E-Books
& Articles
Of
Interest to Theosophists
Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24 -1DL
Reincarnation
and the Law of
Karma
A Study of the
Old-New World-Doctrine of
Rebirth, and
Spiritual Cause and Effect
by
William Walter
Atkinson
CONTENTS
What is Reincarnation? -
Transmigration of Souls - The Something That Persists After Death
- The Soul Not a Fresh Creation,
but a Traveler on a Long Journey.
CHAPTER II. THE EGYPTIANS,
CHALDEANS, DRUIDS, ETC. - 8
The Egyptian Idea of the Soul -
Forty Centuries of Occult History - The Inner Teachings of
Teachings.
CHAPTER III. THE ROMANS AND
GREEKS - 12
The Reasons of
Advanced - Pythagoras; Orpheus;
Plato - The Various Grecian Teachings Regarding the Soul
and Its Future Life - Plato’s
Wonderful Teachings and Philosophy.
CHAPTER IV. THE JEWS, ESSENES,
AND EARLY CHRISTIANS - 17
The Inner Teachings of the
Jewish Priests - The Jewish Rabbins and Their Secret Doctrines -
The Kaballah, the Zahar,
Nichema; Ronach; and Nephesh - A Mysterious Brotherhood - The
Christian Inner Doctrine - The
Mysteries of Jesus.
CHAPTER V. THE HINDUS - 21
the Belief Among the Hindus -
Fundamental Hindu Philosophy.
CHAPTER VI. THE MODERN WEST - 31
Reincarnation in the Modern
Western World - The Revival of Interest and Its Cause -
Theosophical Society - Madame
Blavatsky - The Western School of Yogi Philosophy: Its
Fundamental Teachings - The
Spiritists, and Their Doctrine - The Teachings of the “Elect
Few” in Their Secret Societies -
Is Earth a Hell? - Christian Reincarnationists and Their
Beliefs.
2
-------
CHAPTER VII. BETWEEN AND BEYOND
INCARNATIONS - 38
How Long Between Incarnations? -
Necessity for Mental and Spiritual Digestion and
Assimilation - The Advanced
Teachings - Earth-bound Souls - Advanced Souls and Their
Rest Period - Where Does the
Soul Dwell Between Incarnations? - What Happens at Death -
The Great Astral World and Its
Planes and Sub-planes - Where the Soul Goes After Death
and What It Does There - Rebirth
and Its Laws - What is the
Message of the Illumined.
CHAPTER VIII. THE JUSTICE OF
REINCARNATION - 43
The Contrasting Theories of the
Soul and Its Future Life - Doctrine of Reincarnation the Only
Philosophical Theory that
Reconciles Facts with Theory - The Law of Karma Automatic and
Enforces Itself - Every One
Their Own Judge and the Executor of Their Own Destiny - The
Opinions of the World’s Great
Thinkers.
CHAPTER IX. THE ARGUMENT FOR
REINCARNATION - 48
Natural Laws Universal - If the
Soul is Immortal, it Must Have Always Been So - A Mortal
Thing Cannot be Made Immortal
Any More Than Nothing Can be Made Something - Future
Life Implies Past Life - Varient
Experiences Necessary for the Soul’s Education - -
Advancement Necessary to
Enjoyment of the Soul’s Higher States of Being - The True
Teaching.
CHAPTER X. THE PROOFS OF
REINCARNATION - 54
Actual Proofs of Personal
Conscious Experience Demanded by Science - Such Proofs Possible
and Have Occurred to Many of the
Race - The Remembrance of the Details of Past Existence
Common to the Race - Interesting
Cases Given on Good Authority - Messages from the Past.
CHAPTER XI. ARGUMENTS AGAINST
REINCARNATION - 61
Why Reincarnation is Opposed by
Some - The Answers to the Objections - The Proof of the
Existence of the Soul - Is
Reincarnation Un-Christian and Derived from Pagan and Heathen
Sources?
CHAPTER XII. THE LAW OF KARMA -
70
What Karma Means - Does Karma
Punish or is it but the Workings of a Natural Law? - The
Various Kinds of Karma - The
Advanced Mystical Doctrine - The End is Absolute Good - -
There is No Devil but Fear and
Unfaith.
3
-------
CHAPTER I.
The early races.
By “Reincarnation” we mean the
repeated incarnation, or embodiment in flesh, of the soul or
immaterial part of man’s nature.
The term “Metempsychosis” is frequently employed in the
same sense, the definition of
the latter term being: “The passage of the soul, as an immortal
essence, at the death of the
body, into another living body.” The term “Transmigration of
Souls” is sometimes employed,
the term being used in the sense of “passing from one body
into another.” But the term
“Transmigration” is often used in connection with the belief of
certain undeveloped races who
held that the soul of men sometimes passed into the bodies of
the lower animals, as a
punishment for their sins committed during the human life. But this
belief is held in disrepute by
the adherents of Reincarnation or Metempsychosis, and has no
connection with their philosophy
or beliefs, the ideas having sprung from an entirely
different source, and having
nothing in common.
There are many forms of belief -
many degrees of doctrine - regarding Reincarnation, as we
shall see as we proceed, but
there is a fundamental and basic principle underlying all of the
various shades of opinion, and
divisions of the schools. This fundamental belief may be
expressed as the doctrine that
there is in man an immaterial Something (called the soul,
spirit, inner self, or many
other names) which does not perish at the death or disintegration
of the body, but which persists
as an entity, and after a shorter or longer interval of rest
reincarnates, or is re-born,
into a new body - that of an unborn infant - from whence it
proceeds to live a new life in
the body, more or less unconscious of its past existences, but
containing within itself the “essence”
or results of its past lives, which experiences go to make
up its new “character,” or
“personality.” It is usually held that the rebirth is governed by the
law of attraction, under one
name or another, and which law operates in accordance with
strict justice, in the direction
of attracting the reincarnating soul to a body, and conditions, in
accordance with the tendencies
of the past life, the parents also attracting to them a soul
bound to them by some ties in
the past, the law being universal, uniform, and equitable to all
concerned in the matter. This is
a general statement of the doctrine as it is generally held by
the most intelligent of its
adherents.
E. D. Walker, a well-known
English writer on the subject, gives the following beautiful idea of
the general teachings:
“Reincarnation teaches that the soul enters this life, not as a fresh
creation, but after a long
course of previous existences on this earth and elsewhere, in which
it acquired its present inhering
peculiarities, and that it is on the way to future
transformations which the soul
is now shaping. It claims that infancy brings to earth, not a
blank scroll for the beginning
of an earthly record, nor a mere cohesion of atomic forces into
a brief personality, soon to
dissolve again into the elements, but that it is inscribed with
ancestral histories, some like
the present scene, most of them unlike it and stretching back
4
-------
into the remotest past. These
inscriptions are generally undecipherable, save as revealed in
their moulding influence upon
the new career; but like the invisible photographic images
made by the sun of all it sees,
when they are properly developed in the laboratory of
consciousness they will be
distinctly displayed. The current phase of life will also be stored
away in the secret vaults of
memory, for its unconscious effects upon the ensuing lives. All
the qualities we now possess, in
body, mind and soul, result from our use of ancient
opportunities. We are indeed ’the
heir of all the ages,’ and are alone responsible for our
inheritances. For these
conditions accrue from distant causes engendered by our older
selves, and the future flows by
the divine law of cause and effect from the gathered
momentum of our past impetuses.
There is no favoritism in the universe, but all have the
same everlasting facilities for
growth. Those who are now elevated in worldly station may be
sunk in humble surroundings in
the future. Only the inner traits of the soul are permanent
companions. The wealthy sluggard
may be the beggar of the next life; and the industrious
worker of the present is sowing
the seeds of future greatness. Suffering bravely endured now
will produce a treasure of
patience and fortitude in another life; hardships will give rise to
strength; self-denial must
develop the will; tastes cultivated in this existence will somehow
bear fruit in coming ones; and
acquired energies will assert themselves whenever they can by
the Law of Parsimony upon which
the principles of physics are based. Vice versa, the
unconscious habits, the
uncontrollable impulses, the peculiar tendencies, the favorite
pursuits, and the soul-stirring
friendships of the present descend from far-reaching previous
activities.”
The doctrine of Reincarnation -
Metempsychosis - Rebirth - has always been held as truth by
a large portion of the human
race. Following the invariable law of cyclic changes - the swing
of the pendulum of thought - at
times it has apparently died out in parts of the world, only to
be again succeeded by a new
birth and interest among the descendants of the same people.
It is a light impossible to
extinguish, and although its flickering flame may seem to die out for
a moment, the shifting of the
mental winds again allows it to rekindle from the hidden spark,
and lo! again it bursts into new
life and vigor. The reawakened interest in the subject in the
Western world, of which all keen
observers have taken note, is but another instance of the
operation of the Cyclic Law. It
begins to look as if the occultists are right when they predict
that before the dawn of another
century the Western world will once more have embraced
the doctrines of Rebirth - the
old, discarded truth, once so dear to the race, will again be
settled in popular favor, and again
move toward the position of “orthodox” teaching, perhaps
to be again crystallized by
reason of its “orthodoxy” and again to lose favor and fade away, as
the pendulum swings backward to
the other extreme of thought.
But the teaching of
Reincarnation never has passed away altogether from the race - in some
parts of the world the lamp has
been kept burning brightly - nay, more, at no time in human
history has there been a period
in which the majority of the race has not accepted the
5
-------
doctrine of Rebirth, in some of
its various forms. It was so one thousand years ago - two
thousand - five thousand - and
it is so to-day. In this Twentieth Century nearly if not quite
two-thirds of the race hold
firmly to the teaching, and the multitudes of Hindus and other
Eastern peoples cling to it
tenaciously. And, even outside of these people, there are to be
found traces of the doctrine
among other races in the East, and West. So Reincarnation is
not a “forgotten truth,” or
“discarded doctrine,” but one fully alive and vigorous, and one
which is destined to play a very
important part in the history of Western thought during the
Twentieth Century.
It is interesting to trace the
history of the doctrine among the ancient peoples - away back
into the dim recesses of the
past. It is difficult to ascribe to any particular time, or any
particular race, the credit of
having “originated” Reincarnation. In spite of the decided
opinions, and the differing
theories of the various writers on this subject, who would give
are but attempts to attribute a
universal intuitive belief to some favored part of the race. We
do not believe that the doctrine
of Reincarnation ever “originated” anywhere, as a new and
distinct doctrine. We believe
that it sprang into existence whenever and wherever man
arrived at a stage of
intellectual development sufficient to enable him to form a mental
conception of a Something that
lived after Death. No matter from what source this belief in a
“ghost” originated, it must be
admitted that it is found among all peoples, and is apparently
an universal idea. And, running
along with it in the primitive peoples, we find that there is,
and always has been, an idea,
more or less vague and indistinct, that somehow, someway,
sometime, this “ghost” of the
person returns to earthly existence and takes upon itself a new
fleshly garment - a new body.
Here, then, is where the idea of Reincarnation begins - -
everywhere, at a certain stage
of human mental development. It runs parallel with the
“ghost” idea, and seems bound up
with that conception in nearly every case. When man
evolves a little further, he
begins to reason that if the “ghost” is immortal, and survives the
death of the body, and returns
to take upon itself a new body, then it must have lived before
the last birth, and therefore
must have a long chain of lives behind it. This is the second
step. The third step is when man
begins to reason that the next life is dependent upon
something done or left undone in
the present life. And upon these three fundamental ideas
the doctrine of Reincarnation
has been built. The occultists claim that in addition to this
universal idea, which is more or
less intuitive, the race has received more or less instruction,
from time to time, from certain
advanced souls which have passed on to higher planes of
existence, and who are now
called the Masters, Adepts, Teachers, Race Guides, etc., etc. But
whatever may be the explanation,
it remains a truth that man seems to have worked out for
himself, in all times and in all
places, first, an idea of a “ghost” which persists after the body
dies; and second, that this
“ghost” has lived before in other bodies, and will return again to
take on a new body. There are
various ideas regarding “heavens” and “hells,” but underlying
them all there persists this
idea of re-birth in some of its phases.
6
-------
Soldi, the archaeologist, has
published an interesting series of works, dealing with the beliefs
of primitive peoples, who have
passed from the scene of human action. He shows by the
fragments of carving and
sculpture which have survived them that there was an universal
idea among them of the “ghost”
which lived after the body died; and a corresponding idea
that some day this “ghost” would
return to the scene of its former activities. This belief
sometimes took the form of a
return into the former body, which idea led to the preservation
of the body by processes of
mummifying, etc., but as a rule this belief developed into the
more advanced one of a re-birth
in a new body.
The earlier travelers in
traces of what was to them “a
strange belief” in the future return of the soul to a new body on
earth. The early explorers of
Indians, survivals of which
exist even unto this day. It is related of a number of savage
tribes, in different parts of
the world, that they place the bodies of their dead children by the
roadside, in order that their
souls may be given a good chance to find new bodies by reason
of the approaching of many
traveling pregnant women who pass along the road. A number
of these primitive people hold
to the idea of a complex soul, composed of several parts, in
which they resemble the
Egyptians, Hindus, Chinese, and in fact all mystical and occult
philosophies. The Figi Islanders
are said to believe in a black soul and a white soul, the
former of which remains with the
buried body and disintegrates with it, while the white soul
leaves the body and wanders as a
“ghost,” and afterward, tiring of the wandering, returns to
life in a new body. The natives
of
leaves the body during sleep,
but which perishes as the body disintegrates after death; and a
second soul which leaves the
body only at death, and which persists until it is reborn at a
later time. In fact, the student
finds that nearly all of the primitives races, and those semicivilized,
show traces of a belief in a
complex soul, and a trace of doctrine of Reincarnation in
some form. The human mind seems
to work along the same lines, among the different races
- unless one holds to the theory
that all sprang from the same root-race, and that the various
beliefs are survivals of some
ancient fundamental doctrine - the facts are not disturbed in
either case.
In the last mentioned connection,
we might mention that the traditions concerning Ancient
Atlantis - the lost continent -
all hold to the effect that her people believed strongly in
Reincarnation, and to the ideas
of the complex soul. As the survivors of Atlantis are believed
to have been the ancestors of
the Egyptians on the one hand, and of the Ancient Peruvians on
the other - the two branches of
survivors having maintained their original doctrines as
modified by different
environments - we might find here an explanation of the prevalence of
the doctrine on both sides of
the ocean. We mention this merely in passing, and as of general
interest in the line of our
subject.
7
-------
CHAPTER II.
The Egyptians, Chaldeans, Druids,
etc.
After considering the existence
of the doctrines of Reincarnation among the primitive
peoples, and its traditional
existence among the vanished peoples of the past, we find
ourselves irresistibly borne
toward that ancient land of mystery - the home of the mystics
and occultists of the past - the
people of the Sphinx. Whether
these people were the direct descendants of the people of
destroyed Atlantis, the home of
the Ancient Wisdom - or whether they were a new people
who had rediscovered the old
doctrines - the fact remains that when tracing back any old
occult or mystic doctrine we
find ourselves gradually led toward the land of the Sphinx as the
source of that hidden truth. The
Sphinx is a fit emblem of that wonderful race - its sealed
lips seem to invite the ultimate
questions, and one feels that there may be a whispered
answer wafted from those tightly
closed lips toward the ear that is prepared to hear and
receive it. And so, in our
search for the origin of Reincarnation, we find ourselves once more
confronting the Egyptian Sphinx
as we have done so often before in our search after Truth.
Notwithstanding its obvious
prehistoric origin, many have claimed that Metempsychosis has
its birthplace in old
the
Egyptian conception at this
place, among the ancient lands holding the doctrine, for in
it is not a thing of the past,
but a doctrine which has its full flower at the present time, and
which flower is sending forth
its subtle odor to all parts of the civilized world. And so we
shall defer our consideration of
history of Reincarnation.
Herodotus, many centuries ago, said of the Egyptians that: “The
Egyptians are the first who
propounded the theory that the human soul is imperishable, and
that where the body of any one
dies it enters into some other body that may be ready to
receive it; and that when it has
gone the round of all created forms on land, in water, and in
air, then it once more enters
the human body born for it; and that this cycle of existence for
the soul takes place in three
thousand years.”
The doctrine of Reincarnation is
discernible though hidden away amidst the mass of esoteric
doctrine back of the exoteric
teachings of the Egyptians, which latter were expounded to the
common people, while the truth
was reserved for the few who were ready for it. The inner
circles of the Egyptian mystics
believed in and understood the inner truths of Reincarnation,
and although they guarded the
esoteric teachings carefully, still fragments fell from the table
and were greedily taken up by
the masses, as we may see by an examination of the scraps of
historical records which have
been preserved, graven in the stone, and imprinted on the
bricks. Not only did these
people accept the doctrine of Reincarnation, but Egypt was really
the home of the highest occult
teachings. The doctrines and teachings regarding several
8
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
“sheaths” or “bodies” of man,
which are taught by occultists of all times and races, are
believed to have been fully taught
in their original purity on the banks of the Nile, and in the
shadow of the Pyramids - yes,
even before the days of the Pyramids. Their forty centuries of
history saw many modifications
of the philosophical and religious beliefs, but the
fundamental doctrine of
Reincarnation was held to during the entire period of history in
Ancient Egypt, and was not
discarded until the decadent descendants of the once mighty race
were overwhelmed by stronger
races, whose religions and beliefs superseded the vestiges of
the Ancient Doctrine. The
Egyptians held that there was “Ka,” the divine spirit in man; “Ab,”
the intellect or will; “Hati,”
the vitality; “Tet,” the astral body; “Sahu,” the etheric double; and
“Xa,” the physical body (some
authorities forming a slightly different arrangement), which
correspond to the various
“bodies of man” as recognized by occultists to-day.
The Ancient Chaldeans also
taught the doctrine of Rebirth. The body of Persian and
Chaldean mystics and occultists,
known as “the Magi,” who were masters of the Hidden
Wisdom, held to the doctrine of
Reincarnation as one of their fundamental truths. In fact,
they managed to educate the
masses of their people to a much higher point than the masses
of the Egyptians, and, escaping
the idolatrous tendencies of the Egyptian populace, they
manifested a very high degree of
pure philosophical, occult, and religious knowledge. The
Magi taught that the soul was a
complex being, and that certain portions of it perished, while
certain other parts survived and
passed on through a series of earth and “other-world”
existences, until finally it
attained such a degree of purity that it was relieved of the necessity
for further incarnation, and
thenceforth dwelt in the region of ineffable bliss - the region of
light eternal. The teaching also
held that just before entering into the state of bliss, the soul
was able to review its previous
incarnations, seeing distinctly the connection between them,
and thus gaining a store of the
wisdom of experience, which would aid it in its future work as
a helper of future races which
would appear on the face of the earth. The Magi taught that as
all living things - nay, all
things having existence, organic or inorganic - were but varying
manifestations of the One Life
and Being, therefore the highest knowledge implied a feeling
of conscious brotherhood and
relationship toward and with all.
Even among the Chinese there was
an esoteric teaching concerning Reincarnation, beneath
the outer teaching of ages past.
It may be discerned in the teachings of the early
philosophers and seers of the
race, notably in the work of Lao-Tze, the great Chinese sage
and teacher. Lao-Tze, whose
great work, the “Tao-Teh-King,” is a classic, taught
Reincarnation to his inner
circle of students and adherents, at least so many authorities
claim. He taught that there
existed a fundamental principle called “Tao,” which is held to
have been identical with the
“primordial reason,” a manifestation of which was the “Teh,” or
the creative activity of the
universe. From the union and action of the “Tao” and the “Teh”
proceeded the universe,
including the human soul, which he taught was composed of several
parts, among them being the
“huen,” or spiritual principle; and the “phi,” or semi-material
9
-------
vital principle, which together
animate the body. Lao-Tze said: “To be ignorant that the true
self is immortal, is to remain
in a grievous state of error, and to experience many calamities
by reason thereof. Know ye, that
there is a part of man which is subtle and spiritual, and
which is the heaven-bound
portion of himself; that which has to do with flesh, bones, and
body, belongs to the earth;
earthly to earth - heavenly to heaven. Such is the Law.” Some
have held that Lao-Tze taught
the immediate return of the “huen” to the “tao” after death,
but from the writings of his
early followers it may be seen that he really taught that the
“huen” persisted in individual
existence, throughout repeated incarnations, returning to the
“tao” only when it had completed
its round of experience-life. For instance, in the Si Haei, it
is said that: “The vital essence
is dispersed after death together with the body, bones and
flesh; but the soul, or knowing
principle of the self, is preserved and does not perish. There
is no immediate absorption of
the individuality into the Tao, for individuality persists, and
manifests itself according to
the Law.” And Chuang-Tze said: “Death is but the
commencement of a new life.” It
was also taught by the early Taoists, that the deeds, good
and evil, of the present life
would bear fruit in future existences; in addition to the orthodox
heavens and hells, in which the
Chinese believed, and of which they had a great variety
adapted to the requirements of
the various grades of saints and sinners, the minute details of
which places being described
with that attention to minor details and particulars peculiar to
the Chinese mind. The teachings
of a later date, that the soul of the ancestor abided in the
hall of the ancestors, etc.,
were a corruption of the ancient teaching. Other Chinese teachers
taught that the soul consists of
three parts, the first being the “kuei,” which had its seat in the
belly, and which perished with
the body; the second being the “ling,” which had its seat in the
heart or chest, and which
persisted for some time after death, but which eventually
disintegrated; and the third, or
“huen,” which had its seat in the brain, and which survived
the disintegration of its
companions, and then passed on to other existences.
As strange as it may appear to
many readers unfamiliar with the subject, the ancient Druids,
particularly those dwelling in
ancient
and believed in its tenets.
These people, generally regarded as ancient barbarians, really
possessed a philosophy of a high
order, which merged into a mystic form of religion. Many
of the Romans, upon their
conquest of
the philosophical knowledge
possessed by the Druids, and many of them have left written
records of the same, notably in
the case of Aristotle, Cæsar, Lucan, and Valerius Maximus.
The Christian teachers who
succeeded them also bore witness to these facts, as may be seen
by reference to the works of St.
Clement, St. Cyril, and other of the early Christian Fathers.
These ancient “barbarians”
entertained some of the highest spiritual conceptions of life and
immortality - the mind and the
soul. Reynaud has written of them, basing his statements
upon a careful study of the
ancient beliefs of this race: “If
with a tenacity of its own the
idea of a personal and absolute God; if
represent the idea of society,
10
-------
Nothing characterized it better,
as all the ancients admit. That mysterious folk was looked
upon as the privileged possessor
of the secrets of death, and its unwavering instinctive faith
in the persistence of life never
ceased to be a cause of astonishment, and sometimes of fear,
in the eyes of the heathen.” The
Gauls possessed an occult philosophy, and a mystic religion,
which were destroyed by the
influences of the Roman Conquest.
The philosophy of the Druids
bore a remarkable resemblance to the Inner Doctrine of the
Egyptians, and their successors,
the Grecian Mystics. Traces of Hermeticism and
Pythagoreanism are clearly
discernible, although the connecting link that bound them
together has been lost to
history. Legends among the Druids connected their order with the
ancient Aryan creeds and
teachings, and there seems to have been a very close connection
between these priests and those
of Ancient Greece, for there are tales of offerings being sent
to the temples of
Delphos there was once a Druidic
tomb in the shape of a monument, believed to have been
erected over the remains of
Druid priestesses. Herodotus and others speak of a secret
alliance between the priests of
hold that Pythagoras was the
instructor of the Druidic priests, and that Pythagoras himself
was in close communication with
the Brahmíns of
legends have it that the Druids
received their first instruction from Zamolais, who had been a
slave and student of Pythagoras.
At any rate, the correspondence between the two schools of
philosophy is remarkable.
Much of the Druidic teachings
has been lost, and it is difficult to piece together the
fragments. But enough is known
to indicate the above mentioned relationship to the
Pythagorean school, and of the
firm hold of the doctrine of Reincarnation upon the Druids.
The preserved fragments show
that the Druids taught that there was in man an immaterial,
spiritual part, called “Awen,”
which proceeded from an Universal Spiritual Principle of Life.
They taught that this “Awen” had
animated the lower forms of life, mineral, vegetable and
animal, before incarnating as
man. In those conditions it was entangled and imprisoned in
the state of “abysmal circling,”
called “Anufu,” from which it finally escaped and entered into
the “circle of freedom,” called
“Abred,” or human incarnation and beyond. This state of
“Abred” includes life in the
various human races on this and other planets, until finally there
is a further liberation of the
“Awen,” which then passes on to the “Circle of Bliss,” or
“Gwynfid,” where it abides for
æons in a state of ecstatic being. But, beyond even this
transcendent state, there is
another, which is called the “Circle of the Infinite,” or “Ceugant,”
which is identical with the “
“Nirvana” of the Hindus. Rather
an advanced form of philosophy for “barbarians,” is it not?
Particularly when contrasted
with the crude mythology of the Roman conquerors!
The Gauls were so
advanced in the practical phases of occultism that they gave every
condemned criminal a respite of
five years, after sentence of death, before execution, in order
11
-------
that he might prepare himself
for a future state by meditation, instruction and other
preparation; and also to prevent
ushering an unprepared and guilty soul into the plane of the
departed - the advantages of
which plan is apparent to every student of occultism who
accepts the teaching regarding
the astral planes.
