REVELATION, INSPIRATION AND OBSERVATION/PART 1 --FINAL
REVELATION, INSPIRATION AND OBSERVATION
THOSE
who seriously take up the study of Theosophy should not be satisfied with the
mere reading of the voluminous theosophical literature poured out into the world
through the centuries of the past, and continuing to flow into it in our own
days. They should, in addition, if they have any innate faculty for such
investigation, prepare to develop the faculties by which they may verify for
themselves that which they are told by others. But in all cases much
theoretical study is desirable before passing on into the practical, and in
most cases it may not be possible to develop the subtler senses within the
limits of the present incarnation, although a good foundation may be laid for
such development in the next. Hence theoretical study must form a large part of
the training of every theosophical student and his attitude towards such study
is a matter of serious importance. He needs to discriminate between the books he
reads, and to suit his attitude to the type of the book; he must seek to
understand what is meant by Revelation, what by Inspiration, and to distinguish revealed from inspired
literature, and both from the records of observations.
Some
scriptures which are regarded as authoritative lie at the back of all the great
religions. Thus, Hinduism has the Veda. The word means knowledge, and this
knowledge is of that which is eternally true. It is the knowledge of the Logos,
the knowledge of the Lord of a universe; the knowledge of what is, not of what
seems; the knowledge of realities, not of phenomena. This abides ever in the
Logos; it is part of Himself. In its manifested form, as revealed for the
helping of man, it becomes the Vedas, and in this form goes through many
stages, until finally little of the original remains. All Hindu schools of
philosophy acknowledge the supreme authority of the Vedas; but after this
formal acknowledgement is made, the intellect is allowed to range freely at its
will—to inquire, to judge, to speculate. Rigid as Hinduism is in its social
polity, it has ever left the human intellect free; in philosophy, in
metaphysics, it has ever realised that truth should be sought, and no penalty
inflicted on error; error being sufficiently penalised by the fact that it is
error, and breeds misfortunes under natural laws. Even today that ancient
liberty is maintained, and a man may think and write as he will provided that
he follows in practice the social customs of his caste. The Hindu divides all
knowledge into two types — the supreme and the lower. In the lower he places
all his sacred books — following in this the dictum of an Upanishad— together
with all other literature, all science, all instruction; in the category of the
supreme he places only 'the knowledge of Him by whom all else is known. There
you have Hinduism in a nutshell. When once supreme knowledge has been attained
and illumination has been experienced, all scriptures become useless. This is
asserted plainly and boldly in a well-known passage in the Bhagavad Gita: All
the Vedas are as useful to an enlightened Brahmana as is a tank in a place
covered over with water. What need of a tank when water is everywhere? What
need of scriptures when the man is enlightened? Revelation is useless to the
man to whom the Self is revealed.
In
the early days of Buddhism the Vedas held high place, for the Lord Buddha, as
Dr Rhys Davids says, was born and brought up, and lived and died a Hindu. But
the character of intellectual freedom for Buddhists is contained in the wise
advice of their Teacher: 'Do not believe in a thing said merely because it is
said; nor in traditions because they have been handed down from antiquity; nor
in rumours, as such; nor in writings by sages, merely because sages wrote them.
. .nor on the mere authority of your own teachers or masters. But we are to
believe when the writing, doctrine, or saying is corroborated by our own reason
and consciousness. For this I have taught you: not to believe merely because
you have heard; but when you believed of your own consciousness, then to act
accordingly and abundantly.'
Even
revelation, for the Buddhist, must be brought to the touchstone of reason and
consciousness; there must be a response to it from within, the interior witness
of the Self, ere it can be accepted as authoritative.
In
the Christian and Muslim faiths —both largely influenced by Judaism — the
authoritative nature of revelation is carried further than in any earlier
faith. In modern days the yoke of a revealed scripture has been much lightened
for Christianity by the growth of the critical spirit and by the researches of
scholars. The modern Christian student is little more hampered by his
revelation than is the Hindu by his. A conventional reverence is yielded, a lifting
of the hat, and then the student goes freely on his way.
