Theos-Talk Archives (October 2003 Message tt00189)

Oct 19 2003

Dear Pablo:

One of the best source books for Theosophical doctrines is The KEY TO
THEOSOPHY - HPB.

Along with this is Mr. Judge's The OCEAN OF THEOSOPHY 

Here are some notes that might help.

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The Ocean of Theosophy by William Q. Judge


Chapter 5 Body and Astral Body

The body, as a mass of flesh, bones, muscles, nerves, brain matter,
bile, mucous, blood, and skin is an object of exclusive care for too
many people, who make it their god because they have come to identify
themselves with it, meaning it only when they say "I." Left to itself it
is devoid of sense, and acts in such a case solely by reflex and
automatic action. This we see in sleep, for then the body assumes
attitudes and makes motions which the waking man does not permit. It is
like mother earth in that it is made up of an infinitesimal number of
"lives." Each of these lives is a sensitive point. Not only are there
microbes, bacilli, and bacteria, but these are composed of others, and
those others of still more minute lives. These lives are not the cells
of the body, but make up the cells, keeping ever within the limits
assigned by evolution to the cell. They are forever whirling and moving
together throughout the whole body, being in certain apparently void
spaces as well as where flesh, membrane, bones, and blood are seen. They
extend, too, beyond the actual outer limits of the body to a measurable
distance. 
One of the mysteries of physical life is hidden among these "lives."
Their action, forced forward by the Life energy -- called Prana or Jiva
-- will explain active existence and physical death. They are divided
into two classes, one the destroyers, the other the preservers, and
these two war upon each other from birth until the destroyers win. In
this struggle the Life Energy itself ends the contest because it is life
that kills. This may seem heterodox, but in Theosophical philosophy it
is held to be the fact. For, it is said, the infant lives because the
combination of healthy organs is able to absorb the life all around it
in space, and is put to sleep each day by the overpowering strength of
the stream of life, since the preservers among the cells of the youthful
body are not yet mastered by the other class. These processes of going
to sleep and waking again are simply and solely the restoring of the
equilibrium in sleep and the action produced by disturbing it when
awake. It may be compared with the arc-electric light wherein the
brilliant arc of light at the point of resistance is the symbol of the
waking active man. So in sleep we are again absorbing and not resisting
the Life Energy; when we wake we are throwing it off. But as it exists
around us like an ocean in which we swim, our power to throw it off is
necessarily limited. Just when we wake we are in equilibrium as to our
organs and life; when we fall asleep we are yet more full of life than
in the morning; it has exhausted us; it finally kills the body. Such a
contest could not be waged forever, since the whole solar system's
weight of life is pitted against the power to resist focussed in one
small human frame. 
The body is considered by the Masters of Wisdom to be the most
transitory, impermanent, and illusionary of the whole series of
constituents in man. Not for a moment is it the same. Ever changing, in
motion in every part, it is in fact never complete or finished though
tangible. The ancients clearly perceived this, for they elaborated a
doctrine called Naimittika [the correct Sanskrit term is Nitya] Pralaya,
or the continual change in material things, the continual destruction.
This is known now to science in the doctrine that the body undergoes a
complete alteration and renovation every seven years. At the end of the
first seven years it is not the same body it was in the beginning. At
the end of our days it has changed seven times, perhaps more. And yet it
presents the same general appearance from maturity until death; and it
is a human form from birth to maturity. This is a mystery science
explains not; it is a question pertaining to the cell and to the means
whereby the general human shape is preserved. 
The "cell" is an illusion. It is merely a word. It has no existence as a
material thing, for any cell is composed of other cells. What, then, is
a cell? It is the ideal form within which the actual physical atoms --
made up of the "lives" -- arrange themselves. As it is admitted that the
physical molecules are forever rushing away from the body, they must be
