The Writings of Annie Besant
The Ancient Wisdom
by
First published 1897
THE UNITY
UNDERLYING ALL RELIGIONS
Right thought is
necessary to right conduct, right understanding to right living, and the Divine
Wisdom – whether called by its ancient Sanskrit name of Brahma Vidya, or its
modern Greek name of Theosophia, Theosophy – comes to the
world as at once an adequate philosophy and an all-embracing religion and
ethic.
It was once said of the
Christian Scriptures by a devotee that they contained shallows in which a child
could wade and depths in which a giant must swim. A similar statement might be
made of Theosophy,
for some of its teachings are so simple and so practical that any person of
average intelligence can understand
and follow them, while others are so lofty, so profound, that
the ablest strains his intellect to contain them and sinks exhausted in the
effort.
In the present volume an
attempt will be made to place Theosophy
before the reader simply and clearly, in a way which shall convey its general
principles and truths as forming a coherent conception of the universe, and
shall give such
detail as is necessary for the understanding of their relations to
each other.
An elementary textbook
cannot pretend to give the fullness of knowledge that may be obtained from
abstruser works, but it should leave the student with clear fundamental ideas
on his subject, with much indeed to add by future study but
with little to unlearn. Into the outline given by such a book
the student should be able to paint the details of further research.
It is admitted on all
hands that a survey of the great religions of the world shows that they hold in
common many religious, ethical, and philosophical ideas. But while the fact is
universally granted, the explanation of the fact is a matter of dispute.
Some allege that
religions have grown up on the soil of human ignorance tilled by the
imagination, and have been gradually elaborated from crude forms of animism and
fetishism; their likenesses are referred to universal natural phenomena
imperfectly observed and fancifully explained, solar and star worship being the
universal key for one school, phallic worship the equally universal key for
another ; fear, desire, ignorance, and wonder led the savage to personify the
powers of nature, and priests played upon his terrors and his hopes, his misty
fancies, and his bewildered questionings ; myths became scriptures and symbols
facts, and their basis was universal the likeness of the
products was inevitable.
Thus speak the doctors
of"Comparative Mythology," and plain people are silenced but not
convinced under the rain of proofs ; they cannot deny
the likenesses, but they dimly feel: Are all man’s dearest hopes and lofty
imaginings nothing more than the outcome of savage fancies and of groping
ignorance? Have the great leaders of the race, the martyrs and heroes of
humanity, lived, wrought, suffered and died deluded, for the mere
personifications of astronomical facts and for the draped obscenities of barbarians?
The second explanation
of the common property in the religions of the world asserts the existence of
an original teaching in the custody of a Brotherhood of greatspiritual
Teachers, who – Themselves the outcome of past cycles of evolution – acted as
the instructors and guides of the child-humanity of our
planet, imparting to its races and nations in turn the fundamental
truths of religion in the form most adapted to the idiosyncrasies of the
recipients.
According to this view,
the Founders of the great religions are members of the one Brotherhood, and
were aided in Their mission by many other members, lower in degree than
Themselves, Initiates and disciples of various grades, eminent in spiritual
insight, in philosophical knowledge, or in purity of ethical wisdom.
These guided the infant
nations, gave them their polity, enacted their laws, ruled them as kings,
taught them as philosophers, guided them as priests ; all the nations of antiquity
looked back to such mighty men, demigods, and heroes, and they left their
traces in literature, in architecture, in legislation.
That such men lived it
seems difficult to deny in the face of universal tradition, of still existing
Scriptures, and of prehistoric remains for the most part now in ruins, to say
nothing of other testimony which the ignorant would reject.
The sacred books of the
East are the best evidence for the greatness of their authors, for who in later
days or in modern times can even approach the spiritual sublimity of their
religious thought, the intellectual splendour of their philosophy, the breadth
and purity of their ethic? And when we find that
these books contain teachings about God, man, and the universe
identical in substance under much variety of outer appearance, it does not seem
unreasonable to refer to them to a central primary body of doctrine. To that
body we give the name Divine Wisdom, in its Greek form: THEOSOPHY.
As the origin and basis
of all religions, it cannot be the antagonist of any: it is indeed their
purifier, revealing the valuable inner meaning of much that has
become mischievous in its external presentation by the
perverseness of ignorance and the accretions of superstition ; but it
recognises and defends itself in each, and seeks in each to unveil its hidden
wisdom. No man in becoming a Theosophist need cease to be a Christian, a
Buddhist, a Hindu ; he will but
acquire a deeper insight into his own faith, a firmer hold on its
spiritual truths, a broader understanding of its sacred teachings. As Theosophy of old gave
birth to religions, so in modern times does it justify and defend them. It is
the rock whence all of them were hewn, the hole of the pit whence all were dug.
