish error! This would be to believe still that this star has been created on purpose to illuminate terrestrial humanity. In reality, what an infinitesimal fraction of the sun's total radiation the earth receives and utilizes ! In order to appreciate it, let us consider the distance of 93 millions of miles which separates us from the central star, and at this distance let us see what effect our little globe produces, what heat it intercepts. Let us imagine an immense sphere traced at this distance from the sun, and entirely surrounding it. Well, on this gigantic sphere, the spot intercepted by our little earth is only equivalent to

the fraction n -r-zo~Ah?s"7wv\ » tnat ' s to sav » tnat tne dazzling solar hearth radiates Z,loo,UUU,UUU

all round it through immensity a quantity of light and heat two thousand one hundred and thirty-eight million times more than that which we receive, and of which we have just now estimated the stupendous effects. The earth only stops in its passage the two thousand millionth part of the total radiation "

—Flammarion and Gore, Popular Astronomy, pp. 245-47

SVAS7IKA

Sv-asti-health, welfare, joy, bliss, (Samsk.) applied to any auspicious object, but especially used of the fiery cross whose extremities trail flames as it turns in clockwise motion. Symbol of the Creative Fire of the Third Logos or Holy Spirit, Brahma. Its right arm points down in positive blessing, its left arm up in receptivity, as seen in the Theosophical Seal. One of the mystic symbols of the ancient Senzar, the universal language, it is found throughout the globe.

•• THE WHEEL OF THE LAW "

C. W. Leadbeater : The Wheel is the symbol associated in the Buddhist books with the Lord Buddha's first Sermon in the Deer Park at Isipatana, near Benares, in which He announced His great discovery. The Sermon is commonly known as the Dhammachakkappavattana Sutta, briefly translated as the " Turning of the Wheel of the Law," though Rhys Davids has translated it as the " Setting in Motion of the Royal Chariot-Wheels of the Kingdom of Righteousness

"... It explains for the first time the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path, expounding the great Middle Way of the Buddha—the life of perfect righteousness in the world, which lies midway between the extravagances of asceticism on the one hand and the carelessness of mere worldly life on the other."

— The Masters and the Path

Paul Carus : tl The Buddha is reported to have said . ' The spokes of the wheel are the rules of pure conduct; justice is the uniformity of their length ; wisdom is the tire , modesty and thoughtfulness are the hub in which the immovable axle of truth is fixed." — The Gospel of Buddha

Henry Alabaster : The symbol of the Wheel figures prominently in Buddhist sculptures and frescoes, mostly as a beautifully decorated Shivachakra, like an aureole, behind the head 'of the Lord Buddha, more rarely as a canopy above the statue. There are many such figures at Sanchi and Sarnath, and in art museums. The oldest wheels shown from designs sculptured on the Sanchi Topes, dating from about 500 B.C. to A.D. 100, are sixteen-spoked with the svastika in the centre, the whole radiating light and enthroned on a pedestal, somewhat as is the reserved sacrament in monstrance which it resembles.

The Holy Wheel is much older than Buddhism. The Lord Buddha adopted it from Hinduism. " In the La//ta Vistara, we read of it as the most marvellous of the seven extraordinary possessions of an emperor of the whole world. Turned by his hand, it rolls before him and his armies, causing all to bow down to him and acknowledge his righteous rule." — The Wheel of the Law, p. 287

T. W. Rhys-Davids . " The Wheel of Fate, of life and death, figures also in> the Orphic theogony , the soul longs to escape from the weary unending cycle of birth, and entreats the gods, especially Dionysos, for release." — Buddhism, p. 161

W. Y. Evans-Wentz: Tibetan Buddhism has two symbols for the Cross-Svastika idea. Two of the Dorjes or Lamaic Rods of Power are crossed and as the central heart appears the Svastika in two interlaced triangles. This magnificent symbol, radiating light from its crossed globe-arms, represents equilibrium, immutability, and almighty power.

The Tibetan Wheel of the Law [Ch'os-Yor-bskor] is an eight-spoked Lotus-Bud Wheel, in the centre of which is the rgyan-'k'yil, or three whirling

lotus-petal segments, " symbolizing—as does the svastika at the centre of the Indian Wheel of the Law—the Sangsara, or ceaseless change or ' becoming.' " The whole wheel is on a lotus throne [of drooping petals] and is enhaloed by Flames of Wisdom, " representative of the Thousand-spoked Wheel of the Good Law of the Buddha, symbol of the symmetry and completeness of the Sacred Law of the Dharma, or Scriptures." —The T/betan Book of the Dead

The lotus symbolism is explained by C. W. Leadbeater in describing the three positions of the lilies on the ancient pillars of King Solomon's Temple, which represented " the initiates of the three stages of the Egyptian Mysteries " as well as the triple Cosmic Logoi.

" The buds of the upper row, pointing upwards, typified the initiates of the Mysteries of Isis, who were full of aspiration . . . .the flowers of the middle row, opened and facing outwards, were the initiates of Serapis, showing forth by their lives the glory, dignity and power of humanity as it should be. The third row of drooping lilies represented the initiates of the Mysteries of Osiris, [comparable to Arhatship] reaching down into the world in order to devote themselves to the helping and enlightenment of humanity." —The Hidden Life in Freemasonry

See also Cross and Vishnu.

SYMBOLS

" The supreme truths of Cosmology, known to the initiate priests, were taught the simple-minded humble worshippers in allegory, and the greater Mysteries were concealed in symbol, to be revealed only to the open eye of spiritual understanding. The most beautiful of the Gods may often be depicted as dark-visaged and in ugly forms, first, because no image could indicate such supernal beauty; and second, because were even an attempt to be made, the worshipper's attention would be

distracted from the hidden Life to a mere external form. Always the Hindu devotee sees behind the form to the aspect of Deity symbolized and the form becomes a touchstone to the divine embodied Reality within." (From "A Key to Hindu Sym-bology " in Jhe Shrines of Adyar, to which the reader is referred for an interpretation of the many symbols to be found in Adyar, the Headquarters of The Theosophical Society. " And to know the Shrines of Adyar is to know the Shrines of the Faiths of the world.")

As Channels ' Various experiments were tried in the Liberal Catholic Church in the placing of the celebrant and his assistants. A foot-note says : " It has been thought that the triangle being a living symbol would act as a great channel, but this form of magic—making connections in this way with the archetypes—belongs more to the Egyptian form of ceremonial. ..."

The student in making correlations must refrain from any dogmatism, for the machinery of the Church is designed for one purpose, and the use of the archetypes or " living symbols . , belongs more to the Egyptian form of ceremonial."

— Jhe Science of the Sacraments, p. 132

THE SYMBOLS THROUGH THE KINGDOMS

Jhe Symbols, as .revealed through the developing structures of cellular and embryonic life. [References marked ( + ) are quoted from Gray's Anatomy, 1930.]

Jhe Point • It is difficult to get to the root of a primal Point in cellular life, for one point seemingly homogeneous, upon examination, reveals within itself a complex structure—Point within Point. The Cell itself is a Point ; within the Cell is the Nuclear Area, another apparent Point; within that area is the Nucleus, surely a Point, and within the Nucleus the Nucleoli—all Points. Within the Nuclear Area is generally a Centrosome, and within that again Centrioles or Central Bodies, which play an important part in cell-division.

The Male Pronucleus, the Point from the spermatozoon, fusing with the Female Point or Pronucleus within the Ovum, itself a Point, generates l the Embryo or fertilized Ovum, that Point of Points which is to become the vehicle for Men-Gods.

Jhe Web-Womb : The first stage within the development of new life is perhaps most clearly indicated in the Anaphase of indirect division—the common method of cellular unfoldment in the higher animals : " Starting with the nucleus in

1 " The permanent atom [vibrating central physical nucleus of the Ego about to come into incarnation] enters the seminal fluid and attaches itself to a spermatozoon ; the physical sheath of the thread to which the atom is attached, connecting it with the higher atoms, is completed in the fourth month, and with this there is a flow of life downwards from the jiva, and ' quickening' occurs. I think this is what is meant by the ' jiva comes and enters, etc ' Until this sheath round the connecting thread is formed, the jiva cannot reach the foetus. After that there is free communication between the growing foetus and the astral and mental bodies. Up to this stage, the vegetative and animal processes might have gone on ' mechanically ', i.e., without the presence of a permanent atom, but if that is absent, miscarriage before or at this time must occur " Annie Besant in a footnote to Pranava-Vada, I, pp 178-79.

SYMBOLS 639

the quiescent or resting condition ... the nuclear network of chromatin filaments assumes the form of a twisted skein or spirem " [p. 3 ( + )].

Diagram 1 Diagram 2 Fig. 66, p. 51

The segmenting ovum itself resembles a Web-Womb [Fig. 66, p. 51 ( + )]. " By the time it reaches the uterus, it possesses a well-developed trophoblast which adheres like a parasite to the uterine mucous membrane " [p. 73 ( + )]. This stage, where loosely organized matter is gathered around a central colony, appears to be found in the earliest development of the various organs.

Diagram 3

Jhe Line : This is one of the most clearly indicated of all the symbols, from the cellular development to the embryo itself. 1 In the Anaphase stage of reproduction of cells by indirect division, " the centrosome divides and the two resulting centro-somes are seen to be connected by a spindle of delicate achromatic fibres, the achromatic spindle. The centrosomes move away from each other—one towards either extremity of the nucleus—and the fibrils of the achromatic spindle are correspondingly lengthened" [p. 3 ( + )]. So is established a North and South Pole within the primal cell. In the direct division or amitosis of the more primitive cell-life, the nucleus assumes an hour-glass shape before division. The Spermatid develops a tail-like line to carry the sperm to the ovum [pp. 48-9 ( + )]. The chromosomes likewise around the segmentation nucleus of the embryo assume two bundles of parallel lines, veritable lictor's rods [Diagram 5, p. 50 ( + )].

' As Professor Tyndall has so wisely said : " Everywhere throughout our planet we notice this tendency of the ultimate particles of matter to run into symmetric lines. The very molecules seem instinct with a desire for union ar.d growth."

SYMBOLS AT WORK

In the early stage of the development of the embryo, lines within appear: The brain and heart both first appear as tube-like linear structures, the heart bending to form a spiral loop in the first few weeks of embryonic life. Even the lung-buds show a polarity of North and South in the human embryo of about five weeks [Fig. 147, p. 112; fig, 177-8, p. 134; fig. 229, p. 175 ( + )].

As in the organs, so in the embryo itself : During the third week this linear tendency becomes noticeable. " The embryonic area ... at first nearly circular . . . rapidly alters and becomes oval, indicating the long axis of the body. The oval area becomes pear-shaped, and in the median plane of its narrower portion there appears a linear opacity which is termed the primitive streak. . . . The presence of the primitive streak indicates that rapid growth is occurring throughout its site. The headward end of the primitive streak is an area of exceptionally active growth and forms a knob-like thickening which is termed the primitive node " [p. 56 ( + )]. From primitive streak to Neural groove, we note the Line, but Curved in appearance as a slightly drooping Lotus bud. At the North Pole of the Line there develops the Head-process, at the South Pole the Body-stalk.

Fig. 74, p. 56

The very anchoring of foetus in the womb indicates a linear tendency up to the third month, for it swings cradle-like from the vertical line of the umbilical cord in the cavity of the amnion [See fig. 104, p. 76 ( + ), our page 641].

SYMBOLS

64t

The Circle-Globe : This is clearly indicated in the next stage of growth of the embryo and its individual organs. The Line, having established its diameter of operation in the embryo, " in the fifth week . . . becomes markedly curved on itself ... In the sixth week the curvature of the embryo is further increased. The head is in contact with the umbilical cord, and may almost meet the long curved tail " [p. 193 ( + )].

Fig. 254, p. 193

Fig. 104, p. 76

By the third month a decided globular appearance has been assumed by the brain [fig. 151, p. 116 ( + )], whereas the heart, which develops more rapidly, by the sixth week is globular in form [fig. 179, p. 134 ( + )]. And all rests within the developed Amnion, itself a Circle-Globe, with its various circular layers of nourishment and protection [fig. 104, p. 76 (+)]•

Even in the single cell, during the later stages of the anaphase, one notices a tendency towards the ellipse in the achromatic spindle formed from the centrosomes [p. 3, diagrams 3 and 4 (•*-)].

The Cross. And now appears the latitudinal development bisecting the longitude of Lines. This is noted most vividly in the movement of the chromosomes, marking the final stage in the anaphase of the animal cell: " An imaginary [? ?] line encircling the spindle midway between its extremities or poles is named the equator and around this the chromosomes arrange themselves, forming what is known as the equatorial plate. 9 ' [Diagram 4, p. 3 ( + ).]

SYMBOLS AT WORK

Diagram 4

The Cross is also very evident in that most fundamental of organs—the heart, and is shown in the horizontal separation of atriums from ventricles crossing the vertical divisions of right and left [fig. 180, p. 135 ( + )]. At the end of the third month, the longitudinal and latitudinal cross of the brain is also plainly evident [fig. 155, p. 119( + )]. The latitudinal development of the whole foetus develops rapidly from the second month on, and by the end of the third month the limbs are well developed [p. 194 ( + )]—those limbs which later, when extended, make of man's body the perfect cross.

The Svastika or Whirling Cross— Symbol of Movement: While its whirling power cannot be visibly teen, save with clairvoyant vision, its effect is mirrored ir> the " quickening," or the first movements of the foetus, generally observed during the fifth month.

Movement is also shown in the metaphase of the process of reproduction of cell-life. " Each chromosome splits longitudinally into two equal parts or daughter chromosomes which travel in opposite directions along the fibrils of the achromatic spindle towards the centrosomes around which they group themselves; and thus each group contains the same number of chromosomes as was present in the equatorial plate."

The Svastika has been the age-old symbol of the differentiation and division of Creative Activity, and in the embryo likewise differentiation reaches its climax during this period.

Diagram 5

Diagram 6

Diagram 7

The Lotus — the Perfect Form : In cellular reproduction, the " Kataphase " wherein " the daughter chromosomes become connected into a skein or sp/rem, [compare the diagrams under Web-Womb and Point], and eventually form the network of chromatin which is characteristic of the resting nucleus. The nuclear membrane and nucleolus are also differentiated during this period. The cell-protoplasm undergoes constriction around the equator of the achromatic spindle, where double rows of granules are also sometimes seen. The constriction deepens and the original cell is gradually divided " [p. 3 ( + )]. In the last figure is seen the Point, the Web-Womb, the Lines, longitudinal and horizontal, with their Poles within the Circle-Globe in the final Movement of sundering the Cell that two Lotus Flowers may be released.

Diagram 8

NOTE : The student is also referred to " The Return to Birth," in Vol. II of The Inner Life by C. W. Leadbeater, which deals with the drawing of materials around the Permanent Atoms preparatory to body-building.

A Study in Consciousness, Chapter IV which deals with the Permanent Atom, the Thread Line on which these are strung, and the Buddhic Life-Web ;

Chapter VII, the Mechanism of Consciousness, which shows how around the thrilling permanent atom of the astral plane there is drawn a sheath or cloud of matter in which eventually appears " aggregations of lines," and finally centres, whirlpools, wheels or " lotus-flowers."

Chapter VIII, in which the Thread Self through a whirling vortex becomes the causal body.

7/?e Secret Doctrine, III, 341 ; (Adyar ed. V, 422) where certain Cosmic Processes and embryonic development are compared.

THE SYMBOLS IN PLANT LIFE

Even more clearly does the protoplasmic structure of plant life reveal the Point (1), the Web-Womb (1), the Spindle Line (2), the Circle-Globe (3), within it forming across the " imaginary " equator or horizontal plane, the Cross, and Differentiation of the Moving Svastika, eventually showing the two " skein-like lotus flowers " (4).

Though the Web-Womb stage and Point are shown in the same illustration, both are plainly indicated in the following description taken from that most excellent

SYMBOLS AT WORK

treatise The Natural History of Plants, translated from the German of Anton Kerner von Marilan by Dr. F. W. Oliver:

"Let us look at a cell in which the protoplasm fills the whole interior (1). A large cell-nucleus is visible in the centre of the cell-body [the Point]. The protoplasm exhibits when very highly magnified, granules, and fibrils, the latter long and short, curved and straight knotted and twisted or rolled into balls, and anastomosing into a net-work" [P. 580, Vol. III].

In Diagram 3, the expansion of the spindle line to form the Circle-Globe is more plainly indicated than in the previous diagrams shown under the Animal Cell, and in Diagram 4 the skeins have more the lotus shape than the skeins of the Animal Cell.

The nuclear fibrils distributed through the whole nucleus

1

The broken up nuclear fibrils arranged as the nuclear plate

The elements

of the

plate separating from one another

The same

elements

forming 2

skeins at

the poles of

the spindle

The growing plant likewise reproduces the fundamental symbols : The Germ Seed, the Point; upon the entrance of moisture cross-currents are set up in the different cells through tension. These eventually reach the germ which expands and responds by piercing its sheath, the Web-Womb. The germ sends upward and downward a curved shoot, the Line, bent almost Circle-wise. When linear movement has slowed down, it starts its Cross-//ke horizontal expansion. Those whose inner sight is developed see the plant builders at work in whirling-dance-like motions, the Svastika, the very opening of the Lotus or Perfected Flower-Form being accompanied by such a dance.

THE SYMBOLS IN THE MINERAL KINGDOM

The student of crystollogy will trace the unfoldment of these fundamental axes of growth.

In Figure 49, in the Chapter on " Quantum Mechanics and Matter Waves " in The Revolution in Physics, here reproduced, one plainly traces at least five of the

SYMBOLS

645

various symbols in this diagram of nodal planes and cones of the Hydrogen [chemical] atom : The Point, the Line, the Circle-Globe, the Cross, the whirling Svastika are clearly marked. The diagram seems to have been visioned on what in Theosophy is called the super-etheric levels, as will be noted in a comparison with that excellent picture, facing page 7, of Occult Chemistry, where the various stages are shown from atom to gas in Hydrogen, Oxygen and Nitrogen chemical atoms.

"Fig. 49: Nodal planes and nodal cones of the hydrogen atom around the nucleus, which is the middle point of the nodal spheres (not shown)/'

The student will also be interested to note in the latter diagram how the atomic Point becomes the sub-atomic Web-Womb, the super-etheric Linear formation, the etheric Globe, with a latitudinal or Cross-like development as a gaseous atom—the final stages being omitted.

In the Fundamental or Ultimate Atom, both Male and Female, can be observed these various symbols at work. [Compare Plate II facing page 21, Occult Chemistry.] The Atom, itself a Point and Web-Womb, spins like a top around a Linear Longitudinal Axis, and describes a central orbit Circle. Within the heart of each atom is to be seen a flaming cross 1 . The whirling motion is a reflection of the Svastika, and its regular heart-like pulsation of contraction and expansion is as the opening and closing of the Lotus Flower, the Breathing of the Atom.

THE SYMBOLS IN PHYSICS

Sir Oliver Lodge in Ether and Reality: [An excellent description of a physical plane reflection of the relationship between Point and Web ?] " Space is full, not of matter, but of Ether. The Ether is other than matter; and it fills all space in the most thorough manner: there is nothing so omnipresent and so efficient in the physical universe ... we have no means of making a vacuum in the Ether and feeling its pressure . . . The first thing to realize about the Ether is its absolute continuity . . . Since the particles of matter are . . . separated from each other and never in contact, it would seem to follow that they are all independent of each other, disconnected, nothing uniting them—the particles completely separated by empty space. If there were nothing existent but matter, that would be so; there would be no unification, no binding force, no family relationship, nothing but separate independent particles: that is what would happen if Space were really empty ; and the universe would be not a cosmos but a chaos . . . the uniting ' something ' is not composed of particles at all; it is continuous ; it unites the particles with a force which is known as Cohesion. . . . The particles embedded in the Ether are not independent of it, they are closely connected with it, it is probable that they are formed out of it: they are not like grains of sand suspended in water, they seem more like minute crystals formed in a mother liquor."

[Is Sir Oliver Lodge here suggesting the Line ?]

" We never really generate or destroy electricity : what one body has gained, another has lost, and when the balance is restored, there is equilibrium. We produce or display electric charge simply by transfer, simply by making manifest what was previously existent. We pull out infinitesimal lines of force and make them extend across perceptible space : we thus in a way generate an electric field; but the field was pre-existent, though infinitesimal and non-apparent before we displayed it. If we liken the lines of force to elastic threads, they are elastic threads of infinitesimal length, capable of being stretched ad libitum, without limit; the lines never snap, nor do they ever shrink up into absolute nothingness . . . however violently we treat them. Whether they ever shrink to nothingness of their own accord, remains to be seen : such a discovery has not yet been made."

[Is the force of magnetism allied to the Circle ?]

" There is a fundamental difference between electric and magnetic lines of force ... an electric line of force has two ends, a positive end on a proton, a negative end on an electron. A magnetic line of force has no ends, it is always a closed loop : we may not think of a magnetic line of force as analogous to an elastic thread reaching from one particle to another and pulling them together ; it is more like an india-rubber ring, it is looped or closed on itself, it has no ends. But

the loop is one that can be stretched, it can be expanded so as to enclose a big area, or it can shrink up until it is too small to be appreciable, it never shuts up to nothing. It never goes out of existence. If you call these loops magnetism, we never generate magnetism; we open it out. The act of magnetization opens a loop out, and, being elastic, it is always trying to close up. When a loop encloses two bodies, and then shrinks, it pulls them together as if they attracted each other. That is magnetic attraction. Rather like an india-rubber ring holding things together."

Sir Oliver contrasts the electric charge which is transferred, one body losing what the other gains, with the magnetic charge which is exercised by " induction without loss: one magnet can magnetize any number of others without itself being any the poorer; there is no limit to the amount of magnetization that can be produced, once it is started."

One of the earliest discoveries was that electricity could generate magnetism by separating an electron from a proton and rushing one of them along : " the two are remarkably interrelated ; they are by no means the same thing . . . magnetism can generate electricity" through the release of "energy to generate an electric current, that is to set electrons in motion."

[Is this the Cross ?]

Sir Oliver quotes Prof. Einstein that " the idea of motion [locomotion] may not be applied to it [ether]," in the heading to his chapter on " Electro-Magnetism."

" An electron at rest has nothing magnetic about it: it has a field of electric force ; lines of force radiate from it in all directions : it seems to have a centre or nucleus in a certain locality, but its lines of force stretch out everywhere. An electron is capable of locomotion ; locomotion is one characteristic of every form of matter;—it is doubtful if the unmodified ether is capable of locomotion, at any rate we don't know how to set it moving. But we do know how to move an electron, its field or force gives us a handle : it is easy to move, it is the most mobile thing we know : it has extremely little inertia, and the smallest force will set it going very quickly.

" When it moves ... its line of motion is surrounded by magnetic rings . . The faster it moves the more those rings open out, the bigger they grow, until they become conspicuous. A moving electron is surrounded by a magnetic field . . . The energy of a moving electron can be calculated. If it is stopped, what becomes of that energy?" Sir Oliver asks what becomes of the magnetic rings ? " If the impact is violent enough, the rings do not shrink, they rather expand : the electric and the magnetic fields which had previously existed quietly together, now combine into an Ether disturbance. They travel out as waves, not a series of waves, but a pulse, a shell of wave, rapidly expanding with the speed of light. And

they carry with them the momentum of their origin. The moving electron had extra mass,—temporary matter and that extra mass, when it stops is converted into a quantum of radiation. Such wave-like shells were discovered by Rontgen ; they are known as X-rays."

[Trie Svastika ?]

" But now comes an important though perhaps rather difficult point. The magnetic field surrounding the electron possessed energy ... In what form is the energy in a magnetic loop or ring ? We do not know; we can make a surmise, based on certain evidence; but experiment has not yet answered. The great mathematician, Sir Joseph Larmor, who holds the Chair of Newton at Cambridge, has surmised that round a magnetic loop the Ether is circulating, —not necessarily quickly, but circulating,—as a curtain-ring might be spinning in its own plane, or like the rim of a spinning-top or fly-wheel; and that the energy is represented by this circulation. I said that the Ether was not capable of locomotion, or at least that we had no means of getting hold of it and moving it from place to place. That remains true, but a spin is not locomotion. There is no locomotion about a spinning-top, if it is merely spinning. Such motion is sometimes called ' stationary motion'; it is not apparent unless you try to stop it ... What generated this spinning motion in the Ether ? What was the origin of these spinning loops ? No one knows: Science cannot answer the question of ' origin' or genesis. We have no means of generating such loops: they are there: all we can do is to open them out and make them apparent."

[Is radiation the Lotus Flower ?]

" Matter excites radiation at its own expense : does radiation [the lotus flower} ever, anywhere, give rise to matter [the particles ] ? . . . Matter tends to fall together gravitationally: but radiation tends to spread to the confines of the universe. And yet, however diluted, it retains its vigour. When quanta are thus isolated, what are they ? What becomes of them ? There is some deep meaning even in the speed with which light travels ; no greater speed seems possible. In that speed, and in the newly presented puzzles about the connexion between ether and matter, and about the nature of radiation ... we are down among the foundations of material being. We stand as it were enthralled by the revelation which is dawning upon us. Confronted with a majestic vision of Reality, we—like those other explorers on their first view of the Pacific Ocean—have

" Look'd at each other with a wild surmise— Silent, upon a peak in Darien."

UNIVERSAL YOGA

" The beasts of the field and the birds of the air, are all a People like unto you, and unto Allah shall they return." —The Koran

THE GLADSOME LIFE

" The river rippled past with strong, even sweep. Below was the deep pool, with smiles and glintings of light on its dark face, where the salmon, after their Song run from the sea, rested awhile before taking up their positions in the swift water, in which they love to lie, balancing themselves against the rush and tremor of the current. Above were the riffles, making white foam patches of the water, as if they were having a soap-bubble party all to themselves. The big white bubbles would come dancing, swinging down to the eddies behind the rocks, where a playful young grilse would shoot up through them, scattering them merrily, and adding a dozen more bubbles and wimples to the running troop as he fell back into his eddy with a musical splash that set all the warblers on the bank to whistling. Now and then a big white patch would escape all this and enter sedately the swift run of water along the great ledge on the farther shore. My big salmon lived there ; and just as the foam patch dipped sharply into the quiet water below, he would swirl under it and knock it into smithereens with a blow of his tail.

" So the play went on, while I sat watching it—watching the shadows, watching the dabs and pencillings of light and the changing reflections, watching the foam bubbles with special delight and anticipation, betting with myself how far they would run, whether to the second eddy or to the rim of the pool, before the salmon would smash them in their play. Then a shadow fell on the water, and I looked up to watch the great eagle breasting, balancing, playing with the mighty air-currents above, as the fishes played in the swift rush of water below.

" He set his wings square to the wind at first and slanted swiftly up, like a well hung kite. But that was too fast for leisure hours. He had only dropped down to the pool in idle curiosity to see what was doing. Then, watching his wing tips keenly through my glass, I saw the quills turn ever so slightly, so as to spill the wind from their underside, as a skipper slacks sheets to deaden his boat's headway, and the wonderful upward spiral flight began.

" Just how he does it only the eagle himself knows ; and with him it is largely a matter of slow learning. The young birds make a sad bungle of it when they try it for the first time, following the mother eagle, who swings just above and in front of them to show them how it is done.

" Over me sweeps my eagle in slow, majestic circles ; ever returning upon his course, yet ever higher than his last wheel, like a life with a great purpose in it; sliding evenly upward on the wind's endless stairway as it slips from under him. Without hurry, without exertion—just a twist of his wide-set wing quills, so slight that my eye can no longer notice it—he swings upward ; while the earth spreads wider and wider below him, and rivers flash in the sun, like silver ribbons, across the green forest carpet that spreads away over mountain and valley to the farthest horizon.

' Smaller and smaller grow the circles now, till the vast spiral reaches its apex, and he hangs there in the air, looking with quiet, kindling eyes over Isaiah's royal land of ' farnesses/ like a tiny humming-bird poised over the earth's great flower cup. So high is he that one must think he glances over the brim of things, and sees our earth as a great bubble floating in the blue ether, with nothing whatever below it and only himself above. And there he stays, floating, balancing, swaying in the purring currents of air that hold him fast in their soft arms and brush his great wings tenderly with a caress that never grows weary, like a great, strong mother holding her little child.

" He had fed ; he had drunk to the full from a mountain spring. Now he rested over the world that nourished him and his little ones, with his keen eyes growing sleepy, and never a thought of harm to himself or any creature within his breast. For that is a splendid thing about all great creatures, even the fiercest of them ; they are never cruel. They take only what they must to supply their necessities. When their wants are satisfied there is truce which they never break. They live at peace with all things, small and great, and, in their dumb unconscious way, answer to the deep harmony of the world which underlies all its superficial discords, as the music of the sea is never heard till one moves far away from the uproar along the shore.

" The little wild things all know this perfectly. When an eagle, or any other bird or beast of prey, is not hunting—which is nine-tenths of the time—the timidest and most defenceless creature has no fear of him whatever.

" My eyes grow weary, at last, watching the noble bird, so small a speck on the infinite blue background ; and they blur suddenly, thinking of the joy of his great free life, and the sadness of our unnatural humanity."

—William J. Long, School of the Woods, pp. 310-15

FLOWERS

"A flower is one of Nature's joyous expressions of an all-pervading cosmic power. It lifts a song to the sun, and brings to the face of the earth a complexion of youthfulness and vitality.

" It not only lends beauty to any landscape, but provides a contrast between the many aspects of creation which, paradoxical though it may sound, is an essential of cosmic rhythm.

" A man who cannot see in a flower something more than a mere growth to be analysed in material terms is surely missing a part of life's adventure, in that he cannot scale his own mountain of self-consciousness . . . The smallest flower in the smallest cranny of the precipice is as much a part of hill and dale as a whole range of peaks trodden by tall clouds.

" The flowers I see now with memory's eye bring a new light to the faded green of an upland recently abandoned by winter snow. Their carpet is a celestial one, breathing innocence and joy to a world over-burdened with sophistication and sorrow. And here is an alp ablaze with crocuses, a pale fire, as though all the stars in heaven had fallen to earth."

—F. S. Smythe, The Spirit of the Hills

See also quotations from Annie Besant on pp. 93-94 ; Ruskin (The Queen of the Air and The Ethics of the Dust), pp. 326-27, 329-31 ; Tourgueniev, pp. 328-29.

VISHNU, SYMBOLS OF

ANNIE BESANT says in Pranava-Vada : " Sound is creative—and destructive ; forms are built up by sound, and it has been shown by many experiments that shell-forms are among the most frequent creations of musical notes ; for these reasons, as well as for the very powerful and peculiar vibrations caused by blowing into it, the conch has been selected as the symbol of creative activity by sound.

" The chakra or whirling disc is the svastika, the cross of fire, which, in rapid rotation, has each arm blown backwards; it is found everywhere in the world, also as a symbol of creative fire, the ' electric cross ' or wheel. As the conch symbolizes creation in space, so is the svastika creation in time, the whirling arms signifying succession.

44 The mace is often given as the sign of rule, held by the ruler of the world-system, the sceptre which directs and, if necessary, punishes.

" The lotus-flower is the symbol of a universe, and this owing to the fact that our universe, i.e., our solar system, when seen from a higher plane, looks like an expanded flower of that kind.

44 All wreaths symbolize the threading of the many on the One. ' All this is threaded on me as pearls on a string.'

" The blue vesture symbolizes the blue of space, which is, in truth, darkness, and the yellow, the golden rays of the sun, the source of light.

44 The /caustubha-gem is the ' Jewel in the Lotus/ the Self in the Universe, and hence ever adorns the breast of Him in whom the I and the This are united, the Ishvara of a universe."

WE8-WOMB

The Secret Doctrine quoting an ancient sacred Commentary: "In the World of Being, the One Point fructifies the Line, the Virgin Matrix of Kosmos [the egg-shaped zero], and the immaculate Mother gives birth to the Form that combines all forms." —I, 118 (Adyar ed., I, 155)

W, Y. Evans-Wentz : "As a spider spins from the substance of its own body a web and then draws the web back again into itself, so the All-Mind . . evolves the Cosmic Creation from Itself and again absorbs."

—T/betan Voga and Secret Doctrine, p. 165

See also Duality and Breath ; also Point (Eugenius Philalethes).

WHEEL OF THE LAW See Svastika.

YOGA SEEN THROUGH MANY EYES

Yoga is, literally, the act of yoking, joining, uniting. Applied to practices designed to achieve the Supreme Union with Atma.

H. P. BLAVATSKY

" The passage from the darkness of ignorance into the light of truth, the awakening of man's immortal Spirit to inner and eternal life. This is the Science of the Raja Yogis—Magic." — The Secret Doctrine, III, 473 (Adyar ed., V, 451)

" Would'st thou become a Yogi of time's circle ? Then, O Lanoo :

" Believe thou not that sitting in dark forests, in proud seclusion and apart from men ; believe thou not that life on roots and plants, that thirst assuaged with snow from the great Range—believe thou not, O devotee, that this will lead thee to the goal of final liberation.

" Think not that breaking bone, that rending flesh and muscle, unites thee to thy silent Self. Think not that when the sins of thy gross form are conquered, O victim of thy shadows, thy duty is accomplished by nature and by man.

" The blessed ones have scorned to do so. The Lion of the Law, the Lord of Mercy, perceiving the true cause of human woe, immediately forsook the sweet but selfish rest of quiet wilds." — The Voice of the Silence, Fragment II

" The Hatha Yogi will never pass beyond the Maharloka. ... To become a Raja Yogi, one has to ascend up to the seventh portal, the Satyaloka. For such, the Master Yogis tell us, is the fruition of Yajna, or sacrifice."

-The Secret Doctrine, III, 569 (Adyar ed., V, 542)

" An affected detestation of the world, and the tedious and useless practice of the counting of inhalations and exhalations as a means to produce absolute tranquillity of mind or meditation, have brought this school within the region of Hatha Yoga." —Ibid., Ill, 416 (Adyar ed., V, 399)

" The two higher Tattvas . . . are the chief factors in Raja Yoga."

—Ibid., Ill, 499 (Adyar ed., V, 477)

" The science of Hatha Yoga rests upon the ' suppression of breath,' or Praniyama, to which exercise our Masters are unanimously opposed . . . The

Great Breath spoken of in our first volume is Atma the etymology of which is 'eternal mot/on,' Now while the ascetic Chela of our school, for his mental development, follows carefully the process of the evolution of the Universe, that is, proceeds from universals to particulars, the Hatha Yogi reverses the conditions and begins by sitting for the suppression of his (vital) breath."

—Ibid., Ill, 502 (Adyar ed.. V, 479)

" He who has studied both systems, the Hatha and the Raja Yoga, finds an enormous difference between the two : one is purely psycho-physiological, the other purely psycho-spiritual. The Tantrists do not seem to go higher than the six visible and known plexuses, with each of which they connect the Tattvas ; and the great stress they lay on the chief of these, the Muladhara Chakra (the sacral plexus), shows the material and selfish bent of their efforts towards the acquisition of powers. Their five Breaths and five Tattvas are chiefly concerned with the prostatic, epigastric, cardiac, and laryngeal plexuses. Almost ignoring the Ajna, they are positively ignorant of the synthesizing laryngeal plexus. But ... we begin with the mastery of that organ which is situated at the base of the brain, in the pharynx, and called by Western Anatomists the Pituitary Body." Madame Blavatsky goes on to show that through this " insignificant little body " the " arousing and awakening of the Third Eye" is accomplished, which is "the Energizer of Will " as the Pineal Gland is the organ of "Clairvoyant Perception."

_-/b/d., Ill, 503-04 (Adyar ed., V, 480)

Referring to the Yogi's perception of symbols, The Secret Doctrine states: " In the Turiya state the Triangle " is in the Yogi " and is felt." Only below that state does it need form for its representation.

—Ibid., Ill, 542 (Adyar ed., V, 515)

Says the Book of Dzyan: " The Third Race . . . created Sons of Will and Yoga, by Kriyashakti it created them, the Holy Fathers, Ancestors of the Arhats."

Commenting thereon, Tfie Secret Doctrine states : "It was by Kriyashakti, that mysterious and divine power, latent in the will of every man, which, if not called to life, quickened and developed by Yoga-training, remains dormant in 999,999 men out of a million, and so gets atrophied. This power is explained in the ' Twelve Signs of the Zodiac ' [by Subba Rao], as follows :

" ' Kriyashakti : The mysterious power of thought which enables it to produce external, perceptible, phenomenal results by its own inherent energy. The ancients held that any idea will manifest itself externally, if one's attention [and w/7/] is deeply concentrated upon it. Similarly, an intense volition will be followed by the desired result.

" ' A Yogi generally performs his wonders by means of Ichchhishakti (Willpower) and Kriyashakti.' " —Trie Secret Doctrine, II, 182 (Adyar ed., Ill, 180)

Of that Yoga which is the " Mystic Meditation " of the Yogacharya School, The Secret Doctrine says : " He who is strong in the Yoga can introduce at will his Alaya by means of meditation into the true nature of Existence."

—I, 79-80 (Adyar ed. f I. 121)

See also Occultism.

ANNIE BESANT AND C. W. LEADBEATER

Many times do they quote the famous passage from the Bhagavad-G/ta [II, 50]:

" Yoga is skill in action."

In explanation, Dr. Besant says on page 45 of Talks on the Path of Occultism,. a very useful book for the student of Yoga :

" Yoga is union with the Divine. Action must be skilful in the case of the man who has this union, for it is not he who does the work, but God in him."

And on page 201 :

" The perfect carrying out of the duties that have to be done in the world is what shows that the force coming down from the higher planes is being turned in the right direction. ... If a man is disciplined on the higher planes his lower activ-ties will be good ; but if he is undisciplined they will not be good."

Bishop Leadbeater in commenting on this same passage says: "It is doing the right thing carefully, tactfully and courteously." — Ibid., p. 203.

Dr. Besant was not among those Indian Yogis who regard " the use of both physical and superphysical senses equally as a hindrance," but thought " that it is better to be healthy and to have the use of one's faculties on all planes."

The reader is especially referred to An Introduction to Yoga by Annie Besant for its lucid and rational application of the laws of the unfolding of consciousness as the Science of Yoga. Therein she shows the Discipline of Life needed to reach the Supreme Goal of Union.

IAMBLICHUS

41 Now, lamblichus shows us how this union of our Higher Soul with the Universal Soul, with the Gods, is to be effected. He speaks of Manteia, which is Samadhi, the highest trance. He speaks also of dream which is divine vision, when man re-becomes again a God. By Theurgy or Raja Yoga, a man arrives at

" (1) Prophetic Discernment through our God (the respective Higher Ego of each of us) revealing to us the truths of the plane on which we happen to be acting ;

11 (2) Ecstasy and Illumination ;

11 (3) Action in Spirit (in Astral Body or through Will);

" (4) and Domination over the minor, senseless demons (Elemental) by the very nature of our purified Egos. But this demands the complete purification of the latter And this is called by him Magic, through initiation into Theurgy.

" But Theurgy has to be preceded by a training of our senses and the knowledge of the human Self in relation to the Divine Self."

—The Secret Doctrine, III, 474 (Adyar ed., V, 452)

YOGA IN TIBET

" In the body of man as he is—in our present Fourth Round—there are four kingdoms of living creatures : (1) those of the Element Fire, (2) those of the Element Air, (3) those of the Element Water, and (4) those of the Element Earth. Over this collective life of innumerable myriads of lives man is king. If he be a Great King, filled with the transcendent consciousness of the triumphant Yogi (or Saint), to him the countless multitude of his elemental subjects severally reveal themselves in their true nature and place in his hand the Sceptre (symbolized by the Tibetan dorje or thunderbolt) of Universal Dominion over Matter. Then, indeed, is he Lord of Nature, becoming in his turn Ruler by Divine Right, a Chakravartin, or Universal Emperor, God and Creator."

—W. Y. Evans-Wentz, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, pp. 9-10

YOGA IN HINDUISM

Trie Invocation in the Yoga Darshana version of Patanjali's Sutras to which one always refers all those desirous of understanding Yoga from the Hindu standpoint.

" May the resplendent Lord of Serpents protect you,—He who, administering Yoga, while himself equipped with it, having an excellent body of pure white, ever-delighting in a serpentine body, the fountain-head of all wisdom, having the mass of impediments destroyed, bearing terrific poison,—One who having renounced his original body, is able to confer manifold benefits on the world ! " (p. 1).

