Theos-Talk Archives (November 2004 Message tt00007)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "Anand Gholap" <AnandGholap@A...> 
wrote:
Hallo Anand;

from which book do you have that?????


It can be confused if you mention higher consciousness, while you 
mean the Intuitive Buddhic consciousness.
By the way it is a higher than our mental plan, but in the 
theosophical way we know the plans from fysical-, astral-, 
lower&higher mental-Buddhic- Atmic- Anapudaka- and final Adi level.


Leadbeater writes on this in his book the Monad chapterIII
The Buddhic consciousness:
The full development of the buddhic vehicle is for most of us still 
remote, for it belongs to the stage of the fourth or Arhat 
Initiation, but it is perhaps not entirely impossible for those who 
are as yet far from that level to gain some touch of that higher type 
of consciousness in quite another way.

from the book The monad by the Theosophical publishing house 1920.



There is an article of him on www.theosophique.ca/monad.htm
published by the theosophist febr 1913.
and another vision by the liberal catholic church which follows here:

Monad, The
by Archbishop Charles W. Leadbeater (1847 - 1934)
Published in 1913
 
Liberal Catholic Church
Mysticism
Theosophy 

The information given in Theosophical literature on the subject of 
the Monad is necessarily scanty. We are not at present in a position 
of supplement it to any great extent; but a statement of the case, as 
far as it is at present comprehended among us, may save students some 
misapprehensions, such as are often manifested in the questions sent 
in to us. 

That many misconceptions should exist on such a subject is 
inevitable, because we are trying to understand with the physical 
brain what can by no possibility be expressed in terms intelligible 
to that brain. The Monad inhabits the second plane of our set of 
planes - that which used sometimes to be called the paranirvanic or 
the anupadaka. It is not easy to attach in the mind any definite 
meaning to the word plane or world at such an altitude as this, 
because any attempt even to symbolise the relation of planes or 
worlds to one another demands a stupendous effort of the imagination 
in a direction with which we are wholly unfamiliar. 

Let us try to imagine what the consciousness of the Divine must be - 
the consciousness of the Solar Deity altogether outside any of the 
worlds or planes or levels which we ever conceived. We can only 
vaguely think of some sort of transcendent Consciousness for which 
space no longer exists, to which everything (at least in the Solar 
System) is simultaneously present, not only in its actual condition, 
but at every stage of its evolution from beginning to end. We must 
think of that Consciousness as creating for Its use these worlds of 
various types of matter, and then we must think of that Divine 
Consciousness voluntarily veiling Itself within that matter, and 
thereby greatly limiting Itself. By taking upon Itself a garment of 
the matter of even the highest of these worlds, It has clearly 
already imposed upon Itself a certain limitation; and, equally 
clearly, each additional garment assumed as It involves Itself more 
and more deeply in matter, must increase the limitation. 

One way of attempting to symbolise this which has been found helpful 
is to try to think of it in connection with what we call dimensions 
of space. If we may suppose an infinite number of these dimensions, 
it may be suggested that each descent from a higher level to a lower 
level removes the consciousness of one of these dimensions, until, 
when we reach the mental plane or world, the power of observing but 
five of them is left to us. The descent to the astral level takes 
away one more, and the further descent to the physical level leaves 
us with the three which are familiar to us. In order even to get an 
idea of what this loss of additional dimensions means, we have to 
suppose the existence of a creature whose senses are capable of 
comprehending only two dimensions, and then to imagine in what 
respect the consciousness of that creature would differ from ours, 
and thus try to obtain an idea of what it would mean to lose a 
dimension from our consciousness. Such an exercise of the imagination 
will speedily convince us that the two-dimensional creature could 
never obtain any adequate conception of our life at all; he could be 
conscious of it only in sections, and his idea of even those sections 
must be entirely misleading. This enables us to see how inadequate 
must be our conception even of the plane or world next above us; and 
we at once see the hopelessness of expecting fully to understand the 
Monad, which is raised by many of these planes or worlds above the 
point from which we are trying to regard it. 

