The growth of the soul; a sequel to "Esoteric Buddhism"

Front matter

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Preface To The First Edition

The gulf which lies between the thinking of the ordinary world in reference to matters having to do with the destinies of the human soul, and the position occupied by those students of the school with which I am specially concerned, is widening, year by year. " Current teaching," as Mr. Balfour has called it, stands still ; knowledge concerning the conditions of existence in ultra-physical realms of Nature has expanded enormously for those who have sought it the right way during the last fifteen years, and is expanding with ever-increasing rapidity. With the first gush of Theosophic teaching we were told that knowledge concerning matters generally thought to be unknowable had not only been reached by a few philosophers holding themselves, for reasons of their own, aloof from contact with the world at large, but was acquirable also in the long run by all who took certain prescribed methods for its acquisition — much more rapidly if appropriate qualifications were possessed at the outset. This idea has not lain unfruitful in the minds of those who were the first to appreciate the significance of the Theosophical opening. Many are those who have entered, as the phrase goes, on the path of Theosophical progress ; several have already advanced sufficiently to be themselves in a position to investigate mysteries hitherto

VI. PREFACE.

regarded as lying beyond incarnate human ken. Much, therefore, that in earlier Theosophical books could only be treated as ex cathedra statement — forcibly appealing, perhaps, to reason, but not otherwise susceptible of verification — has come within range of personal observation for several students amongst ourselves. The sources of the earlier teaching have not by any means run dry, but we are now in a position to get corroborative testimony concerning the outlines of this teaching, together with an immense amplitude of detailed information from persons who have thus advanced a part of the way on the journey towards genuine spiritual development. Views of Nature which he wholly beyond the range of ordinary perception have come within the domain of positive and experimental knowledge for those who have best profited by current opportunities.

There is something pathetic, for us who know better, in the altitude of mind of people who treat as matters of ribald incredulity the existence of faculties in daily use amongst some of us in connexion with the study, not merely of literary philosophy, but of special conditions of existence. That other world from which, in the old phrase, no traveller returns, has been found accessible to travellers who are going backwards and forwards constantly, and in saying this, I am leaving entirely out of account communications from the " next world " purporting to come from those who have passed over to it finally.

The explanations given in the present volume concerning the principles on which the growth of the soul proceeds, have been rendered possible by the continual

PREFACE. vii.

expansion in this way of the fundamental teaching put forward in " Esoteric Buddhism/' But nothing in this later presentation of the subject has been the fruit of mere intellectual speculation. Readers chiefly familiar with metaphysics in their non-theosophical aspect are used to regarding them as altogether speculative ; but, however slowly those outside the central nucleus of Theosophical activities may recognise the fact, the fact nevertheless is that metaphysical experiment and observation have now become possible for a good many people still in direct relations with ordinary humanity. The human body is not really the prison of consciousness it was once supposed to be ; other senses may be developed besides the five faculties of physical perception, and the result is that a great deal may be known concerning aspects of Nature which the familiar five faculties are quite unable to deal with.

The information so attained is essentially necessary to a comprehension of the natural possibilities lying before man in connexion with that growth of his soul to which this volume relates. To introduce the subject and show it susceptible even of definite treatment, it will be necessary to build a bridge across the widening gulf of which I have spoken, so that, at all events, whoever endeavours to apprehend what I have to say may have before his mind, even if only in the form of a hypothesis, the knowledge concerning ultra-physical nature which has been accumulated by Theosophical students within the last few years. That which we have to recognise as actually going on in connexion with the progress of the human race is a process of growth

Vlll. PREFACE.

as regards individual souls not less protracted and elaborate than that evolutionary work going on pari passu on the physical plane of life and developing the simplest organic cells into the complicated bodies of the higher animals. The fundamental blunder concerning the inner nature of man which has saddled itself upon many religious systems (as true as they are beautiful in their spiritual essence) is the notion which represents the human soul as going through two simple phases — the physical existence of which we are cognisant on this earth, and the uniform unchangeable destiny of sorrow or joy that ensues hereafter as the consequence either of the brief physical life, according to one view, or of a pre-appointed destiny according to another. That which we get at, since we have begun to understand the actual working of Nature, is a scheme in which we see vast amplitudes of time laid out before consciousness as the field of its individuaHsation, and stupendous possibilities of growth and development, extending as far beyond the heights which human civilisation has yet reached as this has reared itself above the earliest humanity of which geology bears trace.