Revelation
What
is Revelation? It is communication from a Being superior to humanity of facts
known to Himself but unknown to those to whom He makes the revelation—facts
which they cannot reach by the exercise of the powers that they have so far
evolved. These facts can be verified at any time by one who has climbed to the
level of the Revealer, who may be an Avatara, a Rishi, a Founder of a religion.
They 'speak with authority', the authority of knowledge, the one authority to
which all sane men bow. We do not find that these great Beings wrote down Their
teachings Themselves; They taught, but They did not record. Some follower, some
disciple, it may be after the lapse of many years, even of centuries, wrote
down what he or his forefathers had heard; hence the revelation — and to this
rule there is probably no exception—is inevitably to some extent coloured,
narrowed, distorted by the transcriber. That which was heard originally by
those round the divine Teacher exists indeed in the akashic records, and may
ever be recovered thence by those who have developed the inner sense by which
those records may be read. In many cases true records will have been made at
the time by highly qualified persons; but such precious books are kept securely
in the custody of their chosen guardians in secret temples, in rock libraries,
available for the study of high Occultists, but of none other.
The
Muslim would claim that in the case of their sacred book there is more
certainty that the very words of their Prophet were preserved. And doubtless to
this is due the overwhelming authority of Al Quran in the minds of the faithful
of Islam.
What
should be the attitude of the theosophical student towards revelation? He
should treat the scriptures of the world with reverence, remembering their
origin, but none of them with submission, remembering that they are transmitted
to him by varied channels. He should call to his aid the best scholarship,
should gain all the light he can from archaeological and historical researches,
and use his best critical judgment in separating the essential truth revealed
from all the accretions that may have grown up around it. If he has developed
his higher psychic qualities, he should try to trace and disentangle the
ancient from the modern, and search the akashic records for comparison,
confirmation, or contradiction of the revelation as it has come into nis hands.
How immense might be the services of such theosophical students as they become
more numerous and better equipped for this gigantic task? And without this
external equipment much may be done by inner unfoldment; he may unfold within
himself his own spiritual powers; he may seek in profound meditation the truth
which shines in the revelation beneath many a veil of ignorance and
misconstruction; he may so purify his life that his bodies will become
translucent to the light of the spirit within him, will illumine the written
words. 'The things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God.' But that
Spirit dwells in every child of man; and as His light shines out, the divine
things are revealed to the pure in heart. Until the inner Spirit thus responds
to the revealed teachings and statements, the theosophical student must hold
his judgment in suspense before the claims of any revelation. It is not true
for him until he can re-echo it in the voice of his own Spirit, his deepest
Self. Useful and beautiful it may be; worthy of profoundest study and reverent
research are the world's Bibles. But until they are affirmed by the Spirit
within submission cannot be yielded, lest that should be given to the errors of
men which is due only to the divine Spirit.
Inspiration
What
is Inspiration? The raising of the normal human faculties by some extraneous
influence through grade after grade of intellectual, moral, and spiritual
power, up to the point where the extraneous influence may even expel the man
from his body and use it for the expression of another individual; where the
new possessor is a Being at a height utterly transcending man, inspiration may
pass into revelation. Some may think the word should be restricted to the
raising of the powers of the subject from above their normal capacity to the
highest point of their possible exercise, short of the expulsion of their owner
and his replacement by another individual greater than himself.
The
lower grades of inspiration are within the experience of very many. Have you
never felt, when listening to a speaker whose knowledge and power transcended
your own, that your mental faculties were lifted to a higher level than that to
which you could rise unaided? On such occasions you grasp questions that
hitherto have eluded you; you see plainly, where before there had been obscurity;
the field of thought becomes illumined, and objects are seen in hitherto
undreamed-of relations —you feel that you know. On the following day you desire
to share with a friend the treasures you acquired, and you begin to recount the
luminous exposition, to describe the great horizons which opened before you.