It may help us if we recall to our minds the method in which the 
Deity originally built these planes. We speak with all reverence in 
regard to His method, realising fully that we can at most comprehend 
only the minutest fragment of His work, and that even that fragment 
is seen by us from below, while He looks upon it from above. Yet we 
are justified in saying that He sends forth from Himself a wave of 
power of influence of some sort, which moulds the primeval pre-
existent matter into certain forms to which we give the name of 
atoms. 

Into that world or plane or level, so made, comes a second life-wave 
of divine energy, and to it those atoms already existing are 
objective, outside of itself, and it builds them into forms which it 
inhabits. Meantime the first down-flowing wave comes yet again, 
sweeping through that newly-formed plane or level, and makes yet 
another, lower, plane with atoms a little larger and matter therefore 
a little denser - even though its density may as yet be far rarer 
than our finest conception of matter. Then into that second world 
comes the second outflowing, and again in that finds matter which to 
it is objective, and builds of that its forms. And so this process is 
repeated and the matter grows denser and denser with each world, 
until at last we reach this physical level; but it will help us if we 
bear in mind that at each of these levels the ensouling life of the 
second outpouring finds matter already vivified by the first 
outpouring, which it regards as objective, of which it builds the 
forms which it inhabits. 

This process of ensouling forms built out of already vivified matter 
is continued all through the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms, 
but when we come to the moment of individualisation which divides the 
highest animal manifestation from the lowest human, a curious change 
takes place; that which has hitherto been the ensouling life becomes 
itself in turn the ensouled, for it builds itself into a form into 
which the ego enters, of which he takes possession. He absorbs into 
himself all the experiences which the matter of his causal body has 
had, so that nothing whatever is lost, and he carries these on with 
him through the ages of his existence. He continues the process of 
forming bodies on lower planes out of material ensouled by the first 
outpouring from the Third Aspect of the Deity; but he finally reaches 
a level in evolution in which the causal body is the lowest that he 
needs, and when this is attained we have the spectacle of the Monad, 
which represents the third outpouring from the First Aspect of the 
Deity, inhabiting a body composed of matter ensouled by the second 
outpouring. 

At a far later stage the earlier happening repeats itself once more, 
and the ego, who has ensouled so many forms during the whole of a 
chain-period, becomes himself the vehicle, and is ensouled in his 
turn by the now fully active and awakened Monad. Yet here, as before, 
nothing whatever is lost from the economy of nature. All the manifold 
experiences of the ego, all the splendid qualities developed in him, 
all these pass into the Monad himself and find there a vastly fuller 
realisation than even the ego could have given them. 

Of the condition of consciousness of the Solar Deity outside of the 
planes of His system, we can form no true conception. He has been 
spoken of as the Divine Fire; and if for a moment we adopt that time-
honoured symbolism, we may imagine that Sparks from that Fire fall 
into the matter of our planes - Sparks which are of the essence of 
that Fire, but are yet in appearance temporarily separated from it. 
The analogy cannot be pushed too far, because all sparks of which we 
know anything are thrown out from their parent fire and gradually 
fade and die; whereas these Sparks develop by slow evolution into 
Flames, and return to the Parent Fire. This development and this 
return are apparently the objects for which the Sparks come forth; 
and the process of the development is that which we are at the 
present moment concerned to try to understand. 

It seems that the Spark as such cannot in its entirety veil itself 
beyond a certain extent; it cannot descend beyond what we call the 
second plane, and yet retain its unity. One difficulty with which we 
are confronted in trying to form any ideas upon this matter is that, 
as yet, none of us who investigate are able to raise our 
consciousness to this second plane; in the nomenclature recently 
adopted we give to it the name of Monadic because it is the home of 
the Monad; but none of us have yet been able to realise that Monad in 
his own habitation, but only to see him when he has descended one 
stage to the plane or level or world below his own, in which he shows 
himself as the triple Spirit, which in our earlier books we call the 
Atma in man. Even already he is incomprehensible, for he has three 
aspects which are quite distinct and apparently separate, and yet 
they are all fundamentally one and the same. 

