Student — (Stockholm, Sweden) — In KTMG Paper No. 5 you give some information regarding the life-atoms in different organs of the body, to wit, that the higher in the body the organ has its place the finer is the nature of its life-atoms; and in comparing the heart and the brain you say in substance that the heart is the organ of the personality, but the brain, the life-atoms of which are bathed in akasa, is the organ of the Manasaputra. Now, reading the paragraph "The Heart," in No. 5 of HPB's early Instructions, one could easily get an impression of "contradictions."
I am no hunter for contradictions at all, so I have spent some thinking to get the proper explanation for myself, and I think that I am on the track. You speak of the life-atoms, and it seems to me only natural, that in our manasic era those of the brain should be superior to those of the heart, whose function, as the upadhi for the higher triad, still must be slumbering at least in the average man, and that hence its function is in this same period to distribute the pranic power to the body, its function as upadhi for jiva being still more or less latent.
However, there are some very interesting points here, which I think it could be of great value to get a little more clear.
G. de P. — There is no contradiction; but I can readily see how this earlier statement of mine would need elucidation for thoughtful and devoted students. I will try briefly to answer the question.
The statement as contained in the KTMG Paper No. 5 is quite accurate, and the explanation is as follows: the heart is the focal or central organ of the individual man, that is to say of the reincarnating ego. This of course includes the working of this ego through all parts of the body outside of the heart, therefore including the brain also. But nevertheless the brain, the atoms of which are bathed in akasa and remain so bathed throughout the lifetime of the body, is also the vehicle of the individual manasaputra which overshadows the human being as an inspiring influence, in exactly the same way as the buddhi overshadows the manas in the individual human entity.
The confusion seems to have arisen because of the usage in all modern European languages, and in some Asiatic tongues, of the word heart as signifying the noblest part of a being. But this is not exactly correct in the present matter. The significance of this phraseology means that the heart, as in the expression the heart doctrine, is the hid part, the secret part, the noblest part, that which also is invisible — just as we speak of the heart of Father Sun as being something different from the glorious physical globe which is the garment in which the heart is clothed.
The individual manasaputra overshadowing every individual human being works through that human being because it impregnates or permeates the higher manas or buddhi-manas of such human being. Similarly in the human body, the life-atoms of the brain are the vehicle not only of the thought of the incarnated ego, but are likewise, because of the above stated fact, the vehicle of the influence, spiritual and intellectual, of the overshadowing manasaputric fluid or essence.
The reason for the brain as an organ being the vehicle for the manasaputric fluid or essence lies in the fact that the brain is a deposit of thought-fluid, therefore a deposit of the manasic essence in the individual. During the lifetime of the body, the life-atoms in the brain are continuously bathed with akasa; and it is through the akasa in the human constitution that the manasaputra works. It is through akasa also in the human constitution, outside of the physical body, that the manasaputric fluid or essence permeates or impregnates the manas or buddhi-manas in the man.
As you all know, the overshadowing manasaputras chose their vehicles in the third root-race of this round on this earth; and from that time the hitherto sleeping minds of the then humanity began to awaken and to be self-conscious individuals. In other words man then became truly man. Naturally, this wonderful fact or process was reflected in the bodies of the individuals then living, in the proper organ which evolution had made most appropriate for this. This organ was the brain; and the same organ, the brain, has continued up to the present day to be the vehicle not only of the manas in man, but because of this fact also is the focus of the manasaputric influence working through the human manas.
I hope that this answer will clarify the difficulty, and will show you that there is no contradiction. It will also explain another difficulty that many students experience, to wit, the manner in which the manasaputra is still connected with the reincarnating ego.
Student — I think that you here give the expression the heart a purely symbolical meaning, and this I cannot get in full conformity with the contents of the chapter "The Heart" in the HPB Instruction, the wording of which I find very definite indeed. I am sure that you will understand where my difficulties in this problem come in.
As far as the brain is concerned your explanation seems to me to be very clear. I think I understand that very well. But coming to the heart I fail to find a solution covering the different statements made. Nevertheless I feel sure that such a solution must be possible. That is the reason why I ask again and draw so much on your patience.