Occult teaching casts a light to almost immeasurable distances along this path of progress, recognising the continued individuality of every human being as extending through an infinite multiplicity of changes and varied states, the whole process moving in great cycles in which were turn ever and anon to the physical plane of existence, and gather from each great sweep of the spiral evolution something which is contributed

PREFACE. IX,

to the truly permanent entity constituting the individual soul. That is the one unchangeable centre of identity throughout the whole process. The expansion of its consciousness, faculties, and moral grandeur is the subject I have before me for elucidation, so far as the resources of our present knowledge extend. And their extent is already so vast — even though the horizon of the unknown lies ever in a widening circle beyond — that it is not possible even to- describe the manner in which this growth is accomplished without paving the way for the main idea that has to be developed by a multiplicity of subordinate explanations. In this way it has been necessary to wander sometimes in the progress of this work into many fields of occult inquiry, which at the first glance may have seemed out of touch with the main object in view ; but such collateral surveys have not merely been necessary in themselves, but have been calculated to show that an inquiry into the nature of the soul's growth is really one of even more dazzling magnitude than the simple words would at first suggest.

Preface To The Second Edition

Just as I had to explain, in the preface to the first edition of this book, that Theosophic research and teaching had greatly expanded the knowledge embodied in " Esoteric Buddhism " of which it was the sequel, so I have now to account for the enlargement of this edition by reference to the expanded development of our information since " The Growth of the Soul " was originally published in 1896. I find scarcely anything to alter or correct, but in reference to the constitution of the Earth, the life of the Astral Plane, and the relationship of the animal with the human kingdom, later acquisitions of knowledge have rendered it desirable to include in the new volume a good deal of additional detail that was not ripe for exposition nine years ago.

CHAPTER I. PAGE Introductory i

The progress of Theosophic knowledge — Superphysical research — Expansion of Theosophic literature — Its bearing on the problems of life — Advanced evolution in some cases to be expected — Nature of effective testimony on occult matters — The volume of evidence now available — Witnesses to the truth amongst us — Earlier evidence now enlarged — The divinity latent in man — Its development as evolution proceeds.

CHAPTER II. Occui/r Science and Reucion 34

Theosophy in harmony with essential religious ideas — The uncertainties of modern thought in spite of religious teaching — The exactitudes of Theosophic interpretation— The methods of research in spiritual science — True meanings of misunderstood dogmas.

Chapter III

The root idea of evolution — The nature of the proof offered — The only theory that suits the facts — The true doctrine cleared of misrepresentation — The law of Karma — Heredity and assimilation — Necessary exhaustion of ordinary memory — Logical certainties of preexistence — Inequalities of life accounted for — No " accidents of birth " — The world-wide acceptance of the doctrine — Buddhist teaching on the subject — Absurd misunderstanding thereof by many Western writers — Some Buddhist symbolism explained — Reincarnation recognised in Christianity — References to it in the Gospels — The certain knowledge concerning Re-incarnation of the occult disciple.

XII. CONTENTS.

Chapter IV. Fagb

Crudity of conventional ideas concerning the soul — The spiritual part of the superphysical man — Gradual involvement of the spiritual soul in a child — The growth of the Higher Self the purpose of life—The working of the Higher Self in waking consciousness — Its identity through successive incarnations — Its disregard of minor experiences — The scope of its evolution — Perverted version of the teaching — Higher consciousness embraces lower — The rewards of Lower Self merit — Relations of Higher and Lower Self.