It has been described in other books how one of these three aspects 
(or it would be more correct to say the Monad in his first aspect) 
cannot or does not descend below that spiritual level; while in his 
second aspect he does descend into the matter of the next lower world 
(the intuitional), and when that aspect has drawn round itself the 
matter of that level we call it divine wisdom in man, or the 
intuition. Meanwhile, the third aspect (or rather the Monad in his 
third aspect) descends also to that intuitional plane and clothes 
itself in its matter, and adopts a form to which as yet no name has 
been attached in our literature; but it also moves forward or 
downward one more stage, and clothes itself in the matter of the 
higher mental world, and then we call it the intellect in man. When 
that threefold manifestation on the three levels has thus developed 
itself, and shows itself as Spirit, intuition and intellect, we give 
to it the name of the ego, and that ego takes upon himself a vehicle 
built of the matter of the higher mental plane, to which we give the 
name of the causal body. This ego so functioning in his causal body 
has often been called in our earlier literature the higher self, and 
sometimes also the soul. 

We see the ego then to be a manifestation of the Monad on the higher 
mental plane; but we must understand that he is infinitely far from 
being a perfect manifestation. Each descent from plane to plane means 
much more than a mere veiling of the Spirit; it means also an actual 
diminution in the amount of Spirit expressed. To use terms denoting 
quantity in speaking of such matters is entirely incorrect and 
misleading; yet if an attempt is to be made to express these higher 
matters in human words at all, these incongruities cannot be wholly 
avoided; and the nearest that we can come, in the physical brain, to 
a conception of what happens when the Monad involves himself in 
matter of the spiritual plane, is to say that only part of him can 
possibly be shown there, and that even that part must be shown in 
three separate aspects, instead of in the glorious totality which he 
really is in his own world. So when the second aspect of the triple 
Spirit comes down a stage and manifests as intuition, it is not the 
whole of that aspect which so manifests, but only a fraction of it. 
And so when the third aspect descends two planes and manifests itself 
as intellect, it is only a fraction of a fraction of what the 
intellect-aspect of the Monad really is. Therefore the ego is not a 
veiled manifestation of the Monad, but a veiled representation of a 
minute portion of the Monad. 

As above, so below. As the ego is to the Monad, so is the personality 
to the ego. So that, by the time you have reached the personality 
with which we have to deal in the physical world, the fractionisation 
has been carried so far that the part we are able to see bears no 
appreciable proportion to the reality which it so inadequately 
represents. Yet it is with and from this ridiculously inadequate 
fragment that we are endeavouring to comprehend the whole! Our 
difficulty in trying to understand the Monad is the same in kind, but 
much greater in degree, as that which we find when we try really to 
grasp the idea of the ego. In the earlier years of the Theosophical 
Society there were many discussions about the relations of the lower 
and the higher self. In those days we did not understand the doctrine 
even as well as we understand it now; we had not the grasp of it 
which longer study has given us. I am speaking of a group of students 
in Europe, who had behind them the Christian traditions, and the 
vague ideas which Christianity attaches to the word 'soul'. 

The ordinary Christian by no means identifies himself with 
his 'soul', but regards it as something attached to himself in some 
kind of indefinite way - something for the saving of which he is 
responsible. Perhaps no ordinary man among the devotees of that 
religion attaches any very definite idea to the word, but he would 
probably describe it as the immortal part of him, though in ordinary 
language he talks of it as a possession, as something separate from 
him. In the Magnificat, the Blessed Virgin is made to say: "My soul 
doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my 
Saviour." She may here be drawing a distinction between the soul and 
the spirit, as S. Paul does; but she speaks of them both as 
possessions, and not as the I. She does not say: "I as a soul 
magnify; I as a spirit rejoice." This may be merely a question of 
language; yet surely this loose language expresses an inaccurate and 
ill-defined idea. That idea was in the air all about us in Europe, 
and no doubt we were influenced by it, and at first to some extent we 
substituted the term 'higher self' for 'soul'. 

