PSYCHIC AND SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT/PART 1 -FINAL
PSYCHIC AND SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT
April
1916
To
speak properly, the title of my lecture should be Psychic Development and
Spiritual Unfolding. That would have made rather too long a title, and yet the
difference between the words development and unfolding is a very important one.
When we are dealing with the Spirit we cannot accurately speak of development.
A Spirit neither develops nor evolves; he only unfolds into manifestation that
which eternally lies within him. A Spirit, being identical with the Universal
Consciousness, can neither increase nor diminish. What he can do, entering into
conditions of time and space, is to turn outwards that which is within, to turn
attention outwards, and slowly to conquer, by this contact with matter, that
knowledge of the universe regarded as phenomenal, which does not come into his
consciousness when he is separated off from the universal by that delicate film
of matter which is his vehicle in the nirvãnic, or spiritual, sphere. Within
that seed of Divinity all possibilities are contained. It is only the turning outwards
which is possible, by the contact with the various planes of matter.
On
the other hand, with regard to psychic development, which depends entirely on
the conditions of the matter which veils the Spirit, the word development is
entirely accurate. Psychic progress is literally the evolving and developing of
form after form, the forms being separate the one from the other, and being, as
regards three of them, new-born at each birth, and dying one after the other in
the process of death and of after-death. So that we are face to face with two
entirely different processes, which I propose to try to make rather more clear
than they are in the minds of many.
These
two things are fundamentally different in nature. They belong to those two
great opposites by the interaction of which the universe is built — Spirit,
Matter, You cannot have two things more absolutely opposed. You may reach that
which is Spirit by denying one after the other all the qualities and
manifestations of matter. There ought, then, to be a very wide gulf in the
minds of students with regard to that which belongs to the development of the
psychic, and that which belongs to the unfolding of the Spirit, and if we can
get rid of the confusion that exists so largely amongst us we shall not have
wasted time.
Let
us glance first at the spiritual and ask what it is. Carry your mind to the
higher or spiritual Triad, that reproduction of the Monad as Spirit in his
threefold nature, as Will, Intuition and Intellect, sometimes called
Âtma-buddhi-manas. The Monad himself is the essence and root of Spirit, the
Spirit being his reproduction in the three higher spheres of our fivefold
system, showing out his three aspects of Power, Wisdom and Activity; these are
manifested by the ray of the Monad appropriating an atom from each of the three
spheres, the spiritual, intuitional and intellectual; these condition the
manifestation of the monad, each variety of matter showing forth one aspect
only, as though the three aspects were separable. Not one of these really
exists in separation; where Spirit shows himself forth as Will in the spiritual
sphere, there are also present, though subordinate, the two aspects of the
Monad which appear in the two succeeding spheres, Intuition and Intellect; both
are present in that ãtmic particle, and form part of its consciousness,
although dominated by that Will by which Âtma shows himself forth. So again
when you take the second aspect, showing itself forth as Intuition (Buddhi),
you cannot separate off from that either Will (Âtma) or Intellect (Manas); they
are both implicitly present, although it is the Wisdom aspect of the Monad
which is there dominant. And so with the third. When we come to intellect,
showing forth the active, or creative aspect of the Monad, there also we have
to recognize the implicit presence of Will and Intuition. Consciousness is one,
and it can never show out one aspect alone without the other two being present,
You will find it is laid down by one of the greatest of Indian psychologists
that we have here continually a reflection and a re-reflection within the Self
and that when we speak of one of them we are thinking of that aspect as working
upon itself, and so showing forth that quality predominantly; but that in that
same sphere we have the other two aspects, colored indeed, as it were, by the
first; in each case all three are present, two as reflected on to the third,
that third dominating the two reflections. And in this way is made up a
ninefold division, giving a marvelously accurate classification. But for us
just now it is enough to recognize one dominant aspect and two others
implicitly present.
