Theos-Talk Archives (September 1999 Message tt00135)

Hi Daniel,

you wrote:
> I think it would be much more productive for this Internet discussion
> group to first discuss in
> some DETAIL what HPB and the Mahatmas taught about
> "immortality" and  try to ascertain what idea or ideas
> they were trying to convey.


Well here is an attempt to do just that.  There are endless references to
"immortality" in HPB's writings, enough to form a small book in itself.
Just the tree short passages immediately below gives some idea how central
this notion was/is in Theosophy.

"ENQUIRER. I was told that the Theosophical Society was originally founded
to crush Spiritualism and belief in the survival of the individuality in
man?

THEOSOPHIST. You are misinformed. Our beliefs are all founded on that
immortal individuality. But then, like so many others, you confuse
personality with individuality. "
(Key to Theosophy, page 32)


"Matter, deprived of its soul and spirit, or its divine essence, cannot
speak to the human heart. But the identity of the soul and spirit, of real,
immortal man, as Theosophy teaches us, once proven and deep-rooted in our
hearts, would lead us far on the road of real charity and brotherly
goodwill."
(Key.. page 43)

"Let once man's immortal spirit take possession of the temple of his body,
drive out the money-changers and every unclean thing, and his own divine
humanity will redeem him, for when he is thus at one with himself he will
know the 'builder of the Temple.'"
(Key..  page 53)

As to whether HPB's affiliation with Buddhism meant she did not believe we
are immortal can be found in her response to the question below:

"ENQUIRER. But we are distinctly told that most of the Buddhists do not
believe in the Soul's immortality?

THEOSOPHIST. No more do we, if you mean by Soul the personal Ego, or
life-Soul -- Nephesh. But every learned Buddhist believes in the individual
or divine Ego. Those who do not, err in their judgment. They are as mistaken
on this point, as those Christians who mistake the theological
interpolations of the later editors of the Gospels about damnation and
hell-fire, for verbatim utterances of Jesus. Neither Buddha nor "Christ"
ever wrote anything themselves, but both spoke in allegories and used "dark
sayings," as all true Initiates did, and will do for a long time yet to
come. Both Scriptures treat of all such metaphysical questions very
cautiously, and both, Buddhist and Christian records, sin by that excess of
exotericism; the dead letter meaning far overshooting the mark in both
cases."
(Key.. page 77)

So what is this "individual or divine Ego" which HPB refers to as being
immortal?  HPB invites us to see that there is more to the human
constitution than the personal Ego (the personality) and the SELF.  There is
an intermediary aspect to consider, referred to quite often simply as the
INDIVIDUALITY.  This is intimately connected to the fifth principle, MANAS,
(a term HPB uses in its esoteric not exoteric sense).

"There is but one real man, enduring through the cycle of life and immortal
in essence, if not in form, and this is Manas, the Mind-man or embodied
Consciousness."
(Key... page 100)

In the Theosphical Glossary, HPB distinguishes two meanings applied to the
term MANAS.  The first being the normal sanksrit definition  "the mind",
"mental faculty" etc.  However she then goes on to define it as:

"Esoterically, however it means, when unqualified, the Higher Ego, or the
sentient reincarnating Principle in man. When qualified it is called by
Theosophists Buddhi-Manas or the Spiritual Soul in contradistinction to its
human reflection - Kama-Manas"
(Theosophical Glossary)

Discussing the similarity between Plato's teachings and Theosophy HPB
writes:

"The Nous [Atma-Buddhi] is the spirit (whether in Kosmos or in man), and the
logos [Manas], whether Universe or astral body, the emanation of the former,
the physical body being merely the animal. Our external powers perceive
phenomena; our Nous alone is able to recognise their noumena. It is the
logos alone, or the noumenon, that survives, because it is immortal in its
very nature and essence, and the logos in man is the Eternal Ego, that which
reincarnates and lasts for ever.
(Key.. page 93)

Returning to the Key, HPB gives some outline of the role and function of
Manas in relation to immortality.

"we have Manas (or the Soul in general) in its two aspects: when attaching
itself to Anoia (our Kama rupa, or the "Animal Soul" in "Esoteric
Buddhism,") it runs towards entire annihilation, as far as the personal Ego
is concerned; when allying itself to the Nous (Atma-Buddhi) it merges into
the immortal, imperishable Ego, and then its spiritual consciousness of the
personal that was, becomes immortal."
(Key.. page 93)

The distinction between personal Ego(Kama-Manas), the Individuality (Higher
Manas) and SELF (Monad, Atma-Buddhi) is a helpful one for understanding the
last part of the passage above.  As far as I understand it, what HPB is
suggesting in the KEY (and the same is repeated a number of ways in the
Mahatma Letters) is that while the personality is clearly not immortal and
lasts but the length of one lifetime,  any spiritual aspirations or elements
of the personal consciousness that reflect in some way the more universal
principles (eg Altruism, Oneness & so on) are immortalised.  Those elements
of the personal consciousness that tend towards selfishness, separatism, the
'instinctual' nature perish.  Referring to the former...