^ CHAPTER V.

Free Will and Karma 123

The theories of Necessity and Free Will — Cleared up by Re-incarnation and Karma — The pressure of Karma on action — Concurrent freedom of thought — Bearing of this on the Karma of the act — Thought forces in connection with good acts — Dangers of a half comprehension of the law — Progress of emancipation from Necessity — Complications of inter-blended Karma — Readjustments — The Lords of Karma — Distribution of consciousness — The predestination idea.

Chapter VI

The different vehicles of consciousness — Enumeration of the principles — Etheric matter — Jiva free and specialised — The true astral body — Reflection of con- , sciousness in the higher vehicles — The true individual Man — The Karana Sharira — The Aura — Its various elements — The magnetic shell — Colouring of the Aura.

Chapter VII

The superphysical not necessarily spiritual — European and Sanscrit terms — Different aspects of the astral plane— The newly " dead " — Astral matter — Visibility of thoughts — Astral plane inhabitants — Their

CONTENTS. XU1.

PAGE

control— The sub-divisions of the astral plane — As viewed after death — The matter of the sub-planes — The corresponding condition of the fourth principle — Consciousness on the sub-planes — Illustrative experiences on the astral plane.

CHAPTER VIII. The EivEmentai.s 196

Mediaeval terms — Physical forces in their elemental aspect — Elemental forces subject to will — Beginnings of elemental evolution — The three kingdoms of elemental— Cross classifications — Elemental forms — Elementals of good and evil efficiency.

CHAPTER IX. The Spiritual Plane m 215

Conceptions of Heaven — Infinite resources of spiritual planes — Responsive to soul growth — The self-centred Heaven of undeveloped souls — Necessity for the subjective vision — The response of Devachan to thirst for knowledge — The limitations of this world's Heaven — Progress in Heaven — Its loftiest aspect — Religious expectations ; their subjective realisation — Spiritual consciousness during earth life — The resources of Devachan for the initiate — The forces of the different planes — The work to be done on the spiritual plane — Influencing disincarnate souls — The sub-planes of Devachan — What Devachan " looks like " — Light and colour — The Arupa planes.

Chapter X

Planetary chains, rounds, and Manvantaras — Venus and Mercury ; confusion of names — Prospects of the second half of the Manvantara — Other schemes in the solar system besides ours — The system as a whole — The nebular theory confirmed — The Qrigin of our nebula — Condensation of atomic ether — The interior constitution of the earth — The various schemes — Planetary reconstructions — Influence of schemes on one another—

XIV. CONTENTS.

PAGE

The last Manvantara of our scheme — The various classes of Pitris — Corresponding divisions of our own humanity — Other evolutions connected with the solar system — The Deva evolution.

Chapter XI

Outstripping normal evolution — The necessity that some should do this — The magnitude of the achievement— The possibilities of selfish advancement — The range of the path of service — Its earliest disciples — The impulse of fifth race improvement — The motives for an upward struggle — Ordinary human suffering and Adept sympathy — The Divine government of the world and its ministers..

Chapter XII

Egyptian and Greek initiations — Current authorities on the subject — The evident reality of their purpose — The explanation of secrecy — Further motives for reserve in the Middle Ages.

Chapter XIII

The Alchemical disguise — The spiritual purpose of Alchemy — The motives with which the real Alchemists wrote — Their sordid imitators — The real Alchemists aspirants for Adeptship — The powers they incidentally acquired — Their chemical symbology — Its Hermetic origin — Illustrations from Alchemical writers.

Chapter XIV

The avenues of initiation still open — Visible temples not necessary — Old secrecy broken down — Motives for a more open policy — Dangers of progress in knowledge _ unaccompanied by spiritual growth — Those who are ready — Understanding required as well as moral fitness —Mental powers and psychic gifts — The conservation

CONTENTS. XV.