You fail: where is the light, where the far-off scenes over which your eyes had
swept? Your mind has sunk again to its normal level; the inspiration has passed
away. As with the intellectual, so with the moral faculties. You had seen an
unknown beauty, had felt an overwhelming admiration for the lofty and the pure:
what has become of the warmth, the ardour? Are the cold ashes of the
intellectual approval all that remains of the throbbing heart, the passionate
delight in the moral ideal? Why does it now look so cold, so grey, so
unattractive? You were raised to a higher level than you can reach unassisted;
but none the less has the moral ideal and its power been shown to you 'in the
Mount', and the fact that you have once experienced its all-compelling power
will render you more susceptible to it in the future, and the day will come
when that which you felt when inspired by another shall become the normal
exercise of your own moral faculties.
Coming
to higher grades of inspiration, we may know, some of us, what it is to stand
in the presence of the Masters, and to feel the marvellous uplift of Their
presence. There is no need for words, no need for teaching; Their presence is
enough. From that presence we go out again into the ordinary world, to feel the
difference of its atmosphere from that of the Holy One. But we have known, and
the memory remains an abiding power.
Those
who have written or spoken under inspiration have been thus uplifted, their own
intellectual and moral faculties have thus been stimulated, and raised far
above their normal level. It is still they who write or speak, and their own
characters and temperaments colour what they say, leave their own impress on
what they write. But they write and speak far more nobly, far more powerfully
than they could do unassisted.
And
so we may rise from grade to grade of inspiration until we reach the stage at
which the mind and emotions of the man no longer sway his body, but the body is
wholly taken possession of and used by One greater than himself. Then it is no
longer the man himself who speaks, but 'the Spirit of his Father who speaketh
in him; his own limitations are struck away, his own idiosyncrasies vanish, and
the inspired utterances flow forth unsullied. Then inspiration may range into
revelation.
Process of
Inspiration
The
process of all this is a very simple one. We know that by the correlation
between changes in consciousness and vibrations of matter, each change in
consciousness is accompanied by a vibration of the matter appropriated by the
consciousness and forming its body; each vibration of the matter of a body is
accompanied by a change in the embodied consciousness. Either one of the pair
may be the initiator, the other ever responds. When two or more people are
together, one more evolved than the other or others, the more evolved person,
thinking, desiring, acting, sets up in his own bodies, mental, astral, and
physical, a series of vibrations which corresponds to the changes in his
consciousness; these vibrations cause similar vibrations in the mental, astral
and physical matter intervening between himself and the less advanced person or
persons present. These vibrations in the intervening matter cause similar
vibrations in the neighbouring body or bodies. These vibrations are immediately
answered by corresponding changes in the embodied consciousness or
consciousnesses, and the person or persons concerned, thus placed en rapport
with one more advanced, think, desire, act on a higher level than would be
possible for them on their own initiative. They are able to understand more
keenly, to feel more warmly, to act more nobly than they could do unassisted.
When the stimulus is removed they gradually sink back to their normal level,
but memory is left, and they remember that they 'have known'. Moreover, it is
more easy for them to respond a second time, and so on and on, until they
establish themselves on the higher level permanently. Hence the value of
companionship with those more advanced than ourselves, of living 'in their
atmosphere'. Words are not necessary; little speech may pass; but insensibly
the subtle body is tuned to a higher key, and only, perhaps, when the
companionship is interrupted do the younger become conscious of the change
which has thus been brought about by contact with the elder.
Similar
results may be brought about by reading the writings of those who are more
evolved than we are. A similar series of changes is set up, though less
powerfully than by the living presence. Moreover, intent and reverent study may
attract the attention of the writer whether he be in or out of the body, and
may draw him to the student, and thus cause the latter to be enveloped in his
atmosphere quite as potently as though he were physically present. Hence the
value of reading noble literature; we are keyed up to its level for the time,
and such reading, steadily persevered in, will lift us to a higher level and
establish us thereon. Hence the value of a brief reading before meditation, lifting
us into an air more favourable to the work of meditation than we can start from
unassisted. Hence the value also of 'holy places' for such meditation, places
where the atmosphere is literally vibrating at a higher rate than our own; and
hence the advice so often given by the instructed, to keep, if possible, a room
or closet set apart for meditation, such a place soon gaining an atmosphere
purer and subtler than that of the surrounding world. It is of little use for
the theosophical student to be acquainted with these laws if he does not
utilise them to his own helping, and to the helping of those around him.