leaving the cells each moment. Hence there is no physical cell, but the
privative limits of one, the ideal walls and general shape. The
molecules assume position within the ideal shape according to the laws
of nature, and leave it again almost at once to give place to other
atoms. And as it is thus with the body, so is it with the earth and with
the solar system. Thus also is it, though in slower measure, with all
material objects. They are all in constant motion and change. This is
modern and also ancient wisdom. This is the physical explanation of
clairvoyance, clairaudience, telepathy, and mind-reading. It helps to
show us what a deluding and unsatisfactory thing our body is. 
Although, strictly speaking, the second constituent of man is the Astral
Body -- called in Sanskrit Linga Sarira -- we will consider Life Energy
-- or Prana and Jiva in Sanskrit -- together, because to our observation
the phenomenon of life is more plainly exhibited in connection with the
body. 
Life is not the result of the operation of the organs, nor is it gone
when the body dissolves. It is a universally pervasive principle. It is
the ocean in which the earth floats; it permeates the globe and every
being and object on it. It works unceasingly on and around us, pulsating
against and through us forever. When we occupy a body we merely use a
more specialized instrument than any other for dealing with both Prana
and Jiva. Strictly speaking, Prana is breath; and as breath is necessary
for continuance of life in the human machine, that is the better word.
Jiva means "life," and also is applied to the living soul, for the life
in general is derived from the Supreme Life itself. Jiva is therefore
capable of general application, whereas Prana is more particular. It
cannot be said that one has a definite amount of this Life Energy which
will fly back to its source should the body be burned, but rather that
it works with whatever be the mass of matter in it. We, as it were,
secrete or use it as we live. For whether we are alive or dead,
life-energy is still there; in life among our organs sustaining them, in
death among the innumerable creatures that arise from our destruction.
We can no more do away with this life than we can erase the air in which
the bird floats, and like the air it fills all the spaces on the planet,
so that nowhere can we lose the benefit of it nor escape its final
crushing power. But in working upon the physical body this life -- Prana
-- needs a vehicle, means, or guide, and this vehicle is the astral
body. .
It may be objected that the term Astral Body is not the right one for
this purpose. The objection is one which arises from the nature and
genesis of the English language, for as that has grown up in a struggle
with nature and among a commercial people it has not as yet coined the
words needed for designating the great range of faculties and organs of
the unseen man. And as its philosophers have not admitted the existence
of these inner organs, the right terms do not exist in the language. So
in looking for words to describe the inner body the only ones found in
English were the "astral body." This term comes near to the real fact,
since the substance of this form is derived from cosmic matter or star
matter, roughly speaking. But the old Sanskrit word describes it exactly
-- Linga Sarira, the design body -- because it is the design or model
for the physical body. This is better than "ethereal body," as the
latter might be said to be subsequent to the physical, whereas in fact
the astral body precedes the material one. 
The astral body is made of matter of very fine texture as compared with
the visible body, and has a great tensile strength, so that it changes
but little during a lifetime, while the physical alters every moment.
And not only has it this immense strength, but at the same time
possesses an elasticity permitting its extension to a considerable
distance. It is flexible, plastic, extensible, and strong. The matter of
which it is composed is electrical and magnetic in its essence, and is
just what the whole world was composed of in the dim past when the
processes of evolution had not yet arrived at the point of producing the
material body for man. But it is not raw or crude matter. Having been
through a vast period of evolution and undergone purifying processes of
an incalculable number, its nature has been refined to a degree far
beyond the gross physical elements we see and touch with the physical
eye and hand. 
The astral body is the guiding model for the physical one, and all the