On page 38 of the Yoga Darshana Yoga is viewed as Communion, and one is considered nearest to it who has acquired " intensely ardent dispassion."

On page 54, Yoga is seen as

" Friendliness towards the happy, Compassion towards the Unhappy, Satisfaction towards the Righteous, Indifference for the Unrighteous."

On page 75, treating the subject of asceticism, the Sutras say: "(1) Asceticism, (2) Self-Instruction, and (3) Devotion to the Supreme Lord constitute the Yogic Discipline/' but " that form of Asceticism has to be practised which does not disturb the composure of the Mind." The editor's note thereon is : " The commentator here distinctly denies the theory of penance and the like religious austerities being the means to Yoga. In his opinion a peaceful equilibrium of Mind alone can lead to Yoga, and austerities are likely to disturb this equilibrium by the physical effort involved."

" Yoga-power, the ' chaste mother' that creates the Adepts."

—The Secret Doctrine, III, 271 (Adyar ed, V, 270)

" The Omnificent (Vishvakarma), called the ' Great Architect of the Universe/ . . . Esoterically, He is the personification of the creative manifested Power; and mystically He is the seventh principle in man, in its collectivity. For He is the son of Bhuvana, the self-created, luminous Essence, and of the virtuous, chaste and lovely Yoga-Siddha, the virgin Goddess, whose name speaks for itself, since it personified Yoga-power, the ' chaste mother' that creates the Adepts. In the Rig-Vaidic Hymns, Vishvakarma performs the 'great sacrifice,' i.e., sacrifices himself for the world ; or, as the Nirukta is made to say, translated by the Orientalists : ' Vishvakarma first of ail offers up all the world in a sacrifice, and then ends by sacrificing himself.' " —Ibid., Ill, 271 (Adyar ed., V, 270)

" This word, derived from the root Yuj (' to join ') is in grammar sandhi, in logic avayavashakti, or the power of the parts taken together, and in its most widely known and present sense the union of the //Va, or embodied spirit, with the Paramatma, or Supreme Spirit, and the practices by which this union may be attained [as the Saradatilaka (chap, xxv) says: Aikyam-jivatmanorahuryogam yoga-visharadah].

There is a natural yoga, in which all beings are, for it is only by virtue of this identity in fact that they * exist. This position is common ground, though in practice too frequently overlooked. ' Primus modus unionis est, quo Deus, ratione suae immensitatis est in omnibus rebus per essentiam, praesentiam, et potentiam ; per essentiam ut dans omnibus esse ; per praesentiam ut omnia prospiciens; per .potentiam ut de omnibus disponens.' [Summa Theologiaa Mysticas, torn, iii, p. 8, R. P. Philippi]. The mystical theologian cited, however, proceeds to say : ' Sed haec unio animae cum Deo est generalis, communis omnibus et ordinis naturalis . . . ilia namque de qua loquimur est ordinis supernaturalis actuahs et fructiva,' It is of this special yoga, though not in reality more ' supernatural' than the first, that we here deal. Yoga in its technical sense is the realization of this identity, which exists, though it is not known, by the destruction of the false appearance of separation. There is no bond equal in strength to maya, and no force greater to destroy that bond than yoga. There is no better friend than knowledge (jnana), nor worse enemy than egoism (ahangkara). As to learn the Shastra one must learn the alphabet, so yoga is necessary for the acquirement of tattvajnona (truth) [Gheranda Sanghita, chap, v, et seq.]. The animal body is the result of action, and from the body flows action, the process being compared to the see-saw movement of a ghatiyanira. or water-lifter. Through their actions beings continually go from birth to death. The complete attainment of the fruit of yoga is lasting and unchanging life in the noumenal world of the Absolute."

—Arthur Avalon, Jantra of the Great Liberation, p. cxxi

YOGA SEEN THROUGH MANY EYES

657

HATHA AND RAJA YOGAS

" Sj. Atal Bihari Ghosh has added here the following : ' Before the shishya can practise yoga in its highest form, in Raja-Yoga, he must perfect his material body by means of Hatha-Yoga, so that it becomes ' beyond contraries ' (Skt. Dvan-dvatita) —heat and cold, dampness and dryness, and all similar physical opposites. To this end are necessary the various yogic processes prescribed for purifying the body (Skt. Dhaut/'-Shodhana), the various bodily postures (Skt. Asana and Mudra) and control of the breathing (Skt. Pranayama). The Gheranda-Sangh/'ta and the Hatha-yoga-Pradipika describe Hatha-Yoga as the staircase leading to Raja-Yoga ; and

through Raja-Yoga, the yogi becomes Dvandvatita in a higher sense praise and

blame, pleasure and pain, and all similar mental or intellectual and psychic opposites becoming undifferentiated to him. Under Hatha-Yoga is classified Mantra-Yoga, which, too, is preparatory to Raja-Yoga." —Evans-Wentz, Milarepa, p. 134

Classification of Yogas in Jibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrine :

The Path

I. Hatha Yoga II. Laya Yoga

1. Bhakti Yoga

2. Shakti Yoga

3. Mantra Yoga

4. Yantra Yoga III. Dhyana Yoga JV. Raja Yoga

1. Jnana Yoga

2. Karma Yoga

3. Kundalini Yoga

4. Samadhi Yoga

giving mastery of

breath

will

love

energy

sound

form

thought

method

knowledge

activity

Kundalini

self

and leading to yogic control of

physical body and vitality powers of mind powers of divine love energizing forces of nature powers of sound vibrations powers of geometrical form powers of thought-processes powers of discrimination powers of intellect powers of action powers of psychic nerve-force powers of ecstasy

—ibid., p. 33

Hatha, in Hatha-Yoga, is popularly held to mean health; but this meaning is merely secondary. In the Commentary on the Hatha-Yoga-Pradipika by Brahma-nanda, the following shloka is given to explain the meaning of Hatha (composed of the two letters Ha and Tha) :

" ' The letter Ha means the Sun [svara] ; the letter Tha [is] said [to mean] the Moon [svara]. By the joining of Surya-Chandra (the Sun-Moon), Hatha-Yoga is understood.'

" According to this authority, Hatha in connection with Yoga means the Sun-svara (or Sun-breathing), which refers to breathing yogically through the right (or

sun) nostril, plus the Moon-svara (or Moon-breathing), which refers to breathing yogically through the left (or moon) nostril. Taking yoga to mean ' to join/ Hatha-Yoga thus means ' to join together the Sun-breathing and the Moon-breathing,' . . . Ha = Surya = Sun [breathing] is positive ; Jha~ Chandra -Moon [breathing] is negative. Hatha-Yoga, accordingly, primarily refers to the neutralization, by methods of yoga, of the process of breathing, for, by the joining of a positive with a negative, neutrality of the two results naturally." — Ibid., p. 26

THE TRUE PATH

" The True Path, as delineated here, is that pointed out in six verses of the Yoga-Vasishtha (Nos. 17, 18, 19, 21 , 22 and 25 of Chapter XVII of the Upashamaprakarana). These verses were originally selected by the Saint Ramana Swami of Tiruvannamalai in South India among his disciples and admirers and through them to the world outside. Sometime ago they were published with a somewhat free rendering in English from his Ashrama at Arunachalam. They are republished here with exact references to the original text and a fuller interpretation than in the Arunachalam version."

[From a " pamphlet prepared in obedience to a special wish of Dr. Gyanendra Nath Chakravarti, who was a lifelong friend of Dr. Annie Besant."]

— Jagadish Chandra Chatterji

" Being firmly established in that full, all-seeing Vision which blossoms forth by the abandonment of every thought and feeling of the separative 'I/ 'My' and * Mine,' and standing in thy own inmost Being by the attainment of the state of one who has realized Absolute Freedom of the Spirit while still living in a physical body (Jivan-mukta) — the state which results from this same full Vision — move thou about in the world, O Raghava, joyfully, as though engaged in a play."

11 Inwardly, having abandoned all longings of the heart, and with the attachments of the soul (colouring the vision of the spirit) completely gone, free even from those subtle impressions of objective experience which remain clinging to the subconscious life; yet— outwardly— following all that is proper in one's conduct, move thou in the world, O Raghava, joyfully, as though engaged in. a play."

\\

" Generous and gentle in behaviour, setting in every conduct an encouraging example for others, yet, inwardly, as one who has renounced all, move thou about in the world, O Raghava, joyfully, as though engaged in a play."

" Inwardly, having wholly taken up an attitude of no longing for anything whatsoever, but, outwardly, acting energetically with the eager countenance of those with longings of the heart — outwardly, warmed up with what, in everyday dealings, would be a loss and a disappointment to others, but inwardly, cool in every way — move thou about in the world, O Raghava, joyfully, as though engaged in a play."

" Outwardly, as one with a show of indignation, but in the heart, as one who is devoid of anger — an active agent in outward appearance, but inwardly without all thought and feeling of being the author of any such activity — move thou about in the world, O Raghava, joyfully, as though engaged in a play."

" Having renounced the notion and feeling of the individual, separative 'ego/ placid of the mind with all its passions stilled — becoming as the moon that shines in the heavens — but without partaking in anything blameworthy which might look, on his character, like the dark spot on the moon — move thou about in the world, O Raghava, joyfully, as though engaged in a play."

A YOGA OF INFINITUDES

To perceive the mystery of Life,

desire always to reach the innermost. To perceive the limitations of things,

desire always to possess them.

€60 SYMBOLS AT WORK

These two aspects of Life are One.

In their out-come they become different in Name

but in their depth they are One. In a depth, still deeper yet,

is the Door of many mysteries. (I)

Retire yourself;

This is Heavenly Tao. (IX)

Thirty spokes surround one nave,

the usefulness of the wheel is always in that empty innermost.

You fashion clay to make a bowl,

the usefulness of the bowl is always in that empty innermost.

You cut out doors and windows to make a house,

their usefulness to a house is always in their empty space.

Therefore profit comes from external form,

but usefulness comes from the empty innermost. (XI)

'Looking at it, you do not see it,

you call it Invisible. Listening to it, you do not hear it

you call it Inaudible. Touching it, you do not grasp it,

you call it Intangible. These three cannot be described,

but they blend, and are One.

Above, it is not bright;

Below, it is not dim;

Unceasingly, unceasingly,

It cannot be called by a Name,

It enters into Form, and returns into Spirit.

That is why it is called Spiritual Form of Form,

Spiritual Image of Image. That is why it is called vague and indeterminate. Meet it, you cannot see its beginning; Follow it, you cannot see its end. . . . (XIV)

To arrive at ultimate quietness Steadfastly maintain repose.

All creatures together have form ;

I see them return again to their root.

The Master creatures come to perfect form.

Continuously they return to their root.

Continuous return to the root is called repose,

Repose is called the law of return,

The law of return is called eternity . . . (XVI)

I desire that my heart be completely subdued, emptied to emptiness . . .

I appear confused and ignorant.

Suddenly I am, as it were, on a vast sea,

floating on the sea of Inner Life which is boundless

Many men are full of ability I appear to be stupid and rustic

Thus am I different from other men.

But I revere the Mother, Sustamer of all beings. (XX)

The complete manifestation of things visible proceeds only from Life.

In its nature Life is always coming into activity, yet in itself it eludes our sight and touch.

Eluding sight! eluding touch !

Within it are hid the plans of created things.

Eluding touch ! eluding sight!

Within it are hid all created beings.

It is profound! It is obscure ! Within it is hid pure Spirit. It is pure Spirit, enfolding Truth I Within it is hid an infallible witness.

From of Old until Now

Its Name remains unchanged.

Through its Doorway comes the Universe into existence

How do I know that

the Universe is coming to full perfection through Life ? The witness is in Life itself. (XXI)

There was a Being already perfect

before the existence of Heaven and Earth. It is calm I It is formless ' It stands alone and changes not! Reaching everywhere and inexhaustible, It may be regarded as Mother of the Universe.

I do not know its name.

For a title we call it the Tao.

If forced to give it a name we call it the Great

Great, we call it the Flowing,

Flowing, we call it distant,

Distant, we call it the Coming again . . .

Man finds his law in the Earth.

The Earth finds its law in Heaven,

Heaven finds its law in the Tao,

The Tao finds its law in the affirmation of Self. (XXV)

Gravity is the root of lightness, Quiescence is the master of motion. (XXVI)

Great Tao flows everywhere,

It extends to the left and to the right.

All beings receive It

in order to live and to be free. It works out perfectness in them

although It possesses not a Name.

It protects them with love and sustains them,

but does not claim to be Ruler of their actions. Always seeking the innermost,

you may say that Its Name is in the Small.

All beings return again into It,

yet It does not claim to be Ruler of their actions. You may say that Its Name is in the Great.

That is why, to the end of his life,

the self-controlled man is not great in action, Thus he is able to perfect his greatness. (XXXIV)

The activity of Everlasting Tao is in the Inner Kingdom, It does not act except through the innermost.

If prince and people can maintain it together,

All beings will be transformed from within themselves ;

Being transformed, they again desire action.

We must learn to still desire

To obtain in the Inner Life Purity of the Name.

Purity of the Name in the Inner Life

Brings absence of desire ;

Absence of desire brings stillness ;

Thus shall the world be perfected from within itself. (XXXVII)

He who returns is sent forth by Tao, He who is weak is used by Tao.

,ln the world things are born into existence, Existing things are born into Inner Life. (XL)

To possess Inner Life

we enter it by our own private doorway . . .

Overflowing fulness of activity of Inner Life

With power to impart it to others without words—

Few men in the world attain to this. (XLIII)

Without going out of my door I know the Universe.

Without opening my window I perceive Heavenly Tao

The more I go abroad, the less I understand.

That is why the self-controlled man

arrives without going,

names things without seeing them, perfects without activity. (XLVII)

By activity in learning we are daily enriched.

By activity of Tao we are daily diminished, diminished and yet more diminished, until we arrive at activity of Inner Life, and activity of Inner Life becomes stillness of Inner Life.

By the practice of Inner Life stillness

we can continually conquer all things. By the practice of returning to possessions,

nothing that we conquer will be sufficient for us (XLVIII)

The Heart of the self-controlled man is always in the Inner Kingdom. He draws the hearts of ail men into his Heart . . .

The self-controlled man dwells in the world

Patiently and persistently

He brings the whole world into active community of Heart. (XLIX)

To be a true world-ruler, be occupied with Inner Life . . .

That is why the self-controlled man says • If I act from Inner Life

the people will become transformed in themselves. If I love stillness

the people will become righteous in themselves. If I am occupied with Inner Life

the people will become enriched in themselves. If I love the Inner Life

the people will become pure in themselves. (LVII)

Be active, with the Activity of Inner Life. • Serve, with the Service of Inner Life. Be fragrant, with the Fragrance of Inner Life. (LXIII)

His [the Master's] Restfulness is easily maintained.

Events foreseen by him are easily arranged for.

By him weak things are easily bent,

And small things are easily scattered.

He can stop an evil before it comes into existence.

He can keep a twig straight before it becomes crcoked.

Behold the girth of this tree!

It grew from a small filament of a stalk.

This tower of nine storeys

has its base upon a small space on the earth. The journey of a thousand miles

began with a single footstep on the ground. (LXIV)

Profound Teh is in the very source of life* it pervades the utmost limits of life, it returns and dwells in every being.

When fully manifested,

it unites all beings in a great harmony. (LXV)

A Great soldier used to say :

" I plan not to be a Lord, but to be a follower,

I plan not to advance an inch, but to recede a foot " This is called :

Advancing with the advance of Inner Life,

baring the arm with the energy of Inner Life,

grasping a weapon with the force of Inner Life,

meeting the foe as a soldier of Inner Life.

There is no calamity greater than lightly to engage in war. To engage lightly in war is to lose our treasure of gentleness Therefore, when soldiers meet who are equally strong, He who is compassionate shall conquer. (LXIX)

. The Master indeed knows the Inner Kingdom, That is why he knows the negation of self. (LXX)

— -From 7ao Teh King, trans, by I. Mears ZODIAC

THE ESOTERIC SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ZODIAC'

1. The Twelve Creative Hierarchies. " Around that wondrous Trimurti, we see, standing in the light coming forth from Them, Those, the fruits of past universes, who have won to that marvellous spiritual height; and the next Forms that we dimly glimpse, in the middle of the light, are of Those who are called the Seven. • , . Every religion points to Them as standing round the manifested Trinity, forming the Viceroys, as it were, of Ishvara in the vast Empire of the solar system, each one with His own kingdom, each one administering His own department. We call Them in Theosophy the Planetary Logoi, because these seven Spirits in the Sun have ever been identified with the seven sacred planets which are Their physical bodies . . .

" Round these again, in wider circle, there come the mighty Ones, the Hierarchies that are the creative Hierarchies, or the Twelve Creative Orders, of the universe. These are headed by the Twelve Great Gods, that appear in very ancient stories, looming vast and magnificent from the great distance in which They dwell. These are symbolized in the familiar Signs of the Zodiac, for the Zodiac is no modern fancy, but was given to the Fourth Race of men by the mighty Teachers, and you may read in your own records the names of some of these teachers, one of whom, Asuramaya, is known as the first of the great astronomers ; it was he who gave the Zodiacs to Egypt and to India. Those astronomical wheels are the symbols, the pictures, in which the plan of the solar system is written, and in the traditions of the past we find the clue to the labyrinth, and we realize why we are told that a planet " rules," or is the Lord of, one qf the Signs of the Zodiac. For the planet is the

1 Based on Annie Besant's The Pedigree of Man, and works of Subba Rao and Modern Astrology.

Planetary Spirit, and His Sign of the Zodiac is one of the chief Creative Hierarchies, containing within itself the remaining Hierarchies as sub-hierarchies, and these, under His control and direction, build up His kingdom, and help the Monads in it to evolve. . . . First comes the great Trinity ; round that Trinity the seven Spirits who are his Viceroys in His universe ; around Them the twelve Creative Hierarchies, busy with the work of the construction of the universe.

" Now at the present stage of evolution, out of these twelve Creative Hierarchies, five have passed away from the ken of even the greatest and most developed Teachers of our world ; four of them have passed onward into liberation, and one is touching the threshold of liberation ; so that in our own evolution we have now only to deal with seven." —The Pedigree of Man, p. 8 et seq.

As Dr. Besant denominates the Tenth Creative Hierarchy as Makara which stands for " Capricorn," the tenth Sign of the Zodiac, it would appear to indicate that the Creative Hierarchies are to be taken in order when correlating with the Zodiac, and that the " four of them [who] have passed onward into liberation " are: Aries, Taurus, Gemini and Cancer, and that the Fifth which is touching the threshold of liberation is Leo, the Lion. Dr. Besant gives no description for the first five, but T. Subba Rao says in " The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac " :

I. Creative Hierarchy T Aries: In Samskrit Mesfiam. 1 "One of the synonyms of this word is Aja . . . that which has no birth, and is applied to the Eternal Brahman in certain portions of the Upanishads. So the first sign is intended to represent Parabrahman, the self-existent, eternal, self-sufficient cause of all."

In Modem Astrology: Aries is the adventurer, he who goeth forth first, the Pioneer, [cosmic desire, the first of any cycle]. Aries is the Ram slain from the foundations of the world. The sign is equinoctial, cardinal, diurnal, movable, fiery, choleric, hot, dry, and is the violent sign of the fiery triplicity. It is said to be ruled by Mars. Its natural house is the first, O°-30°, that of the Ascendent, which some say is more than the mere physical body, perhaps the Monad. The corresponding parts of the body : head and face. We enter Aries on the 21st of March at the time of the Vernal Equinox.

II. 8 Taurus: In Samskrit VrishabhamJ* "This word is used," says Subba Rao, " in several places in the Upanishads and the Vedas to mean Pranava (Aum), Shankaracharya has so interpreted it in several portions of his commentary."

In Modern Astrology : Taurus, the Bull, is the great Inert Mother [Space ?]. It is fixed, cold, dry, negative, and the first of the earthy triplicity. Its natural house is the second, 30°-60", ruling possessions and repose, peace, prosperity, gratitude ;

1 From root Mish ^to wink forth without any sense of identification or attachment, in a spirit of indifference. From the highest level actionless but full of potencies for action.

- From root Vrsh -to outflow or outpour. It is Pranava (the ever-new).

or self-indulgence, greed, idolatry; throat and ears. Said to be ruled by Venus, though some astrologers think by the Earth. We enter the sign of Taurus on the 20th of April.

III. n Gemini: In Samskrit M/tfiunam.' Subba Rao says : " As the word plainly indicates, this sign is intended to represent the first androgyne, the Ardhanarishvara,' the bi-sexual Sephira-Adam Kadmon."

In Modern Astrology: Gemini, the Twins, said to signify contraction and •expansion. Versatility. Also duality of positive-negative. It is a common sign, first of the airy tnphcity, double-bodied and positive. Said to be ruled by Mercury. Its natural house is the third, of brethren and contemporaries, 60°-90°, the field of expression, intellect and art, travelling ; neck, arms, shoulders, lungs. We enter the sign of Gemini on the 20th of May.

IV. 03 Cancer: In Samskrit Karkatakam " This sign ... is evidently intended to represent the sacred Jetragram ; . . . the Pranava resolved into four separate entities . . . the four states of Brahman . . . the four stages or conditions of the sacred word. . . . This sign completes the first quaternary." [T Subba Rao].

In Modern Astrology: Cancer, the Crab, Memory, Imagination, Tenacity [the memory of the Logos from which comes out Archetypal Ideation ?]. It is a watery and cardinal sign, ruled by the Moon., [Is this, as Dr. Besant says, a blind for the earth ?] Does Heaven bend over earth, as the sign indicates, in preparation for fructification ? Its natural house is the fourth, 90°-120°, of parents and guardians, heredity, home, fatherland ; handicaps, racial and local prejudices. It controls the breast, stomach, digestive organs. We enter the sign of Cancer on the 21st of June at the Summer Solstice, when Heaven does indeed bend over earth.

Now an interesting point arises as to the placing of the next Hierarchy in relation to the Zodiacal Signs. Either Leo, the Lion, is the First of the Seven, which might appear from the description of " the Fiery Lions " etc., or Leo is reflected so strongly into Virgo that it takes on the Leo aspect.

Does Subba Rao give us the clue when he says that " the next three signs are not what they ought to be. Kanya or Virgo and Vriscikam or Scorpio should form one single sign, and Tula [Libra] must follow the said sign ... a separation between Kanya and Vriscikam was effected by interposing the sjgn Tula between the two."

In this case we would have had the Seven still with the earth :

Of the Of the

Twelve Seven

V I Leo [perhaps on the threshold of liberation]

VI-VIII II Virgo-Scorpio

VII III Libra

1 From root Mith to unite or twofold manifestation. -' Shiva-Parvatl as one body.

Of the Of the

Twelve Seven

IX IV Sagittarius

X V Capricorn

XI VI Aquarius

XII VII Pisces

rather than what might seem as the obvious arrangement : Virgo, Libra, Scorpio etc. The descriptions given by Dr. Besant would seem to uphold Subba Rao's contention.

V—I. (^ Leo [or Virgo] : In Samskrit Leo is S/'mham, 1 and of it T. Subba Rao writes: " The sign is intended to represent the five Brahmas . . . the five Buddhas." He also believes it to represent the " Jivatma."

Of the First Creative Hierarchy, Dr. Besant writes: " First comes the Order that is only descnbable by words connected with fire, Formless Fiery Breaths, they are called, Lords of Fire, Divine Flames, Divine Fires, Fiery Lions, Lions of Life : name after name, epithet after epithet, all circling round the attribute of fire, for They, it is written, are the Life and the Heart of the universe, the Atma, the kosmic Will, and through Them comes the divine Ray of Paramatma, that awakens Atma in the Monad of man."

The sign Leo in modern Astrology is said to be hot, dry, positive, and ruled by the Sun. We enter into this Sign on the 22nd of July, Leo's natural house is the fifth, 120°-150°, and is said to control children, subjects, dependents, one's standing in the community ; the generative powers, the loins, heart, and back.

Said to be Radiation.

VI-VIII—II. n#-iii V/rgo-Scorp/o •' ' n Samskrit Kanya*-Vrscikam. " Kanya -means a virgin and represents Shakti or Mahamaya. The Sign in question is the sixth Rashi or division and indicates that there are six primary forces in nature. . . .

"1. Parashakti: Literally, the great or supreme force or power. It means and includes the powers of light and heat.

"2. Jnanashakti: Literally, the power of intellect or the power of real wisdom or knowledge." It. includes the powers of association, clairvoyance and psychometry.

" 3. Ichchashakti: Literally, the power of the will. Its most ordinary manifestation is the generation of certain nerve-currents which set in motion such muscles as are required for the accomplishment of the desired object.

" 4. Kriyashakti: The mysterious power of thought which enables it to produce external, perceptible, phenomenal result by its own inherent energy. The

1 Si + ham = Limited Self.

2 From root Kan = to desire.

ancients held that any idea will manifest itself externally if one's attention is deeply concentrated upon it. Similarly an intense volition will be followed by the desired result. A Yogi generally performs his wonders by means of Ichchashakti and Kriyashakti.

"5. Kundalinishakti: Literally, the power or force which moves in a serpentine or curved path. It is the universal life-principle which everywhere manifests itself in nature. This force includes in itself the two great forces of attraction and repulsion. Electricity and magnetism are but manifestations of it. This is the power or force which brings about that ' continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations ' which is the essence of life according to Herbert Spencer, and that ' continuous adjustment of external relations to internal relations,' which is the basis of transmigration of souls or punarjanman (rebirth) according to the doctrines of the ancient Hindu philosophers. A Yogi must thoroughly subjugate this power or force before he can attain Moksham. This force is, in fact, the great serpent of the Bible.

" 6. Mantrikashakti. Literally, the force or power of letters or speech or music. The whole of the ancient Mantra Shastra has this force or power in all its manifestations for its subject-matter. The power of the Word which Jesus Christ speaks of is a manifestation of this Shakti. The influence of music is one of its ordinary manifestations. The power of the mirific ineffable name is the crown of this Shakti." [T. Subba Rao.]

The Editor of The Jheosophist comments: " Even the very name of Kanya (Virgin) shows how all the ancient esoteric systems agreed in ail their fundamental doctrines. The Kabalists and the Hermetic philosophers call the Astral Light the ' heavenly or celestial Virgin.' The Astral Light in its unity is the 7th. Hence the seven principles diffused in every unity or the six and One—two triangles and a crown."

In Modern Astrology: The Virgin [the immaculate sea of Virgin Force and Matter] is represented as mutable and the second of the earthy triplicity. A cold, dry, negative sign. Its natural habitat is the sixth house, 150°-180°, that of health and active service, and also concerns employers and employed. It controls the bowels and solar plexus. Virgo is Craftsman and Critic, and is said to be ruled by Mercury. As the feminine side of the now unleashed Duality, it balances the masculine Scorpio through Libra. (See The Secret Doctrine, III, 449; Adyar ed., V, 430). The Sun enters Virgo on the 23rd of August.

Scorpio in Samskrit is Vriscikam. 1 Subba Rao says : " This sign is intended to represent Vishnu . . . literally . . . that which is expanded as Vishvam or Universe. Properly speaking Vishvam itself is Vishnu . . . The sign in question properly signifies the universe in thought or the universe in the divine conception . It is properly placed as the sign opposite to Pranava. Analysis from Pranava

1 From root Vrisc = to cut, inflict pain, Karma.

downwards leads to the universe of thought, and synthesis from the latter upwards leads to Pranava (Aum) "... Tula or Libra represents the thirty-six Tattvams born of Avidya . . ." It is the existence of these Tattvams that brings Hamsa into existence. The elimination of these Tattvams marks the beginning of the synthesis towards Pranava and Brahmam and converts Hamsa into Soham. As it is intended to •represent the different stages of creation from Brahmam downwards to the material universe, the three signs Kanya, (the Virgin), Tula (Libra), and Vriscikam (Scorpio) are .placed in the order in which they now stand as three separate signs."

In Modern Astrology: Scorpio is generally conceded to be the sign of sexual regeneration. Said by most astrologers to be ruled by Mars, by some to be ruled by Vulcan or even Pluto. The sign is fixed and the second of the watery triplicity; >it is cold, moist, negative. The house of Scorpio is the eighth, the field of discipline, regeneration, liberation, or of destruction, degeneration, death. It is considered as an occult house, and is 210°-240°. It controls the secret parts and the generative system. We enter Scorpio on the 22nd of October.

Of the Second Creative Hierarchy still with us, which is either the dual Virgo-Scorpio or Libra, Dr. Besant writes :

" Below Them comes the second great Hierarchy, twofold in its nature, the ' twofold units,' Fire and Ether, manifested Reason, the Wisdom of the system, that we speak of as kosmic Buddhi, that arouses Buddhi in the Monad of man."

VII—III. ^ Libra : In Samskrit Tula represents " the thirty-six Tattvams born of Avidya." See Scorpio above. It acts as the balance between Virgo and Scorpio when they are separated. Ancient Hindu Astrology questions whether there is a need for Libra when the balance has been restored by the reunion of Virgo and Scorpio.

In Modern Astrology : Libra always represents Balance, Equilibrium. [Note the difference in the type of balance as compared with the Heaven-bending-over-earth Cancer <&: Libra's two lines are close =^ together, parallel.] Libra is cardinal, the second of the airy triplicity, hot, moist, humane, positive. Controls veins and kidneys. Its home is the seventh house, 180°-210°, that of partners and adversaries in the field of balance and harmony, or opposition and discord. We enter Libra at the time of the Autumnal Equinox, the 23rd of September.

Of the Third Creative Hierarchy still with us, which is either Libra or Scorpio, -Dr. Besant writes:

" Below Them again, the third, Mahat, or kosmic Manas, ' the Triads,' Fire, Ether, Water, the kosmic Activity, that will also bestow part of its essence on the Monad of man as he descends.

" These are the Arupa Creative Orders, dwelling in matter too subtle to .assume a limiting form, matter in which all ' forms' intermingle and interpenetrate."

IX—IV. f Sagittarius : In Samskrit Dhanus. Subba Rao says : " When represented in numbers, the name is equivalent to 9, and the division in question is the ninth division counting from Mesham. The sign, therefore, clearly indicates the nine Brahmas, the nine Prajapatis who assisted the Demiurgus irt constructing the material universe."

In Modern Astrology : Sagittarius is the Archer, the Seeker after Truth, and is ruled by Jupiter. It is the third of the fiery tnplicity, is mutable, hot, dry, positive. Its house is the ninth, 240°-270°, the house of paternal influence, religion, philosophy, law. We enter Sagittarius on the 22nd of November.

Of the Fourth Creative Hierarchy still with us, which is probably Sagittarius, the Truth-Seeker, the Archer, Dr. Besant writes:

" Below these come the Rupa Creative Orders, and first of these, fourth among the Hierarchies, is that which is ours, the Hierarchy of human Monads, not yet having left the bosom of our Highest Father, wherein in truth we ever remain, inseparable from him, although to us, in the mazes of matter, we seem to be utterly separated and distinct. We can dimly glimpse them as they stand there in the glory of their birth, with a ' certain spiritual individuality,' it is written, which has become more and more separate on the lower planes . . . these, called the Imperishable Jivas."

X—V. Vj 1 Capricorn or the Goat: In Samskrit Makaram l or the Crocodile. It is said by Subba Rao to stand for the dodecahedron shape of the material universe in the mind of the Demiurgus.

In Modern Astrology: It is said of this sign that its mysteries are known to none save the Adept. The Goat ascending and descending the Mountain, obviously. It is under the lordship of Saturn, and is earthy and cardinal. Its house is the tenth, 270°-300°, and is called the House of Maternal Influence, (in Hindu Astrology that of the Father also) it controls ambition, aspiration, attainment, a career. Saturn is often the Mother in the horoscope. It controls the knees. We enter the sign of Capricorn on the 21st of December at the time of the Winter Solstice, the real beginning of the Heavenly Year when the Sun starts North in its Taking Period.

Of the Fifth Creative Hierarchy still with us : Dr. Besant definitely links this with Makara, and reveals some of its mysteries:

41 It has for its symbol the pentagon ; in this the dual spiritual and the dual physical aspects of nature appear, the positive and the negative, at war with each other; these are the turbulent, the ' rebels' of many a mythos. Much shall we hear of some of these presently, of those who are called the Asuras, born of the first Body of Brahma, the Body which, cast off, became Darkness. A great host of Beings in this Hierarchy have come from a past universe, and spring forth, full grown as it were, from the Planetary Logos. These also seem to be called Asuras, but we are specially concerned with those born from the Body of Darkness, and belonging l = 5 or 5th Stage of Life which is Death.

to this universe by their evolution. These are Beings of great spiritual power and spiritual knowledge, but hide deep within themselves the germ, the essence, of Ahamkara, of that l-makmg faculty which is necessary for human evolution They are the fruitage of the first planetary Chain . . . the fifth Hierarchy guides the vibratory wave from the Will-aspect to the atmic atom, and the atmic atom, vibrating to the Will-aspect, is called Atma."

XI—VI. zz Aquarius: In Samskrit Kumbham. 1 Subba Rao writes : "When represented by numbers, the word is equivalent to 14. It can be easily perceived, then, that the division in question is intended to represent the . . . fourteen lokams."

In Modern Astrology: Aquarius is the Water-Bearer, probably symbolical of the carrying of Amrita or Immortality to Rama as did the Deva-God Hanuman. Most astrologers place it under the influence of Saturn ; some under the influence of Uranus. Aquarius is hot, moist, rational, fixed, humane, diurnal sanguine, masculine, of the airy triplicity, and rules the legs and ankles. It is to be found in the eleventh house, 300°-330°, the house of friends and patrons, hopes, wishes, wills, aspirations The Sun enters Aquarius on the 22nd of January.

Of the Sixth Creative Hierarchy still with us, probably Aquarius, Dr. Besant writes :

" The sixth of these great Hierarchies contains some that we can also recognize, who are born of the Body of Brahma which is known as the Body of Light, or of Day ; a group of Devas is seen, shining out amid this host of Devas with especial glory, the Pitris of the Devas, who are known by the name of the Agnishvattas, Those who are called the ' sixfold Dhyanis ' ; They give to man all but the Atma and the physical body, and so are called the givers of the ' five middle human principles/ They guide the Monad in obtaining the permanent atoms connected with these principles, or the ' fivefold plasm.' They are the fruitage of the second planetary Chain This Hierarchy includes also great hosts of Devas, the highest Nature Spirits, or Elementals of the Middle Kingdom."

H.P. B. says in The Secret Doctrine (II, 96, Adyar ed., Ill, 100) that in a very especial way they are the heart of the Angelic Hierarchies and are linked to the heart of man. It is significant that the glyph of Aquarius is the mother sign.

XII—VII. x P'sces: In Samskrit M/nam." Subba Rao writes: " This word again is represented by 5 when written in numbers, and is evidently intended to convey the idea of ... the five elements. The sign also suggests that water (not the ordinary water, but the universal solvent of the ancient alchemists) is the most important amongst the said elements."

1 Kum-fbhah —illusion, error, the phenomenal world which is nothingness [Pot = earthiness or unreality].

- Mi = to merge (the individual into the Universal Self)

In Modern Astrology : Pisces is said to be the principle of solution. It is a sign of balance, but as is evidenced from the glyph it is the balance of x pralaya or stable equilibrium, rather than the balance indicated in the Libra sign, of unstable equilibrium =*r. Older Astrology held that Pisces was under the influence of Jupiter. Many astrologers today hold that it is under the rulership of Neptune. The sign is mutable, third of the watery triplicity, cold, moist, double-bodied, negative. Its house is the twelfth, that of spiritual development, hence unification, purification, obedience, sorrow, suffering, bondage. It is a house of occult tendencies. The Sun enters this house of 330°-360° on the 20th of February.

Of the Seventh Creative Hierarchy still with us, probably the Piscean Sign, Dr. Besant writes :

" The seventh Hierarchy contains those whom we know best under the name of the Lunar Pitris, or the Barhishad Pitris, born of the Body of Brahma which is called that of the Twilight, the Sandhya. They have to do with physical evolution, as the Agnishvatta Pitris have to deal with the intellectual evolution of man . . . Then, those we see crowding round them, belonging to their Hierarchy, are their agents in the work that lies before them, vast hosts of Devas, the lower Nature Spirits, or Elemental of the Lowest Kingdom, who will have to do with the actual building of the body of man. And here too are the ' spirits of atoms,' the seeds of evolution in future kalpas, with which we have here nothing to do."

" They are sometimes called the Cubes, because on the lunar Chain they conquered matter in its quaternary, or fourfold form, and they brought that matter with them for its further evolution in the Earth Chain." — ibid., p. 45

" Possessing the fourfold matter, and also the creative fire, they were able to give to man his etheric double, prana, animal kama, and animal germ of mind. Beyond this they could not go, but this sufficed for the shaping of physical evolution, for the building of animal man and all lower forms.

" These Pitris are spoken of as under the rule of Yama, the Lord of Death ; he is called ' Pitripati,' the Lord of the Pitris; hence the bodies they give to man are mortal; born under the domination of the Lord of Change and of Death. They cannot give the immortal; they can only give the mortal, under the dominance of the Lord of Death. Men are their progeny, and must therefore form part of Death's kingdom; and thus the children of Earth differ from the children of Buddha, the planet Mercury, for his men are immortal, whereas the children of Earth are mortal. Moreover, these Pitris themselves will evolve by their work on the terrene Chain, and they will escape from the domination of the Lord of Death by this evolution, and in the next planetary Chain, the fifth, they will play the part of Manasaputras, Sons of Mind and Lords of Death." — ibid., p. 48

ZODIAC

673

SUGGESTED CORRELATIVE CYCLES

Zodiac

The Symbols Cosmic Solar

T I The Point ?

II The Web?

n HI The Line?

IV The Circle?

V The Cross ? The Point ?

VI

The Svastika ?

Web-Line?

Can one also not consider these twelve Signs of the Zodiac as affecting and ruling the various cycles of a life or an enterprise ?

Does not Mesham-Aries "wink forth " his desire to manifest, himself remaining unmoved, serene in the Heavens ? And the adventurous Ram slain from the foundation of the world forthgoes.

1 to 7 years ? Religion of Vyasa ?

" Elohim " has been translated from the original Hebrew as "a Power going forth, becoming as nothing, setting up motion, causing to revolve, and finally bringing about Harmony, Order and Beauty." Does not therefore the Power going forth, of Aries, become as nothing in the great Matrix Matter of Spatial Taurus—Bull of immobility, yet the Mother Nature ?

7 to 14 years ? Religion of Hermes ?

Do not then the Twins Androgyne, Shiva-Parvati, arise, not as yet unbound, and in this third cycle of the individual's life, does he not have to meet this problem of creative duality ?

14 to 21 years ? Religion of Zarathustra ?

Then do not the Archetypes from out the past, cosmic ideation, memory, imagination, in the case of the youth play about the cycle, and the two curved lines of Cancer now indicate that the Twins are separating preparatory to fecundation ? The period when Heaven bends over earth ?

21 to 28 years ? Religion of Orpheus ?

Then does not the Lion of Individuality go forth to see what he can conquer, whether the Lion of a First Logos, or that of the individual in the cycle of 28 to 35 years ? Religion of Christ ? First Initiation ?

Again the forthgoing meets a feminine sea. The Virgin Sea of Immaculate Motherhood, alive with the shaktis of creative powers at hand for use. And in the Solar Cycle does this represent the Web-Line

SYMBOLS AT WORK

111 VIII

IX

Cosm/c Soter joined as in India it is said Scorpio-Virgo were at one time joined ?

35 to 42 years ? Sixth Race Religion ? Second Initiation^

VII The Lotus ? The Circle ? Again the point of balance is reached in Libra, or the unbalanced equilibrium of creative lines, of energy parallel for action, the higher dominating. So is forthgoing completed and the return journey begins.

42 to 49 years ? Seventh Race Religion ? Transfiguration Initiation ?

And then the Crucifixion of Scorpio wherein the victim is cut and lashed by the scorpion's tail, and the accumulated karma of ages is exhausted.

49 to 56 years ? Fourth Initiation ?

But the tail becomes the head of the arrow of Sagittarius, and again the truth-seeker shoots to the heights.