When
we come down from those two and a half higher spheres, where the true spiritual
Triad shows itself forth, to the lower two and a half spheres we come into the
world where matter is dominant. In the higher, consciousness prevails, over
matter. In the lower, matter prevails over consciousness. The division of
higher and lower comes in the middle of the mental sphere, so that the three
sub-planes belong to the world of Spirit predominantly, the lower four
belonging predominantly to the world of phenomena. In the lower spheres the
matter which there enveils the Spirit conditions it far more forcibly and
obviously than does the matter on the higher; and the work of the Spirit on
those lower planes will be the moulding and organizing of matter, in the effort
to create for himself vehicles which will express him in the lower world, and
deprive him as little as possible of his own inherent powers.
In
that lower world also you will see this same triplicity of manifestation
continually showing forth, though there again one aspect predominates over the
others. For instance, in the emotional sphere, the astral body serves for the
vehicle of activity and thought as well as for the vehicle of emotion, and the
man working in the astral sphere is the same man as the man working here, with
none of his consciousness lost, and showing out the three faces, as they also
show out here in the physical body. There is always a danger, as we analyze man
into factors, of losing sight of this unit nature of consciousness. When we are
dealing with the physical body we recognize the aspects of consciousness and
their places of manifestation; we understand quite well that the mental aspect
works through the cerebro-spinal nerves, the emotional through the sympathetic
system and glands, the volitional through the muscles; all are present. We must
do the same with the astral and mental spheres. This close study of
consciousness and its vehicles is absolutely necessary for a real understanding
of Spirituality and Psychism.
When
we study the spiritual, we are dealing with consciousness in the higher
spheres, the characteristic mark of which is unity. He, says Shrl Krishna,
"who seeth Me in all things, and all things in Me, he seeth, verily he
seeth". Nothing other than that is spiritual vision. There is no vision
entitled to be called spiritual, save that which sees God in Nature and Nature
in God, which recognizes the One Universal Bliss, the One Universal
Self-Consciousness, the One Universal Existence, and sees all things rooted in
THAT and in THAT alone. To realize the Self-Consciousness is alone Wisdom. And
we must bear clearly in mind this definition of the Spirit, that it is the consciousness
of Unity, of Oneness with the Supreme. Again it is written: "There is
nothing moving or unmoving that can exist bereft of Me". That is
everywhere to be seen and, recognized, and none may call himself spiritual if
he does not to some extent enjoy that realization of the Oneness. Spirituality
is an exceedingly different thing from Psychism, which is the manifestation of
Intellect, cognizing the external worlds, and seeing the differences, the
diversity, in all those worlds. It does not matter whether you are looking at
physical, astral, or mental objects; all looking at objects, all the activity
of consciousness utilizing matter as a means of contact with objects, is
covered by the word Psychism. It depends for its development on the
organization of the sheaths, on their delicacy and refinement; and for the
purpose of understanding this, it is enough to think of the human being as
composed of consciousness and matter, taking the three lower sheaths simply as
the sense-garment. Drop for a moment the thought of the physical, astral, and
mental bodies the word body seems to connote too much of difference; they are
only matter at different stages of density, and the three together make up the
sense-garment of the consciousness, Throughout the psychic development, the
improvement of the sense-garment is the task which the student has before him;
He wants to make each layer of the sense-garment more refined, more sensitive,
and to realize it more and more clearly as a garment and not as himself — one
garment in three layers. All the evolution that goes on in that garment
improves psychic development, bringing the mind into fuller touch with the
external world. If that be clearly grasped, you cannot confuse the psychic and
the spiritual, for one belongs wholly to the consciousness in its unity, and
the other to the sense-garment in its multiplicity. And you will be inclined
neither to overvalue nor to undervalue psychic development. Students are
inclined to run into extremes. Neither extreme position is true. One should
take the common-sense view of what is called psychism. Psychism is the
manifestation of consciousness through its sense-garment, and everything that
increases the translucency of that garment, in one or other of these layers, is
part of psychic development. In our present stage of evolution a large part of
this psychic development is going on in the astral body. Consciousness has
largely conquered the physical layer of the sense-garment in most people, and
is beginning to conquer the astral layer; but as that progress is at present
abnormal, it is regarded as something almost supernatural, instead of being
taken in the same quiet common-sense way that you take the higher orders of the
physical senses amongst ourselves. We know the good musician has a much more
delicate ear than most of us, but we do not look on him as apart from us
because of that. Taking that delicacy a little further and carrying it to the
next layer of the sense-garment does not alter its quality. It is a question of
degree and not of kind. In the physical part of the garment, the lowest layer
of the body, there is a sharper division between the senses than there is in
other layers. In the mental sphere the consciousness which has not yet touched
the physical has a keen recognition of the life within an object, and a very
confused impression of the garment of matter in which that consciousness is
veiled, the garment which makes it an object. So also, coming down into the
emotional, or astral sphere, if you take a consciousness that has had no
experience of the physical plane at all (as in the Elemental Kingdom) you will
find that the entities do not receive from the astral object the clearly
defined outline, but a far more blended impression. There are no sharp lines of
distinction between the senses; hearing and sight, for instance, melt into one
another. lt is true that you can point to one part and say: that is sight, and
to another: that is hearing, but you come to a place where you cannot
distinguish clearly between the two senses, for that clear definition takes
place for the first time on the physical plane. Only consciousness, having once
obtained that definition, does not lose it when it is active in the second
layer of the sense-garment. It keeps the definition, and that is what is gained
from the physical body, even when the physical body is finally thrown off.