It justifies at the bar of intellectual criticism the deepest longings and
emotions of the human heart: it verifies our hopes for man ; it
gives us back ennobled our faith in God.
The truth of this
statement becomes more and more apparent as we study the various
world-Scriptures, and but a few selections from the wealth of material
available will be sufficient to establish the fact, and to guide the student in
his search for further verification. The main spiritual verities of religion
may
be summarised thus:
One eternal, infinite,
incognisable real Existence.
From THAT the manifested
God, unfolding from unity to duality to trinity.
From the manifested
Trinity many spiritual Intelligences, guiding cosmic
order.
Man a reflection of the
manifested God and therefore a trinity fundamentally, his inner and real Self
being eternal, one with the Self of the universe.
His evolution by
repeated incarnations, into which he is drawn by desire, and from which he is
set free by knowledge and sacrifice, becoming divine in potency as he had ever
been divine in latency.
China which is now a
fossilised civilisation, was peopled in old days by the Turanians, the fourth
subdivision of the great Fourth Race, the race which inhabited the lost
continent of Atlantis, and spread its offshoots over the world. The Mongolians,
the last subdivision of that same race, later reinforced its population, so
that in China we have traditions from ancient days, preceding the settlement of
the Fifth, or Aryan race in India. In the Ching Chang Ching, or Classic of
Purity, we have a fragment of an ancient scripture of singular
beauty, breathing out the spirit of restfulness and peace so characteristic
of the "original teaching." Mr. Legge says in the introductory note
to his translation [ The Sacred Books of the East]
that the treatise –
"Is attributed to Ko Yüan (or Hsüan), a Taoist of the Wü dynasty (A.D.
222-227), who is fabled to have attained to the state of an Immortal, and is
generally so denominated. He is represented as a worker of miracles
; as addicted to
intemperance, and very eccentric in his ways. When shipwrecked on one
occasion, he emerged from beneath the water with his clothes unwet, and walked
freely on the surface. Finally he ascended to the sky in bright day. All these
accounts may safely be put down as the figments of later time."
Such stories are
repeatedly told of Initiates of various degrees, and are by no means
necessarily "figments," but we are more interested in Ko Yüan’s own account of the book.
"When I obtained
the true Tao, I recited this Ching [book] ten thousand times. It is what the
Spirits of heaven practise and had not been communicated to scholars of this
lower world. I got if from the Divine Ruler of the
the Royal-mother of the West.
Now the "Divine
Ruler of the
deals with Tao – literally "the Way’ – the name by which the
One Reality is indicated in the ancient Turanian and Mongolian religion. We
read: "The Great Tao has no bodily form, but It produced and nourishes
heaven and earth. The Great Tao has no passions, but It causes the sun and the
moon to revolve as they do. The Great Tao has no name, but It effects the
growth and
maintenance of all
things. (i,1)
This is the manifested
God as unity, but duality supervenes:
Now the Tao (shows
itself in two forms), the Pure and the Turbid, and has (two conditions of)
Motion and Rest, Heaven is pure and earth is turbid ; heaven moves and the
earth is at rest . The masculine is pure and the feminine is turbid ; the
masculine moves and the feminine is still. The radical (Purity) descended, and
the (turbid) issue flowed abroad, and thus all things were
produced (I, 2).
This passage is
particularly interesting from the allusion to the active and receptive sides of
Nature, the distinction between Spirit, the generator, and Matter, the
nourisher, so familiar in later writings. In the Tao Te Ching the teaching as
to the Unmanifested and the Manifested comes out very plainly.
"The Tao that can
be trodden is not the enduring and unchanging Tao. The name that can be named
is not the enduring and unchanging name. Having no name, it is the Originator
of heaven and earth, having a name, it is the Mother of all things…Under these
two aspects it is really the same ; but as development takes place it receives
the different names. Together we call them the Mystery (i, 1,2,4). "
Students of the Kabalah will be reminded of one of the Divine Names, "the
Concealed Mystery." Again:
"There was
something undefined and complete, coming into existence before heaven and
earth. How still it was and formless, standing alone and undergoing no change,
reaching everywhere and in no danger (of being exhausted). It may be regarded
as the Mother of all things. I do not know its name, and I give it the
designation of the Tao.
