1. Wisdom of the Upanisahds Annie Besant Adyar Library

THE

WISDOM

OF

THE

UPANISHATS.

Four

Lectures

delivered

at

the

Thirty-first

Anniversary

Meeting

of

the

Theosophical

Society,

at

Adyar,

December,

BY

ANNIE

BESANT.

Theosophical

Publishing

Society.

BENAREs

and

LONDON.

Theosophist

Office,

Adyar.

Printed by Freeman & Co., Ltd.,

AT THE TARA PRINTING WORKS, BENAREs.

1

2111592

U!65v!

All Rights Reserved.

Registered under Act XXV of 1867.

G 3675

STATE CENTRAL LIBRARY, W.B.

60-A B T Road,

Calcutta-700 030.

22-1-87

CONTENTS.

Lecture I. Brahman is All

Page.

1

Lecture II. Īshvara

... 22

Lecture III. Jîvâtmâs

... 46

Lecture IV. The Wheel of Births

AND Deaths.

... 72

Printed by :-

Sri Basani Pallav Sen

M.A., Mahamahopadhyaya Lim.

Uncult ... 7013

NOT EXCHANGEABLE AND

NOT SALABLE.

FOREWORD

Little need be said in sending out this booklet to the world. It is an attempt, a very humble attempt, to draw a few drops from the ancient wells of Aryan wisdom, and to offer them to quench the thirst of weary souls, travelling through the desert, seeking for Truth. The Upanishats are unique in the sacred literature of the world. They stand alone as beacon-lights on mountain-peak, showing how high man may climb, how much of the Light of the Self may shine out through the vessel of clay, how truly God may speak through man. To speak on them, to write on them, seems presumption for such a one as myself, and yet it may be that help will come to some of my brethren even in this way.

The translations are my own, but will, I think, be found as accurate, though less wooden, than those known in the West. One word I have deliberately left untranslated—tapas. There is no one English word which expresses its meaning; the various translations given: austerity, penance, asceticism, devotion—all are in it, but it is more than all of these. It is from the root tap, burn. Heat

( ii )

is in it, burning force, all-consuming. The fire of

thought is in it, the fire which creates. The fire

of desire is in it, the fire which devours. It may

be defined as " a sustained strenuous physical ac-

tivity, sternly controlled and directed by the will

to a given end, and dominated by concentrated

thought". By tapas Brahmâ created worlds ; by

tapas Vishṇu won his lofty rank ; by tapas Mahâ-

deva became the Jagat Guru. By tapas every Ṛshi

won his superhuman powers, and forced boons

from the hands of even unwilling Devas. So I

have kept the word in its original form, and it will

gradually become part of the theosophical vocu-

bulary, as karma and dharma are already.

So let the little book go forth on its mission,

and win some to the study of its source.

ANNIE BESANT.

Benares, 1907.

STATE CENTRAL LIBRARY, W.B.

56-A B T Road,

Calcutta-700 050

'THE WISDOM'

OF THE

UPANISHATS.

First Lecture.

BRAHMAN IS ALL.

Brothers:

I cannot begin speaking to-day—the first Convention at which I have ever begun to deliver a lecture without our beloved President-Founder at my side—I cannot begin without sending to his sick-room a message of love, a message of reverent sympathy, to that most loyal, most faithful servant of the Blessed Masters, who for one-and-thirty-years has carried the banner of the Society unwaveringly, in spite of every difficulty, of every trouble, of friends who have betrayed, of enemies who have attacked, but who has never wavered, never faltered, never been shaken in his loyalty to Them. And so may They be with him,

2 THE WISDOM OF THE UPANISHATS

may They receive him, when he passes from us

into a fairer life.

Last year I spoke to you about the Bhagavadgītā,

the text-book of the Bhakta, the devotee, in the

world. This year I am going to strive to speak to

you about the essence of the Upaniṣhats, the text-

book of the Jñānī. These books, the most wondrous

part of the wondrous Veda, these books, which con-

tain the Vedānta, the end, the purpose of the Veda,

these are to be our study for some brief hours.

They tell us of Brahman—“God”—of the Universe,

of Man: the nature of God, the nature of the Uni-

verse, the nature of Man; and they treat of these

great fundamental truths in the most abstract, phi-

losophic, metaphysical sense. They only descend

into the concrete in order to give some illustration,

some simile, something to render more luminous

the exposition of thoughts that escape, that may

be lost, by their very subtlety, thoughts almost

too lofty for the mind of man to grasp. Herein,

in this small volume, so small in compass but

so vast in content, in this is given everything

that words can give of the very essence of the

Brahma-Vidyā, the Divine Wisdom, Theosophy.

I say, as much as words can give; for even

through the Upaniṣhats it is only possible to

give the Brahma-Vidyā in the form of intellectual

exposition. Nothing else may words do. The

BRAHMAN IS ALL

3

true Brahma-Vidyā, the knowledge of the Self, that is no matter for words, no matter for teaching. That cannot be given even by divinest Teacher to aptest pupil. It cannot, be communicated by mouth to ear, from mind to mind, nay, even from Self to Self. Other initiations may be given upon wisdom's splen-

did way, initiations well-nigh incredible in their beauty; but this supremest initiation into the knowledge of the Self must be taken by each Self for it-self, when it is ready to open out into the fulness of its own Divinity. None else may give it ; none else may impart it ; only Brahman within can know Brahman without. So that the last, the final, the most lofty initiation is Self-taken. None else may give it, nor may any withhold it.

And that Brahma-Vidyā, what is it? It is the central truth of the Upaniṣhats. It is the identity in nature of the Universal and the Particular Self ; Tat tvam asi, THAT thou art. Such is the final truth, such the goal of all wisdom, of all devotion, of all right activity: THAT thou art. Nothing less than that is the Wisdom of the Upaniṣhats ; nothing more than that—for more than that there is not. That is the last truth of all truths ; that the final experience of all experiences.

Not long ago, reading in a great English review,1 I came across an article called: "The Vital Value

1 Hibbert Journal. Oct. 1906. Loc. cit. By William Tully Seeser.

4

THE

WISDOM

OF

THE

UPANISHATS

in

the

Hindu

God-idea",

and

in

this

it

is

remarked,

and

remarked

quite

truly

:

"It

is

doubtful

if

in

any

other

country

than

India

so

large

a

proportion

of

the

reverently

high-minded

have

agreed—and

acted

accordingly—that

the

greatest

and

eventually

happiest

use

to

which

they

could

apply

themselves

was

the

assiduous

seeking

and

the

intrepid

finding

of

God,

all

else

in

life

being

accounted

as

subordinate

in

importance."

Now

the

writer

there

does

not

exaggerate.

That

is

the

central

thought

of

the

Hindu

mind,

and

the

result

of

that

is

very

remarkable.

For

because

of

this,

because

of

the

identity

in

nature

of

the

Universal

and

the

Particular

Self,

as

stated

in

that

Mahavakya

which

I

quoted:

Tat

tvam

asi,

THAT

thou

art,

the

knowledge

of

Brahman,

of

God,

is

possible

for

man.

If

it

were

not

so,

you

might

have

belief,

you

might

have

argument,

you

might

have

a

reasonable

probability

;

but

you

could

not

have

knowledge.

For

it

is

the

law

of

nature,

if

you

look

around

you

on

the

world

outside,

that

you

can

only

know

that

to

which

you

can

answer

by

your

body,

or

your

mind,

as

it

may

be.

You

can

only

know

that

which

you

share.

If

you

can

see,

you

only

see

because

within

the

eye

is

vibrating

the

ether

whose

vibrations

outside

you

are

light.

If

you

can

hear,

it

is

only

because

within

your

ear

vibrate

the

air

and

the

ether

which

outside

yourself

make

sound. It is only when you have in yourself, in your

own body, the same which is outside you; that you

can know. How then should you know the uni-

versal Spirit, were it not that you share His nature

in yourself? Because He is in you, you can know

Him without you. Because, as the Upaniṣhats

declare, Brahman is the Ākāsha that surrounds

you, and also the same Ākāsha within the heart,

therefore can you know, and not only believe.

And so the article, that I was just quoting, goes

on to press this very point of the possibility of

knowledge: "To the educated Hinḍu", the writer

says, "the most significant attribute of self-coṇsci-

ous beings is their subjectivity. He habitually

maintains that the idea of God is always presented

to the mind in the very same act as the idea of self.

Plainly, the inference here is that God is to be

found, not by means of any objective use of the

mind ; not by the ontological, nor the cosmological,

nor the teleogical argument "- all the arguments

that are used in the West to prove the existence

of God - "but by penetrating all the meṇtal strata

with which mankind's civilising processes have

overlaid man's divine nature." That, he says, is the

value in the Hinḍu God-idea. There is only one

consciousness, and that is God-consciousness. The

unfolding of consciousness anywhere is the unfold-

ing of the God-consciousness. It may be in the

6 THE WISDOM OF THE UPANISHADS

mightiest Deva that rules a solar system, and sends

his radiance throbbing over countless millions of

miles in space. It may be the consciousness that is

sleeping in the grain of sand, that the wind lifts up

and tosses hither and thither, as too light to resist it.

All is God-consciousness, for there is none other.

And as consciousness unfolds from the grain of sand

to the plant, from the plant to the animal, from

the animal to the man, from the man to the Deva,

it is only God unfolding His hidden powers in the

sheaths of matter, in which He wills to hide Him-

self from the eyes of flesh. There is nothing else, for

"Brahman is All." There is no consciousness save

His consciousness, thrilling through furthest space,

living in the tiniest atom ; and as we realise this,

the question so often heard in the West : "Is there

a God?" loses all its meaning. The question so

often heard in the East : "Why did Brahman bring

universes into existence?" loses all its meaning.

There is nothing else but Brahman. He is all and

the Universe is in Him. Its manifestation is only

a manifestation of Himself. There is nothing

there which was not there before, nothing in addi-

tion to Himself. Beings in the universe think there

is something different, "Myself and Him," but

there is only He, unchangeable. It is not He and

a universe, but He as a universe. It is not a ques-

tion of creation, of addition. And as we see this,

we begin to understand the marvel of some of the

passages in the Upaniṣhat where it is said that

you cannot prove by demonstration, by any rea-

soning, the existence of the Self. On this there is

no paltering, there is no doubt, there is no evasion.

It is written : "Nor may this Self be obtained by

teaching, nor by intelligence, nor by repeated hear-

ing.........Nor may this Self be obtained by the

strengthless, nor by heedlessness, nor by tapas,

nor even by the absence of qualities."1 The

Māṇḍūkyopaniṣhat speaks even yet more strongly,

for it declares that the Self is "invisible, unargu-

able, intangible, undefined, inconceivable, ineffable."2

Is it then true that there is no proof? Ah no! I

have not finished the line; not to be attained by

teaching, by reasoning, nor by anything outside

yourself : "Whose one sure proof is the Self," and

that proof is within you. That is the only proof :

the Self. But that is enough. For our Self is

to each of us the surest of all sure things, the

most certain of all certainties, the most stable of

all stabilities ; such is the Self, the Self within you

and within me. You doubt your Self? but you

cannot. No proof can make it stronger; no

proof can shake the certainty of your own exis-

tence. In the very effort to disprove your Self, it

1 Muṇḍaka. III. ii. 3, 4.

2 Loc. cit. 7.

8

THE WISDOM OF THE UPANISHATS

is your Self that weighs the disproof. It is beyond reason. Why? Not because it is unreasonable,

but because it is the basis from which all reasoning starts. This is the real faith, the true Shraddhā,

this unshakable certainty of the existence of the Self within us; and therefore faith is said to be

beyond reason, and not to rest on reason, nor on knowledge. It is above and beyond them all. No

man can doubt the reality of his own existence, and in that God-existence is affirmed. And therefore

it is written that this is the one sure proof, the Self.

Now if this certainty of the existence of the Self in its divine nature is to be reached, there is but

one method : meditation and noble living. "This Self must verily," it is written, "be obtained by

constancy in truth, in tapas, in perfect knowledge, in celibacy."1 Perfect righteousness, perfect

dispassion, perfect intelligence, perfect self-control.

These are the ways by which the proof of Deity,

which is the consciousness of the Divinity of the Self within us, is to be found.

But, strictly speaking, these are only supports

adjuncts, ways of destroying obstacles, and not the true realising of the Self. For Moksha, liberation

which is the knowledge, or realisation, of the Self is not a thing to be attained, as some men idly

dream. It is yours already, because you are divine only you know it not. As a man might own a pearl o

1 Mundaka. III. i. 5.

priceless value and, hanging it round his neck upon

his heart, might forget that he had placed it there,

might think that he had lost it, might search in the

pocket, tear off cloth after cloth, wildly run about

looking for it, saying: "I have lost my pearl, where

is it?" so with the search for the Self in the outer

world. The man is looking for his pearl where it

is not. It is with him, close to his heart, and all

you have to do to help him to find it is not to

search, but to say: "See your pearl is on your

own body, and there is no search needed." It is

always there, and so also is Mokṣha always with

us. We have only to destroy the obstacles that

prevent us from realising our own Divinity, and

we are free. The separateness that you dream of

is Mâyâ, illusion; there is no separateness; you are

one, one Self, the Supreme, the Universal. There-

fore it is said that Mokṣha is not gained by works.

Turn your eyes within you, not without you, for of

such an inward gazer it is written: "By the calm

of the senses he beholds the majesty of the Self."1

Think what that means to the world. Men are

always afraid of the advance of knowledge in one

direction or another. Criticism, the Higher Cri-

ticism, so feared by many religious men, what does

it matter? What can criticism do? It can only

destroy books ; it cannot destroy the Self. The

Higher Criticism, of which Europe talks so much,

can tear books to pieces. Books however sacred,

however dear, however ancient, it may perhaps

be able to tear them to pieces. But what

then ? It cannot tear the Self to pieces. The

proof of the Self is within us, not without us,

not in books, however holy, however well-beloved.

The books have grown out of the Self ; it can pro-

duce other books ; the books are only the fruitage

of the Self, unfolding in its Divinity in man ; and

whatever the books may be, they are not the

ground-work of our faith. Criticism cannot touch

the Self, of whom the proof is within us.

And Science, what can that do ? Let science

pierce to the furthest star ; Brahman is beyond

that which is beyond. Let science analyse the

minutest atom ; Brahman is minuter than the

atom. What then can Science do ? It can only

find out some new beauties of Brahman in a

world which is nothing but the Supreme. Let

it search as it will ; let it speak as it may :

"Truth alone conquers and not falsehood."1 And

Science will grow out of its errors, and understand

the Universe, which is Brahman. It can find nothing

which can disprove THAT which is all. This Truth—

Brahman is All—is the Magna Carta of intellectual

1 Muṇḍaka. III. i. 6.

BRAHMAN IS ALL

II

freedom. Let a man think ; let a man speak.

Never mind if he makes errors ; further knowledge

will lead him right. He cannot wander outside

the Self, for the Self is everywhere. He cannot

lose the Self, for the Self is within him. Let the

intellect soar as it will, upwards and upwards as

far as its wings can beat ; still far beyond its powers,

far across its piercing, North and South and East and

West and Zenith and Nadir, Brahman stretches

everywhere, the illimitable Self. Intellect cannot go

outside the Self, of which it is a manifestation ; it

cannot therefore shake the eternal certainty of Self-

existence.

It is this, the central Truth of the Upanishads,

of which you and I should strive in these brief

days to understand something, though very little ;

something we are to learn of this all-pervading

Truth; a Truth which cannot dazzle us, however

adiant, however brilliant, however glorious, for

re are of its nature, we are its rays, its light is

urs. Is it not then fitting that we should try to

ain our minds into harmony with this one Truth,

nd pray that that "Light, which lighteth every man

hat cometh into the world,"1 may shine from within

is and without us, that we too may see?

हिरण्मयेन पात्रेण सत्यस्यापिहितं मुखं

तत्त्वं पूषन्नपावृणु सत्यधर्माय दृष्टये ।

1°S. John 1. 9.

12

"THE WISDOM OF THE UPANISHATS

"O Pûshan, O All-Sustainer, open thou the mouth of Truth, now hidden by a golden veil, that we, the votaries of Truth, may see."1

The consciousness of the Self, God-consciousness, Brahman-consciousness, is reflected in three forms in the Universe. The three are summed up in what is called the fourth, though truly the fourth is the summation of the three, merged into the One Reality. Hence we read regarding this three and the One which is the fourth: "It, that Self, the supreme syllable, 3o the measureless feet the parts, the letters A U M,"2 the three parts.

The partless Aum, the one syllable, is the partless Brahman, the Nirguna Brahman, the summation: "The fourth," goes on the Māndūkya-niṣhat, "is partless, actionless, manifestation at rest, blissful, without duality; thus the Aum is indeed the Self,"3 for it shews both its triplicity and its unity.