56 to 63 years ? Fifth Initiation ?

Only in such a cycle could one use the darker powers of the crocodile Makara, and as the goat Capricorn ascends and descends the mountain in service to his fellows, is there a foreshadowing of great channelship ?

63 to 70 years ? Sixth Initiation ?

Then comes Aquarius, the Perfected Man, the Grail-Bearer.

70 to 77 years ? Seventh Initiation ?

Followed by the last Cycle, that of perfect Balance, receding into the Pralaya of Pisces, the forces again are rebound.

77 to 84 years ? Eighth Initiation ?

And then another Aries, a Forthgoing ?

What is the significance of being born under a certain Sign of the Zodiac ?

Most astrologers agree that one's Sun-sign has to do with the Ego, and the more learned suggest that the sign in which one's Sun is marks the lesson to be learned in a given life, i.e., what the Ego has to put himself down to accomplish.

V? X

XI

X XII

The Cross? (crucified)

The Cross ? (triumphant)

The Svastika ?

Matri-Padma Lotus?

Consummation Point ?

Therefore, one might hold that the sign changed from life to life, marked the ideal of the given life, and the future towards which the Self was at least immediately striving.

Therefore, it is said that one has only the virtues of one's Sun-sign.

The Moon-sign has properly been called the mark of the personality. It indicates the place one stands in one's evolution, and probably indicates the lesson most immediately learned in the past, or that which is in process of being assimilated. Therefore, it is said that one has both the virtues and faults of one's Moon-sign in flux.

The Ascendant may have more significance than is commonly attached to it. All agree that it marks the sign of the physical body and that it has tremendous influence upon the person.

Theosophy teaches that the physical permanent atom does not change but is of a set of seven chosen by our Monad in the beginning, or rather guided to him to express himself. If this Ascendant sign really marks the physical body, may it not also give us some indication of our Monadic temperament ? In other words, do we change our Ascendant from life to life ? Perhaps we may be born always at that time of day when our Ascendant is rising. Some Occultists have said that the physical body is fairly recognizable from life to life in appearance even when it changes sex and race. —A. H, P,

THE SYMBOLS AND THE SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC: SOME SUGGESTIONS

The ancient Hindu Zodiac and the Egyptian Zodiac of Denderah begin with the sign Aquarius, and this alone fits the symbols spoken of in Symbolic Yoga. Western astrology considers the Zodiac as only beginning with Aries, and though this is correct for our Humanity in its manifestation, it does not take account of the pre-genetic period (which is also an inter-period between two cycles), which may be cosmic activity preceding any manifestation " down here." Before any manifestation is the Point or Seed, and Aries as a sign of manifestation has its Point in a cosmic pre-cycle ; at the same time Aries is itself a Seed of another cycle still spiritual to us.

There are three cycles interpenetrating and overlapping ; they are called in these notes : (i) The Cosmic Cycle ; (ii) The Spiritual Archetypal Cycle ; (iii) The Human (Psycho-physical) Cycle. " Human" here stands for Man as used throughout Symbolic Yoga ; i.e., that all Life is the Life of Man with its three divisions—supermanhood; man as we know him; and man in the becoming (including mineral, vegetable and animal life).

Connected with both the first and last symbols is the astrological sign Capricorn, for it represents the fruits of the Cycle—the Lotus Flower being handed

on to Aquarius as the Seed for the new future cycle. (This activity is explained in the following pages.)

A Table of Correspondences between the Symbols and the Signs of the Zodiac is attached (page 677).

AQUARIUS

The Point or the Seed— Aquarius connected also with Capricorn and Pisces.

The Indian name for this sign is Kumbha, which means literally " a vase " and also a "measure of grain." The root of this name— Kubh or Kumbh—means a " thing curved on itself." So that Kumbha-Aquarius signifies the vase containing within itself the Grain (or Seed) of Life—alternatively expressed as the Waters of Life. The western symbol of the man with the jar from which water is poured out is thus derived from eastern knowledge.

The previous sign to this, Capricorn, gathers up the fruit of the active cycle just preceding it. All ancient peoples saw in the Zodiac a symbol of the Divine Creative Hierarchies, and for them the solar zodiacal cycle was a representation of the Cosmic Cycle—and indeed all cycles, large and small. The Sun enters Capricorn at the close of the year's active cycle of growth, when Nature having harvested the fruits of that growth " rested," but also re-prepared herself during the two winter months when the Sun was in Aquarius and Pisces. These months formed the Paralaya in Nature's season, and thus were the representation of a corresponding period in the Cosmos. Capricorn represents the classification of the fruits of the closing cycle. In the West it is symbolized by a climbing goat (sometimes with a fish-tail), and in the East by a crocodile creature (Makara). All that has achieved its goal in the last cycle is carried to the spiritual heights by the climbing goat, or the breath of the crocodile ; that which has still some experiences to complete passes into the waters of matter with the fish-tail, or the aquatic crocodile.

Kumbha-Aquarius is the spiral of the cycle turned on itself as suggested in the root Kubh, thus constituting a vase wherein the achieving Life waits for a time suspended, transcendent between two cycles of manifestation; the post-evolutive and pre-evolutive phase of the Spirit floating on the Waters—Vishnu (who prevades all things) seated on his Lotus. During suspension between the cycles, the vase remains upright—holding the Seed without communication with matter, while inner sustenance and digestion are going on in preparation for the new cycle. 1

When manifestation is to to take place again, " when the Ascent to the Highest is made before a new birth " (universal or human), the vase is reversed— turned mouth-downward—and its Waters or Seeds (Life or Consciousness in ail its degrees) pour out into matter and animate its forms.

1 See article " Kumbha-Kumbhaka " in Le Lotus Bleu, Mai 1937, by Professor Marcault, and other articles by the same writer, for details of these and other interesting points.

ZODIAC

677

The planets (or rather the aspects of the Creative Hierarchy embodied in the planets), which are said in traditional astrology to " govern " the signs, tell the same tale. Capricorn is " governed" by Saturn, and Aquarius by Saturn and Uranus.

Uranus (Ouranos of the Greeks and Varuna of the Indians) represents Infinite Eternity and Free Unbound Space:

" Uranus is a modified Varuna, the ' universal encompasser' the ' all-embracer "... Space, the maker of Heaven and Earth [Father-Mother] since both are manifested out of his (or its) seed." 1

The hieroglyph of Uranus ($) represents the Father-Mother aspect (l l) but as yet unman/fest and unseparated. " The higher gods of antiquity . . . the Logoi ... in their origin were represented as male-female" bi-sexual, hermaphrodite. 2

The & part of $ remaining when 11 has been detached, signifies the Seed with all its potential growth contained within itself. But according to mythology and its symbolism, Kronos (Saturn) emasculates his father Uranus and throws his Seed into the Ocean, which breaking on the farther shore in waves and foam gives birth to the beauty of manifested form in Aphrodite. The Secret Doctrine (II, 281 ; Adyar ed., Ill, 271) tells us that this emasculation means that the creative and generative power of Uranus passes to Kronos who is Time—Lord of all Cycles, for he cuts them with his scythe, thus determining their period—and he has united himself with Rhea (Matter in general). 3

1? represents the Father \$ limited by and in His Son for the purposes of manifestation.

The hieroglyph of Saturn shows the Seed of Uranus opening outward and downward into manifestation, w'z., $ becomes I?. Here is the twofold aspect of the Point or Seed contained in this symbol. The consummation of God is $, the vase upright; the forthgoing of God is Saturn, I? .

Surely it is when the Ascent to the Highest is made that the astrological rulership of Uranus over Aquarius passes to Saturn, and the vase of Water or Grain is reversed towards Earth, the contents poured out and mingled with (yet also carried over at right angles to itself) the waters of manifestation of Pisces, reaching the " farther shore " where manifestation takes place.

It will be noted that the Hieroglyph of Uranus contains all the symbols within it, as well as signifying the Seed. Father-Mother, the Circle, the Cross are all included in Jg, but so to speak in synthesis and undifferentiated. It is not till Saturn opens the Seed and leads it down into manifestation that the other symbols

1 The Secret Doctrince, II, 281 (Adyar ed./lll. 271).

•Ibid.. I, 101 (Adyar ed., I, 139).

4 See also Studies in Symbolism, by Marguerite Mertens-Stienon.

appear in their order in consecutive human time. Saturn is indeed the " grace and magic of Time within Infinite Eternity."

PISCES

The Web-Womb in the Cosmic Cycle.

Pisces has always been considered a sign " not of the earth, earthy " in its nature. Neptune, the planet " ruling " Pisces, has been represented as the Ark carrying the Seed of a new cycle over the Piscean waters (see The Secret Doctrine), those waters being the Cosmic Waters or Akasha. Pisces therefore becomes the Universal Matrix concealing and preserving the germs of Life during Pra/aya or the period preceding manifestation. The symbol of the Fish with which it is associated, and which live in its waters, is connected with Spiritual Saviours in ail religions and mythologies.

ARIES

The Vertical Line in the Cosmic Cycle. The Seed in the Archetypal Spiritual Cycle.

For the Cosmic Cycle this is the vertical Line down-dropped by the Maha-yogi Shiva—the Pillar of Fire of which neither the apex nor the base could be reached. It is also represented in His Son, the Hindu Gharma-ja (born without the intervention of woman) put forth from Himself. Therefore, while it is the vertical Line cosmically, it is also the Seed when viewed from the second interacting cycle which I have called the Archetypal Spiritual Cycle. Gharma-ja is a martial figure, the term martial comprising a conception far grander than that of only a God of war; for Mars is the messenger and reminder to us of Kingship—our Kingship as creators on all planes of Life. Gharma-ja is well represented in the martial sign Aries.

All religions and mythologies give that Truth (in allegorical form) of the great divine gesture and sacrifice which ensures our becoming ultimately " as our Father which art in Heaven " ; the linking by divine intervention of the animal Humanity to its own transcendent Divinity, so that Divinity shall henceforth be inherent within it, and Humanity shall be in essence spiritual. That is the Cosmic Vertical Line put forth and becoming simultaneously the Seed of our Archetypal Spiritual Lite. The changes it brought to the early Races of Humanity are symbolically told in the Hindu story of Daksha, whose cycle of rule Shiva closed when He gave him a goat's head (the goat of Capricorn at the close of a cycle—see section on Capricorn later), or as some say, a ram's head significant of his reincarnation in the new Archetypal Cycle beginning with Aries.

It is now that Shiva the Great Ascetic becomes Shiva-Nilalohita the Kumdra, and we have the Seed of the Kum§ra dynasty, the beginning of a New Time when the King and His Brothers took up their abode in Shamballa and Humanity's spiritual Seed was assured.

TAURUS

The C/rc/2 and the Horizontal Line in the Cosmic Cycle. The Web-Womb in the Archetypal Spiritual Cycle.

One might say that Taurus represents Shamballa itself; the Circle, the Sea and the horizontal expanse of that Sea for the Cosmic Mahayogi Shiva Himself, but in which His Kumaric expression of Himself abides, sheltering and fecundating, within the Spiritual City as in a Web-Womb, the Spiritual Seed of His archetypal growth-plan for us.

Taurus is associated with the Egg of Leda and the Egg of the World (see The Secret Doctrine), and it is also " ruled " astrologically by Venus, the Spiritual Mother of the Earth, from whom came the Lords of the Flame, or the Kumaras, according to the Archaic Records. She is also associated with the Hindu Vach, the Norse Audhumla, and all other mythical divine Cows—givers of nourishment and life to mankind.

GEMINI

The Cross in the Cosmic Cycle. The Vertical Line in the Archetypal Spiritual Cycle. The Seed in the Human Cycle.

The duality of the sign'Gemini is apparent in all the three symbols with which I have connected it. In the Cosmic Cycle the positive force is already at right angles to the negative force; it is the plane of the Eternal Circle of Boundless Time on which " lie crossways all the Gods, creatures and creations born in Space and Time," for all those creations represent the pulsating vertical Line of the Cosmos acting on and in the Cosmic Sea.

For the Archetypal Spiritual Cycle, Gemini represents the Rod or vertical Line itself. It is this Archetypal Gemini which is pictured in the Zodiac that joins the Gemini twins, feet to feet, with one head upward (positive pole of the Rod) and one head downward (negative pole). It is also represented in the more active mythical symbolism of the journeys of the All-Father Odin from Asgard, the Gods' Home, to Midgard, the Home of Men, from Heaven to Earth, over the Bridge Bifrost.

For the Human Cycle, it is here (and as the result of the activity of the Cosmic Cross and the Archetypal Rod) that twofold man is born. It is here that the gift of the Kumaras offered in the Archetypal Seed in Aries becomes manifest in form in the Seed on earth. Man as we now know him is both divine and animal— a duality reflected in his psycho-physical nature and in the dual sexes ; the heavenly immortal twin and the earthly mortal twin—Castor and Pollux, Hermes and Hercules, and in the Babylonian epic Gilgamesh (two-thirds divine) and Enkidu, his " natural " animal-man prototype and twin

CANCER

The Churning of the Svastika in the Cosmic Cycle (commencement of this). Jhe Circle and Horizontal Line in the Archetypal Spiritual Cycle. The Web-Womb in the Human Cycle.

Since the Yoga of the Cosmic Mahayogi has now borne fruit (or Seed) in both the Archetypal and Human Cycles, all is now set for action and interaction from the standpoint of the Cosmic Cycle, and Cancer represents cosmically the commencement of the Churning of the Svastika, which will continue for all the time that the Archetypal and Human Cycles are fulfilling each their destiny within the larger preceding cycle.

For the Archetypal Cycle, Cancer represents the Circle drawn out of the flashing electric energies of the Rod with two poles represented in Gemini, Here also is the Archetypal Horizontal Line, i.e., the activity of the Vertical Rod expressed laterally ; his powers invested in channels spreading laterally from him within his field of expression, (just as happened for the Cosmic Vertical Rod when expressed in Taurus). Here, again, traditional astrology links the old mythologies with the symbols. Astrology says that Jupiter is " exalted " (i.e., finds his best expression) in Cancer, and mythology tells us that just as Saturn (Time) emasculated his Father Uranus, so did Jupiter emasculate Saturn. Following the suggestion of The Secret Doctrine here as before, and reading this emasculation as Creative Powers passed on, we have now those Powers brought down into manifestation a little further. When " Saturn usurps" the creative power of his Father and determines a cycle of time—(the Archetypal Cycle) wherein it shall be limited—he is really working as a magnet attracting from out of the Boundless Space of his Father's kingdom certain factors only for his cycle of manifestation, factors in accord with the Law of Karma. Within Saturn's cycle of Time, his son Jupiter rules. (Zeus is the ruler of the Greek Pantheon of the Gods or Creative Powers, after having despoiled his Father.) Apparently Jupiter is thus all-powerful, but it is only within the Time-cycle of his Father. Nevertheless, for us he does indeed rule, and in this field of expression which is represented in Cancer, Jupiter or Zeus Pitar (Zeus our Father) is in his " exaltation." In Hindu mythology also it is Vishnu (Jupiter) who is the Fish that guides the Ark with the Souls or Men of the Vaivasvata Races.

Not only in the symbols but in the mythological Gods or Powers there is the law of the Silent Watcher. Uranus is the Silent Watcher as well as the Father of Saturn, and it is out of the materials of and within his kingdom alone that Saturn can work ; similarly Saturn is the Silent Watcher and Father of Jupiter who cannot rule or act beyond the confines of his Father's self-chosen cycle.

For the Human Cycle, Cancer is the Web-Womb, the home and mother-aspect of traditional astrology. Just as Taurus, the Archetypal Web-Womb, was " ruled " by Venus, the spiritual Mother of the Earth, so is Cancer, the Human.

Web-Womb, " ruled " by the Moon, the physical Mother of the Earth. The Greeks spoke of Cancer as the Gate of the Souls (Homer and Porphyry), i.e., where they came through to take birth in forms, arriving mythically in a boat, which was the Ark of the Hindu myth which Vishnu guided.

In the hieroglyph of Cancer, we have the dual lines curved on themselves and enclosing a space thus <g>, perhaps representing the Cosmic interaction giving the Sea or Field of the Archetypal Cycle, and at the same time the Web-Womb of the Human Cycle.

LEO

The Churning of the Svastika in the Cosmic Cycle (continued). The Cross in the Archetypal Spiritual Cycle. The Vertical Line in the Human Cycle.

Cosmically, the Churning of the Svastika is continued from the signs Cancer to Scorpio since, as we have said, the gradual growth of the Archetypal Cycle from Seed to Flower is due to and forms the activity (the Churning) of the Cosmic Cycle.

For the Archetypal Cycle, Leo represents the Cross, the expressive urge or impulse (and that Leo is said astrologically to represent) of the vertical Line on the .'horizontal Line.

Leo is " ruled " astroJogically by the Sun, and the " crucifixion " of the Sun pictured in many mythologies is repeated here, it must not be forgotten that the Cosmic Gods have already met their Cross in Gemini; now at this stage, the Archetypal Gods (our Fathers) also have a responsibility towards us. The Seed of the Human Cycle was put forth from their vertical Line in Gemini, and has become fecundated in the Human Web-Womb of Cancer, but the Birth or manifestation has yet to come, hence just as the Cosmic Gods " sacrificed themselves to themselves" in Gemini, so do the Archetypal Gods here. It is told in Norse mythology how Odin (All-Father) hung self-wounded on Yggdrasil, the World-Tree (which is indeed the Cross of the Archetypal Gods), and " to Odin offered, Myself to myself" before He could obtain the Wisdom which enabled Him of the divine Trinity to guide His children—Men.

For the Human Cycle, Leo is the vertical Line; it is interesting that Leo's " ruler," the Sun, which is identified with the Sacrificer for the Archetypal Gods, should indeed be also Our Lord the Sun since he is the vertical Line for the Human Cycle.

VIRGO

The Churning of the Svastika in the Cosmic Cycle (continued). The Churning of the Svastika in the Archetypal Spiritual Cycle (begun). The Circle and Horizontal Line in the Human Cycle.

There is no need to refer further here to the active Churning of the Cosmic Cycle which is continuing.

For the Archetypal Cycle also the Churning of the Svastika has now commenced. The vertical Line of the Human Cycle has been " born " in the last sign, so its interaction in its Circle is now the Churning for the Archetypal Cycle, just as is the case in the relationship between the Archetypes and the Cosmos in the series of signs from Cancer to Scorpio. The Secret Doctrine tells us that originally the signs Virgo and Scorpio were one sign, and that Libra was only a potentiality not yet manifest. The later separation of the signs with the Balance of Libra interposed between them is connected with the Coming of the Lords of the Flame (who are the Kumaras, our Fathers) from Venus with the spiritual gift of Mind, and hence the knowledge of Good and Evil; and the Churning of Their Svastika ensures the activity of their children—Men in their smaller cycle of experience—until for them -also the Svastika shall churn. The " ruler" of Virgo is Mercury, but here his duality (expressed differently in his other sign Gemini) is resolved into the Divine Hermaphrodites (the Kumaras) in the Archetypal Cycle itself; but in the Human Cycle—for which Virgo is only the Circle and horizontal Line—we have that expression only as the Innocent Hermaphrodites of the Golden Age—Adam-Eve ibefore the eating of the fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. That is represented in the hieroglyph for Virgo (n#) signifying Life with its creative powers turned on and in itself, not yet consciously wielded. Here then, for the Human Cycle, is the field or sea for experience from the Immaculate Virgin of Wisdom to rbecome the Knowledge and Experience of Wisdom.

LIBRA

The Churning of the Svastika in the Cosmic Cycle \ the Churning of the Svastika in the Archetypal Cycle (both continuing). The Cross in the Human Cycle.

Libra for Humanity is the sign of the Balance that is the balance between its duality, in other words, the Cross, for there will be no balance until the vertical Rod of the Ego has exerted the energy of its electric poles to form and control its horizontal environment. It will not be by multiplying the number of experiences within the Circle—that is, by continuing in perpetual activity along the horizontal tine—that mastery and ultimately Kingship is reached ; but by distilling the essence from the lateral or horizontal field by the assertion of the vertical Line upon it. That is what is signified for us in the Balance of Libra. It is another sign " ruled " >by Venus, from whom came our Lords, Givers of our Archetypes, and also the King of the World, and it is Their activities and Churning that " produced " the sign Libra, as an activity out of mere potentiality, to guide us to the way of attaining our Kingship.

The next sign will bring us to our Churning of the Svastika, and it is as well to remember here that since all cycles are from and within each other, Saturn, {Shiva, the Mahayogi of the Cosmic Cycle), presides at this new step within His

Cycle of Time ; and so in the Balance between Virgo and Scorpio—that is, in the sign Libra—we find the " exaltation " or best expression of Saturn according to traditional astrology, which retains much of the old Truth but does not today recognize its spiritual roots.

SCORPIO

The Churning of the Svastika for All Cycles.

The Human Cycle is now reflecting and experiencing the same quality of activity as the other two cycles. With the knowledge of Good and Evil, the creative force of Life in humanity was led outwards and downwards into manifestation and matter, represented in the hieroglyph of Scorpio ^ where the " tail " of Virgo is now seeking expression, in the martial, passionate but powerful sign Scorpio. This is the final result of the gift of Mind, and its reflection in the psycho-physicafc separation of the sexes. The other form of the Scorpio hieroglyph ity shows the regeneration and rebirth to a creative power which is as pure as in the Golden Age, but will be wielded now in self-consciousness, and with the spiritual power that the Archetypal Cycle has pictured for us and destined us to attain.

(A point here occurs to me in connection with the Dance and with Healing. Is it possible that the connection will be found in the Churning of the Svastika, which is of course in its very motion creative, and also one very potent aspect of the Dance ? If there is any connection here, it is interesting that traditional astrology connects Virgo with Health and Healing, and Scorpio with Doctors and Surgeons.)

SAGITTARIUS

The Flowering of the Lotus for All Cycles.

The representation of Sagittarius—the man with the bow shooting the arrow of his achievements upwards in his aspiration—is surely representative also of the Flowering of the Lotus or at least the Bud. Jupiter " governs " Sagittarius astrolog-ically speaking ; thus the Man who entered into the Web-Womb in Cancer, where Jupiter is " exalted " or enthroned within his Father's Time-Cycle, reaches in Sagittarius to some extent towards the achievement of the Archetypal King, and attains his Kingship or Flowering, and with that attainment comes simultaneously the final attainment of the Archetypal and Cosmic Gods as well. For our Fathers of the Archetypal Cycle in putting forth a Line from Themselves, that became the Seed of the Divinity within us, accepted the responsibility of Their Men-children, and must await the attainment of all before Their own attainment can be crowned. In the same way, Shiva, the Mahayogi of the Cosmic Cycle, accepted the responsibility of the whole Archetypal Cycle and its Workers when He identified Himself with it as the Great Kumara, and only when it has flowered—bearing within it our Human.

Flower also—can His Flower blossom forth in all its beauty and His Yoga be complete

CAPRICORN

The End of All Cycles.

And so in Capricorn, since all the cycles are complete, Shiva-Saturn cuts the flower and fruit of achievement of all the cycles together, coiling them up, so to speak, with the fruits enclosed within them so that He thus becomes once again ( £ ) instead of ( V»), and so He returns to His Father Uranus, ascending to the heights again—and once more in the Unmanifest there is Father-Mother-Son undif-ferentiated—the vase holding the Seed from this latest fruit in suspension above manifestation until the next Triple Cycle ; $ the consummation or consecration before the next period of forthgoing.

Saturn being once more with His Father, the Universal Yoga of Shiva has been completed, and within it all the Yogas of all forms of Life enclosed and •enthroned within the cycle of Time have been achieved.

—Edith Pinchm

THE CALL OF THE ARHAT

Cast away your Darkness

You are Children of the Fire

It is not too late to change

A DISCOURSE TO THE SPIRITS IN PRISON '

BY A BREAKER OF FETTERS

My Brothers,

At this great moment, as you see how light must ever penetrate and triumph over darkness, as you see a Son of the Light once more an inevitable victor over fleeting shadows, I exhort you, out of the love you have watched me use against you, out of the power of the King which is its irresistible form, to cast away your darkness and enter into the Light—your true home, wanderers from it though you have been for long ages. I speak to you, as well you know, in the name of the Lord of Light and Life and Glory, whose consecrated Messenger I am, whose Star I wear in sign of my authority.

Know, my brothers, that on your present road you cannot ultimately prevail, for it leads but backwards till once again you find the Road of Light. At the utmost you can but retard, and as time passes even this power wanes. Look back upon your pathway, and you cannot but observe how little by little the struggle moves to your ever-increasing disadvantage. Be not blind and foolish. Cease to deceive yourselves, for the longer you continue to walk in the shadows of your own creation, the ruder the awakening into the Light. Look with me down the vistas of the past. Observe with me your so-called victories. Do you see them now ? What are even the best of them, those in which I see you take most pride, but short-lived, not one single one of them preventing our Lords of Love and Wisdom and Compassion from drawing nearer and nearer to them the children of the Fire, to which race, my brothers, you too belong though you would deny your origin.

In terms of time you may here and there have won a fleeting retardation, at a price to yourselves far beyond the length of 1 The T/ieosopfi/st, December 1925,

SYMBOLS AT WORK

Is not Eternity your Heart?

Become then what you are

Resistless is Love's Stream

And are you not Love's own?

retardation you have achieved, but look again at these " victories " of yours, the mightiest of your onslaughts, look with me as 1 am permitted to allow you to do, has any one of them—look, my brothers, look—even for a moment ruffled the deep calm waters of Eternity as they pursue their way in divine relentlessness upon their appointed course ? Ah ! yes. You now see of what nature is your futility. Know, then, it is not too late to change.

Cease, brothers, to be the slaves we know you to be, though you think yourselves kings in your self-created delusion. You cannot make an Eternity out of the time-shadows of your own creation. You cannot stay time, be your power what it may, for time is the servant of Eternity and moves but in accordance with the Eternal Laws, to which you give such unwilling allegiance, fulfilling as you imagine you are breaking. Eternity is outside your grasp, but you are within its all-embracing dominion. Look within yourselves. Is not Eternity the heart even of your being ? How seek you to fashion out of it its own negation '

My hands are outstretched to you, my brothers, clasp them and let me draw you close to me out of your darkness, brother-children of the Fire, brother-sparks from out the mighty Mother-Flame. You are not water that you can either quench the sparks in others or extinguish them—the essence of your being—in yourselves. As we are, so are you. In you is the radiance you see me embody. Become what you are. Two thousand years ago you killed the body taken as a habitation by the Lord of Love. What have you profited, blind servants of a Shade ? Has not that very death become the call to Life Eternal to millions of your fellow-children of the Fire ? The almighty power of Love fashions channels for its outpouring even from the very forces hatred—its dark shadow—hurls against it; for hatred is no more than a distortion of that all-pervading Love, which ever knows how to straighten these distortions of its being. Resistless is the stream of the Love of God, and it shall sweep you back into itself, for you are of Love, my brothers, and must of your natures share in, yea, contribute to, its irresistible power and unstaying growth. Open your eyes as I touch them with the wand of vision. Perceive now the goal before you, towards which your footsteps must ever be directed, though you walk as drunken men walk home.

My brothers, I have no glory in my triumph, save a glory which I would have you share. I triumph for your good, in your

THE CALL OF THE ARHAT

680

Your Sun dispels your Darkness

Look forward into Light

service, as much as for the causes I am appointed to guard. Somewhere, somehow, as I perceive, though you may perceive it not, you are rejoicing because I am winning you from your thraldom. Somewhere I see you know that I am not your enemy, but your friend and brother, steadfast comrade on the path of Life and Light. Take these outstretched hands. We will walk together, brothers, and I will lead you, as is permitted to me, to the blessed Feet of the All-Compassionate, who rejoiceth more over one sheep that has strayed from His fold, yet returns to it at nightfall, than over those that have safely remained within its protection. You are His sheep, He is your Shepherd—the Shepherd ever mindful of His flock, who watcheth by night and by day in equal tenderness over all. I see you shrink. Have no fear that you cannot, dare not, face your Shepherd. Are you not His ? And does He not know His own ? I say to you that over your dark cold nakedness He will cast the sheltering mantle of His infinite Understanding, and you shall know a peace and a rest that have not been yours for ages. Do homage, my brothers, to your own inner eternal light, and it shall shine upon your true pathway, Together let us break your fetters, so that you may be free to climb again, with me, your battle-friend, by your side.

Hark, my brothers, to the clashing discords of your being ; are they not beginning slowly to die away into the distance ? Are not the musics of your essential harmonies slowly but surely reawakening in unfoldment to an inevitable triumph of achievement ? Today shall the suns of your natures rise again to dispel your darkness. Already you feel the warmth of their glow. Already you perceive the early rays of their radiant light, the soft, young renewal of the eternal certainty of a majestic and glorious future.

Look not back into the night. Look forward into the Light, and all shall be well. Pain and suffering must be yours, for through you it has come to others. But I shall be with you to remind you that every agony the Law demands from you is a release towards the Light, and in the reapings of the terrible lonelinesses you have caused to others, in the reapings of the misery, sorrow, despair, which you have sown in others, yet shall you hear faintly sounded the note of an eventual peace, so be it that now you allow to enter into your hearts that ray of our Blessed Lord's Compassion which in His Great Name, I, a Ruler in His Church, send forth towards you, bidding you give it a

dwelling-place in your sad, cold hearts. A brother knocks lovingly at your doors, shall all within be still and silent ? I say to you, my brothers, come from your death into His Life. Come forth from your imprisonment into His Freedom. The blessing of the Great Brotherhood of the Light be upon you, weary wayfarers who have lost your way, that you may die out of falsehood into truth, that you may enter upon that karma of suffering which shall transmute the force of your hatred into a mighty power of love. There shall be no agony without the courage to bear it Come forth then, my brothers. Come with me to Him who waits for you with the longing tenderness of the Father for loved children, who for a time have gone forth from their true home into an outer darkness, but without whose return into the house of their Father His happiness must remain incomplete. Come, my brothers, come

THE MASTER ASCENDED

NATURE'S ASSENT TO THE FiFTH INITIATION

BY "A WATCHER"

All Nature must give Assent to the Ascension

A Triumphal Progress is made through each Kingdom in turn

The setting for the Fifth of the Great Initiations seems to be in the nature of a magnificent Assent on the part of the Kingdoms of Nature of which the candidate has so far been a member, from the earliest right up to the Human Kingdom itself. Each Kingdom in turn seems to bear witness to the candidate's possession of the fruits of such Kingdom, and proclaim him to be gotrabhu (" ready " for the next Initiation). It would seem also that such fruits, even in the case of the earlier Kingdoms, are by no means garnered in their fullness, in their completion, until the individual is on the threshold of this supreme step, which marks his transition from microcosmic to macrocosmic evolution It is as if the candidate makes a triumphal progress through each Kingdom of Nature in turn, or attunes his consciousness in turn to the full consciousness of each Kingdom, with Elder Brethren as witnesses, recorders, companions. As he passes through each Kingdom, the homage of that Kingdom is gloriously accorded to him, and in that homage is the power which effects those changes in the individual which mark him ready for the great Ascension. Each constituent member of each Kingdom acclaims him, renders him homage, sings out to him its heart's song of gratitude and at-one-ment, so that great surges of triumphant music ring round and through him, to which his own-nature instantly responds in stupendous accord and unison ; the music within blending in utter harmony with the music without— unassailable witness to a kingship of the Kingdom which the candidate has at last and for ever achieved.

$92

SYMBOLS AT WORK

Every single Denizen of each Kingdom moves onward . . . The Triumph of one is a Triumph for each and for all

A Master is a Reservoir, a new Spiritual Account, an added Power, on which all Kingdoms are at Liberty to draw

With every Calling Thing He has His Personal Link, and all Things

In that sublime Act of Unity, candidate and Kingdoms move a stage onward, draw a step nearer to the individual goal. The candidate ascends into Heaven, dwells in Heaven-consciousness, and every single denizen of each Kingdom moves onward under the Law of the Unity of all Life. Not a single denizen is excluded from participation in the Act of At-one-ment, for Initiation is no less universal than individual, an expansion of consciousness is no less for all than for the one. The Triumph of one is a triumph for each and for all. The burden for each has become substantially less, the happiness for each substantially greater. And in the festive rejoicing the whole world, indeed the whole universe, shares.

As the candidate passes through Kingdom after Kingdom, the rejoicing becomes ever more and more vocal, more conscious, his progress ever more and more triumphant, until as the Assent of the Human Kingdom dies away from vibrant glory into soft murmuring, the candidate becomes literally transformed into a mighty ascending Fire, a veritable Pillar of Fire, irradiating Life with majestic pulsations of Eternal Being. And the beauty of the triumph lies not merely in the fact that in each Kingdom he is a living and compelling witness to the certainty of a glory to come for each and every member of each and every Kingdom—an outward and visible sign of an omnipresent certainty—but it lies even more in the fact that the kingship he has attained remains in each Kingdom as an eternal source of Power upon which each denizen is free to draw. A Master is a reservoir, a new spiritual account, an added power, on which all Kingdoms are at liberty to draw ; and the Master knows—indeed is it marvellous knowledge—that to Him, among Others, turn constantly all forms of all Life for their increasing vitalization, so that part of His mighty meditation consists in being ever open, ever alert, to the constant call of every stone, of every piece of rock, of every crumb of earth, of every blade of grass, of every drop of water, of every tree and flower and shrub, of every moving creature, for Life. There is for the Master a new and wondrous intimacy with all manifested Life, a personal intimacy. With every calling thing He has His personal link, and all things call; and to every call He gives the answer of the Master, the answer of the soul triumphant, Life.

THE MASTER ASCENDED

693

Each Kingdom and he are one for ever

The Triumph of the Master-m-the-becoming makes an Open Way, and on this Open Way treads all Life, itself moving forward as he moves forward

He ascends, and all ascends with him —each in its own Degree, each to its own Measure

Only the Utterance of the Word of Power can call forth the Assent

As he passes through Kingdom after Kingdom, in wondrous way is each Kingdom literally drawn into him, does he pervade each Kingdom, and there is a great unification of consciousness. Each Kingdom and he are one for ever. So entry upon this fifth great stage demands complete transcendence of all separateness that could exclude aught of any Kingdom. When naught in any Kingdom is perceived but as comrade and brother, then indeed is such an individual who thus perceives on the threshold of that Liberation which is one of the major Acts of Unity.

And as the triumphal progress moves onward, all that it touches—and it touches all—moves onward too, becomes ready for the next higher form; and those who themselves are Kings in any Kingdom gain the right of entry in due course into the Kingdom next above. The triumph of the Master-in-the-becoming makes an open Way, and on this open Way treads all Life, itself moving forward as he moves forward. For the triumph lies not in personal achievement—this, at such a stage, could count but little. Indeed, it would be of little, if any avail. The triumph lies in a magic whereby life is added to Life in all things. His own Initiation is but the sum-total of the myriad Initiations he has learned to confer upon every living thing in che universe around him, and even, in a spirit of at-one-ment, upon the hosts of the universe beyond him. His own triumph is but the keystone of the Arch he has miraculously built. It is but the apotheosis of a host of triumphs. He ascends, and all ascends with him—each in its own degree, each to its own measure.

And as with Kingdoms of Nature, so with Kingdoms of Consciousness, the Master-in-the-becoming climbs plane after plane until the Monad, self-conscious on his own plane, welcomes home the messengers he has sent to the fartherest confines of manifested matter, welcomes home messengers who bring him the fruits of their conquests, so that through them he attains a conscious kingship over all lower forms. Time will yet elapse before such kingship is able to be exercised in all completeness through every part of the conquered domains. The kingship may for the time remain potential, but there is kingship, and through exercise will its full majesty appear.

Like all other Initiations, this mighty Fifth must in large measure be self-achieved, and in some way, too, self-conferred. But a condition-precedent is the Great Accord of Nature. Unless this rings forth in no uncertain measure, the candidate is not yet

SYMBOLS AT WORK

" I am the Gambling of the Cheat, and I am his Triumph "

All the Worlds move onwards with him

All Songs are his Songs. He has sung them all as he has passed from stage to stage

gotrabhu. And it will not ring forth until the candidate knows how to utter the Word of Power in each Kingdom, so that at its uttering each Kingdom pauses, as it were, to listen, to wonder, to know, and then to burst forth into an ecstasy of joy and gratitude. Only the utterance of the Word of Power can call forth the Assent, but when Word after Word has been spoken in Kingdom after Kingdom of Nature, on plane after plane of Consciousness, and when, on the sounding of the final Word the Sentence of Macrocosmic Life has become complete, then by its own Power is he who has learned to utter it able to 'place his feet upon the Path beyond.

I have been very forcibly reminded of those words ; " I am the gambling of the cheat," and so on. How abundantly true these words are of him who passes onwards through the Kingdoms Individual to the first of the Kingdoms Universal, where individuality, triumphing, universalizes itself in terms of the fir"st great step on the macrocosmic Path " I am the gambling of the cheat, and I am his triumph," a triumph he perceives in some part of him even as he gambles, even as he cheats. For the taking of the fifth step is a vision for each form of manifested life of its eventual triumph, be its present circumstances what they may, be the darkness ever so black. The lower bodies may ignore, but the Higher Self rejoices, for it knows that the achievement of one is not merely witness to the certainty of all, but draws that certainty appreciably closer to each growing life in each Kingdom of Nature. And he who takes this final step in microcosmic life has the supreme joy of knowing that all the worlds move onwards with him, rejoice with him, share with him his triumphant bliss and sense of unification with them. He knows himself the Alpha and Omega of microcosmic worlds.

I wish I could reproduce the great triumphant Chant which is the Song of the Master Ascended. It is a Song which his being sings and which the worlds fill with their power because his Song is theirs. He sings of his unity with all the worlds through which he has passed. He sings the songs the denizens of the mineral kingdom sing, the songs of the earth, of the rock, of the stone, of all things mineral. He sings the song of the trees, of flowers, of the grass. He sings the songs of the birds and animals. He sings the songs of human beings. For all songs are his songs. He has sung them all as he has passed from stage to stage. But now he sings

THE MASTER ASCENDED

695

The Master Ascended sings

. and Illusion of Loneliness and Heartache recedes before the Splendour of the Real

The Master resolves the Imperfect into the Perfect . . the Bud feels stirring within itself the Flower-to-be

He goes -forward with all into the Kingdom Universal

them all in their complete fulfilment. And as the worlds sing with him, into even their singing creeps the faint sound of the future, and the harmony imperfect foreshadows its perfection. As an undercurrent, as an echo from out of the future, as an as yet unreached consummation, the triumph, the fulfilment, of the Master blends with harmonies as yet unfinished, and for a moment, to each manifested life, the picture of its purpose stands revealed in melody.

The Master Ascended sings of his passage through the worlds, of the time when he was Alpha, and of the climbing upwards to the final Omega, where yet another Alpha becomes the starting-point of yet another spiral. He sings of his trials and sorrows, of his obstacles and failures, as precious guides to joy and power. He sees all troubles as messengers of the God of Love, and sings in praise alike of happiness and desolation. And as he thus sings, somewhat of darkness falls away from trouble everywhere, and illusion of loneliness and heartache recedes before the splendour of the Real, at least for a while. For all time, too, the burden of the worlds is lightened, for power has increased and ignorance has diminished.

Thus, while the Master Ascended sings the song of the gambling of the cheat, identifying himself with the cheat in his cheating and in his gambling, at the same time he sings the song of the honour of the cheat, and while the cheat is cheating, his soul whispers the song of his honour, for he hears the Master's voice and knows that voice to be his own. The Master resolves the imperfect into the perfect, and all that is as yet but bud feels stirring within itself the flower-to-be. A Flower of earth's humanity, of every Kingdom of Nature, has revealed to every seed, to every bud, that within lie unfolding flowers no less glorious ; and all things grow light of heart.

The candidate seems to remember, and in a manner recapitulate, the various incarnations, whether group-soul or individual, which have brought him to his triumph. He reviews them, passes them in view before him, and perceives the unfoldment of a Master from seed to perfect flower. And by the magic of At-one-ment he knows that the Life which has thus blossomed to a relative perfection in him is but as the Life in all things. He thus perceives the perfect flower in every form of manifested life, whether seed, bud or flower, at no matter what stage of unfoidment. And only

SYMBOLS AT WORK

Himself opening a Gateway, all Gateways are opened

The Master becomes the Guardian of all the

Kingdoms of Nature, their Protector

Me perceives . . . within all Things Life passing onwards to its Glory

The Master treats that Life with Reverence

because he knows his own triumph to be part of the triumph universal, and because his triumph ts a triumph for each and all, does he go forward with all into the Kingdom Universal, where individuality enters upon its first transcendence—the first of an endless chain of ascending transcendences, and all other forms a stage forward on their respective pathways. His may be a major Liberation, but it is the apotheosis in an individuality of liberations innumerable.