Attitude
towards Inspiration
What
should be the attitude of the theosophical student towards the inspired man or
the inspired book? He should be receptive, stilling all his normal vibrations
so far as is possible, and opening his whole nature to the impact and influx of
the waves of vibration that pour forth upon him. But his attitude should be
more than receptive: he should gently endeavour to attune himself and to
co-operate with the inflowing waves. He should try to strengthen the
sympathetic vibrations, so that the accompanying changes in consciousness may
be as complete as possible. For this he must pour out to the inspiring Object
his love, his trust, his complete confidence and self-surrender, for thus only
can he attune his bodies into sympathy with those of the Inspirer. He must, for
the time, empty himself of his own ideas, his own feelings, his own activities,
surrendering himself to reproduce, not to initiate. As the unruffled lake can
mirror the moon and the stars, but as that same lake rippled by a passing
breeze can yield only broken reflexions, so may the lower being, steadying his
mind, calming his desires, and imposing stillness on his activities, reproduce
within himself the image of the higher, so may the disciples mirror the
Master's mind. And so, also, if his own thoughts spring up, his own desires
arise, will he have but broken reflexions, dancing lights, that tell him
nought.
If
you are going to read one of the inspired books of the world— The Imitation of
Christ; The Golden Verses of Pythagoras; The Light on the Path; The Voice of
the Silence —it is well to preface the reading with a prayer, if that be your
habitual way of raising your consciousness to its highest mood, or with the
repetition of a mantra, or the soft chanting of some familiar and beloved
rhythm, in order to bring yourself into a sympathetic condition. Then read a
phrase, re-read, brood over it, savour it mentally, suck out its essence, its
life.
Thus
shall your subtle body become, to some extent at least, attuned to that of the
inspired writer, and repeating his vibrations, shall set up in your
consciousness the corresponding changes. Priceless is the value of inspired
books: they are steps of a ladder set up between earth and heaven, a veritable
Jacob's ladder, on which descend and ascend the angels of God.
Observation
There
remains a third class of books worthy of the attention of the theosophical
student, but towards which his attitude should be entirely different from those
which he adopts towards the revealed and the inspired. These are books
containing the observations of students more advanced than himself,
observations made by students who are evolving in knowledge of, and in power
on, those planes, and have not yet reached the stature of the Perfect Man.
There are books such as The Secret Doctrine and Esoteric Buddhism, written by
disciples, which are not records of the direct observations of students, but
are rather transcriptions of the teachings of Masters, into which errors may
creep by misunderstanding of those teachings. H.P. Blavatsky herself told us
that there were inevitably errors in The Secret Doctrine; and as we have in
that wonderful book her own descriptions of the pictures shown to her by her
Master, there is an opening for possible errors of observation: these are
probably not serious, as she was carefully overlooked and aided during the
writing. These two books stand apart from the bulk of our literature, the
Masters having, been largely concerned in their production. The books I have in
mind are those written by disciples, using their own normal faculties,
faculties still in course of evolution; books relating chiefly to the astral,
mental, and buddhic planes, to the constitution of man, to the past of
individuals, nations, races, and worlds. We are gradually accumulating a large
amount of literature of this kind, a literature of observations by students
using superphysical faculties. With regard to this, certain things need to be
borne in mind.
First: the
students in question
are in course
of evolution, and the faculties
of which they make use today, which have
become their normal faculties, are more developed and reach higher planes than
those which they used ten or fifteen years ago. Hence they see now very much
more than they saw then, both in quantity and quality, and this enlarged sight
must inevitably give reports differing in fullness from that of the earlier and
narrower vision.
Secondly:
this greater fullness will change relative proportions and perspective. A thing
which seemed imposing and independent when seen alone, may become subordinate
and comparatively insignificant when seen as a part of a larger whole. It may
change form and colour, seen with surroundings which become visible only when
it is looked at with a higher vision. That which was a globe, sailing through
space, to the physical eye, becomes the free end of a continuous body,
materially attached to the sun, when seen with superphysical sight. Was it
false to describe it a globe? Yes, and no.