Making an effort to give it a name, I call it the Great. Great, it passes on (
in constant flow). Passing on, it becomes remote. Having become remote, it
returns (xxv, 1-3). "
Very interesting it is
to see here the idea of the forthgoing and the returning of the One Life, so
familiar to us in the Hindu Literature. Familiar seems the verse: "All
things under heaven sprang from It as existent (and named) ; that existence
sprang from It as
non-existent (and not named) (xl,2)".
That a Universe might
become, the Unmanifest must give forth the One from whom duality and trinity
proceed:
"The Tao produced
One ; One produced Two ; Two produced Three ; Three produced all things. All
things leave behind them the Obscurity (out of which they have come), and go forward
to embrace the Brightness (into which they have emerged), while they are
harmonised by the Breath of vacancy (xlii, 1)."
"Breath of
Space" would be a happier translation. Since all is produced from It, It
exists in all:
"All pervading is
the Great Tao. It may be found on the left hand and on the right …It clothes
all things as with a garment, and makes no assumption of being their lord ; -
It may be named in the smallest things. All things return (to their root and
disappear), and do not know that it is It which presides over
their doing so – It may
be named in the greatest things (xxxiv, 1, 2 )." Chwang-ze (fourth century
BC) in his presentation of the ancient teachings, refers to the spiritual
Intelligences coming from the Tao:
"It has Its root
and ground (of existence) in Itself. Before there were heaven and earth, from
of old, there It was securely existing. From It came the mysterious existence
of spirits, from It the mysterious existence of God (Bk. vi, Pt. I, Sec. vi,
7)."
A number of the names of
these Intelligences follow, but such beings are so well known to play a great
part in the Chinese religion that we need not multiply quotations about them.
Man is regarded as a
trinity, Taoism, says Mr. Legge, recognising in him the spirit, the mind, and
the body. This division comes out clearly in the /Classic of Purity, in the
teaching that man must get rid of desire to reach union with
the One:
Now the spirit of man
loves purity, but his mind disturbs it. The mind of man loves stillness, but
his desires draw it away. If he could always send his desires away, his mind of
itself would be still. Let his mind be made clean, and his spirit of itself
becomes pure ….The reason why men are not able to attain to
this is because their
minds have not been cleansed, and their desires have not been sent away. If one
is able to send the desires away, when he then looks at his mind it is no
longer his: when he looks out at his body it is no longer his ; and when he
looks farther off at external things, they are things which he has
nothing to do with ..(i,
3, 4).
Then, after giving the
stages of indrawing to "the condition of perfect stillness," it is
asked:
"In that condition
of rest independently of place, how can any desire arise? And when no desire
any longer arises there is the true stillness and rest. That true (stillness)
becomes (a) constant quality, and responds to external things (without error) ;
yea, that true and constant quality holds possession of the
nature. In such constant
response and constant stillness there is constant purity and rest. He who has
this absolute purity enters gradually into the (inspiration of the ) True Tao
(i, 5)."
The supplied words
"inspiration of" rather cloud than elucidate the meaning, for
entering into the Tao is congruous with the whole idea and with other
Scriptures.
On putting away of
desire is laid much stress in Taoism ; a commentator on the Classic of Purity
remarks that understanding the Tao depends on absolute purity, and
The acquiring the Absolute
Purity depends entirely on the putting away of Desire, which is the urgent
practical lesson of the Treatise. The Tao Teh Ching says:
Always without desire we
must be found,
If its deep mystery we
would sound;
But if desire always
within us be,
Its outer fringe is all
that we shall see.( i, 3)
Reincarnation does not
seem to be so distinctly taught as might have been expected, although passages
are found which imply that the main idea was taken for granted and that the
entity was considered as ranging through animal as well as human births. Thus
we have from Chwang-ze the quaint and wise story of a
dying man, to whom his
friend said:
"Great indeed is
the Creator! What will He now make you to become? Where will He take you to?
Will he make you the liver of a rat or the arm of an insect? Szelai replied,
"Wherever a parent tells a son to go, east, west, south or north, he
simply follows the command …Here now is a great founder, casting his metal. If
the metal were to leap up (in the pot) and say, ‘I must be made into a (sword
like the ) Moysh,’ the great founder would be sure to regard it as uncanny. So
again, when a form is being fashioned in the mould of the womb, if it were to
say, ‘I must become a man, I must become a man,’ the Creator would be sure to
regard it as uncanny. When we once understand that heaven and earth are a great
melting pot and the Creator a great founder, where can we to go to that shall
not be right for us? We are born as from a quiet sleep and we die to a calm
awaking" (Bk. vi, Pt. I, Sec. vi).