Himself opening a gateway, all gateways are opened. Arid one of the features of greatest interest seems to lie in the fact that a Master does not become until the worlds are ready to receive him, so that his own strength alone is inadequate to the triumph—the world must be with him, and add its strength to his.

The first of the microcosmic Initiations gives birth to the Christ individual. The second, third and fourth are stages on the road through youth to maturity. The Fifth is the Christ individual triumphant and the birth of the Christ universal, the beginning of the major or cosmic Initiations. The Master becomes the Guardian of all the Kingdoms of Nature, their Protector at all times, for there is a special relationship between Him and them. They bore witness to His fitness for advancement. They shared with Him His expansion and ascension. There is, therefore, an intimacy heretofore non-existent, an identification of a new nature, and the responsibility of the individual thus honoured is constant and great. Be it remembered and exercised ; it involves both dignity and delicacy as between the Master and the Kingdoms through which He has passed to reach His present stature.

The Master will be conscious of the life in all things. For Him there is no division into organic and inorganic. He perceives God in all things. That is. He perceives all things to be Divine—within all things Life passing onwards to its Glory, and the very forms themselves, which Life takes, being Life. Indeed there is naught but Life, and form is but another name for Life, for Life which helps Life to live

The Master knows of naught but Life in reality, and treats that Life with the reverence He knows to be due to all Life, not because it is from God, for such a phrase is but a cloak for ignorance, but because it is so wonderful in its destiny

He uses all He uses all forms reverently, for all forms are Life, however

reverently mucn tnev ma V ^ e f° rms - Humanity itself is but a form for

. . Humanity higher life. Humanity is but a form for Our Lord the Sun. Life is

a Form for Our form when perceived from above, Life when perceived from below.

Lord the Sun The Master know$ how He regarc j s jhose on higher rungs of the

Eternal Ladder. And thus knowing, He so lives that those below may be encouraged to regard Him as He regards Those beyond Him, because They so live as to evoke such regard.

But has earth lost her child, is humanity bereft of her triumph • ant son ? Nay ! He has come forth from the bosom of the light, and He standeth again on the threshold of Nirvana, Himself seeming the very embodiment of that light, glorious beyond all telling, a manifested Son of God. But now His face is turned to earth, His eyes beam with divinest compassion on the wandering sons of men, His brethren after the flesh ; He cannot leave them comfortless, scattered as sheep without a shepherd. Clothed in the majesty of a mighty renunciation, glorious with the strength of perfect wisdom and " the power of an endless life," He returns to earth to bless and guide humanity, Master of Wisdom, kingly Teacher, divine Man.

Returning thus to earth, the Master devotes Himself to the service of humanity with mightier forces at His command than He wielded while He trod the Path of discipleship ; He has dedicated Himself to the helping of man, and He bends all the sublime powers that he holds to the quickening of the evolution of the world. He pays to those who are approaching the Path the debt He contracted in the days of His own chelaship, guiding, helping, teaching them as He was guided, helped, and taught before.

—The Ancient Wisdom

INDEX: GENERAL

This Index is primarily based on the Idea behind the word. It will, therefore, sometimes happen that there will be reference to a page in which the actual word indexed does not appear, but the Idea behind the word does find expression in the page given. The student will be glad to be referred to the Idea, even more, perhaps, than to the actual word itself. For example, the word may be SELF-DISCOVERY. A page may be indexed in which the actual word SELF-DISCOVERY is not to be found, but there will be found a conception of SELF-DISCOVERY.

Cross-references are liberally used. References deemed to be of special importance are within brackets. The singular and the plural are treated as one.

ABSOLUTE. Call of

Intermediary of

Law, science, art

Movement and

Negation

Relatives and

Static, is

Ultimates and

ABSTRACT, ABSTRACTION, of the

Points and reality

Regions ACCELERATION

Apotheosis, towards

Evolution and

Modification by growth

Rhythm of

Transubstantiatton, of

Way of

ACCURACY, Ray, fifth, and ACHIEVEMENT

Way and moment of ACTION, Curvature, is

Evolution and

Opportunity and

Yoga and

Yoga, is

PAGE

[275] 439 562 275

148. 150

13, 134, 259, 273, 438, 562-3 273

134 Concrete,

132 157 116 61-6 109

[169], 393 109, 114, [169], 393 1393], 400 93 98 334 [692-4] 506 [182] 183 432 654 182

PAGE

Yoga of 157. 182. [198]

ACTIVITY Aspect 367 Creative (see Creative)

Gunas and 115

Ray 333, 474

Withdraws 157

ACTUALITY 541

ADEPTS (see also Rishis. Masters) 130, 471

Relations claimed with 63

Seven paths before 471

ADJUSTMENT, Beyond, to 250, 349

Death and 349, 554

Drums and 381

Effortless 59

Godhead of 160

Incarnation and 279, 361

Jewels and 361 Law of 67, 201, 207, 306, 349, 456

Manifestation involves 545

Physical body, operations and 50

Ray of creative 333.4

Real, the, to 287

Regions of 539

Retribution, of 92

Rhythmic 104, 396, 400

Symbols and 160. 303, 512

Time of 102

THE LOTUS FIRE

PAGE

ADMINISTRATORS. Evolution, of 441

ADOLESCENCE. Man, of 69

ADOPTION. Ceremony of 496

ADORATION. Shr. Nataraja, of [557-8J

ADVENTURE (S). Point, into the [164-71

ADYAR. Laya centre and 577

Yoga, centre for 10

>EON(S), Consummation, of 142

Fruition of an 130

Seven 240

AESCULAPIUS 478

AFFIRMATION (S). Dogmatism and [547]

Negation and 133. 135, 170. 202-3. 537

Yoga of 170

AFRICA. Yoga and 310

AGATE 606

AGE (S) (see also Yuga, Cycle)

Age to 504

Conquest, of 69

Consummation of 1480]

Promise of all 155

AGONY for release 689-90

AIDS. Yoga, to [288j

AIR, fire, water and 290, 326

AKASHA, Pure sound, is 379

ALCOHOL, Abstinence from 92, 105, 352

Formula, and 150

Fragrance and 416

Yoga and 49, [352]

ALL, Point, and the 142, 488

ALL-COMPASSIONATE 689

ALLEGORY, Truth veiled in 70

ALL-MOVEMENT (see Movement) 537

ALL-ONE (see One)

Will of 205 ALPHABET (S) [366-9], [565-70]

Colour- 78, [369]

Form, of 78

Fragrance, of 78

Potencies of 366, 367

Sound of 78

Symbols, of, and Yoga 368-9

ALTAR (S), Consecration of 90

Godhead, of 174

Higher Selves, of 105

Offering, for 378

Ourselves as 111

Purification, of 106. 115

Selfishness, of 412

Simplicity, of 340

Sublimation, of 105-112

Vigil at the 129

Web-Womb

Yoga, of AMBER

AMEN-RA, Hymn to AMERICA, East and West and

PAGE 245

499, [502] 607 314 577

Forces of retardation and acceleration 63

Key-note 64-5

South, and yoga 310

AMETHYST 355, 360, 603, [607]

ANAGAMIN 467

ANALYSIS, Memories and 114

Mind and 106, 114

ANANDA, Point 205

ANDROGYNE (see Duality) 184

ANGEL (S). (see also Devas)

Bridge-builders 374

Bridge to 501

Derivation of word 577

-Evolution 200

Incense, of [586]

-Kingdom 441

Light, of the 178

Man and 237,617

Messengers or [577]

Music, of [288]

Point, of the 144-

Presence, of the 178, 493

Storm, of the 144

Symbols and 178-

World-Mother, of the 622

ANIMAL (S), Besant, Dr., on 590-92

Brotherhood and 201

Cruelty to 50, [412]

Gifts to man 325

Legend and religion, in [591 ]

Man-like qualities of 325

Sufferings of 96, [504]

Yogi, each, a 93

ANKH-TIE, Circle. Cross and 608

APOTHEOSIS (ES). Art, true, of 336 Consummation, and 235. 256, 260

Cosmic 350

Creative powers, of 174

Experience, of 259

Form, of 492

Graciousness, of, sacrifice is 342

Incarnations of an 109

Lotus and man's 429

Point and 155

Sex, of 490

Silence, of 358

Sublimation and 109

703

PAGE

Tangibility, of H62J

Weakness, of 108-9

Yoga, of 350 APPEARANCE (S) (see also Reality)

Dynamic 438

God, of [539]

Symbols are [439]

APPRECIATION 51

AQUAMARINE [607]

ARC, Downward and upward 68-70, 96

ARCHETYPE (S) (AL) (see also Rays)

Belong to all 238

Company of the 237

Cycle of Zodiac [675-85]

Eternal 102, 142, 173, 238, 338

Fasces, Roman, of 180 Form and colour, of 77, 132, 173, 232,

334, 338, 346, 376

Lotus and 234, 339

Note 78, 232. 346

Posture [351]

Ray 232

Simplicity of Indian music 340

Symbol is an 440, 563

ARCHIMEDES, Squaring Circle, and 208 ARHAT (see Call of and /notation) 441, 470

ARJUNA, Reference to 115, 146

ART (S), Artist and [336-7], 346

Curvature and 547

Degraded 349

Graciousness and [342-3J

Heritage, our 316

Holiness of (345]

Landmarks and 342

Modern 342

Movement and 337

Release, messenger of 337

Revelation and [335], 535

Reverence, compassion and 337-40

Sunlight, rainbow and 341

Symbols, sciences and 561

Truth and 337

Yoga dedicated to [335-52], 499

ARTIST (S), Art and 335-8, [345]

Character and 343

Consummation and 344

Dedication of 234, 338

God and 344

Impressions of 76

Master- 346, 376

Symbols and 76

Ultimates and 339

PAGE

AROPA Regions 116 ASCEND(ED). ASCENT (see also Ascension,

Heights)

Hells into Heavens 469

Kali Yuga and 68

Kingdoms of nature, into 221, 328

Man's 349, 507

Master 139, [691-7]

Point, into the 149

Spiral way 695

Spiritual inspiration and 101

Yoga of 139

ASCENSION 244,471, [691-7]

ASCETICISM, Yoga and 655

ASEKHA 471

ASHES, Gold and 414

ASHRAMAS 483-4

ASLEEP (see also Sleep)

Gods 197

How to fall 421

ASPIRANT. Yoga and 115

ASPIRATION 49, 364

Art, modern, and 342

Besant, Dr on 94

Ceaseless Breath and 387

Character and 343

Chivalry and 620

Cup of, fashioning 499

Dynamic 97

Line, of 324

Love and 106

Plane of 113

Ray of 334

ASSENT, Initiation, to 374, 691

ASTRAL, Bodies, union of 495

Consciousness 108, [116]

ASTROLOGY (see also Ashramas. Zodiac)

Cosmic formulae of science of 563

Man and 563

Symbols and signs used in 567

ATHANASIAN CREED, quoted 161, 616

A-THEIST 539

ATHLETIC (S) Po.se 136-7

Receptivity 105

ATMA, ATMIC, Creative power and, plane 190

Experience, reflection of, and 569

Motion eternal 653

ATMOSPHERE. Point, of the 156

Symbols induce 99, 135

ATOM (S) 58, 165, 471

Creatures and devas, are 290

Curvature and the 547

THE LOTUS FIRE

Embryo and permanent

Lotus i$ an

Man, Godhead and

Permanent

Science, humanity and

Stars and

Symbolism and

Yogi, is a AT-ONE-MENT ATTAR, Eternal

Experience, of

Lotus

Point, of

ATTENTIVENESS, Point of ATTITUDE, Yoga, for

PAGE 638 428 224 643 449 485

443, 645

519

691-7

[143]

[143, 316, 569-70]

16

255

324

59

ATTRACTION, Curvature and centres of 263

Plane of movement and 114

ATTRIBUTE (S), Vedas and 115

AUDITORY Faculty 477

AUM . [370-2]

Creative speech, represents 566

Pronunciation of [370-11

Seven symbols and [372]

AURA (see also Protective Web)

Size of personal [582]

AUTHORITY, Enslavement in 70

AWAKEN (ING) (S), Awake, arise 46

Evolutionary process and 525

God 197

Higher Selves, to 160

Kundalint, of 98

Line gives 488

Plane of 114

Self, of the [432-3]

Symbols are 525

Truth, to 158

Word 154, [199J

Yoga 333,[432]

AXIS, Universe, of 180

B

BALANCE (D) Cross [266-7], 324

Forthgomg and 149

Line, of 324

Ray fourth and 333

Rhythm of [394]

Yoga must be [50]

BANYAN TREE, Venerabiltty of 325

BAPTISM, Circle and [493-4]

Episodes of growth and [220]

Power, into [143]

PAGE

BARBARISM, Bulwarks against [523-6]

BEACON-Light and evolution 177

BEAUTY, Bridge to 500

Mountaineering a search for 622

Ray fourth and 333

Way of 91

BECOME, Life 538

BECOMING, Aum and the 371

Being and 336. 346

Life-m-the 538

Silence and darkness of 154

Sublimation and [108]

BEFORE-BACKGROUND 551-2

BEGINNING (see also No-Beginning, Un-

beginningness)

Brahm and 142

Consummation and 130, 372

End are one, and 102, 235, 398, 505, 511

Our 171

Point-event and 141

Primordial [197]

Stirring of a 104

Word and the 148, 154, 198 BEING (see also No-Being)

Becoming and 336, 346

Chakrasand 175

Houses of, building our own 531

Law of 392

Light on the Path and 145

Lotus and 228

No-Being and 205,228,511

North of 546

Point of 136, 140, 144, 347, 507

Regions of 144

Self-consciousness and 392

Stillness and 164, 345

Talking and [383]

Time, quality of 447

Trinity of 205

BELIEF (S), Imprisonment within 87

Vessels of a truth 87

BERYL [607]

BESANT, Annie (see also fndex to Authors,

etc) 461

BEYOND, THE, Consciousness and 100

BIRDS. Dauntlessness of 325

Mother-spirit of 325

BIRTH [221], [245-6]

Ascension, to, from 464-70

Ceremony of 494

Evolutionary process and spirit of 525

Initiation and self-conscious 468

705

Line, of

Lotus, of

Navel chakra and

Physical and spiritual

Planes of nature, on all

Second

State and

Symbols give

Third

Web-Womb and

PAGE

479

479

429

429

[245-6]

464

496

[525]

470

251,493

World Mother and sacrament of [493, 622J

BLACK 518

Slowest colour motion 375 BLAVATSKY. H. P. (see also /ndex to

Authors, etc.) 461

BLESSING (S). Elders and 115, 327

God in 502

Radiance of highest 557

Selfishness, used for 365

Yoga of 309

BLISS, Dr. Besant on 94

Life of 558

Love, of 103

BLOOD, One 201

BLOODSTONE 607

BLUE (see also Electric) [1961

Day 364

Line, colour of vertical 216, 263, [355-6]

Space, of 651

Third Logos and (619)

Will, colour of 263

BODHISATTVA 474

BODY(IES). Circle and f429J

Cup of aspiration fashioned with all 499

Eyes of 506

Feelings and emotions, of 90, 429

Infinite soul and limited 281

Lower 694

Mind and 90,187

Truth expressed in 101

Western and eastern 75

BOMBARDMENT, Exchange and 484-5

Isolation and universal 485

Yoga, form, of 52

BOOK (S). Godless ^ 191

Yoga through * 99

BOUNDLESSNESS, Sea of 512

BRAHM, Darkness and 142

BRAHMA. Creator 102

BRAHMACHARI (see also Sex) 494 BREATH, Ceaseless 7, 13, [147-8], 151.162, 165-7, 228-30, 237, 249,1271-2], 303, 45

PAGE

305,315, 328. 357, (386], 399,428,

443, 481, 505, 544, [569J

Difficult 186

Great 653

Jellyfish and 386

Lotus, life and [256 j

Modes of 13

Rhythm of physical 165

Symbols and 151,386

Yoga, occultism and 444 BRETHREN (see Brothers, Elder)

BRICKS, Building, for 530

BRIDGE (S) 7

Heaven and earth, between 347

Imagination builds [165], 334

Kingdoms, to 5Q1

Light and darkness, between 500

Modern inventions are [517]

Point and 142 Weakness and strength, between [409-14J

Yoga and a [284], 373, |376], [409-14],

499, 501

BROTHERHOOD, Blood 201

Circle, of 324

Communion of Saints and the 465

Compassion and 201

Life, of 412, 501, [687-9, 690]

Light, of 690

Man, member of the Great 470

Remembrance of 525

Starting-point for 376

Universal 201, 233, 349, 396, 517

Weakness, in 413

White 461

BROTHERS, Elder and younger 201, 349

Kingdoms, in all 693

BROW Chakra 430

BUBBLE, Radiance as a 249

Symbols are 512

BUD (see Lotus)

BUDDHA, Consummation of the Lord 441 Eighth Initiation and the 474 Life and 216 Posture of the 350 Symbol, as 347 Wesak and 160 Words of 142 460 BUDDHI(C) [114.6] Consciousness and meditation 390, 469 Law and {114-6], 158 BUDDHIST Discipline and vertical polarization 608

THE LOTUS FIRE

Eucharist

BUILDERS, Descent of the BUILDING, Life BULWARKS, Symbols as BURBANK, Luther BURNING-GROUND (see Cremation)

C (note), Red, equivalent to CALIFORNIA, Pseudo-Yoga and CALL (see also Voice, Sound) Absolute, of Cosmic octaves and the Create, to Divinity, to Forthgoing, of

God, of a 60, 196

Gods-to-be, of [177, 252, 254-5], 264, 275-6 Marriage, of

Rhythm of determination and Secret of the

Unmanifest, to the 194,

Yoga, of

Yogis send forth

CANDIDATE, Initiation, for

CARBUNCLE

CARESS, Drums, of

CAT, Independence of

CATACLYSM (1C) Disaster and Yoga 247

Drums 359

Silence and darkness [310]

Vibrations 247

CAUSE(S) (see also More-tnan-Cause)

Causelessness and 169, 440

Disaster, of 80, 200

Kingdom of 440

Misery, of 200

Transcendent 440

CAUSELESSNESS, Point and [169]

CEASELESS (see Breath)

CENOTAPHS, Lords of 489

CENTRE, Circle and 304

Circumference and 55. 181, 194, 215.

306-7, 314, 386, 470. 516, 519, 545 Everywhere, the, and 468

Magnetic hemispheres and laya 577

Vision of the 519

Yoga and the 516

CENTRE(S) (see also Chakras, Circumference) Attraction of 263

Being 175

CHANNEL (S), Conscious and unconscious 502

Consciousness a [435]

Drums, for [383]

Jewels as 473-4

Line and 416.548

Memory as 412, 425

Music as 377-8

Penetration, for 98

Reservoirs and 97

Service and understanding, of 412, 434

Seventh Ray builds 334

Storm and conflict, of 333

Yog. is [498], 502

CHARACTER, Building of 74

Greatness and [343]

CHARITY, Sacrifice and 632

CHEMISTRY, Seven symbols in [645]

CHIDAMBARAM 489

. CHILD (REN). Man to Godhead 233

Rod of Power, as 492-3

CHIT, Web-Womb 205

CHOHAN 474

CHORD, Fulfilment, of [375]

707

PAGE

CHRIST, B.rth of 465, 696

Glorification and 171

Humanity and 221

Jesus, and 48

Legend of 590

-Life, experience and [584J

Posture of the 351

-Principle, Parsifal symbol of [583J Quoted (see Index to Authors, etc ) 201, 552

Silence, the, and 131

Symbol, as 347

door, of 460

individual of 221

Thorwaldsenis statue of 159, 416

Triumphant 696

Universal 696 CHRISTIAN (ITY), Athanasian Creed and 161

Cross 220

Eucharist of [160]

Growth, in terms of 220 Initiations of 220. [465-751

Motherhood and 436

Symbols and sacraments of [493]

Transubstantiation and 105

Zodiac and 673

CHROMATIC Faculty 477 CHURNING (see Svastika) CIRCLE (GLOBE) (see also Rings. Globes, Seven. Symbols] 194-218, [280-1], 480. 507

Atom, in 645

Balance of 214, [490]

. Baptism and 493

--Birth 245

Body is 429

,, of a universe 254

Breathes 152

Brotherhood of 324

Build in 376

Chakra 429

Chemistry, in [645] Colours and 253, 265, 356

Cross and 218, 493

Curved 182

Embryo, in [641-3]

Establishing of 479

Expanding 195

Form and line 267

Fulfilment of 525 Function of 195. [215-7], 264, [571]

Glory, future, of 324

Guards 488

House of 494

Hypotenuse and Individuality and Infinitudes and Initiation, third, and Law and Limitation, of

PAGE

[584]

524

181, 194.304 467 280 476

Line and 194, [216], 238, 253, 264, 372,

[6081

Lord of 488, [492-3J

Lotus 229, 231

Magic of 524

Magnetism and [646]

Origin of letters and [566]

Physics, m [6461

Plant life, in [643-4]

Point and 304

Protection of 324

Ring-pass-not 87. 194-5, 261, 264, 280,

306. 429

Safety of 526

Senzar and 566

Serpent and [609]

Silent Watcher and 264

Spinal column and 253, 428

Spiral and t95

Spirit 520

Square and 208

Svastika and 202, 238, 267, 281

Symbology of Cross, Point and 242

Triangle and 208

Understanding of 324

Universe, of our 87, 264, 304

Web-Womb and 265

Zodiac and 674, 677, 680-2

CIRCUMFERENCE (S), Centre and 55, 168. 181. 194, 215, 306-7. 314,387,470,

511,516,545

Men of 520

Point and 347

Regions of 516. 520

Yoga and 515

CIRCUMSTANCE (S), Master of 85 107

CITIZENSHIP [496-7J

CLEANLINESS, Essential 95, 98

CLOUD (S). Baptism, and 143

Silence and darkness as ISO

COARSENESS, Yoga and 352

CODE, World and universal 147

COLLATION, Mind and 106, 114

COLOUR (S) (see also No-Colour, Trinity)

Alphabets of sound and [369]

Archetype of 173, 338

THE LOTUS FIRE

PAGE

Author's basic 416

Causes, scale of, and 588

Consciousness of 104

Cosmic 396

Counterpart, infinite, and 279

Days and their [364], 365

Oevasof 216,586

Divinity of man and 131, 482

Faculty 477

Flashing 508

Form and 55, 279, [288], 338, 346, [366],

369, [375], 415, 477, 482-3, 528 -Forms 54, 77, 323, 338, 478, 563

Garment of God, is 501

Growth and 292, 381

Learning through 199

Letter, every, has [565]

Light and 215, [338]

Line, of the 216, [356]

Man and his 488

Masters of sound and 369, 483

Matrix and 176

-Men 288, 477, 478

-Motif of evolution • [177J, 356

Music and 150, 216,230, 356

New 524

Octaves of 356. [359]

Point and 354

-Raga of alphabet 1366-9]

Ray of 230,232,[581]

Rays, seven, and [572]

Reality of 564

Sacred, five [624], 625

Sea of 357

Simplicity and 340

Sound and 144, 230, 233, 260, 292, 346, 351, [356], 364, 366, 367. [375], 381, 424 Student of Yoga and 363, 369, 375, 415,

424. 483

Sun and earth, of 477

Symbols and 54, 77, 82, 253. 260, 279,

323, [352-62], 369, 416, 564

Tone, form and [288. 375], 415, 483

-Tone, The Secret Doctrine and 574

-Tone, your dominant 323, 424, 483

Trinity of, sound, form and (see Trinity)

Word and 346

Yoga and 351. [363-5,501]

COLOURLESS, Darkness is 150, 155

COMMUNION, Manifestation, of 139

Saints, of 465

COMPASSES, God, of 195, 277

PAGE

COMPASSION, Apotheosis of passion 108

Art and 337, 340

Brotherhood and 201

Drums of 380, [382]

Lord of 687

Lord's 689

Love and 106

Saint, of the 327

Yoga preparation and 51

COMPLEXITY, Great theme and 346

Simplicity and 340-1

Western music and 341

CONCEIT, Human beings and 152 CONCENTRATION, Consciousness, of 432

Evolution, of 142, 249

Life, of 549

Motif, of a 374

Point is a 275

Vague 74

Web-Womb 251

Yoga posture and [349]

CONCEPT (S), Plane of 114

Point, intricate, primordial 141, 168

Sex- 186

CONCEPTION, Line, of 479

Point, of 524, 526

Sacrament, a 90

Supreme negation and 165

Symbols and 133, 134

Web-Womb 251

CONCH. Vishnu's symbol 651

CONCRETE, Abstract and 132, 157

Regions of mind 116

CONFIRMATION 493-4

CONFLICT, Ray fourth is 333

CONSCIOUSNESS, Absoluteness and 233

Archetypes and 338

Attuning the 691

Aum, the, and [370]

Beyond, of the 92. 432

Ceaseless Breath and [387]

Channels of [435J, 502

Churning of 550

Content of 108, 115

Continuity of 397, 563

Converging 113

Creative powers and 184, 498

Cycles measured by 69

Definition of [166]

Descent of 69

Divine 93

Ears and eyes of 130

70?

PAGE

Exaltation of 56-8, 339

Expansions of 100, 102,463,692

Experience and 88, 134, 158, 183, 563-4 Evolutionary process and 273

Feeding the vehicles of 105-6, 187, 352

Fields of 97

Frontiers of 113,433-4

Functions on all planes 425, 434

God and 93,115,539

Harvesting 154

Human body and 344

Individuality and 137, 550

Infinitude and 273

Initiation and 463

Instruments and 151

Intensification of 350, 432, 459

Kingdoms of nature and 563, 694

Ladder of 117, 155

Law- [114], 116, 183,286,432

Light- 144

Man-God's 433

Memory and 394, 564

Movement and 387

Nirvan.c 115-6, 183, 432

No-movement and 537

Planes of [116], 183, 190, 338, 434, 451.

548-9

Point and 144, 154, [183], 353

Rhythm of curvature and 395

Rumbling of 144

Sea of 205

Sex and 186, 188

Sleep and [420], 422

Space and 287, 449, 451

Spirit and 103

States of 97, 104, 116, 183, 303. 307,

320, 353, 387, 392, 397, 425 Stillness and 129, 131

Symbols and 102, 152. 183, 278, 287,

303, 307, 314, 318, [476, 516]. 564 Time and [448]. 451

Transubstantiation of 149

Triangle and 388

Ultimate* reflected in 112, 146. 564

Unconsciousness to, from 210, 261, 331

Understanding and 51,111

Unfoldment and 385, 563

Unification of 693

Unique approach of 77

Unmanifest and. the 517

Vibratory conditions and 151, 287, 418, 549 Waking and inner, the 100, 134, [432]

PAGE

Will and [286]

Withdrawal from 79, 89, 109. 111

Yoga and 48. 86, 111, 246, 287, 1320],

[348-50], 498, 537

Yogi and 417-8

Yugas and [68].

CONSECRATION, Altar of 90

Motif of 374

Sex and [189-92]

Web-Womb, of the 324

Yoga as act of 59

CONSONANTS, Formal element of word [566J

CONSUMMATION (S), Accumulation 444

>€on of 142

Age, of 480

Apotheosis and 235, 256

Artist and 344

Buddha, Lord, and 441

Consciousness, of 154

Cross of 479

Divine 441

Evolution and 130, 249, 35a

Forthgoing and 130-2, 168-9, 173, 202, 249, 254, 261, 269-70, 290, 293, 303,

315, 358, 372, 445, 555 Great 441

Hush of 104, 256, [260]

Lightning-white of 354. 358

Lotus Flower and 14, 358

Man's divinity, of 131, 136

Matrix of 315

Moment, each [1381

Note of 175

Past as 194

Po.nt and [141, 253-4, 260, 267, 274,353,

[428. 450, 4761

Radiance and 132, 353

Virtues, of 108

Yoga, of 135, 232

CONTACT (S), Intangible, of 162

Planes, between 421

Reality and 98

CONTEMPLATION 314

Samadhi and 633

Ultimate*, of 100

CONTINUITY, Rhythm of 397, 400

CONTRACEPTIVES, Blasphemy 191

Protection, as 191

CONTRACTION, Inbreathing 272-3

CONVICTION (S). Imprisonment within 87 Vessels of truth * 87

CORAL [6071

THE LOTUS FIRE

PAGE

CORNELIAN [607]

CORONATION (S), (see also Crown)

Drums and 359

Experience, for our 83

Kingdoms, in all 328

CORRESPONDENCES (see also Cycles,

Zodiac)

Chakras and 427

Seven symbols and 561

COSMOS, COSMIC, Act of Point 174

Apotheosis 350

Breathing 152

Conceptions of Point 156, 250

Curvature 545

Cycles [673-85]

Dance 11,558

Drums 374, 379-84

Earth-forces 543

Evolution and 198

Fecundation 172

Fires 350

Hush 142, 202, 356

Initiation 696

Lotus 528

Meanings 367

Numbers, self-moving 566 Octaves 265, 268-9, 356, 379

Point [156-63], 174

Power, compassion and [382]

Power, Rod of 285

Progenitors 174-5

Regions 176

Sea 197-8

Sex 188

Significance of Christian Cross 220

Silent Watchers 237

Sound and light 144

Space 310

States of silence 145, 148

Sun-forces 543

Svastika and 226

Symbol 206, 220 Ult.mates 135, 287, 289. 396

Unconsciousness 197

Vibrant 346

Word and 199

COUNTERPARTS, Eternal verities of 161

COUNTRY (see Natron)

COURAGE 500

Agony, for 690

Hero, of 327

Svastika of 324

COURT, the Eternal, of COW, Motherhood of CRADLE, Creation, of

Life, of

Web CREATION, Cradle of

Creator and

Divinity of

Fire of

Life and

Powers, divine, of

Variation and

PAGE

140

325

[174]

[174], 213

524

[174]

246, 316

411

621

242, 246

91

[262]

CREATIVE Activity 105, 136, 174, 188, 191,

[2451,247,411.488-9

Blood of life, is 190

Life 214

Magic 90

Power, linga emblem of 222

Power, spirit-matter and 184

Spirit 500

,, art and 340

,, cataclysm and 247

,, consciousness and 184

,, reverence and 411

Symbols and [245-7]

Unity 72

Word 198-9

CREATOR. Brahma the 102

Creativeness and 246

Each one a 188, [190-1]

God the 505

CREMATION, Weakness, of 413

CRIME, Breaking another's Yoga a 93

Obstacles and 95

CRIMSON (see also Red) 364

CRITICISM 51

CROSS (see also Svastika, Symbols, Seven)

[218-222], [254-5], [266-7], [507-8]

Ankh-tie and 609

Atom, in 645

Balanced 266,324

Breathes 152

Chemistry, in [645]

Christian [220], 244

Circle, within 493

Curved 181.446

Descent and ascent of 507

Equator in cell-life [641-3] Evolution, of 218. [245], 255, 266. 305

Experience, of 324 Fiery (see Svastika)

Formation of 479

JNDEX

711

Greek

Heart of evolution

House of

Infinitude in incarnation, is

Latin

Law of

Life by

Line, fulfilment of

Lotus and

Manifestation, of

Meditation on

Physics, in

Plant life, in

Point, Circle and

Primeval

Purple and

Purpose and

Revolving (see Swastika)

Righteousness of

Ring-pass-not and

Root chakra and

Sacrifice of

Secret Doctrine, The, on

Senzar and

Soldier of the

Stability of

PAGE 220, 222 552 494 281 [220] 324

267, 376 [214] 229, 231 476 243 647

[643-4]

241-3, 264-7, [569] 221

266, 357 524

324

183, 306 429

324, 480 24 566 520 324

Svastika and 218, 220, 222, 238, [267],

357, 429, 455, 508

Third Logos, symbol of 214

Truth of 324

What it is 280

Whirling (see Svastika)

Witness of 526

Zodiac and 673-4, 677, 680-2, 683

CROWN (see also Coronation) Chakra 430

Kingship, of 359, 473-4

Victory and Initiation, of 286

Yoga and 83, 91

CRUCIFIXION 470

Cross and 469

Episodes of growth and 220, 266

Heights of [267]

Resurrection, and 171, 266 [469], [687-97]

CRUELTY, Lower kingdoms, to [412]

Pam and [592]

Protective web, breaks 96

CRYSTAL 198,360-1,370-1,[607]

CUP (see also Grail)

Aspiration, of 499

Formless 377

CURVED, CURVATURE, Action is 182

College Physics on Cross and Gravitation and Growth, of Law of Light and

PAGE

[575-6!

181

170, 263, 395 286 252 253

Line and 181, 251-2, 263,276,279,

542-3, [546-8]

Logoi, two 303

Manifestation and 544-5

Poles and 542-6

Principle of 170,252, 263

Projections and 181

Reverence is 279, [545]

Rhythm of [395], 400, 424, 446

Science and 195, 547

Seeing 182, 547

Space-time and 182

Symbols and [ 263], 446, [545]

Unfoldment, of 506

Universal relationships and [279]

Web-Womb has 280

CYCLES (see also Octaves, Yugas) [494-7],

673-85

Consciousness 69

Cosmic 673-85

Human 675-85

Initiations, of 673-4

Old and new 138

Religions and 673-4

Servants of the [479]

Solar 673-4

Spirals of evolution [633]

Spiritual Archetypal 675-85

Symbols and 673-85

Zodiac and 673-85

0 (note), Orange, equivalent to 150

DAMRU Sound of the Line 194

Thunder of evolution 373, 384

DANCE, Chord of Fulfilment and devas' 375 Divine in essence 101

Joy-fire 413

Shiva as Lord of the 11, [102-3], 416,

[557-8, 624] Symbols in 11

DANCING, Rhythmic 254

Science of 101

Yoga of [351]

THE LOTUS FIRE

DARKNESS (see also Night) Abysmal Becoming Brahm and

Bridge between light and Colourless Consciousness Consummation and Finding all Godhead, of our God poised in Gunas and -Idea Knows

PAGE

168,510-11 [310], 540 154 142 500 155 151

142, 254, 256 82, 131 514 141 115 541 145

Lightand 7,129,131, [142-3], 144, [151-2], [155], 157, 162, 169, 229, 254, 337.