The letters taken separately, the A, the U, the M, are no longer one syllable, but three. What do they mean? The Māndūkya-paniṣhat tells us that these are the three states of consciousness.

Now there are many meanings for these three letters, for wherever a trinity is found these letters may symbolise its parts; and to-morrow we shall see that, according to the Upaniṣhats, these

1 Bṛihadāraṇyaka. V. xv. 1.

2 Māndūkya. 8. 3 Loc. cit. 12.

BRAHMAN IS ALL

three letters may be taken as symbolising Îshvara

Himself, His Mâyâ, and His relation to His work.

We shall take them just now as three states of Being,

types of consciousness, Brahman reflected in the

world, and the Mândûkyopanishat tells us what

these states are. After saying that: "This All verily

Brahman ; this Self Brahman ; he, this Self, is four-

fold," the Upanishad goes on to give the three re-

flexions in the world of manifestation, the fourth, as

just said, being "manifestation at rest." These

three are:1 Vaishvânara, the waking conscious-

ness ; that which you and I are using now, some-

times called the Vital Self, or Vital Soul ; we may

perhaps call it the Prânâtma, the personal self, that

which exists whenever there is consciousness em-

bodied in physical matter ; that is Vaishvânara,

the all-pervading ; Vaishvânara is the letter A.

Then, there exists in the subtler worlds the Taijasa,

or super-waking, consciousness, which western psy-

chologists call the "dream-consciousness"—an awk-

ward and misleading phrase, by no means the equi-

valent of the "svapna" of the Easterns, who mean

by "svapna" a state higher and more real than the

waking consciousness, whereas no Western regards

what he calls "dream" as higher and more real

than the waking state—existing in all subtle worlds,

however many, the individualised Self, the Jîvâtmâ,

1 Loc. cit. 2-5, 9-11.

14

"THE WISDOM OF THE UPANISHÁTS

the Monad. That is the second stage of the God-consciousness ; Taijasa is the letter U. And the third, as it is revealed in its utmost splendor in the highest world of all, the God-world, where Îshvara Himself unfolds His powers, that is the Prájña ; He is all-knowing, perfect in knowlëdge, Ishvara, the Ruler, the Director, the All-Sustainer, the Saguna Brahman, the Supreme, the Pratyagâtmá, the Antarâtmá, of all ; that is the third state, and is the letter M. These divisions are adopted for this course of lectures : the partless Brahman, or the All ; then the loftiest manifestation, which truly is Bráhman Himself manifesting with attributes, the Saguna, the Supreme Îshvara ; thirdly the Jîvâtmás, scattered through all the worlds wherein consciousness exists—and all is consciousness—and then fourthly the manifestation that I have called the Prânâtmá, the vital self, the ordinary waking consciousness of man, of beasts, of plants, of stones, in the wheel of births and deaths, of all that is. All this is the manifestation of the One, and is summed up in the One. Hence we find it said in the Shveta shvatopanishat : "This verily is chanted as the supreme Brahman, in whom the three, well established and indestructible...This should be known as eternal, as Self-established ; verily there is naught further to be known. The enjoyer [the Jîvâtmá], the objects of enjoyment, [the Mayá or

BRAHMAN IS ALL

15

the universe ] and the Director [ Īshvara ], being

known, the All is declared as this threefold Brah-

man."1 These three summed up in One—the A, the

U, the M, pronounced as one syllable—are Brahman.

Now this way of dealing with what are called

Sacred Words is familiar to every student of anti-

quity. If you take the Chhāndogyopanishat, over

and over again you find words reduced to three

letters, each letter significant, and the whole con-

taining some great truth.2 And this fashion of

constructing words is not confined to the Upani-

shats. It is found in all the great religions of the

past. Egypt had it; Syria had it; the ancient He-

brews had it ; the Gnostics had it. A letter is taken

which conveys a meaning; others are added, each

having a meaning; the whole word made of these

letters is called a Sacred Word, or a Word of Power.

Truly Words of Power are they, for they are not

pronounced by the lips merely, but by the unfold-

ing consciousness, and as it realises one truth after

another, and, as it realises each becomes that truth

and is Lord of it, it rules. Such words are well-

known as existing by all Free Masons, even if the

meaning be lost to their Masters.

The results which follow from this Word of

Power, the Aum, are the mightiest, the most com-

pelling, for that Word represents in its three letters

1 Loc. cit. i. 7, 12. 2 See loc. cit. VIII. iii. 5, etc.

16

THE WISDOM OF THE UPANISHATS

everything which exists—the threefold Brahman

as manifest, the One as unmanifest ; when pronoun-

ced as a triplicity, it means the threefold manifested

Brahman, and when pronounced as a unit, it means

the Nirguṇa Brahman. Hence is it the most holy

of all Sacred Words.

Let us now take the evidence that the Upani-

ṣhats give us that Brahman is All. First we take

the definite statement made in the Chhāndogy-

opaniṣhat: "Aum, verily, this All. Aum, verily

this All."1 We have seen that Aum means the

partless Brahman ; we see now that it means the

All. The Taittirīopanishṭ puts the two state-

ments into a single sentence: "Aum is Brahman;

Aum is this All."2 Inasmuch as two things which

are identical with a third thing are identical with

each other, Brahman and the All are identical.

Such is the testimony of the Ancient Wisdom.

-There is no difference. There is nothing else.

Brahman and the All are one and the same thing.

One other truth regarding this wondrous Word

is spoken out by another Upaniṣhat : "O Satyakāma

this Aum twofold, the Supreme and the Lower

Brahman"3—the Para-Brahman and the Apara

Brahman. All the mystery lies hidden herein. Wha

means this—the higher, the lower ; the supreme

1 Loc. cit. II. xxiii. 3 (in some editions, 4).

2 Loc. cit. I. viii. 3 Praṣhna. v. 2.

the inferior? The Upaniṣhat goes on to explain

that when the letters are taken separately, then the

worlds, the Apara or lower, Brahman, are indicated ;

and when the word is pronounced as one syllable,

then the Para, or supreme, Brahman is denoted.

Thus also says Yama to Nachiketas, expounding

ing this mystery of the Two, who yet are One. He

declares : "This syllable verily Brahman, this

syllable verily the Supreme"1 and Shrī Shankara,

commenting upon that, points out that the first

syllable means the "inferior Brahman," the second

means the "supreme Brahman."

We turn again to the Chhāndogyopanishad, in

order to learn more of this mystery which is the

All : " Verily," it is written, "this All is Brahman ;

therefrom it is born, thereinto it is dissolved, there-

by it is maintained." 2 Of Brahman made manifest,

the first factor of the Apara Brahman, the Self,

the Puruṣha, it is written : " He is established in

the supreme, imperishable Self." 3

Perhaps the best simile would be to take your

own mind, and to think of the thoughts that arise

in it, as a manifested Universe in Brahman; the All.

In the mind all its thoughts are contained ; from it

they are born, and into it they vanish. In Brahman

universes arise in endless succession, a chain that

1 Katha. ii. 16.

2 Loc. cit. III. xiv. i. 3 Praśna. iv. 3.

2

18 THE WISDOM OF THE UPANISHATS

has no beginning and no end. Unchangeable, be-cause all-inclusive; everything is therein, literally

everything; all that ever was in the past, all that

is in the present, all that shall be in the future, all

that is conceivable, all that is imaginable, every-

thing which can be, resides in that immeasurable

All ; there is nothing else. Absolute, because there

is nothing else with which THAT can be in relation.

There is nothing else but Brahman. Out of that

immeasurable fulness, as waves out of an ocean,

universes arise ; and as waves smooth down again

into the ocean, universes disappear. All that has

been, that is, is ever there, in unchangeable reality

of life. All that ever may be sleeps therein, in

that boundless bosom of universal fatherhood. There

is naught else. Everything is there in one simul-

taneous unchangeable reality of ever-present living.

And so the wise have said that all opposites are

therein, in order to force the human mind to realise

that nothing is left out, that there is nought outside

THAT, that there is nothing else. You cannot

speak of a universe as being made, as though it

had not ever been, for all is in THAT which changes

not. All opposites find therein their reconciliation

their mutual destruction ; all opposites there merge

into each other, for THAT is all, and there is none

other.

Dwell upon this thought until it becomes fami

liar. Make it part of your mind. Try to conceive

it in many different ways. You may, for instance,

take it in the way that science sees the universe;

it tells us of a. boundless universe ; further and

further systems are found, and the

stronger the telescope, the greater is the distance

of the furthest star. Go further and further yet,

beyond that furthest star that science sees with the

strongest telescope; the infinite Brahman stretches

beyond with unknown possibilities, endless possi-

bilities of manifestation ; there is neither beginning

nor ending to Brahman ; there is no beyond.

Think it over, till the mind grows dizzy. Think

it over, till some effect of immensity is felt. All

that is but the fulness of the ever-upwelling mani-

festation of existence. And remember that THAT

ever is; it does not become. Universes become.

They are born forth, but that Eternal is one,

unchangeable; THAT knows no present, no past,

no future, for All is, and All is Brahman. Let

the depth and the splendor of that thought dwell

in the mind till it becomes part of your veriest

Self, and you can think of nothing as outside

THAT which is. I dare not use the word exists;

and in a moment why that word, so

natural to use in this connexion being not

through my lips. We can only say It is not

that It exists. "The Universe, all this whatever

20

"THE WISDOM OF THE UPANISHÂTS

moves in, emanates from Life." 1 And some simi-

les are given: "As a spider throws out and in-

draws his threads; as from the earth herbs are pro-

duced; as hairs from the living man; thus this

Universe becomes from the Imperishable."2 "As

from a blazing fire, go forth by thousands sparks of

its own nature, so from the Imperishable, O beloved,

manifold existences are born forth, and thereinto

also verily return." 3 " In the imperishable Brah-

man lie latent both wisdom and ignorance—perishable

verily ignorance, wisdom verily immortal—He who

ruleth wisdom and ignorance, He, verily, is another." 4

° "What grows out of this? That beyond the

manifested Universe, beyond the God concealed

within it, there is pure Being, abstract Being, say

rather Be-ness, as H. P. B. called it. Listen to the

wondrous words of the Chhândogyopanishat: "At

first, O beloved, was verily this pure existence; one,

in truth, secondless. They say: Before that verily

was pure non-existence, one, in truth, secondless";

from that non-existence was born existence." 5 That

is why H. P. B. used the word "Be-ness," and not

"Being." Pure Be-ness is THAT in which all is,

eternal, changeless, absolute, simultaneous, the

mighty ocean whence existence is born. For the

word existence comes from the Latin ex-sistere,

1 Katha. vi, 2. 2 Mundaka. I. i. 7. 3 Ibid II. i. 1.

4 Shvetashvatara v. 1. 5 Chhândogya. VI. ii. 1.

BRAHMAN IS ALL

21

out-being, the being that is manifested, the being

that is born forth, so to say. From this All, this

non-existence, existence, life, comes forth. IT IS,

and when you have said that, all is said,

How then may we speak of It? How may we

express It? How may we define It? THAT which

is everything, without parts, indivisible, non-exis-

tence giving forth existence? "Thither the eye

goeth not, the voice goeth not, nor mind. We know

not, nor distinguish, how THAT may be taught.

Different indeed THAT from the known, beyond

the unknown. Thus have we heard from the El-

ders, they who instructed us. That which existeth

not by the voice, but THAT by which the voice ex-

isteth, THAT know thou as Brahman, not this

which is worshipped as this. THAT which thinketh

not with the mind, but by which the mind thinketh,

THAT know thou as Brahman, not this which is

worshipped as this.

THAT which seeth not by the

eye, but by which the eye seeth, THAT know thou

as Brahman, not this which is worshipped as this.

THAT which heareth not by the ear, but by which

the ear heareth, THAT know thou as Brahman, not

this which is worshipped as this. THAT which

liveth not by the life, but by which the life liveth,

THAT know thou as Brahman, not this which is

worshipped as this." 1

Kena. i. 3–8.

SECOND LECTURE.

ĪSHVARA.

BROTHERS:

W

E have to-day to deal with a subject which in

some ways is more difficult than the subject

of yesterday. By an effort and a strain of

the mind it is possible to recognise intellectually at

least the great truth that “Brahman is All.” But

when you come to deal with the question of mani-

festation, when you come to endeavor to realise

intellectually what is meant by the coming of exis-

tence out of non-existence, of being from non-being,

then you have a problem so difficult that even the

text-book of the Jn̄ān̄i shrinks from explanation.

For we find that when it is said: “How can this

be?” when the pupil asks the teacher: “How can

being come forth from non-being?” the teacher does

not try to explain, but only reiterates the truth, and

adds: “It willed: ‘May I become many, may I be

born."1 Now why is that? Why is there no effort

at explanation, where surely explanation, if such

there may be, is above all to be looked for? I think

the reason is this: that none may hope to under-

stand by the exertion of the intellect, by the use of

the reason pure and simple, this final mystery.

The spiritual intuition is necessary, and an insight

that goes beyond the power of Manas, the mind, and

calls into activity, Buddhi, as the vehicle of the Self;

and the truth is, that you will never understand these

high and final truths by any amount of teaching

or study : you can only understand them by medi-

tation, in which the glory of the Self is seen. And

all that I can hope to do for you, my brothers and

fellow-students, is to put before you that which I

have gathered out of a study of these wondrous

writings, and out of meditation, leaving you to find

out for yourselves, in your own meditation, how far

what I say in words is true to truth, and how far

the limitation of the speaker makes untrue the

truth which feeble lips endeavor—not to speak but

—to stammer ; for truly articulate speech in these

regions is impossible for me to compass. So I can

only do my best, leaving you to judge ; and I pray

you to remember here, as in everything that is

taught from a theosophical platform, that the tea-

cher has no authority to impose his own thought

1 Chhāndogya. V1. ii. 1-3.

24

THE WISDOM OF THE UPANISHAṬS

on the minds of other thinkers, but is only a fellow-

student, to whom the gift of speech, perchance,

has come ; each has the right, nay, the duty, to

think for himself; each has the responsibility of

forming his own judgment.

So we take up our study from that phrase I

quoted yesterday, and re-quote to-day: "From non-

existence came forth existence." Now the words in

the Samskṛt are : "From Asat Saṭ was born," and

that reminds us of a principle which it is well for

us to remember : that of all these root words there

are two fundamental meanings ; one very very high,

in the worlds where words are not needed to express

the truth, and the other lower down ; and the great-

ness and depth of the meaning above correspond to

the limitation and shallowness of the meaning

below. Asat is such a word, and Tamas is such

another word. And perhaps it may be easier for

you to recognise the truth of this view if put in con-

nexion with Tamas. For it is said in a very well-

known book—I will not say an authoritative work,

though it has much of the authority of knowledge

—it is said that all comes forth from Tamas, and all

into Tamas returns. Tamas here is not the lower

Tamas, one of the three Guṇas, but is that moveless

Inertia, that perfect Stillness, in which the three

Guṇas are balanced one against the other, in per-

fect equilibrium. When that equilibrium of the

īSHVARA

25

Guṇas is disturbed, all comes forth. But you must not confuse with that equilibrium, the higher Tamas,

the meaning that we down here give to Tamas, to the inertia of physical matter, or the sloth which is

man's greatest enemy, which he must overcome if he would find the Self. So subtle is the connotation

of words, where words are inadequate to express great meanings, and we have to be on our guard

lest, in using the words, we mislead the listeners into taking the lower for the higher.

One protection we have in those high words, the Words of Power of which I spoke yesterday,

for they can put the thing in a way which can be intuited, but which loses much as to its accuracy

when we explain out the meaning in detailed sentences. The greatest of all Words of Power, the

Praṇava, the single syllable, you remember, means the Nirguṇa Brahman. But the same syllable,

spoken as a triplicity, means the Saguṇa Brahman.

What does that indicate? That it is the same, and not another. But that the shewing forth of the attri-

butes makes an external difference. Where the

one is without attributes, the triple is spoken of as

Saṭ, Chiṭ, Ānanda, Existence, Consciousness, Bliss.

The First Being is the Saguṇa Brahman, I might quote a number of shlokas where three great attri-

butes are taken as expressing That which is beyond all reach of words. Now think that over in

26

THE WISDOM OF THE UPANISHAṬS

your meditation and try to catch the meaning—the

one syllable, the Nirguṇa ; the same word with

a difference, three syllables, the Saguṇa; and that

may guide you to some little glimpse of the mystery

before us : how the One becomes the Three, The

same, and yet, by the presence oï the manifested

qualities, different.