So we used such expressions as 'looking up to the higher 
self', 'listening to the promptings of the higher self', and so on. I 
remember that Mr. Sinnett used sometimes to speak a little 
disparagingly of the higher self, remarking that it ought to take 
more interest than it seemed to do in the unfortunate personality 
struggling on its behalf down here; and he used jokingly to suggest 
the formation of a society for the education of our higher selves. It 
was only gradually that we grew into the feeling that the higher self 
was the man, and that what we see down here is only a very small part 
of him. Only little by little did we learn that there is only one 
consciousness, and that the lower, though an imperfect representation 
of the higher, is in no way separate from it. We used to think of 
raising 'ourselves' till we could unite 'ourselves' with that 
glorified higher being, not realising that it was the higher that was 
the true self, and that to unite the higher to the lower really meant 
opening out the lower so that the higher might work in it and through 
it. 

It takes time to become thoroughly permeated by Theosophical ideas. 
It is not merely reading the books, it is not merely hard study even, 
that makes us real Theosophists; we must allow time for the teaching 
to become part of ourselves. We may notice this constantly in the 
case of new members. People join us, people of keen intelligence, 
people of the deepest devotion, truly anxious to do the best they can 
for Theosophy, and to assimilate it as rapidly and perfectly as 
possible; and yet with all that, and with all their eager study of 
our books, they cannot at once put themselves into the position of 
the older members; and they will sometimes show that, by making some 
crude remark which is not at all in harmony with Theosophical 
teaching. I do not mean to suggest that the mere efflux of time will 
produce these effects, for obviously a man who does not study may 
remain a member for twenty years and be but little forwarder at the 
end of that time than he was at the beginning; but one who patiently 
studies, one who lives much with those who know, enters presently 
into the spirit of Theosophy - or perhaps it might be better said 
that the spirit of Theosophy enters into him. 

Evidently, therefore, new members should never intermit their 
studies, but try to understand the doctrines from every point of 
view. Year by year we are all growing into the attitude of those who 
are older than ourselves, and it comes chiefly by association and 
conversation with those older students. The Masters know almost 
infinitely more than the highest of Their pupils, and so those 
highest pupils continue to learn from association with Them; we who 
are lower pupils know much less than those who stand above, and so we 
in turn learn by association with them; and in the same way those who 
are not yet even at our level may learn something from similar 
association with us. So always the older members can help the 
younger, and the younger have much to learn from those who have 
trodden the road before them. It was in this gradual way that we came 
to understand about the higher and the lower self. 

If we try to express the relation of the personality to the ego, we 
can best put it by saying that the former is a fragment of the 
latter, a tiny part of him expressing itself under serious 
difficulties. We meet a person on the physical plane; we speak to 
him; and we think and say that we know him. It would be a little 
nearer the truth if we said that we knew a thousandth part of him. 
Even when clairvoyance is developed - even when a man develops the 
sight of his causal body, and looks at the causal body of another 
man - even then, though he sees a manifestation of the ego on his own 
plane, he is still far from seeing the real man. I have tried, by 
means of the illustrations in Man, Visible and Invisible, to give 
some indication of one side of the aspect of these higher vehicles; 
but the illustrations are in reality absolutely inadequate; they can 
give only faint adumbrations of the real thing. When any one of our 
readers develops the astral sight, he may reasonably say to us, as 
the Queen of Sheba said to King Solomon: "The half was not told me." 
He may say: " Here is all this glory and this beauty, which surrounds 
me in every direction and seems so entirely natural; it should be 
easy to give a better description of this." But when, having seen and 
experienced all this, he returns to his physical body and tries to 
describe it in physical words, I think he will find much the same 
difficulties as we have done. 

