THE RIDDLE OF LIFE/PART 5
CHAPTER
V
MAN'S
IMMORTAL BODIES
'WE
have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens',
said the great Christian Initiate St. Paul, 'for in this [body] we groan,
earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven'. This
heavenly house it is which is built of man's immortal bodies, the habitation of
the spirit through unending ages, the dwelling-place of man himself, through
births and deaths, through the measureless period of his immortal life in
manifestation.
The spirit
which is 'the offspring of God' abides ever in the bosom of the Father, in very
truth a Son of God, sharer in His eternal life. God made man 'to be the image
of His own eternity'. This spirit we call the Monad, because it is a unit, the
very essence of Selfhood. The Monad, when he descends into matter in order to
conquer and spiritualise it, appropriates to himself an atom of each of the
three higher worlds, to make the nucleus of his three higher bodies—the
super-spiritual, the spiritual and the intellectual. To these, by a thread of
spiritual (buddhic) matter, he attaches also a particle from each of the three
lower worlds, the nucleus of the three lower bodies.
For
long, long ages he broods over these, as his future mortal bodies, just touched
with his life, climb slowly upwards through the mineral, vegetable and animal
kingdoms; meanwhile little aggregations of the matter of the three higher
worlds, the 'building of God...in the heavens' form a channel for his life,
beginning to manifest in those worlds; and when the animal form has reached the
point at which the upclimbing life makes strong appeal to the higher, he sends
down through these an answering pulse of his life, and the intellectual body is
suddenly completed, as light flashes out between the carbons of an electric
arc. The man has individualised for life in the lower worlds.
The
super-spiritual (atmic) body is but an atom of its lofty world, finest film of
matter, embodiment of spirit, 'God made flesh' in a very real sense, divinity
dipping down into the ocean of matter, not less divine because embodied.
Gradually into this super-spiritual body will pass the pure result of all
experiences, stored up in eternity, the two lower immortal bodies gradually
merging themselves in it, blending with it, the glorious vesture of a man
consciously divine, made perfect.
The
spiritual (buddhic) body is of the second manifested world, the world of pure
spiritual wisdom, knowledge and love in one, sometimes called the
'Christ-body', as it is this which is born into activity at the first great
Initiation, and which develops to the 'fulness of the measure of the stature of
Christ' on the path of holiness. It is fed by all lofty and loving aspirations,
by pure compassion and all-embracing tenderness and pity.
The
intellectual (causal) body is the higher mind, by which the man deals with
abstractions, which is 'of the nature of knowledge', in which he knows truth by
intuition, not reasoning, borrowing from the lower mind ratiocinative methods
only to establish in the lower world abstract truths which he himself knows
directly. The man in this body is called the ego, and when this body blends
with the next above it, he is called the spiritual ego, and begins to realise
his own divinity. It is fed and developed by abstract thinking, by strenuous
meditation, by dispassion, by the yoking of intellect to service. It is by
nature separative, being the instrument of individualisation, and must grow
strong and self-sustaining in order to give the necessary stability to the
subtle spiritual body with which it is to blend.
These
are man's immortal bodies, subject neither to birth nor death; they give the
continuous memory which is the essence of individuality; they are the
treasure-house of all that deserves immortality; into them can enter 'nothing
that defileth'; they are the everlasting dwelling-place of the spirit. In these
the promise is realised: 'I will dwell in them and walk in them.' These fulfil
the prayer of the Christ: That they also may be one in Us.' These make good the
triumphant cry of the Hindu: 'I am Thou.'
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