G. de P. — You are quite right to return to me with an expression of being unable to understand fully the matter of the life-atoms and the relative importance of the brain and the heart in the physical body. I am not at all astonished that you, as well as others, should have difficulty in understanding, because the teaching here is not only recondite but so intricate in a sense that it is difficult for almost anyone to understand, and therefore to have a clear picture of it.
However, I will try once more to give you an explanation which I sincerely trust will clear away your difficulties. I am so glad that you are not one of those small-minded men, with whom HPB and the Masters had such difficulties in the older days, who immediately imagine that there are contradictions when they find differing or paradoxical statements in the Instructions. Almost invariably the truth is that the second or later of any such statements is a more advanced teaching than the former one; and hence, because more advanced, it may seem to be contrary to what had been stated or taught earlier.
In the first instance, you have a report of a KTMG meeting where I was endeavoring to give a new instalment of esoteric teaching brought out by the questions then asked. But as the question dealt almost wholly with the physical life-atoms and their relative standing or ethereality in the body, I had to limit my answer more or less to the question of the physical atoms, at the same time trying to give a hint of deeper truths.
The passage entitled The Heart, we must remember appears in a pamphlet originally issued after HPB's death. In this connection I should add that HPB's own authentic Instructions are nos. 1, 2, and 3, which were issued during her lifetime, and therefore bore the imprint of her own personal care. Instructions nos. 4 and 5 were made up or composed or collected from teachings given orally by HPB, and which the members of her Inner Group took down in the form of notes, two of these members being the then secretaries, Annie Besant and G. R. S. Mead. These collected notes were later formed into what came to be called Instruction no. 4 and Instruction no. 5; and because these notes issued as reports were generally accurate, they were accepted by Mr. Judge as being substantially correct; and this is quite true.
My point is that had HPB lived to issue these two Instructions 4 and 5 herself, she would not only have elaborated them, but would have amended or corrected them, and made them more complete. However, as I have just stated, the Section entitled The Heart, in HPB's Instruction no. 5, is generally quite accurate, although quite incomplete in the teaching.
With this preamble, I will now try to make more clear the explanation. There is no contradiction whatsoever, as you yourself realize. Instruction no. 5 states that "The Heart is the center of the Spiritual Consciousness, as the Brain is the center of Intellectual Consciousness." This is perfectly true. This Instruction also states that "The Heart represents the Higher Triad, while the Liver and Spleen represent the Quaternary, taken as a whole. The heart is the abode of the Spiritual Man, whereas the Psycho-Intellectual Man dwells in the Head with its seven gateways." This statement also is quite true.
Now then, under the heading The Brain, the same Instruction reads: ". . . The Pineal Gland itself, illuminated, corresponds with Divine Thought." This also is perfectly true. So you have here from HPB's own words, the same apparent contradiction that seemed to puzzle you in reading over the KTMG Pamphlet, when contrasted by you with the statements in Instruction no. 5 of HPB's, under the heading The Heart.
To show you that you are right in thinking that there is no contradiction, I call your attention to my words: "the heart, as in the expression, 'the Heart-Doctrine,' is the hid part, the secret part, the noblest part, that which also is invisible; just as we speak of the heart of Father Sun as being something different from the glorious physical globe which is the garment in which the 'Heart' is clothed." So you see, here I too speak of the heart as being "the noblest part," "the secret part."
Further, I speak of the brain as being the vehicle of the manasaputra, which it exactly is, for it is the organ or focus, "of the overshadowing Manasaputric fluid or essence." HPB also speaks of the heart as being the organ of the higher triad, atma-buddhi-manas; and the liver and spleen as being organs of the lower quaternary of the seven principles of man.
Where then shall we place our wonderful brain, which HPB calls the organ of divine thought? Here is the answer to all your difficulties, and I will try to make it now more clear and as brief as possible. There are three lines, parallel and working continuously together, of evolution for the human being, or indeed for any other entity, even a beast. These three lines are the divine-spiritual, the psychomental, and the vital-astral-physical. Of these three lines of evolution, the physical human body has the heart functioning as the focus of the divine-spiritual, because the heart is the physical focus of the auric egg, and the auric egg incloses, in addition to all the other principles, the cosmic jiva manifesting in this auric egg, and this cosmic jiva therefore passes through the heart as the various pranas.