It
was and is a globe on the physical plane, answering to all that is meant by a
globe down here. In subtler regions it is not a globe, but a body, the tip of
which is a globe only to gross vision, vision to which its continuation is
invisible.
Thirdly:
the keener vision detects intermediate stages before unseen, and shows a series
of changes between two which, to the less acute sight, were in immediate
sequence. Thus, in the earlier observations, it was said that the ultimate
physical atom broke up into astral matter. When a similar phenomenon is studied
twelve years later, it is seen that the physical atom breaks up into an immense
number of inconceivably minute particles, and that these immediately group
themselves into forty-nine astral atoms, which may or may not, again, combine
into astral molecules. Again, a whirling wall was mentioned: keener vision sees
no wall, but an illusory enclosure, caused by rapid motion, like the fiery
circle traced by a whirling fire-tipped stick. So, in the continuous light of
gas or electricity, a whirling disk of black and white rays shows grey; put out
the lights, and let the darkness be rent by a lightning-flash, the disk hangs
motionless, every black and white ray distinct. Which is the true observation?
The eye in each case bears true witness to what it sees. The different
conditions impose upon it different visions.
Other
differences also arise, but these may serve as samples. Are, then, books
relating to observations useless? They only become useless, even mischievous,
when the theosophical student treats them as revelations or inspirations
instead of as observations. Observation is the basis of scientific knowledge;
the correction of earlier observations by later ones is the condition of
scientific progress. The student of optics, when confronted with the
black-and-white rayed disk, the grey disk, the whirling disk hanging
motionless, does not conclude that the conflicting observations make
observations useless. He searches for and finds the conditions of light, of the
constitution of the eye, which explain the equally true though contradictory
reports. He submits the observations to renewed experiment and to the scrutiny
of reason, until from the contradictions emerges the many-sided truth.
Scientific
Attitude
What
should be the attitude of the theosophical student to books of observations? To
all such books you must take up the attitude of the scientific student, not of
the believer. You must bring to bear upon them a bright intelligence, a keen
mind, an eager intellect, a thoughtful and critical reason. You must not accept
as final, observations made by other students, even though those students are
using faculties which you yourselves have not as yet developed. You should
accept them only for what they are —observations liable to modification, to
correction, to reviewal. You should hold them with a light grasp, as hypotheses
temporarily accepted until confirmed or negated by further observations,
including your own. If they illuminate obscurities, if they conduce to sound
morality, take them and use them; but never let them become fetters to your
mind, gaolers of your thought. Study these books, but do not swallow them;
understand them, but hold your judgment in suspense: these books are useful
servants but dangerous masters; they are to be studied, not worshipped. Make
your own opinions, do not borrow those of others; do not be in such a hurry to
know that you accept other people's knowledge, for ready-made opinions, like
ready-made clothes, are neither well-fitting nor becoming.
There
is a dangerous tendency in the Theosophical Society to make books of
observations authoritative instead of using them as materials for study. We
must not add to the number of blind believers who already exist, but to the
number of sane and sober students, who patiently form their own opinions and
educate their own faculties. Use your own judgment on every observation
submitted to you; examine it as thoroughly as possible; criticise it as fully
as you can. It is a poor service you do us when you turn students into popes,
and, parrot-like, repeat as authoritative, statements that you do not know to
be true. Moreover, blind belief is the road to equally blind scepticism: you
place a student on a pedestal and loudly proclaim him to be a prophet, despite
his protests; and then, when you find he has made some mistake, as he warned
you was likely, you turn round, pull him down, and trample on him. You belabour
him when you should belabour your own blindness, your own stupidity, your own
anxiety to believe.
Is
it not time that we should cease to be children, and begin to be men and women,
realising the greatness of our opportunities and the smallness of our
achievements? Is it not time to offer to Truth the homage of study instead of
that of blind credulity? Let us ever be ready to correct a mistaken impression
or an imperfect observation, to walk with open eyes and mind alert, remembering
that the best service to Truth is examination. Truth is a sun, shining by its
own light; once seen, it cannot be rejected. 'Let Truth and falsehood grapple;
who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a fair encounter?'
END OF THIS
BOOK
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