English
It is of matter derived from the etheric sub-planes that the Etheric Double is composed under the guid- ance of extremely subtle laws, and as the expression indeed of the most exalted spiritual will with which the affairs of this planet are directly concerned. The Etheric Double guides the actual deposition of physical. molecules as the body grows, growing with it indeed, but always one step in advance; and the force which circulates through the nerve system of the Etheric Double is that Jiva which constitutes the physical life- principle, which as it becomes differentiated from the vast stores of Nature for the purpose of human require- ments, itself comes within the field of vision of the astral senses, and can actually be seen by persons adequately qualified coursing through the nerve system of the Etheric Double as the blood flows through the veins of the physical body. The Jiva itself is primarily a force which pours into this planet from the sun. It has a multitude of tasks to perform connected with organic Nature, but keeping for the present to the 160 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. question of human growth, we find it undergoing, in healthy human organisations, a process of differentia- tion which adapts it for its peculiar task, just as organic food is converted into blood by the physical body. A strong and healthy human being specialises a good deal more Jiva than he requires for his own use, just as the bees make more honey than they really want for themselves. In such a case it is constantly radiat- ing from him, supplying the deficiencies more or less completely of those who are too feeble to specialise enough Jiva for themselves. A man in good health is thus constantly, even without intention, imparting some of his spare vitality to others, though he does this with far greater energy when he employs mesmeric passes to assist the process, and uses his will-power, in a greater or less degree according to the extent of its development, to render them effective. Conversely the man in bad health, who through inefficient action of the appropriate organs in his own system is unable to specialise for his own use an adequate volume of the solar Jiva all around us, acts unconsciously as a sponge, absorbing the specialised Jiva of others with whom he is in contact. To different degrees most people are conscious that some others weary and tire them by their contiguity, even though they may not be able to trace the nature of the process by which they are affected. Persons of a very robust temperament hardly experience this feeling, perhaps, because in most such persons the higher principles, including those subtle emanations belonging to the astral plane, are more inextricably THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES. 1Or entangled with their physical molecules; and the very materialistic nature which is extremely insensitive itself is generally as little disposed to part with its own influences. The sensitive, very ready to feel the mag- netic emanations of others, is, on the other hand, generally the person who is most easily drained of whatever vitality he may himself possess. These con- siderations, however, must not be read as implying that perfect physical health and robust constitution are identical with materialistic self-involvement. The whole subject of sensitiveness is profoundly misunderstood when, as is too often the case, people imagine it to be in some way identified with states of health; but the complete examination of that idea would take me too far away from the main part of the explanation I am now pursuing. The fourth principle, or Astral Body, is the vehicle in which the soul may function on the astral plane of Nature, that immediately above the physical, the nature and characteristics of which we shall come to investigate presently. Nothing is more difficult, in dealing with occult interpretations of Nature, than to decide in what order to take up their various sub-divisions. Nothing can properly be understood without the comprehension of something else. This matter that we are upon for the moment, the septenary constitution of man, requires, of course, for its full appreciation, a comprehension of the whole planetary scheme to which we belong, but no treatise on this great subject can possibly be attempted without constant reference to the seven M 102 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. principles of man. However, if any aspect of the present explanation seems for the moment unintelligible it will fall into its place later on. After a certain degree of progress in occult study, nothing is more impressive to the student than the beautiful coherence of the whole structure and the marvellous way in which each part, as it ramifies through the whole, fits into every §detail of the other. Just as the body, during the activity of our waking life, involves within itself the vehicles or bodies calcu- lated for service on higher planes of Nature, so the astral body, set free from the physical and considered apart from these, involves within itself the higher vehicles which are adapted to function on the spiritual planes of Nature. It includes the whole man, minus the physical vehicle; and as regards the whole man’s capacity for thinking and feeling, we may appreciate the extent to which he loses nothing by transfer to the astral plane, if we ask how much is left behind of his original consciousness in the dead body ? Nothing whatever, to put the matter briefly; and nothing in this way is lost from the consciousness and feeling of the soul transferred from the physical to the astral plane, and beginning to function in the astral body. The principles, however, may be thought of as something more than a mere envelope for a central entity of consciousness, because the finer vehicles, as they are capable of separation from the astral, in turn are incapable of giving expression to the lower emotions, desires, and sentiments of the man as we know him here, or as we may deal with him, if properly qualified, THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES. 163 — on the astral plane. The astral body 1s not in any true sense of the term a soul, but it is the manifestation of soul in reference to certain aspects of Nature and certain possibilities of life. If we think of it as apart from the interior consciousness, and apart from the higher vehicles belonging to the spiritual planes on which that consciousness may ultimately function, we can then speak of it in the language which has been usual with occult writers as the principle of Kama or desire ; giving expression to all the proclivities of life as engen- dered by the experiences of physical existence, and as constituting that part of the man which is the seat of almost all evil or criminal propensities which the strain and pressure of physical existence can engender. The spiritual soul escaping from its embrace, leaves it enfeebled, withered, and in process of disintegration, in all cases where the higher nature is at all favourably evolved, and in which the lower nature has been rather the inevitable consequence of physical existence than a commanding condition of consciousness. The circum- stances under which this separation is accomplished will be considered when we come to deal with the astral plane more fully, and so we may pass for the moment to the consideration of the fifth principle. The true individual man, his Higher Self, as evolving under the stimulus of the sixth principle, includes al] the product of his thinking forces which have to do with phases of consciousness superior to those concerned with the animal desires and requirements of physical existence. From one point of view, the fifth principle itself may be thought of as the vehicle of the Manas— 164 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. as the Devachanic body—but by this time, in the marvellous attenuation of matter as we ascend to the higher realms, we find it so incomprehensibly blended with states of consciousness, that it would rather be misleading than helpful to the imagination to think of the Devachanic body as merely a vehicle of Buddhi. In one sense the sixth principle in man, to which this name is given, is itself the vehicle of that universal Atma, the all-pervading Spirit of the Universe, with the attributes of which it would almost be folly to attempt to concern ourselves, while thought is still limited by the conditions of the physical intellect. Of Atma, except through its effects, through its mani- festations, which are the whole universe around us, including all conscious beings in whatever gradation of existence, it would be futile to speak. We can know as yet nothing of its nature. We can only regard it as, in some incomprehensible manner, the potentiality of all things and all manifestations. ‘The Ocean of Buddhi is the first manifestation of Atma with which for the purposes of this explanation we need concern ourselves; and when it is sometimes declared in poetical language that every man has within him the spark of Divinity, the truth which this phrase embodies may be otherwise expressed by saying that he has touch or relationship with the Ocean of Buddhi. If we may materialise the thought, so as to render it in one degree more tangible, he has established an individual focus within the Buddhi, or in other words, an individ- ual focus within the Buddhi has become him—which focus or vortex is evermore a persistent fact. During THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES. 165 all the ages of his earlier evolution it is little more than a remote possibility of the future, involving nothing that can be thought of as an individual consciousness on the level of Nature to which it belongs.