354, 460, 504, 540

Man and 488

Ocean of 540

Point and 130, [150], 254, 315

Primordial 148

Progenitor of light, is 110

Radiance and 132, 143, 156, 162

Rainbows and 111, 144

Ray of 156

Relative term, is 85

Scales of 145

Silence and 150-1, [154], 162, 166. 229, 254, 293, [3101, 315, 358, 374, 393,

505, 540, 550

Tangible 148,315

Truth and 314

Yoga of 157

DAUNTLESSNESS, Birds, of 325

DAY 511

Colour-note of each [364]

Favourable periods of [321]

Work for night and 422-3

Yoga of 157

DEATH, Adjustment and 349, 554

Continuity and 397

Door of 69

Isolation and 485

Life and 152, 187, 349, 387-8, 397, 511,

553, 690

Memory and 187

DEDICATION, Artists, of 234

Baptism, of 493

Cup of 499

Regions of 359

Web-Womb, of the 324

Yoga, of [59], 499

DEER, Grace of DEFEAT, Victory amidst

Yogi and

DELIVERANCE, Lord of DEPTH (S), Artist and the

Heights and

Initiation and descent into

Limitation of heights and DESCENT, Hells, into

Incarnation, into

Kali Yuga, into

Man's ascent and God's

Matter, into

DESECRATION, Marnage, of DESIRE, Body of

Dynamic

Plane of DESTINY DETERMINATION, Resistless

Rhythm of DEVA (S), (see also Angels)

Atom-creatures and

Birds and

Derivation of word

Evolution

Form

PAGE

325

7

143 154 343

214, 454, 522

466-7

195,[215]

467

492

68

507

207

[190]

106

97

114

696

424

424

290 [326] 577 200 230

-Human shape of the Lords of the Symbols

[489],

Kingdom as servers 441

L.ght, of 178, 229-30

Lotus, in 229

Music-building and 373-5

Path 472

Point, of the 144

Presence, of the 178

Silent Watcher and 237

Sound, colour and form, of 216, 229, [489]

Storm, of the 144

Throne of God, round 216

DEVI, Shakt. energy of Sh.va 370

DEVOTION, Dog, of 325

Graciousness and 342

Life and 110

DEWDROP, Immortality, of 371-2

DHARMA [502-3]

DHARMAKAYA 471

DHYANI BUDDHAS 47

DIAMETER, Line becomes 194

DIAMOND 198, 330-3, 354-7, 360-1, 604

Jewel of first Ray 603

Line and 355

Love of God and 361

713

PAGE

Nature of no-stone 354

Reality, of 302

Rod of Power and [631]

DIFFERENCE, Identity and 162, 262, 398

Rhythm of 398

Symbols, between 268

DIFFERENTIATION, Cell-life, m 638

Function of 442

Undifferentiated, becomes 142

DIGNITY, Lion, of 325

Point, of 324

DIMENSION (AL) 499

Individuality of 448

Potentiality 563

Solar System and fourth 612

Space, of 182, 448

DIRECTIONS (see also Centre, North, South,

East, West, Poles), Geographical [577]

DISASTER, Yoga and cataclysmic 247

DISCONTENT. Divine 88, [457.8], 529

Vitalizing 88

Wings of [453-8]

DISCORD, Clashing 689

DISEASE (see also Health), Selfishness is 110

DISTILLATION, Attars, of eternal [143]

Evolution, of an 1 42

Point, into 142

Right living, of 106

DIVINE (see also God) Consciousness 93

Cradle of, life 213 Discontent 88, [457-8], 529

Experiences 88

Fire 216

Heritage of yoga 83

Individuality and universality 212 Measure or yard-stick (see Measure)

Powers of creation 90

Wisdom, Theosophy, the 529

DIVINITY (see also God), Attributes of 366

Awakens 434

Call to [524]

Consummation of 68, 136

Creation, of 411

Dance, of the 101

Each his vision of 48

Expressed in weakness 85

God and 142,177

Infinitude and 472

Life, of 159

Lotus and 228

Men reach out to 95, 153, 224, 450, 459

Miracle-matrix and 176

Perfection and

Plane of

Point-intensity and

Radiance and

Self-conscious

Temple of

Testimony to man's

What is

Yoga of

DIVISION, World needs DOG, Devotion of DOOR, Bible and, the

Mystery, of

Sanctuary, of the

Symbol of the

PAGE 274

93,[116]

258-61

132

68, 174,260,449-50

261

91

445

7

147 325 460 460 473 [461]

DREAM (S), Life-to-be, and 146

DRUGS, Yoga and 49

DRUM (S), Compassion and the 381-2

Cosmic 374, [379-84]

Damru roll and the 373

Evolutionary process, of the 355, 373, 380

Forthgomg, of 358-9

Language, Samsknt as 382

Life, of 380

Line and the 380

Man's coronation and the 359

Natarlja, Shri, and 557

Point and the 379 1

Power of the 380-1

Rhythm and adjustment of the 381

Silence and the 379, 383

Symbol-sound and the 380

Web-Womb and the 380

World situation and the [380-81 ]

Yoga and the 382 DUAL (ITY) (see also Father-Mother)

Dwells in One 91, 172, [577-8]

Father of 550

Friction and 264, 266

Lord and 313

Point 250

Purpose of 266

Silence, of 172

Unity, of 172

Universe and [577-8]

Web-Womb, of 303

DURATION, Time and 141, 166

DYING, Life, into 187

Substitute, for life 82

DYNAMIC Body 419

Relative, is, the 273

Static to 44G

THE LOTUS FIRE

PAGE

Symbols 53

Truth 132

Yoga 97

OZYAN, Stanzas of (see also Index to

Authors, etc.) 13, 23

£ (note), Yellow, equivalent to 150

EAR§, Non-physical 130, 143

Octaves of sound and 151

EARTH (see also G/obe)

Dwellers in 290

Fire of 285, 350

•Forces and the South Pole 543 Green in colour [363], 429, 477 Heaven and 307, 320, 347, 417, 1492-3],

495, 498, 508

Line of life and 542-3, 546

Measuring-rod of 101 Mother 166,286,292,348,562

Navel chakra, and . 429

Present, of your 286

South Pole and 543

Symbol of our 562

Universes, and, our 563

Word of the 200 Yogi as channel between Heaven and 498

EAST (ERN), Diameter, to west 282

Magnetic hemisphere [577]

Medicine 110

Music 340-1

True [577]

ECSTASIES, Divine Spirit, and 148

Domain of 103

Final, not 88

Sex and 189

EGO, Eternal Self 111

Monad and 361,467

Reincarnating 542

Silent Watcher and 173

Zodiac sign for 674

EGYPT, Initiations in [465-70]

ELASTIC, Consciousness is 100

ELDER(S) Brethren, witness 691

Brothers quoted 201

Ourselves and our 116, 423, 435

Raise a bulwark 523

ELECTRIC (ITY) 202, 219, 359, 511

Blue 263,357

Duality [578]

Fohat and [585]

PAGE

Insatiability 393

Line, and 219, [646]

Point 511

ELEMENTAL Consciousness and sleep 420

ELEMENTS 287

ELEPHANT, Wisdom of 325

EMBRYO (NIC), Characteristics and 181

Cosmic 643

Life and posture 252

Line and 639

Point, as 638

Symbols, as [638-43]

Vehicles 114

Web-Womb and 173,279-80

EMERALD (see also Green) 356, 360, 603. 605

EMOTION (see also Feelings and), Body of 106

Bombardment of the 52

Ceaseless Breath and 387

Experiences of 88

Eyes of 506

Food for 419

Healthy feelings and 49

Sensations and 187

Web-Womb and 279

END (see also Consummation, No-Ending,

Unencf/ngness)

Evolutionary process, of 136, 351, 372, 398

Fundamental, no 88

Great 98

Means, adjusts 100

One 500 One with beginning 102, 130, 141. 235,

351,398,506,511

Our 79, 171

Word in the 154

ENDEAVOUR, Earth of 498

ENDURANCE, Masses, of 327

ENEMIES, Gates, within 92-6

ENERGY, Curvature and 182-3

Gunas and 115

ENFOLDMENT, Yoga of 314-22

ENGLISH Language 73

ENLIGHTENED, Vision of 8

ENSLAVEMENT (S), Brother, of 93

Customs and conventions in 91

Exchanging 527

Forms and authorities, in 70

EQUATOR (IAL), Cross 641

Division affects all life 282

Line, no imaginary 543

Magnetic 219, 577

EQUILIBRATION, Line of 219

715

Time and 99, 105, 143, 162, 167, (274-5],

316, 394, 446

ETHER, Web and [646]

EUCHARIST (1C). B.rth. of [622]

Bread and salt ceremony, and the [633]

Breath, of 166

Power, of [579]

Rejoicing, of 159

EUCLID. 47th proposition of [206-7, 574]

Greeks, ancient, and 446

Pythagoras and 206. [584]

EVEREST, MOUNT, Experience not an 88

First Logos and 311

Gaurishankar or

Names of

Silence of

Spirit of

Summit of

Yoga and EVERYTHING, God is

No-thing and EVERYWHERE EVIL (see also Weakness, Vice)

Channel for EVOLUTION (ARY PROCESS),

Accelerates

Action

Administrators of

Beginning of

Besant, Dr., on

Beyond, and

Birth in, second

Birth in, third

Blotting out the

Circle and

Colour-form of

Consciousness and the

Consummations and

Cross and

Curvature and

Descent into

Distilling an

Divine measure and

Divinity and

Dogmatism and

Drums of the

Emergence of man and the

End of

Essence of an

PAGE 312 313 312 311

311-12 [310-13], 325 482 150 511 410

96, [107] 534

[169], 451 183 441

69. 380, 472 93-4 250 464 470 149 569 77 273

290, 316, 358

245, 266-7, 281

[263]

79, 179

142, 250, 413

194, 262-3

445

547

355, 380

512

136

261,413

Expansion of consciousness and 463

Fire of 224, [235-6]

Formulae of 135, 535

Frontiers of 70

Harvesting an 130, 317, 413

Heart of 552

Hierarchies and 289-90

Hush-motif and 203, 218

Individuality and 450

Infinitude and 272-3

Key-plane of 114

Ladder of 198, 290

Life and [186], 397 Line and 180, 193, 212, 277, [281-2], 368

Magnetic forces and [546]

Man and 136, 286, 317, 348

THE LOTUS FIRE

Man-motif and

Man-womanhood and

Matrix of

Microcosm to Macrocosm

More and

Mountain of

Movement is

Mysteries of

Needs of

North and south of

Periods of

Piston-rod of

Point and

Point-seed of

Poles of

Progenitors of an

Quality of

Rarefication and the

Ring-pass-not of

Schemes of

Seven sounds of

Silence and

Sound-motif of

Spinal column and

Spirals and cycles of

Spirit of birth, and the

PAGE 200

185, 334

149, 174

691

[169]

72

97

175

109

282

[282]

178,355

306, 445

130-7

179, 281-2, 356 175 141 451

194, 215 94

143, 360 190

177, 198. 355-6 253 633 525

Svastika and 223-4, 281, 455, 476

Symbols and 210, 266, 281

Symphony of 198

Time, eternity and the 450

Truth and 256

Types of magnetism and 27

Ultimatesand 79, 112

Unfoldment of an 142, 198, 212, 290, 441

Vices and 109

Visible and the 510

Waking consciousness and 425 Way of 83, 106, 198, 290, [309-10, 398], 532

Weakness, place of, in [409]

Wheel of 179, 290, 455

EXALTATION (ING), Consciousness contents, our 115 Consciousness, of 158 Formulas, by 135 Ray of 334

EXAMINATION. Impersonal and careful 109

Initiation, for 464

EXCESS, Glory, of 152

Light, of 151

Movement, of 151

EXERCISES, Physical 246

EXERTION, Rhythm versus 97

PAGE

EXISTENCE. Rhythm of 397 EXPANDING (SION), Consciousness, of 82,

197, [463-4, 525], 692, 696

Contraction and 272, 277

Formulas for 76

Infinite counterpart and its 279

-Infinitude of eternity 274

Line, limitations of 276

Normal 197

Seven symbols, of the [525],

Universality- 549

EXPERIENCE (S) [81-8, 1121

Apotheosis of 259

Atma, reflection of 570

Communion, of [465]

Cross, of the 324

Discarding 82

Distilling all 87, 143. 269 Essence of 83, 143, 269, [570],

Fire, and 264

Form, and 225

Fragrance of 75-6

Gathering, for future 112, 317, [584],

God, of 539

Hell and heaven, of 468

Kingdom of God, in 175

Limits of 262-3

Maturity of 467

Memory and 161,426

Mountains of triumph 82

Never left behind 89, 175,317 Personal. Yoga and 54-5, 149, 158. 317

Point and * 163-258

Power, becomes a 88, 467

Problem of 47

Reflects reality 86

Saviours and [584],

Self-realization, from 470

Sharing 52, 114,225

Spiritual regions, and 562

Splendours of 80

Stillness and 135

Sublimation, for 375

Swayed by 86

Temple of [2611

THAT, of 513

Universalizing 109

Wise, of the & Yoga, and 55, 60, 95, 161, [170], 311

Yoga, practical 55, 99

Yogi's reservoir of 410 You and [175], 258, 539. 561

717

PAGE

EXPLORATION (S), Yoga into 9

EXPLOSION (S). Consciousness, of [197, 464) EXPRESSION, Inspiration, of 78

EXTASIS 148

EXTERNAL (IZED, AT1ON), Men evolve

through 200

Obstacles and internal God 171

Ultimates 112

Yoga, aspect of 113

EYES [506]

Limitations of our 150-1,248

Lords and guardians, of the 489

Physical, not 130

Spiritual 81,548

Symbols, safely see 100

Yoga and 201, [287], 349, 521, 523, 548

F (note). Green, equivalent to 150

Key-stone of nature [623]

FAITH (S), Glory of 501

Imprisonment within a 87

Lords of 489

Prejudice and Yoga 107

Revelations of God 87

Symbols and 368

Symbols of 563

Yogi and all 107

FALSEHOOD, Truth into 690

FAME, Hall of 496

=AMILY, Interdependent Man- 200

Prejudice and Yoga 107

Symbols of 563

Yoga for 309

=ASCES, Archetype of 180

: ASHION. Crudity of 91

Prostitution to 65

=ATHER, Duality and 550

God the 91

Knight of Sacrifice 90

Life, gives 348

-Light [620-1]

Space,the 448-9

Sun the 286

Tender 690

Trinity and 550

Woman and 90

: ATHERHOOD, God, of [173-4], 176

: ATHER-MOTHER (see also Man-Woman,

Woman-man, etc) Cross 220, 223, 520

Duality

Immanence of Man-woman Point

Silence and darkness, of Spirit We are Web, spin a FEAR, I and

PAGE

578

203

[185]

276, 504

166

172, 174 176

172. 429. 492 412

FECUNDATION, Confirmation and 493

Cosmic 172

Line of 488

Silence-darkness of 173

Third Logos in 285

FEELINGS and EMOTIONS (see also Emotion)

Body of 90. [106], 514

Building with our 422

Dynamic 97

Food for 419

Give birth to 90

Symbols no mere 134

FEMALE. FEMININITY, FEMININE (see also

Woman)

Force 490

Horizontal Line 179

Man-woman and [184-6]

FETTERS, Breaker of [687-90|

FINITE (NESS), Infinity and [166-7]. 179, 230,

336, 342

Limitations of 195

Symbols are 276

Transparent 293

FIRE (see also Flame. Flash)

Adjuster, the [235]

Children of 687-8

-Colours, sounds and forms [234]

Creation, of 247, 348, [621]

Darkness and 132

Dwellers in 290

Electric 355.5

Equilibration, of 224

Evolution, of 224, [235-6]

-Flower 269

Fulfilment, for 197

Heaven and earth, of 284, 350

Incarnating 326

Initiation and 47]

Irons in evolving 434

Joy-dance of 4^3

Kingship, of 35

Line of Divine 216-7

THE LOTUS FIRE

PAGE Lotus [16], 134, 234-6, 264, 283, [301-7]

413, 524, 553

Marriage of 286

Pillar of 692

Power, is 16

Purification 98, 235

Rays and 333-4

Regenerator 348

Strength, of [414] Symbols and 235, 264, 615

Upholder 348

Vitalization, of 224

Word of 200

FLAG, Symbol 563 FLAME (see also Fre)

Lords of the 79

Ultimates from 97-100

Unfoldment, for 197 FLASH (see also Line)

Communion, of 465

Forth your life [217]

Higher consciousness, of 114, 432

FLESH-EATING, Receptivity of body and 105

Retribution and . [92]

FLOWER (S) (see also Lotus, Seed-Bud-

Flower)

Brothers 201

Consciousness, of 113

Dream, the 301

Everything brought to 112

Experience, of 143 Fire (see Fire)

Fulfilment, of 155

God, was 230

Humanity, of 160, 695

Lily Web-Womb 278

Lotus, of [479-80]. 524

Love, of 147

Power, of 614-5

Reverent 325

-Sea 197

Seed of 7, 138. 508

Symbols all dwell in 319

Triumph of 17

Yoga of 650

FOCUS-Pomt, man a [348]

Yoga, individual [325]

FOHAT, Electricity and [585]

Space and [163,] 397

FOOD, Pure 105

Sunlight of 418

Yoga, for [418]

PAGE

FORCE (S), Dedication of 90

Earth- 543

Flow of 90

Focus-point for 348

Future, of the 365

Life-, potent 90

Magnetic lines of [546]

Manipulation of life- 546

Poles 543

Sun- 543

Supercosmic 240

Weaknesses and vices are [109-10]

FORESTS, Silence of 325 FORM (S), (see also Formlessness, Trinity]

Adjustment, law of 103

All has [366] Archetype of 132, 173, 234, 334, 338, 340

Basic 416

Concentration 553

Cosmic projection 396

Counterpart, and its 279

Devasof 216,230

Disintegrating 225

Enslavement in 70, 335

Force and Logos 207

Human, meeting-point in 491

Image of God 501

Learning through 199, 225 Life and 7, 66, 102. [214], 268, 336-8, 415,

[696-7]

Line and Circle-Globe 267

Lotus archetype for 228. 339, 615 Men and 87, 95, 131, 199, 225, 477-9. 488

Music of 216,483

-Octaves and symbols 479

New 524

New world of 234

Perfect 553

Poles and 543

Ray of 230,232

Reality of 564

Reflection of formless 86, 440, 564, 572

Regions of 116

Reverence for 697

Scale of 324

Seven 230

Silence that is 152

Splendour of Divine 146

Stepping-stone of 512 Symbols and 77, 133, 266. 278, 564 Trinity of sound-colour- (see Trinity)

Truth in 334

719

Unfoldment Value of symbolic Will puts on Wisdom

PAGE 1214]

135 205 205

Yoga and [288], 308, 415, 483, [501]

FORMLESS (NESS), Cloud of darkness 150 Form and 440, 488, 522. 540

Form reflects 86, 512

Heights 144

-Idea 541

Life is 551

Memory of 203

Ocean of 540

Point 162

Radiances 104, 248

Regions 116, 164

FORMULA (E), All-One, of 1370-2]

All reduced to 150, [370], [563]

Concentrations of force 481

Evolution, of 135

God Eternal, of 47-8, 131

Individuality, every, a 276

Life, of 65

Mantra and 131

Mathematics, of 561

Microcosmic 102

Realities, of 101,481

Symbols are [111. [47-8], [76-7], 111, 133,

160.237.481, 517, [563] Total.ty, for [370]

Truth as 334

FORTHGOING, Consciousness, in 246

Consummation and [130-2], [168-9], 173, 202, 249, 254, 260, 270, 274, 290, 293,

372, 445, 555

Cradle of 180

Creative activity, and 136-7, 212, [246J, 316 Cycle of 494

-Discharge 444

Divinity, and 174, 212

Drums of 358

Future, as 194

God, of a 141, 270

Hum of 371

Incarnation and 492

Kingdoms of nature, into 113

Line and 180,212,252,355-6

Lotus in 492

Measure of 180

Men, of 290

Moment, each 138

Path of 147, 185.215,219.286

PAGE Point and 132, 212, 252-4, 274-5, 396,

398. 476, 492

Projection 396

Purpose of 290

Suspended 149

Standard of 246

Ultimate essence of [149] Web and 180, 205, 212. 250, 261, 355

Yoga of [198|

FORTHWELLING, Centres of 263

FOUNDERS. Theosophical Society, of The 533

FRAGMENT, Living within a 87

Whole in [150],

FRAGRANCE, Alcohol and 416, 588

Consciousness, of 104 '

-Essences [585]

Experience, from 76, 83

Graciousness and 342

Lotus, of the 324, 528

Man and 488

Purification by 1416]

Rhythm of a [424 J

Sublimation, of 135

Weaknesses, of 107

Yoga and 415-16

FREEDOM, Art, in 339

Authority and 532

H.s 690

Illusion of [527]

Obedience highest [392],

Slavery and 87 True 309, [555]

Yogi and 107

FREEWILL, Necessity and 385

FRICTION, (see also Svastika)

Wheel 267-9

Yoga and science of 264

FRUCTIFICATION 219, 229, 307, 478

FRUITION, Darkness and silence, m 130

Flower of 269-70

Lotus, of 324, 476

Point in 154

Weakness, of 409

FRUITS, Kingdoms, of 691

Yoga, of 426

FRUSTRATION (S), Man's 349

Vanquished 111

FULFILLING (MENT), Art and 336-7

Chord of [375]

Circle of 525

Eternal of 508

Forthgoing and 131, 260

THE LOTUS FIRE

Heaven of Heights of Life

Line and Lotus perfect Master of 'Moving on by Note of Path of 'Point and Purification and Purpose of book Science of Self-discovery and Song of Symbols, of Unfolding Weaknesses World, the Yoga and

"FULLNESS, Compact intense Eternity, of

PAGE

498

155

202-3

506

228

695

82

347

[463-75]

135, 141

98

12, [555]

[84-8]

[505]

694-5

[504-9]

310

413

109,308

82, 157, [413]

259

302

FUNCTION, Intensification through Yoga 97 {FUTURE Beckons 434

Forthgoing as 194

Glorious 689

Man's transcendent 91

Memory of 161,394

My 99

Past, present and 7, 142, 161, [176], 286,

315, 394, 536, 563

Unfoldment 136

Worlds, of 695

<3ANDHARVAS, Angels of song [576]

Meditation and [288]

GARMENT, Glory, of 178, 501

GATE (S), Heaven, of [459-62]

GATHERING-m [81-3], 111

GAURISHANKAR.Mt., 311-13

GAVEL, Symbolism of 243

GAYATR1, Prayer 131, [579] GEM (see also Jewel)

Point, of the [606]

GENEROSITY 51

Apotheosis of selfishness 108

Grandeur of 327

•GENIUS, Inspiration and 78

Lines of least resistance and 158

Lotus-time, in 480

PAGE

GEOMETRIZATIONS 489

GESTURE, Dance, in 11

Law of adjustment and 103

Truth in 101

GIFTS, Human and superhuman [327]

GIVER, Life and music, of 378

GLADNESS, Yoga and [293]

GLADSOME Life 649

GLANDULAR-THERAPY 49-50

GLOBE (S) (see also Circle-Globe, Earth)

Circle-, Future, of 324

Converging and expanding 168

Standards for 193

GLORIFICATION 246

GLORIFY, Cry of Christ [171], [267], 318

GLORY, Drops of 360

Endless 527-33

God. of 103, 171

Holiness and 344-5

King of [459]

Life, of 114

Lord of 687

Pride and praise in 114

Remembrance of 526

Symbols, excess of in 100, 146, 152

Transubstantiation and 105

Virtue to 109

Yoga, crown of 83

GOAL 97, 506

Besant, Dr., on the 94

Evolution, of 273, 692

Memory makes certain the [414]

Monads, of 139

One 201

rToint a limited 146

GOD (S), (see also Divinity, Lord, Logos,

Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva) [504-9]

All in 696

Anthropomorphic 481

Appearance, an 539

Artist, the 344

Asleep and awake 197

-Becoming, m-the 48, 252, 276

-Be, to- 177,252,505 Breath of (see Breath)

Call of 60, 196,211.261,411

Centre, of 520

-Children 255

Compasses of 195

Consummation, of 293 Creator 47, 102, 436, 505

Crown, with 236

721

PAGE

"Danceth 104

Destroys, never 111

Discontent of (see Divine Discontent) -Discovery 316

Divinity, pregnant with 142

Drums of 383

Economizes 114, 396, [437]

Everywhere [482]

-Father 255

Father and Mother 91, 466, 504

Flower is 230

Garment of 501

Gathers in 81-3, 111

Geometrizes 489

Glorifies us f171J, [267], 318

Glory of 171,344-5

Godhead and 104-5, 177, 236

Heavens of 155

Heroes replace 70

Holiness of 344-5

Images of the 501, [637]

Individuality and 371, 440, 482

Inner, seven sounds of the 143, 230

Is and with us 505

Kingdom of 175,398

Kingdoms of nature and their 7, 482

Life and 502

Light = 197

Localization, a [539]

Lotus is 220, 228, 307

Mammon, and 52

'Man becomes a 136, 142, 154, 225, [255],

261,306, [359J

Manhood, and his [161]

Man-made conceptions of 439, [539J

Man, Men, and 95, 131, 302, [316], 433-4

[481], 507, [522]

Memory of 412

'Messengers of 695

Motherhood of 91,436

Movement = 197

(Obstacles and internal 171

Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent

504

One 211-4

People of 87

Person, as 83, 539

Poise of 510

Presence of 504

Preserver 102, 436

Regenerator 102, 436

Releasing 86

46

PAGE

Revelation of 37

Service of 103

Sex, creates through 9t

Son and Spirit 91

Spaces of 100

Symbols and 54

Symbol as thought-form of 141

Tau, is [220]

Totality, as 482

Transcendence of 482

Trinity of 102, [205]

Universality, as 371, 482

Universe, of this 87

Voice of [84-6], [292], 501, 508

We are 111, 189, 201, 316, 433, 513, 530 What is [481],[539]

Will of 84, 86, 115, 506

Word and 148

Yoga of 7

GODHEAD, Adjustment to our 161, 224

Altar of 174

Blue 196

Building of 410

Centre of 467

Child-man to 233

Everything achieves 93, 177-8, 470

Finding the [141J

Forthgoing of the 141

God and His 104, 161, 236, 249

Image of 176

Man and his 67, 131. 175, 177-8, [236],

[255], 271, 385, [467J, [470], 514, 531

Manhood to 199, 293

Man-womanhood, sublimation 185

Needed, your 87

-Point ascends 472

Radiance of 132

Strengthened in 514

Symbol of 105

Temple of your 154

What is 445

Yoga of a 198

Yogi and 109, 111

GODLESSNESS, World and 191

GODLINESS, Physical creation and 191, 246

GOLD 414, 489, [607]

GOOD, Evil and 107, 410, 504

GOODWILL, Scale of 106

Understanding and 51

GOPlS. Shr! Krishna and 158

GOTRABHU, Initiation, for 691, 694

THE LOTUS FIRE

PAGE

GOVERNMENT (see also Hierarchy), Inner

238, 465, 546

GRACE 500

Deer, of the 325

Physical body and 105

Point, of the 324

GRACIOUSNESS, Art and [342J

GRAIL, HOLY (see also Cup)

Mother becomes a 90

Parsifal, in [583]

Woman as a 620

Yoga symbolism and 48, 499

GRANDEUR. Genius, of the 327

Point, of 146

GRAVITATION, Curvature or [395], 400,

424. 446

Law of 76

Spiritual 446

GREAT (NESS), Art, of 343

Reveal life, the 535

Symbols, as, the [347]

Wrong, in 340

GREEN, Astronomical symbolism and 574

Circle and 253, 265

Colour of earth is 477

Day 364

Emerald- 356-7, 360

F (note), equivalent to 150

Help, for [363-4]

Men of sea 87, 183

Rays, of . 572-3

Saturn, of 574

Sea, of the 216

Thought-forms 363

GRIHASTHA 494

GROUP-SOUL (S), One Soul with 114

Sub-human and human 114

GROWTH (see also Unfo/dment, Evolution)

Acceleration 114, 154, [169], 393, 463

Artist and 338

Continuity and 397. 423

Curvature of 286

Ego and 361,433,463

Friction and 264

Hatred protects for [410]

Kingdoms of nature, in [220]

Man's 433

Motherhood and 176

Pathway of 98, 348, 391

Rainbow-song of 292, 381

Self-containedness and [398-9]

Short-cuts for 464

PAGE

Silence and 383

Sound of 360, 381

Span of 262.

Svastika as symbol of 281

Web-Womb and 280

Yogis and 423

GUARDIAN, Holy places, of 489

Master as 696

State, of, true 497

Wall of saints 472

Wall of will 526

GUIDES, Joy and power, to 695

GUNA (S), Hinduism and 115, 211

H

HABITS 115

HALL, Fame, of 467

HAMSA 467

HAPPINESS 529

Besant, Dr., on 94

Experience of 143

Heaven of 498

HARMLESSNESS 500

Animals, and [590-2]

Retribution, and 92

Yogi, essential to 95

HARMONY, Gunas and 115

Ray fourth and 335

Reawakening 689

Relative 113

Revealed in melody 695

Spheres of [216]

HARVESTING, Consciousness, fields of 154-5

Evolution, and 130, 317

HATRED, Apotheosis of 108, 109

Combing out 366-7

Forthgoing, on Path of 147

God speaks in 34

Growth, for 410 Love and 114,412, 690

Pride, form of 411

Protective purpose of 410

Sex misuse spreads 91

Yoga and 51

HEALER (ING), Colour, sound and form

[366, 478J

Spiritual, the 110

HEALTH (see also Rhythm) [418-26}

Light, sound, form, in 233, 478

Muscular modification and ill- 548

Rhythm for 90, 443

723

PAGE

Yoga and 49, 53

HEARING Name of the Highest Self 155

Seeing, interchangeable with [381 J HEART-Beats of symbols 428-9, 450

Chakra and Point 428-9

Event, of 436

Fragrance, of 488

Knowledge 365

Life has no 552

Point in the [629]

Rhythm, of 390

Self in 94, 428

Symbols in your 307

HEAVEN (S), Candidate ascends into 692 Earth and 320. 347, 378,417,492-3, 495, 508

Fire of 285, 350

Future, of your 286

Gates of [459-62]

Gods, of the 155

Hell, and 165, 468

Light, of 155

Sound, of 155

Worlds of colour, music, form 78, 376

Yogi as channel between earth and 498 HEIGHTS (see also Mountain, Summits. Hills,

Ascent) 534 Art and the 336, 338, 343

Crucifixion, of [267]

Essence-point, of 148

Fulfilment, of 155

God the Mother and the 176

Human kingdom, of 470

Knowledge, of 535 Limitation of depths and 195, 215, 263

Man and sublime 131

Masters and interstellar 145

Plane of depths and 114,454

Rising into 468

Seeking depths and 522

Symbology, an approach to 101, 115

Symbols seen from 105

Vice- and virtue- 108

Vision calls to 529

Watchers, Silent, and 144

Yoga and 138

HELL(S), Heaven and 165,468

Initiation and descent into 467, 468

Law, defiance of, and [352]

HERITAGE, Art our 316

THAT and our ultimate 513

Vowels and Atlantean 368

Yoga our divine 83

HERMES, Hieratic alphabet and

Religion of HERO (ES), Courage of

Gods and HEROISM, Inspiration gives

PAGE

566

673

327

70

78

HIERARCHY (IES), Initiation is apprenticeship to [464] Initiations, further, and 472, [474] Lives, of 290 Lords of colour, sound, form, of 478 Man enters the 470 Man, of 289, 290 Officials of 472 Orchestra of the 383-4 Rhythm of 397-8 Silent Watchers, of 23& Souls, of 198 Zodiac and 664-74 HILLS 113-7 HIMALAYA (S), Lord of mountains, a 101 Lord of the 489 Teacher, home of 291 Wesakand 160 Yoga and 310 HINDU (ISM), Animals, and [592j Dance of Shiva, and 102 Dancing and 101 Eucharist of 160 Gunasand 211 Initiations * [465-751 Motherhood and 436 Scriptures 114,373.519 Seven symbols, and 493 Symbolic Yoga and 11 Transubstantiation and 105 Way of Holiness in 72 Yogic postures in 284 HOLINESS, Art, of [345J Fires of 91 God, of 344-5 Hidden way of 72 Living, of 90 Sex, of 90 HOLY, Desecration of what is 91 Holies, of 328 Making all 111 Revealing things that are 554 Sacrifices 115 HOME. Eternal 140 Life and 186 Mountain-symbols my 80

THE LOTUS FIRE

PAGE HOMOSEXUALITY (see also Sex), Con-

sequences of 247

HOPE 500

Earth of 498

HORSE. Poise of 325

HORIZONTAL (see also Cross) 202, [271],

677, [680-2]

Line, equator and 282

,, fecundation, of 357

., God the Mother and 223,228,357, [490]

,, limitation, typifies 281

,, manifestation, and 207,212,218-9

Vertical and 224, 242-3

HORUS 466

HOUR-GLASS, Consummation and 169, 194

Forthgoing and 169, 194

Point and 168

HOUSE (S) (see Ashramas)

HOUSEHOLDER 309,494

HUM, the Aum and 370

HUMAN Beings, life and 152

Body and consciousness 344

Cycles [675-85]

Family and Man-family 200, 318

Form, meeting-ground, a 491

Form, Svastika and 226

Individuality and song of life 292

Kingdom, assent of 692

entering 79, 83, 331, 332, 412

freedom and 392

,, group-soul and 113

,, individualization and 174

influence of magnetisms and 282

Initiation and 464, 470, 691-2

lower kingdoms and 412,464

pride in the [413J

song of 694-5

super-, kingdoms, to 139,221,

348. 470

Yoga and 86, 94, [332], 348

Misery and sex-abuse 91

Shape 489, 490

Yogi is warmly 138

HUMANITY, Christ and 221

Earth's Flower of 160, [695]

Gifts from 327

Science and 449

Standard for 67

Sun's form is [697]

HUMILITY, Character and 343

Safety in 539

HUSBAND, Father, becoming 90

HUSH (see also Si/ence)

Consummation, of

Cosmic

Evolutionary process, of

King-God's crowning and

-Motif

Nature, of

Point, of the

Space and

Spirit, matter and

Symbols and

Time and HUT-BUILDER HYPOTENUSE, Circle and

Triangle and

I

ICHCHHASHAKTI

IDA, Spine, of

IDEATION, Lotus and divine

IDENTIFICATION

Cosmic ultimate;, with

Fifth Initiation, of

Laboratory of

Point, with IDENTITY, Contact and

Contradictions resolve into

Difference and

Intensity and

Point and IGNORANCE

Escape from

Salvation of

Wisdom, into

PAGE

104, 202, 260 [143], 356 218 384 203 157 173 202 202

202, 564 202 466 208 206

653 285 616 [62]

[287] 696

[257] 158

[162] 564

162, 262, 398 258 162 510 73 532 345

ILLUMINATION (S) Comes from heights 88

Experiences and 76

No, final 88

ILLUSION (S) (see also Maya)

Besant, Dr., on 94

Curvature, of 302, 575-6

Freedom, of 527

Life's 544

Optical [302]

Prejudice, of 107

Real and 695

Understanding, for 538

IMAGE, Divine 93

God, of 501

Man, eternity, of 6

IMAGINATION, Common sense versus 520

Creation and [174-5]

725

PAGE

Creative bridging by [77], [165,] [375], [382]

Negation, of 149

Point and 170

Ray of creative 334

Vision, to 202

Wings of 447

IMMANENT (CE), Creative power 188

Objects from transcendent causes 440

Points 245

Potentiality, of 173

IMMEASURABLE, Measuring the 153

IMMENSITY, Happiness is 273

IMMORTALITY, Flower of 230

Reality of 100

„ IMPERSONAL, Author seeks to be 78

Drums are 380, 383

IMPRISONED, Boundaries, within 87

Sex is 188

INACCESSIBILITIES, Reaching into 142

INBREATHING (see also Breath) 516

Eternal 306

infinitude of 272

Life's 157

INCARNATION (S), Adjustment and 279, 361

Apotheosis, of an 109

Colour of an 477

Facet, in a 361

Form of 477

Group-soul 695

Individual 695

Macrocosmic and microcosmic processes

of 53

Man's eternal meaning and 111

Marring an 480

Point in 158

Recapitulated 695

Sound, of 477

Symbol, of 456 Time, of 142, 244

Triumph of 695

Unity, of 139

Will in 117

You and 176 INCENSE (see also Fragrance)

Sacrifice, of 111

Scientific use of [585]

Yoga and 416

INCLINATION (S), Modifying the 109 INDEPENDENCE (see also Freedom,

Liberty)

Cat, of 325

Death follows 485

PAGE

Orthodoxy, from, to 60

INDIA (N), Arts 341

Dancing, science of 101

Heart of world 577

Music in 340

Pythagoras and 356

Real, the [61]

Rishis, land of [65]

Simplicity in 341

Spirit of [75]

Strength and weakness of [65]

Yoga in [611

INDIGNATION, Valuable 62

INDIGO 364

INDIVIDUAL (see also Uniqueness)

Concentration of life 549

Conceptions of Yoga 134

Temperaments and rhythms [424]

Transmutation 349

Universal becoming 190 Yoga [75-8], 83, 134, 310, 319, 430,

[505-9]

INDIVIDUALITY (IES), Ceaseless Breath, of 386

Circle endows with 524

Consummation 344, 388

Cosmic Rod of Power and 285

Diversity and 518

-Egos 174, 361

Evolution and 288, 450

Father of 449

Foreground is 551

God and 440

Hatred and 410

Highest 66

Infinitude of 114

Letter I and [367]

Liberated 696

Monads or 114,361

Mother of 448-9

Point pervaded by 137

Pole of [549]

Rhythm of [391], 400

Ring-pass-not and 521

Self-consciousness and 396

Song of life and human 292

Space-time parent of 449-50

Symbol is an 456

Time and space and [448-52]

Transcending 164, [696]

Twofold 185

Ultimateness and 102

Unconscious 255

THE LOTUS FIRE

PAGE

Uniqueness of 83, 262

Universal exchange and 484-5

Universality and 137, 212, 219, 371, 388,

391, 412, 449-50, 485, 535-8, 694

Unmanifest substans of 449

Work, at 113

Yoga, of 449, 537

INDIVIDUALIZATION, Human kingdom, into

174,351

Universalization, for 139, 308, 350

INDIVIDUALIZED, Yoga 199, 350

INERTIA, Guna 115

Yoga of night, and 157

INFERIORITY COMPLEX, Pride and 51

INFINITE (Y) (UDE), Breath and 151, 272

Consciousness, in 273

Contraction- 274-83

Darkness, of 150, 164

Distances of 522

Divinity and 472

Evolutionary process and 273

Expansion- 274-83

Finitenessand 7, [166-7], 179

Individualities, of .114

Limitation and 281

Localized 272

Memory and 161

Motif expanded to 375

Octaves of sound and light, of 150

Point and 272-3

Point, of 142

Potentiality, of 142, 164

Self-conscious 271

Self-realized 141

Undifferentiation and (see also L/nd/f-

forentfat/onj 272

Web-Womb has 279

Yoga of 271-83, [659-64]

INITIATION (S) 461, [463-75]

Beyond, and 472

Buddhi, into 464

Christianity, in 220. [465-75]

Cosmic 696

Egypt, in [465-70]

Evolution beyond 136

Examination for [464], 466

Expansion of consciousness and 463, 696 Fifth [470-2, 691-7]

First 464-6, 696

Fourth 467-70, 696

Hinduism, in [465-75]

individual 692

PAGE

Law-consciousness and 286 Lotus flower and 471 Macrocosmic and microcosmic 694 Name of Self, and 155 Nirvana and 469 Path of 461 Second 466, 696 Symbols and [673-4] Third 466, 696 Universal 692 Zodiac and 673-4 INITIATOR, ONE 474-5 INJUSTICE, Adjustment and 92 INNOCENCE, Age of 67 INORGANIC, Nothing is 82» INSATIABILITY, Rhythm of 399 INSECTS. Rhythm and 159 INSPIRATION (S), Achievement, of 78 Experience, and 76 Incense for 589 Life and form, of 101 Rhythm and 159 Schools centres of 210 INSPIRER, Singing and dancing, of 103 INSTINCT (S), Consciousness and 115 Intuition and [392] INSTRUMENT (S), Consciousness and physical 151 Man-made and super-physical 258 INTANGIBLE, Contacting the [161-2] INTENS (ITY) (fie.,) (FICATION), Consciousness, of [465-6] Function, of 97 Incarnation, through 477 Life, of, in yourself 536 Motherhood, of 328 Poise, of 136 Spiritual 324 Time and eternity, of 274-5 Yoga, through 52 INTERPLAY 215.218 Rhythm of 396 INTERSTELLAR Spaces, Master and 145 INTIMATION (S), Higher Self, of 160 INTUITION, Buddhic consciousness and 114,

158

Devotion brings 110

Independence, and 60

Instinct and [392]

Intellect, impulse and [602]

INVISIBLE, Seeing into 81, 145

-That-is and Point 510-1

727

PAGE 4NVOCATION, Form, colour, sound,

through [288]

Symbols, to 491

World, to the [525-6]

INVOLUTION, Point represents 568

•IRRITABILITY 51

1SHVARA, Supreme 82

ISIS, Mysteries of 466

ISOLATION, Death follows 485-6

JACINTH

JACOB'S LADDER

JADE

JASPER

JELLYFISH, Breathing and

JESUS, Glorification and

[606] 198 361 603

152, 386 171

JEWEL (S), (see also Gem, No-Jewel)

[353-65], [603-7]

Adjustment, and 361

Channels for power 473-4

Circle and 372

Crown of kingship, for 83, 473

Forthgoing and 293

-Glories 360-2

Immortality, of 371

Kingdoms of nature, of 233

Kings of mineral kingdom 361

Line of unfoldment 355 Lotus, of the 355, [610], [651]

Man a-crystal 360

-Octave [354-5]

Ray-colour and 573

Rays and [603]

Svastika and 357 Symbols are ' 71, [353-62]

Unknown 358

Vishnu's symbols [651]

JlVANMUKTA 471

JNANASHAKTI 668

JOURNEY, Life's 131

JOY-Dance 413

Guides to 695

Line, the, and 320

Sorrow blend, and 111

JUSTICE, Symbol of 209

KARKETANAM, Opal and KARMA. Besant, Dr., on

Rhythm of adjustment and

Suffering, of KAUSTUBHA-GEM KEY (S),-Note of nature

-Note of posture

-Phrase

-Plane

Secret Wisdom, to

Yoga, to KILLING, Substitute for life

Transmuting not KING (S) Arthur

Glory, of

-God

Immortality, of

Kingdoms, of

Man crowned

-Point of life

Tapas, of

Triumphant

World, of the

PAGE

[606]

503

396

690

651

[623]

351

171

114

607

72

82

108-9

48

459

[359], 384 571

[225], 306, 361

71

553

34

155

474

K

KABALISTIC, Hebrew script KALI YUGA, (see Yuga)

567

KINGDOM (S) (of NATURE) (see also

Sub-human, Human, Super-human) Achievement of 694

Archetypal posture in [351]

Artists in all 344

Brotherhood of 201,349

Causes, of * 440

Circle of your [217]

Consciousness, quality of, and [390]

Elder Brothers and 201,328

Embryo and 173

Evolutionary process and 290, 398

Experience in all 175, 225, 259, 316, 351 Forms of life in 95, 225

God in every 175, 482

Growth and f 169], [220-1]

Heaven, of 465

Holiness of God in 345

Homage of 691

Human, entering 83

experience of 95

,, mdividualization into 174, 225,

292, 464

life and 633

parallel, kingdoms, and 94

Yoga of 86, 225

Individual 694

Involving in 113

Kingship of 233, 309. 317, 328, 478, 691, 693

THE LOTUS FIRE

PAGE

Kings in their 155, 221, [225], 361

Law of sacrifice in sub-human 96

Life's expressions and 553-4

Lotus in [229J

Magnetism, and [282]

Man and 199, 200, [225], 232,331-3,

351-2, 397, 427. [453-4], 488, 531 Man and elemental 225

Man-womanhood and 185

Marriage and 496

Memory and 394-5

Men and [238], 316. 319-20

Ministering messengers and 502

Motherhood of God and

Oneself and

Progress through

Rhythm and

Sacrifice and

Sex, wonders of, and

Silence, protective, and

Solidarity of alt

Song of

Sound, colour, form and

Superman and

Symbols and

Ultimates, and

Unfoldment through

Universal exchange and

Will, of

Word of Power and

176

100,200-1,249

691-3

459

473

91

394

139, 201

691,694-5

478, 482

327-8

492, 562

102

385, [454-5], [464]

484

99

694

Yoga and 138, 201

225, [318], [325],

331-2, [500] 93, 197, 519 93. 138, 519 309. 319. 329, 322, 519 67,69 473 86 221 316

Yoga of Yogis and Yogis of Yugas and

KINGSHIP. Crown of Fire of Form, of Godhead of Kingdoms of Nature, of 225, 233, 317,

328.361,478

Life, of 553

Master Ascended, of the 691-3

Ray of 333

Slavery, from, into 85

Stimulate 317

Teacher, of the 291

-to-be 467

Yoga of 309, 331

Yogi's path to 417

KNIGHT (HOOD), Grail of 48

PAGE

Sacrifice, of 90

V.g.l of 90

KNOCK, Service, of 462

KNOWLEDGE, Meditation, through 23

Mind, and - 106

Path, dangerous, of 554

Ray of pure 334

Service and [365]

Way to 73, 554

Wisdom, and [554-5}

KOILON 58, 165

KRISHNA, SHRi, Cosmic posture and 350

Gopis, and 158

Reference to 146

Reflection of 103'

Symbol, as 347

Vishnu, incarnation of [608]

KRIYASHAKTI [653], [668]

KUNDALINi 668-

Awakening of 98

Circle and 221

Cosmic fires and 350-

Lotus and 611

Spine and 285, 383

KUNG, Tone of manifested nature 623

KURUKSHETRA, Life is a 532

KUTICHAKA 466

KWAN-SHI-YIN 474

KWAN-YIN, Second Logos and 474, 619

LABORATORY, Everest world's 311

Identification, of [257-70]

Self and [258]

LADDER, Consciousness, of 117. 155

Evolution, of [198]

Initiation, of 472

Jacob's 198

Liberation, of 309

Life, of 297

Manhood, of 199

Symbols, of [204]

LADY, Our, Universal Mother [622]

LAKSHMI. Letters and name of 568

LANGUAGE, Form-words and 564

Life and [367}

Life, of 199

Samsknt, drum 382

Significance of each 368

Vowels and 368,

LAPIS LAZULI [605]

72$

PAGE

LAW (S), Absolute 562

Acceleration [169], 451

Adjustment 67, 103, 201, 207, [306], 456

Agents of 465

Buddhi, is 158

Circle and 280

-Conceptions 133

•Consciousness 114-6, 286

Evolving life, of 114, 331

Eyes of the 506

Gravitation, of spiritual 76, 446

Growth, of 108

Heaven, of 468

Karma, of 396

Kingdoms of nature, in 106

Life and 280. 332, 391-2, 468

Life, of 114,286,465,488 Light and 116. 249, 267, 269, 280, 332

Mathematics, of 561

Nature, of 114, 116, 385

Not final, natural 561-2

Obedience to 72, 247, 392

One 74,331

-Plane 117

Ray of 333

Reincarnation, of 396

Release, demands 689

Rhythms or 385

Self and 247, 332

Svastika and 225, 267-8, 322, 429

Symbol of 209

Symbols lay down the 280

Truth is 260

Unity, and 468, 692

Universal 116, 158

Wheel of 225, 267-8, 322, 429

Yoga and [352]

Yoga, of 73, 500

LAWFULNESS, Spirit of Svastika 501

LAYA Centre 608, [629]

LEAGUE OF NATIONS 486

LEASHED Omnipotence 164

LEISURE [191] LESS, THE, More and 7, 97, 108, 139, 181,

250. 259. 330, 389, 500, 525

LETTER, Colour, sound and 366

LIBERATION, Apotheosis 696

Great 441

Threshold of 693

Yoga of [309]

LIFE [535-55]

Alive with 219

Equatorial division and 282

Essence of 517,541,554

Eternal 82, 114, [202-3] Evolution and 130, 169, 186, 225. 397, 455

Evolving 114.333

Expressions of 527, 535. 553

Eyes of the 506-

Father gives 348

Fields of 154

Fire and 692

-Force and Logos 207

Form and 7, 66. 101, 214. 225. 256, 268, [336], 338, 415, [543], 548, [570],

696-7

Formless 550-2

Fragrance and 415

His 690-

Humanity and 697

Geometry and 210

Give [216], 233. [3171

Giver of 67.241,378

God, of 103. 179

Illusion and [187], 538

Individual and universal 485, [536];

THE LOTUS FIRE

73*

Point and Radiance and Rainbow and Regions of Relative term Release towards Scales of Shadow of Sound and Symbols and Universal Universe of Will and Yoga of

PAGE

148, 254

132, 249. 354

144, 249 173, 249

85 689

145. 196 107 293

71,77 158 196

116,269 157

IIGHTNING (see also No-Lightning)

Cosmic 144, [148-9]

Devas of 381

Drums of 381

Electricity and 393

Physical 144, [148-9]

Poised 219

-White octave of colour 359

of consummation [248-50, 252-3],

270, [354, 358-9]

,, no-stone 354

LILY, Web-Womb 278, 615

LIMIT (S), Experience, of 262-3

Externalization, of 113

Heights and depths, of 215

LIMITATION (S), Affirmations, of 545

Art and 339

Breaking through our 264, 382, 521

Circle of 266, 476, 552

Definition is 540

Eyes, of our 150

God as 508

Heights and depths, of 215

Infinitude and 281

Initiation and 465

Line expresses 276, 506

Point and 146, [259], 272

Ring-pass-not of 311

Self-imposed 385

Space transcending 517

Symbols, of 204

Universality and [259]

LINCOLN 64,489

1INE (see Horizontal, Cross, Symbols, Seven)

[177 193, 262-4, 278-80]

Aspiration of 324

Atom, in [645]

Aum and 371

Balance of

Birth and

Breathes

Bridge between fires

Cell-life, in

Chemistry, in

PAGE 324

[245], 479 152

[284], 320 [643] [645]

Circle-Globe and 194, [216], 238, 278,

356, [608]

Colours of 216, 263, 355-7

Cosmic and supercosmic 241, 263

Creative spirit and [205]

Cross and 214, 219

Curvature and 181-2, 241, 251, 263, 276,

362, 427-8, 446, 506, 542, 544, 546, 549 Diameter, becomes 194, 282

Diamond and 355

Earth and 378

Embryo, and [639]

Equator no imaginary [282], 583

Faggot of Lines, a 180-1

Fecundation, of 488

Femininity and 179, 357

Flashes forth 178, 216, 251, 255, 319, 355

479-80

Form side 267

Forthgoing and 180

Fulfilment, and 506

Heaven and 378, 492-3

Individuality, each, is a 520

Initiation and 466

Joy, of 320

Kingship of 324

Life, of 543, 546, 548-9

Limitation, and 276, 281, 506

Logos, and 207, 214

Lotus and 177, 231

Mace or 651

Manifestation, of 207, 212, 218, 507, 552 Masculine 490

Measurement, of 251, [262-4], 507, 524, 526 Meditation on 243

Movement heralds 488

Order of 324

Origin of letters and 567

Pendulum of 549

Perseverance of 324

Physics, in [646]

Piston-rod 378

Plant life, in 1643-4]

Plumb-, evolution and [191], 194, 262.