The psycho-mental line of evolution has its organ or focus in the physical body in and through the brain, or rather the human skull containing the brain and other less important physical attachments.
The third or vital-astral-physical line of evolution has its representative foci in the body, first in the liver which is the vehicle of kama, or rather kama-manas; and second, in its lieutenant the spleen, which is the seat of the linga-sarira or astral model-body.
Now then, during the course of evolution in the third race of mankind in this fourth round on this globe, when the manasaputras "descended" into manifestation in order to inform and to give mind to the then senseless humanity, being psycho-intellectual beings in their svabhava or essential characteristic, they naturally and perforce chose the proper organ in the physical body, which was the then relatively undeveloped and feeble brain. By means of this descent or incarnation, the manasaputras through the succeeding ages built up the brain to be the wonderful and indeed marvelous physical organ or focus of thought that now it is. The brain has increased in size and in importance enormously since the third root-race, because of this descent or incarnation of the manasaputras.
Next, because the manasaputras or agnishvattas are psychomental or spiritual-intellectual beings, and because they have been working for ages directly on the psychomental organ, the brain, therefore the life-atoms of the physical brain are of the highest character so far as ethereality is concerned in the human body, because actually the texture of the physical brain is more ethereal than any other part of the body, quasi-astral, and this is because the life-atoms which compose it are actually the deposit from the manasic plane of the auric egg into the physical of the most ethereal atoms that the body can contain, because these most ethereal atoms are needed to carry the ethereal, quasi-spiritual, energy or fluid or essence flowing forth from the manasaputra. Therefore the life-atoms of the brain stand the highest, for the reasons that I have just enumerated in connection with the manasaputric fluid.
Nevertheless, it is from the heart, the spiritual king of the body, that flows forth the individual's divine-spiritual efflux into his brain; and when this happens in the case of highly evolved human beings, then the brain, through the pineal gland — the special organ for this purpose — becomes the organ of divine thought.
The physical life-atoms of the human heart are less ethereal than the life-atoms of the human brain, because the spiritual energies are not yet incarnated to the same extent that the psycho-intellectual energies are incarnated in and through the brain.
Do you now get this subtle and difficult thought, which yet when once understood is so simple? Here you have the explanation of your difficulty, and why I said that the life-atoms of the physical brain stand higher in ethereality, but yet that the heart was the organ of the personal man. Better adjectives here would have been central organ of the individual man, that is to say, of the reincarnating ego, here referring to the individuality, the reincarnating ego or monad, which is atma-buddhi with all the spiritual flower from the manasic fruitages of past lives.
I have also endeavored to give the teaching regarding the over-shadowing manasaputra permeating the brain with its astral fluid, and thus conferring a reinforcement of self-consciousness in man. The brain is self-conscious. The heart is not self-conscious, but is conscious, and conscious of the spirit. But in order that the complete septenary man shall be self-conscious, the brain must receive the spiritual rays from the spiritual sun in the heart. I say in the heart, but this is a mere figure of speech. Actually, the spiritual man or individuality is not in the heart, but the heart is the organ for the individual spiritual ray flowing forth from the higher planes of the auric egg. This spiritual ray working through the auric egg, therefore through the astral body, reaches into the physical body and builds the heart.
But it is only the ray and its atmosphere which are in the heart and fill the heart with the pranic or rather jiva fluid. It is this jiva fluid which in the personal imbodied man becomes the various pranas; and this jiva fluid is likewise the same in its higher parts as the universal divinity of the solar system. Thus it is that the heart is the vehicle of the individual spiritual ray flowing forth from the god within us by means of the auric egg transmitting the jiva which becomes the different pranas in the physical body. When this jivic ray through the heart can touch the brain, it becomes illuminated and transmits this spiritual-divine ray through the self-consciousness. When this transmission is perfect, we have the buddha or the mahatma or the high chela, in a descending scale of perfection; and when it is more imperfect and less complete, we have the great-hearted man, the high-minded and spiritual average man. When it is still less complete, we have the ordinary man with his mere flashes of spirituality and intuition, but with the intensification of brain-mind activity that we all know so well.
Thus it is that from the spiritual standpoint the heart is the organ of the individual. The brain is the highly developed organ of the manasic part by reason of the continuous work and inspiration which the manasaputric fluid has had upon the brain.