Yet remember that when, using the sight of the causal body, a man 
looks at the causal body of another, it is not even then the ego he 
sees, but only matter of the higher mental plane which expresses the 
qualities of the ego. Those qualities affect the matter, cause it to 
undulate at different rates and so produce colours by observing which 
the character of the man can be distinguished. This character, at 
that level, means the good qualities which the man has developed, for 
no evil qualities can express themselves in matter so refined. In 
observing the causal body we know that it has within it all the 
qualities of the Deity - all possible good qualities, therefore; but 
not all of them are developed until the man reaches a very high 
level. When an evil quality shows itself in the personality, it must 
be taken to indicate that the opposite good quality is as yet 
undeveloped in the ego; it exists in him, as in everyone, but it has 
not yet been called into activity. So soon as it called into activity 
its intense vibrations act upon the lower vehicles and it is 
impossible that the opposite evil can ever again find place in them. 

Taking the ego for the moment as the real man, and looking at him on 
his own plane, we see him to be indeed a glorious being; the only way 
in which we down here we can form a conception of what he really is - 
is to think of him as some splendid angel. But the expression of this 
beautiful being on the physical plane may fall far short of all this; 
indeed, it must do so - first, because it in only a tiny fragment; 
and secondly, because it is so hopelessly cramped by its conditions. 
Suppose a man put his finger into a hole in the wall or into small 
iron pipe, so that he could not even bend it; how much of himself as 
a whole could he express through that finger in that condition? Much 
like this is the fate of that fragment of the ego which is put down 
into the dense body. It is so small a fragment that it cannot 
represent the whole; it is so cramped and shut that it cannot even 
express what it is. The image is clumsy, but it may give some sort of 
idea of the relation of the personality to the ego. 

Let us suppose that the finger has a considerable amount of 
consciousness of his own, ant then, being shot off the body, it 
temporarily forgets that it is part of that body; then it forgets 
also the freedom of the wider life, and tries to adopt itself to its 
hole, and to gild its sides and to make it enjoyable hole by 
acquiring money, property, fame and so on - not realising that it 
only really begins to live when it withdraws itself from the hole 
altogether, and recognizes itself as a part of the body. When we draw 
ourselves out of this particular hole at night and live in our astral 
bodies, we are much less limited and much nearer to our true selves, 
though we still have two veils - our astral and mental bodies - which 
prevent us of being fully ourselves, and so fully expressing 
ourselves. Still, under those conditions we are much freer, and it is 
much easier to comprehend realities; for the physical body is the 
most clogging and confining of all, and imposes upon us the greatest 
limitations. 

It would help us much if we could suppose our limitations one by one; 
but it in not easy. Realise how in the astral body we can move 
quickly through space - not instantaneously, but still quickly; for 
in two or three minutes we might move around the world. But even then 
we cannot get anywhere without passing through the intervening space. 
We can come into touch in that level with other men in their astral 
bodies. All their feelings lie open to us, so that they cannot 
deceive us about them, although they can do so with regard to their 
thoughts. We see in that world many more of the earth's inhabitants - 
those whom we call the dead, the higher nature-spirits, the angels of 
desire, and many others. The sight of that plane enables us to see 
the inside of every object, and to look down into the interior of the 
earth; so that in many ways our consciousness is greatly widened. 

Let us go a step further. If we learn to use the powers of the mental 
body, we do not therefore lose those of the lower, for they are 
included in the higher. We can then pass from place to place with the 
rapidity of thought; we can then see the thoughts of our fellowmen, 
so that deception is no longer possible; we can see higher orders of 
the angels, and the vast host of those who, having finished their 
astral life, are inhabiting the heaven-world. Rising yet another 
step, and using the senses of the causal body, we find further 
glories awaiting our examination. If then we look at a fellow-man, 
the body which we see within his ovoid is no longer a likeness of his 
present or his last physical body, as it is on the astral and mental 
planes. What we now see is the Augoeides, the glorified man, which is 
not an image of any one of his past physical vehicles, but contains 
within itself the essence of all that was best in each of them - a 
body which indicates more or less perfectly, as through experience it 
grows, what the Deity means that man shall be. By watching that 
vehicle we may see the stage of evolution which the man has reached; 
we may see what his past history has been, and to a considerable 
extent we can also observe the future that lies before him. 