other kingdoms have the same astral model. Vegetables, minerals, and
animals have the ethereal double, and this theory is the only one which
will answer the question how it is that the seed produces its own kind
and all sentient beings bring forth their like. Biologists can only say
that the facts are as we know them, but can give no reason why the acorn
will never grow anything but an oak except that no man ever knew it to
be otherwise. But in the old schools of the past the true doctrine was
known, and it has been once again brought out in the West through the
efforts of H. P. Blavatsky and those who have found inspiration in her
works. 
This doctrine is, that in early times of the evolution of this globe the
various kingdoms of nature are outlined in plan or ideal form first, and
then the astral matter begins to work on this plan with the aid of the
Life principle, until after long ages the astral human form is evolved
and perfected. This is, then, the first form that the human race had,
and corresponds in a way with the allegory of man's state in the garden
of Eden. After another long period, during which the cycle of further
descent into matter is rolling forward, the astral form at last clothes
itself with a "coat of skin," and the present physical form is on the
scene. This is the explanation of the verse of the book of Genesis which
describes the giving of coats of skin to Adam and Eve. It is the final
fall into matter, for from that point on the man within strives to raise
the whole mass of physical substance up to a higher level, and to inform
it all with a larger measure of spiritual influence, so that it may be
ready to go still further on during the next great period of evolution
after the present one is ended. So at the present time the model for the
growing child in the womb is the astral body already perfect in shape
before the child is born. It is on this the molecules arrange themselves
until the child is complete, and the presence of the ethereal
design-body will explain how the form grows into shape, how the eyes
push themselves out from within to the surface of the face, and many
other mysterious matters in embryology which are passed over by medical
men with a description but with no explanation. 
This will also explain, as nothing else can, the cases of marking of the
child in the womb sometimes denied by physicians but well-known by those
who care to watch, to be a fact of frequent occurrence. The growing
physical form is subject to the astral model; it is connected with the
imagination of the mother by physical and psychical organs; the mother
makes a strong picture from horror, fear, or otherwise, and the astral
model is then similarly affected. In the case of marking by being born
legless, the ideas and strong imagination of the mother act so as to cut
off or shrivel up the astral leg, and the result is that the molecules,
having no model of leg to work on, make no physical leg whatever; and
similarly in all such cases. But where we find a man who still feels the
leg which the surgeon has cut off, or perceives the fingers that were
amputated, then the astral member has not been interfered with, and
hence the man feels as if it were still on his person. For knife or acid
will not injure the astral model, but in the first stages of its growth
ideas and imagination have the power of acid and sharpened steel. 
In the ordinary man who has not been trained in practical occultism or
who has not the faculty by birth, the astral body cannot go more than a
few feet from the physical one. It is a part of that physical, it
sustains it and is incorporated in it just as the fibers of the mango
are all through that fruit. But there are those who, by reason of
practices pursued in former lives on the earth, have a power born with
them of unconsciously sending out the astral body. These are mediums,
some seers, and many hysterical, cataleptic, and scrofulous people.
Those who have trained themselves by a long course of excessively hard
discipline which reaches to the moral and mental nature and quite beyond
the power of the average man of the day, can use the astral form at
will, for they have gotten completely over the delusion that the
physical body is a permanent part of them, and, besides, they have
learned the chemical and electrical laws governing in this matter. In
their case they act with knowledge and consciously; in the other cases
the act is done without power to prevent it, or to bring it about at
will, or to avoid the risks attendant on such use of potencies in nature
of a high character. 
The astral body has in it the real organs of the outer sense organs. In