And what is the difference? An internal differ-

ence : That in which the opposites appear, and in

appearing annihilate each other and vanish, that

is the One ; That in which they appear as oppo-

sites, and remain as such, that is the Three. The

ultimate antitheses of ex-istence are Îshvara and

Māyā. Let us pause a moment thereupon and

see how far the Upanishaṭs help us herein. “From

non-existence was born existence.” The Taittiriyo-

paniṣhaṭ repeats the saying, and tells us of the

Born, the Being, the Existence : “ He, verily, is the

embodied Self of THAT.”1 The embodied Self o!

the Nirguṇa Brahman is the Saguṇa Brahman

But in that very phrase, “embodied Self,” you ge!

the first difference appearing, which is necessary fo

the out-being, the ex-istence. Hence the difference

because He is an embodiment of the essence of th!

all ; and even then the “Body” is itself ever unmani

fest, because concealed and hidden, although, in th

highest metaphysical sense, it is manifest, becaus

1 Taittiriya. II. vi. 1.

ISHVARA

27

qualities are declared. So again the same Upani-shat speaks of Brahman as "Truth, Wisdom, Infinity."1

And listen to the words in which the Bṛhadâra-nyaka tries to bring the mystery within the grip of words. "Infinite That, Infinite This ;, from the Infinite the Infinite arises ; taking the Infinite from the Infinite, the Infinite verily remains. Aum is the ether, is Brahman."2 This marvellous passage shows you how feeble are human words ; and yet the words, meditated on, may help you to an appreciation of the truth. There is no difference, for two Infinites cannot be ; and yet, the fact of mani-festation with attributes makes an apparent differ-ence where truly there is none, difference and sameness in the One. Another shloka helps us ; "Two-bodied is Brahman"—the Saguṇa, the Apara Brahman—"formed and formless, mortal and immortal, stable and unstable, manifest and beyond."3 There is a well-known shloka in the Bhagavadgītā that may help us, and you may remember that I pointed out that shloka particularly, last year, where Shrī Kṛṣṇa is explaining this great mystery. He speaks of His lower nature, that is, Prakṛti ; then He speaks of His higher nature, Dāivi Prakṛti, that is, divine substance ; and then he says that higher than that is "another."

1 Loc. cit. i. 2 Loc. cit. II. i. 1. 3 Brhadar II. iii. 1.

28 'THE WISDOM OF THE UPANISHAṬS

He speaks of the manifest and unmanifest, and then : " Higher than that unmanifested another unmanifested, eternal, which, in the destroying of all beings is not destroyed." 1 There you have the same idea. There is the hidden Self, the higher, unmanifested, formless, immortal, stable, beyond, the letter A of the Praṇava. There is a manifest that we see around us, the second body of Saguna Brahman, the formed, the mortal, the unstable, the manifest—the letter U—and between those two, the link which joins them, the lower unmanifested, the loftier body, the Ḍaivi Prakṛti, the Relation between Spirit and Matter, between mortal and immortal, between changeless and changing, which makes possible this Universe; and that remains as constant as the Universe, for without it, the Universe cannot be. That is the third letter of the three-syllabled Aum, the M which creates and destroys. And so again it is written : " Perishable the world-stuff ( Praḍhāna) imperishable, immortal, is Hara. He, the one God, rules the perishable and the Self" 2—the first embodiment of the Self, the Relation established by His thought between Himself and Māyā. Let us pause a moment on that, and try to realise what we have found to be the meaning of the three-lettered Aum in the Upaniṣhaṭs, the meaning of the A, the U, and the M.

1 Loo. cit. viii. 20. 2 Shvetashvatara 1. 10.

ISHVARA

29

The A is the first of all letters, the letter without

the pronouncal of which the uttering of

any letter is impossible. Every consonant in the

Samskṛt implies the presence of it. You cannot

sound another consonant without sounding that,

however softly, however much below your breath.

Nothing can be spoken into which it does not

enter. Therefore A is the Self, in the triple Aum,

for without the Self there can be no manifestation,

no existence. Nothing can exist in which the

Self is not present, however latent, however con-

cealed, " Nor is there aught, moving, or unmoving,

that may exist bereft of me."1

Then comes the second letter U ; what is that ?

You have heard in the shlokas I have read ; it is

the Praḍhâna, Matter, the Not-Self, to give it its

best name, since we only know it by thinking of

the Self. As we realise what the Self is, we deny

its qualities to its opposite, and that is Matter,

reached by denial, not by affirmation. The

fundamental idea of matter is : " It is not the Self. "

These are the two great antitheses, the northern

and southern poles, between which the web of the

Universe is woven. Father Mother, H. P. Blavat-

sky calls them ; and between the Father, the life-

giver, and the Mother the recipient, the form

gathers which is the Son the web of the Universe

1. Bhagavaḍgîtâ. II. 39.

NOT EXCHANGEABLE AND

'T SALABLE

30 THE WISDOM OF THE UPANIṢHATS

is woven—to use a graphic expression of an Upa

niṣhat1—backwards and forwards between them.

The web begins by the Father uniting Himself to

the Mother by the declaration; "I am This;"

then the emanation that is the Son appears; and

when He repudiates His Son and says: "I am not

this," disuniting Himself from the Mother, then

the Son disappears; for he can only live where

the Father affirms his existence, and when that

affirmation becomes negation he vanishes.2 Then

Īshvara and Māyā rebecome one, and there is

nothing manifest, for Īshvara cannot appear with-

out Māyā, nor Māyā without Īshvara. They are

mutually interdependent, for though He always

is, He is not manifest save where He thinks Māyā,

and so makes the possibility of manifestation.

Thus treading our way through this great difficul-

ty, we find the meaning of our Word of Power;

A is the Self; U is the Not-Self, and M, in which

all affirmation and negation are summed up, is the

changing declaration: "Let me be many," and

"There is naught but I." The answer to the "Let

me be many" is the appearance of the many, the

world, the universe.

Now the affirmation of union, which emanates,

is declared in the Shvetāshvataropanishad; there it

is said: "United with Māyā He emanates this Uni-

1 Bṛhadār. III, vi. 2 Aham-etat-na : I-this-not.

verse," 1 and in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka, where it is declared : “ He said first : ‘I am This’ ; 2 again

“ He knew: I am verily this emanation' ”. 3 (I am translating the word “ sṛṣṭi ” as emanation.

Sometimes the universe is called “ This ” simply covering all which appears. “ He knew : ‘ I aṃ

verily this emanation'. ” It is that knowledge which gives all life, all possibility of existence to

the emanation, for there is no source of life save the Self, and only as He makes Himself identical

with His emanation is it possible for a Universe to exist. As He affirms, there the Universe is ; as

He denies, the Universe vanishes into Him. This changing process, this thinking, “ Let me be many,”

and then “ Let the many cease ”, this is the continually recurring birth and death of Universes,

and it is this triplicity, the Self, the Not-Self, and the Relation between them, which is summed up

in the triple syllable, Aum.

The appearance of a Universe and its disappearance, the succession in space and time, is that

by which alone the eternal simultaneity of the Be-ness of the One can be expressed. The words I

quoted from the Chhāndogyopaniṣhat are repeated in the Taittirīyopaniṣhat : “ He wished : ‘ May I be

many, may I be born' ”. 1 He, the Supreme Īshvara,

1 Loc. cit. iv. 9. 2 Loc. cit. I. iv. 1. 3 Loc. cit. I. iv. 5.

4 Taittirīya. II. vi.

32

• THE WISDOM OF THE UPANISHAȚS

by the expression of His will became the many ;

He brought about first the duality between Himself

and Mâyâ—He "wished a second .....He divided " 1

-and continuing that same thought of multipli-

city, He limited and limited and limited Himself,

until the. infinite multiplicity of the Universe was

made visible. The limitations are imposed by

His will. He, the One, wills to be many, and the

many depend on the forthgoing of that will to

multiply. This is the Supreme Îshvara, the Praty-

agâtmâ, the " Îshvara of all Îshvaras," 2 the Uni-

versal Self.

• What is Mâyâ? " Know Mâyâ verily as Pra-

kṛti" says the Shvetâshvataropanishat, "the Owner

of Mâyâ as Maheshvara," 3 the great Îshvara, the

Supreme, Brahman Himself, made manifest by qua-

lities. Hence we have in Mayâ the essence of

separateness, due to His will to be many, and His

consequent limitations of Himself by His thought

of multiplicity. That is the origin of all the be-

ings who come forth from the One Being. Some-

times Mâyâ is called Prakṛti, Matter, sometimes

Mûla-Prakṛti, the Root of Matter, sometimes Pra-

dhâna, the primary germ of the Sânkhya philosophy,

sometimes Âkâsha, ether. " The Âkâsha is the

body of Brahman, " it is written in the Taittirîyo-

1 Bṛhaddr. I. iv. 3.

2 Sanaṭkumâra amhiṭṭhe. xxx. 30. 3 Loc. cit. iv. 10.

1

panishat.1 How many are His names! He is the Root of all names, and yet has none, for all these I call names are only descriptions; they do not define, they simply point to the One Being, who is the Universal Self. One Upanishat speaks of Him as: “The great imperishable One;”2 another speaks of as Him as “Devâtmâ,” the divine Self;3 another as the “Aham,” the “I,”4 perchance the deepest, truest, name of all, because the “I” that is ourselves is His I-ness; the “I” in you and in me is only the spark of His nature that lives within us. There is no other Aham, “I.” He is sometimes called the Puru-sha, the Man, the One Man. And it is written that he is the Purusha beyond the unmanifested Monad, “ the last limit, and the highest goal.”5 Beyond Him there is only that Nothingness which is Fulness, that Non-Being which contains Being, that Non-Existence which is the Root of Existence, and beyond all grasp.6

The last limit, the highest goal, and yet although so wondrous and so mighty, He is “hidden in all creatures.”7 Not so far away after all; nay, He

1 Loc. cit. I. vi. 2 Mundaka. V. i. 2. 3 Shretdnhratara. i. 3. 4 Brhadâr. VI. v. 4. 5 Katha. iii 11. 6 For the full exposition of this teaching see Bhagavân Dâs’ Science of Peace (passim especially Chap, vii. 1 know of no work in which the final doctrine continually hinted at in the ancient writers, is so luminously expounded. There we have the Aum as: A=Aham; U=Etat; M=Na: thus the final logion is Aham-etat-na.

7 Shvet4shvatara. iii. 7.

3

34

ĪSHVARA

is not far from any one of us. For though He be all

that is—and in a moment we shall see how emphati-

cally the Upaniṣhat declares that where “He is mani-

fest everything is manifest after Him”—and though

without Him there is naught, He is hidden in your

heart and in mine. And so an English poet, by some

strange intuition catching a glimpse of the deep

Reality hidden within himself, calls upon his own

Spirit to speak to Him, because he is Himself :

Closer is He than breathing; nearer than hands

and feet.

So near is He, the innermost Self of each of

us.

Is there any teaching so glorious, so inspiring,

as this? anything on which, in moments of utter-

most loneliness, the human heart can rest, unflinch-

ing, as the fact that He who holds the Universe with-

in Himself lives hidden in the heart of all? What

matter all mistakes, what matter all blunders, what

matter all errors? they are mortal, perishable, tran-

sitory, and the Self is in our heart, we are the Self.

It is the true Gospel; the “story of salvation” on

which alone all hearts may rest; everything else may

fail us, but the Self, which is our Self, can never fail.

And for fear we should think the news too

good to be true, for fear we should think that this

great thing cannot be, the Upaniṣhats repeat it

variously, in recurrent details. Let me give you

THE WISDOM OF THE UPANIṢHATS 35

some of the shlokas that tell us how absolutely

rue is this splendid truth. "By Him, than whom

nothing is greater, than whom nothing is subtler

nor older, who stands unshaken in the heavens like

a tree, the One, the Spirit, all this is pervaded."1 If

we turn to the discourse of Yama to Nachikeṭas, we

ind him explaining the many forms of the Self :

It is the Self that, as Sun, dwells in the heaven, as

wind in the atmosphere, as fire in the earth ; He

dwells in man, in ether, in water, is born in earth,

in sacrifice, in the mountains ; "It is truth, the great

One."2 "The one Self...is the inner Self of all be-

ings".3 "He the One, the Lord, who makes one

nature manifold, is the inner Self of all beings."4

And so again the Māṇḍūkya represents the same

wondrous story : "From this are born breath, mind,

all the senses, ether, air, light, water, earth, the

support of all." From Him the fire whose fuel is

the Sun, from Him the Moon, from Him Gods,

men, quadrupeds, birds, the vital airs, the seven

senses, the seven fires, the seven channels in which

the vital airs move, that sleep in the cavity of the

heart, from Him all seas and mountains, all rivers

and herbs5 "Thou woman Thou art man, Thou art

virgin youth, and maiden. Thou the outworn, tot-

1 Shveṭāshvatara. iii. 9.

2 Katha. v. 2. 3 Ibid. 9. 4 Ibid. 12.

5 Summarised from Muṇḍaka, II. 1. 2—9.

36

ĪSHVARA

tering with his staff. Thou art born, thy Face the

Universe.1 Thou the blue, and the red-eyed green

winged creatures, the thunder-womb, the seasons

and the oceans."2 And then, after giving all this

description of the reality of the identity of the

universal and the particular Selves, it is declared

that the "Supreme Self always dwelleth in the

hearts of beings."3 "Verily this mighty unborn

Self is He who is intelligence in the living; the

same who is ether within the heart, wherein He

sleeps." 4

So we need not fear to claim our birthright ;

we need not fear to declare : "I am He, and there

is none other." If we live, we are part of Him. To

say we are not He is to declare ourselves mortal,

perishable, and where religion has lost this truth,

there and there only can arise the question : "Has

man a soul?" When we know ourselves the Self,

there is no question of immortality ; for He is un-

born, undying, ancient, perpetual, eternal.5 He

exists not depending on any body ; He is above

and beyond all, the source of everything that is.

But how may we know it? Here comes in once

more the moral of every Upanishad. "You can

only know it by realising your Self. As I told you

1 Compare Al Quran : "All things shall perish save His Face

2 Shvetashvatara. iv. 3, 4. 3 Ibid. 17.

4 Brhadar. 1V. iv. 22. 5 Bhagavadgita. ii. 20.

yesterday, Mokṣha is not attained, it is yours. But there are obstacles which Māyā has built up, which Matter, which is Māyā, has made. Your body blinds you. Not transparent as the glass of

the lamp, through which shines the light within, but befouled by many a lower thing, the Not-Self, which repudiates the Self. But that is all upside down. The Self may affirm and may repudiate Matter. But what is Matter, that it should venture

to affirm or to repudiate the Self? Its existence is only drawn from the Self ; on that alone it rests. And it is this which deludes us, this which blinds us, this which makes us powerless. And, therefore,

the purification of the vehicles is demanded ere a man may see the majesty of the Self. That is the way. It is not the Reality, but the way thereto, and to shew the way is the work of all religions. Religions, which are born of the longing of the Self

to know itself, give the many means, the many ways, by which the vehicles shall be made to cease to obstruct the manifestation of the Self. The Self changes not. It is ever there, within us, as the Sun

in the heaven. It shines ever. But clouds may veil the Sun from the eyes that dwell below the clouds ; clouds may hide it, though their higher sides are brilliant with the shining of the Sun. And

the work of all religions, the work of every one of us, of you and of me, is so to purify the vehicles, so

38

ĪSHVARA

to melt away the clouds, that the shining of the

Sun-Self may shine forth in our hearts. It is not

He who changes, but the lower self that purifies

itself. The separateness is Māyā. The manyness

is Māyā. But we can only get rid of that by a

slow process of purification, by realising that

Matter must not master Self, but that Self must

master Matter. Is He not called the owner of

Māyā? But the Self in you and me is owned by

Māyā, and is not its owner. There lies the diffi-

culty. Therefore it is written that the bonds of

the heart must be broken.1 Therefore it is written

that a man must cease from evil ways.2 There-

fore it is written that we must follow righteousness,

and knowledge, and devotion.3 Because, by all

these ways, man makes himself master of Māyā,

and when he masters Māyā he will know himself

as Self. That is the way. And so it is written :

"They who know Him as life of the life, as eye of

the eye, as ear of the ear, they know Brahman, the

Ancient, the First."4 "When he sees the Self as

God, the Ruler of past and future, then He wills

not to conceal Himself from him."5 He only

wills to be hidden until we have so mastered Māyā

that He may be seen by looking within ourselves.