Consciousness having passed through the physical sphere never again loses that
clearness and definiteness which in the physical sphere it gained. So that when
you come to the psychic evolution in the second layer, the astral, you find the
advantage of the consciousness having passed through the physical stage.
There
is another phrase that comes into my mind from the great Scripture I have
already quoted: without senses enjoying sense objects — a phrase which sounds
extremely strange and rather unintelligible. The reason is the one I have just
spoken of, that the clear definition of the powers of perception in the
consciousness is not dependent on the organs, after the organs have served
their purpose and have given to it the necessary definition. It is said even of
the LOGOS Himself, who is spoken of in that verse; having passed through all
these experiences, He has carried with Him to that lofty rank of Divinity the qualities
which in the humbler days of earth, in far-off universes, He slowly gathered
and built into Himself as we are building them now.
The
whole of the development of consciousness in the sense-garment is psychic,
whether in one layer or another. You should not limit the word to the astral
and mental spheres, for by making a difference of term in that way you lose the
sense of the unity of evolution.
The
evolution of the astral body largely takes place from the mental sphere, as the
organisation of the physical senses and their apparatus takes place from the
astral sphere. As you are working in the developing of your mind now, that
mind, in its more evolved stage, fashions for itself that astral layer of the
sense-garment which it will be able to use more independently as evolution
proceeds. And to develop healthily that second layer, it must be developed from
above and not from below. It is possible to stimulate the growth of the
sense-organs in the astral body to some extent from the physical senses, but
such stimulation does not carry us very far. Also, it has the tendency to
injure the physical organs used, and what is more serious, to injure in the
brain those particular centers which, in the later evolution of the astral
senses, would be their proper points of expression on the physical plane. For
within our brain are certain centers which are the places of junction between
the astral and physical sense-organs, making possible the bringing down of the
information gathered by the astral into the physical consciousness working
through the brain. Suppose the astral chakra; which answers to astral sight, is
active. That has its corresponding point between the eye-brows, and a certain
development of a center in the physical body between the eyebrows goes on as
the result of the development of that astral sense in the astral body. It is
that which lies at the root of the practice of some people in psychometry, and
a little-developed form of clairvoyance, where they sometimes put an object to
the forehead when trying to psychometrise, or to see with the astral sight.
That particular center and the solar plexus are the two chief centers in making
a link of connection between the astral and physical layers of the
sense-garment. But if, instead of stimulating from the physical, you stimulate
from the mental, then your astral centers develop healthily and naturally, and
with that will come, without any very special effort, the descent of the
information gathered in that second layer into the first, so that you become
consciously clairvoyant, clairaudient, and so on.
When
those faculties appear in the waking consciousness the person is called a
psychic or a sensitive; and the name means nothing more than this: that there
is a beginning of the shaping of those senses, and that the links between the
two layers of the sense-garment are beginning to work. It is a great advantage
for the gaining of knowledge to have the astral senses as well as the physical
at your disposal; but it will only give you more phenomenal knowledge; it will
not quicken your spiritual unfolding. Nay, it may possibly delay it, because it
makes the phenomenal more attractive than before. It is more difficult for the
person in whom these finer senses are developed to turn away from the outer and
more attractive phenomena, and to fix the attention inwards to evoke the true
spiritual vision, the knowledge of the One.