it are the sight, hearing, power to smell, and the sense of touch. It
has a complete system of nerves and arteries of its own for the
conveyance of the astral fluid which is to that body as our blood is to
the physical. It is the real personal man. There are located the
subconscious perception and the latent memory, which the hypnotizers of
the day are dealing with and being baffled by. So when the body dies the
astral man is released, and as at death the immortal man -- the Triad --
flies away to another state, the astral becomes a shell of the once
living man and requires time to dissipate. It retains all the memories
of the life lived by the man, and thus reflexly and automatically can
repeat what the dead man knew, said, thought, and saw. It remains near
the deserted physical body nearly all the time until that is completely
dissipated, for it has to go through its own process of dying. It may
become visible under certain conditions. It is the spook of the
spiritualistic seance-rooms, and is there made to masquerade as the real
spirit of this or that individual. Attracted by the thoughts of the
medium and the sitters, it vaguely flutters where they are, and then is
galvanized into a factitious life by a whole host of elemental forces
and by the active astral body of the medium who is holding the seance or
of any other medium in the audience. From it (as from a photograph) are
then reflected into the medium's brain all the boasted evidences which
spiritualists claim go to prove identity of deceased friend or relative.
These evidences are accepted as proof that the spirit of the deceased is
present, because neither mediums nor sitters are acquainted with the
laws governing their own nature, nor with the constitution, power, and
function of astral matter and astral man. .
Three explanations are offered: First, that the astral body of the
living medium detaches itself from its corpus and assumes the appearance
of the so-called spirit; for one of the properties of the astral matter
is capacity to reflect an image existing unseen in ether. Second, the
actual astral shell of the deceased -- wholly devoid of his or her
spirit and conscience -- becomes visible and tangible when the condition
of air and ether is such as to so alter the vibration of the molecules
of the astral shell that it may become visible. The phenomena of density
and apparent weight are explained by other laws. Third, an unseen mass
of electrical and magnetic matter is collected, and upon it is reflected
out of the astral light a picture of any desired person either dead or
living. This is taken to be the "spirit" of such persons, but it is not,
and has been justly called by H. P. Blavatsky a "psychological fraud,"
because it pretends to be what it is not. And, strange to say, this very
explanation of materializations has been given by a "spirit" at a
regular seance, but has never been accepted by the spiritualists just
because it upsets their notion of the return of the spirits of deceased
persons. 
Finally, the astral body will explain nearly all the strange psychical
things happening in daily life and in dealings with genuine mediums; it
shows what an apparition may be and the possibility of such being seen,
and thus prevents the scientific doubter from violating good sense by
asserting you did not see what you know you have seen; it removes
superstition by showing the real nature of these phenomena, and destroys
the unreasonable fear of the unknown which makes a man afraid to see a
"ghost." By it also we can explain the apportation of objects without
physical contact, for the astral hand may be extruded and made to take
hold of an object, drawing it in toward the body. When this is shown to
be possible, then travelers will not be laughed at who tell of seeing
the Hindu yogee make coffee cups fly through the air and distant objects
approach apparently of their own accord untouched by him or anyone else.
All the instances of clairvoyance and clairaudience are to be explained
also by the astral body and astral light. The astral -- which are the
real -- organs do the seeing and the hearing, and as all material
objects are constantly in motion among their own atoms the astral sight
and hearing are not impeded, but work at a distance as great as the
extension of the astral light or matter around and about the earth. Thus
it was that the great seer Swedenborg saw houses burning in the city of
Stockholm when he was at another city many miles off, and by the same
means any clairvoyant of the day sees and hears at a distance.
_____ 