On this is built all yoga ; on this is built all right-

1 Muṇḍaka II. ii. 8. 2 Katha. ii. 24. 3 Muṇḍaka. III, i. 5.

4 Bṛhadār. IV. iv. 18. 5 Ibid. 15.

THE WISDOM OF THE UPANISHAȚS 39

eousness ; on this is built all noble living. But of

all the deceptions with which Mâyâ the mighty

misleads the embodied Self, of all the obstacles

and difficulties that Mâyâ puts in the way of

Self-realisation, is that worst of all hypócrisies, of

all delusions, which makes a man declare with lips

impure, with life unpurified, being the slave, the

tool, of Mâyâ, identifying himself with Mâyâ : " I,

mâyâvic shell, am Brahman." For life not lips

must speak the words, and lips are worthless if life

declares the contrary.

Now let us go on further to a point that puzzles

very many. Hitherto I have spoken of Îshvara,

the Supreme. But the word Îshvara is used of

other Beings than the Saguna Brahman, and much

difficulty has arisen sometimes on this question be-

tween unlearned Theosophists and unlearned Hin-

dus. The Theosophists have learned to use the word

Îshvara of many Rulers, the Logoi, and sometimes an

unlearned Hindu does not know that Îshvara has also

this meaning in many Shâstras. The word Îshvara

only means Lord, Ruler, and the Lord of any Uni-

verse, of any system, is also called Îshvara, as every

well-read Hindu knows. It is a difficulty which

may well arise out of the Upanishațs, unless they

are very carefully read. I remarked yesterday that

they deal with universals rather than with parti-

culars. Fundamental abstract ideas are treated,

40

ĪSHVARA

rather than concrete manifestations, and only here

and there is there an indication that there are con-

crete facts that also we must grasp, concrete facts

in the Universe, which we must strive to understand.

One of these hints is given in the shlokas to

which I now ask your attention?6 We are told in

the Kathopanishat: "The eldest-born from the

tapas" of Īshvara is Hiraṇyagarbha, called also in

other passages Prajâpati, or Brahmâ.1 "The eldest-

born from the tapas." That is the link we need.

All Logoi of universes are born from the "tapas"

of the Supreme Īshvara, who is Brahman, and are

the varied expressions of His thought. These are

the Lords of Universes, the Progenitors, as the

word Prajâpati implies. "Countless are grandfathers

(Brahmâs) ; Haris also are countless ; the Supreme

Īshvara is one." 2 The principle is that from the

Supreme Lord, from the One Self, come forth the

many, and among the many, the first-born are the

Rulers of the worlds, the Creators of the worlds

—Hiraṇyagarbha, the Golden Womb, is the col-

lective name. Brahmâ is the Egg-born, the Lotus-

born. Theosophists use the name Logoi, a

name which we apply to many Rulers, whose

kingdoms vary in size, though the idea is ever the

same—the Ruler of a defined area, Īshvara, the

1 Compare Katha. iv. 6 and Muṇdaka. 1. i. 9. and Prashna. ii. 7.

2 Linga Purāṇa. iv. 64.

Ruler of a system, must be distinguished from Īshvara, the One, the Saguna Brahman. This secondary Īshvara is the Ruler of one Universe, where there are many Universes, the Ruler of a Solar System, among countless systems ; or again, the Ruler of a Planetary Chain, within a Solar System, is called a Planetary Logos. For Logos means Word, and they all exist by the word of the Supreme.

These are They who are objects of worship everywhere to those who cannot rise to the conception of the one Supreme Īshvara, and They are all born of His tapas, His austerity, His thought, His sacrifice. From sacrifice everything proceeds, we are told. "The dawn (of creation) is the head of the sacrificial Horse," ¹ where the Horse is the Universe ; all is rooted in sacrifice. He has willed to become many ;

that is the primeval sacrifice—the limitation of Himself, into Īshvara and Māyā, that He may be born as the Lord and Source of all separated lives. This is the point where difficulty has arisen. Many Īshvaras? Yes, as many as there are Universes ; but one supreme Īshvara, who is Brahman Himself. And when you realise that, you understand what H. P. B. taught,

that an Īshvara is the result of an evolution within a Universe. The Supreme knows not evolution ; He is beyond all Māyā. But all the other Īshvaras,

1 Brhaddār, I. i. 1.

42

ĪSHVARA

the Logoi, They grow, They evolve. They, in Thei

turn, perform tapas ; They, in Their turn, perforn

sacrifice and build worlds. Moreover, They reac

the high office of an Īshvara by long struggle, by

countless sàcrifices ; by these sacrifices the rank

of an Īshvara is obtained.

For the concrete facts we must turn to works o

less authority than the Upaniṣhats, and add to the

shlokas from them details from other writings. Ir

the Vâyu Samhitâ, we read: "Let us know Him, the

supreme Īshvara of all Īshvaras, the supreme Deva

of all Devas, the Lord of all Lords, the Īshvara

of the Īshvaras of worlds." 1 This truth makes a

reconciliation between the Theosophical and Hindu

views, shewing Īshvara, the Supreme, as the One

Brahman, manifested, not evolved, and the many

Īshvaras of worlds, the fruits of evolution. In the

Devt Bhâgavata it is written : "Even if the number

of grains of sand could be counted, the universes

never. In the same way, to the number of Brah-

mas, and Vishṇus, and Shivas, there is no limit." 2

Speaking of the Mahâ-Virat, it is said : "In every

pore of the hairs of His body are countless Uni-

verses." 3 This is the Self-limitation of the one

Self, the sacrifice, the meditation, the austerity, by

which manyness becomes. Thus the Hiranyagarbhas are born, and Brahmâs, the Creators. So also

1 Loc. cit. I. iv. 122. 2 Loc. cit. II. ix. 7. 3 Ibid. 6.

in each Brahmāṇda, sacrifice leads to Îshvarahood :

" One hundred manvaṇtaras did Brahmā make japam of Shakṭi. One hundred manvaṇtaras did

Viṣhṇu make ṭapas, to become the Preserver." 1

So the Theósophist is right when he says that

the Îshvaras of worlds are the result of evolution,

and the Hinḍu is right when he says that the

Supreme Îshvara is not subject to evolution, He

who is the Saguṇa Brahman, the one Life, the Self,

of all. Thus the complete truth makes reconcilia-

tion where a partial view makes division ; and we

begin to understand that it is better that all should

speāk out the truth they see, however conflicting,

with other truths it may seem ; when the whole

truth is seen, all the parts blend into it and make

one splendid whole. Hence we should never silence

the heretic ; we should never silence the minority ;

for they may have caught a glimpse of something

that we do not possess. Rather let us encourage

all to speak, that out of the manyness of vision a

perfect reconciliation of all partial truths may be

found ; for, once more, " Truth alone conquěrs, not

falsehood." Let us speak out our truths, but not

1 Ibid. VIII. ix. 106. For many other passages, see the

Appendix. I am indebted for all these paurāṇic, and most usefully

explanatory, passages, to my friend, Prof. Bireshvar Banerji, of

the Central Hindu College, Benares, a well-read paurāṇic scholar.

It is most interesting to see how completely they corroborate the

theosophic teaching, independently obtained.

44

ĪSHVARA

engage in the denunciation of the truths of others.

In Hinduism there has been in the past absolute liberty of thought and speech, and it should not be false to this noble heritage.

Where we are wrong, time will correct us; where we are mistaken, truth will gradually burn up our errors.

But if one silences another, then one letter of the complete truth may slip out of sight, and be lost from the life of the world, a letter which should have had its place in the whole.

When we go back to the Law of Sacrifice, we realise that it is true as the Munḍakopanishat says:

“Spirit verily is this Universe, action tapas.”1

Such is the beautiful thought that comes out of the study of the Supreme Īshvara and the many Īshvaras and Their work.

Only by tapas, austerity, may life be realised.

This is the law of our life, this is the law by which alone we live.

Refuse to sacrifice, cling to matter, be Māyā's slave, let Māyā own you, and you remain isolated, powerless, helpless.

You can help none other; you cannot help yourself.

Then, Brothers, love, and lead the life of sacrifice; throw everything away—you cannot throw away the Self; all you can throw away is the Not-Self, and that is valuable only for the sake of sacrifice.

Do not fear to throw away even life, for the Self within you

1 Loc. cit. II. i. 10.

THE WISDOM OF THE UPANISHAṬS ·· 45.

never ceases to live. Give everything you have

everything you know, everything you think of as

"mine," and in the denial of all that is not Self,

the one Aham shall arise within you, and you

shall know that "I am He."

Third Lecture.

JĪVÂTMÂS.

Brothers :

UR special subject for to-day is Jīvâtmâs. It is

naturally the next in our study. For we

have tried, however feebly, to grasp that all-

important truth that "Brahman is All." Then we

have sought to pierce that which is dark by intole-

rable excess of light, and to see, as it were, the

coming forth of the One, the first Being, the Uni-

versal Self, the Saguna Brahman, Îshvara Himself.

We have tried to follow, step by step, the manifes-

tation which was manifested after Him, to use the

words of the Upanishad: "When He manifesteth,

all is manifested after Him;"1 and we saw that

among those manifestations,were the great Îshvaras

of lokas, world-systems, universes; and we have

now come to the point in our study where, having

1 Shvetâshvatara. vi. 14, and Mundaka. II. ii. 10.

JÎVÂTMÂS

47

seen all these early stages, we next naturally ask:

"And what about the inhabitants of all these worlds?

How does the central life divide itself among the

many? What is meant by the word Jîvâtmâ, the

îving Self, the Self which is life? and what is the

distinction between the Jîvâtmâ and Îshvara Him-

self?" Such are the problems that now we are to

seek to solve, and when we have apprehended the

nature of the Jîvâtmâ, already alluded to by the

declaration that Îshvara becomes many by His

own will, naturally after that we shall pause for a

moment on the nature of man as man. We must

try to understand our own nature, and, understand-

ing that, we may see the path, if so I may phrase it

which leads to the realisation of the Self. These

are the rough details of what we shall try to do

to-day, and to-morrow we shall take up that path

with rather more detail, in studying the wheel of

births and deaths; we must see what birth and

death can mean in connexion with that which is

itself unborn and undying. What can birth and

death have to do with that which in itself is eter-.

nal, sharing the eternity of God Himself? And so,

if it may be, we shall go hence with some fresh

inspiration, to tread the path of the pilgrimage

with some fresh light on the difficulties of under-

standing, with some new courage to climb over

the obstacles that impede.

48

THE WISDOM OF THE UPANIṢHATS

Looking over any world-system, or world, that you live in, you see around you living creatures of every kind, and some creatures which are not regarded as living by large numbers of people. But to us there is no difference between the creatures called living and non-living save in the degree of life which is manifested ; there is no fundamental difference, no separation. I might take up in my hand a grain of sand. To me there must be a Jīvātmā hidden in a dense veil of matter. We may see appear amongst us the loftiest Deva who rules a world ; he to us also must be but the same thing, a Jīvātmā ; only in him the veil is thinner, the matter less gross. The light, which is alike in him and in the sand-grain, shines out in the one, is obscured in the other.

Now let us see whether that statement is in any sense an exaggeration and senseless. For this, of course, we turn to the same book, or books rather, which are guiding our study right through, and realising that everything has a Jīvātmā at its heart, let us for a moment pause on certain great principles. For, if you grasp these clearly, their application is only a matter of thought, of trouble, of using them to explain particular cases, and that use and explanation you must not expect to find in the Upaniṣhats. They give us the principles which may be applied to all, but not their

applications in detail.

Now one of those principles is that all manifestation is by trinities, by triads, by threes. This is natural, is it not? Because at the very beginning of all primary manifestation shows out the triple nature of the manifesting, and He is spoken out in the three-lettered Aum. So, naturally, what comes from that will also be triple in its nature, inasmuch as it must be reflexion after reflexion, and the object which is reflected being triple, the image or reflection also must be triple in turn. That is one of the principles, and we find that it is given out very clearly in one of the Upanishaṭs; in the Chhāndogyopanisṣhaṭ we read that in the earliest stages three great Elements -we may call them Devaṭas-were produced, and they were heat or fire, water, and food-food standing, of course, for earth, which is the giver of all food. Those three Beings were brought forth by Îshvara for all worlds, and He willed : "Having entered these three Devaṭas as Jîvâtmâ, I shall become manifest in name and form."1 These are the words which for a moment demand our special attention :" I shall become manifest in name and form." Having thus entered these, each of them became a trinity in turn. The fire became a trinity by His entry ; the water became a trinity by

1. Loc. cit. VI. iii. 2.

50 THE WISDOM OF THE UPANIṢHATS

His entry ; the food became a trinity by His entry.

Thus the three became nine, and so on and on ;

each new trinities reproduced its nature in another

three trinities, and thus the whole universe became

filled with these trinities, or triads, each of which

is a reflexion of the life whence it came forth ; as He

says: "I shall become manifest as Jīvātma in

name and form," we get a definition of a Jīvātma.

A Jīvātma is Īshvara with name and form. That

definition is drawn from the Upaniṣhat itself. The

Jīvātma is nothing less then Īshvara with name,

with form—as we should say, individualised, parti-

cularised—and a Jīvātma is nothing more than

that. It is the widest thing in its essence, and

name and form are its limitations. Name and

form imply the presence of matter, for matter is, as

it is said in the Viṣhnu Purāṇa, "Extension."

Hence form implies matter, vehicle, upādhi, body,

call it what you like. Name means that particular

note which is sounded out by every aggregation,

or combination of matter, that which is the "real

name "of every living thing. You are called by

many names, but those are not your true names;

they change from birth to birth. In one birth you

may be a William ; in another you may be a

Kālicharan ; in one birth you may be a man, with

a man's name; in another a woman, with a wo-

man's name; for it is written of him, the Jīvātma :

JÎVÂTMÂS .

51

"He is not woman, he is not man, nor herma

phrodite."1 He is above all distinctions of sex. So

none of these changing names can be "the name"

by which Îshvara becomes Jîvâtmâ.

What is "the name" then? Every aggregation

of matter, of atoms, sends out by its vibrations a

sound, and the sound which is the resultant of the

totality of all those vibrations, according to the com-

position of the material nature, is "the name" of

that object. The sound which is given out by the

aggregation, with the light of the Jîvâtmâ within it,

which is also sound, blending into one great note,

which expresses perfectly the nature of the indivi-

dual, that and that only is his true name. Such is

the name of each of us, and each of us has such a

name, sounding out in a very clumsy way at present,

very discordant, because all kinds of non-harmoni-

ous sounds mix in, and the note is not clear. None

the less it is there, and the realisation of the name

is the realisation of the Self. So our Jîvâtmâs are

Îshvara with name and form.

The next step that we will take, still following

our guide, is the reiteration of that statement which

you heard yesterday in other words from other

Upanishads, but which comes rightly also, to

explain to us the nature of the Jivatman. This is

Brahman, this Indra, this BṛjApati, this all "Devas, "

1 Shvetashvatara. v. 10.

52 ``THE WISDOM OF THE UPANISHAȚS

and the five great elements, earth, air, ether, water,

light, the egg-born, the womb-born, the gemmation-

born, horses, cows, men, elephants, whatsoever has

breath, the walking, the flying, the immovable.''1

Then we read in the Brhadaranyakopanishat: ``That

Immortal is hidden by existence.'' A strange

phrase! We say that the Immortal is shown forth by

existence; but the deeper vision says that the Im-

mortal is hidden by existence. Existence is part of

the Mâyâ. It limits that which, in itself, is illimitable.

Hence the Immortal is verily hidden from you by

the very fact of your separate existence. ``Life is

verily the Immortal; name and form existence: by

these the life is concealed.''2 That is the great truth

of the Jîvâtmâ. And once again I may remind you

of that which I quoted yesterday, for it is our start-

ing-point now. I recall these words from the Chhân-

dogyopanishat: ``That same Brahman is verily that

ether which is without man, and is verily that ether

which is within man.'' Such then is the Jîvâtmâ.

No doubt can remain as to the teaching of the

Upanishats on this crucial point, and if I draw your

attention to it in so many ways, and with so many

shlokas, it is because it is the turning point of all,

the pivot on which the whole conception of life must

turn. If this be not realised, you remain ever slaves

and blind. If this be realised, then all else must

1 Aitareya. III. v. 8. 2 Brhadâr. I. vi. 3.

JÎVÂTMÂS

53

follow, for it is true in us as in the world: “When

the Self manifests, all is manifested after Him.” No

matter then if you blunder, if you are still blind, if

your upâdhis fetter you ; it matters not, if you recog-

nise the one great truth of your own Divinity ; for

as the sun burns up the clouds that obscure him by

the glory of his light, so shall the glory of the Self,

shining within the heart, burn up everything which

obstructs, until it shines forth undimmed.