The reader will understand, of
course, that the degree of advancement in spiritual and
philosophical matters evidenced
by the Gauls was due not to the fact that these people were
generally so far advanced beyond
their neighbors, but rather to the fact that they had been
instructed by the Druid priests
among them. Tradition has it that the original Druidic priests
came to
We have spoken of the connection
between their teachings and that of the Pythagoreans, and
there was undoubtedly a strong
bond of relationship between these priests and the occultists
of other lands. The Druidic
priests were well versed in astronomy and astrology, and the
planets had an important part in
the teachings. A portion of their ritual is said to have
correspondences with the early
Jewish rites and worship. Their favorite symbol - the
mistletoe - was used as
indicating re-birth, the mistletoe being the new life springing forth
from the old one, typified by
the oak. The Druids traveled into Ancient Britain and
and many traces of their
religious rites may still be found there, not only in the shape of the
stone places-of-worship, but
also in many curious local customs among the peasantry. Many
a bit of English folk-lore -
many an odd Irish fancy concerning fairies and the like; symbols of
good-luck; banshees and “the
little-folk” - came honestly to these people from the days of the
Druids. And from the same source
came the many whispered tales among both races
regarding the birth of children
who seemed to have remembrances of former lives on earth,
which memory faded away as they
grew older. Among these people there is always an
undercurrent of mystic ideas
about souls “coming back” in some mysterious way not fully
understood. It is the inheritance
from the Druids.
CHAPTER III.
The Romans and Greeks.
One unfamiliar with the subject
would naturally expect to find the Ancient Romans well
advanced along the lines of
philosophy, religion, and spiritual speculation, judging from the
all-powerful influence exerted
by them over the affairs of the whole known world.
Particularly when one considers
the relationship with and connection of
thought. But such is not the
case. Although the exoteric religions of the Romans resembled
that of the Greeks, from whom it
was borrowed or inherited, there was little or no original
thought along metaphysics,
religion or philosophy among the Romans. This was probably
12
-------
due to the fact that the whole
tendency of
attainment, little or no
attention being given to matters concerning the soul, future life, etc.
Some few of the philosophers of
beyond a vague sort of ancestor
worship the masses of the people took but little interest in
the subject.
said in “Scipio’s Dream”: “Know
that it is not thou, but thy body alone, which is mortal. The
individual in his entirety
resides in the soul, and not in the outward form. Learn, then, that
thou art a god; thou, the
immortal intelligence which gives movements to a perishable body,
just as the eternal God animates
an incorruptible body.” Pliny the younger left writings
which seem to indicate his
belief in the reality of phantoms, and Ovid has written verses
which would indicate his
recognition of a part of man which survived the death of the body.
But, on the whole, Roman
philosophy treated immortality as a thing perchance existing, but
not proven, and to be viewed
rather as a poetical expression of a longing, rather than as an
established, or at least a well
grounded, principle of philosophical thought. But Lucretius
and others of his time and
country protested against the folly of belief in the survival of the
soul held by the other nations.
He said that: “The fear of eternal life should be banished
from the universe; it disturbs
the peace of mankind, for it prevents the enjoyment of any
security or pleasure.” And
Virgil praised and commended the philosophical attitude which
was able to see the real cause
of things, and was therefore able to reject the unworthy fear of
a world beyond and all fears
arising from such belief. But even many of the Roman
philosophers, while denying
immortality, believed in supernatural powers and beings, and
were very superstitious and
childlike in many respects, so that their philosophy of nonsurvival
was evidently rather the result
of temperament and pursuit of material things than a
height of philosophical
reasoning or metaphysical thought.
And so, the Romans stand apart
from the majority of the ancient peoples, in so far as the
belief in Reincarnation is
concerned. While there were individual mystics and occultists
among them, it still remains a
fact that the majority of the people held no such belief, and in
fact the masses had no clearly
defined ideas regarding the survival of the soul. It is a strange
exception to the general rule,
and one that has occasioned much comment and attention
among thinkers along these
lines. There was a vague form of ancestor worship among the
Romans, but even this was along
the lines of collective survival of the ancestors, and was free
from the ordinary metaphysical
speculations and religious dogmas. Roughly stated, the
Roman belief may be expressed by
an idea of a less material, or more subtle, part of man
which escaped disintegration
after death, and which in some mysterious way passed on to
combine with the ancestral soul
which composed the collective ancestral deity of the family,
the peace and pleasure of which
were held as sacred duties on the part of the descendants,
sacrifices and offerings being
made toward this end. Nevertheless, here and there, among
the Romans, were eminent
thinkers who seemingly held a vague, tentative belief in some
form of Reincarnation, as, for
instance, Ovid, who says: “Nothing perishes, although
13
-------
everything changes here on
earth; the souls come and go unendingly in visible forms; the
animals which have acquired
goodness will take upon them human form”; and Virgil says:
“After death, the souls come to
the Elysian fields, or to Tartarus, and there meet with the
reward or punishment of their
deeds during life. Later, on drinking of the waters of Lethe,
which takes away all memory of
the past, they return to earth.” But it must be admitted that
having diverted her attention
from the problems which had so engrossed the mind of her
neighbor
Among the Greeks, on the
contrary, we find a marked degree of interest and speculation
regarding the immortality of the
soul, and much interest in the doctrines of Metempsychosis
or Reincarnation. Although the
great masses of the Grecian people were satisfied with their
popular mythology and not
disposed to question further, or to indulge in keen speculation on
metaphysical subjects, still the
intellectual portion of the race were most active in their
search after truth, and their
schools of philosophy, with their many followers and adherents,
have left an indelible mark upon
the thought of man unto this day. Next to the Hindus, the
Greeks were the great
philosophers of the human race. And the occultists and mystics
among them were equal to those
of
theories regarding the soul were
as the sands of the sea, so many were the teachers, schools
and divisions of thought among
these people - still the doctrine of Reincarnation played a
very important part in their
philosophy. The prevailing idea was that the worthy souls pass
on to a state of bliss, without
rebirth, while the less worthy pass the waters of the river of
Lethe, quaffing of its waters of
forgetfulness, and thus having the recollection of their earthlife,
and of the period of punishment
that they had undergone by reason of the same,
obliterated and cleansed from
their memories, when they pass on to re-birth. One of the old
Orphic hymns reads as follows:
“The wise love light and not darkness. When you travel the
journey of Life, remember,
always, the end of the journey. When souls return to the light,
after their sojourn on earth,
they wear upon their more subtle bodies, like searing, hideous
scars, the marks of their
earthly sins - these must be obliterated, and they go back to earth to
be cleansed. But the pure,
virtuous and strong proceed direct to the Sun of Dionysus.” The
teachings of the Egyptians left
a deep impression upon the Grecian mind, and not only the
common form of belief, but also
the esoteric doctrines, were passed along to the newer
people by the elder.
Pythagoras was the great occult
teacher of
accepted and taught the great
doctrine of Reincarnation. Much of his teaching was reserved
for the initiates of the mystic
orders founded by himself and his followers, but still much of
the doctrine was made public.
Both Orpheus and Pythagoras, although several centuries
separated them, were students at
the fount of knowledge in
country in order to be initiated
in the mystic orders of the ancient land, and returning they
14
-------
taught anew the old doctrine of
Rebirth. The Pythagorean teaching resembles that of the
Hindus and Egyptians, in so far
as is concerned the nature of man - his several bodies or
sheaths - and the survival of
the higher part of his nature, while the lower part perishes. It
was taught that after death this
higher part of the soul passed on to a region of bliss, where it
received knowledge and felt the
beneficent influence of developed and advanced souls, thus
becoming equipped for a new
life, with incentives toward higher things. But, not having as
yet reached the stage of
development which will entitle it to dwell in the blissful regions for
all eternity, it sooner or later
reaches the limit of its term of probation, and then passes down
toward another incarnation on
earth - another step on the Path of Attainment.
The teaching was, further, that
the conditions, circumstances and environments of the new
earth-life were determined by
the actions, thoughts, and mental tendencies of the former life,
and by the degree of development
which the several previous earth-lives had manifested. In
this respect the teaching agrees
materially with the universal doctrine regarding
Reincarnation and Karma.
Pythagoras taught that the doctrine of Reincarnation accounted
for the inequality observable in
the lives of men on earth, giving a logical reason for the same,
and establishing the fact of universal
and ultimate justice, accountable for on no other
grounds. He taught that although
the material world was subject to the laws of destiny and
fatality, yet there was another
and higher state of being in which the soul would rise above
the laws of the lower world.
This higher state, he taught, had laws of its own, as yet unknown
to man, which tended to work out
the imperfect laws of the material world, establishing
harmony, justice, and equality,
to supply the apparent deficiencies manifested in the earth
life.
Following Pythagoras, Plato, the
great Grecian philosopher, taught the old-new doctrine of
Rebirth. He taught that the
souls of the dead must return to earth, where, in new lives, they
must wear out the old earth
deeds, receiving benefits for the worthy ones, and penalties for
the unworthy ones, the soul
profiting by these repeated experiences, and rising step by step
toward the divine. Plato taught
that the reincarnated soul has flashes of remembrance of its
former lives, and also instincts
and intuitions gained by former experiences. He classed
innate ideas among these
inherited experiences of former lives. It has been well said that
“everything can be found in
Plato,” and therefore one who seeks for the ancient Grecian ideas
concerning Reincarnation, and
the problems of the soul, may find that which he seeks in the
writings of the old sage and
philosopher. Plato was the past master of the inner teachings
concerning the soul, and all who
have followed him have drawn freely from his great store of
wisdom. His influence on the
early Christian church was enormous, and in many forms it
continues even unto this day.
Many of the early Christian fathers taught that Plato was really
one of the many forerunners of
Christ, who had prepared the pagan world for the coming of
the Master.
15
-------
In “Phaedo,” Plato
describes the soul, and explains its immortality. He teaches that man has
a material body which is subject
to constant change, and subject to death and disintegration;
and also an immaterial soul,
unchangeable and indestructible, and akin to the divine. At
death this soul was severed from
its physical companion, and rose, purified, to the higher
regions, where it rendered an
account of itself, and had its future allotted to it. If it was
found sufficiently untainted and
unsullied by the mire of material life, it was considered fit to
be admitted to the State of
which latter is described as Spirit,
eternal and omniscient. The base and very guilty souls
undergo a period of punishment,
or purgation, to the end that they may be purged and
purified of the guilt, before
being allowed to make another trial for perfection. The souls
which were not sufficiently pure
for the State of
purging process, were returned
to earth-life, there to take up new bodies, and endeavor to
work out their salvation anew,
to the end that they might in the future attain the Blissful
State. Plato taught that in the
Rebirth, the soul was generally unconscious of its previous
lives, although it may have
flashes of recollection. Besides this it has a form of intuition, and
innate ideas, which was believed
to be the result of the experiences gained in the past lives,
and which knowledge had been
stored up so as to benefit the soul in its reincarnated
existence.
Plato taught that the immaterial
part of man - the soul - was a complex thing, being
composed of a number of
differing, though related, elements. Highest in the hierarchy of the
soul elements he placed the
Spirit, which, he taught, comprised consciousness, intelligence,
will, choice between good and
evil, etc., and which was absolutely indestructible and
immortal, and which had its seat
in the head. Then came two other parts of the soul, which
survived the dissolution of the
body, but which were only comparatively immortal, that is,
they were subject to later
dissolution and disintegration. Of these semi-material elements,
one was the seat of the
affections, passions, etc., and was located in the heart; while the
other, which was the seat of the
sensual and lower desires, passions, etc., was located in the
liver. These two mentioned lower
elements were regarded as not possessed of reason, but
still having certain powers of
sensation, perception, and will.
The Neo-Platonists, who followed
Plato, and who adapted his teachings to their many
conflicting ideas, held firmly
to the doctrine of Reincarnation. The writings of Plotinus,
Porphyry, and the other Mystics,
had much to say on this subject, and the teaching was much
refined under their influence.
The Jewish philosophers were affected by the influence of the
Platonic thought, and the school
of the Essenes, which held firmly to the idea of Rebirth, was
a source from which Christianity
received much of its early influence.
16
-------
CHAPTER IV.
The Jews, Essenes and early
Christians.
The early Jewish people had an
Inner Teaching which embraced certain ideas concerning
Reincarnation, although the
masses of the people knew nothing of the doctrine which was
reserved for the inner circles
of the few. There is much dispute concerning the early beliefs
of the Jewish people regarding
the immortality of the soul. The best authorities seem to
agree that the early beliefs
were very crude and indefinite, consisting principally of a general
belief that after death the
souls are gathered up together in a dark place, called Sheol, where
they dwell in an unconscious
sleep. It will be noted that the earlier books in the Old
Testament have very little to
say on this subject. Gradually, however, there may be noticed a
dawning belief in certain states
of the departed souls, and in this the Jews were undoubtedly
influenced by the conceptions of
the people of other lands with whom they came in contact.
The sojourn in
educated thinkers of the race,
of which, however, there were but few, owing to the condition
in which they were kept as
bondsmen of the Egyptians. Moses, however, owing to his
education and training among the
Egyptian priests, must have been fully initiated in the
Mysteries of that land, and the
Jewish legends would indicate that he formed an
of the priesthood of his people,
after they escaped from
fully in the occult doctrines,
which, however, were too advanced and complicated for
preaching to the mass of
ignorant people of which the Jewish race of that time was
composed. The lamp of learning
among the Jews of that time was kept alight but by very few
priests among them. There has
always been much talk, and legend, concerning this Inner
Teaching among the Jews. The
Jewish Rabbis have had so much to say regarding it, and
some of the Early Fathers of the
Christian Church were of the opinion that such Secret
Doctrine existed.
Scholars have noted that in
important passages in the Jewish Bible, three distinct terms are
used in referring to the
immaterial part, or “soul,” of man. These terms are “Nichema,”
“Rouach,” and “Nephesh,”
respectively, and have been translated as “soul,” “spirit” or
“breath,” in several senses of
these terms. Many good authorities have held that these three
terms did not apply to one
conception, but that on the contrary they referred to three distinct
elements of the soul, akin to
the conceptions of the Egyptians and other early peoples, who
held to the trinity of the soul,
as we have shown a little further back. Some Hebrew scholars
hold that “Nichema” is the Ego,
or Intelligent Spirit; “Rouach,” the lower vehicle of the Ego;
and “Nephesh,” the Vital Force,
Vitality, or Life.
Students of the Kaballah, or
Secret Writings of the Jews, find therein many references to the
complex nature of the soul, and
its future states, as well as undoubted teachings regarding
Reincarnation, or Future
Existence in the Body. The Kaballah was the book of the Jewish
17
-------
Mysteries, and was largely
symbolical, so that to those unacquainted with the symbols
employed, it read as if lacking
sense or meaning. But those having the key, were able to read
therefrom many bits of hidden
doctrine. The Kaballah is said to be veiled in seven coverings
- that is, its symbology is
sevenfold, so that none but those having the inner keys may know
the full truth contained
therein, although even the first key will unlock many doors. The
Zohar, another Secret Book of
the Jews, although of much later origin than the Kaballah, also
contains much of the Inner
Teachings concerning the destiny of the soul. This book plainly
recognizes and states the
three-fold nature of the soul, above mentioned, and treats the
Nichema, Rouach and Nephesh as
distinct elements thereof. It also teaches that when the
soul leaves the body it goes
through a long and tedious purifying process, whereby the effect
of its vices is worn off by
means of a series of transmigrations and réincarnations, wherein
it
develops several perfections, etc.
This idea of attaining perfection through repeated rebirths,
instead of the rebirths being in
the nature of punishment as taught by Plato, is also taught in
the Kaballah, showing the
agreement of the Jewish mind on this detail of the doctrine. The
essence of the Kaballic teaching
on this subject is that the souls undergo repeated rebirth,
after long intervals of rest and
purification, in entire forgetfulness of their previous
existences, and for the purpose
of advancement, unfoldment, purification, development, and
attainment. The Zohar follows up
this teaching strictly, although with amplifications. The
following quotation from the
Zohar is interesting, inasmuch as it shows the teaching on the
subject in a few words. It reads
as follows: “All souls are subject to the trials of
transmigration; and men do not
know which are the ways of the Most High in their regard.
They do not know how many
transformations and mysterious trials they must undergo; how
many souls and spirits come to
this world without returning to the palace of the divine king.
The souls must re-enter the
absolute substance whence they have emerged. But to
accomplish this end they must
develop all the perfections; the germ of which is planted in
them; and if they have not
fulfilled this condition during one life, they must commence
another, a third, and so on,
until they have acquired the condition which fits them for
reunion with God.”
The mystic sect which sprung up
among the Jewish people during the century preceding the
birth of Christ, and which was
in the height of its influence at the time of the Birth - the sect,
cult, or order of The Essenes -
was an important influence in the direction of spreading the
truths of Reincarnation among
the Jewish people. This order combined the earlier Egyptian
Mysteries with the Mystic
Doctrine of Pythagoras and the philosophy of Plato. It was closely
connected with the Jewish
Therapeutæ of Egypt, and was the leading mystic order of the
time. Josephus, the eminent
Jewish historian, writing of the Essenes, says: “The opinion
obtains among them that bodies
indeed are corrupted, and the matter of them not
permanent, but that souls
continue exempt from death forever; and that emanating from the
most subtle ether they are
unfolded in bodies as prisons to which they are drawn by some
natural spell. But when loosed
from the bonds of flesh, as if released from a long captivity,
18
-------
they rejoice and are borne
upward.” In the New International Encyclopedia (vol. vii, page
217) will be found an
instructive article on “Essenes,” in which it is stated that among the
Essenes there was a certain
“view entertained regarding the origin, present state, and future
destiny of the soul, which was
held to be pre-existent, being entrapped in the body as a
prison,” etc. And in the
same article the following statement occurs: “It is an interesting
question as to how much
Christianity owes to Essenism. It would seem that there was room
for definite contact between
John the Baptist and this Brotherhood. His time of preparation
was spent in the wilderness near
the
and justice toward one’s fellow
men, was in agreement with Essenism; while his insistence
upon Baptism was in accordance
with the Essenic emphasis on lustrations.” In this very
conservative statement is shown
the intimate connection between the Essenes and Early
Christianity, through John the
Baptist. Some hold that Jesus had a still closer relationship to
the Essenes and allied mystic
orders, but we shall not insist upon this point, as it lies outside
of the ordinary channels of
historical information. There is no doubt, however, that the
Essenes, who had such a strong
influence on the early Christian Church, were closely allied
to other mystic organizations
with whom they agreed in fundamental doctrines, notably that
of Reincarnation. And so we have
brought the story down to the early Christian Church, at
which point we will continue it.
We have left the phase of the subject which pertains to
for separate consideration, for
in
and the subject in that phase
requires special treatment.
That there was an Inner Doctrine
in the early Christian Church seems to be well established,
and that a part of that doctrine
consisted in a teaching of Pre-existence of the Soul and some
form of Rebirth or Reincarnation
seems quite reasonable to those who have made a study of
the subject. There is a constant
reference to the “Mysteries” and “Inner Teachings”
throughout the Epistles,
particularly those of Paul, and the writings of the Early Christian
Fathers are filled with
references to the Secret Doctrines. In the earlier centuries of the
Christian Era frequent
references are found to have been made to “The Mysteries of Jesus,”
and that there was an
known doctrines there can be no
doubt. Celsus attacked the early church, alleging that it was
a secret organization which
taught the Truth to the select few, while it passed on to the
multitude only the crumbs of
half-truth, and popular teachings veiling the Truth. Origen, a
pupil of St. Clement, answered
Celsus, stating that while it was true that there were Inner
Teachings in the Christian
Church, that were not revealed to the populace, still the Church in
following that practice was but
adhering to the established custom of all philosophies and
religions, which gave the
esoteric truths only to those who were ready to receive them, at the
same time giving to the general
mass of followers the exoteric or outer teachings, which were
all they could understand or
assimilate. Among other things, in this reply, Origen says:
“That there should be certain
doctrines, not made known to the multitude, which are
divulged after the exoteric ones
have been taught, is not a peculiarity of Christianity alone,
19
-------
but also of philosophic systems
in which certain truths are exoteric and others esoteric.
Some of the followers of
Pythagoras were content with his ‘ipse dixit,’ while others were
taught in secret those doctrines
which were not deemed fit to be communicated to profane
and insufficiently prepared
ears. Moreover, all the mysteries that are celebrated everywhere
through
upon them, so that it is in vain
he endeavors to calumniate the secret doctrines of
Christianity, seeing that he
does not correctly understand its nature.” In this quotation it will
be noticed that not only does
Origen positively admit the existence of the Inner Teachings,
but that he also mentions
Pythagoras and his school, and also the other Mysteries of Greece,
showing his acquaintance with
them, and his comparison of them with the Christian
Mysteries, which latter he would
not have been likely to have done were their teachings
repugnant to, and at utter
variance with, those of his own church. In the same writing
Origen says: “But on these
subjects much, and that of a mystical kind, might be said, in
keeping with which is the
following: ‘It is good to keep close to the secret of a king,’ in order
that the entrance of souls into
bodies may not be thrown before the common
understanding.” Scores of like
quotations might be cited.
The writings of the Early
Fathers of the Christian Church are filled with many allusions to the
current inner doctrine of the
pre-existence and rebirth of souls. Origen in particular has
written at great length
regarding these things. John the Baptist was generally accepted as the
reincarnation of Elias, even by
the populace, who regarded it as a miraculous occurrence,
while the elect regarded it as
merely another instance of rebirth under the law. The Gnostics,
a mystic order and school in the
early church, taught Reincarnation plainly and openly,
bringing upon themselves much
persecution at the hands of the more conservative. Others
held to some form of the
teaching, the disputes among them being principally regarding
points of doctrine and detail,
the main teachings being admitted. Origen taught that souls
had fallen from a high estate
and were working their way back toward their lost estate and
glory, by means of repeated
incarnations. Justin Martyr speaks of the soul inhabiting
successive bodies, with loss of
memory of past lives. For several centuries the early Church
held within its bosom many
earnest advocates of Reincarnation, and the teaching was
recognized as vital even by
those who combatted it.
Lactinus, at the end of the
third century, held that the idea of the soul’s immortality implied
its pre-existence.
“Did I not live in another body
before entering my mother’s womb?” Which expression is all
the more remarkable because
Augustine opposed Origen in many points of doctrine, and
because it was written as late
as A. D. 415. The various Church Councils, however, frowned
upon these outcroppings of the
doctrine of Reincarnation, and the influence of those who
rose to power in the church was
directed against the “heresy.” At several councils were the
teachings rebuked, and
condemned, until finally in A. D. 538, Justinian had a law passed
20
-------
which declared that: “Whoever
shall support the mythical presentation of the pre-existence
of the soul and the consequently
wonderful opinion of its return, let him be Anathema.”
Speaking of the Jewish
Kaballists, an authority states: “Like Origen and other church
Fathers, the Kaballists used as
their main argument in favor of the doctrine of
metempsychosis, the justice of
God.”
But the doctrine of
Reincarnation among Christian races did not die at the orders and
commands of the Christian Church
Councils. Smouldering under the blanket of opposition
and persecution, it kept alive
until once more it could lift its flame toward Heaven. And even
during its suppression the
careful student may see little flickers of the flame - little
wreathings of smoke - escaping
here and there. Veiled in mystic phrasing, and trimmed with
poetic figure, many allusions
may be seen among the writings of the centuries. And during
the past two hundred years the
revival in the subject has been constant, until at the close of
the Nineteenth Century, and the
beginning of the Twentieth Century, we once more find the
doctrine openly preached and
taught to thousands of eager listeners and secretly held even
by many orthodox Christians.
CHAPTER V.
The Hindus.
While Reincarnation has been
believed and taught in nearly every nation, and among all
races, in former or present
times, still we are justified in considering
Mother of the doctrine, inasmuch
as it has found an especially favorable spiritual and mental
environment in that land and
among its people, the date of its birth there being lost in the
cloudiness of ancient history,
but the tree of the teaching being still in full flower and still
bearing an abundance of fruit.
As the Hindus proudly claim, while the present dominant
race was still in the savage,
cave-dwelling, stone-age stage of existence - and while even the
ancient Jewish people were
beginning to place the foundation stones of their religion, of
which the present Christian
religion is but an offshoot - the great Hindu religious teachers
and philosophers had long since
firmly established their philosophies and religions with the
doctrine of Reincarnation and
its accompanying teachings, which had been accepted as
Truth by the great Aryan race in
has held steadfastly to the
original doctrine, until now the West is looking again to it for light
on the great problems of human
life and existence, and now, in the Twentieth Century, many
careful thinkers consider that
in the study and understanding of the great fundamental
thoughts of the Védas and
the Upanishads, the West will find the only possible antidote to
the virus of Materialism that is
poisoning the veins of Western spiritual understanding.
21
-------
The idea of reincarnation is to
be found in nearly all of the philosophies and religions of the
race, at least in some period in
their history - among all peoples and races - yet, in
we find the doctrine in the
fullest flower, not only in the past but in the present. From the
earliest ages of the race in
India, Reincarnation in some of its various forms has been the
accepted doctrine, and today it
is accepted by the entire Hindu people, with their many
divisions and sub-races, with
the exception of the Hindu Mohammedans. The teeming
millions of India live and die
in the full belief in Reincarnation, and to them it is accepted
without a question as the only
rational doctrine concerning the past, present and future of
the soul. Nowhere on this planet
is there to be found such an adherence to the idea of “soul”
life - the thinking Hindu always
regarding himself as a soul occupying a body, rather than as
a body “having a soul,” as so
many of the Western people seem to regard themselves. And, to
the Hindus, the present life is
truly regarded as but one step on the stairway of life, and not
as the only material life
preceding an eternity of spiritual existence. To the Hindu mind,
Eternity is here with us Now -
we are in eternity as much this moment as we ever shall be - -
and the present life is but one
of a number of fleeting moments in the eternal life.
The early Hindus did not possess
the complicated forms of religion now existing among
them, with their various creeds,
cérémonials, rituals, cults, schools, and denominations. On
the contrary, their original
form of religion was an advanced form of what some have called
“Nature-Worship,” but which was
rather more than that which the Western mind usually
means by the term. Their
“Nature” was rather a “Spirit of Nature,” or One Life, of which all
existing forms are but varying
manifestations. Even in this early stage of their religious
development they held to a
belief in reincarnation of the soul, from one form to another.
