Interesting anecdote

barney · December 23, 2004

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad has eloquent passages on the Absolute. Yajnavalkya says:

For when there is duality, then one smells another, one sees another, one thinks of another, one understands another. But when everything has become the Self, then by what and whom should one smell, by what and whom should one see, hear, speak, think, understand? By what should one know that by which all this is known? By what, my dear, should one know the knower?

He is the unseen seer, the unheard hearer, the unthought thinker, the unknown knower. There is no other seer but he, no other hearer but he, no other thinker but he, no other knower but he. He is your Self, the inner controller, the immortal, the imperishable. Everything else is evil.

In Katha Upanishad we have the story of Nachiketas (which means not perceived—mysticism). He spends three days without food at the house of Yama—i.e., he enters into the third spiritual plane, a plane where the light of Spirit shines with unfading glory, to meet Yama, who offers him three boons.

As to the third boon, Nachiketas asks Yama: What exists after death, what is death and immortality? Yama tries to evade him and tells him that he would make him the Lord of the world, he could have all his desires fulfilled, enjoy all the pleasures of the world, etc. But Nachiketas replies: "Transient are all these, O Yama, and they wear out the vigour of all the senses. Keep all these with you." He did not want anything except to know "what there is in the great hereafter." That phrase, "they wear out the vigour of all the senses," refers to the three e's i.e., entertainment, excitement and exhaustion. When we make our minds a playground of our senses, we seek entertainment which leads to excitement; then our vital powers are completely drained and we feel totally exhausted.

Then Yama tells him about the one universal, imperishable, changeless Self. He says: "That which is without sound, without touch, without form, without decay, and likewise without taste, without change, without smell, without beginning, without end, beyond the great and ever-abiding—by realizing it one is freed from the jaws of death."

In this verse we have the secret of death communicated by Atman. The secret of death held by mind relates only to "after-death states," not its meaning of discontinuity, not in continuity of Time, i.e., not the clumsy words we use for Time—past, present, future, as the Mahatma says—but the Eternal Present. This means that when we are acting on the plane of duality we will be devoured by the illusion of Time. Only when we start functioning from the plane of unity we can reach beyond Time, i.e., the plane of "SAT," Beness—Duration, as H.P.B. says: the "great beyond" of the Upanishads.

"I am Time matured, come hither for the destruction of these creatures," says Sri Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita (XI, 32). "Time was not, for it lay asleep in the infinite bosom of Duration," says the Stanza of Dzyan. Time, continuity, are limitations. Hence we have the statement: "Parabrahm (the One Reality, the Absolute) is the field of Absolute Consciousness, i.e., that Essence which is out of all relation to conditioned existence" (S.D., I, 15). Relationships relate only to the plane of duality, where we use words such as karma, reincarnation, principles, higher, lower, etc; whereas on the plane of unity these disappear. There is only one divine principle. In fact, H.P.B. states that there is only one Principle—LIFE. All other principles are modifications of this One Principle. "In occultism every qualificative change in the state of our consciousness gives to man a new aspect, and if it prevails and becomes part of the living and acting Ego, it must be (and is) given a special name" (The Key to Theosophy, Indian ed., p. 116). In fact, we are seven in One.

As we function on this plane of duality, how do we get to the plane of unity? As man is indissolubly linked to the Whole and as he is a direct ray of the Absolute, this union is possible for him by cultivating unselfishness and universal love for all that lives and breathes. When his consciousness is turned inwards, there is a conjunction between Manas and Buddhi. In a spiritually regenerated man this conjunction is permanent and Manas clings to Buddhi beyond the threshold of Devachan, when it is said that his third eye is active.

As the Bhagavad-Gita points out (XVIII, 4): "Deeds of sacrifice, of mortification, and of charity should not be forsaken." They purify our mind, although they do not make us spiritual. Once the mind becomes pure, it becomes like an alabaster vase, reflecting the radiance of Atma-Buddhi.

This "Mind" is manas, or rather its lower reflection, which whenever it disconnects itself, for the time being, with kama, becomes the guide of the highest mental faculties, and is the organ of free will in physical man. (H.P.B. in "Psychic and Noetic Action")

When Manas is freed from lower Kama, the pavamana fire (fire by friction) is activated and Buddhi is cemented with Manas. Then man is in a high spiritual state and able to sense the Reality. This is what is meant by saying that his third eye is active.

In order to live in Spirit while in a body, a clean life, a pure heart and an eager intellect, coupled with a life of high morality and purity of soul, is a must. Then it is possible to attain to a state where one can have, as described by Iamblichus: (1) ecstasy or illumination, when one is able to use his spiritual vision and see the truth, (2) prophetic visions, (3) action of Spirit through Will, and (4) control over lower elementals. This is Divine Theurgy and it has to be preceded not only by the training of one's inner senses but also by a knowledge of the personal self and its relationship with the Divine Self. Then one becomes like Prospero, the magician "Man-spirit proves God-spirit."

H.P.B. states: "With each morning's awakening try to live through the day in harmony with the Higher Self" (She Being Dead Yet Speaketh, p. 12). In this statement we have a hint as to how we can apply the Fundamentals in every aspect of our daily life.