he Ocean of Theosophy by William Q. Judge


Chapter 6


Kama -- Desire

The author of Esoteric Buddhism .gave the name Kama rupa to the fourth
principle of man's constitution. The reason was that the word Kama in
the Sanskrit language means "desire," and as the idea intended to be
conveyed was that the fourth principle was the "body or mass of desires
and passions," Mr. Sinnett added the Sanskrit word for body or form
which is Rupa, thus making the compound word Kamarupa. I shall call it
by the English equivalent -- passions and desires -- because those terms
exactly express its nature. And I do this also in order to make the
sharp issue which actually exists between the psychology and mental
philosophy of the west and those of the east. The west divides man into
intellect, will, and feeling, but it is not understood whether the
passions and desires constitute a principle in themselves or are due
entirely to the body. Indeed, most people consider them as being the
result of the influence of the flesh, for they are designated often by
the terms "desires of the flesh" and "fleshly appetites." The ancients,
however, and the Theosophists know them to be a principle in themselves
and not merely the impulses from the body. There is no help to be had in
this matter from the western psychology, now in its infancy and wholly
devoid of knowledge about the inner, which is the psychical, nature of
man, and from this point there is the greatest divergence between it and
Theosophy. 
The passions and desires are not produced by the body, but, on the
contrary, the body is caused to be by the former. It is desire and
passion which caused us to be born, and will bring us to birth again and
again in this body or in some other.* It is by passion and desire we are
made to evolve through the mansions of death called lives on earth. It
was by the arising of desire in the unknown first cause, the one
absolute existence, that the whole collection of worlds was manifested,
and by means of the influence of desire in the now manifested world is
the latter kept in existence. 
[*Mr. Judge, in The Theosophical Forum, June, 1894, page 12, corrected
this to: "in some body on this earth or another globe."] 
This fourth principle is the balance principle of the whole seven. It
stands in the middle, and from it the ways go up or down. It is the
basis of action and the mover of the will. As the old Hermetists say:
"Behind will stands desire." For whether we wish to do well or ill we
have to first arouse within us the desire for either course. The good
man who at last becomes even a sage had at one time in his many lives to
arouse the desire for the company of holy men and to keep his desire for
progress alive in order to continue on his way. Even a Buddha or a Jesus
had first to make a vow, which is a desire, in some life, that he would
save the world or some part of it, and to persevere with the desire
alive in his heart through countless lives. And equally so, on the other
hand, the bad man life after life took unto himself low, selfish, wicked
desires, thus debasing instead of purifying this principle. On the
material and scientific side of occultism, the use of the inner hidden
powers of our nature, if this principle of desire be not strong the
master power of imagination cannot do its work, because though it makes
a mold or matrix the will cannot act unless it is moved, directed, and
kept up to pitch by desire. 
The desires and passions, therefore, have two aspects, the one being low
and the other high. The low is that shown by the constant placing of the
consciousness entirely below in the body and the astral body; the high
comes from the influence of and aspiration to the trinity above, of
Mind, Buddhi, and Spirit. This fourth principle is like the sign Libra
in the path of the Sun through the Zodiac; when the Sun (who is the real
man) reaches that sign he trembles in the balance. Should he go back the
worlds would be destroyed; he goes onward, and the whole human race is
lifted up to perfection. 
During life the emplacement of the desires and passions is, as obtains
with the astral body, throughout the entire lower man, and like that
ethereal counterpart of our physical person it may be added to or
diminished, made weak or increased in strength, debased or purified. 
At death it informs the astral body, which then becomes a mere shell;
for when a man dies his astral body and principle of passion and desire
leave the physical in company and coalesce. It is then that the term
Kamarupa may be applied, as Kamarupa is really made of astral body and
Kama in conjunction, and this joining of the two makes a shape or form
which though ordinarily invisible is material and may be brought into
visibility. Although it is empty of mind and conscience, it has powers
of its own that can be exercised whenever the conditions permit. These
conditions are furnished by the medium of the spiritualists, and in
every seance room the astral shells of deceased persons are always
present to delude the sitters, whose powers of discrimination have been
destroyed by wonderment. It is the "devil" of the Hindus, and a worse
enemy the poor medium could not have. For the astral spook -- or
Kamarupa -- is but the mass of the desires and passions abandoned by the
real person who has fled to "heaven" and has no concern with the people
left behind, least of all with seances and mediums. Hence, being devoid
of the nobler soul, these desires and passions work only on the very
lowest part of the medium's nature and stir up no good elements, but
always the lower leanings of the being. Therefore it is that even the
spiritualists themselves admit that in the ranks of the mediums there is
much fraud, and mediums have often confessed, "the spirits did tempt me
and I committed fraud at their wish." 