While to them everything was but
a manifestation of One Life, still the soul was a
differentiated unit, emanated
from the One Life, and destined to work its way back to Unity
and Oneness with the Divine Life
through many and varied incarnations, until finally it
would be again merged with the
One. From this early beginning arose the many and varied
forms of religious philosophy
known to the India of today; but clinging to all these modern
forms is to be found the
fundamental basis idea of reincarnation and final absorption with
the One.
Brahmanism came first, starting
from the simple and working to the complex, a great
priesthood gradually arising and
surrounding the original simple religious philosophy with
ceremonial, ritual and theological
and metaphysical abstractions and speculation. Then
arose Buddhism, which, in a
measure, was a return to the primitive idea, but which in turn
developed a new priesthood and
religious organization. But the fundamental doctrine of
Reincarnation permeated them
all, and may be regarded as the great common centre of the
Hindu religious thought and
philosophy.
The Hindu religious books are
filled with references to the doctrine of Reincarnation. The
Laws of Manu, one of the oldest
existing pieces of Sanscrit writing, contains many mentions
22
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
of it, and the Upanishads and Védas
contain countless reference to it. In the Bhagavad Gita,
Krishna says to Arjuna: “Know
thou, O Prince of Pandu, that there never was a time when I,
nor thou, nor any of these
princes of earth was not; nor shall there ever come a time,
hereafter, when any of us shall
cease to be. As the soul, wearing this material body,
experienceth the stages of
infancy, youth, manhood, and old age, even so shall it, in due time,
pass on to another body, and in
other incarnations shall it again live, and move and play its
part. * * * These bodies, which
act as enveloping coverings for the souls occupying them, are
but finite things - things of
the moment - and not the Real Man at all. They perish as all
finite things perish - let them
perish. He who in his ignorance thinketh: ’I slay’ or ‘I am
slain,’ babbleth like an infant
lacking knowledge. Of a truth none can slay - none can be
slain. Take unto thy inner mind
this truth, O Prince! Verily, the Real Man - the Spirit of Man
- is neither born, nor doth it
die. Unborn, undying, ancient, perpetual and eternal, it hath
endured, and will endure
forever. The body may die; be slain; be destroyed completely - but
he that hath occupied it
remaineth unharmed. * * * As a man throweth away his old
garments, replacing them with
new and brighter ones, even so the Dweller of the body,
having quitted its old mortal
frame, entereth into others which are new and freshly prepared
for it. * * * Many have been my
births and rebirths, O Prince - and many also have been thine
own. But between us lies this
difference - I am conscious of all my many lives, but thou
lackest remembrance of thine.”
In the Mahabarata is said: “Even
as when he casteth off an old garment, man clothes himself
in new raiment, even so the
soul, casting off the wornout body, takes on a new body, avoids
the fatal paths leading to hell,
works for its salvation, and proceeds toward heaven.”
The Brhadaranyakopanishad, one
of the old Hindu writings, contains the following: “As the
caterpillar, getting to the end
of the straw, takes itself away after finding a resting place in
advance, so the soul leaving
this body, and finding another place in advance, takes himself
off from his original abode. As
the goldsmith taking little by little of the gold expands it into
a new form, so, indeed, does
this soul, leaving this body, make a new and happy abode for
himself.”
But to attempt to quote passages
relating to incarnation from the Hindu books, would be
akin to compiling a library of
many volumes. The sacred writings of the East are filled with
references to Reincarnation, and
if the latter were eliminated it would be “like the play of
Hamlet with Hamlet omitted.”
We cannot enter into a
description of the various schools of Hindu religious thought and
philosophy in this work, for to
do so would be to expand this little volume in several of larger
size, so extended is the
subject. But underlying the many divisions and subdivisions of
Hindu thought may be found the
fundamental idea of an original emanation from, or
manifestation of, One Divine
Being, Power and Energy, into countless differentiated units,
23
-------
atoms, or egos, which units,
embodying in matter, are unconscious of the spiritual nature,
and take on a consciousness
corresponding with the form in which they are embodied. Then
follows a series of embodiments,
or incarnations, from lower to higher, in which occurs an
evolution or “unfoldment” of the
nature of the soul, in which it rises to higher and higher
planes of being, until finally,
after Ãeons of time, it enters in
and Para-Nirvana - the state of
Eternal Bliss.
The great difference between the
Hindu thought and the Grecian is that while the Greeks
considered repeated life with
joy as a means of greater and greater expression of life, the
Hindus, on the contrary, regard
life as but a period of travail and sorrow, the only light to be
perceived being the expectation
and hope of eventually emerging from the region of
materiality, and illusion, and
regaining true existence in the Spirit. The Hindus nearly all
agree that this material life is
occasioned by “avidya” or ignorance on the part of the soul of
its own real nature and being,
whereby it fails to recognize that this material life is “maya” or
illusion. They hold that Wisdom
consists in the soul recognizing its real nature, and
perceiving the illusion of
material life and things, and striving to liberate itself from the
bondage of materiality and
ignorance.
The principal differences among
the various Hindu schools of religion and philosophical
thought arise from their
differing views regarding the nature and constitution of the soul on
the one hand, and the means of
attaining liberation and freedom from material embodiment
on the other. The doctrine of
“Karma” of spiritual cause and effect, which we shall consider
in another chapter, also runs
along with all the varying Hindu conceptions, doctrines, and
theories.
Without considering the matter
of differences of opinion between the various schools,
concerning the nature and
constitution of the soul, we may say that all the schools practically
agree that the constitution of
Man is a complex thing, comprising a number of sheaths,
bodies, coverings, or elements,
from the grosser to the more spiritual, the various sheaths
being discarded as the soul
advances on its way toward perfection. There are disputes
between the various schools regarding
terminology and the precise arrangement of these
“principles,” but the following
classification will answer for the purpose of giving a general
idea of the Hindu views on the
subject, subject always to the conflicting claims of the various
schools. The classification is
as follows, passing from lower to higher:
1. Physical or material body, or
Rupa. 2. Vitality of Vital Force, or Prana-Jiva. 3. Astral
Body, Etheric Double, or Linga
Sharira. 4. Animal Soul, or Kama Rupa. 5. Human Soul, or
Manas. 6. Spiritual Soul, or
Buddhi. 7. Divine Spirit, or Atma.
From the beginning, the tendency
of the Hindu mind was in the direction of resolving the
universe of forms, shapes, and
change, back into some One Underlying Principle, from which
24
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
all the phenomenal world emerged
- some One Infinite Energy, from which all else emerged,
emanated, or evolved. And the
early Hindu mind busied itself actively with the solution of
the problem of this One Being
manifesting a Becoming into Many. Just as is the Western
world of today actively engaged
in solving many material problems, so was ancient India
active in solving many spiritual
problems - just as the modern West is straining every energy
toward discovering the “How,” so
was ancient India straining every effort to discovering the
“Why.” And from that struggle of
the mind of India there arose countless schools of religious
and philosophical thought, many
of which have passed away, but many of which persist
today. The problem of the
relationship of the human soul to the One Being, and the
secondary problem of the life,
present and future, of the individual soul, is a most vital one to
all thinking Hindus today as in
the forty centuries or more of its philosophical history. To
the Hindu mind, all material
research is of minor importance, the important Truth being to
discover that “which when once
known, all else is understood.” But, as we have said, in spite
of the numerous religions,
schools, and phases of teaching, among the Hindus, the one
fundamental conception of
Reincarnation is never lost sight of, nor is it ever doubted in any
of the forms of the philosophies
or religions.
Ignoring the subdivisions of
Hindu philosophical thought, we may say that the Hindu
philosophies may be divided into
a few general classes, several of which we shall now hastily
consider, that you may get a
glimpse at the variety of Hindu speculative philosophy in its
relation to the soul and its
destiny. You will, of course, understand that we can do no more
than mention the leading
features of each class, as a careful consideration would require
volumes for each particular
school.
We will first consider the
philosophy of Kanada, generally known as the Vaisheshika
Teaching, which inclines toward
an Atomic Theory, akin to that formulated by the old Greek
philosopher Democritus.
According to this teaching the substance of the universe is
composed of an infinite number
of atoms, which are eternal, and which were not created by
God, but which are co-eternal
with Him. These atoms, combining and forming shapes,
forms, etc., are the
basis of the material universe. It is held, however, that the power or
energy whereby these atoms
combine and thus form matter, comes from God. This teaching
holds that God is a Personal
Being, possessing Omnipotence, Omniscience, and
Omnipresence. It is also held
that there are two substances, or principles, higher, that the
material energies or substance,
namely, Manas, or Mind, and Atman, or Spirit. Manas or
Mind is held to be something
like a Mind-Stuff, from which all individual minds are built up
- and which Mind-Stuff is held
to be eternal. Atman, or Spirit, is held to be an eternal
principle, from which the Selves
or Souls are differentiated. The Atman, or Spirit, or Self, is
regarded as much higher than
Mind, which is its tool and instrument of expression. This
philosophy teaches that through
progression, by Reincarnation, the soul advances from
lower to higher states, on its
road to freedom and perfection.
25
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
Another great school of Hindu
philosophy is the philosophy of Kapila, generally known as the
Sankhya system. This teaching
opposes the Atomic Theory of the Vaisheshika system, and
holds that the atoms are not indestructible
nor eternal, but may be resolved back into a
primal substance called
Prakriti. Prakriti is held to be an universal, eternal energy or
ethereal substance, something
similar to certain Western scientific conceptions of an
Universal Ether. From this
eternal, universal energy, Kapila held that all the universe has
been evolved - all material
forms or manifestations of energy being but manifestations of
Prakriti. But, the Sankhya
system is not materialistic, as might be supposed at first glance,
for side by side with Prakriti
it offers the principle of Purusha, or Soul, or Spirit, of which all
individual souls are atomic
units - the Principle of Purusha being an Unity of Units, and not
an Undivided One. The Purusha -
that is, its units or Individual Souls - is regarded as eternal
and immortal. Prakriti is devoid
of mind, but is possessed of active vital energy, and is
capable of producing forms and
material manifestations by reason of its inherent energy, and
laws, and thus produces what the
Hindus call “Maya,” or material illusion, which they hold to
be devoid of reality, inasmuch
as the forms are constantly changing and have no
permanence. This philosophy
holds that Prakriti, by means of the glamour of its
manifestations of Maya, entices
the individual souls, or Purushas, which when once in the
centre of attraction of the Maya
are drawn into the vortex of material existence, losing a
knowledge of their real nature.
But the souls never lose entirely the glimmer of the Light of
the Spirit, and, consequently,
soon begin to feel that they have made a mistake, and
consequently begin to strive to
escape the bondage of Prakriti and its Maya - but such escape
is possible only through a
gradual rising up from the depths of Maya, step by step, cycle by
cycle, by a series of
purification and cleansing of themselves, just as a fly cleanses itself of the
sticky substance into which it
has fallen. This escape is accomplished by Spiritual
Unfoldment or Evolution, by
means of Reincarnation - this Evolution not being a “growth,”
but rather an “unfoldment” or
“unwrapping” of the soul from its confining sheaths, one by
one.
Another great school of Hindu
philosophy is the philosophy of Patanjali, generally known as
the Yoga Philosophy, but which
differs from the Yogi Philosophy of the West, which is
eclectic in nature. The Yoga
Philosophy of Patanjali bears some resemblance to the Sankhya
school of Kapila, inasmuch as it
recognizes the teachings regarding Prakriti, from which
universal energy the material
universe has been evolved; and inasmuch as it also recognizes
the countless individual
Purushas, or souls, which are eternal and immortal, and which are
entrapped in the Maya of
Prakriti. But it then takes a position widely divergent from the
Sankhya school, inasmuch as Patanjali’s
Yoga school holds that there also exists a Supreme
Purusha, Spirit, Soul - or God -
who is without form; infinite; eternal; and above all
attributes and qualities common
to man. In this respect, Patanjali differs from Kapila, and
inclines rather toward agreement
with Kanada, of the first mentioned school of the
Vaisheshika system. All three
philosophers, however, seem to generally agree in the main
26
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
upon the Mind Principle, which
they hold to be beneath Soul or Spirit, and to be in the
nature of Mind-Stuff, which is
of a semi-material nature - Kapila and Patanjali even going so
far as to hold that it is a
manifestation of Prakriti or the Universal Energy, rather than a
distinct principle. They hold
that the Purusha, or Spirit, not the Mind, is the Real Self, and
the source of consciousness and
the real intelligence. The practical teachings of the school of
Patanjali is a system by which
the Purusha may escape from and overcome the Prakriti, and
thus gain emancipation, freedom,
and a return to its natural and original purity and power.
This school, of course, teaches
Reincarnation, and Progression through Rebirth, in
accordance with the principles
mentioned above.
Another great school of Hindu philosophy
is that known as the Vedanta Philosophy, which
many consider the most advanced
of all the Hindu systems, and which is rapidly growing in
popularity among the educated
Hindus, and also among many very intelligent students of
philosophical thought in the
Western world. Its followers claim that the Vedanta Philosophy
has reached the very highest
point of philosophical thought, speculation and analysis
possible to the human mind of
today, and many Western students have claimed that it
contains the highest conceptions
found in any and all of the great World Philosophies. Be
this as it may, it certainly
contains much that is the most subtle, refined and keen in the field
of philosophical speculative
thought of the world, and while, as some claim, it may lack the
“appeal to the religious
emotions” that some other forms of thought possess, still it proves
very attractive to those in whom
intellectual development and effort have superseded the
“emotional” side of philosophy
or religion.
The Vedanta System holds that
the Ultimate Reality, or Actual Being, of the universe - the
One Absolute Energy or Substance
from which all the universe proceeds - is that which may
be called The Absolute, which is
eternal, infinite, indivisible, beyond attributes and qualities,
and which is the source of
intelligence. The Absolute is held to be One, not Many - Unique
and Alone. It is identical with
the Sanscrit “Brahman,” and is held to be that which has been
called “The Unknowable”; the
“Father”; the “Over-Soul”; the “Thing-in-Itself” - in short, it is
that which men mean, and have always
meant, when they wished to express the absolute
reality. The Vedantists hold that this
Absolute Brahman is the essence of “Sat,” or Absolute
Existence; “Chit,” or Absolute
Intelligence; and “Ananda,” or Absolute Bliss. Without
attempting to enter into an
analysis, or close exposition, of the Vedanta Philosophy, or so far
as concerns the soul, and its
destiny, we may say that it holds that there do not exist the
countless eternal, immortal souls
or Purushas of the Sankhya philosophy, but instead that
the individual souls are but the
countless “images or reflections” of the Absolute Being, or
Brahman, and have their
existence only by reason of the Real Existence of the One Only
Being. Consequently, the Spirit
within the soul of Man, and which is “the soul of his soul,” is
Divine. The Vedantists admit the
existence of a “Logos,” or Ishwara, the Lord of the
Universe, who is, however, but a
manifestation of Brahman - a Great Soul, as it were, and
27
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
who presides over the evolution
of Universes from the Prakriti, and who plays the part of the
Demiurge of the old Grecian and
Gnostic philosophies. The Vedantists admit the existence
(relative) of Prakriti, or
Universal Energy, but hold that it is not eternal, or real-in-itself, but
is practically identical with
Maya, and may be regarded as a form of the Creative Energy of
the Absolute, Brahman. This Maya
(which while strictly speaking is illusion inasmuch as it
has no real existence or eternal
quality) is the source of time, space, and causation, and of the
phenomenal universe, with its
countless forms, shapes, and appearances. The Vedantists
teach that the Evolution of the
Soul is accomplished by its escaping the folds of Maya, or
Materiality, one by one, by
means of Rebirths, until it manifests more and more of its Divine
Nature; and thus it goes on, and
on, from higher to still higher, until at last it enters into the
Divine Being and attains Union with
God, and is “One with the Father.”
Another great Hindu philosophy
is the philosophy of Gautama, the Buddha, which is
generally known as the
Buddhistic Philosophy, or as Buddhism. It is difficult to give a clear
idea of Buddhism in a concise
form, for there are so many schools, sects, and divisions
among this general school of
philosophy, differing upon the minor points and details of
doctrine, that it requires a
lengthy consideration in order to clear away the disputed points.
Speaking generally, however, it
may be said that the Buddhists start with the idea or
conception of an Unknowable
Reality, back of and under all forms and activity of the
phenomenal universe. Buddha
refused to discuss the nature of this Reality, practically
holding it to be Unknowable, and
in the nature of an Absolute Nothing, rather than an
Absolute Something in the sense
of “Thingness” as we understand the term; that is to say, it
is a No-Thing, rather than a
Thing - consequently it is beyond thought, understanding, or
even imagination - all that can
be said is that it is. Buddha refused to discuss or teach of the
manner in which this Unknowable
came to manifest upon the Relative Plane, for he held that
Man’s proper study was of the
World of Things, and how to escape therefrom. In a vague
way, however, Buddhism holds
that in some way this Unknowable, or a part thereof,
becomes entangled in Maya or
Illusion, through Avidya or Ignorance, Law, Necessity, or
perhaps something in the nature
of a Mistake. And arising from this mistaken activity, all
the pain and sorrow of the
universe arises, for the Buddhist holds that the Universe is a
“world of woe,” from which the
soul is trying to escape. Buddhism holds that the soul
Reincarnates often, because of
its desires and attractions, which if nursed and encouraged
will lead it into lives without
number. Consequently, to the Buddhist, Wisdom consists in
acquiring a knowledge of the
true state of affairs, just mentioned, and then upon that
knowledge building up a new life
in which desire and attraction for the material world shall
be eliminated, to the end that
the soul having “killed out desire” for material things - having
cut off the dead branch of
Illusion - is enabled to escape from Karma, and eventually be
released from Rebirth, thence
passing back into the great ocean of the Unknowable, or
Nirvana, and ceasing to Be, so
far as the phenomenal world is concerned, although of course
it will exist in the Unknowable,
which is Eternal. Many Western readers imagine the
28
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
Buddhistic Nirvana to be an
utter annihilation of existence and being, but the Hindu mind is
far more subtle, and sees a vast
difference between utter annihilation on the one hand, and
extinction of personality on the
other. That which appears Nothingness to the Western
Mind, is seen as No-Thingness to
the Oriental conception, and is considered more of a
resumption of an original Real
Existence, rather than an ending thereof.
There is a great difference
between the two great schools of Buddhism, the Northern and
Southern, respectively,
regarding the nature of the soul. The Northern school considers the
soul as an entity,
differentiated from the Unknowable in some mysterious way not explained
by Buddha, and yet different
from the individual Purusha of the Sankhya school, before
mentioned. On the contrary, the
Southern school does not regard the soul as a differentiated
or distinct entity, but rather
as a centre of phenomenal activity saturated or charged with the
results of its deeds, and that
therefore the Karma, or the Essence of Deeds, may be
considered as the soul itself,
rather than as something pertaining to it. The Northern school
holds that the soul, accompanied
by its Karma, reincarnates along the same lines as those
taught by all the other Hindu
schools of Reincarnation and Karma. But the Southern school,
on the contrary, holds that it
is not the soul-entity that re-incarnates (for there is no such
entity), but that instead it is
the Karma, or Essence of Deeds, that reincarnates from life to
life, according to its
attractions, desires, and merits or demerits. In the last mentioned view
of the case, the rebirth is
compared to the lighting of one lamp from the flame of another,
rather than in the transferring
of the oil from one lamp to another. But, really, these
distinctions are quite
metaphysical, and when refined by analysis become hair-splitting. It is
said that the two schools of
Buddhism are growing nearer together, and their differences
reconciled. The orthodox Hindus
claim that Buddhism is on the decline in India, being
largely supplanted by the
various forms of the Vedanta. On the other hand, Buddhism has
spread to China, Japan and other
countries, where it has taken on new forms, and has grown
into a religion of ritualism,
creeds, and ceremonialism, with an accompanying loss of the
original philosophy and a
corresponding increase of detail of teaching, doctrine and disciple
and general “churchiness,”
including a belief in several thousand different kind of hells. But
even in the degenerated forms,
Buddhism still holds to Reincarnation as a fundamental
doctrine.
In this consideration of the
philosophies of India, we do not consider it necessary to go into
an explanation of the various
forms of religions, or church divisions, among the Hindus. In
India, Religion is an important
matter, and there seems to be some form of religion adapted
to each one of that country’s
teeming millions. From the grossest form of religious
superstition, and crudest form
of ceremony and worship, up to the most refined idealism and
beautiful symbolisms, runs the
gamut of the Hindu Religions. Many people are unable to
conceive of an abstract, ideal
Universal Being, such as the Brahman of the Hindu Philosophy,
and consequently that Being has
been personified as an Anthropomorphic Deity, and human
29
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
attributes bestowed upon him to
suit the popular fancy. In India, as in all other countries,
the priesthood have given the
people that which they asked for, and the result is that many
forms of churchly ceremonialism,
and forms of worship, maintain which are abhorrent and
repulsive to Western ideas. But
we of the West are not entirely free from this fault, as one
may see if he examines some of
the religious conceptions and ceremonies common among
ignorant people in remote parts
of our land. Certain conceptions, of an anthropomorphic
Deity held by some of the more
ignorant people of the Western world are but little advanced
beyond the idea of the Devil;
and the belief in a horned, cloven-hoofed, spiked-tail, redcolored,
satyr-like, leering Devil, with
his Hell of Eternal Fire and Brimstone, is not so
uncommon as many imagine. It has
not been so long since we were taught that “one of the
chief pleasures of God and his
angels, and the saved souls, will be the witnessing of the
tortures of the damned in Hell,
from the walls of Heaven.” And the ceremonies of an oldtime
Southern negro camp-meeting were
not specially elevating or ideal.
Among the various forms of the
religions of India we find some of the before mentioned
forms of philosophy believed and
taught among the educated people - often an eclectic policy
of choosing and selecting being
observed, a most liberal policy being observed, the liberty of
choice and selection being
freely accorded. But, there is always the belief in Reincarnation
and Karma, no matter what the
form of worship, or the name of the religion. There are two
things that the Hindu mind
always accepts as fundamental truth, needing no proof - axiomic,
in fact. And these two are (1)
The belief in a Soul that survives the death of the body - the
Hindu mind seeming unable to
differentiate between the consciousness of “I Am,” and “I
always Have Been, and always
Shall Be” - the knowledge of the present existence being
accepted as a proof of past and
future existence; and (2) the doctrine of Reincarnation and
Karma, which are accepted as
fundamental and axiomic truths beyond the need of proof, and
beyond doubt - as a writer has
said: “The idea of Reincarnation has become so firmly fixed
and rooted in the Hindu mind as
a part of belief that it amounts to the dignity and force of a
moral conviction.” No matter
what may be the theories regarding the nature of the universe
- the character of the soul - or
the conception concerning Deity or the Supreme Being - you
will always find the differing
sects, schools, and individuals accepting Reincarnation and
Karma as they accept the fact
that they themselves are existent, or that twice one makes two.
Hindu Philosophy cannot be
divorced from Reincarnation. To the Hindu the only escape
from the doctrine of
Reincarnation seems to be along the road of the Materialism of the
West. From the above statement
we may except the Hindu Mohammedans and the native
Hindu Christians, partially,
although careful observers say that even these do not escape
entirely the current belief of
their country, and secretly entertain a “mental reservation” in
their heterodox creeds. So, you
see, we are justified in considering India as the Mother Land
of Reincarnation at the present
time.
30
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
CHAPTER VI.
The modern West.
In the modern thought of the
Western world, we find Reincarnation attracting much
attention. The Western philosophies
for the past hundred years have been approaching the
subject with a new degree of
attention and consideration, and during the past twenty years
there has been a marvellous
awakening of Western public interest in the doctrine. At the
present time the American and
European magazines contain poems and stories based upon
Reincarnation, and many novels
have been written around it, and plays even have been
based upon the general doctrine,
and have received marked attention on the part of the
public. The idea seems to have
caught the public fancy, and the people are eager to know
more of it.
This present revival of
attention has been brought about largely by the renewed interest on
the part of the Western world
toward the general subject of occultism, mysticism,
comparative religion, oriental
philosophy, etc., in their many phases and forms. The World’s
Parliament of Religions, held at
the World’s Fair in Chicago, in 1893, did much to attract the
attention of the American public
to the subject of the Oriental Philosophies in which
Reincarnation plays such a
prominent part. But, perhaps, the prime factor in this
reawakened Western interest in
the subject is the work and teachings of the Theosophical
Society, founded by Madame
Blavatsky some thirty years ago, and which has since been
continued by her followers and
several successors. But, whatever may be the cause, the idea
of Reincarnation seems destined
to play an important part in the religious and philosophical
thought of the West for some
time to come. Signs of it appear on every side - the subject
cannot be ignored by the modern
student of religion and philosophy. Whether accepted or
not, it must be recognized and
examined.
But the forms of the doctrine,
or theory, regarding Reincarnation, vary almost as much in the
Modern West as in the various
Eastern countries at present, and in the past. We find all
phases of the subject attracting
attention and drawing followers to its support. Here we find
the influence of the Hindu
thought, principally through the medium or channel of
Theosophy, or of the Yogi
Philosophy - and there we find the influence of the Grecian or
Egyptian philosophical
conceptions manifesting principally through the medium of a
number of occult orders and
organizations, whose work is performed quietly and with little
recognition on the part of the
general public, the policy being to attract the “elect few” rather
than the curious crowd - and
again we find quite a number of persons in America and
Europe, believing in
Reincarnation because they are attracted by the philosophy of the Neo-
Platonists, or the Gnostics of
the Early Christian Church, and favoring Reincarnation as a
proper part of the Christian
Religion, and who while remaining in the bosom of the Church
31
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
interpret the teachings by the
light of the doctrine of Rebirth, as did many of the early
Christians, as we have seen.