Students sometimes wonder why, if this be so, the evil qualities 
which a man shows in one life should so often persist in later lives. 
The reason is not only that because the opposing good quality is 
undeveloped there is an opportunity for evil influences to act upon 
the man in that particular direction, but also that the man carries 
with him from life to life the permanent atoms of his lower vehicles, 
and these tend to reproduce the qualities shown in his previous 
incarnations. Then, it may be asked: "Why carry over those permanent 
atoms?" Because it is necessary for evolution; because the developed 
man must be master of all the planes. If it were conceivable that he 
could develop without those permanent atoms, he might possibly become 
a glorious archangel upon higher planes, but he would be absolutely 
useless in these lower worlds, for he would have cut off from himself 
the power of feeling and of thinking. So that we must not drop the 
permanent atoms, but purify them. 

The task before most of us at present is that of realising the ego as 
the true man, so that we may let him work, instead of this false 
personal self with which we are so ready to identify ourselves. It is 
so easy for us to feel: "I am angry; I am jealous"; when the truth is 
that which is pushing us to anger or to jealousy is merely the desire-
elemental, which yearns for strong and coarse undulations, which help 
him on his downward way into grosser matter. We must realise that the 
true man can never be so foolish as to wish for such vibrations as 
these - that he can never desire anything but that which will be good 
for his own evolution, and helpful for that of others. A man says 
that he feels impelled by passion. Let him wait and think: "Is it 
really I?" And he will discover that it is not he at all, but 
something else that is trying to get hold of him and make him feel 
thus. He has the right and the duty to assert his independence of 
that thing, and to proclaim himself as a free man, pursuing the road 
of evolution which God has marked out for him. 

Thus it is at present our business to realise ourselves as the ego; 
but when that is fully accomplished, when the lower is nothing but a 
perfect instrument in the hands of the higher, it will become our 
duty to realise that even the ego is not the true man. For the ego 
has had a beginning - it came into existence at the moment of 
individualisation; and whatever has a beginning must have an end. 
Therefore even the ego, which has lasted since we left the animal 
kingdom, is also impermanent. Is there then nothing in us that 
endures, nothing that will have no end? There is the Monad, the 
Divine Spark, which is verily a fragment of God, an atom of the 
Deity. Crude and inaccurate expressions, assuredly; yet I know of no 
other way in which the idea can be conveyed even as well as in words 
such as these. For each Monad is literally a part of God, apparently 
temporarily separated from Him, while he is enclosed in the veils of 
matter, though in truth never for one moment really separated. 

He can never be apart from God, for the very matter in which he veils 
himself is also a manifestation of the Divine. To us sometimes matter 
seems evil, because it weighs us down, it clogs our faculties, it 
seems to hold us back upon our road; yet remember that this is only 
because as yet we have not learned to control it, because we have not 
realised that it also is divine in its essence, because there is 
nothing but God. A Sufi sage once told me that this was his 
interpretation of the cry which rings out daily in the call of the 
muezzin from the minaret all over the Muhammadan world: "There is no 
God but God, and Muhammad is the Prophet of God." He told me that in 
his opinion the true mystical meaning of the first part of this cry 
was: "There is nothing but God." And that is eternally true; we know 
that all comes from Him, and that to Him all will one day return, but 
we find it hard to realise that all is in Him even now, and that in 
Him it eternally abides. All is God - even the desire-elemental, and 
the things which we think of as evil, for many waves of life come 
forth from Him, and not all of them are moving in the same direction. 

We, being Monads, belonging to an earlier wave, are somewhat fuller 
expressions of Him, somewhat nearer to Him in our consciousness than 
the essence out of which is made the desire-elemental. In the course 
of our evolution there is always a danger that a man should identify 
himself with the point at which he is most fully conscious. Most men 
at present are more conscious in their feelings and passions than 
anywhere else, and of this the desire-elemental craftily takes 
advantage, and endeavours to induce the man to identify himself with 
those desires and emotions. 