What is the difference then between Îshvara and

the Jîvâtmâ, which is implied by the terms “ name

and form.” What is it? We read again in the Shve-

tâshvataropanishat: “Knowing and unknowing,

both unborn, powerful powerless,......in bonds by

the condition of an enjoyer.”1 Bound to objects;

that is the difference, that and nothing else. Break

the bonds which bind his bodies, and he is free.

Within the bondage of the bodies, he is ever

free, for freedom is the essence of his nature and he,

in truth, is not bound by all those bonds around

him ; it is the vehicles that are bound and not the

Self. The Jîvâtmâ is ever free.

A question arises here: What is all this for?

Why should this Jîvâtmâ of the nature of Îshvara,

all-knowing, all-powerful, why, by what strange

mystery, does he become ignorant, powerless?

Why? For what end? Did we lose freedom?

1 Loc. cit. i. 9.

54

THE WISDOM OF THE UPANISHAṬS

Why did we lose it? That we did lose it is clear,

for we are here, and are bound. And unless that

question is answered, you will always remain more

or less puzzled. For at first sight, the whole pro-

ceeding seems absurd. If we were free, at any time,

in any state, why should we have deliberately

plunged into this ocean of Māyā, and lose therein

the freedom which is our birthright, and the know-

ledge which is the very nature of the Self?

Why did we do it? It is clear, we did it, since

we are here, but why? The answer is as clear as

the fact; we did it because in that world of the

highest Gods, that world in which knowledge is per-

fect and power omnipotent, in that world there is

but the finest matter, subtlest limitations of form,

so subtle that all the forms intermingle, and you

cannot say which is one and which is the other;

to use an old Greek description of that state, the

sun and the stars are all each other and themselves.

The knowledge, though wide, lacked in definite pre-

cision, which can only be gained by limitation.

That is another great principle. As you limit,

you define, more and more clear

become the outlines, and while it is true that the

Jīvātma in these lofty regions is all-knowing and

omnipotent, in the denser matter which Īshvara

makes for his universe, it becomes blind and help-

less, the slave of Māyā; and he comes into mani-

festation, that he may do what Îshvara had done before him, may become the master of Mâyâ and not its slave; so that nowhere, in that all which is Brahman, there may be anything which can limit, anything which can blind. By our own will we come, that we may enjoy the exercise of our powers. But when we try to exercise our powers in this great ocean of denser matter, we find we cannot do it. Matter is too blinding, too opaque, too stiff; we cannot manage it; we cannot control it; and, by our own will, in order that we may become its master, we become for a time its slave; knowing it, willing it, and willing not to rest in that high region, where only we were free, but willing to be free everywhere, and not only in that loftiest region,

willing to live and act, and know, in every possible condition of matter, and not only in that subtlest form which is the region of our birth-place and our real home. It is part of the very nature of life, to will to live, to exercise its powers. How can we help it? We are part of Îshvara, and we share the outgoing energy of His will. There is a joy in becoming many; there is a joy in the scattering abroad of power, of life; there is a joy in creation, in pouring our life into the forms we create; and we, as parts of Him, will as He wills, and with him enter into the ocean of matter that we may win our freedom there, and be as He is, ever free.

56

THE WISDOM OF THE UPANIŞHATS

We are parts of Him, limited by name and

form, and the part has not at first the possibilities,

or rather the actualities, of the whole. The pos-

sibilities, yes, because we are parts. The expres-

sion of them; no, also because we are parts. In

order that we who are parts may become the whole,

we enter into a temporary limitation, that therein

we may conquer, that therein we may be free.

Hence this bondage. In your limited condition,

you may wonder why you came hither. But

none compelled you to come into this universe.

You came of your own will, with Îshvara who willed

to manifest. And because He willed to manifest

you willed it also. For you are part of Him. As

a part, you must win your freedom, until in the

grossest world of matter you shall be as omni-

potent, as wise, as you ever are in those supernal

regions of your birth, where you know your own

divinity and your non-separation from Îshvara.

In the Aitareyopanishat, a very short but valu-

able Upanişhat, there is a most interesting descrip-

tion of the way in which the stages of this mani-

festation of the Jîvâtmâs took place. "In the

origins this was verily the one Self and nought else

living; He willed: Let me emanate the worlds."1

He then proceeded to emanate them. First came

forth the Elements, then the Devas. Let us pause

1 Aitareya. I. i. 1. et seq.

on that for a moment. What are these Devas?

The Devas of the Elements; those mighty beings

from past universes, who have as their bodies what

in the old scriptures are called Elements. As you

have your physical body, so have they their bodies

of matter, and the body of the Deva is the matter

of one whole plane—as we call it. A plane is form-

ed of one kind of matter, one Element.

Do not muddle these Elements up with chemi-

cal elements, or you will never find your way. An

Element, in the old sense of the term, means matter

which has a special form of atom; of these there

are seven, five of which are manifested. These five

kinds of atoms are the five Elements, and of each

of these Elements, or elemental atoms, there are

endless combinations, all the combinations of one

kind of elemental atom making a plane. Thus

one Element, say Fire, is in all the matter which is

built up of the fire-atoms, everything, however

complex, however many atoms may enter into any

combination. These fire-atoms make the body of

the Deva of the Fire Element, Agni; into that

body made of fire-atoms he entered, and is then

became his vehicle of manifestation. That is the

next thought you must hold on to. Every Element

is the body of a Deva, and all the matter composed

of that Element belongs to that body of the Deva.

He is in it all; as truly as your Jîvâtmâ lives in

58. THE WISDOM OF THE UPANISHAȚS

your body, and moves it, and is conscious in it, so in

all combinations of fire-atoms, Agni lives, moves, and

is conscious. That is what is meant by the Deva

of an Element. Agni is in everything in the three

worlds into which fire enters.

In the stages of the building of a universe, then,

at first there were the Elements, and then began the

building of forms, and Îshvara built by His thought

certain forms, and offered them to the Devas to live

in, and the Devas rejected them. They said: "We

will not live in these." Then He made other forms,

and they rejected them also, and said: "We will not

live in those." They were willing to give up their

substance to them, but they would not identify

themselves with them. Then He made the Pûru-

sha, the archetypal man, and the Devas cried out:

"Well done! into him we will enter, and in him

we will dwell." Therefore man is the highest of

all things. In the later building of worlds, all

animals are but his cast-off parts. That which he

has thrown out is used for the building of the

animal kingdom. And sometimes, if you complain

of the kind of animals round you, if you look upon

them as obstacles, as hindrances, as tormentors, re-

member that they exist only because men thought

wrongly and acted wrongly. These animals that

are around you are the results of your own past,

tormenting you in your higher present. These

JÎVÂTMÂS

Jîvâtmâs live in the bodies that you. have made for them, your cast-off clothes ; and remember that only by rising higher can you purify and lead the animal kingdom. with you, for it is your own creation, as you are the creation of those` who are higher than yourselves.

The Devas enter into man, they give him of their substance, and with that substance of theirs his senses were built. Fire became speech in his mouth, wind breath in his nostrils, and so on ; they became the senses which have their organs in the body and the powers and capacities of the Devas reside in these. Then the Jîvâtmâ, for whom this temple was being built—for is not the human body the Brahmapura, the Vishnupura, the divine town of Brahman, 1 the habitation of God—the Jîvâtmâ said : “ Let me enter in,” and He entered at the head; where the hairs of the head separate, and thus became the dweller in the.body, the embodied Self.

“This body is a dwelling of the immortal unembodied Self.” 2 He entered in, and took up therein three dwelling-places. The Upanishaṭ does not mention what these are. It only says : “ A dwelling-place, a dwelling-place, a dwelling-place.” What are they? If this Upanishadṭ will not tell us, another will. We only know from this that there

1 See Munḍaka. II. ii. 7; Chhândogya. VII. i. 1; Katha. v.1; Shreḍashvatara. iii. 18; etc.

2 Chhândogya. VIII. xii. 1.

60

THE WISDOM OF THE UPANISHAṬS

are three dwelling-places, but in the Māṇḍuky-

opaniṣhaṭ it is shown what they are. We have the

waking consciousness, and the brain in which it

works is one dwelling-place. That brain is some-

times symbolised by the right eye, as the symbol

of the brain, which knows through the senses.

The second dwelling-place is that of the super-

waking consciousness, of the Ego, or Taijasa ; and

that is the mental body, or the antaḥkaraṇa, the

inner mind. The third dwelling-place is that of the

Monad himself, the Jīvātma when he is like Īshvara,

the Jñāna Deha in its subtlest form, and the

highest of all ; it is sometimes symbolised by the

ether in the cavity of the heart, the lotus-like

chamber, where is the antarākāsha, the inner ether,

wherein dwells the Self. 1 Those are the three

dwelling-places of the consciousness thus appear-

ing as triple; the Prāṇamā as I have called it,

Vaishvānara ; the next, Taijasa, the brilliant, the

radiant, the all-pervading intelligence, the Aham,

the " I "; lastly that highest state where knowledge,

Prajñâ, is perfect and the man has become Prajña,

the Lord of all knowledge. Those are the three

states ; those the dwelling-places of Īshvara, as

Jīvātma, limited by name and form.

Let us pause on this triple-nature of man, for

in it comes out another important principle, the

1 Chhāndogya. VIII. i. 1.

JÎVÂTMÂS

1.. 61

principle of reflexion. Each manifestation throws a shadow, an imperfect reproduction of itself, and

so the pair, shadow and sun-light, are continually spoken of. Yama uses that phrase when teach-

ing Nachiketah about the lower and the supreme Self;“Brahma-knowers,” says he, “call them shadow

and sun-light.” 1 I want you to grasp the signi-

ficance of this principle of reflexion, because then you will have a clue which will guide you through

many labyrinths. The words shadow and sun-

light may be used of different things, of various

pairs. But if you understand the principle, you

will easily distinguish the particularity of the use.

Whenever there is a pair, a higher manifesting in

a lower, there the principle of reflexion comes

in, and you have sun-light and shadow. The

simile is a graphic one. Suppose I have a brilliant

light here, and suppose that all around me there is

only the atmosphere through which the light can

flow, there is no shadow. But suppose I bring some

object of dense matter, and put that in the rays of

light, a shadow is thrown, and the shadow has the

outline of the object that throws it, but not a com-

plete reproduction of its parts ; where there is light

and an interposition of denser matter, a shadow is

thrown. The Monad is the highest separated

form, and is so little separated, by such a subtle

1 Katha. iii. 1.

62

•THE WISDOM OF THE UPANISHAṬS

film of matter, that you can only say that there is a

veil of separation; but that veil is permeable, and

no one Monad has one place, but all have every

place. The Monad is the light ; in denser matter

is its shadow, the triple Jîvaṭmâ, the Âtmâ-Buddhi-

Manas, sometimes called the triple Âṭmâ, the in-

dividual spiritual man, the true Aham, when unified.

The first pair of sun-light and shadow is the Monad

in the worlds of the Gods, and the triple Âṭmâ in

the mortal world, the world of man. But a further

descent has to be made, a grosser manifestation,

so another pair arises ; the triple Âṭmâ becomes

the sun-light, and the living soul, the vital breath

in the human body, the Prâṇâṭmâ, that becomes

the shadow. So that in you and me, the shadow is

this Prâṇa, the sun-light is the triple Âṭmâ. When

we have realised the triple Âṭmâ, and know it as

our Self, then even that becomes the shadow, and

the sun-light is the true Jîvaṭmâ, the Monad, the

amsha, or part, of Îshvara Himself. When we

have realised that as our Self and have merged in

that, then that becomes the shadow and Îshvara

the only light. Hence it is written : “This life

is born of the Self. As a shadow by man, so in

that this is produced :1 How perfect is the simile.

Only understand how to apply it, and all becomes

orderly. The same truth is laid down in the

1 Prashna. iii. 3.

JÎVÂTMÂS

63

Taittirîyopaniṣhat, that each lower is the body

of the higher; Îshvara is the body of the Nirguṇa

Brahman ; the lower Îshvaras are His body in turn ;

the human Jîvâtmâs are the body of those se-

condary Îshvaras, and so down and down to the

grossest form of matter, the physical body, which

is the body of Prâṇa, the life-breath.1 And thus

there is a ladder, in which not one rung is wanting,

and you may climb to the higher, for every rung

is there, and there is no difference except in the

upâdhis that clothe the one consciousness.

From this we may get a definition of man. He

is the form of being in whom the Self and the Not-

Self are balanced. That is the only occult defini-

tion of "man;" not any specific form, nor organs,

nor arrangement of head and arms and legs, and so

on. Man is the being, in any shape, in whom the

powers of the Jîvâtmâ are struggling for supremacy,

in whom Matter and Spirit are striving against each

other for the mastery. Man is the battlefield of the

universe, in which Îshvara and Mâyâ are contending

for lordship; below him, Mâyâ is Lord and Îshvara

is hidden ; above him, Îshvara is Lord, and Mâyâ is

conquered ; in him the two are battling for supre-

macy, so that, as I say, the battlefield, the Kuru-

kṣhetra of the universe, is man. Every Jîvâtmâ in

the universe must strive on this battlefield, must be,

1 Loc. cit. II. iii–vi.

64

THE WISDOM OF THE UPANISHAṬS

or must have been, man—as H. P. Blavatsky says.

There is another expression that is very useful and illuminative; we read of what is called the Jñānashakti, the knowledge-power. This is the Jīvāṭmā, whose nature is consciousness, or knowledge; its shadow is the Prānāṭmā, the personal self the Kriyāshakti, the power of action. These are a pair, our sunlight and shadow, the higher and lower Aham, or “I.” “Two birds, united, one-named, dwell on the single tree: of the twain, one enjoys the delicious fig-tree, the other witnesses.”1 What are the birds? Any pair, of which the lower is the shadow of the higher. What is the tree? Any upādhi, vehicle, form, in which a higher dwells.

The two birds in us are the Āṭmā and the Prānāṭmā, and the bodies are the tree; the Prānāṭmā enjoys, the triple Āṭmā witnesses. In the Ṛshis the two birds are the Monad, the true Jīvāṭmā, and the triple Ātmā ; the triple Ātmā enjoys, the Monad witnesses. In every case the higher is the witness, and the lower is the instrument, or tool, of the witness through which he acts in the world. Yet higher, the two birds are the Nirguṇa and the Saguṇa Brahman, the eternal Witness, the Enjoyer in space and time.

Remain the questions: what is Prāṇa, and what is its relation to the Elements, to the Devas, and to

1 Muṇḍaka. III. i. 1.

JÎVÂTMÂS

65

the Jîvaṭmâ itself?

Indra said ; " I am Prâna.....life is Prâna, Prâna

is life."1 Indra is the King of the Gods, the high-

est of them, and he stands as the symbol of the

Devas working in the universe, and also of the Jîv-

âtmâ and Îshvara.2 " I am Prâna," and why Prâna?

Because as Îshvara, He is the giver of life to all

things, and the life, the breath on the physical plane,

is hence called Prâna. Therefore, in Yoga, Prâna

is often used to include all the life-energies of the

universe, and prânâyâma is not really the control

of the physical breath, but of all the life-energies,

the subdual of them all to the Self.

But let us follow this further. In its relation to

the Elements and the Devas it is said that Prana

is five-fold, dividing itself, and five Prânas are

spoken of. True ; on the physical plane it is five-

fold, dividing itself into five branches, but it is

still one life ; it is like a single source, or spring,

sending out its water into different channels, and

each channel is different, though the water is the

same. Prana is called by many names, as you

give different names to the waters that flow along

different channels ; you may call the rivers Gangâ,

1 Kaushîtakibrâhmaṇa. iii. 2.

2 See Aitareya. I. iii. 14, where it is stated that Idandra (idam

pashyati, he who sees this, who sees the Not-self ) is the name of

the supreme Îshvara, and that this is changed to Indra.

5

66 THE WISDOM OF THE UPANIṢHATS

or Brahmaputra, or Indus, but they are all water

from the Himalayas; so Prāṇa, five-fold dividing

itself, is called by different names, when seen as

divided, although called by one name when under-

stood : " When breathing it is called life; when

speaking, speech ; when seeing, sight ; when hear-

ing, ear ; when minding, mind." For this reason

in the Upaniṣhats the senses are often called Devas,

and thus ever remind us that it is life that pro-

duces forms, and not forms life. One thing is

called by many names. It is one Prāṇa, in all of

them. We are told that the senses are active only

when Prāṇa is there. There is a very fine passage

in the Chhāndogyopanishad, which I will summarise

very rapidly, in order to show the relation of Prāṇa

to the senses. The organs quarrelled for supremacy,

and each cried out: " I am the chief ;" and they

went to Prajāpati, and inquired: "Who is the chief?"

and his answer was ; " The one who, if he disap-

pears, makes the body helpless, he is the chief."