The Theosophical conception and
interpretation appeals to a great number of the Western
Reincarnationists, by reason of
its wide circulation and dissemination, as well as by the fact
that it has formulated a
detailed theory and doctrine, and besides claims the benefit of
authoritative instruction on the
doctrine from Adepts and Masters who have passed to a
higher plane of existence. We
think it proper to give in some little detail an account of the
general teachings of Theosophy
on this point, the reader being referred to the general
Theosophical literature for more
extended information regarding this special teaching.
Theosophy teaches that the human
soul is a composite entity, consisting of several
principles, sheaths of vehicles,
similar to those mentioned by us in our account of Hindu
Reincarnation. The Theosophical
books state these principles as follows: (1) The Body, or
Rupa; (2) Vitality, or
Prana-Jiva; (3) Astral Body, or Linga-Sharira; (4) Animal Soul, or
Kama-Rupa; (5) Human Soul,
Manas; (6) Spiritual Soul, or Buddhi; and (7) Spirit, or Atma.
Of these seven principles, the
last or higher Three, namely, the Atma, Buddhi, and Manas,
compose the higher Trinity of
the Soul - the part of man which persists; while the lower Four
principles, namely, Rupa,
Prana-Jiva, Linga-Sharira, and Kama-Rupa, respectively, are the
lower principles, which perish
after the passing out of the higher principles at death. At
Death the higher principles, or
Triad, lives on, while the lower principles of Quarternary
dissolve and separate from each
other and finally disintegrate, along the lines of a process
resembling chemical action.
Theosophy teaches that there is
a great stream of Egos, or Monads, which originally
emanated from a Source of Being,
and which are pursuing a spiral journey around a chain of
seven globes, including the
earth, called the Planetary Chain. The Life Wave of Monads
reaches Globe A, and goes
through a series of evolutionary life on it, and then passes on to
Globe B, and so on until Globe G
is reached, when after a continued life there the Life Wave
returns to Globe A, but not in a
circle, but rather in a spiral, that is, on a higher plane of
activity, and the round begins
once more. There are seven Races to be lived through on each
globe, many incarnations in each
- each Race having seven sub-races, and each sub-race
having seven branches. The
progress of the Life Wave is illustrated by the symbol of a sevencoil
spiral, sweeping with a wider
curve at each coil, each coil, however, being divided into a
minor seven-coil spiral, and so
on. It is taught that the human soul is now on its fourth great
round-visit to the Earth, and is
in about the middle of the fifth Race of that round. The total
number of incarnations necessary
for each round is quite large, and the teaching is that none
can escape them except by
special merit and development. Between each incarnation there
is a period of rest in the
Heaven World, or Devachan, where the soul reaps the experiences of
the past life, and prepares for
the next step. The period of rest varies with the degree of
attainment gained by the soul,
the higher the degree the longer the rest. The average time
32
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
between incarnations is
estimated at about fifteen hundred years. Devachan is thus a kind of
temporary Heaven, from whence
the soul must again pass in time for a rebirth, according to
its merits or demerits. Thus,
accordingly, each soul has lived in a variety of bodies, even
during the present round -
having successively incarnated as a savage, a barbarian, a semicivilized
man, a native of India, Egypt,
Chaldea, Rome, Greece, and many other lands, in
different ages, filling all
kinds of positions and places in life, tasting of poverty and riches, of
pleasure and pain - all ever
leading toward higher things. The doctrine enunciated by
Theosophy is complicated and
intricate, and we can do no more than to barely mention the
same at this place.
Another Western form of the
Oriental Teachings, known as the “Yogi Philosophy,” numbers
quite a large number of earnest
students in this country and in Europe, and has a large circle
of influence, although it has
never crystallized into an organization, the work being done
quietly and the teachings spread
by the sale of popular books on the subject issued at
nominal prices. It is based on
the Inner Teachings of the Hindu Philosophy and is Eclectic in
nature, deriving its inspiration
from the several great teachers, philosophies and schools,
rather than implicitly following
any one of them. Briefly stated this Western school of Yogi
Philosophy teaches that the
Universe is an emanation from, or mental creation of, the
Absolute whose Creative Will
flows out in an outpouring of mental energy, descending from
a condition above Mind, downward
through Mind, Physical Energy, and Matter, in a grand
Involution or “infolding” of the
divine energy into material forms and states. This Involution
is followed by an Evolution, or
unfoldment, the material forms advancing in the scale of
evolution, accompanied by a
corresponding Spiritual Evolution, or Unfoldment of the
Individual Centres or Units of
Being, created or emanated as above stated. The course of
Evolution, or rather, that phase
of it with which the present human race on earth is
concerned, has now reached a
point about midway in the scale of Spiritual Evolution, and the
future will lead the race on, and
on, to higher and still higher planes and states of being, on
this earth and on other spheres,
until it reaches a point incomprehensible to the mind of man
of today, and then still on and
on, until finally the souls will pass into the plane of the
Absolute, there to exist in a
state impossible of present comprehension, and transcending not
only the understanding but also
the imagination of the mind of man as we know him.
The Yogi Philosophy teaches that
the soul will reincarnate on earth until it is fitted to pass on
to higher planes of being, and
that many people are now entering into a stage which will
terminate the unconscious
reincarnation, and which enables them to incarnate consciously
in the future without loss of
memory. It teaches that instead of a retributive Karma, there is
a Law of Spiritual Cause and
Effect, operating largely along the lines of Desire and what has
been called the “Law of
Attraction,” by which “like attracts like,” in persons, environments,
conditions, etc. As we
have stated, the Yogi Philosophy follows closely the lines of certain
phases of the Hindu philosophies
from which it is derived, it being, however, rather an
33
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
“eclectic” system rather than an
exact reproduction of that branch of philosophy favored by
certain schools of Hindus and
known by a similar name, as mentioned in our chapter on
“The Hindus” - that is to say,
instead of accepting the teachings of any particular Hindu
school in their entirety, the
Western school of the Yogi Philosophy has adopted the policy of
“Eclecticism,” that is, a system
following the policy of selection, choosing from several
sources or systems, rather than
a blind following of some particular school, cult or teacher.
The Yogi Philosophy teaches that
man is a seven-fold entity, consisting of the following
principles, or divisions: 1. The
Physical Body. 2. The Astral Body. 3. Prana, or Vital Force.
4. The Instinctive Mind. 5. The
Intellect. 6. The Spiritual Mind. 7. Spirit. Of these, the first
four principles belong to the
lower part of the being, while the latter three are the higher
principles which persist and
Reincarnate. Man, however, is gradually evolving on to the
plane of the Spiritual Mind, and
will in time pass beyond the plane of Intellect, which he will
then class along with Instinct
as a lower form of mentality, he then using his Intuition
habitually and ordinarily, just
as the intelligent man now uses his Intellect, and the ignorant
man his Instinct-Intellect, and
the animal its Instinct alone. In many points the Yogi
Philosophy resembles the
Vedanta, and in others it agrees with Theosophy, although it
departs from the latter in some
of the details of doctrine regarding the process of
Reincarnation, and particularly
in its conception of the meaning and operation of the Law of
Karma.
There are many persons in the
West who hold firmly to Reincarnation, to whom the Hindu
conceptions, even in the Western
form of their presentation, do not appeal, and who
naturally incline toward the Greek
conception and form of the doctrine. A large number of
these people are generally
classed among the “Spiritualists,” although strictly speaking they
do not fit into that
classification, for they hold that the so-called “Spirit World” is not a place
of permanent abode, but rather a
resting place between incarnations. These people prefer
the name “Spiritists,” for they
hold that man is essentially a spiritual being - that the Spirit is
the Real Man - and that that
which we call Man is but a temporary stage in the development
and evolution of the individual
Spirit. The Spiritists hold that the individual Spirit emanated
from the Great Spirit of the
Universe (called by one name or another) at some distant period
in the past, and has risen to
its present state of Man, through and by a series of repeated
incarnations, first in the form
of the lowly forms of life, and then through the higher forms of
animal life, until now it has
reached the stage of human life, from whence it will pass on, and
on, to higher and still higher
planes - to forms and states as much higher than the human
state than man is above the
earthworm. The Spiritists hold that man will reincarnate in
earthly human bodies, only until
the Spirit learns its lessons and develops sufficiently to pass
on to the next plane higher.
They hold that the planets and the countless fixed stars or suns,
are but stages of abode for the
evolving Spirit, and that beyond the Universe as we know it
there are millions of others -
in fact, that the number of Universes is infinite. The keynote of
34
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
this doctrine may be stated as
“Eternal Progression” toward the Divine Spirit. The Spirits do
not insist upon any particular
theory regarding the constitution of the soul - some of them
speak merely of “soul and body,”
while others hold to the seven-fold being - the general idea
being that this is unimportant,
as the essential Spirit is after all the Real Self, and it matters
little about the number or names
of its temporary garments or vehicles of expression.
Still another class of
Reincarnationists in the Western World incline rather more toward the
Grecian and Egyptian forms of
the doctrine, than the Hindu - the ideas of the Neo-Platonists
which had such a powerful effect
upon the early Christian Church, or rather among the “elect
few” among the early Fathers of
the Church, seeming to have sprung into renewed activity
among this class. These people,
as we have said in the beginning of this chapter, are rather
inclined to group themselves
into small organizations or secret orders, rather than to form
popular cults. They follow the
examples of the ancients in this respect, preferring the “few
elect” to the curious general
public who merely wish to “taste or nibble” at the Truth. Many
of these organizations are not
known to the public, as they studiously avoid publicity or
advertisement, and trust to the
Law of Attraction to “bring their own to them - and them to
their own.” The teachings of
this class vary in interpretation, and as many of them maintain
secrecy by pledges or oaths, it
is not possible to give their teachings in detail.
But, generally speaking, they
base their doctrines on the general principle that Man’s present
condition is due to the “Descent
of Spirit,” in the nature of “The Fall of Man,” occurring some
time in the far distant past.
They hold that Man was originally “Spirit Pure and Free,” from
which blissful state he was
enticed by the glamour of Material Life, and he accordingly fell
from his higher state, lower and
lower until he was sunken deep into the mire of Matter.
From this lowly state he then
began to work up, or evolve, having in the dim recesses of his
soul a glimmer of remembrance of
his former state, which dim light is constantly urging him
on and on, toward his former
estate, in spite of his frequent stumbling into the mire in his
attempts to rise above it. This
teaching holds to a theory and doctrine very similar to that of
the “Spiritists” just mentioned,
except that while the latter, in common with the majority of
Reincarnationists, hold that the
evolution of the Soul is in the direction of advancement and
greater expression, similar to
the growth of a child, these “secret order” people hold forcibly
and earnestly to the idea that
the evolution is merely a “Returning of the Prodigal” to his
“Father’s Mansion” - the parable
of the Prodigal Son, and that of the Expulsion from Eden,
being held as veiled allegories
of their teaching.
In the above view, the present
state of existence - this Earthly Life - is one of a series of Hells,
in the great Hell of Matter,
from which Man is creeping up slowly but surely. According to
this idea, the Earth is but
midway in the scale, there being depths of Materiality almost
impossible of belief, and on the
other hand, heights of heavenly bliss equally incapable of
understanding. This is about all
that we can say regarding this form of the doctrine, without
violating certain confidences
that have been reposed in us. We fear that we have said too
35
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
much as it is, but inasmuch as
one would have to be able to “read between the lines” to
understand fully, we trust that
those who have favored us with these confidences will pardon
us.
There is still another class of
believers in Reincarnation, of which even the general public is
not fully aware, for this class
does not have much to say regarding its beliefs. I allude to
those in the ranks of the
orthodox Christian Church, who have outgrown the ordinary
doctrines, and who, while
adhering firmly to the fundamental Christian Doctrines, and while
clinging closely to the
Teachings of Jesus the Christ, still find in the idea of Rebirth a doctrine
that appeals to their souls and
minds as closer to their “highest conceptions of immortality”
than the ordinary teachings of
“the resurrection of the body,” or the vague doctrines that are
taking its place. These
Christian Reincarnationists find nothing in the doctrine of
Reincarnation antagonistic to
their Faith, and nothing in their Faith antagonistic to the
doctrine of Reincarnation. They
do not use the term Reincarnation usually, but prefer the
term “Rebirth” as more closely
expressing their thought; besides which the former term has a
suggestion of “pagan and
heathen” origin which is distasteful to them. These people are
inclined toward Rebirth for the
reason that it “gives the soul Another Chance to Redeem
Itself” - other chances to
perfect itself to enter the Heavenly Realms. They do not hold to an
idea of endless reincarnation,
or even of continued earthly incarnation for all, their idea
being that the soul that is
prepared to enter heaven passes on there at once, having learned
enough and earned enough merit
in the few lives it has lived on earth - while the unprepared,
undeveloped, and unfit, are
bound to come back and back again until they have attained
Perfection sufficient to enable
them to advance to the Heaven World.
A large number of the Christian
Reincarnationists, if I may call them by that name, hold that
Heaven is a place or state of
Eternal Progression, rather than a fixed state or place - that
there is no standing still in
Heaven or Earth - that “In my Father’s House are Many
Mansions.” To the majority, this
idea of Progression in the Higher Planes seems to be a
natural accompaniment to the
Spiritual Progression that leads to the Higher Planes, or
Heaven. At any rate, the two
ideas seem always to have run together in the human mind
when the general subject has
been under consideration, whether in past time or present;
whether among Christians or
“pagans and heathen.” There seems to be an intuitive
recognition of the connection of
the two ideas. And on the other hand, there seems to be a
close connection between the
several views of “special creation” of the soul before both - the
single earth-life - and the
eternity of reward or punishment in a state or place lacking
progression or change. Human
thought on the subject seems to divide itself into two distinct
and opposing groups.
There are quite a number of
Christian preachers, and members of orthodox churches, who
are taking an earnest interest
in this doctrine of Rebirth, and Eternal Progression here and
hereafter. It is being
considered by many whose church associates do not suspect them of
36
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
being other than strictly
orthodox in their views. Some day there will be a “breaking out” of
this idea in the churches, when
the believers in the doctrine grow in numbers and influence.
It will not surprise careful
observers to see the Church once more accepting the doctrine of
Rebirth and reinstating the
doctrine of Pre-existence - returning to two of its original truths,
long since discarded by order of
the Councils. Prof. Bowen has said: “It seems to me that a
firm and well-grounded faith in
the doctrine of Christian Metempsychosis might help to
regenerate the world. For it
would be a faith not hedged round with many of the difficulties
and objections which beset other
forms of doctrine, and it offers distinct and pungent
motives for trying to lead a
more Christian life, and for loving and helping our brother-man.”
And as James Freeman Clarke has
said: “It would be curious if we should find science and
philosophy taking up again the
old theory of metempsychosis, remodelling it to suit our
present modes of religious and
scientific thought, and launching it again on the wide ocean of
human belief. But stranger
things have happened in the history of human opinion.”
So, as we have said, there is a
great variety of shades of belief in the Western world regarding
Reincarnation today, and the
student will have no difficulty in finding just the shade of
opinion best suited to his
taste, temperament and training or experience. Vary as they do in
detail, and theory, there is
still the same fundamental and basic truth of the One Source - the
One Life - and Reincarnation,
reaching ever toward perfection and divinity. It seems
impossible to disguise the
doctrine so as to change its basic qualities - it will always show its
original shape. And, so it is
with the varying opinions of the Western thought regarding it - -
the various cults advocating
some form of its doctrine - the original doctrine may be learned
and understood in spite of the
fanciful dressings bestowed upon it. “The Truth is One - Men
call it by many names.”
It may be of interest to Western
readers to mention that some of the teachers of Occultism
and Reincarnation hold that the
present revival of interest on the subject in the Western
world is due to the fact that in
Europe and America, more particularly the latter, there is
occurring a reincarnating of the
souls of many persons who lived from fifteen hundred to two
thousand years ago, and who were
then believers in the doctrine. According to this view,
those who are now attracted
toward the Hindu forms of the doctrine formerly lived as natives
of India; those who favor the
Grecian idea, lived in Ancient Greece; others favor the Egyptian
idea, from similar reasons;
while the revival of Neo-Platonism, Gnosticism and general
Mysticism, among the present-day
Christians is accounted for by the fact that the early
Christians are now reincarnating
in the Western world, having been reborn as Christians
according to the Law of Karmic
Attraction. In this manner the advocates of the doctrine offer
the present revival as another
proof of their teachings.
37
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
CHAPTER VII.
Between and beyond incarnations.
One of the first questions
usually asked by students of the subject of Reincarnation is:
“Where does the soul dwell
between incarnations; does it incarnate immediately after death;
and what is its final abode or
state?” This question, or questions, have been asked from the
beginning, and probably will be
asked so long as the human mind dwells upon the subject.
And many are the answers that
have been given to the questioners by the teachers and
“authorities” upon the subject.
Let us consider some of the leading and more “authoritative”
answers.
In the first place, let us
consider that phase of the question which asks: “Does the soul
incarnate immediately after
death?” Some of the earlier Reincarnationists believed and
taught that the soul
reincarnated shortly after death, the short period between incarnations
being used by the soul in adjusting
itself, striking a balance of character, and preparing for a
new birth. Others held that
there was a period of waiting and rest between incarnations, in
which the soul ‘mentally
digested’ the experiences of the last life just completed, and then
considered and meditated over
the mistakes it had made, and determined to rectify the
mistakes in the next life - it
being held that when the soul was relieved of the necessities of
material existence, it could
think more clearly of the moral nature of its acts, and would be
able to realize the spiritual
side of itself more distinctly, in addition to having the benefit of
the spiritual perspective
occasioned by its distance from the active scenes of life, and thus
being able to better gauge the
respective “worth-whileness” of the things of material life.
At the present time, the most
advanced students of the subject hold that the average period
of rest between incarnations is
about fifteen hundred years, the less advanced souls
hastening back to earth in a
very short time, the more advanced preferring a long period of
rest, meditation and preparation
for a new life. It is held that the soul of a gross, material,
animal-like person will
incarnate very shortly after death, the period of rest and meditation
being very short, for the reason
that there is very little about which such a soul could
meditate, as all of its
attractions and desires are connected with material life. Many souls are
so “earth-bound” that they rush
back at once into material embodiment if the conditions for
rebirth are favorable, and they
are generally favorable for there seems to be always an
abundant supply of new bodies
suitable for such souls in the families of people of the same
character and nature, which
afford congenial opportunities for such a soul to reincarnate.
Other souls which have
progressed a little further along the path of attainment, have
cultivated the higher part of
themselves somewhat, and enjoy to a greater extent the period
of meditation and spiritual life
afforded them. And so, as the scale advances - as the
attraction for material life
grows less, the period of purely spiritual existence between
incarnations grows longer, and
it is said that the souls of persons who are highly developed
38
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
spiritually sometimes dwell in
the state of rest for ten thousand years or more, unless they
voluntarily return sooner in
order to take part in the work of uplifting the world. It must be
remembered, in this connection,
that the best teaching is to the effect that the advanced souls
are rapidly unfolding into the
state in which they are enabled to preserve consciousness in
future births, instead of losing
it as is the usual case, and thus they take a conscious part in
the selection of the conditions
for rebirth, which is wisely denied persons of a more material
nature and less spiritual
development.
The next phase of the question:
“Where does the soul dwell between incarnations?” is one
still more difficult of answer,
owing to the various shades of opinion on the subject. Still
there is a fundamental agreement
between the different schools, and we shall try to give you
the essence or cream of the
thought on the subject. In the first place, all occultists set aside
any idea of there being a
“place” in which the souls dwell - the existence of “states” or “planes
of existence” being deemed
sufficient for the purpose. It is held that there are many planes of
existence in any and every
portion of space, which planes interpenetrate each other, so that
entities dwelling on one plane
usually are not conscious of the presence of those on another
plane. Thus, an inhabitant of a
high plane of being, in which the vibrations of substance are
much higher than that which we
occupy, would be able to pass through our material world
without the slightest knowledge
of its existence, just as the “X rays” pass through the most
solid object, or as light passes
through the air. It is held that there are many planes of
existence much higher than the
one we occupy, and upon which the disembodied souls
dwell. There are many details
regarding these planes, taught by the different schools of
occultism, or spiritualism, but
we have neither the time nor space to consider them at length,
and must content ourselves with
mentioning but a few leading or typical beliefs or teachings
on the subject.
The Theosophists teach that just
when the soul leaves the body, there occurs a process of
psychic photography in which the
past life, in all of its details, is indelibly imprinted on the
inner substance of the soul,
thus preserving a record independent of the brain, the latter
being left behind in the
physical body. Then the Astral Body, or Etheric Double, detaches
itself from the body, from which
the Vital Force, or Prana-Jiva also departs at the same time,
the Astral Body enfolding also
the four other principles, and together the Five Surviving
Principles pass on to the plane
of Kama Loka, or the Astral Plane of Desire. Kama Loka is
that part of the Astral Plane
nearest to the material plane, and is very closely connected with
the latter. If the soul is
filled with hot and earnest desire for earth life, it may proceed no
further, but may hasten back to
material embodiment, as we said a moment ago. But if the
soul has higher aspirations, and
has developed the higher part of itself, it presses on further,
in which case the Astral Body,
and the Animal Soul which is the seat of the passions and
grosser desires, disintegrate,
and thus release the Triad, or three-fold higher nature of the
soul, namely the higher human
soul, the spiritual soul, and the spirit - or as some term them,
39
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
the intellect, the spiritual
mind, and the spirit. The Triad then passes on to what is known as
the plane of Devachan, where it
rests divested of the lower parts of its nature, and in a state
of bliss and in a condition in
which it may make great progress by reason of meditation,
reflection, etc. Kama
Loka has been compared to the Purgatory of the Catholics, which it
resembles in more ways than one,
according to the Theosophists. Devachan is sometimes
called the Heaven World by
Theosophists, the word meaning “the state or plane of the gods.”
Theosophy teaches that the Soul
Triad dwells in Devachan “for a period proportionate to the
merit of the being,” and from
whence in the proper time “the being is drawn down again to
be reborn in the world of
mortals.” The Law of Karma which rules the earth-life of man, and
which regulates the details of
his rebirth, is said to operate on the Devachnic Plane as well,
thus deciding the time of his
abode on that plane, and the time when the soul shall proceed
to rebirth. The state of
existence in Devachan is described at length in the Theosophical
writings, but is too complex for
full consideration here. Briefly stated, it may be said that it is
taught that the life on Devachan
is in the nature of a Dream of the Best that is In Us - that is,
a condition in which the highest
that is in us is given a chance for expression and growth, and
development. The state of the
soul in Devachan is said to be one of Bliss, the degree
depending upon the degree of
spiritual development of the soul, as the Bliss is of an entirely
spiritual nature. It may be
compared to a state of people listening to some beautiful music - -
the greater the musical
development of the person, the greater will be his degree of
enjoyment. It is also taught
that just as the soul leaves Devachan to be reincarnated, it is
given a glimpse of its past
lives, and its present character, that it may realize the Karmic
relations between the cause and
effect, to the end that its new life may be improved upon - -
then it sinks into a state of
unconsciousness and passes on to rebirth.
The Western school of the Yogi
Philosophy gives an idea of the state between incarnations,
somewhat eclectic in its origin,
agreeing with the Theosophical teaching in some respects,
and differing from it in others.
Let us take a hasty glance at it. In the first place it does not
use the terms “Kama Loca”
and “Devachan” respectively, but instead treats the whole series
of planes as the great “Astral
World” containing many planes, divisions, and subdivisions - -
many sub-planes, and divisions
of the same. The teaching is that the soul passes out of the
body, leaving behind its
physical form, together with its Prana or Vital Energy, and taking
with it the Astral Body, the
Instructive Mind, and the higher principles. The “last vision” of
the past life, in which the
events of that life are impressed upon the soul just as it leaves the
body, is held to be a fact - the
soul sees the past life as a whole, and in all of its minutest
details at the moment of death,
and it is urged that the dying person should be left
undisturbed in his last moments
for this reason, and that the soul may become calm and
peaceful when starting on its
journey. On one of the Astral Planes the soul gradually discards
its Astral Body and its
Instinctive Mind, but retains its higher vehicles or sheaths. But it is
taught that this discarding of
the lower sheaths occurs after the soul has passed into a “soul-
40
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
slumber” on a sub-plane of the
Astral World, from which it awakens to find itself clothed
only in its higher mental and spiritual
garments of being, and free from the grosser coverings
and burdens. The teachings say:
“When the soul has cast off the confining sheaths, and has
reached the state for which it
is prepared, it passes to the plane in the Astral World for which
it is fitted, and to which it is
drawn by the Law of Attraction. The planes of the Astral World
interpenetrate, and souls
dwelling on one plane are not conscious of those dwelling on
another, nor can they pass from
one plane to another, with this exception - that those
dwelling on a higher plane are
able to see (if they so desire) the planes below them in the
order of development, and are
also able to visit these lower planes if they so desire. But those
on the lower planes are not able
to either see or visit the planes above them - not that there is
a ‘watchman at the gate’ to
prevent them, but for the same reason that a fish is not able to
pass from the water to the plane
of air above that water.” The same teachings tell us that the
souls on the higher planes often
visit friends and relatives on the lower, so that there is
always the opportunity for loved
ones, relatives and friends meeting in this way; and also
many souls on the higher planes
pass to the lower planes in order to instruct and advise
those dwelling on the latter,
the result that in some cases there may be a progression from a
lower to a higher plane of the
Astral World by promotion earned by this instruction.