"...the personal consciousness can hardly last longer than the personality
itself, can it? And such consciousness, as I already told you, survives only
throughout Devachan, after which it is reabsorbed, first, in the individual,
and then in the universal consciousness."
(Key... page 107)

So it is not Manas, or rather higer Manas, that is absorbed back into Buddhi
at the end of each incarnation.  It is the "spiritual consciousness of the
personal that was" that is absorbed into the Individuality, or rather
Atma-Buddhi-Manas.

as for the selfish tendencies...

"ENQUIRER. You have just spoken of psuche running towards its entire
annihilation if it attaches itself to Anoia. What did Plato, and do you mean
by this?

THEOSOPHIST. The entire annihilation of the personal consciousness, as an
exceptional and rare case, I think. The general and almost invariable rule
is the merging of the personal into the individual or immortal consciousness
of the Ego, a transformation or a divine transfiguration, and the entire
annihilation only of the lower quaternary.
(Key.. page 94)

HPB seems to suggest that while the immortality of the MONAD (ie
ATMA-BUDDHI) is a given, the immortality of this INDIVIDUALITY is something
that has to be won.

"We say that we only allow the presence of the radiation of Spirit (or Atma)
in the astral capsule, and so far only as that spiritual radiancy is
concerned. We say that man and Soul have to conquer their immortality by
ascending towards the unity with which, if successful, they will be finally
linked and into which they are finally, so to speak, absorbed."
(page 101)

Rather than this being anti-buddhist, HPB states this is also the teaching
of esoteric Budhism.

"The whole esotericism of the Buddhistic philosophy is based on this
mysterious teaching, understood by so few persons, and so totally
misrepresented by many of the most learned modern scholars. Even
metaphysicians are too inclined to confound the effect with the cause. An
Ego who has won his immortal life as spirit will remain the same inner self
throughout all his rebirths on earth; but this does not imply necessarily
that he must either remain the Mr. Smith or Mr. Brown he was on earth, or
lose his individuality. Therefore, the astral soul and the terrestrial body
of man may, in the dark hereafter, be absorbed into the cosmical ocean of
sublimated elements, and cease to feel his last personal Ego (if it did not
deserve to soar higher), and the divine Ego still remain the same unchanged
entity, though this terrestrial experience of his emanation may be totally
obliterated at the instant of separation from the unworthy vehicle."
(Key... page 104)

However there is an interesting passage, easy to miss, that points to a real
mystery, at least as I see it:

"Both the human Spirit (or the individuality), the re-incarnating Spiritual
Ego, and Buddhi, the Spiritual soul, are pre-existent. But, while the former
exists as a distinct entity, an individualization, the soul exists as
pre-existing breath, an unscient portion of an intelligent whole. Both were
originally formed from the Eternal Ocean of light; but as the
Fire-Philosophers, the mediaeval Theosophists, expressed it, there is a
visible as well as invisible spirit in fire." (Key... page 106)

If immortality is something that has to be conquered how is it that the
Individuality is "pre-existent"?

I believe a clue to this is in the following question-answer found in the
Secret Doctrine, and which I have already written extensively about in other
places (ie bn-study) so I won't repeat it all again here.  It touches on the
nature of mind, Manas, and shows that from the estoteric standpoint it is
considered as more than just a faculty.

"What is human mind in its higher aspect, whence comes it, if it is not a
portion of the essence -- and, in some rare cases of incarnation, the very
essence -- of a higher Being: one from a
higher and divine plane."
(Secret Doctrine, vol 2, 81)

This of course requires an understanding of those 'spriritual intelligences'
refered to as the Dhyani Chohans and Dhyani Buddhas. A topic to leave for
another occasion.  Perhaps one can just say that the latter are those who
have reached Nirvana in previous cycles, manvantara and have returned at a
far higher spiritual stage in the current cycle.  There are a number of
references in the Secret Doctrine that the Individual Monad lasts even
through Nirvana and Pralaya.  Refernce to this can also be found in The Key
to Theosophy:

"When the spirit, in Buddhistic parlance, enters Nirvana, it loses objective
existence, but retains subjective being. To objective minds this is becoming
absolute "nothing"; to subjective, NO-THING, nothing to be displayed to
sense. Thus, their Nirvana means the certitude of individual immortality in
Spirit, not in Soul, which, though "the most ancient of all things," is
still -- along with all the other Gods -- a finite emanation, in forms and
individuality, if not in substance."
(Key.. page 116)


All refererences above, bar two, are taken purposefully from only one of
HPB's works to illustrate how central this teaching on immortality is to
Theosophy.  The more we look the more we will find.

...Peter




-- THEOSOPHY WORLD -- Theosophical Talk -- theos-talk@theosophy.com

Letters to the Editor, and discussion of theosophical ideas and
teachings. To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message consisting of
"subscribe" or "unsubscribe" to theos-talk-request@theosophy.com.