Then speech departed, and the body lived as the

dumb live ; then vision went, and it lived as the

blind ; and hearing, and it lived as the deaf ; and

mind, and it lived as the babe or the idiot ; then

Prāṇa uprose to go ; and "as a splendid steed,

if struck, plucks out the pegs to which its legs

are fastened, so did Prāṇa dislodge all the organs

1 Commentary on Bhāḍar. I. iv. 6.

of sense," and they cried out: "O Lord, thou

art the greatest ; we pray thee, depart not, abide

in thy place." And, one by one, they came to Prâṇa,

and acknowledged that their specific properties

were due to Prâṇa only.1 For they are all Prâṇa,

and without Prâṇa, none of them can live.

What is the relation of Prâṇa to the Jîvâtmâ?

We shall see that it is verily himself. The Prâṇa

which is in you is truly your Jîvâtmâ, is your true

Self. Therefore I called the lower manifestation

the Prâṇâtmâ. Each sense has been taken by

Prana from one faculty of intelligence, one faculty

of the triple Âtmâ, a faculty which belongs

to ṢJñânashakti, and Prâṇa, taking that faculty,

turns,it into a power, transforms it to Kriyâshakti.

The object of the sense is placed outside as a rudi-

mentary element, and induces activity in that

special sense, and thus with all the possibilities of

the triple Âtmâ. Then it is said that Prajñâ,

knowledge, having mounted on each sense, lives

and works in the world, and knows all objects.2

All the knowledge resides in the triple Âtmâ, who

is truly the Jñânashakti.

Those faculties having been taken by Prâṇa,

and each of them turned into a shakti, a power,

it is written that the true Prâṇa is identical with

1 Loc. cit. V. i. 6-15. 2 Summarised from Kaushîtakibrâh-

mana. iii. 5-7.

68 . THE WISDOM OF THE UPANISHA TS

Ātma;1 for Prāṇa is Ātma under the name of Prajñā : “Prāṇa is Prajñā, and Prajñā is Prāṇa.” 2 There is no difference, save in the form of manifestation. When Prāṇa has done this, ‘then the Jīvātma is said to dwell in the body: “O Maghavan, mortal verily is this body, pervaded by death ; of that immortal and bodiless Self it is the dwelling-place.”3 Through Prāṇa, the triple Ātma dwells within us. Through Prāṇa, the triple Ātma works within us. And so it is written that all the bodily sense organs were really made by the will of the Self to experience the contacts of the varied forms of matter : the Self desired to see, to hear, to speak, to smell, to think, and hence came the organs.4 That is the order of evolution ; it is not the Self which is the production of the body, but, the body which is the building produced by the powers inherent in the Self ; every manifestation in this mortal world, this world which is pervaded by death, is due to the will of the Self ; that is the truth. There is nothing in you which is not from the triple Ātma ; no power, no thought, no organ of sense, but comes out by his will, because he wills to manifest, and wills to enjoy. And so it is written, as said above: “From the Self is born this life.”

The inevitable result of this study is a matter

1 Kausītakibrāhmaṇa iv. 19. 2 Ibid, iii. 3. 3 Chhāndogya. VI. xii. 1. 4 Ibid. 4.

JĪVÂTMÂS

69

for daily life, for the training of the student. Clearly it is not in these organs, Self-created, that

the Self may find rest. These organs can never satisfy, when we realise that we made them only

to serve our passing purpose. It is the Self who "sees, unseen; hears, unheard; minds, unminded;

knows, unknown. There is none that sees, but he. There is none that hears, but he. There is none

that minds, but he. There is none that knows, but he. He is thy Self, the inner Ruler, immortal."1

Hence the advice: "Let not a man wish to know speech, let him know the speaker. Let not a man

wish to know smell, let him know the smeller. Let not a man wish to know form, let him know

the seer. Let not a man wish to know sound, let him know the hearer...Let not a man wish to know

the mind, let him know the thinker." The Self "is the Owner of the world, the King of the world,

the Lord of the world ; this is my Self. Thus let a man know."2 For, is not this reasonable? What

is the good of knowing the objects only, if that which knows them is within us? They become

secondary, trivial, foolish. It is the Self who possesses all the powers, whom we should truly desire

to know.

On this understanding of the nature of the Jīv-ātmā, the nature of man, is built up all Yoga, and the

1 Brhadâr. III. mit. 29. 2 Kena-Up. IV. ... ... ...

70 THE WISDOM OF THE UPANIŞHATS

steps to Self-knowledge, as said before, is the real Prāṇāyāma. All its stages are to be followed, one by one, understood one by one, and gradually mastered, until we reach the Self within us. It is that Self who is to be known, who is to be understood, who is to be realised ; and all forms must die, for they are perishable, till only the immortal, the imperishable Self remains. That is the Prāṇāyāma of which true Yogīs speak: " He who rightly recognises this Self as God, Lord of the past and the future, he seeks not to hide himself."1 Why should he hide? How should he hide? He is " Brahman, the deathless, the fearless."2 There is nothing which he can fear. He is himself all, and when he understands that, nobody and nothing remains outside him, whom or which he can fear.

Do you think you have enemies? It is all a delusion ; there is nothing but the Self, and there is nothing outside which can be the enemy of the Self-knower. Do you think that you have trials, troubles, that you suffer injustice and wrong? there is nothing outside you which can inflict a wrong on you. You are the Self ; one part of you is striking at the other part, and both parts are ignorant that you are striking at yourself, striking with your own hands at your own head. By delusion Self is Self's enemy, and we know not that

1 Bṛhadār. IV. iv. 15. 2 Chāndogya. VIII. vii. 4.

JĪVĀTMĀS

71

everywhere, in everyone, we, the Self, have hands

and feet and eyes. They are all our own and there

is no difference; that hand of ours that seeks to

strike us is our own hand, working out our karma,

and when it is worked out, we shall be free. It is

striking off, this hand of ours, the fetters that clog

us. Hence it is said that there are no friends, no

enemies ; it is one life, the Self, and that Self " the

deathless fearless Brahman." " Brahman the Im-

mortal, verily, from behind, Brahman from before,

Brahman from right and left, below, above, all-

pervading, Brahman even this all, most excellent."1

Muṇḍaka. II. ii. 11.

FOURTH LECTURE.

THE WHEEL OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS.

BROTHERS :

YESTERDAY morning, as you will remember,

we studied the nature of the Jîvâtmâ; we

tried to understand how he was constituted,

what was his fundamental nature, and what the

nature of the upâdhis, or bodies, in which he lives

in the gross and in the subtle worlds. To-day, in

order to make the subject of these lectures com-

plete, I propose that we should try to follow the

Jîvâtmâ through his human stage, remembering that

behind him there is the sub-human stage through

which he has ascended, remembering that beyond

him there is the super-human stage, to which in-

evitably he will ascend. Our work to-day is to

trace the human passage; to try to understand the

nature of this "wheel of births and deaths" to

which the Jîvâtmâ is bound through his long

THE WHEEL OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS 73

human life; to see where it turns, why it turns,

and how; to understand how the bond that binds

the Jīvāṭmā to it may be loosened, may be broken;

to see what is the change in the Jīvāṭmā by the

breaking of the bonds, by the loosening of the

chains; and, lastly, to understand what are the

means for the loosening, how this Jīvāṭmā, bound

on the wheel, is to show out his inherent liberty,

the freedom which is his, because he is Brahman.

That is to be the line of our thought.

Now we notice that in the Upaniṣhats the word

"wheel" is used over and over again, where it is

desired to intimate to the student that there is a

recurring repetition of a certain sequence of events.

As a wheel turns round and round, and as every part

of it in turn is uppermost, and any spot you may

choose on it will return to the place where originally

you observed it, so is it with births and deaths in

this wheel which is called Brahman. For we read :

"In this infinite Brahman-wheel, the abiding-place

of all beings, wanders the Hamsa, thinking the Self

and the Ruler different."1 Shrī Shankarāchārya,

dealing with that word Hamsa, derives it from a

sentence which, translated, means one who travels

along the road.2 So that sometimes you find it

translated as wanderer, or pilgrim—the Pilgrim-Self.

The deeper meaning is that the Self is Hamsa, the

1 Svetasvatara i. 6. 2 नित्यं गच्छति इति हंसः.

74 THE WISDOM OF THE UPANISHAȚS

"I"; the Aham—a declaration of the unity of the particular "I" with the Universal "I." But the word pilgrim will suit us well enough, for this particular "I" travels from his particularity to the universality of the universal "I"; and the Self is the Hamsa who·is continually travelling in the infinite Braḥman-wheel, which is the universe.

It is elsewhere written with regard to this same wheel revolving, that it revolves by God, and on God ; it revolves by the splendor of the Supreme, it does not move by its own nature: "By the splendor of the Supreme, the Braḥman-wheel revolves." 1 And again it is written that the Supreme is the pivot on which the universe revolves.3 Thus we have the idea of a continual revolution of all things, a recurring sequence, a universe revolving by the divine impulse, founded on the divine nature ;

and to that wheel of the universe, the pilgrim-souls are bound ; bound, not in their own nature, which is freedom, but bound by the vehicles into which they have entered for the gaining of experience. And we must always remember, when we speak of binding, that it is only the vehicles which are bound. It is as though you were chained, not by your limbs but only by your clothes; a very real bondage for all practical purposes, for you may be said to be chained, and yet, analysed, it is not you

1 Shreẹdạshvatara. vi. 1. 2 Ibid. 6.

THE WHEEL OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS 75

who are thus bound. So, truly, our wanderers, our

pilgrims, are not bound. You cannot bind the

Jîvâtmâ any more than you can bind the

sun-light; but the shadow which the sun-light

throws, that is bound to the wheel of births and

deaths. It is by understanding that it is only the

shadow which is bound, that you can gradually feel

your own inherent freedom, and at last know your-

self as free.

Where does the wheel of births and deaths

revolve? It revolves within the vaster wheel of the

universe, of which we have just spoken, and the

revolutions of this wheel are confined within the

three worlds. That is the next point to remember.

The succession of births and of deaths is only

through the three worlds familiar to us as the

Triloki. The Upanishad says: There are verily

three worlds, the world of man, the world of the

Pitṛs, and the world of the Devas."1 These are the

three worlds. The world pervaded by death, that is

the world of men, Bhur-loka. The world which is

called the intermediate world, in which it is written,

a man, a Jîvâtmâ, can see the world of men on

the one side and the world of the Devas on the

other side.2 That is the world of the Pitṛs, Bhu-

varloka. And then the third, the heavenly world,

the world of the Gods, that is the third, Svargaloka.

1 Pṛḥad-Ârṇy Up. II. i. i. 2 Ibid. IV. iii. 9.

76 THE WISDOM OF THE UPANISHAṬS

Now, over all these three worlds death has power. You remember how Nachikeṭah, when he saw Yama, and when Yama offered all the joys of earth, with everything it had to give, sons and grandsons, cattle. elephants, gold, horses, long life, kingship, and eyen went a step further, and bade him take the heavenly world and its joys, Nachikeṭah met him with the question whether in earth and heaven also he did not hold the sceptre, and flung back to him all the offered joys as tainted with mortality.1

King Yama could not deny that although the heavenly life was longer than the earthly, it still found its goal in death, that his sceptre verily swept across the heaven as well as over the earth, that no permanence could be found in any world where he had sway, and that all his gifts were tainted by the transitory nature of their life. In these three worlds, then, the wheel of births and deaths is turning. We Theosophists speak of them as the physical plane, the astral plane, and the mental, or devachanic, plane.

On that last plane, the mental, we have to pause a moment, because of a dividing line therein, in relation to the recurrence of births and deaths. Every plane is divided into a three and a four, into seven sub-planes, as you know. I have no time now to go into these and their significance, and will only

1 Katha.ii. 23–28.

THE WHEEL OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS 77

say, in passing, one important thing: that as the Jîvaṭmâ conquers a plane, the three and the four change places. At first the three are above and the four below, the triangle is over the quaternary. But when the plane is conquered, when the man is passing from the domination of the plane to a place whence he can rule it, the middle sub-plane leaves the lower and joins the higher, and, instead of the triangle being over the quaternary, you have a triangle below and a quaternary, the Tetractys, above, dominating it. This idea may hint to you why on this plane you have the three below—earth, liquid or water, and gas, and the four above—the ethers ; not tangible, perceptible, visible. On the earth plane, the turning-point has been reached and it. is the four that are above here, while the three are below ; and all the future progress of science depends on learning about and understanding the nature and forces of the ethers of the physical plane ; for the three lie behind us, so to speak, their work is well-nigh done.

But on the mental plane it is otherwise; the arûpa sub-planes are three and the rûpa are four; the wheel of births and deaths does not enter the upper three, the arûpa, the formless. There is the Ego himself, in his own body, untouched by birth and untouched by death, that mânasic body, which remains throughout the cycle. It does not disintegrate.

78 THE WISDOM OF THE UPANISHAṬS

grate under the sway of death, as do the three

lower—the mental, astral, and physical. These

three, and these only. are subject to birth and death.

"Death" does not mean only death on the

physical plane, but death on the three successive

planes ; on each the body belonging to it is disinte-

grated after death, leaving only one particle,

the permanent atom, in which the experience of

the body is preserved. The wheel turns, then, in

the three worlds.

Why? and how? Why—because each world

has its own function in the unfolding of the

Jīvatmic powers, and the shaping of the bodies

through which these powers are expressed; we re-

member that these bodies are the shadow of which

the Jīvātmā is the sunlight. On the lowest plane,

the world of physical matter, the seed is sown;

in other words, experience is gathered. Only on

that plane, for the vast majority of mankind, is

consciousness developed to the point where it is

definite, clear, precise, where outlines are fully seen,

where objects are sharply separated from other

objects, where there is no blurring, no confusion

of outlines, where everything is shaped, defined,

clear. On that last plane of matter, where divi-

sion is greatest, must this accuracy of definition be

acquired by the wanderer, the pilgrim. That is

why he has come here. He has come in order that,

THE WHEEL OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS 79

by the division of his powers, by the clothing of

each of them separately in matter, by the turning of

each Jñānashakti into a Kriyāshakti, this clearest

definition and complete accuracy may be attained.

He is here for this and for the gathering of

experience, to be used up for growth and unfolding

in the next two worlds.

Out of this world he passes by death and enters

the next world, the astral world, Bhuvarloka, of

which the higher part is the world of the Pitrs,

the lower the world of the Pretas, or Kāmaloka.

What does he do there? Carrying with him in

his memory all the life which he has lived on the

physical plane–for that he carries with him the

memory, we shall see plainly in a moment–he

begins to learn the results of what he did on the

physical plane. That is the world in which the

results of the lower activities show themselves, in

which he gathers part of the fruitage of the seed

that he has sown in the earth-life. He experiences

many a bitter pain as the outcome of folly, of

ignorance, of evil-doing, in the mortal world, and

a great part, indeed, does Kāmaloka play in his

earlier tuition; many of his primary lessons are

given most effectively in that bitter school. For every

animal craving he has fostered during his earth-

life, remains with him as a craving that cannot be

satisfied in Kāmaloka, a constant torture, until it is

80 THE WISDÓM OF THE UPANIŞHATS

starved out by lack of gratification. Thus he learns that he must conquer the animal in him, that it may not gnaw him after the death of the body. That part of the experience garnered, he passes on, into Pitṛloka, a peaceful and happy dwelling-place, and thence into the third world, the Svargaloka. There he has only available his mental body as his vehicle of consciousness, with everything that it contains—his memories of the past, his thoughts, his emotions, his nobler desires, all those activities which make up our conscious mental life in the three worlds; those are his possessions in the world of the Devas. And there, looking back over the past, he begins to work for the future. He changes his experiences into faculties, which he will exercise in the next life on the physical plane. He works up his thoughts into the powers of the inner life, so that experience becomes faculties, and aspirations become powers. And when all this is over, when every ear of the harvest sown in the physical world has been reaped, when the fruits have been eaten and nothing remains which has not been assimilated by the Jīvaṅma; then he casts away the emptied mental body, the shell, the dross, of no further service to himself, and hands the whole results on to his permanent vehicle, the true manasic body, while the now useless lower vehicle is scattered, and goes

THE WHEEL OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS 81

back to the reservoir of thought-stuff, of mental

matter. Only the results of the mental experiences

are handed on to the receptacle, the Kāraṇa Sharīra

of the Āṭma. Then comes the time for rebirth

into the physical world, and the will to live in that

physical world āwakens. Ichchhā, now desire for

physical life, is the impulse which draws another,

a new, mental body and a new astral body round

their respective permanent particles, and then a new

physical body for a fresh sowing, a fresh gaining of

experience. Such is the working of the wheel in

each of the three worlds, and such its purpose—the

gathering of experience, the suffering of the results

of evil experience, and the enjoying of the fruitage

of the experience of good, assimilated for fuller

and richer sowing on the return to earth. Such the

logical sequence, such the value of each of the

worlds in which the wheel is turning.