So when the man rises to a somewhat higher level, and his principal 
activity becomes mental, there is danger lest he should identify 
himself with the mind, and it is only by realising himself as the 
ego, and making that the strongest point of his consciousness, that 
he can fully identify himself with it. When he has done that, he has 
achieved the goal of his present efforts; but immediately he must 
begin his effort over again at that higher level, and try gradually 
to realize the truth of the position we laid down at the beginning, 
that as the personality is to the ego, so is the ego to the Monad. It 
is useless at our present stage to endeavour to indicate the steps 
which he will have to take in order to do this, or the stages of 
consciousness through which he will pass. Such conceptions as can be 
formed of then may be arrived at by applying the ancient rule that as 
is below is but a reflection of that which exists in higher worlds, 
so that the steps and the stages must to some extant be a repetition 
upon a higher level of those which have already been experienced in 
our lower efforts. 

We may reverently presume (though here we are going far beyond the 
actual knowledge) that when we have finally and fully realized that 
the Monad is the true man, we shall find behind that again a yet 
further and fuller and more glorious extension; we shall find that 
the Spark has never been separated from the Fire, but that as the ego 
stands behind the personality, as the Monad stands behind the ego, so 
the Solar Deity himself stands behind the Monad. Perhaps, even 
further still, it may be that in some way infinitely higher, and so 
at present utterly incomprehensible, a greater Deity stands behind 
the Solar Deity, and behind even that, through many stages, there 
must rest the Supreme over all. But here even thought fails us, and 
silence is the only true reverence. 

For the time, at least, the Monad is our personal God, the God within 
us, that which produces us down here as a manifestation of him on 
these all but infinitely lower levels. What his consciousness is on 
his own plane we cannot pretend to say, nor can we fully understand 
it even when he has put upon himself the first veil and become the 
triple Spirit. The only way to understand such things is to rise on 
their level and to become one with them. When we do that we shall 
comprehend, but even then we shall be utterly unable to explain to 
anyone else what we know. It is at that stage, the stage of the 
triple Spirit, that we can first see the Monad, and he is then a 
triple light of blinding glory, yet possessing even on that stage 
certain qualities by which one Monad is somehow distinct of another. 

Often a student asks: "But what have we to do with it while we are 
down here - this unknown glory so far above us?" It is natural 
question, yet in reality it is reverse of what should be; for the 
true man is the Monad, and we should rather say: "What can I, the 
Monad, do with my ego, and through it with my personality?" This 
would be correct attitude for this would express the actual facts; 
but we cannot truthfully take it, because we cannot realize this. Yet 
we can say to ourselves: "I know that I am the Monad, though as yet I 
cannot express it: I know that I am the ego, a mere fraction of that 
Monad, but still out of all proportion greater than what I know of 
myself in the personality down here. More and more I will try to 
realize myself as that higher and greater being; more and more I will 
try to make this lower presentation of myself worthy of its true 
destiny; more and more will I see to it that this lower self is ever 
ready to catch the slightest hint or whisper from above - to follow 
the suggestions from the ego which we call intuitions - to 
distinguish the Voice of the Silence and to obey it". 

For the Voice of the Silence is not one thing always, but changes as 
we ourselves evolve; or perhaps it would be better to say that it is 
in truth one thing always, the voice of God, but it comes to us at 
different levels as we ourselves rise. To us now it is the voice of 
the ego, speaking to the personality; presently it will be the voice 
of the Monad, speaking to the ego; later still the voice of the 
Deity, speaking to the Monad. Probably between these last two stages 
there may be an intermediate one, in which the voice of one of the 
seven great Ministers of the Deity may speak to the Monad, and then 
in turn the Deity Himself may speak to His Minister; but always the 
Voice of the Silence is essentially divine. 