In brief and in substance, when man unites his brain to his heart, then the brain becomes illuminated from the heart with the spiritual fluid from the god within, or what is the same thing from the higher triad or the spiritual monad, atma-buddhi-manas. Then we have that noblest product of evolution, a human god, such as a buddha, or one of the high mahatmas.
I trust that with this long explanation, necessarily complex as it is, because it is dealing with a very complex teaching, your difficulties will vanish. Your problem will be solved if you will give to this explanation the study that you may find needful.
I do not wish to convey the impression that I give to the heart a purely symbolical meaning. The heart is of course a symbol in one sense because of language-use; just as the brain is a symbol because of language use. But the heart likewise is the actual organ of the individual spiritual ray, as the brain is the organ of the manasic ray. It is our duty, and our sublime privilege, and our future noble destiny, to unite the two into one.
Finally, the heart, the brain, the liver, the spleen, etc., as organs in the human body, exemplify on this physical plane the very important fact of the composite character of the human constitution. From each monadic center there flow forth energies with different characteristics or svabhavas, and the physical organs are merely their reflections, or the ends or termini of their respective rays, on this physical plane.
Please remember that these KTMG Instructions contain new teaching, and any such instalment of new teaching almost certainly will arouse new questions, therefore perhaps new difficulties. Every step forwards always brings a new vision. Our students must be ready at any moment to realize that what they had thought they perfectly understood before, may, it is possible, be after all an imperfect understanding, to be replaced by a greater light.
Student — (The Hague, Holland) — In KTMG Instruction No. 1 it says: "Each planetary chain in any solar Manvantara, that is, a Manvantara of a solar system, has seven existences, seven planetary Manvantaras." Could this be made somewhat clearer, please?
G. de P. — The reference here is to the lifetime of that particular celestial entity or celestial body which we call a planetary chain, be it the earth's planetary chain (or the planetary chain of the moon that was), or of Venus, Mars, Jupiter, or what not.
After seven such existences — each such existence being a period of seven rounds — have been run through, or seven imbodiments of a planetary chain, then a grand cycle of the planetary chain's life comes to an end; and it has a long nirvanic rest or repose, corresponding to what a man's devachan is after life.
To particularize: each one such existence, or period of seven rounds, of a planetary chain brings into active functioning in the planetary chain, and for all the hosts of beings connected with it, one of the seven main planes of the solar system. Consequently, when seven such existences have been finished, when seven cosmic planes have been experienced, then the planetary chain ends its reimbodiments for a time, and enjoys a long, long repose period, after which it will come forth anew for another series of imbodiments or existences.
The case of our moon and earth is an instance of a planetary chain having two reimbodiments succeeding each other, which fact our students already know. The moon-chain was the parent of the earth-chain, or to speak more accurately, what were the ensouling principles of the moon-chain are now the earth-chain. Just as a man of one life is the parent of his own next existence in the next life, so the life of a planetary chain is the parent of the child planetary chain-to-be in the future.
The process above briefly described is greatly complicated because of the fact that each and every cosmic plane is itself septenary, comprising what is for itself its spiritual or highest part gradually materializing down to what is for itself its material part. This fact it is which accounts for the seven rounds in any one planetary existence before spoken of.
As an example, globe D on this cosmic plane begins in the highest subplane and gradually with each new round sinks to the subplane below till it reaches the fourth subplane in the fourth round. Then beginning the fifth it slowly rises again into the more ethereal planes. The same is true of all the other six (or eleven) globes of any planetary chain.
Student — Could something be said about "colour rays that lie beyond the so-called 'visible spectrum,'" found on page 30 of The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett
G. de P. — In order to understand at least something of the Master KH's words, the student must take an entirely different view of the character of light from that commonly accepted today — which different view means an entirely new vision of the nature of the invisible realms of the universe. In the first place we must remember that in occultism light is substance and is not merely a vibration, or again a mode of motion as science was teaching in the days of HPB's public work when the Master wrote this letter. Nor again is light entirely what our ultramodern scientists today seem to think it is — a vibrational radiation from some active or originating vibrating center. It is true that light is the last, but yet it is much more. Light is relatively conscious substance, I repeat; and as substance is sevenfold in the universe throughout its seven (or ten) planes, and as each plane is bipolar in action, having both its spiritual pole and its material pole, light therefore is likewise bipolar. Hence the seven cosmic rays belonging to these seven cosmic planes are to be considered as double on account of this bipolar character.