Once you realise the place of each in the evo-

lution of the bodies, in the unfolding of the powers

of the Jīvāṭma, you will understand the wisdom

which built the three worlds, and the use of the

turning of the wheel in each. Hence the necessity

of births and deaths; every birth is a coming

into a world; every death is a passing out of

a world. But the "death" of the lower world is

the "birth" of the higher, for birth and death are

relative terms. We die out of this moment

82

THE WISDOM OF THE UPANISHÂTS

to be born into the world of the Preṭas and Piṭṛs ;

we die out of the Piṭṛloka to be born into the

world of the Devas ; we die out of the Devas to be

born again into this mortal world. So that our

passage is a recurring death from the world which is

left, and a recurring birth into the world that is

entered. Birth and death are only phrases, used

to mark the succession of experiences in the three

worlds.

Let us for a moment take the lowest type of

man, the Jīvâtmâ which has passed through expe-

riences in the mineral kingdom, in the vegetable

and in the animal kingdoms, and is born now as

a human being. His intellectual powers will be

very little unfolded, for only in man, it is written,

does the Chiṭ aspect of Îshvara show itself out at

all fully, and it is particularly that aspect which

now has to be unfolded. The nature of the Jīvâtmâ

as a reflexion of Îshvara is, we know, three-fold.

Jñâna is the knowledge-aspect; Ichchhâ is the

will-desire-aspect, and Kriyâ the activity-aspect.

And it is necessary to recognise that those aspects

belong to the sunlight, and cannot be given up.

When you are told to destroy desire, you do not

destroy Ichchhâ, which is part of the nature of

the Jīvâtmâ, and answers to the Ânanda-aspect of

the Saguṇa Brahman Himself. When you are

told to destroy wandering thoughts, the mind which

THE WHEEL OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS

83

is the Rājā of the senses, you do not destroy Jñāna,

which answers to the Chiṭ-aspect of Brahman.

When you are told to destroy activity, you do not

destroy Kriyā, which answers to the Saṭ-aspect of

Brahman. What then you do is that you destroy

the shadow in the lower world, in order that the

sunlight of the higher may shine out undimmed.

For in the shadow lies the illusion ; in the shadow

lies the avidyā which blinds the Jīvaṭmā to his

own real nature. This distinction between the

higher and the lower must ever be remembered, and

then, intellectually at least, the path will be more

clear, and the apparently contradictory statements

in the Upanishaṭs will receive their perfect recon-

ciliation. For I read to you the other day that the

Self cannot be attained by knowledge, and yet

presently I shall have to read that the Self is to

be found by thinking. And you will become

terribly confused, unless you remember the prin-

ciple of the sunlight and the shadow, and are able

to apply the principle in each successive stage,

destroying each shadow only when you identify

yourself with its sunlight. There will be a stage

when each sualight is seen as the shadow of a yet

higher sunlight, until we reach Îshvara Himself;

but that stage is not yet for you and for me ; that

stage is not explained, for we could not understand

it in the lower shadow in which we dwell, and for

84 THE WISDOM OF THE UPANISHATS

us the Jīvātma is the sunlight and this garment of the bodies is the shadow which we must all understand and overcome.

Now take the case of the Jīvātma as he lives in a savage. 'He is everything that he is in you, everything that he is in the Ṛshi. 'But he cannot put out any of his powers, because of the density of the matter which clothes him round. What are you to do with him? He has to learn to know himself as Brahman. But he cannot know himself as Brahman in his present condition, in the grossest Māyā of all, in which the Jīvātma identifies himself with the physical body, and says : "I am this body. I speak, I eat, I drink, I enjoy all the functions of the body ; this body is myself." And if you tell him : "You are not the body," he will simply stare at you. You remember how I once quoted to you from Charles Darwin a very good illustration of the difference of ideas between a savage and a civilised man with reference to the word "good", which to the civilised man has a moral connotation, while to the savage it bears a purely physical one. The savage had eaten his wife, and being told that it was not "good" to eat a wife, he answered that she was extremely "good" —as food. Now it is clearly useless to tell such a man that he is Brahman. He has to turn on the wheel. He murders, he robs, he lives promiscu-

THE WHEEL OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS

85

ously, he thinks that there is nothing wrong in

following his desires ; he feels no remorse for wrong

because he has no ideal of right. He cannot re-

cognise a thing as wrong, because he knows

nothing as right. He cannot understand that to

follow his physical cravings is an. offence against

his higher nature, for to him "higher nature " are

words unmeaning, senseless. How shall he learn

he is Brahman? He slays, and slays, and slays,

and at last he is slain in revenge for the slayings

he has wrought. In the next world he raves

against his slayer, for he is deprived of all the en-

joyments he wants, and he desires to injure him

in return ; but he cannot, his body is gone. He

has no instrument whereby he can touch him.

Impotent his wrath, useless his indignation, and

presently the germ of mind which is in him begins

to work and to understand. Not at once. Over

and over again, in many lives, must he

slay and be slain, before at last the idea will stamp

itself on that resistant nature : "I have been killed,

because I killed." He will see the connexion.

He will realise that he had made a mistake in

killing, that it was a blunder from his own selfish

stand-point, because they who kill are killed ; and

then he learns that lesson by repeated bitter expe-

rience, by the turning of the wheel. He thinks :

"This is the result of what I did." There is built

86

THE WISDOM OF THE UPANISHAṬS

into his mental body the idea that killing is un-

desirable, prevents happiness, shortens the life of

the killer, is "wrong"; that idea is handed on to

the Kāraṇa Sharīra, and is built into the next

mental body, and in the brain is reflected the in-

nate idea that killing is wrong, an idea that quick-

ly responds to the teacher, forbidding murder.

That is what he has gained by this revolution of

the wheel—the power to see that a thing is wrong,

when he is told it from outside. That is the diff-

erence between your children and the children of

savages. In a new body they are all ignorant. All

have to learn "this is right," "this is wrong," from,

outside. But one child answers to teaching, because

of the knowledge and experience that he has brought

back with him, while the other cannot respond.

With the one, you have not to argue for a moment.

You see it. He sees it. But he only sees it,

because he has been through the experience of

that wrong over and over again. The child of the

savage does not see it, and does not answer to it,

and will dispute and argue with you, because his

experience is too limited and insufficient to be

impressed upon the new mental body. "It is thus

that the worlds are linked, and in this way the

unfolding powers of the Jīvātman find better and

better organs in the new bodies obtained in birth

after birth.

THE WHEEL OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS 87

Now let us pause on that element of the nature, where I said that you may apparently find contradiction. Let us first take desire. All the powers of the desire-nature have to be drawn out; hence man is plunged into a world full of objects which awaken desires, and on tasting them he feels pleasure and pain. These experiences influence rebirth, for it is written: "Whoever, thinking of forms, desires them, is by his desires born here and there."1 Man, it is said, "is desire-formed," shaped by desire, and again, that a man's desires carry him to the place where the forms are found which gratify those desires. For Puruṣha himself is of the nature of desire. "This Puruṣha," says the Ḅ̣hadāraṇyakopaniṣhat, "has desire for his nature."

He becomes attached to worldly objects attained by himself, and having arrived at the last of the works which he performed, he goes from one world to another by these, and thus he who desires wanders from world to world.2 So long as these desires exist, and desire, we are told, is the nature of the Puruṣha, so long he must wander from world to world. How then is he to get away from this continual wandering,3 if he must go whithersoever his desires lead him? For we must remember that desires for astral things, or for Svargaloka, or to heaven, as much

1 Muṇḍaka, III. ii. 2. Ḅ̣hadār. IV. iv. 5, 6.

88 THE WISDOM OF THE UPANISHAȚS

as the desires for physical objects lead him back

to this world; desires for objects in the astral

world bind with a stronger chain, are more subtle,

than those which bind us here; and if we desire

the joys of heaven, the gladness of the Devas, the

feasts of the Svarga world, these are still stronger,

still more subtle; and by all these are we bound

to the wheel of births and deaths Hence it is

written in the Kathopanishat: "When all the de-

sires refuged in the heart are loosened, then the

mortal becomes immortal.....when all the bonds of

the heart are torn asunder, then the mortal be-

comes immortal."1 And so we begin to realise that

desires must in some way be shaken off; but how

can this be with a Purusha whose nature is desire?

All desires have to be destroyed save the desire for

the Self. That one desire must remain, for that is of

the nature of the Self. The love of the Self for

itself is its own very nature; and that remains in

the sunlight when all the shadows of desire for the

lower worlds have gone. The desires that here

you know, they belong to the bodies and pass with

the bodies; the desire for the Self ever remains,

and by that, which leads to Self-realisation, you

become immortal.

Let us turn to thought, the Jnâna-aspect, which

here we know manifested as mind, the aspect of

1 Katha. vi. 14, 15.

THE WHEEL OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS 89

consciousness in the mental body. "Man," again it is written, "is thought-made."1 For each aspect of the Self created its own form. Hence "desire or will-formed," and "thought-formed" is man, and "activity-formed" also. And you remember how the passage as to thought is completed: "Man is thought-made. As he thinks in this world, so he becomes in the next world. Therefore, let him think on Brahman." Right thought is the way to the breaking of the bonds which are woven by wrong thought. So long as we think of ourselves as the body, we shall be bound in the body; so long as we think of ourselves as the mind, we shall be bound in the mind; so long as we think of ourselves as the lower, we shall remain in the lower. So also when we think of ourselves as the Self we shall become the Self; and hence it is written, in one of those verses that ought not to confuse the careful student, though thought contradictory by the careless, that the Self, the hidden nature of all beings, is beheld by the attentive subtle intellect of men of subtle sight, and it is written: "None sees this by the eye; by the heart, by the will, by the mind, he is obtained."2 "Not by the. eye may he be seized, nor also by the voice, nor by any senses, nor by tapas, nor rites; by meditation he is seen, the partless, when the intellect is purified by limpid wisdom. This subtle

1 Chhāndogya. III. xiv. 1. 2 Katha. vi. 9.

96 THE WISDOM OF THE UPANIṢHATS

Self is to be known by the intelligence, pervaded by the five-fold life; every mind of creatures by the lives [ senses ] is pervaded ; in this, purified, the Self reveals himself." 1 Although the Self may not be gained by thought of the shadow, it may be gained by. thought, when the shadow is known as shadow, "and when the Self who has the nature of knowledge" 2 shines out undimmed ; therefore it is necessary that a man should develop the higher mind, even though the lower mind be his obstacle and his foe. The higher mind, united with Buddhi, the Pure Reason, the Wisdom-aspect of the Self, know the Self. Notice the significance of the slokas just quoted, which speak of the five-fold Prâna pervading the intelligence ; as we saw yesterday, Prâna is Prajnâ in its higher aspect, and when it withdraws itself from. the senses and enters Prajnâ, intellect, the lower sense-pervaded mind is left lifeless. When Jnâna is realised, the Wisdom-aspect of the Self is seen.

We come to the third aspect, the aspect of Kriyâ, activity, resulting in works. Again it is written: " As he acts, as he behaves, so he becomes." 3 The Self is activity-made; as well as will-made and thought-made. And to get rid of this chain of works, he must know that it is not

1.Mupdaka. III. i. 8, 9.

2 Brhadar. IV. ii. 6. 3 Ibid. iv. 5.

THE WHEEL OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS 91

he who works, but the Self that is working in him.

When his works become sacrifices, their binding nature is destroyed.1

Understanding then, at least partly, the theory

of the binding to the wheel of births and deaths,

by the chains of desire, of thought, and of activity,

we must ask: how shall liberation be attained?

The Upanishad tells us of the relation between

sleep and death, and how a man does not really

cease to be, in either. It is written in the Kaushîtaki-brâhmanopanishat that when in sleep we see

a man lying bereft of speech, of sight, and so on,

all his faculties have been withdrawn into Prâna

and carried out of the body into another world.

When he wakes, as sparks go out in all directions

from a blazing fire, so from the Self the Prânas

go forth to their several stations in the physical

body. The same thing is repeated, when a teacher

and a pupil see a sleeping man and awaken him;

the teacher explains that when a man sleeps, he is

dwelling in a place thin as a hair divided into a

thousand parts-our "web of life"-and into Prâna

the speech enters with all names, the sight with all

forms, the hearing with all sounds, the mind with

all thoughts; and again the same simile is repeated,

that, when he wakes, as from a blazing fire sparks

go forth in all directions, so from the Self the Prâ-

1 Bhagavadgîtâ. iv. 23.

92

THE WISDOM OF THE UPANIṢHATS

nas go forth to their several stations. They penetrate to the very nails and the hairs of the skin.

Thus the Ātma enters the body, and all the Prāṇas with it.1 The Bṛhadāṅyakopaniṣhat tells us that

it is not true that the sleeper does not see, nor smell, taste, nor speak, nor hear, nor think, nor

touch, nor know ; for there can be no loss of sight

to the seer, who is indestructible, nor loss of other senses, since the Self is the only seer, and hearer,

and thinker, and, out of the physical body, he enjoys all his faculties, as in it. For there is no second, no

other, separate from him, in whom these powers reside.2 The return of the Self with the Prāṇas is

then the waking from sleep. It is the symbol of waking from death. For as the same Kauṣītaki-

brāhmaṇopanishat tells us, when we look at the man who is dying, and the people who are around

him, and who see him slowly die, say : “ He does not speak, he does not hear, he does not think,” then it is

that he is being absorbed into Prāṇa, and all these things enter into Prāṇa ; the speech enters it, the

eye enters it, the ear enters it, the mind enters it, and when the man “departs from this body, he departs

with all these.” All nāmes are alive in him, all odors are alive in him, all forms are alive in him ;

all these are alive in him, and, going from the body,

1 Kauṣītaki-brāhmaṇa. iii. 3, and iv. 13. 2 Lvc.cit. IV. iii. 23--20, summarised.

THE WHEEL OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS 93

he carries with him all that he has.1 Similarly the Bṛhadāṛanyopanishat seizes the Prāṇas : and enters the heart ; the en-

trance to the heart becomes luminous, and the Self leaves the bødy by the eye, or the head, or some

other part. "When he goes, the life follows him ;

when life goes, all the lives follow it ; he becomes

knowledge, with knowledge he departs ; wisdom,

works, and knowledge of the past pervade him."

Having thrown off the body, he takes another, suit-

able to the particular region to which he goes.2 As

with the sleeper, so with the so-called dead. There

is no destruction for the seer, the hearer, the thinker.

He is the only one who truly sees, and hears, and

thinks.

But in death there are two paths, the Piṭṛyāna

and Devayâna, the path of the Piṭṛs and the path

of the Gods. These are very carefully described

for us in the passages which I will now summarise ;

they are found in the Bṛhadāṛanyaka, Chhāndogya,

and Prashna Upanishats.3 Every word that indi-

cates darkness—smoke, cloud, dark fortnight, etc.—

implies bondage to matter, and is used for the path

of the Piṭṛs, whereby they go who return to rebirth ;

every word that indicates light implies the triumph

1 Loc. cit. iii. 3, 4, summarised.

2 Loc.cit. iv. 1–4, summarised, 3 Bṛhadâr. Vl. ii. 2–16 ;

Chhândogya. V. ii. Prashna. i. 9, 10.

94 THE WISDOM OF THE UPANISHAṬS

of the Self, and is used for the path of the Devas

by which they go who return not. So long as the

man is blinded by matter, so long he must tread

the road by which he returns. And that road is

from the earth into the Preṭa region of Kāmaloka ;

thence to Piṭṛloka ; from Piṭṛloka to the Moon,

which is the gate of Svarga ; he abides in Svarga

till he has eaten the fruit of his earth-experiences ;

and when the time comes for return, the Devas

offer " faith," the vivified permanent mental unit, in

the heavenly fire; and from the fire King Soma,

the new mental body, comes forth. The Devas

bear that, with the astral permanent atom, into the

water, the astral plane, and the new astral body is

formed. The Devas carry him to the earth, and he

becomes food ; it means that the physical perma-

nent atom, which goes with you through all births

and deaths-the particle which is the germ of

every new body that you may wear, that always

remains and draws round it, by the helping of the

Devas, the materials of which the new and appro-

priate body is formed—enters into the earth, and

passes into some form of food, and by the food it

enters into the father, and from the father it passes

to the mother, and there the new physical body

is built. Thus is this path traced for us, stage

by stage, though the mystic words used may

make it difficult to follow without explanation.