Regarding Rebirth, from the
Astral World, the teachings say:
“But sooner or later, the souls
feel a desire to gain new experiences, and to manifest in earthlife
some of the advancement which
has come to them since ‘death,’ and for these reasons,
and from the attraction of
desires which have been smoldering there, not lived out or cast off,
or, possibly influenced by the
fact that some loved soul, on a lower plane, is ready to
incarnate and wishing to be
incarnated at the same time in order to be with it (which is also a
desire) the souls fall into the
current sweeping toward rebirth, and the selection of proper
parents and advantageous
circumstances and surrounding, and in consequence again fall
into a soul-slumber, gradually,
and so when their time comes they ‘die’ to the plane upon
which they have been existing
and are ‘born’ into a new physical life and body. A soul does
not fully awaken from its sleep
immediately at birth, but exists in a dream-like state during
the days of infancy, its gradual
awakening being evidenced by the growing intelligence of the
babe, the brain of the child
keeping pace with the demands made upon it. In some cases the
awakening is premature, and we
see cases of prodigies, child-genius, etc., but such cases are
more or less abnormal, and
unhealthy. Occasionally the dreaming soul in the child halfwakes,
and startles us by some profound
observation, or mature remark or conduct.”
The third phase of the question:
“What is the final state or abode of the soul?” is one that
reaches to the very center or
heart of philosophical and religious thought and teaching. Each
philosophy and religion has its
own explanation, or interpretation of the Truth, and it is not
for us to attempt to select one
teaching from the many in this work. The reader will find
many references to these various
explanations and teachings as he reads the several chapters
41
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
of this book, and he may use his
own discrimination and judgment in selecting that which
appeals to him the most
strongly. But he will notice that there is a fundamental agreement
between all of the teachings and
beliefs - the principle that the movement of the soul is ever
upward and onward, and that
there is no standing still in spiritual development and
unfoldment. Whether the end - if
end there be - is the reaching of a state of Bliss in the
presence of the Divine One - or
whether the weary soul finds rest “in the Bosom of the
Father,” by what has been called
“Union with God” - the vital point for the evolving soul is
that there is “a better day
coming” - a haven of rest around the turn of the road. And
whatever may be the details of
the Truth, the fact remains that whatever state awaits the soul
finally, it must be Good, and in
accordance with Divine Wisdom and Ultimate Justice and
Universal Love.
The majority of occultists look
forward to an end in the sense of being absorbed in the Divine
Being, not in the sense of
annihilation, but in the sense of reaching a consciousness “of the
Whole in the Whole” - this is
the true meaning of “Nirvana.” But whether this be true, or
whether there is a place of
final rest in the highest spiritual realms other than in the sense of
absorption in the Divine, or
whether there is a state of Eternal Progression from plane to
plane, from realm to realm, on
and on forever Godward, and more and more God-like - the
End must be Good, and there is
nothing to Fear, for “the Power that rules Here, rules There,
and Everywhere. And remember
this, ye seekers after ultimate truths - the highest
authorities inform us that even
the few stages or planes just ahead of us in the journey are so
far beyond our present powers of
conception, that they are practically unknowable to us - -
this being so, it will be seen
that states very much nearer to us than the End must be utterly
beyond the powers not only of
our understanding but also of our imagination, even when
strained to its utmost. This
being so, why should we attempt to speculate about The End?
Instead, why not say with
Newman:
“I do not ask to see the distant
scene.
One step enough for me -
Lead Thou me on!”
It is said that when Thoreau was
dying, a friend leaned over and taking him by the hand,
said: “Henry, you are so near to
the border now, can you see anything on the other side?”
And the dying Thoreau replied:
“One world at a time, Parker!” And this seems to be the great
lesson of Life - One Plane at a
Time! But though the Veil of Isis is impossible of being lifted
entirely, still there is a
Something that enables one to see at least dimly the features of the
Goddess behind the veil. And
that Something is that Intelligent Faith that “knows,” although
it is unable to explain even to
itself. And the voice of that Something Within informs him
who has that Faith: All Is Well,
Brother! For beyond planes, and states, and universes, and
time, and space, and name, and
form, and Things - there must be that which transcends
them all, and from which they
all proceed. Though we may not know what that is - the fact
42
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
that It must exist - that It is,
is a sufficient guarantee that the law is in constant operation on
all planes, from the lowest to
the highest, and that the Cosmos is governed by law! And this
being so, not even an atom may
be destroyed, nor misplaced, nor suffer Injustice; and all will
attain the End rightly, and know
the “Sat-chit-ananda” of the Hindus - the Being-Wisdom-
Bliss Absolute that all
philosophies and religions agree upon is the Final State of the Blessed.
And to the occultist All are
Blessed, even to the last soul in the scale of life. And over all the
tumult and strife of Life there
is always that Something - that - silently brooding, and
watching, and waiting - the
Life, Light, and Love of the All. Such is the message of the
Illumined of all ages, races,
and lands. Is it not worthy of our attention and consideration?
CHAPTER VIII.
The justice of reincarnation.
There are three views
entertained by men who believe in the existence of the soul - there are
many shades of belief and
opinion on the subject, but they may be divided into three classes.
These three views, respectively,
are as follows: (1) That the soul is specially created by the
Supreme Power at the time of
conception, or birth, and that its position on earth, its
circumstances, its degree of
intelligence, etc., are fixed arbitrarily by that power, for some
inscrutable reason of its own;
(2) That the soul was pre-existent, that is, that it existed before
conception and birth, in some
higher state not understood by us, from whence it was thrust
into human form and birth, its
position on earth, its circumstances, its degree of intelligence,
etc., being determined by causes
unknown to us; (3) That the soul is one of countless others
which emanated from the Source
of Being at some period in the past, and which souls were
equal in power, intelligence,
opportunity, etc., and which worked its way up by spiritual
evolution from lowly forms of
expression and life to its present state, from whence it is
destined to move on and on, to
higher and still higher forms and states of existence, until in
the end, after millions of æons
of existence in the highest planes of expressed life it will
again return to the Source of
Being from which it emanated, and becomes “one with the
Father,” not in a state of
annihilated consciousness, but in a condition of universal
consciousness with All. This
view holds that the present condition of each soul is due to its
own progress, development,
advancement, unfoldment, or the lack of the same - the soul
being its own Fate and Destiny -
the enforcer of the Law upon itself, under the Law of Karma.
Considering the first named
view, namely that the soul is newly created, and that its
condition has been arbitrarily
fixed by the Divine Power, the student free from prejudice or
fear finds it difficult to
escape the conclusion that under this plan of creation there is lacking
a manifestation of Divine
Justice. Even admitting the inability of the finite mind to fully
grasp infinite principles, man
is still forced to the realization of the manifest inequality and
43
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
injustice of the relative
positions of human beings on earth, providing that the same is thrust
arbitrarily upon them; and it
would seem that no amount of future reward could possibly
equalize or explain these
conditions. Unless there be “something back of it all,” it would
certainly seem that Injustice
was manifested. Of course, many argue that the idea of Justice
has nothing to do with the
universal processes, but all who think of a Divine Being, filled with
Love, and Justice, are compelled
to think that such qualities must manifest themselves in the
creations of such a Being. And,
if there be nothing “back of it all,” then the candid observer
must confess that the scheme of
Justice manifested is most faulty according even to the
human imperfect idea of Justice.
As Figuier, a French writer said
about forty years ago: “If there are a few men well organized,
of good constitution and robust
health, how many are infirm, idiotic, deaf-mute, blind from
birth, maimed, foolish and
insane? My brother is handsome and well-shaped: I am ugly,
weakly, rickety, and a
hunchback. Yet we are sons of the same mother. Some are born into
opulence, others into the most
dreadful want. Why am I not a prince and a great lord,
instead of a poor pilgrim on the
earth, ungrateful and rebellious? Why was I born in Europe
and at Paris, whereby
civilization and art life is rendered supportable and easy, instead of
seeing the light under the
burning skies of the tropics, where, dressed out in a beastly
muzzle, a skin black and oily,
and locks of wool, I should have been exposed to the double
torments of a deadly climate and
a barbarous society? Why is not a wretched African negro
in my place in Paris, in
conditions of comfort? We have, either of us, done nothing to entitle
us to our assigned places: we
have invited neither this favor nor that disgrace. Why is the
unequal distribution of the
terrible evils that fall upon some men, and spare others? How
have those deserved the
partiality of fortune, who live in happy lands, while many of their
brethren suffer and weep in
other parts of the world?”
Figuier continues: “Some men are
endowed with all benefits of mind; others, on the
contrary, are devoid of
intelligence, penetration and memory. They stumble at every step in
their rough life-paths. Their
limited intelligence and their imperfect faculties expose them to
all possible mortifications and
disasters. They can succeed in nothing, and Fate seems to
have chosen them for the
constant objects of its most deadly blows. There are beings who,
from the moment of their birth
to the hour of their death, utter only cries of suffering and
despair. What crime have they
committed? Why are they here on earth? They have not
petitioned to be here; and if
they could, they would have begged that this fatal cup might be
taken from their lips. They are
here in spite of themselves, against their will. God would be
unjust and wicked if he imposed
so miserable an existence upon beings who have done
nothing to incur it, and have
not asked for it. But God is not unjust or wicked: the opposite
qualities belong to his perfect
essence. Therefore the presence of man on such or such parts
of the earth, and the unequal
distribution of evil on our globe, must remain unexplained. If
44
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
you know a doctrine, a
philosophy, or a religion that solves these difficulties, I will destroy
this book, and confess myself
vanquished.”
The orthodox theology answers
Figuier’s question by the argument that “in our finite
understanding, we cannot pretend
to understand God’s plans, purposes and designs, nor to
criticize his form of justice.”
It holds that we must look beyond that mortal life for the
evidence of God’s love, and not
attempt to judge it according to what we see here on earth of
men’s miseries and inequalities.
It holds that the suffering and misery come to us as an
inheritance from Adam, and as a
result of the sins of our first parents; but that if we are
“good” it will all be evened up
and recompensed in the next world. Of course the extremists
who hold to Predestination have
held that some were happy and some miserable, simply
because God in the exercise of
His will had elected and predestined them to those conditions,
but it would scarcely be fair to
quote this as the position of current theology, because the
tendency of modern theological
thought is away from that conception. We mention it merely
as showing what some have
thought of the subject. Others have sought refuge in the idea
that we suffer for the sins of
our parents, according to the old doctrine that “the sins of the
parents shall be visited upon
the children,” but even this is not in accordance with man’s
highest idea of justice and
love.
Passing on to the second view,
namely that the soul was pre-existent, that is, existed in some
higher state not understood by
us, from whence it was thrust into human form, etc., we note
that the questions as to the
cause of inequality, misery, etc., considered a moment ago, are
still actively with us - this
view does not straighten out the question at all. For whether the
soul was pre-existent in a
higher state, or whether it was freshly created, the fact remains
that as souls they must be equal
in the sense of being made by the same process, and from
the same material, and that up
to the point of their embodiment they had not sinned or
merited any reward or
punishment, nor had they earned anything one way or another. And
yet, according to the theory,
these equally innocent and inexperienced souls are born, some
being thrust into the bodies of
children to be born in environments conducive to
advancement, development, etc.,
and gifted with natural advantages, while others are thrust
into bodies of children to be
born into the most wretched environments and surroundings,
and devoid of many natural
advantages - not to speak of the crippled, deformed, and painridden
ones in all walks of life. There
is no more explanation of the problem in this view than
there was in the first mentioned
one.
Passing on to the third view,
namely, that the soul is one of countless others which emanated
from the Source of Being æons
ago, equal in power, opportunities, etc., and which individual
soul has worked its way up to
its present position through many rebirths and lives, in which
it has gained many experiences
and lessons, which determine its present condition, and
which in turn will profit by the
experiences and lessons of the present life by which the next
stage of its life will be
determined - we find what many have considered to be the only logical
45
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
and possible explanation of the
problem of life’s inequalities, providing there is an “answer”
at all, and that there is any
such thing as a “soul,” and a loving, just God. Figuier, the French
writer, from whom we quoted that
remarkable passage breathing the pessimism of the old
view of life, a few moments ago,
admitted that in rebirth was to be found a just explanation of
the matter. He says: “If, on the
contrary, we admit the plurality of human existences and
reincarnation - that is, the
passage of the same soul through several bodies - all this is made
wonderfully clear. Our presence
on such or such a part of the earth is no longer the effect of
a caprice of Fate, or the result
of chance; it is merely a station in the long journey that we
make through the world. Before
our birth, we have already lived, and this life is the sequel
and result of previous ones. We
have a soul that we must purify, improve and ennoble
during our stay upon earth; or
having already completed an imperfect and wicked life, we are
compelled to begin a new one,
and thus strive to rise to the level of those who have passed on
to higher planes.”
The advocates of Reincarnation
point out that the idea of Justice is fully carried out in that
view of life, inasmuch as what
we are is determined by what we have been; and what we shall
be is determined by what we are
now; and that we are constantly urged on by the pressure of
the unfolding spirit, and attracted
upward by the Divine One. Under this conception there is
no such thing as Chance - all is
according to Law. As an ancient Grecian philosopher once
said: “Without the doctrine of
metempsychosis, it is not possible to justify the ways of God,”
and many other philosophers and
theologians have followed him in this thought. If we
enjoy, we have earned it; if we
suffer, we have earned it; in both cases through our own
endeavors and efforts, and not
by “chance,” nor by reason of the merits or demerits of our
forefathers, nor because of
“predestination” nor “election” to that fate. If this be true, then
one is given the understanding
to stoically bear the pains and miseries of this life without
cursing Fate or imputing
injustice to the Divine. And likewise he is given an incentive toward
making the best of his
opportunities now, in order to pass on to higher and more satisfactory
conditions in future lives.
Reincarnationists claim that rewards and punishments are
properly awarded only on the
plane in which the deed, good or bad, was committed, “else
their nature is changed, their
effects impaired, and their collateral bearings lost.” A writer on
the subject has pointed out this
fact in the following words: “Physical outrage has to be
checked by the infliction of
physical pain, and not merely by the arousing of internal regret.
Honest lives find appropriate
consequence in visible honor. But one career is too short for
the precise balancing of
accounts, and many are needed that every good or evil done in each
may be requited on the earth
where it took place.” In reference to this mention of rewards
and penalties, we would say that
very many advanced Reincarnationists do not regard the
conditions of life as “rewards
and punishments,” but, on the contrary, look upon them as
forming part of the Lessons in
the Kindergarten of Life, to be learned and profited by in
future lives. We shall speak of
this further in our consideration of the question of “Karma” - -
the difference is vital, and
should be closely observed in considering the subject.
46
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
Before we pass from the
consideration of the question of Justice, as exemplified by
Reincarnation, we would call
your attention to the difference in the views of life and its
rewards and punishments held by
the orthodox theologians and the Reincarnationists,
respectively. On the one hand,
the orthodox theologians hold that for the deeds, good or evil,
performed by a man during his
short lifetime of a few years, and then performed under
conditions arbitrarily imposed
upon him at birth by his Creator, man is rewarded or
punished by an eternity of
happiness or misery - heaven or hell. Perhaps the man has lived
but one or two years of
reasonable understanding - or full three-score and ten - and has
violated certain moral, ethical
or even religious laws, perhaps only to the extent of refusing to
believe something that his
reason absolutely refused to accept - for this he is doomed to an
everlasting sojourn in a place
of pain, misery or punishment, or a state equivalent thereto.
Or, on the other hand, he has
done the things that he ought to have done, and left undone the
things that he ought not to have
done - even though this doing and not-doing was made very
easy for him by reason of his
environment and surroundings - and to crown his beautiful life
he had accepted the orthodox
creeds and beliefs of his fathers, as a matter of course - then
this man is rewarded by an
eternity of bliss, happiness and joy - without end. Try to think of
what eternity means -
think of the æons upon æons of time, on and on, and on, forever - -
and the poor sinner is suffering
exquisite torture all that time, and in all time to come,
without limit, respite, without
mercy! And all the same time, the “good” man is enjoying his
blissful state, without limit,
or end, or satiety! And the time of probation, during which the
two worked out their future
fate, was as a grain of sand as compared with the countless
universes in space in all
eternity - a relation which reduces the span of man’s lifetime to
almost absolutely nothing,
mathematically considered. Think of this - is this Justice?
And on the other hand, from the
point of view of the Reincarnationist, is not the measure of
cause and effect more equitably
adjusted, even if we regard it as a matter of “reward and
punishment” - a crude view by
the way - when we see that every infraction of the law is
followed by a corresponding
effect, and an adherence to the law by a proportionate effect.
Does not the “punishment fit the
crime” better in this case - the rewards also. And looking at
it from a reasonable point of
view, devoid from theological bias, which plan seems to be the
best exemplification of Justice
and Natural Law, not to speak of the higher Divine Justice
and Cosmic Law? Of course, we
are not urging these ideas as “proofs” of Reincarnation, for
strictly speaking “proof” must
lie outside of speculation of “what ought to be” - proof belongs
to the region of “what is” and
“facts in experience.” But, nevertheless, while one is
considering the matter, it
should be viewed from every possible aspect, in order to see “how
it works out.”
It is also urged along the lines
of the Justice of Reincarnation, as opposed to the injustice of
the contrary doctrine, that
there are many cases of little infants who have only a few days, or
minutes, of this life, before
they pass out of the body in death. According to the anti-
47
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
reincarnation doctrine, these
little souls have been freshly created, and placed into physical
bodies, and then without having
had to taste of the experiences of life, are ushered into the
higher planes, there to pass an
eternal existence - while other souls have to live out their long
lives of earth in order to reach
the same higher states, and then, according to the prevailing
doctrine, even then they may
have earned eternal punishment instead of eternal bliss.
According to this idea the
happiest fate would be for all to die as infants (providing we were
baptized, some good souls would
add), and the death of an infant should be the occasion for
the greatest rejoicing on the
part of those who love it. But in spite of the doctrine, human
nature does not so act.
According to the doctrine of Reincarnation, the little babe’s soul was
but pursuing the same path as
the rest of the race - it had its past, as well as its future,
according to Law and Justice.
While, if the ordinary view be correct, no one would begrudge
the infant its happy fate, still
one would have good cause for complaint as the Inequality and
Injustice of others having to
live out long lives of pain, discomfort and misery, for no cause,
instead of being at once
translated into a higher life as was the infant. If the ordinary view be
true, then why the need of
earth-life at all - why not create a soul and then place it in the
heavenly realms at once; if it
is possible and proper in some cases, why not in all; if the
experience is not indispensable,
then why impose it on certain souls, when all are freshly
created and equal in merit and
deserts? If earthly life has any virtue, then the infant’s soul is
robbed of its right. If earthly
life has no virtue, the adult souls are forced to live a useless
existence on earth, running the
risk of damnation if they fail, while the infant souls escape
this. Is this equality of
opportunity and experience, or Justice? There would seem to be
something wrong with either the
facts, or the theory. Test the problem with the doctrine of
Reincarnation, and see how it works
out!
CHAPTER IX.
The argument for reincarnation.
In addition to the consideration
of Justice, there are many other advantages claimed by the
advocates of Reincarnation which
are worthy of the careful consideration of students of the
problem of the soul. We shall
give to each of these principal points a brief consideration in
this chapter, that you may
acquaint yourself with the several points of the argument.
It is argued that the principle
of analogy renders it more reasonable to believe that the
present life of the soul is but
one link in a great chain of existences, which chain stretches far
back into the past on one side,
and far out into the future on the other, than to suppose that it
has been specially created for
this petty term of a few years of earth life, and then projected
for weal or woe into an eternity
of spiritual existence. It is argued that the principle of
Evolution on the Physical Plane
points to an analogy of Evolution of the Spiritual Plane. It is
48
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
reasoned that just as birth on
the next plane of life follows death on the present one, so
analogy would indicate that a
death on past planes preceded birth on this, and so on. It is
argued that every form of life
that we know of has arisen from lower forms, which in turn
arose from still lower forms,
and so on; and that following the same analogy the soul has
risen from lower to higher, and
will mount on to still higher forms and planes. It is argued
that “special creation” is
unknown in the universe, and that it is far more reasonable to apply
the principle of evolution to
the soul than to consider it as an exception and violation of the
universal law.
It is also claimed by some
thinkers that the idea of future-existence presupposes pastexistence,
for everything that is “begun”
must “end” some time, and therefore if we are to
suppose that the soul is to
continue its existence in the future, we must think of it as having
an existence in the past - being
eternal at both ends of the earth-life, as it were. Opponents
of the idea of immortality are
fond of arguing that there was no more reason for supposing
that a soul would continue to
exist after the death of the body, than there was for supposing
that it had existed previously.
A well-known man once was asked the question: “What
becomes of a man’s soul after
death?” when he evaded the question by answering: “It goes
back to where it came from.” And
to many this idea has seemed sufficient to make them
doubt the idea of immortality.
The ancient Greek philosophers felt it logically necessary for
them to assert the eternal
pre-existence of the soul in order to justify their claim of future
existence for it. They argued
that if the soul is immortal, it must have always existed, for an
immortal thing could not have
been created - if it was not immortal by nature, it could never
be made so, and if it was
immortal by nature, then it had always existed. The argument
usually employed is this: A
thing is either mortal or immortal, one or the other; if it is mortal
it has been born and must die;
if it is immortal, it cannot have been born, neither can it die;
mortality means subject to life
and death - immortality means immunity from both. The
Greeks devoted much time and
care to this argument, and attached great importance to it.
They reasoned that nothing that
possessed Reality could have emerged from nothingness,
nor could it pass into
nothingness. If it were Real it was Eternal; if it was not Eternal it was
not Real, and would pass away
even as it was born. They also claimed that the sense of
immortality possessed by the
Ego, was an indication of its having experienced life in the past,
as well as anticipating life in
the future - there is a sense of “oldness” pervading every
thought of the soul regarding
its own nature. It is claimed as an illogical assumption to hold
that back of the present there
extends an eternity of non-existence for the soul, while ahead
of it there extends an eternity
of being - it is held that it is far more logical to regard the
present life as merely a single
point in an eternity of existence.
It is argued, further, that
Reincarnation fits in with the known scientific principle of
conservation of energy - that
is, that no energy is ever created or is lost, but that all energy is
but a form of the universal
energy, which flows on from form to form, from manifestation to
49
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
manifestation, ever the same,
and yet manifesting in myriad forms - never born, never dying,
but always moving on, and on,
and on to new manifestations. Therefore it is thought that it
is reasonable to suppose that
the soul follows the same law of re-embodiment, rising higher
and higher, throughout time,
until finally it re-enters the Universal Spirit from which it
emerged, and in which it will
continue to exist, as it existed before it emerged for the cycle of
manifestation. It is also argued
that Reincarnation brings Life within the Law of Cause and
Effect, just as is everything
else in the universe. The law of re-birth, according to the causes
generated during past lives,
would bring the existence of the soul within and in harmony
with natural laws, instead of
without and contrary to them.
It is further argued that the
feeling of “original sin” of which so many people assert a
consciousness, may be explained
better by the theory of Reincarnation than by any
theological doctrine. The
orthodox doctrine is that “original sin” was something inherited
from Adam by reason of our
forefather’s transgression, but this jars upon the thought of
today, as well it might, for
what has the “soul” to do with Adam - it did not descend from
him, or from aught else but the
Source of Being - there is no line of descent for souls, though
there may be for bodies. What
has Adam to do with your soul, if it came fresh from the mint
of the Maker, pure and unsullied
- how could his sin taint your new soul? Theology here
asserts either arrant nonsense,
or else grave injustice. But if for “Adam” we substitute our
past existences and the thoughts
and deeds thereof, we may understand that feeling of
conscious recognition of past
wrong-doing and remorse, which so many testify to, though
they be reasonably free from the
same in the present life. The butterfly dimly remembers its
worm state, and although it now
soars, it feels the slime of the mud in which it once crawled.
It is also argued that in one
life the soul would fail to acquire the varied experience which is
necessary to form a well rounded
mentality of understanding. Dwarfed by its limited
experience in the narrow sphere
occupied by many human beings, it would be far from
acquiring the knowledge which
would seem to be necessary for a developed and advanced
soul. Besides this there would
be as great an inequality on the part of souls after death, as
there is before death - some
would pass into the future state as ignorant beings, while others
would possess a full nature of
understanding. As a leading authority has said: “A perfected
man must have experienced every
type of earthly relation and duty, every phase of desire,
affection and passion, every
form of temptation and every variety of conflict. No one life can
possibly furnish the material
for more than a minute section of such experience.” Along this
same line it is urged that the
soul’s development must come largely from contact and
relationship with other souls,
in a variety of phases and forms. It must experience pain and
happiness, love, pity, failure,
success - it must know the discipline of sympathy, toleration,
patience, energy, fortitude,
foresight, gratitude, pity, benevolence, and love in all of its
phases. This, it is urged, is
possible only through repeated incarnations, as the span of one
life is too small and its limit
too narrow to embrace but a small fraction of the necessary
50
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
experiences of the soul on its
journey toward development and attainment. One must feel
the sorrows and joys of all
forms of life before “understanding” may come. Narrowness, lack
of tolerance, prejudice, and
similar forms of undeveloped consciousness must be wiped out
by the broad understanding and
sympathy that come only from experience.
It is argued that only by
repeated incarnations the soul is able to realize the futility of the
search for happiness and
satisfaction in material things. One, while dissatisfied and
disappointed at his own
condition, is apt to imagine that in some other earthly condition he
would find satisfaction and
happiness now denied him, and dying carries with him the
subsconcious desire to enjoy
those conditions, which desire attracts him back to earth-life in
search of those conditions. So
long as the soul desires anything that earth can offer, it is
earth-bound and drawn back into
the vortex. But after repeated incarnations the soul learns
well its lesson that only in
itself may be found happiness - and that only when it learns its
real nature, source, and destiny
- and then it passes on to higher planes. As an authority
says: “In time, the soul sees
that a spiritual being cannot be nourished on inferior food, and
that any joy short of union with
the Divine must be illusionary.”