There are, therefore, really fourteen different kinds of light or radiation, every one of which is substantial and more or less conscious, as well as being a vehicle for higher consciousness, and corresponds to its own particular plane. The entire universe from this point of view is, in consequence of the foregoing, builded of light, crystallized light if you wish; or, to put the matter in another way, light or radiation is matter in motion seen from an inferior plane to itself. Could we see light from a superior plane it would appear to us as material. Try to get this thought, for it is the key to a great many things, as well as to the essential meaning of this passage in the Master's letter.
For instance, the sevenfold constitution of man, composite as it is, can be considered from the nature and character of light, which we are now studying, and therefore as being radiation or light throughout; so that in very truth a man's constitution could be called a pillar of light consisting of seven (or fourteen) different kinds or types or varieties, each type or variety having its own innate characteristic or svabhava. This characteristic or svabhava expresses itself as the inherent or individual color of such type or variety.
The light which pours forth continuously from the sun may be considered to be force; but just because force and matter are fundamentally one, this light therefore can likewise be considered to be matter or substance. Thus it is that Father Sun fills his whole kingdom, the solar system, with the outpouring of the seven (or fourteen) kinds of radiations from himself; and it is these seven (or fourteen) lights, or different kinds of radiations, which build and inform the solar system from its most spiritual to its most densely material parts. Father Sun pours forth these seven (or fourteen) kinds of light or radiations out of his own composite constitution; precisely as a man in a strictly analogical fashion is continuously pouring forth from his own constitution the seven (or fourteen) different kinds of auric radiations which we can with perfect justice call various kinds or varieties of light, each having its own specific or characteristic or svabhavic coruscating color. Thus the human constitution merely repeats, on its own planes, what its great parent Father Sun does on his planes of cosmic spaces, inner and outer.
It is quite possible for an adept to be seated in his chair, or on a rock on a mountainside, or in any place, and to fix his consciousness in the realm or sphere of one of these seven (or fourteen) different kinds of radiation or light; and thus by attuning his consciousness to an identity of vibration therewith, to enter into interior communication with these inner realms of being, and to recognize and thus to know the respective inhabitants of these inner realms — for every one of the realms of the solar system, inner or outer, visible or invisible, is infilled with its own particular inhabitants, worlds, planets. It is this faculty of the trained adept, of being able to enter into one of the radiation realms of his own constitution, which puts him in sympathetic coordinate communication with the same realm in the constitution of some other human being, or of some other entity or thing, which thus enables him to read almost infallibly correctly the thoughts, feelings, emotions, impulses, of the other human being — indeed, even to read that other human being's past, and to a certain extent his future. This great truth is the explanation of what the Occident calls spiritual clairvoyance, or more popularly simply clairvoyance, because the Occident knows very little indeed, if anything, about genuine spiritual clairvoyance.
It is to this group of natural facts of the solar system that the Master referred when he used the expression "colour-rays that lie beyond the so-called visible spectrum." The visible spectrum is or consists of merely those particular and limited radiations or colored lights which our human eyes can sense — that is to say, can see. The other and very numerous rays that lie beyond the visible spectrum, and which to a certain extent are already recognized by modern science as existing, are the different radiations or lights belonging to other — and to us invisible — realms or spheres, all of which are virtually consciously unsensed by the ordinary man, but which spheres can be easily entered by the adept through esoteric training. Of course each one of the different radiations or color-rays has its own vibrational period or frequency, as the scientists say, which is the vibrational keynote for that particular realm or plane.
These facts that I have just briefly described likewise explain much of what HPB referred to in her Secret Doctrine when she writes in substance that the material universe is builded of light. Some day scientists will acknowledge this to be the fact. I might add here in passing, as it seems a proper place so to do, that what science calls the infrared and ultraviolet radiations — and which were already known, I believe, by science when the Master wrote his letter — are indeed not extensions of the visible spectrum so much as they are the two types of rays immediately preceding and immediately following on what we now call the visible spectrum. These ultraviolet and infrared rays therefore proclaim, to those who have ears to hear their silent messages, that beyond even these lie other ranges of radiations, of colored lights, of which, even with the help of our most delicate and sensitive scientific instruments, we suspect the existence, but have not yet actually seen. Thus the infrared and ultraviolet rays are already proofs of radiations invisible to the ordinary man, and unsensed by him except vaguely; and what a standing demonstration of our main theorem it is that the visible spectrum is but one cross-section of the endless series of radiations with which the universe is filled, and of which indeed it is wholly builded!