PAGE

of energy on the moral plane — Normal and abnormal Re-incarnation — Immediate Re-incarnation — Its sacrifices and advantages.

Chapter XV

The door open to all who knock — Self -preparation ; the appeal required — The attributes and qualifications to be developed — The greater initiations.

Chapter XVI

Natural born faculties — Mediumship— Psychic faculties unaccompanied by spiritual development — Their dangers — A blessing or a curse — Legitimately earned psychic faculty — The spiritualistic development — Its real promoters.

Chapter XVII

The genesis and destinies of individuality — The immensity of the task involved in its evolution — The preparation of monadic essence — Animal instinct — The focalisation of consciousness — The touch with Atma-Buddhi — The spiritual purpose of the whole system — The " Sacrifice " of the Logos.

THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL.

Chapter I. Introductory

Theosophic teaching has expanded during the last twelve years till it now constitutes a vast coherent statement concerning human evolution, the conditions of existence that await humanity on supra physical planes of nature, and the methods by which it is possible to acquire faculties, knowledge, and opportunities of usefulness far exceeding those in possession of ordinary humanity at the present day. It presents itself as the most widely reaching system of philosophy with which the progress of thought has yet put us in contact.

Treated as a hypothesis it would claim attention by offering a reasonable explanation of many phenomena of life constituting painfully insoluble enigmas on any other theory ; including an elucidation of the way in which it is built up on positive knowledge concerning the conditions under which human consciousness may function out of and independently of the body, it surely makes a startling appeal to advanced intelligence. No man of science worthy

B i of the name would exalt the pursuits in which he may be engaged to a level of importance comparable with that of spiritual research, provided he acknowledged that there were any means of really making sure of discoveries along that road. Unhappily most patient questioners of Nature in the Western world are persuaded that definite answers are only to be obtained in reply to questions concerning the laws and properties of matter ; but if it were satisfactorily established that questions concerning the laws and properties of consciousness could be answered as explicitly, eager explorers of that untrodden realm — untrodden as they imagine it — would surely endeavour to equip themselves for the new research.

No doubt it is a very delicate research. Matter, and even the subtlest forces that pervade matter, are uniform and reliable in their activities ; once their secrets are wrung from them, the same answer will be given to the same question however often it may be put. The truth may be difficult to attain, but once attained its disguise can never again be assumed. Till recently, on the other hand — and some persons will still think the qualification unnecessary — there has been nothing indisputably established about the laws and properties of consciousness, considered as something apart from its physical vehicle. Metaphysics, in so far as vague speculation bearing that title has been cast in a scientific mould, has dealt with thought itself as an object of contemplation rather than with the thinking consciousness as an entity. We have no body of manageable facts or phenomena to deal with as a foundation on which to build any certain conclusions in reference to extra-corporeal consciousness, or rather, those of us who have had such facts at our disposal have been unable to hand them out to the world at large for examination. A new chemical compound, however unstable or difficult to handle, is at all events on equal terms with every experimentalist. An abnormal human being, with spiritual faculties adapted to function independently of the bodily organism, is a human being, with rights as such, and generally with an extreme susceptibility to suffering. He or she may render priceless service to individuals by introducing them to laws of Nature concerning consciousness apart from the body, but cannot be used to break down the rocky barriers of incredulity in the world at large, any more than a violin could be used as a spade to dig up a clay soil. The best that can be done with the help of such persons towards educating the world at large is done when their capacities and testimony are reported upon by careful observers.

