Theos-Talk Archives (November 2004 Message tt00006)

Following passages are taken from the book Monad.
Fraternally,
Anand Gholap
 

46.  
STUDENTS who have not yet experienced the buddhic consciousness - 
consciousness in the intui­tional world - frequently ask us to 
describe it. Efforts have been made in this direction, and many 
references to this consciousness and its character­istics are to be 
found scattered through our literature; yet the seeker after 
knowledge finds these unsatisfactory, and we cannot wonder at it.

47. The 
truth is that all description is necessarily and essentially 
defective; it is impossible in physical words to give more than the 
merest hint of what this higher consciousness is, for the physical 
brain is incapable of grasping the reality. Those who have read Mr. 
Hinton's remarkable books on the fourth dimension will remember how 
he tries to explain to us our own limitations with regard to higher 
dimensions, by picturing for us with much careful detail the position 
of an entity whose senses could work in two dimensions only. He 
proves that to such a being the simplest actions of our world must be 
incomprehensible. A creature who has no sense of what we call depth 
or thickness could never see any terrestrial object as it really is; 
he could observe only a section of it, and would therefore obtain 
absolutely wrong impressions about even the commonest objects of 
everyday life, while our powers of motion and of action would be 
utterly incomprehensible to him.

48. The 
difficulties which we encounter in trying to understand the phenomena 
even of the astral world are precisely similar to those which Mr. 
Hinton supposes to be experienced by his two-dimensional entity; but 
when we try to raise our thoughts to the intuitional world we have to 
face a state of existence which is lived in no less than six 
dimensions, if we are to continue at that level to employ the same 
nomenclature. So I fear we must admit from the outset that any 
attempt to comprehend this higher consciousness is foredoomed to 
failure; yet, as is but natural, the desire to try again and again to 
grasp something of it arises perennially in the mind of the student. 
I do not venture to think that I can say anything to satisfy this 
craving; the utmost that one can hope is to suggest a few new 
considerations, and perhaps to approach the subject from a some­what 
different point of view.

49. The 
Monad in its own world is practically with­out limitations, at least 
as far as our solar system is concerned. But at every stage of its 
descent into matter it not only veils itself more and more deeply in 
illusion, but it actually loses its powers. If in the beginning of 
its evolution it may be supposed to be able to move and to see in an 
infinite number of these directions in space which we call 
dimensions, at each downward step it cuts off one of these, until for 
the consciousness of the physical brain only three of them are left. 
It will thus be seen that by this involution into matter we are cut 
off from the knowledge of all but a minute part of the worlds which 
surround us; and furthermore, even what is left to us is but 
imperfectly seen. Let us make an effort to realise what the higher 
consciousness may be by gradually supposing away some of our limita­
tions; and although we are labouring under them even while we are 
thus supposing, the effort may possibly suggest to us some faint 
adumbration of the reality.

50. Let 
us begin with the physical world. The first thing that strikes us is 
that our consciousness, even of that world, is curiously imperfect. 
The student need feel no surprise at this, for he knows that we are 
at present only just beyond the middle of the fourth round, and that 
the perfection of conscious­ness of any plane will not be attained by 
normal humanity until the seventh round. The truth is that our whole 
life is imprisoned within limitations which we do not realise only 
because we have always endured them, and because the ordinary man has 
no conception of a condition in which they do not exist. Let us take 
three examples; let us see how we are limited in our senses, our 
powers and our intellect respectively.

51.  
First, as to our senses. Let us take the sense of sight for an 
example, and see how remarkably imperfect it is. Our physical world 
consists of seven sub-planes or degrees of density of matter, but our 
sight enables us to perceive only two of these with anything 
approaching perfection. We can usually see solid matter, if it is not 
too finely sub­divided; we can see a liquid that is not absolutely 
clear; but we cannot see gaseous matter at all under ordinary 
conditions, except in the rare instances in which it has an 
especially brilliant colour (as in the case of chlorine) or when it 
happens to be dense, to be much compressed, and to be moving in a 
parti­cular way - as in the case of the air which may sometimes be 
seen rising from a heated road. Of the four etheric subdivisions of 
physical matter we remain absolutely unconscious so far as sight is 
concerned, although it is by means of the vibration of some of these 
ethers that what we call light is conveyed to the eye.

52. Let 
us then commence the imaginary process of removing our limitations by 
considering what would be the effect if we really possessed fully the 
sight of the physical world. I am not taking into con­sideration the 
possibility of any increase in the power of our sight, though no 
doubt that also will come in due course, so that we shall be able so 
to alter the focus of the eye as to make it practically a telescope 
or a microscope at will. I am think­ing for the moment only of the 
additional objects that would come into our view if our sight were 
perfected.

53.  
Nothing would any longer be opaque to us, so that we could see 
through a wall almost as though it were not there, and could examine 
the contents of a closed room or of a locked box with the greatest 
ease. I do not mean that by etheric sight a man could see through a 
mountain, or look straight through the earth to the other side of it; 
but he could see a good way into the rock, and he could see down to a 
considerable depth in the earth, much as we can now see through many 
feet of water to the bottom of a clear pool.

54. One 
can readily see a score of ways in which the possession of such a 
faculty would be practically valuable, and it would manifestly add to 
our know­ledge in many directions. All surgical work could be 
performed with an ease and certainty of which at present we have no 
conception, and there would be fewer cases of inaccurate diagnosis. 
We could see the etheric bodies of our friends, and so we should be 
able to indicate unfailingly the source and cause of any nervous 
affection. A whole fresh world would come under the observation of 
the chemist, for he would then be able to deal with ethers as he now 
deals with gases. Our sight would instantly inform us as to the 
healthiness or other­wise of our surroundings, just as even now our 
noses warn us of the presence of certain forms of putrefaction. We 
could see at once when we were in the presence of undesirable germs 
or impurities of any kind, and could take our precau­tions 
accordingly. We could study the great hosts of the fairies, of the 
gnomes and the water-spirits, as readily as now we can study natural 
history or entomology; the world would be far fuller and far more 
interesting with even this slight augmentation of our sense.