THE WHEEL OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS

95

Thus along Pitṛyâna, and back through the various stages of the five fires—the fire of heaven, the fire of Parjanya, the fire of earth, the fire of man and the fire of woman—the man comes back again into this world of men, and so he must go round and round, so long as he treads that path. But there is another path, the Devayâna. What is that? All words meaning light, as we have said, describe that path. It is the fire, it is the lightning, it is the bright fortnight, it is the northern path of the sun. The man is in the body of light, not in the body of the shadow; when the man has risen into the radiant body, the Augoeides, then he goes along the path of light. The shadow to the shadow, and the light to the light. So long as you think the shadow to be yourself, so long you must follow the path of the shadow, of the smoke, of the cloud, of any object by which you may describe the material side of things; but when you realise yourself as the Self, not as matter, not as form, then you belong to the light side of the world, the Spirit side, to all that is brilliant, and in a body of light you go to the source of light, and verily you return not again.

Such are the paths; what are the conditions which lead us to tread the one or the other of them? For this, after all, is the most vital question for you and for me. The stages are very very clear; clear they

96 THE WISDOM OF THE UPANIṢHATS

are, but easy they are not. Live the life of unity,

realise that you are the Self, and that the Self is

one. "From death to death," for "life in matter is

death";1 we say that he passes from birth to birth,

but the true seer says that he passes from death

to death. . Man only becomes immortal when he

realises his own nature.

"Whoever sees variety in Him proceeds from

death to death." 2 "He proceeds from death to

death who beholdeth difference." 3 "As a mirror,

earth-soiled, made clean, shines as though made of

light, so the dweller in the body, having seen the

true nature of the Self, becomes one, pain ceases."4

In order that we may have courage to go

through the long struggle of births and deaths, the

Upaniṣhat declares that "The Self is to be

known."5 For man cannot work for that which he

feels to be entirely out of his reach, and he must

first gain the conviction that the finding of the Self

is possible, before he will enter the path at the end

of which he will win his freedom. First of all, then,

you need the inner conviction of the Self, and of

his finding. The further steps are given on the

whole most definitely and clearly in the Katho-

paniṣhat. No man may find the Self who has not

"ceased from evil ways."6 That is the second step.

1 H. P. Blavatsky. 2 Bṛhadâr. IV. iv. 19. 3 Katha. iv. 11.

4 Shreṭāshṭatara ii. 14. 5 Muṇḍaka. iii. 9. 6 Katha. ii. 24.

THE WHEEL OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS 97

So long as a man follows an evil way and loves it,

so long the Self is hidden from him by a cloud

that he may not pierce. He may be weak, faulty,

may still make many an error and stumble, but he

must see them as stumbles and errors, before

he can be said to have ceased from evil ways ; he

must see wrong as wrong, he must recognise it,

must repudiate it, must say : "It is not I." And

when he has so repudiated evil, he must subdue

his senses, he must concentrate his intellect ; for

the unsubdued may not obtain the Self, nay, not

even by knowledge—a warning to any one who

thinks that intellectual appreciation without purity

and self-control can mean the realisation of the Self.

A man who has not ceased from evil does not

attain the Self, even by knowledge. "This they

call yoga, the firm subduing of the senses."1 So

also the Kenopanishad says that the means of

obtaining the Self are "restraint, subdual, work." 2

Restraint of the desires ; subdual of the mind ;

work for the purification of the body ; when a man

is thus striving, then he may understand the steps

in his own nature by which he rises. The Taittiriyo-

panishat gives them: "Body, life, mind, knowledge,

bliss."3 These words describe the passing through

the various stages of the shadow on the way to the

sunlight. The body ; that must be purified, and

1 Katha. vi. 11. 2 Loc. cit. iv. 8. 3 Loc. cit. II. viii.

7

98 THE WISDOM OF THE UPANISHAȚS

the man must cease to identify himself with his

body ; looking at the body, he must be able to say

by life as well as lips: "This is not I." The lower

life, the Prāṇa, the desire-nature; he identifies him-

self with that ; he must learn to separate himself

from that, from the whole desire-nature, and he must

say to the desire-nature: "This is not I ;" and

once again he must say it by life as well as lips.

Then he must learn to say of the ever-wandering

and vagrant mind: " This is not I ;" and he must

learn this by concentration, by meditation, by the

fixing of the thoughts, and thus free i.imself from

bondage. And then comes the body of know-

ledge; as it is called, Buddhi, the Pure Reason ; he

must learn to say of this: "This is not I," great as

it is. Then he obtains the body of Âtmâ, Aham,

which is the place of joy ; and even of that he

must say: "This also is not I," for the "I" must

go. The time comes when he says only: "The

Self is all." And similarly to these outlines of the

Taittirîya, is it said in the Kathopaniṣhaṭ: "Let

the wise subdue his speech by mind (manas);

subdue his mind by reason (buddhi); subdue his

reason by the great (âtmâ); subdye this in the

peaceful (monad)1." Higher than the Monad is

only Îshvara, the Puruṣha; "than this naught is

higher; He is the last limit, He the supreme

1 Lōc. oit. iii. 13.

THE WHEEL OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS 99

goal." 1 There are the stages. Free yourself from

the senses, by identifying yourself with the mind.

Then repudiate the mind by identifying yourself

with Buddhi, the Reason. Then repudiate Buddhi,

and identify yourself with Âtmâ. Repudiate even

that as a shadow, and identify yourself with the

Monad, the true Jîvâtmâ. And then, casting that

away, identify yourself with Îshvara, the Supreme.

It is written that when a man beholds Îshvara, "he

obtains the highest identity." 2

You see now why it is said that the Self is gained

by thinking, and also not by thinking. The think-

ing which is effective is the thought which identifies

itself with the life, and not with the form. And it

must not be the saying, but the living; and what

does that mean, after all? It means that in the

midst of the body we live as though bodiless; that

all the movements of the outer objects lying

around us, which give joy and sorrow, pleasure

and pain, which elate and which depress, which

encourage and which menace, that all these cease to

have any power, because we say by our life, not

by our lips: "The senses are not myself, I am not

they." It means with regard to the mind, that

the thoughts that harass and distress, and the

thoughts that encourage and delight, the play of

the mind, the joys of the intellect, the rapture of

1 Ibid. ii ; II. 2 Muṇdaka. III. i. 3.

100 THE WISDOM OF THE UPANISHAṬS

intellectual creation, and the splendor of ima-

ginative power, are repudiated: "These are not

mine; they cannot shake me, they cannot move

me, they cannot attract me, and they cannot repel

me." Many have reached the stage where they

can say that things do not attract them, but few

are they who can say that nothing repels them,

and they must no more repel than attract. For re-

pulsion is as much a bond on the Self as is attrac-

tion, and while you are repelled by any living

thing, you are not free. You are still, by repulsion,

under the domination of outer objects ; you have

ceased to identify yourself with them.

Thus, step by step, strive to pierce into your Self,

and if you would begin the search, begin with every-

day life. You have a tongue, sight, hearing. Do-

minate the tongue, and let it never speak an un-

kind or untrue word ; no harsh language, no sharp

criticism, no claim to judge your brother, no claim

to condemn. Speech is a power of the Self, and is

degraded and prostituted when under the control of

outer objects, and directed by the attractions and

repulsions of the lower world. Master the eye and

ear, teaching the eye to see the Self, and not the

Māyā which encompasses it, to pierce through the

Māyā which surrounds your brother, and see be-

hind it the Self, who "makes his own path, accord-

ing to the Word."

THE WHEEL OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS 101

My brothers, we judge the path of others; far better that we confine ourselves to our own path, and try to tread that aright; when I say of my brother that he follows an evil path and therefore that he should be despised and condemned, am I not seeing the outer and not the inner? His Self may know that that path which to me is evil is the path which is needed to give him the experience that he lacks; perchance, until he has had that experience he is bound and not free, and the Self chooses that path in order that experience may be gained which shall break some fetter that still binds him. Therefore, though I may say that such and such a thing is wrong and degrading, I may not say that that Self is treading an evil path. For though he be blinded by Mâyâ, the Self is unsullied thereby; he rejects evil as well as good, and takes all as fruits of experience, which he seizes for his own purposes, while he chooses his own way.

The greater things you can begin to, do afterwards. Do these smaller things first; for what is the use of talking of the higher path, when the first steps in the lower are not yet taken? therefore is it written: "Let a man cease from evil ways." Until he does so cease, his eyes are blinded, and he cannot see. A man must curb his tongue. He who likes to hear unkind criticism and cruel gossip, and who will not see the Self in all, cannot

102 THE WISDOM OF THE UPANISHAṬS

expect that the shadow will begin to fall away, and

allow the glory of the Self to be a little more

visible. For I would not leave this.subject, which

some may call too metaphysical and unpractical,

without showing you that the truly practical comes

out of the.metaphysical, that out of right thinking

comes right living, and out of right understanding

comes right loving. In truth, the truest thinking

means the truest living, and if I have taken up your

time on this occasion with what is called an un-

practical subject, it is because I believe that, in the

order of nature, out of the subtle comes the gross,

and not out of the gross the subtle. Not out of

right practice comes right thinking, but out of right

thinking comes right practice. Right belief is of

enormous importance. It is not true that it does not

matter what a man believes. It is not true to say,

as many say, that a man's beliefs do not matter,

it is only his conduct which is of importance;

no lasting right conduct grows out of wrong belief.

Where the root is rotten, the tree is doomed to

death. "As a man thinks, so he becomes." The

idea that conduct is everything, and thought no-

thing, is a reaction from the opposite extreme,

which made, not right thinking, but orthodox belief

the standard by which a man was judged. There

was a time when free thought was punished, and

when good conduct was no excuse; nay, was

THE WHEEL OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS 103

thought an aggravation, of what was called heresy.

There is no such thing as heresy ; for no man is

another man's judge and master in any sphere of

thought, whether in the sphere of religion, in the

sphere of politics, in the sphere of morals, in the

sphere of philosophy. Thought must be free and

unfettered, otherwise you will have stagnation and

death. But because that is true, do not make the

illogical deduction: "It does not matter what I

think." It matters enormously what you think.

If you think falsely, you will act mistakenly ; if

you think basely, your conduct will suit your think-

ing. So think your noblest, your highest, your

purest. Think the best you can, and not the worst.

Aim high, for the higher the arrow is aimed, the

higher the mark it hits. Keep your own ideals

lofty, while you keep your judgment of others

charitable ; and your ideals shall lift you, and your

charity shall raise your fallen brother. For never

yet did a man rise by being trampled on. Man

only rises by being loved in the midst of his sins

and follies, and as we deal with our brethren, so

do Those who are above us deal with our outer

selves. Such our final lesson; and I finish with

the words of the Upanishads:"The embodied Self,

beholding his real nature, obtains his true end, and

every pain ceaseth." 131-2.

1 Sheet duly fax ANGEAL

— RALABLE.

APPENDIX

TO

LECTURE II.

I have gratefully to thank Bâbu Bireshvar Banerji,

Professor at the Central Hindu College, Benares, for

the following passages, gathered by him out of various

Samskṛit works. They will prove very useful and

instructive to the student.

THE MULTIPLICITY OF ÎSHVARAS.

From the Suṭa Samhitâ:

Him the Parameshvara, the Îshvara of all Îshva-

ras. Shloka 11, Chap. VII, Shiva Mahâṭma.

"Countless are the Brahmâs, O greatest of Pan-

ḍipas, that go into laya,• countless Viṣṇus, Rudras

and Indras." Shloka 28, Chap. IX, Shiva Mâhâtma.

"Countless mûrtis of Brahmâ are born from diffe-

rences of guṇas; countless mûṛtis of Viṣṇu and Isha."

Shloka 33, Do. Do.

From the Shiva Purâṇa.

"There hundreds of thousands of Rudras and hun-

dreds of millions of Viṣṇus, by the grace of Shiva,

are playing and enjoying themselves freed from sin."

Shlôka 6. Chap. XI. Sanatkumâra Samhitâ.

( ii )

"There Mahādeva—the Deva, the Supreme Kālá, the Supreme Īshvara, the Creator of all lives—resides surrounded by Maheshvaras." 26. Do. Do.

"The Deva (Shiva) became surrounded by Rudras shining like the morning sun." 12.

"His second following twice the size (of the first) (consists of) three hundred millions of Rudras of the color of gold." 13.

"Another, O greatest of Dvijas, (consists of) eight hundred millions (of Rudras) of fresh color." 14.

"The fifth following is again twice as large. Attend to Rudras of the sixth and seventh following. They are all shining, purified, full of Ānanda always." 15.

"The eighth following of the Supreme Ātmā are on His mānasa plane; any certain knowledge of it is beyond (our) power. It can only be discussed by analogy. They are all preceded by Brahmās; all preceded by Vishṇus. 16. 17. Chap. XI. Do.

"I am, O dearest, the Īshvara of all Īshvaras, in creating, in dissolving, in giving, wherefore I am Parameshvara." Chap. XXX. 35. Do.

"This condensed vast Egg is the womb wherein Brahmā is born; it is reformed to as the field of Brahmā, who is said to be the Knower of the field."

"Know that of such Eggs thousands of billions (exist). Pradhāna being present in all space they exist upwards, downwards, horizontally, and in every one of them are Brahmās, Hāris, Bhavās, created by"

iii

Pradhâna by its having obtained the neighbourhood

of Shambhu." Chap. VIII. 40.43. Vâya Samhitâ.

From the Devî Bhâgavata :

" O Mother, O Bhavâni, O Thou - of great

power, neither I nor Bhava nor Virinsh'(Brahmâ) ever

knew Thy nature unknowable ; who else knows ? Who

can say how many other worlds exist in this Thy mar-

vellous design ?" 35.

" In this universe of Thine we have seen other Hari,

Shiva and Lotus-born (Brahmâ). That in other uni-

verses they do not exist, how can we know ? Thy

great is limitless." 36. Chap. IV. Skandha iii.

" As the multiplicity of the Jîva is by Mâyâ,

not self-initiated, so the multiplicity of Îshvara is by

Mâyâ, not self-initiated." 9. Chap. XXXIII. Skandha vii.

" Îshvaras are, however, the Rulers and Lords of

Brahmâs, Vish us, Rudras, Virats, in all the universes.

The Lord of Them all, in the manner hereinafter

described, is Shri Krshna in the form of Gopâlasun-

dari. " Commentary of Nilakantha on Shloka 61. Chap.

III. Skandha ix.

" Thus in every pore of the hairs of His body are

universes ; in every universe are secondary (Kshudra)

Viraṭ, Brahmâ, Vishnu, Shiva, and others." 61.

" In this way how many and varied have been

the creations and layas, and how many are the kalpas

past and future-- who can tell this number ? " 76.

( iv )

"Of creations, layas, Brahmâṇdías, Brahmâs and

others who can tell the number ?" 77.

"Of all Brahmâṇdas the one Îshvara is He." 78.

The Evolution of Îshvaras.

From the Suta Samhita :

"By an infinitesimal part of His grace thou hast

won thy office of Viṣhnu." Shloka 14. Chap. II. S h i

Mahâtma.

From the Shiva Purâna :

"Of those who have attained unity ir mûrti some

Shivas are at the top of the Path". 68.

"The Maheshvaras are in the middle (of the Path),

the Rudras however occupy the station of those that

are wanting in experience." 69.

From the Devî Bhâgavata :

"These two, Nâra and Narâyana, have attained

siddhi in tapas ; they are a part of ililue." Chap. ix.

"All the other Dêvis are worshipped because they

have served Shakti. As is the tapas of each, so is the

result in each case, O Muni." 100.

"Durgâ, for one thousand Deva years having

made tapas in the Himâlaya, and meditated upon her

Feet, came to be worshipped by all." 101.

"Sarasvatî, for one hundred thousand Deva years

having made tapas in the Ganḍhamâḍava mountain,

came to be adored by all." 102.

( v )

" Lakṣhmī, for one hundred Deva yugas having made tapas in Puṣhkara, and having served Devī, evolved to be the Giver of all wealth." 108.

" Sâvitrī, for sixty thousand Deva years having made tapas in the Malaya mountain, and meditated upon Her Feet, became worthy of worship." 106.

" One hundred manvantaras did Shânkara Vibhu, make śapas." 105.

" For a hundred manvantaras, having made supreme papas, did Shrî Krṣhṇa obtain Goloka, wherein to this day He rejoices," 107. Chap. VIII. Skanda ix.

Prof. Baṭerji remarks that : " It is evident that Nârâ... is an evolving Logos in what may be called a human body—a body made of that order of matter of which human bodies are made; and that Nara is also a múrti in which a Logos of the same order is evolving, although it is not so far advanced as the Nârâyaṇa body.

STATE CENTRAL LIBRARY, W.B.

56-A B. T Road,

Calcutta-700 050.