Nine people out of ten, or a larger proportion of larger numbers, habitually reject the second-hand evidence thus provided, but at the same time a small minority shows a better sagacity, and minorities gradually accumulate. In this way, by degrees, a body of enlightened opinion is formed, and so it comes to pass that people who are quite untouched by the growing belief that there is an unseen world around us, with which human consciousness is in some sort of relationship independently of the senses, are already left in the rear of anything that deserves to be called advanced thought. Of course, there is a long interval between the recognition of the broad idea just described and the appreciation of theosophic teaching as the scientific outcome of knowledge concerning the laws which regulate the expansion, growth, and the progress of consciousness out of the body. But at all events, if there is an unseen world, in addition to that visible to eyesight, it is a part of Nature, and will be credited as such by every scientific mind, with being under the reign of law. There must be a science of unseen, unfelt phenomena lurking in the possibilities of the future, if there are such phenomena in existence. If for no better reason, theosophical writers might expect, therefore, to be commended for their attempt to arrange, with order and scientific method, the chaotic evidences relating to the unseen world which pour in upon us from so many quarters. vSupposing their interpretation of Nature in her higher aspects were merely hypothetical, by what other process has any science been perfected ? Incoherent facts, accumulated in the beginning at random, are pored over and studied, till hypotheses are framed in the attempt to reconcile and correlate them. The hypotheses are open to revision later on, if new experience challenges their applicability. The situation as regards theosophical teaching is not as though this represented a hypothesis in rivalry with others. It is the only comprehensive theory of superphysical Nature that has yet been presented to the world in a shape which can be regarded as scientific in its range and character. Supported as it is at every turn by superphysical facts available for examination, it embraces an interpretation of the laws and conditions which regulate the growth of the Human Soul, the neglect of which by any thoughtful persons who rise above the contemplation of purely material objects, is so unreasonable as to be almost absurd.

What other knowledge can compare with that which enables us to form a right appreciation of the spiritual potentialities bearing on the permanent and imperishable elements of our own being ? The future, looking beyond the limits of physical life, is moulded, according to theosophical teaching, in accordance with the causes brought into activity during the physical life ; and though occult science is the last spiritual system in the world to suggest that finite blunders or neglect have infinite consequences, it is, nevertheless, profoundly earnest in assuring us that no great results in the future, either for evil or good, are possible without being provided for by adequate causation. Our will, our intelligently directed effort, need not be called into play to assist Nature in the regular development of her general design ; but as regards the destinies of each individual, he himself must make choice with his eyes open in reference to the part he elects to play in the loftier regions, so to speak, of that general design, and the very first step he must take in that direction, if he is ever to move on at all, is the step involved in the effort to comprehend. He cannot afford to drift on for ever, or for very much longer, paying attention only to material things. His eyes can only be opened to the character of the loftier regions referred to by virtue, in the first instance, of knowledge gained concerning the superphysical realms, spheres, or planes of Nature.

Esoteric teaching exhibits the fundamental truth of things in regard to these mighty departments of consciousness, as those know full well who, first taking the trouble to understand the esoteric statement, proceed then, with whatever means may be within their reach, to check and verify it. But this is just what the intellectual world of our time, at large, has not yet attempted. Only a few, relatively, of its leading thinkers are even proclaiming the importance of psychic investigation. Still fewer have had the quick discernment to perceive that the esoteric teaching offered by theosophical literature reaches far ahead of such immature discoveries as unaided psychic investigation has yet brought out. Though embracing and- interpreting these, it also embraces and interprets the most perplexing riddles of human existence, and the most embarrassing traditions of religious faith.

The " few," indeed, are pretty numerous, if we look at them apart from the rest. After all, the theosophical movement has struck its roots into almost every country all over the civilised world. Its literature has been translated into nearly every civilised language, and all over Europe and America we find considerable groups of people, including men of the highest culture, devotedly attached to theosophic study, ardently convinced that it opens out a pathway of research leading to positive knowledge concerning the spiritual future of mankind. But this fact only renders it the more unreasonable and deplorable that such groups should

INTRODUCTORY. J

even collectively remain a mere handful, compared with the hosts of the educated world at large.