It
is for that reason that in many of the ancient books — whether Indian, Grecian,
or Egyptian — you find so little stress laid on the development of these higher
sensuous powers. It is seen that sometimes the person in whom they are
developed is thereby made more separate and not more united; whereas in the
spiritual unfolding, the spiritual person feels himself more one with every
form of life and less separate. In India the siddhis are definitely regarded as
having no part in spiritual development, and those who try to develop them are
simply looked at in the same light as those who try to develop keener physical
sight or hearing.
The
training for psychic development and for spiritual unfoldment is quite
different. In psychic development you have to deal with the perfection and
organisation of the sense-garment; when you come to deal with the spiritual,
the preparation is intellectual, emotional, and moral. I do not mean, in saying
that, that morality as such, or the lower intelligence as such, is spiritual;
but they are the necessary preparation for the manifestation of the Spirit in
man. The growth of the moral character, of self-sacrifice, self-surrender,
willingness to serve, the breaking away — of the sense of separateness — all
this is the preparation for spiritual unfolding. And so also with regard to the
higher intelligence. It is absolutely necessary for the spiritual
manifestation; and everything that tends to purify the intelligence and raise
it from the concrete to the abstract is an approach towards the region where
the spiritual unfolding will take place. Hence the immense stress laid in all
ancient books on the building up of virtue on the one side, and of intelligence
on the other; so that within the good man and the reasonable man, the spiritual
man might descend and find his habitation. Truly, as it is said in Light on the
Path, "great though the gulf may be between the good man and the sinner .
. . it is immeasurable between the good man and the one on the threshold of
Divinity". That is true. It is a difference in kind and not only in
degree. Hence it is that when you are striving to quicken the evolution of man,
so that the Spirit may reveal himself within the garb of matter, so much stress
is laid on study and on moral training, not as confusing the two, but the one
as being the pathway which makes it possible for the other to manifest. The
Spirit cannot manifest in the ignorant or in the immoral man; he is latent
within him, and until that preparation is made, spiritual unfoldment and manifestation
in the world of forms cannot be. I know that that puts spiritual unfolding very
high, and it may shock some people, because whatever is vague they think is
spiritual. But really that is not so. A good emotion does not mean
consciousness on the buddhic plane. Emotion is not spirituality, although it is
often confused with it. There is an enormous gulf between them. Spirituality is
the Self-consciousness, conqueror over matter, not the manifestation distorted
and stunted in matter, which is emotion. That truth to some people may seem
rather cold. It is, of course, nothing of the kind. It is the most inspiring
truth which it is possible to put forward, when a glimpse is caught of what it
really means; for there is nothing discouraging in recognising that we have a
long path to travel before reaching the spiritual heights. It would be far more
discouraging if the small manifestations of emotion and good feeling we find
down here were the limit of the Divine in humanity. That they are very often
beautiful, I do not deny; but they are not the Beauty: that is something wider,
vaster, grander, than you or I at present can even conceive. Surely it is more
inspiring to the heart and mind to see far off the dawn of a grandeur that some
day we know will be ours, than it is to rest content with the miserable and
petty manifestations which are all we are capable of at the present time. The
one inspires to ceaseless effort, to unwearied aspiration; the other makes us
sit down contentedly, thinking we are almost near the manifestation of God in
ourselves. But, as we catch a glimpse of those greater possibilities, as we put
our thought of Spirit higher and higher, we become more conscious of a strength
within ourselves which makes us mighty enough to rise above the highest that we
can dream. Only we need time and patience, a high ideal, and noble thinking.
One thing only is the sign that the Spirit in us is beginning to put forth his
powers; the possession of peace, serenity, strength, and broadness of view.
Those show the germinating of the divine seed within us; and as we see those
qualities grow we cannot say: "I am spiritually developed," but we
may dare to say: "My face is turned in the right direction, and I am
beginning to tread the Path which leads to the manifestation of the
Spirit."
END
OF THIS BOOK
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