277, 506 Poise of 324

THE LOTUS FIRE

Power, of Spindle Spine and Spiral

Steadfastness, of Symbolic Yoga and Symbol, third

PAGE

[217], 320. 355

172, [180-3], 356, 639

254, [427-8]

180-1

324

[284-5]

177, 257

Third Logos, symbol of 214

Thread 643

Trinity and 303

Unfinished Symphony and 288

Vertical 242, [243-4, 271], 282, 320, 355-7,

427, [466], 541, 546, 548-9, [608] Virility of 324

Vivification, of 207, 212, 218, 319, 347,

355,357,416,476,488 Web-Womb and 177, 180, 184, 238,

251-2,276-7,280,355,396,511 Will incarnate is 324

Word of 198

Yard-stick and 193-5, 207, 251-2, 277

Yoga of [284-5], 506

Zodiac and 673, 677, 679, 680-82

LION, Dignity of 325

LIVING, RIGHT, Distillation of [106]

Intensifying % 82

Virtuous, of the 8

LOGOS (OI)(C) (see also Creative, God,

Word)

Activity of 163,212,219

Architect 181

Duality and [578]

Everest, Mount, and First [311]

Evolution and 130

First, religions and [619]

Line and Third 285

Man becomes a 131, 616

Manifestation-to-be and 183, 219

Monad and 212

Planetary 612, 665

Point and First 213, [627]

Religions and the three [619]

Representative of 474

Rod of Power and Planetary [630]

Second 212, 542, [619]

Symbol of 206, 243

Third, religions and [619]

Three great 211-2,303, [619]

Unfoldment 214

Web-Womb and Second 212

You are 217

LONELINESS 86,689

PAGE

LORD (S) (see also God, Logos) Arm, the 474

Brain, the 474

Buddha 142. 147, 160

Christ 132, 160, 201

Colour, of 369, 478

Compassion of 687, 689

Dance of the universes, of the 558, [624] Deliverance, of 154

Faiths, of 489

Flame, of the 79

Glory, of 687

Heart, the 474

Immanence of the [492]

Incarnation and the 492'

Life, of 90, 495, 687

Light, of 687

Love, of 687

Mountains, of 101

Movement, of 292

Nations, of 489

Races, of 489

Rhythm, eternal, of 102

Sun, the 17, 249, 292, 369, 377, 429, 697 Symbol, of a 141, 482, [487-97]

Tapas, of 311

Wisdom, of 687

Yoga of 75, 80, [101-7], 146, 227, 239,

289, 307, 309, 312

LOTUS (see also Flower, Symbols, Seven)

[227-36, 269-70]

Age,-time, and 480*

Apotheosis 256, 429, 492

Ascends out of mud 112

Atom, in 428, 645

Beginning and 508

Birth of 479

Breath and [256]

Breathes 152

Bud 220, 301, 357, 378, 430, 508, [636-7] Cell-life, in [643]

Chakras and [430]

Chemistry/in [645]

Consummation of all symbols 228, 269,

348, 492, 508

Cosmic sea and 197

Cosmic universe, of a 528, 547

Creating one's own 134, [307]

Cross and 220

Crown chakra 43 0

Cup of offering [377]

Eyes like the 558

733

Fire

,, flowerdom of

,, individuality and

,, is

,, of

,, space, and

,, time, and Flower

,, India, of

,, Man-God, and

power of Flowering of Fragrance of Fruition, symbol of Glad, is Glorification God, the

Incarnation, end of, and Jewel of the Life, and Line and Lord of Man and Matripadma -Motif Music and Offering Omega Petals Physics, in Plant life, in Point and Radiation =

PAGE

235, 269, 283, [301-7] 524 520 16

[234], 269, 348 301 301

201,357,378,430,493 489 236 614 479-80 324

269, 324 488 246 307 403

355, [610] [256], 509 548

488, 493

371,427,471,480,508, [610] 228

228, 348, 427 378 376 283

230-2, 234, 528, 547, 553 [648] [643-4] 214, 229, 255, 269, 548

[648]

Resurrection, symbol of 616

Seed 201. 357, 378, 430, 508, 520

Seed-points and Self-realization of Shadow and form Solar System Song, a

Space, Fire, and Symbols and Tau, and Theosophy, of -Time and age Time, Fire, and Trinity

Universe and cosmic Victory of

Vishnu's symbols, in Wheel of the Law Wisdom, Divine, of

[133], 255 324 241 57-8 16 301 283 220 528

220, 242

301

306-7

427, 528, 547 526 651

[636-7] 528

PAGE

-Wombs 371

Yoga and 227. 508-9 Zodiac and 673-4, 675-8, 685

LOURDES 489

LOVE, All-pervading 688

Apotheosis of hatred, and 108, 412

Grail, Holy, symbol of divine [583]

Hatred to [690]

Life, of 96

Lord of [687]

Movements 106

Path of Return, and 147

Plane of hatred and 114

Reverence and [554-5]

Scientist and [554-5]

Spirituality comes by 62

LUST (S), Fire of creation and 247

Man, of 412

M

MACE, Vishnu's symbol 651

MACHINERY, Yoga of [415-17] MACROCOSM (1C) (see also Microcosmic)

Activity and

Astrology and

Motherhood

Processes

Reverence and

Whole

World periods MAGIC

Act of divine

Black, danger of

Bridge, Ray of

Creative

Godhead, of

God of Yoga, of

Life, act of

Marriage, act of

Occultism and

Time and space, of

Triumph of a

Yogi and tricks of

Yoga, individual, of MAGINOT Line, spiritual MAGNETI (C) (SM)

Circle and

Currents and north

Equator and junction of

Forces

Geographical terms and terrestrial

166, 195, 259, 334 563 176

53, 102 279

428, 450 69 293 83 625 334 90 109

83, 102 495 90

1624] 142 692 417 318 523 282 646 421-2 219, 543 490, 546 [577]

THE LOTUS FIRE

Hands and feet and Hemispheres Incense and Influences of the Poles Kingdoms of nature and Lines of force

PAGE 490

1282, 577] 587

543, 545

282

[546J

Periods of evolution and types of [282]

Poles [542-3, 545. 577]

Posture and 420

Sympathy and nature 100

MAGNIFICENT, Life [534-56]

MA1TREYA (see also Christ) Lord 474

MAJESTY (IES), Essence of 133

Night, of 157

Radiance, formless, of 104

Realization of 88

Your completed 170

MALE (see Man, Masculine. Father)

Female, seed of, and 186

Man-woman and 185

Masculinity and 490

MAN (MEN) (see also Father, Manhood,

Humanity, Ma/e, Masculine) Adjustment and 303, 349

Altar of Yoga, at 502

Awakening 155, 196, [255], 275

Besant. Dr., on 93-4. 616-7

Blue 196

Children, as 70

Colour of [4771, 488. 508

Comradeship of, a 520

Continuity and 397

Correlation between star and 100

Creator, a [191]

Creatures and 95

Cross, Latin, is [220]

meets God in 507

Crystal jewel, a 360

Definition of [616]

Divinity, and his 131, 136, 252, 325,

385. 446

Divinity of 96. 432-4

Everything is [209-10]

Evolutionary process and 200-1, 225, 286,

348, [454], 512, 546

-Family, interdependent 200, 318

Father, as 90

Focus-point, as [348]

Form of [478], 488

Forthgoing, of 293

Freewill, and 385

PAGE

God and 95, 131, [255], 302, [316], 520,

522

„ becomes 142,224,271,306,378,441 Godhead, await our 87, 131, 136, 199.

236,255,269,271,316,484 Godhood of [161]

God, is a 433-4, [481], 522, 530

., to 199, 236. 252. 255, 261, 269, 271,

376,385,446,455,491,531 Green, sea of 87, 183

Heart, in 428

Hierarchy of 284, 289

Husband, as 90

Independence, learn • 70, 412

Individual aspect of 396

Kingdoms of nature and 200, 221, 225, 232, 238, 316. [318], 352, 385, 397,

427, [453-4], [457], 488, 531 Kingship of 693

Latin Cross is [220]

Line, symbol of, reflects 285

Lotus and 229-30, 236, 269, 371-2. 427, 471 Manifestation, of a 136, 238, [454]

Man-ness and 136, 482

Man-woman, is 185

Marriage and [191]

Master, becomes a [470]

Mastery, establishes 70, 225, 412

Memory and 395

Monad and 237, 361-2

Montesson, Dr., on 477

•Motif 188, [200], 318

Perfect 290

Point, of the 276

-Points 195

Prison of 143, 152, 154

Rhythm and [390]

Sea of 196

Sea. of the [198-201], 204, 252. [254-6],

260, 264,268-9,275, 304. 398, 449, 454

563

Secret Doctrine, The, on 617

Seed 230

Song of 50$

Sound of [477] p 48a

Superman, sub-man and 175, 199, 455, 546

Svastika, cling to 225

Symbolic Yoga and 284, 289

Symbols and 285, 484, 487

Time-self, and 434

Triangularity of 352

Unique, is 39^

735

PAGE

Universal aspect of 396

Universe and 136. 348

Woman, incomplete without 511

Yoga of 95

Yoga, Symbolic, and 284, 289

MANDALA 610

Study and [624]

MANHOOD, Godhead of 175 Godhead, to 199, 236, 267, 269, 271, 316,

454, 459, 484

God, of [161]

MANIFEST (ATION) (see also Non-Manifestation)

Breath and 151-2, [230]

Communion, of a 139

Concentration and 249, 553

Cross of 476

Curvature and [544-5]

Diversity and [518]

Divine Yoga and 93

Fruition and 130

Life and 219, 542

Line of 507

Matrix of 149

Men, of 136, [454]

Negation of 148

Octave of 475, 476-80

Point in 140,353

Potentiality 545

Pre-ness and 540

Sea of the 213,454

Self-consciousness and 170

Symbol-octave o f 476-80

Symbols and their 202

Universe 149, 270 Unmanifest, and the 153, 179, 183, 238,

454, 518, 540

MANTRA, Aum, sacred [372]

Definition of [617]

Example of [617]

Fire arousing 350-1

Life is a 495

Man's Godhead and 131

Self-remembrance, for [526]

Supreme 171

MANTRIKASHAKTI 668

MANU, Seventh Initiation and 474

Teachings of 8

Vaivasvata [582]

MAN-WOMAN (HOOD) (see Father-Mother.

Male-Female, Masculinity-Femininity)

All things are 185

Father-Mother and

Godhead and

Line and

Man is

Monad and

Physical plane and

Sublimation of

Yoga and

MANY, One and the MARKET-PLACE, Yoga of the MARRIAGE, Black

Ceremonial of

Dedicated

God, act of

Magic, act of, an

Man and

Procreation and

PAGE 185

185-6, f619|

[184-8]

185

171

246

185

321

7.390

309

[189-90J [494]

411,494, [618]

496

90

[191], 494, 496 90

Sacrament, a 90, [189 92], [622]

Sacrament, caricature of a 189

World Mother and [622]

Yoga of 89-91

MASCULIN (ITY)(E), (see also Man)

Feminine and [185]

Line and 179

Male and 490

MASTER (S) (Y) (see also Adepts, Rishis

Triumph, Victory)

•Artists 346,483

Ascended 139,[691-7]

Becoming, in-the- 693

Call, and the [504, 692)

Colour, of 288, 369, 483

Cosmic regions and 145

Death, of 340

Evolution beyond stage of 136

Initiation, for, help of 464

Kingdoms of nature, and 696

Life, of 340

Man becomes [470]

Meditation of 692

Ourselves and 533

Past, present and future, on 142

Quoted 100, 142

Reservoir of power, is a 692

Self-dependence, encourage 533

Song of the, ascended 694-5

Sound, of 288, 369, 483

Teacher a 9

Unfoldment of a 695

Unity with all worlds, has 694

Vitalizes all life 692

Voice of 69S

THE LOTUS FIRE

PAGE

Worlds and the 695

Yogi is a 85,107

MATHEMATIC (IAN) (S), Circle and 277

Symbols and 56

Symbols, examines 77

'MATRIPADMA (see Lotus)

'MATRIX, Consummation, of 315

Life, of eternal 173,505

Manifestation, of 149, 174, 181

Web-Womb and 181, 306, 505

'MATTER (see also Spirit-Matter)

Consciousness and 444

Curvature and 182

Space and 444 Spirit and [162], 268, 508, 578

MATURITY, Wisdom, to, from 470

Youth to 696

i MAYA (VIC), Dew of 61

Great, the 187

Regions, Marriage and 189

'MEANING, Life, of 178, 383

Man, of 102,111

'MEANS, End adjusts the 98, 100

Escape, of, sex as 191

Symbols as 512

MEASURE (S) (MENT), Experience 262

Life-unfoldment, of 133

Manifestation, of, divine 131, 262, 511

Symbols of 450 Yard-stick or divine 179-80, 183, [193-4], 207, 262-3, 277, 303, 306, 506,511,

524, 526, 552

MEAT, Yoga and eating of 49, 352

MECCA 489

i MEDITATION fS) 462

Abode of [311]

Buddhic consciousness and 390

Colour and [364]

Favourable times for 321

Initiation and 463

Knowledge through 23

Master, of 692

Music and [288]

Negation, on 150

Night, Yoga of, on 158

Posture for [285], [351J

Rhythm of difference and 398

Spine and 285

Symbols and 111. [243]

Symbols, on the [286-7]

Tones and [364]

Yoga of 288, [314]

PAGE Yogi, form, colour, sound, and [288]

MELODY, Life and 524

Rhythm of 159

MEMORY (IES) (see also Remembrance) Birth and 236

Bridge, builds a 517

Channel of service and [412], 426

Death and 187,236

Experience and 161, 187, 412, 426

Goal, and [414]

Infinity and 161

Kingdoms of nature and 394

Law of universal 114

Plane of lower 114

Primordial, of the 203

Rhythm of 394, 400, 425-6

Silence, of 203

Sleep and 187, 423

Stifled 422

Symbols and [161], 318, 293, 517

Yoga and 65,293,318

MESSAGE(S), Everything is a 85

Wisdom, of 345

MESSENGER (S) (SHIP) Amethyst and 355

God's, we join 502

Heaven to earth, from 557

Life, to all 502

Lord Shiva, of the 12

Lords, of the 687

Monad, and 693

Self-deluders and 64

MICROCOSM (1C) (see also Macrccosmic) Activity and 166, 195, 259, 334, 428 ,450 Evolution 69, 691

Formulas 102

Incarnation, processes of 53

Initiations 696

Life and final step 694

Macrocosm and 102, 166, 195, 259,

334, 428. 450

Macrocosmic whole and 552

Motherhood 176

Point and supreme 136

Power, functioning of 114

Reverence and 279

MIND (see also Consciousness)

Body and 187.419

Body of the 106. [116]

Brahm and 142

Conceptions and symbols 133-4

-Enslaved realms 165

Experiences 88

737

Eyes of the Food for Judges Knowledge Mortal Plane

Servants of the Words of

PAGE 506 419 51 365 142 117 553 367

MINERAL KINGDOM (see also Kingdoms of

Nature)

K.nqsof 291,361

Symbols in [644-5J

Yoga and 93

'MIRACLE, Communion, of 160

Yoga, of 160

MIRACLE-MATRIX. Web-Womb and [175J

MISERY, Dharmaand 200

MOMENT(S), Eternity and 158

Supreme 158

MONAD(S) (see also Selves)

Goal of 139

Individualities or 114,361

Life and 201,212

Logos and 212

Man and 174, 237-8, 361, [616]

Manifested 168

Messenger, and his 205

Rule of 238

Sea of 196

Sun of the 143,361

Svastikaand 218

Symbol of the 171

Transfigures Ego 467

Unmanifest and 181, 212

Vesture of 471

Watcher, Silent, and 173, 237

Words of 198

Zodiac sign and 675

MONADIC Consciousness [115]

Plane [117]. 388

MOON, Full, of May 160

MORE, Evolution and 169

Point and 170

The less and the 7, 97, 108, 139, 170, 181.

250, 259, 335, 336, 387, 500, 525, 529

Time, form, space and the 165

MORE-THAN-CAUSE, Causelessness and 169

MORE-THAN-LIGHT, No-light and 145. 511

MORE-THAN-SOUND, No-sounds and 145,

511

MOTIF, Alphabet- 367

Consecration, of 374

47

East and West, of Evolution, of Infinity, expanded to Lotus-Man and woman Music, of Symbol-Thunder-

PAGE 339

198, 288 375 228 188

159, [288], [373]

134, 521

374

MOTHER (HOOD) (see also Father-

Mother)

Bird and 325

Cherishes 348

Christianity and 436

Cow, of 325 Earth 66, 166, 286, 292, 348, 562

Eternity the 450 God, of 174, 176, 436, [618] God the 91. 176, [618], [620]

Hinduism and 436

Holy Grail, becomes [91, 618]

Krita age and 67

-Light and Father-Light [620]

Mineral kingdom and 325

Purple or violet of 355

Remembrance of 525

-Spirit, earth, of 286

•Spirit, life, of 436 Spirit of 328, 355, 436

-Spirit, ourselves and 176

Symbols glow with 436

Time the 448-9

Web of the 526

Wife and woman and 90, [619]

Yoga and 329, 502

MOTION, Curvature and harmonic [573J

Gunas and 115

Rhythmic [443]

Verities and slow [162]

MOTOR Faculty 477

MOUNTAIN (S) (EER) (see also Merest,

Gaurishankar, Vesuvius)

Author a spiritual 101

Evolution, of 72

Exaltation, of 116

Experience, of 88

Lord(s)of 101,489

Mineral kingdom and 325

Search for beauty, and [6*22]

Stillnesses of 81

Symbol(s),of 80. 82,,562

Transcendence, of 80

Triumph, of 82

THE LOTUS FIRE

PAGE MOVEMENT (see also A //-Movement, Mo-

t/on, No-Movement) Absoluteness and

Adjustment and law of

All-One, in, will of

Apotheosis, towards

Art and

Ceaseless Breath and

Cessation and

Consciousness and

Evolution is

Excess of

Existence and

Form, sound, colour and

Infinite and

Life and

Line heralds

Lord of

Love, of

No-moverrent and

Octaves of

Plane of

-Potentiality

Rajas and

Region of

Rhythm of

Science of spiritual

Sight and

Svastika and

Symbol of

Time and

Truth and

Truth in

Understanding and

Universal, is

Will, truth and

Words of

273, 275 103 [205] 109 337 544 170

273, 387

97

151

[399J

255, 337

279, 346-7

544

488

101,292,488 106

169, 202, 386, 552 452 117 142 205

' 106,114

386, 444

101

170

[642]

101

452

131-2, 337 101 183 444 259 367

MOVEMENTLESS (NESS), Cloud of darkness 150 Movement and 151, 250, 386, 440, 511, 552 Poise 150, 151,250,315,511

Rhythm of 386

MUHAMMAD, LORD, Symbol, as 347

MULTITUDE (S), Lines, of 180, 181

Monads and 114

MUSIC (see Sound)

All-One, of the 230

Artist and 345

-Bridge for Yoga [288], [373] , 376, [378] Devas of sound and 216, 229, [288], 586 East and West, of 340-1

Faculty 477

Gandharvas, of the [288], 557

PAGE

Giver of 378

Globule of 78

Growth and 292 Harmony (see Harmony)

Heaven world of 78

Hindu and Mussalman, of 289

Initiation and 691

Key-note of nature and [623]

Master-channel of 377-8

Octaves of 356

Point and 260, 288

Silence, and 157 Symbols and 144. [288], 377-8

Wisdom and 234

Yoga of 357, 377

MUSICIAN (S), Genius 376

Symbols, examined 77

MYSTERY, Breath of God, of 148

Evolution, of 175-6

Ineffable, doors of 460-

Point, of the 156, 236

-Reality [504-9}.

Rhythm of life, of 457

Unity, of 238

MYTHOLOGY, Colours and Norse 574

N

NADIR, Zenith and 178.

NAME (S), All, and No-name 513

Everest, of 313

True 566

NATARAJA, SHRl 292

Adoration of 557-8

Reflection of 102-3

Shiva, Lord of Dance, as [624]

Symbols and 416-

NATION (S). Imprisonment within 87

Isolation and [485]

League of 486

Prejudice and Yoga 107

-State 496-7

Symbols, flags of, and 563

Yoga and 50T NATURE (see also Kingdom)

Chant of 292, 691

Concepts of 14f Descriptions of beauty: 88, 93-4. 143, 157, 164, 227, 292. 310-12, 318, 319, 325-7, 329-31, 338, 377, 385, 390,394, 433, 480, 481, 534, 557-8, 590-2, 595,

597-9, 621, 623, 649-51, 691, 694-5

739

Key-tone of manifested Laws of

Links of sympathy Man and Movement and Point, of Reverence of Rhythm and Silence and -Spirits, kingdom of Vivify NAVEL Chakra

PAGE [623] 114 100 385 444 139 139 393 [157] 587 317 429

NEED (S), Colour, sound, form, individual [479]

Discovering our vital 532

Evolving 109, [398-9]

Food, right, of 419

Growth, of 410

Qualities, of 111

Quick assimilation, of 418

World's, drums and [380]

World's fundamental [525]

NEGATION, Absolute 148-50

Affirmation and 135. 150, 202-3

Conception, supreme, of 165

Eternal, I am 103-4

Life and Yoga, of 247

Measuring with 145

Primordial 133

Undifferentiation, of. Cross is 281

Yoga not 84

NET, Life, to capture 541

NEW WORLD 524

NIAGARA FALLS 310

Lord of 489

NIGHT (see also Darkness)

Adventure of 156-7

Day incomplete without 511

Forest of 164

Look not back into 689

Majesty of 157

Stillness and 157

Work for day and 422

Yoga of 157

NIRMANAKAYA 472

NIRVANA (1C), Consciousness [115-6], 158,

388, 390

Light 158,468

Plane 117,388

NIVRITTIMARGA 219

NO, Universal yes and 537 NO- (see also respective positives, as for example, No-Light, see also Light)

PAGE

NO-ATMOSPHERE, Point and 511

NO-BEGINNING. Consciousness and 537, 541

NO(N)-BEING, Being and 136, 511

Lotus and 228

Point and 354

Region of 514

NO-COLOUR 260

NO-DARKNESS, Naught of 514

NO-END, Point and 511

NO-JEWEL (see also Jewel, No-Stone) 354

NO-LIGHT, Negation, is not 145

Silence-darkness of 511

Universe and 149

NO-LIGHTNING 76

NO-MOVEMENT. All-movement and 537, 541

Consciousness and 537

Movement and 169, 202

NON-MANIFESTATION, Negation of 148

NON-MATERIAL Matrix 149

NO-NUMBER, Dzyan, Stanzas of, and 145

King-God and 359

Point and 354

Region of 514

Silence-darkness of 511

Universe and 149

NO-RADIANCE 354

NORTH 172, 178, 181. [5771

Evolution and magnetism of 282

Fire of Heaven from 284

Magnetic currents and 421-2. [6081

Pole of embryonic development [639}

„ „ life and form [543]

South and 219, 346, 355

Sea 310

South to, diameter from 282

NO-SELVES, Universe and 149

NO-SILENCE, Region of 514

NO-SOUND, Negation, is not 145

No-colour and 260

Point and 354

Silence-darkness of 511

Universe and 149

NO-STONE (see also Jewel, No-Jewel)

354-5, 360

NO-SYMBOL, Symbols, from, to, book four 401 NOTE (S) (see also Sound) Author's basic 416

Children of sound 188

Colour, sound, form and [477-9J

Colours, seven, and 150

Consciousness, of 104

Cosmic, re-acting to 145, 346

THE LOTUS FIRE

7,

Days and their

Deva music, of

Forthgoing, of

Fulfilment, of

One's own [136], 384,

bilence, of NO-THING, THAT is

Universe and NOURISH (ING), Activity

Yoga of those who NO-WEB

NOW, Eternal Being, of NO-WHERE, Everywhere and NUCLEUS, Evolution, of

Radiance and NUMBER (S) (see also No-Number)

Cosmic self-moving

Elohim, of

Letters in occult alphabet and

OBEDIENCE, Highest freedom 392

Rhythm of • [392], 399

Truth, to 95

OBJECT (S), Immanent 440

-Yogis [519]

OBSTACLE 95

OBSTINACIES, Yoga and 107

OBSTRUCTION (S), Sublimating 98

OCCULT (ISM) (see also Yoga)

Ceaseless Breath and 444

Magic and [624]

Observations 446

Symbols 152

OCEAN, Darkness, of 540

Silence, of 540

OCTAVE (S), Colour, of

Cosmic

Individual cycle, of

Initiation-

Jewel-

Light and sound, of

Manifestation, of

Principle

Rhythms and

Solidity, of

Symbol-notes, of

Time and space, of

Vibrations OFFERING Our weaknesses

Yoga and

PAGE PAGE

[364] OLCOTT, H.S. (see also Index to Authors,

[374] etc.) 461 254 OM (see Aum)

347 OM MANI PADME HUM [370-1,617]

415, 478 Sacred, uttering 568

156 OMNIPOTENCE, God, of 504

196 Immanence and 164

149-50 Leashed 164

498 OMNIPRESEN (CE) (T) 440

499 God, of 482, 504 305 Infinity, of 342

169, 194 Life, of 152, 389-90

511 Ourselves, of [435]

130 Reality, of one's 100

338 Ultimates, of 155

Universality 395

566 OMNISCIENCE 504

567 ONE (see also A//-One), All in 142, 391 [565] All within 152, 391

Ones and the 130, 158, 175, 391

Witness to [228]

Yoga of the 7

ONENESS, Lite, of 517

OPAL (ESCENCE) (S) (T), (see also Karketa-

nam) 253, 261-2, 330, 332, [355,

358-60, 606]

OPERA (S\ Composing 78

Notes 159

Yoga and 376

OPERATIONS, Effect of 50

OPPOSITES, Completeness, make 511

OPPRESSION Demands isolation 486

ORANGE Day, Sunday is 364

Equivalent to D (note) 150

Sun, colour of 477

ORDER, Line, of the 324

Yoga of law and 500

356, [359-60] ORGAN (S), Senses, of 161

265, 268, [356] Vital, removal of 50

[477] ORICHALCUM, Rod of Power and 631

476 ORIFLAMME 287

[354-5. 360] Evolution and [178]

[150-1], 356, 459 Garment of glory 178

476 ORIGIN (S), End, one with 102

[477] Types and 133

159. 264 ORIGINALITY. Yoga and [59-60]

452 ORPHEUS, Greece, in [627]

475-80 Loadstone, and 356

452 Reflection of 102-3

151, 182,264,379 Religion of 292, 673

107 ORTHODOX (Y), Relative terms, and 106

170 Theosophyand 529

741

PAGE

OSIRIS 466,470

OUTBREATHING (see Breath and Inbreathing) OUTPOURING (S , Praise, of 234

PAIN (see also Suffering)

Cruelty and [592]

Inevitable ' 689

Retribution and animal 92

Sex misused spreads 91

Warning of 50

Yoga and 143

PAINTING, Artist and 345

Rhythm of 159

PAN, Terrible realms of 247

PARAMAHAMSA 470

PARASHAKTI 667

PARENT (see also Father, Mother)

Darkness, of all light 155

Silence, of all sound 155

PARIVRAJAKA 465

PARSIFAL, Eucharist of the 583

PART, Whole and 7. 150, 336, 342

PASSIONS, Apotheosis of 108, 109

Gunas and 115

PAST, Consummation, is 194

Present and Future 142, [176], 315, 394

PATH (S,, Forthgomg, of 147

Fulfilment, of [463-75]

Knowledge, dangerous, of 554

Life, of 139

Limitation of 461

Macrocosmic 694

Return, pf 147

Service, seven, of [471]

Three 499

True 658-9

Ways of Yoga 473

Word of Power and 694

Yoga of 499

PATTERN, Form of [628]

PEACE, Eternal, the 111,378

Eventual 689

Green and 363

Music, and reality [378]

Point, of 324

-to-be, bridge to 501

Yoga of 500

Yogi and 143

PEARL 604

PENANCE. Yoga and 655

PAGE

PENDULUM, Life of 549-50

Opposites of 203

PENETRATION, Contacts for 98

PENTAGON, Lord of 488

PERCEPTION (TIVE), Curvatures and 183

Drums, and 381

Self-discovery and intuitive 562

Unveiled spiritual 95

PERFECT (ION), Evolution and 273

Form, Lotus is 553

God and 274

Ideal of human 96

Man 291

-to-be 155, 273

PERFUME (see also Fragrance). Projection of

422 486 324 83

PERSECUTION Belongs to dying

PERSEVERANCE, Line, of the

PERSON, God as

PERSONAL EQUATION (see also /mper-

sona//ty) Symbols and the 257

PERSONALITY, Zodiac sign of 675

PETAL (S) (see Lotus)

PHILOSOPHY (IES), Life revealed in 535

Yoga of 351

PHYSICAL (BODY) (see also Breath, Health,

Posture)

•Be-to 131

Body and adjustments 351-2

Body and Everest 312

Breath and rhythm 165-6

Consciousness 108

Disadvantages of western 75

Earth-forces and the 543

Etymology [1131

Exercises 74, 89, 246

Form and dancing 101

Formulae and symbols and movement of 101 Functions of 89. 418

Health and [491

Instinct and 190

Instruments and consciousness 151, 162

Life and plane 152, 186-7

Memory and, incarnation 236

Nerves, alcohol and tobacco and [49], 92, 352 Plane and activity 105. 421, 422

Plane and consciousness 113, 116, 144.

