English
He wishes with an intense longing for the time when his own advance may enable him to stand at something like the level of Nature on which the guiding light of his destiny resides, and if he were to await the progress of normal evolution and spend many thousands of years in Devachanic felicity, that lapse of time might have operated in regard to the Master, towards whom he aspires, in some way which would have removed him to still loftier functions in Nature, where he would then.again be inaccessible to his slowly advancing pupil. Though the foremost motive, however, with which the pupil who understands the whole situation desires immediate Re-incarnation, has to do with his easily intelligible love for the Master, a very much more intricate consideration must also be taken into account. The surrender of Devachanic existence between the two lives may not be one which presents itself from the point of view of the unenlightened physical intelligence as of such very great significance. While the necessities of progress attach themselves in a large measure to ideas connected with the present life, the person who is imbued with the thought of immediate Re-incarnation, with the idea that it would 420 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. be possible to forego the Devachanic period, and so get on faster, will suppose that an eminently desirable thing to do from all possible points of view. He may even speak with contempt, arising from ignorance, of the useless waste of time which would be involved in going through the usual Devachanic period. It 1s easy to be grandly indifferent to privileges which we do not appreciate. The conditions of existence for a fairly awakened soul on Devachanic planes are, however, so enriched, sublime, and blissful, that no one who once tastes them can resign them by an act of will without a very vivid sense of the reality involved in such a renunciation. And no disciple will be allowed to choose immediate Re-incarnation,—a gift that would never be allotted to him, without his choice constituting one of the features in the arrangement,—-unless he is previously put in a position to appreciate with exactitude the nature of the sacrifice he was making. Before the expiration of his previous physical life, he would have been enabled, while out of the body, to pass on to the level of Deva- chanic existence. He would thus come to know all that it meant, and if he made the choice for immediate Re-incarnation, would be making it with his eyes open. So much for the countervailing consideration against the choice, but now let me turn to what I spoke of as the second aspect in favour of it, which cannot be very completely defined, but may still be partially appreciated. The renunciation of Devachan by the neophyte— when made in the only way in which it can be made, with eyes fully open to the true character of the sacrifice INITIATION IN THE PRESENT DAY. 421 —is in the nature of an offering of immediate personal beatitude on the altar of Duty. The disciple is surren- dering individual happiness to which he has a claim in order to be the sooner able to take his place among those whose energies are wholly spent in the promo- tion of the well being of the race at large. In doing this he is doubly loyal to the Great Cause, for the sacrifice he makes has a coimplicated reaction in a way that can only be fully understood at the stages of pro- gress when it becomes possible. But at that stage the altruistic desire to accomplish the sacrifice becomes a more potent motive than any which appeal even to the most purified and exalted considerations related entirely to self. At some future date, when the world is more widely peopled with persons qualified to read the path of occult progress, and appreciate its loftier mysteries, the force of such considerations as these will be more readily apprehended. Méanwhile we all feel in a general way that selfishness is ignoble and altruism beautiful, and that perception is a mere imper- fect forecast of a mighty moral law which arms the disciple, by virtue of every sacrifice he is enabled, as he advances, to make, with an ever increasing power to fulfil the ever expanding tasks of unselfish usefulness as they devolve upon him in constantly augmenting volume. For the more from any individual centre of conscious- ness a good influence is radiated, the more abundantly does this well up in the interior of such an individuality. Such phrases can hardly be recast into more specific and exact language. We are trying to handle in 422 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. thought a condition of things analogous to the bewilder- ing mathematical enigma described as a fourth dimen- sion. How can a perpetual well-spring, ever flowing with new material, emerge, as it were, from an interior centre in any given individuality ? And yet to the astral sight of persons who are enabled to dive more deeply than the most powerful microscope will carry us, into minute nature, and to discern the constitution of the atoms of physical matter, it is directly perceptible that each of these atoms— itself a complicated organism, constructed of matter belonging to a higher plane—is continually bubbling up with forces which emerge from an interior centre unconnected, as far as such observation goes, with anything external to itself. Each atom is within its own enclosing surface a well-spring of energy which never fails. Comparison with the atom does not explain the mystery connected with that spiritual fountain of ever-flowing force within the individuality, which must be ever giving out from itself in order that its flow may proceed unchecked, but at the same time the analogy is a little helpful towards the comprehen- sion of the idea. There are some qualifications, moreover, which have to be recognised as mitigating for the disciple the severity of the sacrifice he makes in foregoing Deva- chanic existence. Immediate Re-incarnation will link his consciousness, not merely with the life which he last spent, but with the intervening conditions of existence, spent in the partial companionship of his Master and of other advanced companions, and, further than this, puts him in a position to exercise consciously on the INITIATION IN THE PRESENT DAY. 423 physical plane of life when he returns to incarnation the senses belonging to the higher regions, so that his nature will have been unified all the way up to the Devachanic region, which it is not his privilege to inhabit continuously, but which is nevertheless accessible to him whenever the circumstances of physical life enable him to quit the body for a time. All the links which connect the different planes have been fully developed. For the person so immediately Re-incar- nated, as indeed for some others who attain in a different way the corresponding pitch of development, the act of quitting the body is as easy and simple as that of putting off your hat. Consciousness is in no way broken by the process, either as the true entity leaves or as he returns to his body. For that matter, most human beings leave the body, without knowing it, when they are asleep, and their emergence therefrom can be seen by observers who are sufficiently clairvoyant, but the outward passage is so confusedly accomplished that it is separated from whatever experiences are incurred out of the body by a non-conducting interval of unconsciousness, and in the same way the return to the body is again broken by the non-conducting interval, so that the activities of the brain are enabled to reflect in only a very imperfect degree the experiences which such persons may encounter out of the body. And the probabilities are, their experiences in such conditions are of very little moment. They may not be sufficiently developed to have any real activity of consciousness even on the astral plane, not to speak of those above. But the non-conducting interval has been 424 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. suppressed in the case of the occult pupil. He has arrived at the stage at which he may be entitled to the help of a Master, which is given him in this way. The whole life to which immediate Re-incarnation is a prelude, is qualified by full consciousness concerning the other planes of Nature, and by ability to reach the Master, whoever he may be. For, remember, while the most important work of any great Adept is performed on lofty spiritual planes of Nature, it is a necessity connected with his work that he should keep in touch with humanity by virtue of occupying a part of his time, at all events, in the physical body, so that the Master must also have a physical existence, however secluded it may be, or however remote the country in which it is to be found. To this the pupil in his astral body has already access, he may be there at any time that the Master can receive him a second after he has put his body to sleep and quitted it. He is there for all purposes of consciousness, of thought, of study, of activity, of objectivity to others equally qualified with himself, as though he were there in the physical body itself, so that the life he leads as soon as the physical instrument is mature in his immediate Re-incar- nation is one which is glorified in a hundred ways, which only those who are saturated with occult teaching can be in a position even dimly to appreciate. The curious stage, indeed, has now been reached in which the activities of the physical life of the disciple, though still full of importance, and of more significance than could have attached to those of any former existences, are nevertheless dropping back to a sub- INITIATION IN THE PRESENT DAY. 425 ordinate place as compared with spiritual activities.