It is also argued that but few
people, as we see them in earth-life, have realized the existence
of a higher part of their being,
and still fewer have asserted the supremacy of the higher, and
subordinated the lower part of
the self to that higher. Were they to pass on to a final state of
being after death, they would
carry with them all of their lower propensities and attributes,
and would be utterly incapable
of manifesting the spiritual part of their nature which alone
would be satisfied and happy in
the spiritual realms. Therefore, it needs repeated lives in
order to evolve from the lower
conditions and to develop and unfold the higher.
Touching upon the question of
unextinguished desire, mentioned a moment ago, the following
quotation from a writer on the
subject, gives clearly and briefly the Reincarnationist argument
regarding this point. The writer
says: “Desire for other forms of earthly experience can only be
extinguished by undergoing them.
It is obvious that any one of us, if now translated to the
unseen world, would feel regret
that he had not tasted existence in some other situation or
surroundings. He would wish to
have known what it was to possess wealth and rank, or
beauty, or to live in a
different race or climate, or to see more of the world and society. No
spiritual ascent could progress
while earthly longings were dragging back the soul, and so it
frees itself from them by successively
securing them and dropping them. When the round of
such knowledge has been
traversed, regret for ignorance has died out.” This idea of “Living-
Out and Out-Living” is urged by
a number of writers and thinkers on the subject. J. Wm. Lloyd
says, in his “Dawn Thought,” on
this subject: “You rise and overcome simply by the natural
process of living fully and thus
outliving, as a child its milk-teeth, a serpent his slough. Living
and Outliving, that expresses
it. Until you have learned the one lesson fully you are never
ready for a new one.” The same
writer, in the same book, also says: “By sin, shame, joy, virtue
and sorrow, action and reaction,
attraction and repulsion, the soul, like a barbed arrow, ever
51
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
goes on. It cannot go back, or
return through the valves of its coming. But this must not be
understood to be fulfilled in
one and every earth-visit. It is true only of the whole circle-voyage
of the soul. In one earth-trip,
one ‘life,’ as we say, it may be that there would nothing be but a
standing still or a turning
back, nothing but sin. But the whole course of all is on.” But there is
the danger of a misunderstanding
of this doctrine, and some have misinterpreted it, and read it
to advise a plunging into all
kinds of sinful experience in order to “live-out and out-live,” which
idea is wrong, and cannot be
entertained by any true student of the subjects, however much it
may be used by those who wish to
avail themselves of an excuse for material dissipation.
Mabel Collins, in her notes to
“Light on the Path,” says on this subject: “Seek it by testing all
experience, and remember that,
when I say this, I do not say, ’Yield to the seduction of sense,
in order to know it.’ Before you
have become an occultist, you may do this, but not afterwards.
When you have chosen and entered
the path, you cannot yield to these seductions without
shame. Yet you can experience
them without horror; can weigh, observe and test them, and
wait with the patience of confidence
for the hour when they shall affect you no longer. But do
not condemn a man that yields;
stretch out your hand to him as a brother pilgrim whose feet
have become heavy with mire.
Remember, O disciple! that great though the gulf may be
between the good man and the
sinner, it is greater between the good man and the man who has
attained knowledge; it is
immeasurable between the good man and the one on the threshold of
divinity. Therefore, be wary,
lest too soon you fancy yourself a thing apart from the mass.”
And again, the same writer says:
“Before you can attain knowledge you must have passed
through all places, foul and
clean alike. Therefore, remember that the soiled garment you
shrink from touching may have
been yours yesterday, may be yours tomorrow. And if you turn
with horror from it when it is
flung upon your shoulders, it will cling the more closely to you.
The self-righteous man makes for
himself a bed of mire. Abstain because it is right to abstain,
not that yourself shall be kept
clean.”
It is also argued that
Reincarnation is necessary in order to give the evolving races a chance
to perfect themselves - that is,
not through their physical descendants, which would not
affect the souls of those living
in the bodies of the races to-day, but by perfection and growth
of the souls themselves. It is
pointed out that to usher a savage or barbarian to the spiritual
planes after death, no matter
how true to his duty and “his lights” the soul had been, would
be to work an absurd
translation. Such a soul would not be fitted for the higher spiritual
planes, and would be most
unhappy and miserable there. It will be seen that
Reincarnationists make quite a
distinction between “goodness” and “advancement” - while
they recognize and urge the
former, they regard it as only one side of the question, the other
being “spiritual growth and
unfoldment.” It will be seen that Reincarnation provides for a
Spiritual Evolution with all of
its advantages, as well as a material evolution such as science
holds to be correct.
52
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
Concluding this chapter, let us
quote once more from the authority on the subject before
mentioned, who writes
anonymously in the pamphlet from which the quotation is taken. He
says: “Nature does nothing by
leaps. She does not, in this case, introduce into a region of
spirit and spiritual life a
being who has known little else than matter and material life, with
small comprehension even of
that. To do so would be analogous to transferring suddenly a
ploughboy into a company of
metaphysicians. The pursuit of any topic implies some
preliminary acquaintance with
its nature, aims, and mental requirements; and the more
elevated the topic, the more
copious the preparation for it. It is inevitable that a being who
has before him an eternity of
progress through zones of knowledge and spiritual experience
ever nearing the Central Sun,
should be fitted for it through long acquisition of the faculties
which alone can deal with it.
Their delicacy, their vigor, their penetrativeness, their
unlikeness to those called for
on the material plane, show the contrast of the earth-life to the
spirit-life. And they show, too,
the inconceivability of a sudden transition from one to the
other, of a policy unknown in
any other department of Nature’s workings, of a break in the
law of uplifting through
Evolution. A man, before he can become a ‘god,’ must first become a
perfect man; and he can become a
perfect man neither in seventy years of life on earth, nor in
any number of years of life from
which human conditions are absent. * * * Re-birth and relife
must go on till their purposes
are accomplished. If, indeed, we were mere victims of an
evolutionary law, helpless atoms
on which the machinery of Nature pitilessly played, the
prospect of a succession of
incarnations, no one of which gave satisfaction, might drive us to
mad despair. But we have thrust
on us no such cheerless exposition. We are shown that
Réincarnations are the law for man, because
they are the conditions of his progress, which is
also a law, but he may mould
them and better them and lessen them. He cannot rid himself
of the machinery, but neither
should wish to. Endowed with the power to guide it for the
best, prompted with the motive
to use that power, he may harmonize both his aspirations
and his efforts with the system
that expressed the infinite wisdom of the supreme, and
through the journey from the
temporal to the eternal tread the way with steady feet, braced
with the consciousness that he
is one of an innumerable multitude, and with the certainty
that he and they alike, if they
so will it, may attain finally to that sphere where birth and
death are but memories of the
past.”
In this chapter we have given
you a number of the arguments favorable to the doctrine of
Reincarnation, from a number of
sources. Some of these arguments do not specially appeal
to us, personally, for the
reason that they are rather more theological than scientific, but we
have included them that the
argument may appear as generally presented, and because we
feel that in a work of this kind
we must not omit an argument which is used by many of the
best authorities, simply because
it may not appeal to our particular temperament or habit of
thought. To some, the
theological argument may appeal more strongly than would the
scientific, and it very properly
is given here. The proper way to present any subject is to give
it in its many aspects, and as
it may appear from varied viewpoints.
53
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
CHAPTER X.
The proofs of reincarnation.
To many minds the “proof” of a
doctrine is its reasonableness and its adaptability as an
answer to existing problems.
And, accordingly, to such, the many arguments advanced in
favor of the doctrine, of which
we have given a few in the preceding chapters, together with
the almost universal acceptance
of the fundamental ideas on the part of the race, in at least
some period of its development,
would be considered as a very good “proof” of the doctrine,
at least so far as it might be
considered as the “most available working theory” of the soul’s
existence, past and future, and
as better meeting the requirements of a doctrine or theory
than any other idea advanced by
metaphysical, theological, or philosophical thinkers.
But to the scientific mind, or
the minds of those who demand something in the nature of
actual experience of facts, no
amount of reasonable abstract theorizing and speculation is
acceptable even in the way of a
“working hypothesis,” unless based upon some tangible
“facts” or knowledge gained
through human experience. While people possessing such
minds will usually admit freely
that the doctrine of Reincarnation is more logical than the
opposing theories, and that it
fits better the requirements of the case, still they will maintain
that all theories regarding the
soul must be based upon premises that cannot be established
by actual experience in human
consciousness. They hold that in absence of proof in
experience - actual “facts” -
these premises are not established, and that all structures of
reasoning based upon them must
partake of their insecurity. These people are like the slangy
“man from Missouri” who “wants
to be shown” - nay, more, they are like the companion of
the above man - the Man from
Texas, who not only says: “You’ve got to show me,” but who
also demands that the thing be
“placed in my hand.” And, after all, one has no right to
criticize these people - they
are but manifesting the scientific spirit of the age which demands
facts as a basis for theories,
rather than theories that need facts to prove them. And, unless
Reincarnation is able to satisfy
the demands of this class of thinkers, the advocates of the
doctrine need not complain if
the scientific mind dismisses the doctrine as “not proven.”
After all, the best proof along
the above mentioned lines - in fact, about the only possible
strict proof - is the
fragmentary recollections of former lives, which many people possess at
times - these recollections
often flashing across the mind, bringing with it a conviction that
the place or thing “has been
experienced before.” Nearly every person has had glimpses of
something that appeared to be a
recollection from the past life of the individual. We see
places that we have never known,
and they seem perfectly familiar; we meet strangers, and
we are convinced that we have
known them in the past; we read an old book and feel that we
have seen it before, often so
much so that we can anticipate the story or argument of the
writer; we hear some strange philosophical
doctrine, and we recognize it as an old friend.
Many people have had this
experience in the matter of Occultism - in the very matter of the
54
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
doctrine of Reincarnation itself
- when they first heard it, although it struck them as strange
and unusual, yet they felt an
inner conviction that it was an old story to them - that they “had
heard it all before.” These
experiences are by far too common to be dismissed as mere fancy
or coincidence. Nearly every
living person has had some experience along this line.
A recent writer along the lines
of Oriental Philosophy has said regarding this common
experience of the race: “Many
people have had ‘peculiar experiences’ that are accountable
only upon the hypothesis of
Metempsychosis. Who has not experienced the consciousness of
having felt the thing before -
having thought it some time in the dim past? Who has not
witnessed new scenes that appear
old, very old? Who has not met persons for the first time,
whose presence awakened memories
of a past lying far back in the misty ages of long ago?
Who has not been seized at times
with the consciousness of a mighty ‘oldness’ of soul? Who
has not heard music, often
entirely new compositions, which somehow awakened memories
of similar strains, scenes,
places, faces, voices, lands, associations, and events, sounding
dimly on the strings of memory
as the breezes of the harmony floats over them? Who has
not gazed at some old painting,
or piece of statuary, with the sense of having seen it all
before? Who has not lived
through events which brought with them a certainty of being
merely a repetition of some
shadowy occurrences away back in lives lived long ago? Who has
not felt the influence of the
mountain, the sea, the desert, coming to them when they are far
from such scenes - coming so
vividly as to cause the actual scene of the present to fade into
comparative unreality? Who has
not had these experiences?”
We have been informed by Hindus
well advanced in the occult theory and practice that it is
quite a common thing for people
of their country to awaken to an almost complete
recollection of their former
lives; in some cases they have related details of former lives that
have been fully verified by
investigation in parts of the land very remote from their present
residence. In one case, a Hindu
sage related to us an instance where a poor Hindu, who had
worked steadily in the village
in which he had been born, without leaving it, ever since his
childhood days. This man one day
cried out that he had awakened to a recollection of having
been a man of such and such a
village, in a province hundreds of miles from his home. Some
wealthy people became interested
in the matter, and after having taken down his statements
in writing, and after careful
examination and questioning, they took him to the town in
question. Upon entering the
village the man seemed dazed, and cried out: “Everything is
changed - it is the same and yet
not the same!” Finally, however, he began to recognize some
of the old landmarks of the
place, and to call the places and roads by their names. Then,
coming to a familiar corner, he
cried: “Down there is my old home,” and, rushing down the
road for several hundred yards,
he finally stopped before the ruins of an old cottage, and
burst into tears, saying that
the roof of his home had fallen in, and the walls were crumbling
to pieces. Inquiry among the
oldest men of the place brought to light the fact that when
these aged men were boys, the
house had been occupied by an old man, bearing the same
55
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
name first mentioned by the
Hindu as having been his own in his previous life. Other facts
about the former location of
places in the village were verified by the old men. Finally, while
walking around the ruins, the
man said: “There should be a pot of silver buried there - I hid
it there when I lived here.” The
people rapidly uncovered the ground indicated, and brought
to light an old pot containing a
few pieces of silver coin of a date corresponding to the
lifetime of the former occupant
of the house. Our informant told us that he had personal
knowledge of a number of similar
cases, none of which, however, were quite as complete in
detail as the one mentioned. He
also informed us that he himself, and a number of his
acquaintances who had attained
certain degrees of occult unfoldment, were fully aware of
their past lives for several
incarnations back.
Another instance came under our
personal observation, in which an American who had
never been to India, when taken
into a room in which a Hindu priest who was visiting
America had erected a shrine or
altar before which he performed his religious services,
readily recognized the
arrangement of the details of worship, ritual, ceremony, etc., and was
conscious of having seen, or at
least dreamed of seeing, a similar shrine at some time in the
past, and as having had some
connection with the same. The Hindu priest, upon hearing the
American’s remarks, stated that
his knowledge of the details of the shrine, as then expressed,
indicated a knowledge possible
only to one who had served at a Hindu altar in some capacity.
We know of another case in which
an acquaintance, a prominent attorney in the West, told
us that when undergoing his
initiation in the Masonic order he had a full recollection of
having undergone the same
before, and he actually anticipated each successive step. This
knowledge, however, ceased after
he had passed beyond the first three degrees which took
him to the place where he was a
full Master Mason, the higher degrees being entirely new to
him, and having been apparently
not experienced before. This man was not a believer in any
doctrine of Reincarnation, and
related the incident merely as “one of those things that no
man can explain.”
We know of another case, in
which a student of Hindu Philosophy and Oriental Occultism
found that he could anticipate
each step of the teaching and doctrine, and each bit of
knowledge gained by him seemed
merely a recollection of something known long since. So
true was this that he was able
to supply the “missing links” of the teaching, where he had not
access to the proper sources of
information at the time, and in each case he afterward found
that he had stated the same
correctly. And this included many points of the Inner Teachings
not generally taught to the
general public, but reserved for the few. Subsequent contact with
native Hindu teachers brought to
light the fact that he had already unraveled many tangled
skeins of doctrine deemed
possible only to the “elect.”
Many of these recollections of
the past come as if they were memories of something
experienced in dreams, but
sometimes after the loose end of the thought is firmly grasped
56
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
and mentally drawn out, other
bits of recollection will follow. Sir Walter Scott wrote in his
diary in 1828: “I was strangely
haunted by what I would call the sense of pre-existence, viz.,
a confused idea that nothing
that passed was said for the first time; that the same topics had
been discussed, and the same
persons had stated the same opinions on them.” William
Home, an English writer, was
instantly converted from materialism to a belief in a spiritual
existence by an incident that
occurred to him in a part of London utterly strange to him. He
entered a waiting room, and to
his surprise everything seemed familiar to him. As he says:
“I seemed to recognize every
object. I said to myself, what is this? I have never been here
before, and yet I have seen all
this, and if so, there is a very peculiar knot in that shutter.” He
then crossed the room, and
opened the shutter, and after examination he saw the identical
peculiar knot that he had felt
sure was there. Pythagoras is said to have distinctly
remembered a number of his
previous incarnations, and at one time pointed out a shield in a
Grecian temple as having been
carried by him in a previous incarnation at the siege of Troy.
A well-known ancient Hindu sage
is said to have transcribed a lost sacred book of doctrine
from memory of its study in a
previous life. Children often talk strangely of former lives,
which ideas, however, are
generally frightened out of them by reproof on the part of parents,
and often punishment for
untruthfulness and romancing. As they grow older these
memories fade away.
People traveling in strange
places often experience emotion when viewing some particular
scene, and memory seems to
painfully struggle to bring into the field of consciousness the
former connection between the
scene and the individual. Many persons have testified to
these occurrences, many of them
being matter-of-fact, unimaginative people, who had never
even heard of the doctrine of
Reincarnation. Charles Dickens, in one of his books of foreign
travel, tells of a bridge in
Italy which produced a peculiar effect upon him. He says: “If I had
been murdered there in some
former life, I could not have seemed to remember the place
more thoroughly, or with more
emphatic chilling of the blood; and the real remembrance of
it acquired in that minute is so
strengthened by the imaginary recollection that I hardly think
I could forget it.” Another
recorded instance is that of a person entering a foreign library for
the first time. Passing to the
department of ancient books, he said that he had a dim idea
that a certain rare book was to
be found on such a shelf, in such a corner, describing at the
same time certain peculiarities
of the volume. A search failed to discover the volume in the
stated place, but investigation
showed that it was in another place in the library, and an old
assistant stated that a
generation back it had been moved from its former place (as stated by
the visitor), where it had been
previously located for very many years. An examination of the
volume showed a perfect
correspondence in every detail with the description of the strange
visitor.
And so the story proceeds.
Reference to the many works written on the subject of the future
life of the soul will supply
many more instances of the glimpses of recollection of past
57
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
incarnations. But why spread
these instances over more pages? The experience of other
people, while of scientific
interest and value as affording a basis for a theory or doctrine, will
never supply the experience that
the close and rigid investigator demands. Only his own
experiences will satisfy him -
and perhaps not even those, for he may consider them
delusions. These experiences of
others have their principal value as corroborative proofs of
one’s own experiences, and thus
serve to prove that the individual experience was not
abnormal, unusual, or a
delusion. To those who have not had these glimpses of recollection,
the only proof that can be
offered is the usual arguments in favor of the doctrine, and the
account of the experiences of
others - this may satisfy, and may not. But to those who have
had these glimpses -
particularly in a marked degree - there will come a feeling of certainty
and conviction that in some
cases is as real as the certainty and conviction of the present
existence, and which will be
proof against all argument to the contrary. To such people the
knowledge of previous existences
is as much a matter of consciousness as the fact of the
existence of last year -
yesterday - a moment ago - or even the present moment, which slips
away while we attempt to
consider it. And those who have this consciousness of past lives,
even though the details may be
vague, intuitively accept the teachings regarding the future
lives of the soul. The soul that
recognizes its “oldness” also feels its certainty of survival - not
as a mere matter of faith, but
as an item of consciousness, the boundaries of time being
transcended.
But there are other arguments
advanced in favor of Reincarnation, which its advocates
consider so strong as to entitle
them to be classed as “proofs.” Among these may be
mentioned the difference in
tastes, talents, predispositions, etc., noticeable among children
and adults, and which can
scarcely be attributed to heredity. This same idea carries one to
the consideration of the
question of “youthful genius,” “prodigies,” etc.
It is a part of this argument to
assume that if all souls were freshly created, by the same
Creator, and from the same
material, they would resemble each other very closely, and in fact
would be practically identical.
And, it is urged, the fact that every child is different in tastes,
temperament, qualities, nature, etc.,
independent of heredity and environment, then it must
follow that the difference must
be sought for further back. Children of the same parents
differ very materially in
nature, disposition, etc.; in fact, strangers are often more alike than
children of the same parents,
born within a few years of each other, and reared in the same
environment. Those having much
experience with young babies know that each infant has
its own nature and disposition,
and in which it differs from every other infant, although they
may be classed into groups, of
course. The infant a few hours born shows a gentleness, or a
lack of it - a yielding or a
struggle, a disposition to adjust itself, or a stubbornness, etc. And
as the child grows, these traits
show more plainly, and the nature of the individual asserts
itself, subject, of course, to a
moulding and shaping, but always asserting its original
character in some way.
58
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
Not only in the matter of
disposition but in the matter of tastes, tendencies, moral
inclinations, etc., do
the children differ. Some like this, and dislike that, and the reverse;
some are attracted toward this
and repelled by that, and the reverse; some are kind while
others are cruel; some manifest
an innate sense of refinement, while others show coarseness
and lack of delicate feeling.
This among children of the same family, remember. And, when
the child enters school, we find
this one takes to mathematics as the duck does to water,
while its brother loathes the
subject; the anti-arithmetic child may excel in history or
geography, or else grammar,
which is the despair of others. Some are at once attracted to
music, and others to drawing,
while both of these branches are most distasteful to others.
And it will be noticed that in
the studies to which the child is attracted, it seems to learn
almost without effort, as if it
were merely re-learning some favorite study, momentarily
forgotten. And in the case of
the disliked study, every step is attended with toil. In some
cases the child seems to learn
every branch with the minimum effort, and with practically no
effort; while in other cases the
child has to plod wearily over every branch, as if breaking
entirely new ground. And this
continues into after life, when the adult finds this thing or that
thing into which he naturally
fits as if it were made for him, the knowledge concerning it
coming to him like the lesson of
yesterday.
We know of a case in which a man
had proved a failure in everything he had undertaken up
to the age of forty, when his
father-in-law, in disgust, placed him at the head of an enterprise
which he had had to “take over”
for a bad debt. The “failure” immediately took the keenest
interest in the work, and in a
month knew more about it than many men who had been in the
concern for years. His mind
found itself perfectly at home, and he made improvement after
improvement rapidly, and with
uniform success. He had found his work, and in a few years
stepped to the front rank in the
country in that particular line of business. “Blessed is he that
hath found his work.” Reincarnationists
would hold that that man had found his work in a
line similar in its mental
demands with that of his former life or lives - not necessarily
identical in details, but
similar in its mental requirement. Instances of this thing are to be
seen all around us. Heredity
does not seem to account for it - nor does environment answer
the requirements. Some other
factor is there - is it Reincarnation?
Allied to this phenomena is that
of “youthful genius” - in fact, genius of any age, for that
matter, for genius itself seems
to be out of the category of the ordinary cause of heredity and
environment, and to have its
roots in some deeper, richer soil. It is a well-known fact that
now and then a child is born
which at a very early age shows an acquaintance with certain
arts, or other branches of
mental work, which is usually looked for only from those of
advanced years, and after years
of training. In many cases these children are born of parents
and grandparents deficient in
the particular branches of knowledge evidenced by the child.
Babes scarcely able to sit on
the piano stool, or to hold the violin, have begun to play in a way
that certainly indicated
previous knowledge and technique, often composing original
59
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
productions in an amazing
manner. Other young children have begun to draw and design
without any instruction
whatever. Others have shown wonderful mathematical ability, there
being several cases on record
where such children have performed feats in mathematics
impossible to advanced adults
teaching the same lines. What are the cause of these
phenomena? Is it Reincarnation?
As Figuier said, years ago: “We
hear it said every day that one child has a mathematical,
another a musical, another an artistic
turn. In others we notice savage, violent, even criminal
instincts. After the first years
of life these dispositions break out. When these natural
aptitudes are pushed beyond the
usual limit, we find famous examples that history has
cherished, and that we love to
recall. There is Pascal, mastering at the age of twelve years the
greater part of Plane Geometry
without any instruction, and not a figment of Calculus,
drawing on the floor of his
chamber all the figures in the first book of Euclid, estimating
accurately the mathematical
relations of them all - that is, reconstructing for himself a part of
descriptive Geometry; the
herdsman Mangia Melo, manipulating figures, when five years
old, as rapidly as a calculating
machine; Mozart, executing a sonata on the pianoforte with
four-years-old fingers, and
composing an opera at the age of eight; Theresa Milanollo,
playing the violin at four
years, with such eminent skill that Baillot said she must have played
it before she was born;
Rembrandt, drawing with masterly power before he could read.” The
same authority says, in
reference to the fact that some of these prodigies do not become
famous in their after years, and
that their genius often seems to flicker out, leaving them as
ordinary children: “That is easily
understood. They come on earth with remarkable powers
acquired in an anterior
existence, but they have done nothing to develop their aptitudes; they
have remained all their lives at
the very point where they were at the moment of their birth.
The real man of genius is he who
cultivates and improves incessantly the great natural
aptitudes that he brought into
the world.”
There is an interesting field
for study, thought and investigation, along the lines of the early
development of traits,
tendencies, and thought in young children. Here evidently will be
found the answer to many
problems that have perplexed the race. It is true that heredity and
environment plays an important
part, but nevertheless, there seems to be another element
working in the case, which
science must have to reckon with in making up its final
conclusions. Is that “something”
connected with the “soul” rather than the mind of the
child? Is that “something” that
which men call Metempsychosis - Re-Birth - Reincarnation?
Along the same lines, or
thought, lie the great questions of instinctive Like and Dislike - -
Loves and Hates - that we find
among people meeting as strangers. From whence come
those strange, unaccountable
attractions and repulsions that many feel when meeting certain
strangers, who could never have
occasioned such feelings in the present life, and which
heredity does not account for?
Is it merely an absurd, irrational, fancy or feeling; is it the
result of natures inharmonious
and discordant; is it remnants of inherited ancestral feelings
60
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
toward similar individuals
hated, loved or feared; is it a telepathic sensing of certain
elements in the other; or is it
a manifestation of the feelings experienced in a past existence?
Is this phenomena to be included
in the Proofs of Reincarnation? Many people think that in
Reincarnation the only answer
may be found.
CHAPTER XI.
Arguments against Reincarnation.
The honest consideration of any
subject necessitates the examination of “the other side of the
case,” as well as the
affirmative side. We have given much space to the presentation and
consideration of the arguments
advanced by those convinced of the truth of Reincarnation,
and before closing our work we
think it well to give at least a little glimpse of “the other side”
as it is presented by the
opponents of the doctrine, together with the reply to the same
usually made by the
Reincarnationists.