183, 187,421,422,434,435 Plane and inner planes 191, 420, 423,

424, 434, 451 Plane and microcosmic functioning 114

THE LOTUS FIRE

Plane and Yoga Postures Practices

Prison of existence Purity and Receptivity and Rhythm and Salt and the Self-satisfaction and Sex on, plane Sleep and Solidity and, plane Sublimation of Sunlight and Symbols and

PAGE

49, 111, 131

97, 246, 284-90, 351-2

[74], [246]

152, 423

49, 352

106

[239], 351

[633]

52

187-8,411 420, 421 451 105 418 239

Union and consecration

Vibrations and

Yoga and

PHYSICS, Symbols in PINEAL GLAND, Yoga and PINGALA, Spine and Ida

189, 191, 247 151

49, 75

646-8

653

285

PISTON-ROD, Heaven and earth, between 417

Line of 178,252,355,383,417

PITUITARY BODY, Yoga and 653

PLAN Inner work 378, 422

Sacrifice, as 364

Theosophy and the 530

PLANE (S) (OF NATURE) (see also Religions)

Astral [114], 183,423

Becoming one with 87

Consciousness, of [47], [116], [134], 644

Contacting every 113, 162, 423

Creation on lower 91, 246

Key- 114

Mind, of 114, 183, 423

Monadic, Nirvlnic and Buddhic 388

Physical, and microcosmic functioning 114

Physical and the inner 451

Sex and 187,246

Sleep and, of consciousness 420-2, 424

Sub-planes and 116

Will, of 99> 162

Yoga and 93, 99

PLANET, Oneself and every 100

PLATONIC SOLIDS 54 428

PLAY. Spirit of 103

Yoga of 658.9

PLOUGHING Consciousness 154

PLUMB-LINE 191,194,262,416

POINT (S), (see also Symbols, Seven),

[129-71, 248-51, 258-6, 271-6, 444-6] Adventures into 164-7

Alive and pregnant

Alpha

Archetypes and

Atom, in

Attentiveness and

Aum and

Being, of

Blue

Breathes

Ceaseless Breath and

Cellular life and

Centre and the

Chakra of

Chemistry, in

Circle and

Colour and form and

Concentration of

PAGE 148 283

1196], 212

[645]

324

[371]

347

196

152, 173, 237

237, 305, 328, 444

[638], 643

168

428-9

[645]

277, 278

260,261,347,354 [168], 260, 275

Consummation and 202, 253, 254, 260, 267, 274, 278, 288, 353. 428, [441],

450, 476, 552

Cosmic and supercosmic 156-63, 241

Darkness (see Silence)

Daughter-symbols, and 248-56

Declares God is 505

Definition of [132]

Dignity of 324

Duality and 172

Encloses 511

-Essence of being 136, 146-54, 347

Evolutionary process and 306, 511

Evolution, seed of 130-7

Expanding 273, 445

Father-Motherhood of 276

Forthgomg 136, 171, 202, 212, 254, 274,

288, 347, 398, 428. [444], 450, 476, 552 Fulfilment of the 135, 154, 155, 171

Germ of 606

Grace of 324

Heart chakra and [428-9]

Immanence and [245]

Infinite 164-7

Infinitude and 272-3

-Intensity 258, 260, 269

Invisible that is to be 511

Jewels and 354

Life side of 267

Line, upon 548

Logos and 213-14. [627]

Lohengrin and 288

Lord of 490-2

Lotus and 214, 229, 231, 235, 255

Man-woman is 171, 185

.INDEX

743

PAGE

Mathematical ultimate 561

Matrix of manifestation 114, 173

Meditation on 243

Men of the 196, 276

Motherhood of 436

Multiplicity of 305

Music and 78, 260, 288

Mystery of 511-12

No-Breath and 328

= OM 372

Origin of letters and 567-8

Peace of 324

•Physics, in [646]

Plant life and 643-4

Poise and the 136. 173, 250, 288, 324, 511

Potency and 208

Potentiality of 141-5

Presence of God, reveals 504

Primordial 141, 169, 196, 444

Projection and 396

Pulsating reality and 248

Quietude of 324 Radiance and 130, 132, 143, 248, 251,

353, 354, 357

Reserve of 324

Returns home 520

Sacrifice and 251

Seed of evolution, as 130-7

Self-consciousness and 524

Self-restraint and 324

Senzar and 566

Silence and darkness and 155, 172, 250,

254, 260. 305, 315, [324], 353, 354,

428,505,511,526

Silent Watcher and 173. 237

Space and 143, 450

Symbol and 280, 283

Symbol of God 504

Symbol-words and 134

Thunder of the 253

Triangle, in 206

Ultimate summit and 259

Unity and 303

Universal 137

Universality of 138-40

Universe, essence of 444

Vortex, as 511 Web-Womb and 173-4, 212. 237, 238,

257,262,357,511

Whiteness of 261

Will of 324

Yoga of 163, 504, 505

141,

PAGE

You and 156, 163, 171, 174, 315, 505

Zodiac cycle and [673-85]

POINTNESS (ES), Point and constitution

133, 258 POISE, Cosmic

Forthgoing and

God, of

Horse, of the

Intensity of

Line, of

Man-woman and

Movementless

Physical body and

Point, of

Receptivity and

Silence and darkness and

Svastika and

Teacher and

Truth and

POLARITY, Symbols and Rays, of POLE (S), Duality and the

Embryonic life and its

Evolution, of

Individuality, of

Life and form, of

Magnetic

Magnetic influences of

North and South

North, of Point

Relationships between the four

South, of Point

346 149 510 325 136 324 186

150, 151,287,315,511 105, 284 324 105 150 306 291 203

[490-1] 576, 578 [639] 179 536

[543], 544 542,[577] 543

346, 542, 543, 577 172, 178 543, 544 172, 178

Spirit-matter, of 177

PONS ASINORUM, Middle point of human

284 108 103 351 350 420

97, 189, 284-90 284, 287, [351] [287] 335 Sitting and standing, contrasted [284], [286]

[287], 288

POTENCY (IES), Space, of 449

Tension, of 151

POTENTIAL (ITY), Actuality, not 540

Formulas and dimension 563

Immanence of 173

Infinite 142

Life 154

kingdom

POSITIVE Sublimation POSTURE (S) Adjustment, and law of

Archetypal

Cosmic

Magnetism, and

Physical

Practice, and

Relaxation and

Self-identification, of

THE LOTUS FIRE

PAGE

Manifestation 153, 545 Point, of the 141-5, 150, 154, 164

Symbol, existence and sublimity of 564

POWER (S), Burden, lightens 695

Create, to 112

Drums of 380-2

Experience, from 88

Flower of 615

Foam on life's sea 417

Guides to 695

Homage, of 692

Kingship, of 693

Linga emblem of creative 222

Microcosmic functioning and 114

Mountains of 81

Plane of nature of 87

Psychic 74

Reservoir of 692 Rod of 219, [285], 320, 355. 492, 493

Sex, of 411

Spiritual intensity and 97, 324

Strength into 109

Sun, of [634] Symbols and [54], [324], 355

Testing of our 468

Wine of 499 Wisdom, from understanding and 526, 528

Word of [694]

Word, thought and 366

Yoga and 417 PRACTICE, Contamination, physical, and

yoga 49

Deep silence, of 491

Meditation, of 351

Yoga posture and [351], 421

PRAISE (S) Outpourings of 234, 423-4

Universal 114

PRALAYA, Breath of God and 148

King-God enters [359]

PRANAVA 131

PRATYEKA Buddhas 474

PRAVRITTI Marga 219

PRAYER (S), Service and 462

Vigil of 129

Yogi's 424

PRE-CONSCIOUS. Transcendence a 166

PRE-DARKNESS, Point and 165

PREGNANT, Point alive and 148. 150

Potentiality of point 142

PREJUDICE(S), Illusion of 107

Yoga and 107

PRE-NESS, Before-background is 551

PAGE

Mode of being 540

PREPARATION, Web-Womb and 476

Yoga for [49], 74

PRE-RADIANCE. Point and 165

PRESENCE, Changeless, of God 504-5

PRESENT (see also Moment, Now) Past, future and 7, 142, [176], 394. 536, 563

PRE-SILENCE, Point and the 165

PRESS, Godless 191

PRIDE, Apotheos.s of 108, 109

Hatred, a form of 411

Human kingdom and 413

Lords of, and Death 379

Mind and 187

No 51

Powers and dangers of 466, 539

Superiority and inferiority and 51

Yoga and 51,107

PRIESTS (ARTISTS), Vision, of 345

We are. 105,111

PRIMORDIAL, Beginning 197

Memory of the 203

Movement 347

Natures of all Points 196

Negations and seed-Points 133

Point-event 141

Posture for Symbolic Yoga [285]

Progenitor 186

Prototypes 238

Silence and darkness 144, 148

PRINCIPLE (S), Curvature and gravitation, of 170

Declaration of 95

Man, of 588

Point is common, in all symbols [283}

PRISON (S), Creating 190, 335

Discourse to Spirits in 687-90*

Form and prisoner 335

Man's 143, 152, 154

PROBLEM, East, of the 341

Experiences, of 47

West, of the 341

PROCREATION (see also Sex)

Marriage and 90

PROGENITOR, Breath the 166

Darkness, light, of 110

Evolutionary process, of an 175

Sex and primordial 186

Web, of 174

PROGRESS (ION) 96, 452. 691, [693], 695

PROJECTION (S), Rhythm of 395-6, 399,

425, 483

We are 425,491.548-

745

THE LOTUS FIRE

PAGE

Bubble and 249

Consummation and 173, 555

Darkness tempers 510

Defining [132]

Distilled 143

Majesties of formless 104, 338

Point and No- 354

Point is 130, [132], [357]

Radiation and 142

Rhythm and 460

Shadow of a 164

Stillness and 130

Symbols and 318

Undifferentiated 142

You and 156,555

RADIATION, Formless 249

Lotus 648

Radiance and 142

RAGA (S) (see also Song)

Alphabet, of 367

Life, of new 198

One vibration 78, 159

Rhythm of 159

RAIN, Baptism of 143

RAINBOW (S) (see also Co/our)

Art and 341 Colour of 262, 341, 360, 378, 381, 482, 528

Darknesses and 111

Form and 262, 341. 381. 482, 528

Incarnation, of 477

Light and 139, 144, 188,249

Rhythms 557

Sound and 262, 341, 381, 482, 528

Symbols 253

RAJAS, Gunasand 115

Movement 205

RAY (S), Analysis of the seven [333]

Belong to all 238

Chohans of 474

Colour and the [572]

Colour, of [581]

Colour, sound and form, of 230

Darkness, of 156

Function, typified in 442

Gnostic vowels and 566

Jewels and 603

Lords of 489

Polarity of 491

Times best for 322

Words and their 367

Zodiac and 323

REACTIONS, Justifying one's 86

PAGE

REAL (ITY) (IES), Adjustment, law of. and 103 Appearance and [302], 438-9, [440]

Art and 210,345

Attunement to eternal 289

Brotherhood, universal, of 396

Contact with [382-3]

Cosmic 399

Curvature and 446

Diamond and facets of 302

Everywhere 83

Experience reflects 86

Facets of 302

Illusion and 695

Immortal and omnipresent 101, 695

Life is a 539

Mystery- 504-9

Point and 354

Probing 257, 302

Pulsating 248 Regions of 278. 311, 359, [378]

Relative 563

Science and 210

Shadow of 104

Symbol-motif quickens my 521 Symbols are 66, 80, 101-2, 151, 318, 439

Texture of 161, 257

Unreal and 318-9

Vision of 80

Yoga, of 72-4

Yoga of art, and 345

Yogic posture, and 352 REALIZATION (see also Self-Realization)

Law, of 114

Summit of • 88

REAPING Consciousness 154, 689

RECEPTIVITY, Athletic 105-6

Bodies, of the 106

Body, physical, and 105

Recklinghausen, von, illusion 302

Stimulus and 134

Yoga of 323-34

RED, (see also Crimson) 254, 256

C (note) equivalent to 150

Logos, Third, and [619]

Rose- 357-60 REFLECTI (ON) (S) (NG) Experience is a 86

Life, inner, of [564]

Light, cosmic 144

Point 156

Sound, cosmic 144 Symbols are 102, [276-7], 564

Transubstantiation, is 82

JNDEX

747

Ultimates and

Worlds, outer, are •REGENERAT (ING) (E) Activity

Yoga of those who REGENERATOR, World, of

PAGE

98, 146, 276

[564]

498

499

102

.REGION (S) (see also Heights, Planes)

Adjustment, of 539

Breath, of 167

Circumference, of 516, 519-20

Consciousness, higher, of 54, 278 Darkness (see Silence)

Everest, of 311-12

Formless, form and 116, 164, 563

Heart, of 112

I mpermanence, of 187 Inner 161.451,542,545

Life, of 87

Light, of 173

Mayavic 187

•Motion, slow, of 106, 563

Mystery, of 148

.No-Being, naught of, of 514

No intangible 268 Reality, of 278, 311, 359, [378]

Sacraments and outer 190

Silence and darkness, of 145, 148

Superhuman and sub-human 138

Symbols, of the [564]

Tension, of 106

Time, of 289, 451 Ultimates, of 112, 144, 151, 168, 185,

203, 305, 359, 549. [554]

Understanding, of 106

Unspoken word, of 164

Yoga, Symbolic, of 562

.REINCARNATION, Rhythm of adjustment

and 396

fRELATIONSHIP, Right 200

RELATIVES, Absolutes and 134, 259, 273.

275-6, 438, 562-3

•RELATIVITY, Einstein's theory of 438-9

.RELAXATION, Inturned 89

Posture of Yoga and [287]

-RELEASE. Agony for 689

Art a messenger of [337]

Bombardment, through 52

Experience, through 76

Great 86

Purpose of this book is 12, [555]

Within, from 76

RELIGION, (see also Faiths, Scriptures)

Ceremonial 351

Correlated with symbols and Zodiac

Cross and

Disease and

Posture and

Relativity and

Science and

PAGE 673-5 220 110 351 439 438

Symbols of 47

* Truth and 233

REMBRANDT 483

REMEMBRANCE (see also Memories)

Act of [293]

Association of attributes for 564

Home, of 186

Invocation for [525-6]

Strain of 435

Technique of [425]

Yoga of [7], 276

REPERCUSSION, Wrongs committed, from 93

REPULSION, Attraction, plane of, and 114

RESERVOIR, Power, creative, of 97, 190,

548, 692

RESISTANCE (see Tension)

RESPONSE, Rhythm of uniform 396, 399

RESPONSIBILITY 696

REST 440

Fulfilment, and 157

No-rest and 55

RESTLESS (NESS) (see also Discontent) 440

Modern 73

Rhythm of 393

RESURRECTION, Crucifixion and 171, 266,

469-70

Growth, episodes of, and 220

Symbol of 616

RETARDATION, Rhythm of 393

RETRIBUTION, Adjustment of 92

RETURN, Way of 185, 219, 286, 690

REVELATION, Art and [335]

Faiths are 87

Scriptures and 8

Theosophy, science of, of 55

Wisdom, Divine, of 528

Yoga, of [518J

REVERENCE (see also Worship) 374, 502

Art and [337], 340

Chivalry and 620

Curvature and [279], [545]

Forms and 697

Graciousness and 342

Life, for 197, [696]

Love and 106, [554-5]

Marriage sacrament and [495]

THE LOTUS FIRE

Master's Nature, of Scientist and Senses and Sex and

Web-Womb, of the Wiser, for the Words and Yoga and

PAGE

1696]

139

[554-5] 333 411 324 532 359 51,201, [332-3], 376

REVOLUTION, (see Svast/fca)

RHYTHM(IC) (ALLY) (see also Dance, Drums,

Law) [159], [385-400]

Acceleration, of 393, 400

Adjustment, of 104, 396, 400

Apotheosis of 159

Balance, of 393-4

Body, physical, and 239, 351. 443 Breath and [165], [386-7], [443]

Call, of 261

Ceaseless Breath, of 386-7

Ceremonial 351

Colour, of [288], [424]

Congenial 159. [424]

Continuity, of 397, 400

Curvature, of 395, 400, 424

Dance 101.254

Darkness, of 315

Death and disease 443

Determination, of [424]

Difference, of 398

Discontent, Divine, of [457]

Essence of symbols is 386

Eternal, Lord of 102

Eternal, of the 436

Everywhere 390

Exertion versus 97

Existence, of 386, 399

Form, of [288], [424]

Fragrance, of [288], [424]

Function, in 89

Fundamental 385

Gravitation, of 395, 400, 424

Growth, of 64

Gunas and 115

Health is 398, 443

Heart of 390

Hierarchy of life, of 397

Individual [288], 390, 424

Individuality, of • 391, 400

Insatiability, of 393, 399

Inspiration, for 159

Interplay, of 396

Kingdoms, of the

Law and

Life, of

Light, of

Lord of

Man and

Many, of the

Masonic

Memory, of

More, of the

Movement and

Normal

Note, creative, of

Obedience, of

-Octaves

One, of the

Ourselves a

Perfect

Potency, of

Power

Primordial, seven

Projection, of

Quietude, of

Response, uniform, of

Restlessness, of

Retardation, of

Samskrit and

Sattva =

Self-containedness, of

Seven primordial

Sex activity, in

Silence, of

Sound, of

Spiritual

Svastika and

Symbols and

PAGE

459

385-6

457

254, 391 102

385, [390]. 389 351

394, 400, [424-5]. 393-4

159, 386-7, 397, 399 315 136

[392], 399-

264

388

483-4

[287]

159, [424] 12

[397-4001

395, 399, 425

420

396, 400 393

393. 397. 400 159 115-398

397-400 90

315. 394. 400. 420

254, [288], [424]

624

306

424, 443

Temperaments, individual, for [288], 424

Three great 205, 389-

Truth in 101

Uniform response, of 396, 400-

Uniqueness, of 398

Unity, of

Universal, and ourselves Universality, of Universal life, of Within, is

395, 397, 446

395, 446, 483-4

387-9,391,397

392

391

Yoga and 159, 165, 246, [287], 315, 374,

389, 424

RIDICULE, Yogi and 95

RIGHT (see also Good) 511

Living 106

Monopolizing BT

749

World and RIGHTEOUSNESS, Prejudice and

Symbol of

Yoga for RING (S) Converging-expanding

PAGE 147 107 209

500-1 168

RING-PASS-NOT, Circle and 87, 167. 209,

261,265,306,429,448 Evolution, of 194, 204, 215, 252, 265, 454 Individuality and 521

Limitation, of 311, 521

Line and 194, 252

Numbers and 567

Silent Watcher and [265]

Svastika and 224

Whole and 552

RISHIS, India of the 65

RITUAL Posture and 351

RIVER, Fresh water of 537

ROD, Measuring. 101, 181

Power, of 1219], [285], 320, 355, 492-3

Power, of, and Planetary Logos [630]

Power, of, and spine [285]

ROMAN Fasces 180

ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, Contraceptives and 191 Marriage and 191 ROOT-Chakra and Cross 429 ROUND, Standards for this 193 RUBY (see also Red), 357, 360, 370-1, [603-4] RUKMINI DEVI, Dancing and 11,101 Quoted 335 RUMBLING, Colour, of 144 Consciousness, of 144 Cosmic 144 ROPA Regions 116

SACRAMENT(AL), Birth and World Mother,

of I622]

Defiled 91

God fructifies the 91

Life is a [495]

Made flesh 91

Marriage and conception, of 247, [495]

Protection of, setting 90

Sex a 90, [189-92], 247

Symbols and the [493]

SACRIFICE, Art and 344-5

Bodies, of lower 115

Father a knight of 90

Fulfilment and 413

PAGE

Godhead-point ascends through 472

Graciousness and 342

Incense of 110

Kingdoms of nature and 473

Law of, Dr. Besant on 96, [631]

"Makes holy" 473

Objects of 111

Symbols and 472, 473

Web-Womb, of the 324

SAFE (TY), Circle, of the 526

Drums make all 381

Purity is [352]

SAINT (HOOD) 327

Gives inspiration 78

SAKRIDAGAMIN 466

SALT, Ceremony, bread and 633

Water of the sea 537

SALVATION (see Svastika) 267-9. 465

Solitary, no 62

Svastika wheel of 267, 306, 324

SAMADHI, Contemplation 633

King-God enters 359

SAMBHOGAKAYA vesture 471

SAMSKRIT Alphabet [565-6]

Apotheosis of rhythm 159

Drum language, is 382

Gift of the Gods 341

Language of Gods 13

Origin of [568]

Scientific arrangement of sounds in [566]

Simplicity and 341

SANNYASA 498

SAPPHIRE [330-2, 356], 603, [605]

SARDONYX 607

SAT. Line, the 205

SATTVA, Gunas and 115

Tone 205

SAVIOUR (S), Eucharists and 159-60

Vision rather than tradition 439

SCALE (S), Form of 323-4

Initiation, of 471

Light and darkness, of 145

Music and colour, of 150, 323, 367

Sound and silence, of 145

SCHEME (S), Colour, sound and form 323

Evolutionary 94

SCIENCE (S), Absolute law, art^and 562

Astrology, cosmic formulas, of 563

Continuity of 397

Curvature and 195, 547

Dancing, of 101

Divine Wisdom, of 528

THE LOTUS FIRE

Fulfilment, of Fundamental symbols for Imagination and India and

Life revealed through Man and

PAGE

84

561

77

341

535

233, 449

Mathematics, the, of relative ultimates 561 Modern, Dr. Besant on 94

Prostitution of 554

Psychology, of 109

Rays 334

Reality and 210

Religion and 438

Reverence and love and men of 554-5

Secret, the 96

Space and matter and 444

Spinal diagnosis, of 264

Symbols of religion and 47

Theosophy, of 55

Vibration, and 151

Wisdom and men of 554

Yoga and 351,499,518-9

SCRIPTURES (see also Religion, Faith) 8, 165 " Door" and the 460

Great, the 72

Hindu 114,284,373.519

Yoga, of 73

SCULPTURE, Arts and 345

Rhythm of 159

SEA, Blue men, of 196

Call, and the 195-6,230,347

Colour of [357]

Consciousness, of 157, 205

Cosmic 197, 198. 347

Green men, of 87, 183

Life, of 87, 154, 179, [216-7], 509

Lotus flower and 197, 230

Manifest, of the 213, 454, 535

Men of 196, [198-201], [254], 260, 264, 268-9, 275, 290, 304, 398, 449,454,

521,535,563

Symbol of the 562

Unconscious, of the 290

Universality, of 536

Unman.fest, of the 87, 131, 135-6, 177-9,

181, 185, 194, 212-13, 260-1, 265. 270,

275, 285. 368. 448-9. 454, 517-8,

521, [535]

SEED (see Flower), Divine 174

Flower and 7, 138

Lotus 229-30. 255. 357

Male and female, of 186

-Man and Flower-God Point and cosmic Point as Potentiality, of Restless rhythm of the Sacrifice, of

PAGE 230 628

130-7, 675-9 142 393 [17]

SEE(ING), Hearing, interchangeable with

[381], 550

Life, darkness, silence 550-1

" Straight " and " curved " 182, 547

SEEK vING), Artist and 338

Everywhere [531]

Finding, erring [1531

Self, of the 93,317

SELECTIVITY, Sea and 196

SELF (VES; (see also A/o-Se/r, You)

SELF-ABUSE, Consequences of 247

SELF, Altar of higher 105

Awakening the higher 160, [432-4],

Besant, Dr.. on 93

SELF-CENTREDNESS, Character and 343

Irritability and 413

SELF-CONSCIOUS (NESS) (see also Con-

sciousness, Unconsciousness) Awakening 86-7, 368

Being and 392

Birth, Initiation and 464

Confirmation and » 493

Divinity 174, 449

Individuality and 396

Infinitude 271

Laboratory in 258-

Law of sacrifice and 96*

Manifestation and 179, 451

Man stands upright in 286

Mathematics and 561

Planes of consciousness and 425

Point is born into 524

Unconsciousness and 68, 70, 198 255,

268,271.332

Yoga and 93-S

Yogi's 83-

Yugas, in 68-

SELF-CONTAINSDNESS, Rhythm of 398

SELF-CONTROL, Perfect, of bodies 90

Cremated virtue releases 414

SELF-DEDICATION. Requirements of 91

SELF-DETERMINATION, Mode of life 555

SELF-DISCOVERY. Ego, the eternal, of 111

Fulfilment and [505]

Intuitive perception and [562]

Kingship and your [5301

751

PAGE

SELF-EMPTINESS 536

SELF-EXPERIENCE, Lust for 412

SELF-EXPRESSION [289], 339

Formula of 131

Freedom and eternal 392

„ fleeting 392

SELF-FULFILLED 202-3

SELF-FULFILMENT, Yoga of 89

SELF-IDENTIFICATION 335

SELFISH (NESS) (ES), Altar of 412

Apotheosis of 108-9

Dangerous 59, 110

Effects of 480

Enslavement of a brother and 93

Powers used for 365

Sex and 188

SELF-JUSTIFICATION, Yoga and 107

SELF, Lower and higher 131, 694

Monad and 616

Name of the Highest 155

Point and unfolded 171, 248

SELF-PRESERVATION, Fighting for 412

SELF-PROTECTION. Hatred for 412

SELF-REALIZATION (S) (see also Realization)

Achieving true 88

Experience to, from 470

Lotus of 324

Reliance on 533

SELF-RESTRAINT, Point of

SELF, Seeking the 93

Temporary 107, 392

Way of the 522

SENSATIONS. Emotions and 187

SENSES, Colour and sound of 364-5

Five 364

Illusion and the [187]

Reverence ^through the 333

Verities and the [161]

Yoga and the 333

SENSITIVITY, Larger consciousness, to 418

SENZAR, Alphabet [565-7]

SEPARATION. Fifth Initiation and 693

Purity not for 62

SEPARATIVENESS, Fear and 412

SEPULCHRES, Holy, Lord of 489

SERPENT, Circle and 609

SERVANT, SERVERS, SERVICE. Artist and 345

Chivalry and aspiration and 620

Dancing in God's 103

Directions for 532

Hierarchy, of the 383

Knowledge for [365]

Seven paths of Symbols, of the Way and Weaknesses for Yoga of

SEVEN. £ons of Unfoldment Colours and notes Paths of service Primordial rhythms Rays

Sound-octaves Sounds of evolution Spirits

Symbols and, Aum, the Symbols and correspondences Symbols and cycles Symbols and life Symbols and their servers Symbols and Yoga

PAGE 47f

441,523 462 414 [51] 240

150, 230, [360] [471] [397-400] 323, [333-4] 477, [479-80] 143, [360] [664-5] [372] 561

479-80 552-3 441-2, 487 53

Symbols contrasted (see also Symbols Seven) 231. 237-8, 240-2, 245-6. 254-5, 264, 305. 376, 428-9, 450, 456, [476].

[479], 492-3, 520-1 -Year periods and colour-sound octaves

477, [479-80],

SEX (see also Procreation) 189-92

Absolute and 188

Abuse of, -power 184, 188-9, 191, 247

Apotheosis of [490]

Cosmic 188

Creative spirit and 184, 411

Damnation and 189

God creates through 91

Holiness of 90

Limited concept of 186.188

Means of escape 191

Power and physical plane 184, 187, 247

Power of 91,411

Purpose of 411

Reverence and 189, 191, 411

Rhythm in, activity 90, 247

Sacrament of 188-9, 247

Salvation and 189

-Sequences [491]

Ultimates and 186

Wonders of 91, 188

SEXLESS, Nothing is 188

SHADOW. Light, of 107

Radiance, of 164

Reality, of 104

Relative, not, of ultimate 134

Symbols, of 102, 146

THE LOTUS FIRE

PAGE

SHAKTI [370], [668-9]

Female or negative force 578, [619]

Letters and 568

SHEATHS, Tobacco and alcohol, of 92

SHEPHERD, All-Compassionate 689

SHIVA, Dance of 102, 416, [624]

Everest, and 312

Hymn to 611

Lmga and temple of 222

Puja by devotees of [608]

Shakti energy of 370

Sound, and 568

Will aspect of Deity and [633]

Yogi 655

SHRINES OF ADYAR [638]

SIEGFRIED, Line, spiritual 523

SIGHT (see also Vision]

Movement and [170]

Vigil and 129

SIGN-MANUAL, Purpose, of 524

SILENCE(S) (see also No-S»/ence, Silent

Watcher, Stillnesses)

Apotheosis of 358-9

Artist and the 345

Becomes two 172, 190

Becoming 154

Consciousness and 151

Consummation, and 142, 254, 256

.Darkness, and 91, 129-30, 150-1, 154, 162, 164, 166, 172-3, 200, 229, 256. 260, [293], 310. 315, 358, 383, 393,

505, 540. 550

'Everest, of 312

•Evolutionary process, and 190

Finding all 82, 131

Forests of 325

Form and 152.551

Godhead, of our 514

•God poised in 141

Heart of 314

.Idea 541

•Life in essence is 550, 552

Music dwells in 157

Nature and [157]

Negative and positive 173

Note of the 156

Ocean of 540

One 190

Point, of the 130, 144, 150, 250, 254,

315, 324, 526

Pools of 81

Practice of deep 491

PAGE

Primordial 144

Radiance and 132, 162

Rhythm of 394, 400, 420 Sound and 7, 132, 142, [143], 147, 152, 155, 157-8, [162], 169, 172, 229, 254.

354,359,383,460,488,511,540

Symbol existence and 564

Symbols and [237]

Tangible 148

Torrential [310], 540

Transfiguration, and 130

Voiceless 155

Voice of the 131, 383

Yoga of 131,312

SILVER (see Blue}

SIMPLICITY, Eastern musical 341

Life of 50-1

Multiplicity in 305

Priesthood of [340]

Samskrit and 341

Yoga, of 346, 500

SIMULTANEITY 435

SLAVERY (see also Ens/a vement, Imprisoned), Freedom and 87 Yogi ascends out of 85

SLEEP (see also Asleep)

Memory and 187

Periods of waking and 422

Purpose of [420]

Science of [420-6]

SMELL, Physical body and sense of 587

SMOKING (see Tobacco)

SOLAR PLEXUS, Navel chakra 429

SOLAR SYSTEM, Atom to 227

Cycles of 673-5 Lotus and 57-8, 528. [612]

Point nucleus of a 511

Standards for 193

SOLID (ITY). Inner planes, of 451

Octaves of 452

SON, Being, of 173

Svastika and 223

Tapas, of 311

Thunder, of 149

Union of Father and 139

Yoga, of 95

SONG (see also Raga, Sound, Chanting)

Discord and 190

Fulfilment, of 135

Healing and 478

Kingdoms of nature, of 691, 694

Life, of 178, [292]

JNDEX

753

PAGE

•Light of the Line 178

Lotus, a 16

Man, of 508

Master ascended, of 694-5

Soul and the 695

Symbol of reality 101

Triumph, of [177], 292

SORROW, Ceaseless Breath and 387

Joy blend in peace, and 111

SOTAPANNA 465

SOUL, Art and 344

Form and 337

Goup-souls, and 114,695

Idea of the twin 478

Limited body and infinite 281

Silence and darkness, of 315

Song of the 695

Yoga, of 312

SOUND(S) (see also Call. Colour-Sound, More-than-Sound. No-Sound, Song, Tone, Trinity)

Akashaand 511

Alphabet of colour and 369

Attar of [143]

Becomes two 188 Colour, and 54, [144], 230, 253, 260,

338, [366], 369, 528

Conch and 651

Consciousness, and lower 144

Consciousness and rhythm of 424

Cosmic 396

Counterpart of 279

Creative 651

Days and years and their 364-5

Devasof 216,229

.Distilled into silence [143]

Divinity of man, and 131, 483

Drums, of 383

Growth, of 360, 381

Life-essence is 552 Light and 148, 229, 254, 338, 540

Man and his 488

Manifestation, and 131, 143, 177

-Men [288], 477-9

Miracle-matrix and 176

Motif 177, [288]

One 201 Point and 148, 155. 253-4. 260. 354 Radiance and 132, 144.354

Ray of 230, 232

Relative and absolute reality of 563

-Samskrit and the one creative 566 48

PAGE Scales of 145, 188, 196, 215,

367, 459, 588

Seven (360)

Silence and 7, 147. 152, 155, 157.

162, 169, 177, 188, 354, [359], 383,

460,511,540

Stillness, silence and 129

Symbols and 77-8, 82, 360, 564

Trinity of, colour, form (see Trinity) 380

Universe, of 196, 380

Voice of God, the 501

Voice of the Light 213

Vowel 368

Word, and colour of 346

Yoga and 308, 351, 373-5, 483, 501

SOUNDLESS (NESS) Cloud of darkness 150 Silence and 310

SOURCE, One 201

SOUTH, Drawing fire of earth from his 285 Evolution and magnetism of , ,.4.123 »2. [282] Line and diameter from North to 282

Magnetic currents and [608]

Meaning of [577]

North and 219, 346, 355, 577, [608]

Pole (see Po/e) 172, 178, 181, 543

Pole of embryonic development [639]

SPACE (S)-Areas 168

Cosmic 310,448

Dimensional 181

Distilled 143

Eternity, within 142

Father of Individuality 448-9

Filled with light-fire 485

Fohatand 163

God of time and 100, 141

Individuality and 448-9

Octaves of 452

Relative and absolute reality of 563-4

Solid 451-2

Symbols and 443, [450]

Time and 141, 168. 292. 301, [447-52], 535 -Time is curvature 182

Transcending limitations of 517

Unconscious and self-conscious 451

Unmanifest and 162, 254-5, 448-9

SPARK (see also Flame and Fire), Beginning and 197

SPEAR, Symbol of spiritual will [583]

SPECTRUM, Musical scale and 150

Spinal [252-3]

Spiritual 250

THE LOTUS FIRE

[253],

172, 180-3, 356,

Divine measure, the

Esoteric and exoteric

Infinite curvature and the

Inner

Kundalint and the

Line and

Meditation and

Posture and

Rod of Power, our

Two, cords SPINDLE Line SPIRAL(S) Ascent

Circle and

Evolution, of

Line

Loga-ithmic

Web-Womb SPIRIT. Dead letter and shining

Divine, and ecstasy

Everest, of

Matter and 162,236

Play of

Point, of the

Symbols and

Two poles of matter and

Yoga, of

Youth, of SPIRITUAL Archetypal Cycle

Ascent

Evolution, beginning of

„

Intensity and power 97,

Movement, science of

Perception SPIRITUALITY, Love, through

Psychism and

Unity, is

Yoga, of true

SPLEEN Chakra and Svastika SPLENDOURS. Symbols, of SQUARE 2

Circle essentially one, and

Curved

Lord of the STABILITY. Cross, of the

England's note STANDARD (S) (see also Codes, Measure)

Evolutionary process, for

Humanity, for

World and universal

PAGE PAGE

428 STAR (S), Atoms, and 485 285 Authority of 687 285 Divinity, man's, of 459 285 Five-pointed 242

285.383 Oneself, and 100

264, [427-8] Snow, of 331-2

285 Symbol 287

285-6 [350] STATIC, Absolute is 273

[285] Experience and being 109

186 Stillness and restlessness 132

543, 638-48 True Yogi never 97

695 STEADFASTNESS. Line, of 324

STEM, Lotus flower, of 429-30 STEPPING-STONES, Achievement, and 338

Books are 74

182 Final 694

251 Form, of 512

70 Path, on 694

148 Understanding, of 183

[311] STEREOGNOSTIC. Faculty 477

268, [578] STILLING, Nature, of 157

103 STILLNESS (ES) (see also Quietness. Silence)

156, 162 Consciousness, and 131

209 Constructive 113

[578] Experience, and 135

55-7 Growing nature, of 81

480 Life, and [129-31], 390

675-85 Life essence is a universal 552

101 Mountains, of 81

464 Night, and 157

469 Omnipotence, and 164

81 Restlessness, and 132

Silence, and 131, 315

Teacher's wondrous 291

101 Yoga of . 131

95 STIR (RING), Beginning, of 104

62 Yoga, of 100

613 STORM (see also Thunder and Lightning}

[62] Angels and devas 144, 381

61 Cosmic 144-

429 Drums of the 381

146 Ray fourth and 333 )8-10 STRAIGHT, Seeing 182

208 STREAMS (see also Life-Waves), Life- 211-4

195 STRENGTH. Experience, of 109

488 Grows from weakness 108-9

266 Physical body, and 105

64 Power, becomes [108-91

Refining 84

193 Virtue, in 41S

67 Weakness, from [409-141

147 Yoga intensifies 52

755

PAGE

STRETCHING, Consciousness, the 100

STUDENTS, Eternal self, and 289 Experiments for [375-6], 562

Life symbol, and 491 Meditation, and 286-7, 321, 364

Posture, and [286-7]

Rhythm of silence, and 394

Sublimation, and 108 Symbol, and 78, 321, [369], 436. 512. 562

Theosophy, and 529 Warning to [49-50], 294

Weaknesses, and 409 Yoga, of 88, 107, [499]

Yogis, not 363

STUPENDOUSNESS, Life, of [541], 563

STUPIDITY, Gunas, and 115 SUB-HUMAN (see also Kingdoms of Nature)

Consanguinity and, kingdom 348

Kingdom and group-soul 113-4

Kingdoms and man-womanhood 185

Kingdoms and Yogi 138

Man, super-human and 455

Sex-abuse and, misery 91

SUBLIMATION (TING) Altar of 105-12

Apotheoses and 109

Body of movement, and 106

Fragrance, of 135

Function, of 97

Law of growth and 108

Man-womanhood, of 185

Moving on by 82

Obstructions to 98

Perception of 108

Physical body, of 105

Point, and 135, 147

Positive 108

States of consciousness 89

Superhuman kingdom and 327-8

Understanding of 106

Weakness of 409

Yoga of 138. 413

SUBLIMITIES (Y), Approach to 158

God of Yoga, of 82-3

Point, of 144

Sketch of 294 SUBSTANCE (see also Planes, Matter)

Cosmic 148

Life and 550-54

-Movement 450-52

Radiance and the Point 132

Realms of 78

-Shadows 80

Substans and

Symbols, of

Will and SUBSTANS. Form, Life

Life, of

Silence and darkness, of

Substance and

Will is

SUBSTRATUM. Value of symbols SUCCESS, Effort greater than

PAGE

54, 132, 554 268 554 213 550-4 315, 550 54, 132, 554 554 135 86 440

SUCCESSIVE, THE, Simultaneous and

SUFFERING (see also Pain)

Animal 96

Karma of 690

Sex misused spreads 91

Yogi and 138, 143

SUMMATION, Point exists in 142

SUMMIT (see also Heights)

Everest, of [311-21

Point a 259

SUN (SHINE, LIGHT) Cosmic forces and

North Pole 543

Dr. Besant on the Self and the 93-4

Eternal, of tjie 7

Father, the 280. 286

Food, in 4)8

Giver of life 371

Homage to the 597-600

Individuality, of 360

Invocation to the [579J

Light of the 393, 418 Lord, Our, the 210, 249, 292, 348. 356,

360, 369, 377, 429

Lotus and 16, 337

Lotus flower ascends into the 112

Meditation and the 321

Monad, of the 143

My Lord the Sun, to 17

North Pole, and the 543

Power of the 634

Rainbow or, of art 341

Self in 94

Solar System and Lotus and 613

Sparks, throws off 504

Vitality, and 429

SUPERCOSMIC symbols [240-4J

SUPERHUMAN, (see also Human)

Kingdom and its gifts 327

Kingdoms and growth 169

Man, subhuman, and 455.