It is well that we should learn to distinguish this voice - this 
voice which speaks from above and yet from within; for sometimes 
other voices speak, and their counsel is not always wise. A medium 
finds this, for if he has not trained himself to distinguish, he 
often thinks that every voice coming from the astral plane must 
necessarily be all but divine, and therefore to be followed 
unquestioningly. Therefore discrimination is necessary, as well as 
watchfulness and obedience. 

Does the Monad, in the case of the ordinary man, ever do anything 
which affects or can affect his personality down here? I think we may 
say that such interference is most unusual. The ego is trying, on 
behalf of the Monad, to obtain perfect control of the personality and 
to use it as an instrument; and because that object is not yet fully 
achieved, the Monad may well feel that the time has not yet come for 
him to interfere from his own level, and to bring the whole of his 
force to bear, when that which is already in action is more than 
strong enough for the required purpose. But when the ego is already 
beginning to succeed in his effort to manage his lower vehicles, the 
real man in the background does sometimes interfere. 

In the course of various investigations it has come in our way to 
examine some thousands of human beings; but we found traces of such 
interference only in a few. The most prominent instance is that given 
in the twenty-ninth life of Alcyone, when he pledged himself before 
the Lord Gautama to devote himself in future lives to the attainment 
of the Buddhahood in order to help humanity. That seemed to us then a 
matter of such moment, and also of such interest, that we took some 
trouble to investigate it. This was a promise for the far-distant 
future, so that obviously the personality through which it was given 
could by no means keep it; and when we rose to examine the part borne 
in it by the ego, we found that he himself, though full of enthusiasm 
at the idea, was being impelled to it by a mightier force from 
within, which he could not have resisted, even had he wished to do 
so. Following this clue still further, we found that the impelling 
force came forth unmistakably from the Monad. He had decided, and he 
registered his decision; his will, working through the ego, will 
clearly have no difficulty in bringing all future personalities into 
harmony. 

We found some other examples of the same phenomenon in the course of 
the investigations into the beginnings of the Sixth Root Race. 
Looking forward to the life in that Californian Colony, we recognised 
instantly certain well-known egos; and then arose the 
question: "Since men have free-will, is it possible that we can 
already be absolutely certain that all these people will be there as 
we foresee ? Will none of them fall by the way?" Further examination 
showed us that the same thing was happening here as with Alcyone. 
Certain Monads had already responded to the call of the higher 
Authorities, and had decided that their representative personalities 
should assist in that glorious work; and because of that, nothing 
that these personalities might do during the intervening time could 
possibly interfere with the carrying out of that decision. 

Yet let no one think, because this is so, that he is compelled from 
without to do this or that; the compelling force is the real you; 
none else than yourself can ever bind you at any stage of your 
growth. And when the Monad has decided, the thing will be done; it is 
well for the personality if he yields gracefully and readily, if he 
recognises the voice from above, and co-operates gladly; for if he 
does not do this, he will lay up for himself much useless suffering. 
It is always the man himself who is doing this thing; and he, in the 
personality, has to realise that the ego is himself, and he has for 
the moment to take it for granted that the Monad is still more 
himself - the final and greatest expression of him. 

Surely this view should be the greatest possible encouragement to the 
man working down here, this knowledge that he is a far grander and 
more glorious being in reality than he appears to be, and that there 
is a part of him - enormously the greater part - which has already 
achieved what he, as a personality, is trying to achieve; and that 
all that he has to do down here is to try to make himself a perfect 
channel for this higher and more real self; to do his work and to try 
to help others in order that he may be a factor, however microscopic, 
in forwarding the evolution of the world. For him who knows, there is 
no question of the saving of the soul; the true man behind needs no 
salvation; he needs only that the lower self should realise him and 
express him. He is himself already divine; and all that he needs is 
to be able to realise himself in all the worlds and at all possible 
levels, so that in them all the Divine Power through him may work 
equally, and so God shall be all in all. 



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This document is part of the library of the The Liberal Catholic 
Church International. 
Except for the case of official documents and liturgies, 
no individual speaks for the Liberal Catholic Church as a whole. 






> 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.