The first adverse argument
usually presented is that the advocates of Reincarnation have not
established the existence of a
“soul” which may reincarnate; nor have they proven its nature,
if it does exist. The natural
reply to this is that the doctrine of Reincarnation is not called
upon to establish the proof of
the existence of a “soul,” as the idea of existence of the soul
practically is universal, and,
therefore, “axiomic” - that is, it is a truth that may be considered
as an “axiom,” or self-evident
truth, worthy of being assumed as a principle, necessary to
thought on the subject, a
proposition which it is necessary to take for granted, an established
principle of thought on the
subject. Strictly speaking, perhaps the fact of the existence of the
soul is incapable of material
proof, except to those who accept the fact of proven “spirit
return,” either in the shape of
unmistakable manifestation of the disincarnate soul by
materialization, or by equally
unmistakable manifestation in the shape of communications of
some sort from such discarnate
soul. Science does not admit that there are any real “proofs”
of the existence of a “soul”
which persists after the death of the body - but all religious, and at
least the older philosophical
thought, generally agrees that the existence of such a soul is a
self-evident fact, needing no
proofs. Many regard the statement of Descartes: “I think,
therefore I am,” as a logical
proof of the existence of an immaterial soul, and others hold that
the self-consciousness of every
human being is sufficient proof that the Ego, or “I,” is a
something immaterial, ruling the
material body which it inhabits. And so the
Reincarnationists claim that
this demand upon them for proof of the existence of the soul is
not a fair one, because such
discussion belongs to the more general field of thought; that they
are justified in starting with
the idea that the soul does exist, as an axiomic truth; and that
their real task is to establish,
not that the soul exists, but that it reincarnates after the death
of the body. As Figuier says,
“The difficulty is not to prove that there is a spiritual principle
61
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
in us that resists death, for to
question the existence of this principle we must doubt thought.
The true problem is to ascertain
if the spiritual and immortal principle within us is going to
live again after death, in
ourselves or somebody else. The question is, Will the immortal soul
be born again in the same
individual, physically transformed - into the same person?” As to
the other objection, that the
Reincarnationists have not proven the nature of the soul, to
which many of the advocates of
the doctrine feel it necessary to reply at great length and with
much subtle reasoning, we feel
that the objection is not well taken. So far as Reincarnation is
concerned, if it be taken as an
axiom that the soul really exists, that is sufficient as a
beginning for the argument in
favor of the doctrine, and the proof or disproof of any special
theory regarding the nature of
the soul is outside of the main question, so we shall not
consider it here. It is possible
to think of the soul as a reincarnating entity, whether it be a
monad, duad, triad, or septenary
being.
The second objection usually
made is that Reincarnation cannot be true, else we would
remember the incidents of our
past lives, clearly and distinctly, the fact that the majority of
persons have no such
recollection, being held to be a disproof of the doctrine. The reply to
this objection is (1) that it is
not true that people do not remember the events of their past
lives, the instances quoted by
us, and similar ones happening to others, together with the fact
that nearly every one remembers
something of the past, showing that the objection is not
correctly stated. And (2) that
the fact that we have but a very cloudy and imperfect
recollection is not an objection
at all, for have we a clear recollection of the events of our
infancy and childhood in this
life? Have we a clear recollection of the events of twenty years
ago, outside of a few scattered
instances, of which the majority are only recalled when some
associated fact is mentioned?
Are not the great majority of the events of our present life
completely forgotten? How many
can recall the events of the youthful life? Old companions
and friends are completely
forgotten or only recalled after much thought and assistance in
the way of suggested
associations. Then again, do we not witness a complete forgetfulness in
cases of very old people who
relapse into a state of “second childhood,” and who then live
entirely in the present, the
past having vanished for them. There are cases of people having
grown old, and while retaining
their reasoning faculties, were as children, so far as the past
was concerned. A well-known
writer, when in this state, was wont to read the books that he
had written, enjoying them very
much and not dreaming that he was their author. Professor
Knight says of this matter:
“Memory of the details of the past is absolutely impossible.”
“The power of the conservative
faculty, though relatively great, is extremely limited. We
forget the larger portion of
experience soon after we have passed through it, and we should
be able to recall the
particulars of our past years, filling all the missing links of consciousness
since we entered on the present
life, before we were in a position to remember our ante-natal
experience. Birth must
necessarily be preceded by crossing the river of oblivion, while the
capacity for fresh acquisition
survives, and the garnered wealth of old experience determines
62
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
the amount and characters of the
new.” Loss of memory is not loss of being - or even loss of
individuality or character.
In this connection, we must
mention the various instances of Double Personality, or Lost
Personality, noted in the recent
books on Psychology. There are a number of well
authenticated cases in which
people, from severe mental strain, overwork, etc., have lost the
thread of Personality and
forgotten even their own names and who have taken up life anew
under new circumstances, which
they would continue until something would occur to bring
about a restoration of memory,
when the past in all of its details would come back in a flash.
The annals of the English
Society for Psychical Research contain quite a number of such
cases, which are recognized as
typical. Now, would one be justified in asserting that such a
person, while living in the
secondary personality and consequently in entire ignorance of his
past life, had really
experienced no previous life? The same “I” was there - the same Ego - -
and yet, the personality was
entirely different! Is it not perfectly fair and reasonable to
consider these cases as similar
to the absence of memory in cases of Reincarnation?
Let the reader lay down this
book, and then endeavor to remember what happened in his
twelfth year. He will not
remember more than one or two, or a half dozen, events in that year
- perhaps not one, in the
absence of a diary, or perhaps even with the aid of one. The
majority of the happenings of
the three hundred and sixty-five days of that year are as a
blank - as if they never had
happened, so far as the memory is concerned. And yet, the same
“I,” or Ego, persists, and the
person’s character has certainly been affected and influenced by
the experiences and lessons of
that year. Perhaps in that year, the person may have acquired
certain knowledge that he uses
in his everyday life. And so, in this case, as with
Reincarnation, the “essence” of
the experiences are preserved, while the details are
forgotten. For that is the
Reincarnationist contention. As a matter of fact, advanced
occultists, and other
Reincarnationists, claim that nothing is really forgotten, but that every
event is stored away in some of
the recesses of the mind, below the level of consciousness - -
which idea agrees with that of
modern psychologists. And Reincarnationists claim that when
man unfolds sufficiently on some
higher plane, he will have a full recollection of his past
experiences in all of his
incarnations. Some Reincarnationists claim that as the soul passes
from the body all the events of
that particular life pass rapidly before its mind, in review,
before the waters of Lethe, or
oblivion, causes forgetfulness.
Closely allied to the last
mentioned argument against Reincarnation is the one that as the
memory of the past life is
absent, or nearly so, the new personality is practically a new soul,
instead of the old one
reincarnated, and that it is unreasonable and unjust to have it enjoy or
suffer by reasons of its
experiences and acts in the previous life. We think that the answers
to the last mentioned objection
are answers to this one also. The “I,” Ego, or Individuality,
being the same, it matters not
if the details of the old Personality be forgotten. You are the
same “I” that lived fifty years
ago in the same body - or even ten years ago - and you are
63
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
enjoying certain things, or
suffering from certain things, done or left undone at the previous
time, although you have
forgotten the incidents. The impress of the thing is on your
Character, and you are today
largely what you are by reason of what you have been in past
years, though those years are
forgotten by you. This you will readily admit, and yet the
argument of the
Reincarnationists is merely an extension of the same idea. As Figuier says:
“The soul, in spite of its
journeys, in the midst of its incarnations and divers metamorphoses
remains always identical with
itself; only at each metempsychosis, each metamorphosis of
the external being, improving
and purifying itself, growing in power and intellectual grasp.”
Another argument against
Reincarnation is that it is not necessary, for the reason that
Heredity accounts for all of the
facts claimed as corroborative of Reincarnation. Answering
this the advocates of the
doctrine insist that Heredity does not account for all the facts,
inasmuch as children are born
with marked talents and genius, while none of their family for
generations back have displayed
any such tendencies. They also claim that if Heredity were
the only factor in the case,
there would be no advance in the races, as the children would be
precisely like their ancestors,
no variety or improvement being possible. But it must be
remembered that Reincarnationists
do not deny certain effects of Heredity, particularly
along physical lines, and to an
extent along mental lines, in the way of perpetuating
“tendencies,” which, however,
are and may be overcome by the individuality of the child.
Moreover, the doctrine holds
that one of the laws of Rebirth is that the reincarnating soul is
attracted to parents harmonious
to itself, and likely to afford the environments and
association desirable to the
soul. So in this way the characteristics likely to be transmitted to
the offspring are those which
are sought for and desired by the reincarnating soul. The law
of Rebirth is held to be as
exact and certain as the laws of mathematics or chemistry, the
parents, as well as the child,
forming the combination which brings forth the rebirth.
Rebirth is held to be above the
mere wish of the reincarnating soul - it is in accordance with
an invariable natural law, which
has Justice and Advancement as its basis.
Another argument against
Reincarnation is that it holds that human souls are reborn as
animals, in some cases. This
objection we shall not discuss, for the reason that the advanced
ideas of Reincarnation expressly
forbid any such interpretation, and distinctly deny its
legitimate place in the
doctrine. Among some of the primitive people this idea of
transmigration in the bodies of
animals has been held, but never among advanced occultists,
or the leaders in philosophical
thought favoring Reincarnation. Reincarnation teaches the
Evolution of the soul from lowly
forms to higher, but never the Devolution or going back into
animal forms. A study of the
doctrine of Reincarnation will dispel this erroneous idea from
the mind of an intelligent
person.
Another favorite argument is
that it is repulsive to the mind and soul of the average person.
Analysis of this objection will
show that what is repugnant to the person is usually the fear
that he will be born again
without a memory of the present, which seems like a loss of the
64
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
self. A moment’s consideration
will show that this objection is ill founded. No one objects to
the idea of living in the same
body for, say, ten years or twenty years more, in health. But at
the end of that ten or twenty
years he will be practically a different person, by reason of the
new experiences he has
undergone. Persons change very much in twenty years, and yet they
are the same individuals - the
same “I” is there with them. And at the end of the twenty years
they will have forgotten the
majority of the events of the present year, but they do not object
to that. When one realizes that
the Individual, or “I,” is the Real Self instead of the
Personality, or the “John Smith,
grocer, aged 36,” part of them - then will they cease to fear
the loss of the personality of
the day or year. They will know that the “I” is the “Self” - the
same yesterday, today and
tomorrow. Be the doctrine of Reincarnation true or false, the fact
remains that so long as you exist,
it will be the same “I” in you that you will know that “I
am.” It will always be “I am -
here - now,” with you, be it this moment, or a hundred years,
or a million years hence. You
can never be someone else, no matter what form you wear, nor
by what name you are known, nor
what personality you may be acting through, nor in what
place you may have your abode,
nor on what plane of existence you may be. You will always
be yourself - and, as we
have just said, it will always be “I am - here - now” with
You. The
body, and even the Personality,
are things akin to garments which you wear and take off
without affecting your Real
Self.
Then we must note another
objection often made by people in discussing Reincarnation.
They say, “But I do not want to
come back!” To this the Reincarnationists answer that, if one
has reached a stage in which he
really has no desire for anything that the earth can offer him,
then such a soul will not likely
have to reincarnate again on earth, for it has passed beyond
the need of earthly experiences,
and has worn out its earth Karma. But they hold that but
few people really have reached
this stage. What one really means is that he does not want
any more of Earth - life similar
to that which he has been undergoing. But if he thought that
he could have certain things -
riches, position, fame, beauty, influence, and the rest of it, he
would be perfectly willing to
“come back.” Or else he might be so bound by links of Karma,
acting by reason of Love or
Hate, Attachment or Repulsion, or by duties unperformed, or
moral debts unpaid, that he
might be brought back to work out the old problems until he had
solved them. But even this is
explained by those Reincarnationists who hold to the idea of
Desire as the great motive power
of Karma, and who hold that if one has risen above all
earthly desire or dislike, that
soul is freed from the attraction of earth-life, and is prepared to
go on higher at once, or else
wait in realms of bliss until the race is ready to pass on,
according to the various
theories held by the various advocates of the doctrine. A little
selfexamination
will show one whether he is free
from all desire to “come back,” or not. But,
after all, if there is Ultimate
Justice in the plan, working ever and ever for our good and
advancements, as the
Reincarnationists claim - then it must follow that each of us is in just
the best place for his own good
at the present moment, and will always be in a like
advantageous position and
condition. And if that be so, then there is no cause for complaint
65
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
or objection on our part, and
our sole concern should be in the words of the Persian sage, to
“So live, that that which must
come and will come, may come well,” living on one day at a
time, doing the best you know
how, living always in the belief that “it is well with us now and
evermore,” and that “the Power
which has us in charge Here will have us in charge There.”
There is a good philosophy for
Living and Dying. And, this being true, though you may have
to “come back,” you will not
have to “go back,” or fall behind in the Scale of Advancement or
Spiritual Evolution - for it
must always be Onward and Upward on the Ladder of Life! Such
is the Law!
Another objection very often
urged against the doctrine of Reincarnation is that “it is un-
Christian, and derived from
pagan and heathen sources, and is not in accord with the highest
conceptions of the immortality
of the soul.” Answering this objection, it may be said that,
insofar as Reincarnation is not
a generally accepted doctrine in the orthodox Christian
Churches of today, it may be
said to be non-Christian (rather than un-Christian), but when it
is seen that Pre-existence and
Rebirth was held as Truth by many of the Early Fathers of the
Church, and that the doctrine
was finally condemned by the dominant majority in Church
Councils only by means of the
most severe methods and the exercise of the most arbitrary
authority, it may be seen that
in the opinion of many of the most eminent early authorities
there was nothing “un-Christian”
about it, but that it was a proper doctrine of the Church.
The doctrine was simply “voted
down,” just as were many important doctrines revered by
some of the great minds of the
early church, in some cases the decision being made by a
majority of one vote. And,
again, there have been many bright minds in the Christian Church
who persisted in the belief that
the doctrine was far more consistent with the Inner
Teachings of Christianity than
the prevailing conception, and based upon quite as good
authority.
So far as the charge that it is
“derived from pagan and heathen sources” is concerned, it must
be answered that certainly the
doctrine was accepted by the “pagan and heathen” world
centuries before the dawn of
Christianity, but, for that matter, so was the doctrine regarding
the soul’s future generally
accepted by orthodox Christianity - in fact, nearly every doctrine
or theory regarding the survival
of the soul was “derived from pagan and heathen sources.”
The “pagan and heathen” mind had
thought long and earnestly upon this great problem, and
the field of thought had been
pretty well covered before the advent of Christianity. In fact,
Christianity added no new
doctrine - invented no new theory - and is far from being clear
and explicit in its teachings on
the subject, the result being that the early Christians were
divided among themselves on the
matter, different sects and schools favoring different
doctrines, each and all of which
had been “derived from pagan and heathen sources.” If all
the doctrines regarding the
immortality of the soul are to be judged by the test of their having
been, or not been, “derived from
pagan and heathen sources,” then the entire body of
doctrine and thought on the
subject must be thrown out of the Christian mind, which must
66
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
then endeavor to create or
invent an entirely new doctrine which has never been thought of
by a “pagan or heathen” - a very
difficult task, by the way, considering the activity of the
pagan and heathen mind in that
respect. It must be remembered that there is no
authoritative teaching on this
subject - none coming direct from Jesus. The Christian
Doctrines on the subject come
from the Theologians, and represent simply the views of the
“majority” of some Church
Council - or of the most powerful faction.
While the objection that
Reincarnation “is not in accord with the highest conceptions of the
immortality of the soul” is one
that must depend almost entirely upon the personal bias or
opinion of the individual as to
what constitutes “the highest conceptions,” still a comparison
of the conceptions is not out of
the way at this place. Do you know what was the doctrine
favored by the dominant majority
in the Church Councils, and for which Pre-Existence and
Re-Birth finally was discarded?
Do you know the dogma of the Church and the belief of
masses of the orthodox
Christians of the early centuries? Well, it was this: That at the death
of the body, the person passes
into a state of “coma,” or unconsciousness, in which state he
rests today, awaiting the sound
of the trumpet of the great Day of Judgment, when the dead
shall be raised and the
righteous given eternal life in their former bodies, while the wicked in
their bodies may pass into
eternal torment. That is the doctrine. You doubt it? Then look
over the authorities and examine
even the current creeds of today, many of which state
practically the same thing. This
belief passed into one of the Christian Creed, in the words:
“I believe in the Resurrection
of the Body.”
The great masses of Christians
today, in general thought on the subject, speak as if the
accepted doctrine of the Church
was that the soul passed to Judgment, and then eternal soul
life in Heaven or Hell
immediately after the death of the body, thus ignoring the dogmas of
the Church Councils regarding
the future Day of Judgment and the Resurrection of the Body
at that time. A little
questioning of the religious teachers, and a little examination of
religious history, and the
creeds and doctrines of their respective churches, would astonish
many good church members who
have been fondly thinking of their beloved ones, who have
passed on, as even now dwelling
in Heaven as blessed angels. They would be astonished to
find that the “angels” of the
churches are not the souls of the good people who have been
judged and awarded heavenly
joys, but, rather, a body of supernatural beings who never
inhabited the flesh; and that
instead of their loved ones now enjoying the heavenly realms,
the dogmas hold that they are
now in a state of “coma” or unconsciousness, awaiting the
great Day of Judgment, when
their bodies will be resurrected and life everlasting given
them. Those who are interested
in the matter, and who may doubt the above statement, are
invited to examine the records
for themselves. The doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body,
which is of undoubted “pagan and
heathen” origin, was a favorite theological dogma of the
Church in the first thousand
years of its existence, and for many centuries after, and it still
67
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
occupies a most important place
in the church doctrines today, although it is not so often
publicly preached or taught.
David Kay says: “The great
distinguishing doctrine of Christianity is not the Immortality of
the Soul, but the Resurrection
of the Body. That the soul of man is immortal was a common
belief among the Ancients, from
whom it found its way at an early period into the Christian
Church, but the most influential
of the early Fathers were strenuously opposed to it, holding
that the human soul was not
essentially immortal, but only, like the body, capable of
immortality.” Vinet says: “The
union of the soul and body appears to me essential and
indissoluble. Man without a body
is, in my opinion, man no longer; and God has thought
and willed him embodied, and not
otherwise. According to passages in the Scriptures, we
can not doubt that the body, or
a body, is essential to human personality and to the very idea
of man.”
John Milton said: “That the
spirit of man should be separate from the body, so as to have a
perfect and intelligent
existence independent of it, is nowhere said in Scripture, and the
doctrine is evidently at
variance both with nature and reason.” Masson, commenting on
Milton’s conception, says:
“Milton’s conception is that at the last gasp of breath the whole
man dies, soul and body
together, and that not until the Resurrection, when the body is
revived, does the soul live
again, does the man or woman live again, in any sense or way,
whether for happiness or
misery.... Are the souls of the millions on millions of human beings
who have died since Adam, are
those souls ready either with God and the angels in Heaven,
or down in the diabolic world
waiting to be rejoined to their bodies on the Resurrection Day?
They are not, says Milton; but
soul and bodies together, he says, are dead alike, sleeping
alike, defunct alike, till that
day comes.” And many Christian theologians have held firmly to
this doctrine, as may be seen by
reference to any standard encyclopedia, or work on
theology. Coleridge said: “Some
of the most influential of the early Christian writers were
materialists, not as holding the
soul to be the mere result of bodily organization, but as
holding the soul itself to be
material - corporeal. It appears that in those days the vulgar held
the soul to be incorporeal,
according to the views of Plato and others, but that the orthodox
Christian divines looked upon
this as an impious, unscriptural opinion.” Dr. R. S. Candlish
said: “You live again in the
body - in the very body, as to all essential properties, and to all
practical intents and purposes
in which you live now. I am to live not a ghost, a spectre, a
spirit, I am to live then, as I
live now, in the body.” Dr. Arnold says: “I think that the
Christian doctrine of the
Resurrection meets the materialists so far as this - that it does imply
that a body or an organization
of some sort is necessary to the full development of man’s
nature.”
Rev. R. J. Campbell, the eminent
English clergyman, in his recent work entitled, “The New
Theology,” says, speaking of the
popular evangelical views: “But they are even more chaotic
on the subject of death and
whatever follows death. It does not seem to be generally
68
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
recognized that Christian
thought has never been really clear concerning the Resurrection,
especially in relation to future
judgment. One view has been that the deceased saint lies
sleeping in the grave until the
archangel’s trumpet shall sound and bid all mankind awake for
the great assize. Anyone who
reads the New Testament without prejudice will see that this
was Paul’s earlier view,
although later on he changed it for another. There is a good deal of
our current, every-day religious
phaseology which presumes it still - ’Father, in thy gracious
keeping, leave we now thy
servant sleeping.’ But alongside this view, another which is a
flagrant contradiction of it has
come down to us, namely, that immediately after death the
soul goes straight to Heaven or
Hell, as the case may be, without waiting for the archangel’s
trumpet and the grand assize. On
the whole, this is the dominant theory of the situation in
the Protestant circles, and is
much less reasonable than the Catholic doctrine of purgatory,
however much the latter may have
been abused. But under this view, what is the exact
significance of the Judgment Day
and the Physical Resurrection? One might think they
might be accounted superfluous.
What is the good of tormenting a soul in Hell for ages, and
then whirling it back to the
body in order to rise again and receive a solemn public
condemnation? Better leave it in
the Inferno and save trouble, especially as the solemn trial
is meaningless, seeing that a
part of the sentence has already been undergone and that there
is no hope that any portion of
it will ever be remitted. Truly the tender mercies with which
the theologians have credited
the Almighty are cruel indeed!”
But, by the irony of progress,
the orthodox churches are gradually coming around to the one
much-despised Platonic
conception of the naturally Immortal Immaterial Soul - the “pagan
and heathen” idea, so much at
variance with the opposing doctrine of the Resurrection of the
Body, which doctrine really did
not teach the “immortality of the soul” at all. As Prof.
Nathaniel Schmidt says, in an
article in a standard encyclopedia: “The doctrine of the
natural immortality of the human
soul became so important a part of Christian thought that
the resurrection naturally lost
its vital significance, and it has practically held no place in the
great systems of philosophy
elaborated by the Christian thinkers of modern times.” But still,
the letter of the old doctrine
persists on the books of the church and in its creeds, although
opposed to the enlightened
spirit now manifesting in the churches which is moving more and
more toward the “pagan and
heathen” conception of a naturally Immaterial and Immortal
Soul, rather than in a
Resurrection of the Body and an eternal life therein.
It is scarcely worth while here
to contrast the two doctrines - the Immortal Immaterial Soul
on the one hand, and the
Immortal Body on the other. The latter conception is so primitively
crude, and so foreign to modern
thought, that it scarcely needs an argument against it. The
thought of the necessity of the
soul for a material body - the same old material body that it
once cast off like a worn out
garment - a body perhaps worn by disease, crippled by
“accident” or “the slipping of
the hand of the Potter” - a body similar to those we see around
us every day - the Immortal Soul
needing such a garment in order to exist! Better accept
69
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
plain Materialism, and say that
there is no soul and that the body perishes and all else with
it, than such a gross doctrine
which is simply a materialistic Immortality. So far as this
doctrine being “the highest
conception of the Immortality of the Soul,” as contrasted with the
“pagan and heathen” doctrine of
Reincarnation - it is not a “conception of the Immortality of
the Soul” at all, but a flat
contradiction of it. It is a doctrine of the “Immortality of the Body,”
which bears plain marks of a
very lowly “pagan and heathen” origin. And as to the “later”
Christian conception, it may be
seen that there is nothing in the idea of Re-birth which is
inconsistent therewith - in
fact, the two ideas naturally blend into each other.
In the above discussion our
whole intent has been to answer the argument against
Reincarnation which charges that
the latter is “derived from pagan and heathen sources, and
is not in accord with the
highest conceptions of the immortality of the soul.” And in order to
do this we have found it
necessary to examine the opposing theological dogmas as we find
them, and to show that they do
not come up to the claims of being “the highest conception,”
etc. We think that the strongest
point against the dogmas may be found in the claims of their
advocates. That the Church is
now growing away from them only proves their unfitness as
“the highest conception.” And
Reincarnationists hold that as the Church grows in favor of
the Immaterial Immortal Soul, so
will it find itself inclining toward the companion-doctrine
of Pre-existence and Re-birth,
in some of its varied forms, probably that of the Early Fathers
of the Church, such as Origen
and his followers - that the Church will again claim its own.
CHAPTER XII.
The law of karma.
“Karma” is a term in general use
among the Hindus, and the Western believers in
Reincarnation, the meaning of
which is susceptible of various shades of definition and
interpretation. It is most
important to all students of the subject of Reincarnation, for it is
the companion doctrine - the
twin-truth - to the doctrine of Metempsychosis. Strictly
speaking, “Karma” is the Law of
Cause and Effect as applied to the life of the soul - the law
whereby it reaps the results of
its own sowing, or suffers the reaction from its own action. To
the majority of
Reincarnationists, however, it has a larger meaning, and is used in the sense
of the Law of Justice, or the
Law of Reward and Punishment, operating along the lines of
personal experience, personal
life, and personal character.
Many authorities hold that the
original idea of Karma was that of a great natural law
operating along exact lines, as
do the laws of mathematics and chemistry, bringing forth the
exact effect from every cause,
and being, above all, questions of good or evil, reward or
punishment, morality or
immorality, etc., and acting as a great natural force above all such
70
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
questions of human conduct. To
those who still adhere to this conception, Karma is like the
Law of Gravitation, which
operates without regard to persons, morals or questions of good
and evil, just as does any other
great natural law. In this view the only “right” or “wrong”
would be the effect of an action
- that is, whether it was conducive to one’s welfare and that
of the race, or the reverse. In
this view, if a child places its hand on a hot stove, the action is
“wrong,” because it brings pain
and unhappiness, although the act is neither moral or
immoral. And another action is
“right” because it brings happiness, well-being and
satisfaction, present and
future, although the act was neither moral nor immoral. In this
view there can be neither reward
nor punishment, in the common acceptation of the term,
although in another sense there
is a reward for such “right” doing, and a punishment for
such “wrong” doing, as the child
with the burnt hand may testify to.