Regions 138

SUPERIORITY. Pride and sense of 51

THE LOTUS FIRE

PAGE

SUPER-MAN, Sub-man, man and 175, 201, 327

Yogi's path to 48,417

SUPER-MATERIAL Matrix of manifestation 149

SUPER-PHYSICAL Instruments 258

SUPREME Artist, God the 344

Conceptions and negations 165

Lord of Yoga 146

Lord the Sun 369

Macrocosm and microcosm 136

Mantra 171

Moments 158

Transubstantiation 116

SUSTAINER, Vishnu the 102

SUTRATMA, Thread line 643

Wreath and 651

SVARAS, Days and 364

SVASTIKA (see also Symbols, Seven) [223-6],

255, [267-9]

Age and 479-80

Atom, in [645]

Blavatsky, H. P , on 241

Breathes 152

Bubbles 252

Cell-life in [638]

Chakra or 651

Chemistry, in [645]

Churning of 255, 306

Circle-Globe, and 202, 238, 268

Colours of 357

Courage of 324 Cross, and 218, 220, 222-3, 238, 281,

357, 429, 455, 508. 552

Daring of 324

Evolutionary process, and 223-4

Evolution of 455, 476

Fiery Cross 552

Friction-wheel 267-9

Gift of the 226

Lord of 488,491,493

Lotus and 231

Lawfulness, of 324

Life in 376

Lotus in 229, 231

Machinery of creative activity [245]

Meditation on 243

Physics, in [648]

Plant life, in [643-4]

Rhythms and 306 Salvation, and 267-9, 306, 324

Sparks, Cross of 552

" Spleen chakra and 429

Sun, and 223

Symbol of creative fire

Symbol of growth

Tension thrills of

Venturesomeness of

Way

Web, fulfilment of

PAGE

[635]

281

372

324

524-6

214

Wheel of the Law 225, [267-8], 429,

455, 635

Whirling Cross 552

Yoga of Cross- 508

Zodiac, in 673-4,677,681-5

SYMBOL (S),(see also No-Symbol) Angels and 178

Appearances, are 178, 440

Applied 504, 523

Arts and sciences and fundamental 561-2 Atmosphere, induce an 99

Atom, in [645]

Attributes for remembrance 564

Aum and the seven 372

Bird, of 326

Birth, of 367

Breathe 152, 237

Breath of God and 157, 237, 443

Bubbles, as 512

Bulwarks against barbarism [523-6]

Burning-glass of the real, as 524

Cell-life, in 638-43

Centre-radiances, in [427-30]

Chakras and [428]

Chemistry, in [645]

Colour, and 252-3, 265, 353-65, 369

Colour and sound for each 54, 369

Colour, sound, form and 564

Consciousness, and 54, 152, 307, 314, 516 Consummation of all 228, 492, 540

Contacting, through posture 284

Correspondences of the seven 561

Cosmic and supercosmic 241

Creation and [245-7]

Cross and 220

Curvature, and [545]

Cycles, and the 479

Daughter-, of Point 248-56

Deva-angels of 144

Differences between 268

Door, of the 460-1

Earth, air, fire, water, of the 287

Essence of the 386

Eternal, of an 102

Evolutionary process, of 266, 492, 535, 540 Experience, embody 75

757

PAGE

Fire and 235, 264

Flower and 319 Forms and 102,278,512 Formulae, are 11, 160, 237,276.440,450,

481,517,535

Formulas of life, and 47-8, 111, 133

Fulfilling the 504-9

-ful, life is 553

Fusion of 540

Godhead, of 131

God, of a 141,482

Great Teachers as 347

Heart-beats of 450

Hinduism and the seven [493]

-Incarnations 456

Individuality, and their [540]

Influence of 100,324

Initiations and the 465-71

Jewel-ideas of 353-62

Kali yuga, in [70] Kingdoms of nature, and 562-3, [638-48]

Lay down the law 280

-less, life is 553

,, stand 513 Life, and [535], [540], [552-3]

Limitations of 204, 251

Line, of the 177, 320

Living and radiant, book two 119

Logoi, and 242-3

Logos, of the 206, [243]

Lords of the [487-97]

Manifestation, and 291-2

Man-woman, are 185

-Mates, my 521

Mathematics and 561

Meaning of 102, 133

Memory, and 161,564

Monad, of the 171

Motherhood, and 436

Motif and 134.521

Mountain, of 80, 562

Movement of the 441

Mysteries and the [637]

No-symbol, from, to, book four 401

Occult 152, 210

-Octave 476-80

Oldest 243

Orifiamme, each is 287, 523

Otherwise, these 277

Ourselves and the 55, 484

Physical body and the 239, 324

Physics, in [646-8]

Plant life, in Point, every, a Point, of God Point, the primordial Point to life Polarity, Ray, and Presentations of the Primary, of life Projections of Purpose of Qualities of the Ray polarity, and

PAGE

[643-81

[280]

504

169

540

491

277

443-4

181,491

156, 160, 450. 512

54, 526

491

Reality of 152, 311, 318, 436, 481, 512, 524 -Reflections of reality 133, 278

Released and dynamic, book three 295

Rhythm of 159, 386. 443

Sacraments and the seven [493]

Sacrifice and the 472

Science and religion, of 47

Secret Doctrine, The, on 241-4

Secret of the 521

Servers of the seven 441, 479, 482-3, [487-9] Seven, contrasted [214, 229, 231, 237-8, 240-2, 245-6, 248-56, 264, 267-70, 271-83. 301-7. 319, 324. 347, 353-60, 371-2, 376, 427-30. 456, 464-71,476, 479-80, 488, 490-4, 504-9. 520-1, 524-6, 638-48] (see also Frontispiece)

Silence, darkness of 129-30, 155, 237, 251 Silent Watchers and [237-8]

Sleep and the study of 423

Solidity and tenuity of 564

Space and the [450]

Spatial in the Heavens 440

Spirit and the forms of 209, 314

Static from dynamic 440

Supercosmic [240-4]

Tapas and the seven 473

Teacher and the 278, 291, 293, 540

THAT, and 196, 386

Thought-forms and 54, 364

Time and infinite 181, 450

Tones and 253-4

Trans-Himalayan [243]

Translation of 78

Transubstantiation of 115-6

Truth of 48, [70], 98, 115, 183, 190, 277 Ultimates in 47, 79, 102, 276, 523, 564

Unconscious, expression of 47

Unfoldment, for 15

Unity, and 102,305,517,56}

Universe, and drums of 380

THE LOTUS FIRE

Vibrate with life Vishnu, of Word and Work, at, book five Yoga and Yoga and alphabet Yoga and the seven Yoga, of 287,

Zodiac, as

SYMBOL-LESS. THAT, the SYMBOLOGY. Circle and Cross, of Dancing, of Point, of the Ultimates, of SYMPATHY (ETIC), Incense

Nature's magnetic SYMPHONY, Composing a

Evolution, of

SYNTHESIS, Memories, and Mind, and

PAGE

102

[651]

134

559

79, 134

368-9

53

499. [518]

438-42

510-15

241-2

101

142, 241-2

135

590

100

78

198

114

106, 114

TACTUAL Faculty TAMAS, Gunas and

Tension, is TANGIBLE (BILITY), Apotheosis of

Intangible and

Silence and darkness TAPAS, Abode of

Seven symbols, of the

Transcendental

477 115 205 162

161-2, 268 148, 150, 315 [311] 473 473

TAROT, Hermes, alphabet of, and 567

TAT = That 514

TAU [220], [242], 266, 370

TEACHER, Himalayas and 291

Kingship and 291

Lord of Rhythm, is 102

Need of a 73

Physician and 110

Poise and 291

World 474

Yoga and 73, 102, [293], 518

[261] 154 111 105 473 690 419 116-7 151

TEMPLE(S), Experience, of

Godhead, of your

Religions, of the

Wisdom, ladder to, of

Yoga and a

TENDERNESS, Lord of TENSION, Keep bodies in eager * Physical consciousness, or

Potency, of

PAGE

Tamas is ' 205

-Thrills of becoming 372

-Thrills of divine purpose 327

THAT, Life and 549

No-thing, is 196

Presence of [513-14]

Scales of light and sound and 196

Symbol-less, the [510-15]

Symbols and 196

Yoga in 513

THEME, Jewel-octave, of 354

Music- for Yoga [373]

Octaves, of [477]

Universe, of the [346-7]

Yoga, of my 60

THEOSOPHICAL Literature and Symbolic

Yoga 12

Terminology 114, 116

THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, THE. Freedom

and 532

Magnetic currents and 577

Members of, and Symbolic Yoga 12

Pioneer of new age 349

Third Object of 59

THEOSOPHIST (S), Theosophy and 528

THEOSOPHY Demands no worship 529

Divine Wisdom, is [529]

Freedom and 532

Pioneer of new age 349

Plan, and the [530]

Purpose of [55]

Students of 290

Symbolic Yoga and 55

Theosophists and 528

Truth and 530

Universal, a 528

Word and power of 366

THINK and Thinking- Try, motto 3

THOUGHT(S), Building with [422]

Dynamic 97

THOUGHT-FORM(S). Frozen 483

God a variegated 539

Green [363]

Symbols and 54, 364

THOUSAND-PETALLED LOTUS, (See also

Lotus), Infinite theme, is 348

THREAD 542, 547, 557

Sacred Mantra, of, and seven symbols 372

THROAT Chakra 430

= Line 429

ideas and Web-Womb 279

THRONE, Way to eternal 95

"59

THUNDER(ING) Cloud

Cosmic

Devas of

Drums of

Roll of Point

Son of TIME, Adjustment of

Consciousness and

Contraction-intensity of

Duration and

Eternal, the, and

PAGE

143, 149

144, 149 381 381

253-4

149

102

[448]

274

[141], 166,448 7, 142, 346, 516-17

Eternity, and 99, 105, [142-3], 162,

167, 274-5, 316

Growth and 292

Hush and 202

Individuality a dimension of 448

Lotus and 301-2

Moments, composed of 99

More, the, and 165

Mother, the 448-9

Octaves of 452

Point, essence of 275

Quality of being, is [447]

Reality, absolute and relative, of 563

Regions of 289

-Self of man 434

Space and 141, 2°2, 301, [447-52], 535

Symbols and 443

Yoga and favourable 321-2, 351

TOBACCO, Receptivity of body and 105, 352

TOGETHERNESS, Life and 486

Yoga and 49, 49, 92, [352]

TONE (see also Note, Sot-nd, Co/our) 574

Days and years and their colour and [363-5]

Nature's key [623]

Sattva [205]

Yoga, for [375]

TOPAZ [356, 360], 603, [605]

-Golden Circle 429

TOUCH, Darkness, a 162

TOYS, Life's 541

TRAIN, Rhythm and railway 159

TRAINING. Yoga, for 74

TRANSCENDENCE (ING) 525

Being, regions of 144

Causes 440

Consciousness, of 166

Individuality, of 164, 696

Initiation and 693

Mount of His 80

TRANSFIGURATION, Initiation, the 220, 467

Jesus, of 113

Ourselves and

Silence, in

TRANSLATING Untranslatable TRANSMUTATION, Individual

Mother's, a

Name, of

PAGE 116 130

[55-9]

349

90

155

TRANSUBSTANTIATION (see also Sublima-

tion), Acceleration of

Act of

Consciousness, of

Priests of

Supreme

Truth of

Weakness, of

Yoga of TRIANGLE (ULARITY)

Curved

Egyptian ceremonial and

Essence of

Hypotenuse and

Jewelled altar, in

Kundalini and

Lord of the

Man's

-Men

Senzar, in TRINITY

Being, of

Besant, Dr., on

Christian

Conception of life

Egyptian

God, of

Line, of

Man, of

Seed, bud, flower

93

82, 105, 109

149

105

116

72

409

7

[204-5]

[211-14], 550, 552§

205£

[664-5^

466>6

102, [205E 303C [205] 306

Sound-colour-form, of 12, 53, 55, 77-8, 117, 152, 159, 176, 196, 215-16,230, [232-6], 248, 255, 260, 265, [288], [308-9], 323-4, [336-9], [346-7], 354-6, [364-5], 366, 369, 375-6, 378, 381, 383,

[396], [415-6], 424, 477-8, 483. 489 TRIUMPH (ANT) (see also Master, Victory)

688

All, for 692

Apotheosis 693

Consummation, merges in 235

Flower of 17

Frustration, out of 111

God symbol of 141,255

Incarnation and 695

Master, of 139, 692

THE LOTUS FIRE

PAGE

Memory and 236 Song of [177], 292 TRIVIALITY (IES), Supreme moments and

[158, 433]

TRUMPET Call 143, [177-8]

TRUTH (see also Verity). Art and [337]

Awakening to 158

Colour-sound of 233

Cross, of the 324

Dance,in 12

Dark 314

Descent of eternal 70

Eternal, symbols of 115

Falsehood, from 690

Form, in 334

Formulae, as 334

Gesture, in 101

Images of 71

Knowledge to, from 470

Know the 201

Law and 260

Liberation, of 72

Light and [132]

Memories of [70] Movement, in 101, 132, 259

Mystic 95

One and many 74

Own, know your 533

Poise and [203]

Projection of being 205

Relative [55-9]

Religions and 233

Rhythm, in 101

Samadhi, of 72

Satya yuga and 70

Set at naught 91 Shadow of 256, 269

Silence and [131] Symbols and 12, 48, 65. [183], 277

Symbols of 115

Transubstantiation, of 72

Vessels for 87

Ultimatesand 135

Understanding and [500]

Union, of 72

Universal 233

Way and Life 552

Will and 259

Wisdom, Divine, and [529]

Within, dwells [71] Yoga and 48, 309, [426]. 500

Yogi and 411

PAGE

You are a 530

TRY, Think and Thinking -- 3

TUNING, Consciousness, of 144-5

TWOFOLD (see also Dua//ty) Call 276

Individuality [185]

TYANA, Apollonius of, Jewels and 356

TYRANNY Belongs to dying 486

Sex misused spreads 91

u

ULTIMATE(S), Absolutes and 134

Artist and 339

Being, of 79

Breath, Ceaseless, of 386

Contemplation of 100, 524

Cosmic 135, 289

Dance, of the 11

Descent of 79

Ends of universe, microscopic 445

Evolution, of 79

Experience, no 88

Far-off 97-100

Final 98,562

Flash from 97-100

Forthgoing, essence of 149

Heights and depths 521

Heritage, our 513

I am an 80

Kingdoms of nature and 102. 259 Life, of [79-80], 88, 102, 114,457

Mathematics and science of relative 561

Monads and 114

Point-event 141

Point is a limited 146

Point, summit of Realities of life Regions of the Relative, are Scientific Sex and Symbolic Symbology of Symbols represent Truth of cosmic Universal Vision of We are

Wisdom, Divine, science of Word, creative Yoga and UNBEGINNINGNESS

,259 [98], 359

112. 151, 185, 359, [554] 562 443-6 186

11-2.102 135

47, 80, 276, 523 135

135, 289, 396 155 102 528 198-9

135. 287. 289 542:

761

PAGE

UNCONSCIOUS (NESS), Consciousness, to

210, 275, 284

Cosmic 197 Men wander from 70 Self-consciousness and 95, 210, 255, 332 Self-consciousness, to 68, 70, 198 Yoga 86, 93, 284 Yogi and 82, 95 UNDERSTANDING, Apotheosis of pride, is 108 Awakening 256 Circle, of 324 Ears of 557 Fellows in life [51], 139 Illusion and 538 Infinite 689 Knowledge and 538 Language and 367-8 Life, of 549 Limitation and 146 Memory and [412] Nationality and 368 Power and wisdom, and 526 Sleep, of 424-5 Symbols, of 564 Truth and 500 Yoga 301,500 Yogi and 111 Yourself 156, 549 UNDIFFERENTIATED (ION) Cloud of darkness 150 Cross is negation of 281 Differentiation out of 142, 212, 275 Infinitude and 272 Infinity 141 Present 142 Radiance 142 Sea of 212,260,275-6,361 Sound-octaves of 150 UNENDINGNESS 541-2 UNIFICATION, Consciousness of 694 UNFOLDMENT Apotheoses, in 109 Art and 337, 346 Change, universal, and 562 Continuous 464 Curve of 506 Earth of 347 Evolution, of an 142, 243, 264, 346, 441, 454 Experience necessary to 86 Flame and 197 Forthgoing and 136-7, 290 Growth and 197, 385. 463 initiation and 409

PAGE

Kingdoms of nature and [454-5, 4641

Life 133.695

Line of [3551,506

Logo.c 214

Master, of 695

Maturity, of 467

Perception and 547

Purpose of 95

Seven aeons of [240]

Song of life and [292]

Sum-total of 261

Sweep of an 232

Symbols, of 563

Weakness, place of, in 410

Yoga, of 519

Yoga, through 93

Yogic 102

UNIFORM response, rhythm of 398

UNION, Bodies, astral and mental, of 495

Ceremonial brings [494-5],

Eucharist and 160

Road to Yoga and 472

Yoga is 139, 289, 310, 375

UNIQUE (NESS), Artist and 336, 344

Consciousness, divine 93

Divinity of King-God 384

Identification and 257 Individual 73. 262. 397, 399, 411, 439,

528, 532, 563

Language, significance of each [368]

Man 232, 391

Rhythm of 398

Yoga of 95

Yoga of universe 74

Yogi, each 95, 135, 309

UNITY (IES), Act of 692-3

Brotherhood and 517

Creative 72, [570]

-Diversity 537

Duality and 172, [185], 254

God, of 336

Incarnates 139 Life, of 201, 291, 397, [481-6], 692

Masculine-feminine and 185

Master, with 694

Mystery of the 238

Point, of [303]

Rhythm of 395, 446

Spirituality is [62]

Symbols and 102, [305, 317]

Trinity and 552

Twofold [1851

THE LOTUS FIRE

PAGE

Universal [563]

Universe, of 517-8

World, with 694

UNIVERSAL, Aspects of, ultimates 102

Aspects of Yoga 83

Birth of Christ 696

Bombardment and exchange [52], 484 Breath (see Breath)

Brotherhood 201,349,396,517

Change and unfoldment 562

Consciousness of God 93

Curvature 395

Individual and 190

Kingdoms 694

Law and light 116,391-2

Law and mind 116

Law that is Buddhi [158]

Life 554

Lotus 427-8, 509

Memory 114

Movement 444

Point-event 141

'Praise and pride 114

'Rhythm and ourselves 483-4

Standards and the world 147

Substans-form-life 213

Symbol of Cross 220

Theosophy 528

Unity 563

Validity of principles 73

Value of symbols 135

Yoga 82-3, 86, 93, 157, 197, 284, 309-10,

319, 332, 349, 430, 502, 518, [648]

UNIVERSALITY, Background is 551

Chakras, heart, crown, and 430

Economic purpose, of 436 Individuality and 137, 190, 212, 219, 371,

[388], 391, 412, 430, 449-50, 485.

535-8, 550

Intensity and [259]

Life's unity and 484-5

Mother-spirit, of 436

Omnipresent 395

Point, of 138-40

Pole of 549

Principle of 430

Rhythm of 254

Unity and the unmanifest 517-8

Yoga of 537

UNIVERSALIZING (ATION), Consciousness, of 82

Experiences 109

Individuality, of 107-8, 139

PAGE

Individualization for 308

Life is a 539

UNIVERSE(S), Axis of 180

Blotting out the 149

Body of a 254

Breath of the 166

Bridging the 517

Centres of attraction and 263

Chakras or centres of 427

Circle of our 87, 265

Colour-note of 477

Creative act and 91

Dance of the 558

Downpounng Line of life and 542

Embracing the 103

Expanding 445

Forthgomg and 136

God of this 74, 87

God's discontent and 88

Hum of a 255

Initiation and a 469

Light and sound, of 196

Lotus, petal of cosmic, a 227, 255, 528. 547

Octaves, cosmic, and 265

Point, ultimate end of 444-5

Shares rejoicing 692

Spine of a 254

Symbols and 443

Theme of our 346

Within, includes, the 99

Womb of a 254

Yoga, divine, and 93

UNMANIFEST, Breath and 151-2

Consciousness and 517

Individuality and 449

Point in 140

Pre-ness and 540

Sea of the 87, 135-6, 157, 177-8, 181,

185, 194, 212-3, 260-1, 265, 275-6,

285, 448-9, 454, 517-8

Space and 162, 449-50

Unity, universality and [518]

Waters of the 131, 508

UNREALITY, Nowhere 83

UNSPOKEN Word, realms of 164

UNTRANSLATABLE, Translating the [55-6]

UNVEILING Realities 152

UPRIGHT (NESS), Bridge between two fires

284-5

Man stands 286

UPWARD (S) Arc and self-consciousness 68

Outwards and 136

SNDEX

763

PAGE

VALLEY, Endeavour, of VALUE(S), Cosmic Drum vibration, of Life, of, sleeping Symbols and personal Symbols and universal

VANAPRASTHA

80 382 382 527 134 135 494

VASTNESSES, Omnipotence, leashed, of 164 VEGETABLE KINGDOM (see also Kingdoms

of Nature)

Symbols in 643

Yoga and 93

VEHICLE(S) (see also Body)

Embryonic, higher 114

Feeding the 105

Flesh-eating coarsens 92, 105

Higher and lower 49-50, 115

Operations and [50]

Purifying the 92

Stilling the 131

VEIL(S), Innumerable 142, 460, 548

Mystery and 460

Seek to lift the 48, 548

Symbols 152

VENERABILITY, Banyan tree, of 395

VENTURESOMENESS, Svastika of 324

VERITIES (see also Truths), Eternal 161

VERTICAL (see also Cross, Line, Perpendicular)

Curvature of the 544-5

Horizontal and 219, 224, 244, 280, 507

Life is 541-2

Line 207, 212, [216-9], [223], 242, 280-1,

357, 427, 466

„ author and 562

,, father principle and 282

,, infinitude and 281

,, letter I and 566

„ life of 546,549

,, serpent and 609

,, Web-Womb and 276

„ vivification of 207, 357, 416, 469

Polarization [608]

VESUVIUS, Yoga and 310

VIBRANT (TION) (TORY), Archetypes 173

Combing out 366

Consciousness and 151,418

Cosmic, crescendo of 144

Creative 136

individual, life and 536

PAGE

Life, of 544, 552

Life's slowest 247

-Motif of symbols 134

Moulding 134

Music reduced to 78

Note, of 136 Octaves of 150-1, 182

Point is 133, 173

Pre-ness and 552

Rapid, regions of 563

Rhythm and 261,315

Simplicity [340]

Symbols, translated from 78

Web-Womb 173

VICE (S), Heights of 108

Indulging in 84

Place of 109

Stabilization, wrong, is [110]

Virtue, grows into 108-9

VICTORIA NYANZA Falls 310, 489

VICTORY (see also Mastery, Triumph)

Defeat and 7

Master's, a 139

Song of 85

Yoga dedicated to 500

Yogi and 143

VIGIL, Father's, Knighthood, of 90

Mother's 90

Preparation, of 465

Purification, of, book one 41

VIOLET Day 364

Rainbow changes into 144

VIRGIN (see also Mother) VIRILITY, Line, of VIRTUE (S)

Experience, of

Fulfil your

Glory, becomes a

God's will, reflect

Need of

Symbols, of

Vice, grows from

Weakness and

Will and

465-6 324 414 109

84, 414

f 108-9]

86

111

[324]

[108]

84, 343, 409, [412-3] [414]

VIRTUOUS, Right Living of VISHNU, Hymn to

Letters and name of

Sustainer

Symbols of VISIBLE, Invisible and VISION Calls us

Eminence, from

8

[601] 568 102 651 510 529 99

THE LOTUS FIRE

PAGE

Enlightened of the 8

Eternal Self, of 529

Final, not 88

Imagination to 202

Individual 137

Point, of the 139-40

Powers, limited, of 151

Priest of [345]

Real, of the 80

Saviour is a 439

Symbols of eternal truth, of 115

Ultimates, of 155

VISUAL Faculty 477

VITALIZ(E) (ATION) 211.219

Yoga, by act of 135

VIVIFICATION 476,488

VOICE, God, of 84, 292, 508

God of Yoga, of 83

Life, of 213

Master, of 694-5

Silence, of the 60, 131

Soundless, the 145

Sound-light, of the 213

Truth, off 101

VOICELESS Silence 155

VOID (NESS), Fullness and 162

Mother and

VORTEX, Point is a 511 VOWEL (S), Soul of a word [368], [566]

VYASA, Religion of 673

w

WAGNER, Rhythm, expresses 484 WANDERER, Darkness and silence, from 154,

465 WANDERING(S) (see also Journey. Way)

Yogi's 107-8

WARNING 294

WARRIOR, Type, a 490

WASHINGTON. America, land of 64

WATCHER (S), Ego and Silent 173

Hierarchy of Silent 238

Hush and Silent 203

Monad and Silent 173

Silent

144, 173, 234, [237-9], [475]

Web and Silent 173

WATER(S), Air, fire and 290, 326

Lotus flower ascends through 112

Unmanifest, of an 131

Word of the 200

WAVES, Life-

[207-8,211-141,222

WAVICLES. Quanta and WAY (S), Beauty, of

Beginnings, and end of life Call to prepare evolutionary

Eternal throne, leads to

Line, of, the

Master and the Our

Svastika, of the

Threshold of the

Will and the WAY(S) OF HOLINESS Path, Wanderings),

Dynamic in treading the

Forthgoing

Growth and the

Hidden, the

Lotus Fire and

Man as a link between two

Moment of achievement and

Remembrance of divine

Return

Self, of the

Svastika, of the

Truth, the, the Life, the

Vivifying the

Yoga, of WEAKNESS (ES) Becomes strength

Brotherhood in

Facing our

Fire-strength of our

Force wrongly used, is

Fulfil your

Godhead of Yogi and

Need of

Offering our

Place of

Ray, of

Reflection of God's will

Self-centredness and

Strength to

Virtues, and

Wrong living, and

Yoga intensifies WEB (PROTECTIVE)

Cruelty breaks

Father-Mother spin a

Life-, Buddhic

Lines, of WEB-WOMB (see also No-Web). Altar

Atom, in

Aum and

PAGE 549 91 102 276 95 171 693 171 526 98 98

(see also Journey, Ascent of 139.286 555

185, 286-197 72

235. 307 286< 506 526

185.219,286. 522 521 552 79 521 108 413 85 414 110

84. 409 109 111 107

109, 409 333 86 413

409, 414 343, 409, 412-3 106 52 239 96-

172, 429. 492 172. 643 172 245 646 [3711

765

Birth and •Breathes Cellular life and Chemistry, in Chit and Circle, and Consciousness, and Cradle

Creation, and Creative Cross, and Cycle

Drums, and Duality, and

PAGE 493 152

638, 643

[646]

205

195, 265 183 376

174, 212, 303, 570 552 266 480 380 303

Emotion and thought ideas, akin to 279

Ether and 646

Father-Mother spin a 172, 429. 492

Form-building activity of 212

Form of the 278

Forthgoing and [180, 212, 250, 261, 355 Glory, reflection of 506

Infinitude and curvature of 280

Initiation and 465

Life-side 267

line, and 177, 180, 184, 251, 276-7, 355,

396, 479

Logoic unfoldment and 214

lord of the 488, 491

lotus 229, 231

Man, and 428

Man-womanhood and 185

Miracle matrix, and 176, 181

Mother-spirit, and 328, 355, 493, 526

Navel chakra, and 429

Nebula- 251

Physics, in 646

Plant life, in 643, 644

Point, and 173, 212, 237-8, 251, 262. 357 Preparation and 476

Reflection of infinite 276

Second Logos, and 212

Space and the 450

Svastika fulfils 214

Virgin matrix and 651

Vortex and 511

World Mother and 493

Zodiac and [674-5], 677, 679-81

WELL-BEING, Svastika, of 324

WESAK, Buddha, Lord, and the ceremony

of the 160

WEST (ERN), Diameter from east to 282

Geographical east and 577

Languages Marriages of the Meaning of

Medicine and, psychology WHEEL (S). Evolution, of

PAGE

367

91

[577]

110

179,450.455

Law, of 225, 268, 322, 429, [636]

WHITE (NESS) (see also Lightning-)

Consummation of all colours 358

Heaven, of 261

Perfect, of Lotus 508

WHOLE 111,361

Microcosmic and macrocosmic 552 Part and 7, [150], 342, 361, 535

Transcendent more and 525

WIFE, Woman and mother 90

WILL, All-One, of the [205]

Atma and [190]

Colour of 263 Consciousness and 115, 286, 303

Determination of the 286, 424

Eyes of the 506

First Ray and 333

Form and inner 226

-Forms [205]

God, of 84, 506

Incarnate and the Line 324

Kingdom of the 99 Life and 116,269,553,555

Life on monadic plane 117, 190

Line and 263

Perfect 307

Planes of consciousness and 190

Point, of the 324

Purpose and 260

Ray of 474

Self-expression of the 553

Spear, symbol of spiritual 583

Subdues circumstances 85

Substance and substans, is 554

Time favourable for 321

Truth and movement 259

Virtue, and [414]

Way and the 98

-Wisdom Ray 333 Yoga and 157,246,1286-71,303

WINGED VICTORY 159,416

WINGS, Divine Discontent, of 453-8

Motherhood, of 502

Petal 230-2

WIRE, Live 286

WISDOM Aspect and words 367

Chit [205]

THE LOTUS FIRE

PAGE

Conditions for instruction in Divine [624] Divine, science of 528

Elephant, of 325

Forthgoing, and 205

Knowledge and [554-5]

Lord of 687

Maturity to, from 470

Messenger of 345, 687

Music and 234

Perfect 397

Physical plane and 246

Power from understanding and 526

Ray of intuitional 333

Sources of 8

Temple of Divine 96, 105

Theosophy the Divine 529

Woman and 185

Yoga and 321

WISE (R), Experiences of the 8

Reverence for those 532

WITHDRAWAL (see also Experience, Gather-

ing-in) [81-3]

Nature, of 157

No 79,317

Planes of consciousness from 79, 82, 89,

109, [111], 317

Service and 462

World, from 109

WITHIN, Point, us 140

World, you 158

WITHOUT, Point, us 140

WITNESS. Above all [228]

Candidate, for 691-2

Cross, of the 526

WOMAN (see also Female, Feminine,

Man-Woman, Mother)

Contraceptives and 191

immolated to man 412

Incomplete without man 511

Man-woman and 185

-Motif 188

Wife and mother, and 90

WOMAN-MAN (see also Man-Woman,

Father-Mother, Male-Female) Godhead and [619]

WORD(S) (see also Logos. Creator). Abstract

equivalents to 564

Activity aspect of 367

Awakening 154

Beginning and the 148, 154. 346, 551

End and the 154

ideas and 134,272,518

Kingdoms of nature and Limitations, are Line and the Logos, of Man becomes a Men or monads and My own projected One, are within the Power, of

Sacred, opens the door Silence, darkness and the Sound, colour, form and Student uses symbol through Symbols and symbol-Thought and, power Ultimate creative Unspoken

Vowels, life-element of Wisdom aspect of

PAGE

200, 481

537

179, 198, 216-

172

130-1

199

199

152

[6941

424

200-

346, 366 369 134 366 198-9 164 368 367

WORLD (S), Activity in inner and outer

432 103 338-9

Adjustment, and, law of Archetypes and outer Artists and the outer Burden of

Danger of knowledge, and Discovery of inner Division, needs Future of

339 695 554 92 147 695

Help me, the [425], 468, [523];

Incarnation and adjustment to outer 279

Invocation to the [525-6}

Isolation and the [4861

Joys and hells of 468

Laws of nature and 114

Lotus is 227

Magnetic forces and 545-6

Master and the 694, 696

Mother and birth 493, 621-2

Music and 377

New, call and 524

Noises of external 92,144-

Progress through 695

Rate of vibration and physical 247

Regenerator pf the 102

Situation and the drums [380-31

Within, the 99, 158

Yoga in the 3Q&

Yoga, of 309

You and your [216], [318]. 432

WORSHIP (see also Altar. Reverence). Art,

and 345

THE LOTUS FIRE

PAGE

PAGF

Individual 53. [75-8], 134, 284, 310, 318-9,

349-50, 415, 430, 449, 504-9, 514 Individuality, of 537

Individualized 86, 199, 255

Infinitudes, of [271-83], [659-64]

Inner worlds, in 247

Kingdoms of nature and 93, [325], [499-502]

Kingly 61

Kingship, of 309

Knowing 95

Krishna, Shrl, and 350

L

Law and 500

Leadbeater, C. W., on 654

Liberation, of (309]

Offerings and 170

One 77

Operations, effect of, and 50

Originality and [59-60]

Own, your 53, [60], 99, 170, [499], 502

Path and Book of Dzyan, the

104

Pathways Patience and Personal advantage Philosophies, of Physical plane Place, in any Planes of Play, of Point-event and

415, 417, 499-500

[426]

51-2

351

113

308, 317

352

[658-9]

141

THE LOTUS FIRE

Yogi and 277. 309, 311-2, 314, 329, 332,

[417, 498-9], 515, 519, 523-4 Yugasand [67-71]

YOGI(C) Activity, creative, of 191, 411

Activity, hourly, of 423

Age-old 95

Yoga and 277, 309, 311-2, 314, 329,

332, [417], [498-9], 515, 519, 523-4 YOU, Art, true, and 338

Experience and 179

Father-mother, are 176

God, are a 189

Incarnation and 176

Logos, Third aspect of. and [219]

Point is [156]

Radiance and 156, 555

771

Self and

World, your, and YOUTH, Fruits of

House of

Man. of

Maturity, to

Spirit of. and age

Svastika and YUGA (see also Age]

Dvapara

Kali 61.63.67-9.71.

Kali, self-consciousness and

Knta or Satya

PAGE

68

607

67-9

67-71

674 348 178

[664-85]

323

440-1

438-42

INDEX: AUTHORS AND WORKS QUOTED OR REFERRED TO

PAGE

PAGE

Abt Vogler

Addison

Ac/venture of Night, Jhe

Alabaster, Henry

" Allah. To"

Anatomy, Grays'

Ancient Wisdom, The

Angelo, Michael

Appearance and Reality

Art Forms in Nature

Arundale. G. S. 72, 89, 98,101.139,189, 220, 245, 284, 292, 329, 333, 373, 435, 468,

472, 474, 496, 504, 526, 619-22 " Aton, Hymn to " 597-600

Atreya, B. L. 75

At the Feet of the Master 465, 533

Augustine, St. 301

"Autumn" 154

Avalon, Arthur 610-11, 656

B

Bacon, Francis 477

Beginnings of the Sixth Root Race, The 363

Besant, Annie, 40, 56, 57, 62. 72, 93,

96, 112, 115, 129. 130, 162, 165, 172,

176, 177,180,204, 211, 214, 216, 218,

242, 243, 307, 371, 443, 447, 455,461,

475, 498, 502-4, 516, 542, 548, 569-71,

577-8, 584-5, 590-2, 602, 616-7, 627,

630-2, 638, 643, 651, 654, 664-72, 698 Bhagavad-Gita. The 28, 79, 94, 115. 146,

150.223,291,420,502,654 Bhagavan Das 307

597-600

Revelations, Book of 460

Wisdom of Solomon 6, 176

Zechariah 177

Birth of New India. Jhe 96

Blake, William 165, 202, 319. 516, 534

Blavatsky, H. P. 12, 23-40. 61, 69, 95, 97, 105, 107, 129, 141-4, 147, 149, 163, 166, 171-2, 184, 186, 188, 194-5,200, 204, 218, 224, 228, 240-3. 271-2,306, 334,417, 449. 461, 474-6, 523, 530, 543, 567, 571-2, 574, 576-7, 585, 588, 607-10, 613-16, 617-18, 623-30, 643,

651-4,656,669,671,678-80 Blossfeld 325

Boole of the Dead 534

Book of the Golden Precepts 567

Bradley 302

Bragdon, Claude 184. 335

Breasted, J. H. 597-600

Britain's Place in the Great Plan 571

Brooke, Rupert 164, 534-5

Browning, Robert or E. B. 189, 373, 379

77.3

fiuddha, Lord (see The Light of Asia)

Buddhism

Budge, E. A. Wallis

Bui/ding of the Kosmos, The

PAGE 469 636 534 242

" Call of the Arhat, The " 468, 687-90

Carus, Paul 636

Chafcras, The 49, 117, 214, 222, 427-30

Chatter]i, Jagadish Chandra 658

Chattopodhyaya, Harindranath

Chicago Lectures of 1907

Chinese Music

Christian Creed, The

Cicero

Colebrooke, H. T. •

College Physics

Confessions

Coomaraswamy, A. K., Cousins, J. H. Cultural Heritage of India, The

Dance of Shiva, The

Design in Nature

Dharma

, Divine Pymander, The

Doctrine of the Heart, The

487 62 624

161, 180,211,214 438 447 575-6 301 103 487 301,322

103

325

502

595-6

60

Diyan, The Book of 13, 23-40, 70, 76. 104, 141, 145, 147, 165, 172, 179, 194, 200, 228, 240. 249, 272, 448-9, 510, 566, 653

Eddington, Sir Arthur 47, 141, 182, 198, 520 .Egyptian-Book of the Dead, The 534

Egyptian Myth and Legend 601

•Einstein, Albert 77, 182-3, 438-9, 444, 446 Eliot, George 353

Empedokles 453,476

Epstein, Jacob 340

-Esoteric Christianity 475

Eternal Poles, The 184

Ether and Reality 646-8

Ethics of the Dust, The 329-33Q

'Euclid 206. 208, 446, 572, 584

Evans-Wentz, W. Y. 111, 379, 636-7, 652,

655, 657-8 Evolution of Life and Form, The 216, 447

Faustus

Fechner, G.H.

First Principles of Theosophy

fivefold Footstool

Flammarion and Gore

Franciscan Chronicles

" Francis 1 Song of Praise, St,"

PAGE

366

198

455

610-11

634-5

594

594

Garuda Purana 353-4, 601-2. 604-7

"Gayatri" 579

Glimpses of Masonic History 206, 475, 619

Gods in the Becoming, Goethe, J. W. von "Golden Stairs, The" Gospel of Buddha, The Grant, Joan Gray

Grimley, Horatio Guardian Wall of Will, A

H

245, 333, 619-21

48,81, 132,292,366

95

636

610

638-43

594

435, 526

Herakleitos 443

Hermes 234,595

Hidden Life in Freemasonry, The, 208, 222,

243, 475, 574, 586, 633-4, 637 Hidden Side of Things, The 588, 624

Hints on the Study of the Bhagavad Git* 631-2

Hymns of Praise:

Hindu

of the Robe of Glory

to Amen-Ra

to Jupiter

to the Spirit of Nature Hiawatha History of Egypt, A

I

234, 593-602 601 463 314 609

227, 232 159 597-601

lamblichus 654-5

Ibn-i-Yamln 556

Ideals of Theosophy, The 461

Imitation of Christ, The 84 Inner Life, The 54, 612-3, 643

Introduction to the Science of Peace 371

/Production to Voga, An 654

Investigations into the Super-physical 57-9

Invisible Helpers 425

THE LOTUS FIRE

Jeans, Sir James Jinarljadasa, C. Jung, C. G.

Kabbala Kalidasa Kangka/a-Ma/ini 1 ' Karma JCarm a-/ess-ness Keely

Kempis, St. Thomas a

Key to Theosophy, The

K.H.

Kingsley, Charles

Kipling, Ru^dyard

Koran, The

Krishnamurti, J.

Kumara Sambhava

Kumarila

Kundalmi

Kunz, Fritz

PAGE

150. 443, 547

118.455,603

47, 110, 185.321

107 101 611 180 603 629 609 84

306, 632

245

377

431-2

633, 648 •465 101 469

98. 284. 292 199

PAGE

Man, Visible and Invisible 211

Man: Whence, How and Whither 363,

455, 574, 616-7

Marcault, E. 678

Martian, Anton Kerner von 644

Markham, Edwin 215

" Master Ascended, The " 139, 220, 474, 691 Masters and the Path. The 160, 334. 475,

571,585,630-1,636

Masters of the Wisdom, The 475

Mead, G.R.S. 148, 463

Hears, Isabella 659-64

Memong 440

Mertens-Stienon, Marguerite 678

Messages 487

Michael Angelo's " Moses " (statue) 159, 416 Mi/arepa 657

Milton, John 257

Minkowski 444

Modern English Poetry 487

Montessori, M. 477

Mount Everest 101

Muhammad, The Lord 633, 648

Myers, F.W.H. 159"

Mysteries, The 504

Mysterious Universe, The 443

Land and Sea Ta/es lor Scouts and Guides 431-2

Law of Sacrifice, The 631-2

Laws of the Higher Life, The 632

Leadbeater, C. W. 40, 49, 54. 58, 98, 105.

117, 160-2, 165. 180, 206, 208, 211. 214,

222, 243, 252, 334, 363, 370. 425.

427-30, 455, 475, 491,498,571.572-4,

580-3, 585-90. 602-4, 612-3, 619, 624.

630-4. 636-7. 643, 654

Leibniz 305

Life Magnificent, The 329

Light of Asia, The 145. 153, 223, 371, 418,

455, 460

Light on the Path 60, 145, 180

Lodge, Sir Oliver 646-8

Lohengrin 288

Longfellow. H. W. 159

Long. Wm. J. 650

M

N

Mackenzie, Donald Mahatma Letters. The Manu

600

100, 245 8

Natural History of Plants, The Neo-P/atonism and Alchemy New Pathways in Science Newton, Sir I. Nietzsche, Friedrich Nirvana " Nurses " Nyanatiloka

Occult Catechism Occult Chemistry Olcott, H. S. Oliver. F. W. Orpheus

Padukapanchaka Parsifal

Patan/a/i's Sutras Pedigree of Man, The

644 628 47

183, 527 48, 104

101.472,504.621-2 430-1 51

271

165, 632. 645

356. 461

644

148

610-11

583

655

455, 664-72

775

PAGE

Persian Inscription 208

Pettigrew, J. Bell 325

Pherecydes 609

Philalethes, Eugenius 168, 629-30

Pilgrimage of the Soul, The 565, 570

Pliny 609

Poemandres (Pymander) 595-6

Poem of Ecstasy 103

Popular Astronomy 634-5

Practical Occultism 624-7

Pranava-Vada 307 638.651

Prasnottara 569

Principles of Nature and Grace 305

Principles of Physics 624

Protect/on of Animals, Jhe 590-2

Puran Singh 156

Purashcharana-rasollasa 611

Pythagoras 206, 356, 584, 609

Radhakrishnan, S.

& /ease

Revolution in Physics, Ihe

Rice, Prof.

Rig Veda

Rukmini Devi

Ruskm, John

301 118 644 624 447 335 326-7,329-31,333

Saint Francis and His Friends 594

Saint Paul 159

Saundarya-Lahari 370

School of the Woods 649-50

Schubert 288

Science of the Sacraments, The 105, 252,

334, 475. 491, 572-3. 586-8, 603-4,619.

638, 645

Scriabine 103

Secret Doctrine, The:

Purpose of 530

Quoted or referred to: 13, 23-40, 60.

69. 107. 129, 141-2, 144, 147. 149,

163, 166. 171-2. 184. 186, 188. 194.

195. 200, 204, 218. 224, 228, 240-3.

271-2, 334.449.474-6.530. 543, 571-2,

574, 576-7, 585. 588. 607-10, 613-6.

617-8, 623-4, 627-30, 643. 651-4, 656.

671,678-80 Secret of the Gotten Flower, Jhe 47, 110. 321

PAGE

Serpent Power, The 610-11

Shakespeare, William 248, 477

Shelley. P. B. 227, 232

Shrines of Adyar, The 637

Silliman, Prof. B. 624

Smythe, F. S. 623, 650-1

Some American Lectures 176

Song Celestial, Jhe 308

" Song of Hermes, A " 595

1 ' Song of Praise to the £on, The'' 595

Source of Measure, The 171

Space, Time and Gravitation 141, 182

Spencer, Herbert 668

Spirit of the Hi//s 623, 650-1

Spiritual Life for the Man of the World 585, 632 " Splendour of Aton, The " 597-600

Stanley, Dean 470

Studies in Symbolism 678

Study in Consciousness, A 112, 122, 177, 180, 204, 211, 214, 218, 243, 542, 548,

577-8, 616, 627, 643 Subba Rao, T. 66472

Tagore, Rabindranath 322

Talks on the Path of Occultism 40, 475, 571,

602-3, 619, 633 Tantra of the Great Liberation 656

Jantravarttika Jao Teh King " Te Deum Laudamus " Tennyson, Lord Alfred Terrestrial Magnetism Theory of Ob/ects Thompson, Thorwaldsen's "Christ"

469 659-64

234. 424, 593 557 577 440

154, 481 159, 416

Thought-Power: Its Control and Culture 130, 443

Three Paths, The Through Space and Time Thus Spake Zarathustra Tibetan Book of the Dead Tibetan Yoga Tourgu6niev, I True Path, The Tyndall, John

U

Understanding is Happiness Unfinished Symphony Upanishads, The

93 150 104

111,578,655

379. 652, 657-8

329

658-9

639

189

288

273. 379, 415

THE LOTUS FIRE

PAGE

Vaughan, Thomas 629-30

Vedas,,The 115,447

Venetian, The 180

V/shnupuranam 67, 607

Voice of the S//ence, The 60, 61, 97, 143,

149, 523, 567. 623

W

Wagner, Richard 78, 288, 583

''Wakeful Dreamer" 557

What the Mystic Means by the Eternal Now 56 Wheel of the Law, The 636

Whitman, Walt 145, 323, 409

Wilcox, Ella Wheeler 409

Winged Pharoah " Winged Victory " (sculpture) Word of the Buddha, The Wordsworth, William Works of Thomas Vaughan World as / See It. The

Yamala

Yoga Darshana

Yoga in Sound (music)

Yoga Vasishtha

You

Wilder, Alex.

628 Zohar. The

PAGE 610

159, 416 51

,385

69-302

444

611

655

373

658-9

89

138, 627