To speak more particularly and more definitely, the ultraviolet and infrared rays are rays on the borderline between our physical universe and the astral realms next above and next beneath our own physical world. The point to remember here is that there are no solutions of continuity between one realm or plane and the realm or plane immediately preceding it and immediately following it. Entities in any one realm or plane — and our physical realm or plane is an example in point — have a sense apparatus fitted for, appropriate to, and evolved to cognize that especial or particular realm or plane on which such entities live. By cultivating interior and as yet undeveloped senses in the average man, the adept can penetrate both above and below the physical sphere, and by fixing his self-consciously percipient organ, thus trained, in such realms above or below our own become conscious of the existence of the entities, the worlds, the spheres, belonging to such superior and inferior planes.
Let the esotericist, however, never forget for a single instant that our present illustrations are those belonging to that particular energy or substance of the mighty universe which we men call light or radiation in its seven (or fourteen) varieties or types or kinds. The question has been asked about light, and consequently the answer deals with the nature and characteristics of the many kinds of radiation, which be it always remembered is fundamentally both force and substance. Nevertheless, a much more spiritual manner of considering the structure and substances of the universe is by following out the planes and spheres of consciousness rather than of the substances, such as light or radiation in and through which consciousness works. To exemplify: when the cosmic pralaya begins, all the various realms of substance, including the many varieties of radiations, will gradually be withdrawn into each other, beginning with the lowest and running up the scale into the more ethereal and thence higher into the spiritual. Thus there will remain, during the cosmic pralaya, the spiritual realms into which all beings and entities and things which were so active during the manvantara are now engrossed in their paranirvanic state of conscious ineffable bliss — each such unit or individual remaining throughout the cosmic pralaya as a monadic seed of consciousness-life-substance, to blossom forth again as a new entity in a new manvantara and in still higher grades of evolutionary activity when the cosmic pralaya shall reach its end.
Now to return to our main subject and to change the thought a little bit, and putting our discourse in somewhat different words: light is matter, or rather substance; and hence the gross physical matter of the physical world around us may be looked upon as concreted light, crystallized light, crystallized radiation, so that our very physical bodies as well as all our interior sheaths or bodies are respectively builded of these widely different grades of concreted light. To certain beings on other approximate planes, and even to certain animals on this physical plane, a human body for instance shines and glows and coruscates with a marvelous display of radiating light.
In brief, therefore, light is but radiation, to use the modern scientific term; and radiation is what we call ethereal matter or rather substance, existing in very many grades or degrees; and all the phenomena of the universe can thus be connected with the seven (or fourteen) kinds of radiation in the solar system. Electricity, magnetism, heat, color, and other forms of force, are all different varieties of radiation, that is to say of light. One could say equivalently well that light and magnetism and heat and color, etc., are forms of electricity. Or indeed one could take any one of the seven cosmic forces and, using it as the basis for our constructive thought, truly say that all the universe is builded of different and varying forms of it — just as we have, in this present answer, taken light and found that the universe is builded of it.
Hence it really matters very little, at least to the esoteric student, whether one speaks of a universe of spiritual substance, or a universe of ethereal substance, or a universe of matter, or a universe of light, that is of radiations; because fundamentally all these mean the same thing, all being derivatives from the essence of the universe, and therefore but different fashions of viewing things as they are. However, back of, behind, within, above, and superior to all these various kinds of radiations, are still finer cosmic elements such as intelligence, consciousness, love, which form the causal factors or the noumena of the universe; and which by their self-urged actions and interactions bring about the bewildering variety of the phenomena or appearances of the universe. Thus, the gods have bodies of pure light, just as human beings have bodies of concreted light. But the center of a god is the divine monad, and the center of a man is his human monad — inspired by, enlightened by, and ultimately derivative from, his own divine monad which is his Father in Heaven.