This Kamarupa spook is also the enemy of our civilization, which permits
us to execute men for crimes committed and thus throw out into the ether
the mass of passion and desire free from the weight of the body and
liable at any moment to be attracted to any sensitive person. Being thus
attracted, the deplorable images of crimes committed and also the
picture of the execution and all the accompanying curses and wishes for
revenge are implanted in living persons, who, not seeing the evil, are
unable to throw it off. Thus crimes and new ideas of crimes are wilfully
propagated every day by those countries where capital punishment
prevails. 
The astral shells together with the still living astral body of the
medium, helped by certain forces of nature which the Theosophists call
"elementals," produce nearly all the phenomena of non-fraudulent
spiritualism... The number of cases in which any communication comes
from an actual spirit out of the body is so small as to be countable
almost on one hand. But the spirits of living men sometimes, while their
bodies are asleep, come to seances and take part therein. But they
cannot recollect it, do not know how they do it, and are not
distinguished by mediums from the mass of astral corpses. The fact that
such things can be done by the inner man and not be recollected proves
nothing against these theories, for the child can see without knowing
how the eye acts, and the savage who has no knowledge of the complex
machinery working in his body still carries on the process of digestion
perfectly. And that the latter is unconscious with him is exactly in
line with the theory, for these acts and doings of the inner man are the
unconscious actions of the subconscious mind. These words "conscious"
and "subconscious" are of course used relatively, the unconsciousness
being that of the brain only. And hypnotic experiments have conclusively
proved all these theories, as on one day not far away will be fully
admitted. Besides this, the astral shells of suicides and executed
criminals are the most coherent, longest lived, and nearest to us of all
the shades of Hades, and hence must, out of the necessity of the case,
be the real "controls" of the seance room. 
Passion and desire together with astral model-body are common to men and
animals, as also to the vegetable kingdom, though in the last but
faintly developed. And at one period in evolution no further material
principles had been developed, and all the three higher, of Mind, Soul,
and Spirit, were but latent. Up to this point man and animal were equal,
for the brute in us is made of the passions and the astral body. The
development of the germs of Mind made man because it constituted the
great differentiation. The God within begins with Manas or mind, and it
is the struggle between this God and the brute below which Theosophy
speaks of and warns about. The lower principle is called bad because by
comparison with the higher it is so, but still it is the basis of
action. We cannot rise unless self first asserts itself in the desire to
do better. In this aspect it is called rajas or the active and bad
quality, as distinguished from tamas, or the quality of darkness and
indifference. Rising is not possible unless rajas is present to give the
impulse, and by the use of this principle of passion all the higher
qualities are brought to at last so refine and elevate our desires that
they may be continually placed upon truth and spirit. By this Theosophy
does not teach that the passions are to be pandered to or satiated, for
a more pernicious doctrine was never taught, but the injunction is to
make use of the activity given by the fourth principle so as to ever
rise and not to fall under the dominion of the dark quality that ends
with annihilation, after having begun in selfishness and indifference. 
Having thus gone over the field and shown what are the lower principles,
we find Theosophy teaching that at the present point of man's evolution
he is a fully developed quaternary with the higher principles partly
developed. Hence it is taught that today man shows himself to be moved
by passion and desire. This is proved by a glance at the civilizations
of the earth, for they are all moved by this principle, and in countries
like France, England, and America a glorification of it is exhibited in
the attention to display, to sensuous art, to struggle for power and
place, and in all the habits and modes of living where the gratification
of the senses is sometimes esteemed the highest good. But as Mind is
being evolved more and more as we proceed in our course along the line
of the race development, there can be perceived underneath in all
countries the beginning of the transition from the animal possessed of
the germ of real mind to the man of mind complete. This day is therefore
known to the Masters, who have given out some of the old truths, as the
"transition period." Proud science and prouder religion do not admit
this, but think we are as we always will be. But believing in his
teacher, the theosophist sees all around him the evidence that the race
mind is changing by enlargement, that the old days of dogmatism are gone
and the "age of inquiry" has come, that the inquiries will grow louder
year by year and the answers be required to satisfy the mind as it grows
more and more, until at last, all dogmatism being ended, the race will
be ready to face all problems, each man for himself, all working for the
good of the whole, and that the end will be the perfecting of those who
struggle to overcome the brute. For these reasons the old doctrines are
given out again, and Theosophy asks every one to reflect whether to give
way to the animal below or look up to and be governed by the God within.






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