In this sense of the term, some
of the older schools of Reincarnation accepted Karma as
determining the Re-Birth, along
the lines of Desire and Attraction, holding that the souls’
character would attract it to
re-birth along the lines of its strongest desires, and in such
environment as would give it the
greatest opportunity to work out those desires into action,
taking the pains and pleasures
of experience arising from such action, and thus moulding a
new, or fuller character, which
would create new Karma, which would determine the future
birth, etc., and so on,
and on. Those holding to this view believed that in this way the soul
would learn its lesson, with
many a crack over the knuckles, and with the pain of many an
experience that would tend to
turn it into the road most conducive to spiritual happiness and
well-being; and lead it away
from the road of material desires and pleasures, because the
repeated experiences had shown
that no true spiritual well-being was to be obtained
therefrom. In other words, the
soul, in its spiritual childhood, was just like a little child in
the physical world, learning by
experience that some things worked for its “good” and others
for “bad.” This view naturally
carried with it the idea that true ethics would show that
whatever tended toward the
advancement of the soul was “good,” and whatever retarded its
advancement was “bad,” in spite
of any arbitrary standard of right or wrong erected by man
during the ages, and which
standard has constantly changed from time to time, is changing
now, and always will change.
But the Hindu mind, especially,
soon enlarged upon this original idea of Karma, and the
priests of India soon had the
idea of Karma working as a great rewarder of “good,” and a
great punisher of “evil.”
Corresponding to the rewards and punishments in the future life, as
taught by Christian preachers,
the Hindu priests held over the sinner the terrors of Karma;
and the rewards promised the
good people from the same source served to spur on the
worshiper to actions in
accordance with the ethics of the particular church preaching the
doctrine. It was taught that the
man’s future state, in the next incarnation, and perhaps for
many others, depended upon his
state of “goodness,” in accordance with the laws of the
church and priestly teaching -
surely as powerful an argument and as terrifying a threat as
71
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
the orthodox “bribe of heaven,
and threat of hell” of the Western world. The effect of this
teaching is seen among the
masses of the but slightly educated Hindu classes of today, who
are very desirous of acquiring
“merit” by performing some “good” deed, such as bestowing
alms upon the wandering
religious mendicant; making contributions to the temples, etc., as
well as performing the acts of
ordinary good will toward men; and who are as equally anxious
to avoid acquiring “demerit”
from the lack of proper observances, and the performance of
improper actions. While the
general effect of this may be in the direction of holding the
ignorant masses in the ethical
road most conducive to the public weal, it also has a tendency
to foster credulity,
superstition and imposition, just as do similar teachings in any land, time,
under the cover of any religion.
There is a strong family resemblance between these
teachings among all the
religions, and there are many men who hold that this “crack of the
theological whip” is most
necessary for the keeping of the masses of the people in the strait
road of morality, they being
held incapable of the practice of “doing good for good’s sake, and
avoiding evil because it is
evil.” We shall not discuss this question - decide it for yourself.
One of the strongest
applications of the above mentioned form of the doctrine in India is the
teaching that the caste of the
man in his next incarnation will be determined by his degree of
“good conduct” in the present
life - and that his present caste has been determined by his
conduct in his previous lives.
No one who has not studied the importance of “caste” in India
can begin to understand how
powerful a lever this teaching is upon the people of India.
From the exalted Brahman caste,
the priestly caste - down to the Sudra caste of unskilled
laborers, or even still further
down to the Pariahs or outcasts, the caste lines are strongly
marked; the higher caste person
deeming it the greatest disgrace to be touched by one of an
inferior caste, or to eat food
prepared by a lower-caste person, and so on in every act of daily
life. The only comparison
possible to the American mind is the attitude of the old-time
Southerner toward the lowest
class of negroes, and even in this case the prejudice does not
extend so far as in the case of
the Hindus, for the Southerner will eat food cooked by a negro
servant, and will permit the
latter to shave him, act as his valet, etc., something at which the
high-caste Hindu would be
horrified on the part of one below him in caste. This being
understood, it is easy to see
how careful a high-caste Hindu would be to avoid performing
actions which might rob him of
his caste in his next life, and how powerful an incentive it is
to a low-caste Hindu to strive
for birth in a higher caste after many incarnations. To people
holding such a view, birth in a
low caste is the mark of crime and evil action performed in a
previous life, and the low-born
is accordingly felt to be worthy of no respect. We understand,
from Hindu acquaintances, that
this idea is gradually being dispelled in India, and an era of
common human brotherhood and
common interest is beginning to manifest itself.
In the Western world, the
Reincarnationists, without doubt, have been greatly affected by the
prevailing orthodox Hindu
conception of Karma, rather than by the Grecian and general
occult conception. Although
there are many who regard Karma as rather a moulder of
72
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
character, and consequently a
prime factor in the re-birth, rather than as a dispenser of
rewards and punishments - still,
there are many who, discarding the orthodox Devil of their
former faith, have found a
worthy substitute for him in their conception of Karma, and
manifest the same terror and
fear of the new devil as of the old one - and his name may be
summed up as fear, in
both cases.
Theosophists have discussed the
matter of Karma very thoroughly, and their leading
authorities have written much
about it, its various interpretations showing in the shades of
opinion among the writers.
Generally speaking, however, it may be said that they have
bridged over the chasm between
the “natural law” idea and that of “the moral law,” with its
rewards and punishments, by an
interpretation which places one foot on each conception,
holding that there is truth in
each. Of course, justice requires the reference of that student to
the Theosophical writings
themselves, for a detailed understanding of their views, but we feel
that a brief summary of their
general interpretation would be in order at this place.
One of their leading authorities
states that the Law of Karma is automatic in action, and that
there is no possible escape from
it. He likewise holds that Absolute Justice is manifested in
its operations, the idea of
mercy or wrath being absent from it; and that, consequently, every
debt must be paid in full, to
the last penny, and that there is no vicarious atonement or
exceptions made in answer to supplications
to a higher source. But he particularly states
that this action of the law must
not be confused with ordinary reward and punishment for
“good deed or bad,” but that the
law acts just as does any other law of Nature, just as if we
put our hand in the fire we
shall be burned as a natural consequence, and not as a
punishment. In his statement of
this view he says: “We hold that sorrow and suffering flow
from sin just precisely in that
way, under the direct working of natural law. It may be said,
perhaps, that, obviously, the
good man does not always reap his reward of good results, nor
does the wicked man always
suffer. Not always immediately; not always within our ken; but
assuredly, eventually and
inexorably.” The writer then goes on to define his conception of
Good and Evil. He says: “We
shall see more clearly that this must be so if we define exactly
what we mean by good and evil.
Our religious brothers would tell us that that was good
which was in accordance with
God’s will, and that that was evil which was in opposition to it.
The scientific man would say
that that was good which helped evolution, and whatever
hindered it was evil. Those two
men are in reality saying exactly the same thing; for God’s
will for man is evolution, and
when that is clearly realized all conflict between religion and
science is at once ended.
Anything, therefore, which is against evolution of humanity as a
whole is against the Divine
will. We see at once that when a man struggles to gain anything
for himself at the expense of
others he is distinctly doing evil, and it is evil because it is
against the interest of the
whole. Therefore the only true gain is that which is a gain for the
race as a whole, and the man who
gains something without cost or wrong to anyone is raising
73
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
the whole race somewhat in the
process. He is moving in the direction of evolution, while the
other man is moving against it.”
The same writer then gives the
list of the three kinds of Karma, according to the Hindu
teachings, namely: “1. There is
the Samchita, or ‘piled up’ Karma - the whole mass that still
remains behind the man not yet
worked out - the entire unpaid balance of the debit and
credit account; 2. There is the
Prarabdha, or ‘beginning’ Karma - the amount apportioned to
the man at the commencement of
each life - his destiny for that life, as it were; 3. There is
the Kriomana Karma, that which
we are now, by our actions in this present life, making for
the future.” He further states:
“That second type, the Prarabdha Karma, is the only destiny
which can be said to exist for
man. That is what an astrologer might foretell for us - that we
have apportioned to us so much
good or evil fortune - so much the result of the good and evil
actions of our past lives which
will react on us in this. But we should remember always that
this result of previous action
can never compel us to action in the present. It may put us
under conditions in which it
will be difficult to avoid an act, but it can never compel us to
commit it. The man of ordinary
development would probably yield to the circumstances and
commit the act; but he may
assert his free will, rise superior to the circumstances, and gain a
victory and a step in evolution.
So with a good action, no man is forced into that either, but
an opportunity is given to him.
If he takes it certain results will follow - not necessarily a
happy or a wealthy life next
time, but certainly a life of wider opportunity. That seems to be
one of the things that are quite
certain - that the man who has done well in this life has
always the opportunity of doing
still better in the next. This is nature’s reward for good work
- the opportunity to do more
work. Of course, wealth is a great opportunity, so the reward
often comes in that form, but
the essence of the reward is the opportunity and not the
pleasure which may be supposed
to accompany the wealth.” Another Theosophical writer
says further on the subject of
Karma: “Just as all these phases of Karma have sway over the
individual man, so they
similarly operate upon races, nations and families. Each race has its
karma as a whole. If it be good,
that race goes forward; if bad, it goes out - annihilated as a
race - though the souls
concerned take up their karma in other races and bodies. Nations
cannot escape their national
karma, and any nation that has acted in a wicked manner must
suffer some day, be it soon or
late.” The same writer sums up the idea of individual
unhappiness in any life, as
follows: “(a) It is punishment for evil done in past lives; or (b) it
is discipline taken up by the
Ego for the purpose of eliminating defects or acquiring fortitude
and sympathy. When defects are
eliminated it is like removing the obstruction in an
irrigating canal which then lets
the water flow on. Happiness is explained in the same way - -
the result of prior lives of
goodness.”
The general idea of a number of
writers on the subject of Karma is that “as ye sow, so shall ye
reap,” brought down to a
wonderful detail of arrangement, and effect flowing from causes.
This conception, carried to its
logical conclusion, would insist that every single bit of pain
74
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
and unhappiness in this life is
the result of some bad deed done either in the present life or in
the past, and every bit of
happiness, joy or pleasure, the result of some good action
performed either in the present or
past life. This conception of Karma affords us the most
intricate, complex and detailed
idea of reward for good, and punishment for evil (even when
called “the operation of natural
law”) possible to the mind of man. In its entirety, and carried
to its last refinement of
interpretation and analysis, it has a tendency to bewilder and terrify,
for the chance of escape from
its entangling machinery seems so slight. But still, the same
authorities inform us that every
soul will surmount these obstacles, and everyone will Attain
- so there is no need to be
frightened, even if you accept the interpretation of doctrine in its
completeness.
But there are some thinkers who
carry this idea of retributive Karma to such an extreme that
they hold that every instance of
physical pain, disease, deformity, poverty, ill fortune, etc.,
that we see among people, is the
inevitable result of some moral wrong or crime committed
by that person in some past
life, and that therefore every instance of poverty, want or
physical suffering is the just
result of some moral offense. Some of the extremists have gone
so far as to hesitate at
relieving poverty, physical pain and suffering in others, lest by so
doing they might possibly be
“interfering with Karma” - as if any great Law could be
“interfered with.” While we,
generally, have refrained from insisting upon our personal
preference of interpretation in
this work, we cannot refrain from so doing in this instance.
We consider that such an
interpretation of the Law of Karma is forced and unnatural, and
results from the seeming natural
tendency of the human mind to build up devils for itself - -
and hells of one kind or
another. Robbed of their Devil, many people would attribute to their
God certain devilish qualities,
in order that they may not be robbed of the satisfaction of
smugly thinking of the “just
punishment” of others. And, if they have also discarded the idea
of a Personal God, their demand
for a Devil causes them to attribute certain devilish qualities
to Natural Law. They are bound
to find their Devil somewhere - the primitive demand for
the Vengeful Spirit must
manifest itself in one form or another.
These people confound the action
of Cause and Effect on the Material and Physical Plane,
with Cause and Effect on the
Spiritual Plane, whereas all true occultists teach that the Cause
operating on one plane manifests
effects upon the same plane. In this connection, we would
call your attention to the
instance in the New Testament (John IX., 2), in which Jesus was
asked regarding the cause of the
affliction of the man who was born blind. “And his disciples
asked him, saying, ’Master, who
did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?’”
The question being asked in
order that Jesus might determine between the two prevailing
theories: (1) That the blindness
was caused according to the operation of the law of Moses,
which held that the sins of the
parents were visited on the children unto the third and fourth
generation; or (2) that it was
caused according to the Law of Karma, along the lines of
reincarnation, and because of
some sin which the man had committed in some past
75
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
incarnation (for no other
interpretation of the passage is possible, and it shows the
prevalence of the idea of
Reincarnation among the people of that time). But Jesus promptly
brushed away these two crude,
primitive conceptions and interpretations, and in the light of
his superior spiritual knowledge
answered: “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents;
but that the works of God should
be manifest in him,” the explanation of the term “the works
of God” being that Jesus meant
thereby the operation of the Laws of Nature imposed by God
- something above punishment for
“sins,” and which operated according to invariable
physical laws and which affected
the just and the unjust alike, just as do any natural laws. It
is now known that many infants
are rendered blind by negligence of certain precautions at
birth - this may have been a
case of that kind. We consider any attempt to attribute physical
infirmities to “sin” unconnected
with the physical trouble to be a reversion to primitive
theological dogmas, and smacking
strongly of the “devil idea” of theology, of which we have
spoken. And Poverty results from
economic conditions, and not as punishment for “Sin.”
Nor is Wealth the reward of
Virtue - far from it.
But before leaving this phase of
the subject we would like to say that many careful thinkers
have been able to discern
certain spiritual benefits that have arisen from physical suffering,
or poverty, and that the
sufferers often manifest a high degree of spiritual development and
growth, seemingly by reason of
their pain. Not only this, but the divine faculties of pity, help,
and true sympathy, are brought
out in others, by reason thereof. We think that this view of
the matter is far more along the
lines of true spirituality than that of want and disease as “the
punishment of sins committed in
past lives.” Even the human idea of Justice revolts at this
kind of “punishment,” and, in
fact, the highest human justice and human law eliminates the
idea of “punishment” altogether,
so far as reprisal or revenge is concerned, the penalty being
regarded merely as a deterrent
of others, and a warning to the criminal against further
infractions of the law, and as a
reformatory agent - this at least is the theory of Human Law -
no matter how imperfectly it
works out in practice - and we cannot think of Divine Law being
less just and equitable, less
merciful and loving. The “eye for eye, tooth for tooth” conception
of human justice has been
out-lived by the race in its evolution.
After considering the above
mentioned extreme ideas of “punishments,” through the Law of
Karma, we ask you to consider
the following lines written by a writer having great insight,
and published in a leading
magazine several years ago. The idea of “The Kindergarten of
God” therein expressed, we
think, is far nearer in accordance with the highest Occult
Teachings, than the other idea
of “Divine Wrath” and punishment for sin, along the lines of a
misinterpretation of the Law of
Karma, worthy of the worshipers of some ancient Devil-God.
Read this little quotation
carefully, and then determine which of the two views seems to fit in
better with your highest
spiritual conceptions:
“A boy went to school. He was
very little. All that he knew he had drawn in with his mother’s
milk. His teacher (who was God)
placed him in the lowest class, and gave him these lessons
76
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
to learn: Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt do no hurt to any living thing. Thou shalt not steal.
So the man did not kill; but he
was cruel, and he stole. At the end of the day (when his beard
was gray - when the night was
come), his teacher (who was God) said: Thou hast learned not
to kill. But the other lessons
thou hast not learned. Come back tomorrow.
“On the morrow he came back, a
little boy. And his teacher (who was God) put him in a class
a little higher, and gave him
these lessons to learn: Thou shalt do no hurt to any living thing.
Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt
not cheat. So the man did no hurt to any living thing; but he
stole and he cheated. And at the
end of the day (when his beard was gray - when the night
was come), his teacher (who was
God) said: Thou hast learned to be merciful. But the other
lessons thou hast not learned.
Come back tomorrow.
“Again, on the morrow, he came
back, a little boy. And his teacher (who was God) put him in
a class yet a little higher, and
gave him these lessons to learn: Thou shalt not steal. Thou
shalt not cheat. Thou shalt not
covet. So the man did not steal; but he cheated, and he
coveted. And at the end of the
day (when his beard was gray - when the night was come), his
teacher (who was God) said: Thou
hast learned not to steal. But the other lessons thou hast
not learned. Come back, my
child, tomorrow.
“This is what I have read in the
faces of men and women, in the book of the world, and in the
scroll of the heavens, which is
writ with stars.” - Berry Benson, in The Century Magazine,
May, 1894.
But there is still another view
of Karma held by some Western thinkers, who received it from
the Greek mystics and
occultists, who in turn are thought to have received it from ancient
Egypt. These people hold that
the Law of Karma has naught to do with Man’s theories of
ethics, or religious dogmas or
creeds, but has as the basis of its operations only Universal and
Cosmic Principles of Action,
applicable to the atom as well as Man - to the beings above Man
as well. And that these
universal principles of action have to do with the evolution of all
things in Nature, according to
well established laws. And that the evolving soul is continually
striving to find the path along
the lines of evolution, being urged to by the unfolding spirit
within it - and that that “path”
is always along the lines of least spiritual friction, and
therefore along the lines of the
least ultimate spiritual pain. And that, accordingly, Spiritual
Pain is an indication to the
evolving thing that it is on the wrong path, and that it must find a
better way onward - which
message it heeds by reason of the pain, and accordingly seeks out
for itself a better way, and one
that will bring less spiritual pain and greater ultimate spiritual
satisfaction.
This teaching holds that all
material things are a source of more or less pain to the growing
and evolving soul, which tends
to urge it along the line of the least spiritual resistence - the
least spiritual friction. It may
be that the soul does not recognize the direction of the urge,
77
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
and insist in tasting this
material pleasure (so-thought) and then that - only to find that
neither satisfy - that both are
Dead Sea Fruit - that both have the thorn attached to the flower
- that all bring pain, satiety
and disgust - the consequence being that the tired and wearied
soul, when rested by the Lethal
slumber, and then re-born has a horror and distaste for the
things which disgusted it in its
previous life, and is therefore urged toward opposite things.
If the soul has not been
satiated - has not yet been pricked by the hidden thorn - it wishes to
go on further in the dream of
material pleasure, and so it does, until it learns its lesson.
Finally, perceiving the folly
and worthlessness of materiality, it emerges from its cocoon and,
spreading out its newly found
wings, takes its flight for higher planes of action and being - -
and so on, and on, and on,
forever.
Under this view people are not
punished “for” their sins, but “by” them - and “Sin” is seen to
be merely a “mistake,” not a
crime. And Pain arises not as a punishment for something done
wrongly, but as a warning sign
of “hands off”; and consequently Pain is something by which
we may mount to higher things -
to Something Better - and not a punishment. And this idea
holds, also, that on the
physical plane physical law governs, and physical effects follow
physical causes; likewise on the
mental plane; likewise on the Spiritual Plane. And,
therefore, it is absurd to
suppose that one suffers physical pain as a punishment for some
moral offense committed on
another plane. On the contrary, however, this idea holds that
from the physical pain which was
occasioned by the operation of physical law alone one may
develop higher spiritual states
by reason of a better understanding of the nature of pain in
oneself and others. And this
idea refuses to recognize material pleasures or profits as a
reward for spiritual or moral
actions.
On the whole this last mentioned
conception of Karma refuses to use the terms “reward and
punishment,” or even to
entertain those ideas, but instead sees in everything the working out
of a great Cosmic Plan whereby
everything rises from lower to higher, and still higher. To it
Karma is but one phase of the
great law operating in all planes and forms of Life and the
Universe. To it the idea that “The
universe is governed by law” is an axiom. And while to it
ultimate justice is also axiomic, it sees not in
the operation of penalties and reward - merits
and demerits - the proof of that
Ultimate Justice; it looks for it and finds it in the conception
and realizing that all works
for good - that Everything is tending upward - that everything is
justified and just, because the end
is absolute good, and that every tiny working of the great
cosmic machinery is turning in
the right direction and to that end. Consequently, each of us
is just where he should be at
the present time - and our condition is exactly the very best to
bring us to that Divine
Consummation and End. And to such thinkers, indeed, there is no
Devil but Fear and Unfaith, and
all other devils are illusions, whether they be called
Beelzebub, Mortal-Mind, or
Karma, if they produce Fear and Unfaith in the All-Good. And
such thinkers feel that the way
to live according to the Higher Light, and without fear of a
Malevolent Karma, is to feel
one’s relationship with the Universal Good, and then to “Live
78
-------
One Day at a time - Doing the
Best you Know How - and Be Kind” - knowing that in the All-
Good you live and move and have
your being, and that outside of that All-Good you cannot
stray, for there is no outside -
knowing that that which brought you Here will be with you
There - that Death is but a
phase of Life - and above all that there is nothing to be afraid of -
and that all is well with
God; with the Universe; and with you!
Finis.
______________________
Cardiff
Theosophical Society in
Theosophy
House
206
Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24 -1DL
Find out
more about
Theosophy
with these links
The Cardiff Theosophical Society Website
The National Wales Theosophy Website
If you
run a Theosophy Group, please feel free
to use
any of the material on this site
The Most Basic Theosophy
Website in the Universe
A quick overview of Theosophy
and the Theosophical Society
If you run a Theosophy Group you
can use this as an introductory handout.
Theosophy Cardiff’s Instant Guide
One liners and quick explanations
H P Blavatsky is
usually the only
Theosophist that
most people have ever
heard of. Let’s
put that right
The Voice of the Silence Website
An Independent Theosophical Republic
Links to Free Online Theosophy
Study Resources; Courses,
Writings,
The main criteria
for the inclusion of
links on this
site is that they have some
relationship
(however tenuous) to Theosophy
and are
lightweight, amusing or entertaining.
Topics include
Quantum Theory and Socks,
Dick Dastardly and Legendary Blues Singers.
A selection of
articles on Reincarnation
Provided in
response to the large
number of
enquiries we receive at
Cardiff
Theosophical Society on this subject
The Voice of the Silence Website
This is for everyone, you don’t have to live
in Wales to make good use of this Website
No Aardvarks
were harmed in the
The Spiritual Home of Urban Theosophy
The Earth Base for Evolutionary Theosophy
A B C D EFG H IJ KL M N OP QR S T UV WXYZ
Complete Theosophical Glossary in Plain Text Format
1.22MB
________________
Preface
Theosophy and the Masters General Principles
The Earth Chain Body and Astral Body Kama – Desire
Manas Of Reincarnation Reincarnation Continued
Karma Kama Loka
Devachan
Cycles
Arguments Supporting Reincarnation
Differentiation Of Species Missing Links
Psychic Laws, Forces, and Phenomena
Psychic Phenomena and Spiritualism
Quick Explanations
with Links to More Detailed Info
What is Theosophy ? Theosophy Defined (More Detail)
Three Fundamental Propositions Key Concepts of Theosophy
Cosmogenesis Anthropogenesis Root Races
Ascended Masters After Death States
The Seven Principles of Man Karma
Reincarnation Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
Colonel Henry Steel Olcott William Quan Judge
The Start of the Theosophical
Society
History of the Theosophical
Society
Theosophical Society Presidents
History of the Theosophical
Society in Wales
The Three Objectives of the Theosophical
Society
Explanation of the Theosophical
Society Emblem
The Theosophical Order of
Service (TOS)
Glossaries of Theosophical Terms
Index of
Searchable
Full Text
Versions of
Definitive
Theosophical
Works
H P Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine
Isis Unveiled by H P Blavatsky
H P Blavatsky’s Esoteric Glossary
Mahatma Letters to A P Sinnett 1 - 25
A Modern Revival of Ancient Wisdom
(Selection of Articles by H P Blavatsky)
The Secret Doctrine – Volume 3
A compilation of H P Blavatsky’s
writings published after her death
Esoteric Christianity or the Lesser Mysteries
The Early Teachings of The Masters
A Collection of Fugitive Fragments
Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy
Mystical,
Philosophical, Theosophical, Historical
and Scientific
Essays Selected from "The Theosophist"
Edited by George Robert Stow Mead
From Talks on the Path of Occultism - Vol. II
In the Twilight”
Series of Articles
The In the
Twilight” series appeared during
1898 in The
Theosophical Review and
from 1909-1913
in The Theosophist.
compiled from
information supplied by
her relatives
and friends and edited by A P Sinnett
Letters and
Talks on Theosophy and the Theosophical Life
Obras
Teosoficas En Espanol
Theosophische
Schriften Auf Deutsch
An Outstanding
Introduction to Theosophy
By a student of
Katherine Tingley
Elementary Theosophy Who is the Man? Body and Soul
Body, Soul and Spirit Reincarnation Karma
Writings of
H P Blavatsky
Is the Desire to Live Selfish?
Ancient Magic in Modern Science
Babel Of Modern Thought
Precepts Compiled by H P Blavatsky
Obras Por H P Blavatsky
En Espanol
Articles about the Life of H P Blavatsky
H P Blavatsky
the Light-Bringer
by
Geoffrey A Barborka
The Blavatsky Lecture of 1970
Try
these if you are looking for a local
Theosophy
Group or Centre
UK Listing of Theosophical Groups
Cardiff
Theosophical Society in Wales
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24 -1DL