However, whether fully or only partially comprehended, the teaching that has been offered to the world through theosophic agency does nothing less than offer a revelation from the spiritual plane of consciousness and knowledge, and one which must, in accordance with the infallible pressure of necessity in the future, be recognised as such, however many or however few may be those who in the present invest themselves with the great advantage of recognising it among the earliest.

The guidance under which I began to write on these subjects in the year 1880 has never been inactive in my life from that time till now, and the information on the basis of which " Esoteric Buddhism " was written has been expanded and deepened in a great variety of ways, one consequence of which is that I am now enabled to put forward the great and manifold additions to #ie earlier teaching which the present volume contains. And in the interval a flood of theosophical writing has emanated from other exponents of the spiritual science under elucidation. Some of these writings appear to be exactly parallel with the guidance I have received ; in some cases subtle ideas are differently expressed ; in others, again, there may be apparent discrepancies between the interpretations I have given and those which others have constructed. Such variations of conception, however, in regard to the meaning of occult teaching as bearing on remote problems of cosmology and on departments of natural science beyond the range of physical exactitude, are of no consequence in reference to the general value of the theosophic revelation at large. Minor conflicts of opinion in respect to the mannner in which ideas of a very obscure order can best be translated into the language of incarnate thinking ought rather to be welcomed than otherwise as stimulating the activity of minds addressed to such undertakings. In its bearings on the possibilities of individual spiritual evolution there is no ambiguity in the teaching of Theosophy, no room for differences of interpretation among honest exponents of the one great doctrine.

And it is mainly with the purpose of setting forth these essential principles clearly by themselves, with all such amplifications of the previously existing explanations as the later information supplied to me enables me to furnish, that the present work has been undertaken. From a complete account of the laws governing human evolution as a whole, from the first manifestations of spirit on the material plane, to the culmination of the all but deified human individuality, any students sufficiently in earnest will be able to discern the methods and principles that regulate individual progress.

But theosophic literature is not merely designed for the service of those whose already awakened intuitions render them quickly appreciative of the lines on which spiritual progress may be achieved. It should aim quite as much at leavening religious and scientific thought at large with the great ideas on which the ultimate progress of the race depends. At some stage or other of his immortal career every human being who would not drop hopelessly into the rear of the advancing wave of evolution must make a beginning in the work of voluntarily uniting his own individuality with the forward movement. That beginning is only to be made by attaining a broad comprehension of the enterprise before him. But a great deal of preparatory culture is possible for the human mind, even before spiritual enthusiasm becomes a clearly defined motive for intelligent action. The views of life and Nature which Theosophy unfolds are precisely adapted to subserve that culture, and thus the explanations with which this book is concerned are subject to no narrow limitations as regards those to whom they are addressed. There is no logical coherence in a scheme of things which regards the mankind round us as a worthy culmination of all the efforts Nature has made so far. Justice will never be fulfilled if the variegated panorama of existence, as passing now before our sight, is a point of departure from which each of us passes out, once for all, to be stereotyped for good or evil hereafter in some other spheres of unchanging beatitude or suffering. Vaguely it may be apprehended, there must be some unknown futurity in which moral cause and effect will still be operative with much finer exactitude than would be involved in a broad separation of all post mortem humanity into sheep and goats. With resolute striving after the realisation in life of whatever ideals of goodness may present themselves as best calculated to bring the soul into sympathetic relations with the Divine consciousness, many people may be, without knowing what they are about, entering on the path of the higher evolution ; and some students of the laws governing the higher life — knowing that it is easier to become intelligent than morally exalted — would prefer to see their fellow creatures animated by moral enthusiasm rather than by the thirst for spiritual knowledge as such. But none the less is it inevitably true that a beginning must be made sooner or later in the acquisition of the knowledge, and the response which Nature would make to the life of unsefish devotion to high ideals, unaccompanied by an intellectual appreciation of the reason why unselfishness and moral exaltation are conducive to great results hereafter, would be the gift at a future step of progress, of peculiarly favourable opportunities for acquiring the knowledge.