Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 09.djvu/406

THEOSOPHY 344 THEOSOPHY pletest materiality begins the running curve, during which matter becomes translucent to spirit, and spirit becomes self-conscious on all planes. It mani- fests itself as brain intellect on the most material plane, and recovers all its super- intellectual powers on the ascending arc, but always with the addition of self- consciousness and individuality, till, at the completion of the cycle, matter has become a perfect objective presentment of spirit, a perfect vehicle of spiritual activity. The seven stages of cosmical evolution, aspects of the universal Divine con- sciousness, correspond with seven stages of human evolution, aspects of the human consciousness, by each of which man can cognize directly the correspondingly cosmic state. These in man are distinguished as: (1) Atma, pure spirit, one with the uni- versal spirit. (2) Buddhi, the vehicle of Atma and inseparable from it, some- times spoken of as the spiritual soul. (3) Manas, the mind, the ego or indi- vidualizing principle, called the rational or human soul. These three are the im- mortal part of man, Manas striving for union with Buddhi, such union making the spiritual ego, the spiritual man per- fected. The remaining principles form the quaternary, the perishable part of man. These are: (4) Kama, the emo- tions, passions, and appetites. (5) Prana, the vitality. (6) Linga Sharira, the astral double. (7) Sthula Sharira, the physical body. (These principles are generally numbered in reversed order, starting from the physical, Sthula Sha- rira being taken as 1 and Atma as 7.) At death, it is taught, the physical body and the astral double disintegrate to- gether; the vitality returns to the uni- versal life; the passional nature, in its own ethereal envelope, exists for a longer or shorter period, according as it domi- nated, or was subservient to, the higher nature, but ultimately fades away. The higher triad has, during earth life, been joined to the lower nature of Manas, the mind; this Manas is divided into higher and lower, the higher striving upward, the lower entangled with Kama, and held by the desire for material life which is at the root of all manifestation. At death the higher triad gradually sepa- rates itself from the lower nature, the lower mind which is but a ray of the higher returning to its source, carrying with it the experiences gained during incarnation; the triad, with this added experience, the harvest of life, enters on a period of repose, the state of Devachan, a state of consciousness apart from the physical body, in which the intelligence is free from physical limitations. Deva- chan is a state of consciousness in which the experiences of the lately concluded earth life are assimilated, its best aspira- tions have their fruition, and the com- munion of the consciousness with other consciousnesses is freed from physical limitations, and is more complete and satisfying. This stage endures for a J)eriod proportionate to the stage of evo- ution reached on earth, and is concluded by the re-entry of the consciousness into the embodied condition. The method of evolution, according to theosophy, is reincarnation. The rein- carnating ego, the agent in progress, is the Manas. In the past, when physical evolution, guided by the indwelling spirit, had produced man's physical form, Manas first became incarnate therein, and has since reincarnated after each devachanic interlude. Throughout each incarnation it labors to evolve in the body it inhabits the capacity to respond to its impulses, but it is through the mold- ing of successive bodies that it ac- complishes its task of human elevation. The thoughts produced by its activity are real things on the mental plane, made of subtle matter, "thought stuff," a form of ether. The thoughts of each life ultimata in a thought body, that expresses the result of that incarnation, and this thought body serves as a mold into which is built the physical body which forms the next dwelling to the ego. The "innate character" which the child brings into the world is the result of its own past and is physically expressed in its brain and nervous organization. The reincarnating ego is drawn by af- finity to the nation and family fitted to supply the most suitable physical, ma- terial, and physical environment. The physical particles thence supplied are stamped with the racial and family char- acteristics, bodily and mental, but this arrangement is dominated by the thought body resulting as above stated. Mental and moral capacities gained by struggle in one of many incar- nations become innate qualities, exer- cised "naturally," without effort, in a later incarnation, and thus progress is secured. This law, by which all causes work out their due eflFects, is called Karma (the Sanskrit word for action), and according to this all thoughts, good and bad, leave their traces on the thought body and reappear as tendencies in future lives. No escape from this sequence of cause and effect is possible; all our past must work itself out, but as the same agent that made the past is making the present it sets up fresh cause in meeting