Turning to the Fifth,
the Aryan Race, we have the same teachings embodied in the oldest and greatest
Aryan religion – the Brahmanical. The eternal Existence is proclaimed in the
Chhandogyopanishad as "One only, without a second," and it is
written:
It willed, I shall
multiply for the sake of the universe (vi, ii, 1, 3).
The Supreme Logos,
Brahman, is threefold – Being, Consciousness, Bliss, and it is said:
From This arise life,
mind and all the senses, ether, air, fire , water, earth the support of all (
Mundakopanishad, ii,3).
No grander descriptions
of Deity can be found anywhere than in the Hindu Scriptures, but they are
becoming so familiar that brief quotation will suffice. Let the following serve
as specimens of their wealth of gems:
"Manifest, near,
moving in the secret place, the great abode, herein rests all that moves,
breathes, and shuts the eyes. Know That as to be worshipped, being and
non-being, the best, beyond the knowledge of all creatures. Luminous, subtler than
the subtle, in which the worlds and their denizens are infixed.
That, this imperishable
Brahman ; That, also life and voice and mind…In the golden highest sheath is
spotless, partless Brahman ; That the pure Light of lights, known by the
knowers of the Self…That deathless Brahman is before, Brahman behind, Brahman
to the right and to the left, below, above, pervading ;
this Brahman truly is
the all. This is the best ( Mundakopanishad , II,ii, 1,2,9,11).
Beyond the universe,
Brahman, the supreme, the great, hidden in all beings according to their
bodies, the one Breath of the whole universe, the Lord, whom knowing (men)
become immortal. I know that mighty Spirit, the shining sun beyond darkness… I
know Him the unfading, the ancient, the Soul of all, omnipresent by His nature,
whom the Brahman-knowers call unborn, whom they call eternal
(Shvetashvataropanishad, iii. 7,8,21).
When there is no
darkness, no day nor night, no being nor non-being (there is) Shiva even alone
; That the indestructible, That is to be worshipped by Savriti, from That came
forth the ancient wisdom. Not above nor below, nor in the midst, can He be
comprehended. Nor is there any similitude for Him whose name is infinite glory.
Not with the sight is established His form, none may by the eye behold Him ;
they who know Him by the heart and by the mind, dwelling in the heart, become
immortal (Ibid., iv, 18-20).
That man in his inner
Self is one with the Self of the universe – "I am That" – is an idea
that so thoroughly pervades all Hindu thought that man is often referred to as
the "divine town of Brahman," [ Mundakopanishad ] the "town of
nine gates," [ Shvetâshvataropanishad, iii,14. ] God dwelling in the
cavity of
the heart.[ Ibid., Ii]
"In one manner is
to be seen (the Being) which cannot be proved, which is eternal, without spot,
higher than the ether, unborn, the great eternal Soul…This great unborn Soul is
the same which abides as the intelligent (soul) in all living creatures, the
same which abides as ether in the heart ; [ The "ether in the heart"
is a mystical phrase used to indicate the One, who is said
to dwell therein.] - in
him it sleeps; it is the Subduer of all, the Ruler of all, the sovereign Lord
of all ; it does not become greater by good works nor less by evil work. It is
the Ruler of all, the sovereign Lord of all beings, the Preserver of all
beings, the Bridge, the Upholder of the worlds, so that they fall not to ruin (
Brihadaranyakopanishad, IV, iv, 20,22, Trs. Dr. E. Röer.)
When God is regarded as
the evolver of the universe, the threefold character comes out very clearly as
Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma or again as Vishnu sleeping under the waters, the
Lotus springing from Him, and in the Lotus Brahma. Man is likewise threefold,
and in the Mândűkyopanishad the self is described as conditioned by the
physical body, the subtle body, and the mental body, and then rising out of all
into the One "without duality." From the Trimurti (Trinity) come many
Gods, connected with the administration of the universe, as to whom it is said
in the Brihadaranyakopanishad.
"Adore Him, ye
Gods, after whom the year by rolling days is completed, the Light of lights, as
the Immortal Life (IV, iv, 16)."
It is hardly necessary
to mention the presence in Brâhmanism of the teaching of reincarnation, since
its whole philosophy of life turns on this pilgrimage of the Soul through many
births and deaths, and not a book could be taken up in which this truth is not
taken for granted. By desires man is bound to this wheel
of change, and therefore
by knowledge, devotion, and the destruction of desires, man must set himself
free. When the Soul knows God it is liberated. ( Shvetash, I, 8.) The intellect
purified by knowledge beholds Him. ( Mund., III, I,8 .) Knowledge joined to
devotion finds the abode of Brahman. ( Mund., III, ii,4).
Whoever knows Brahman,
becomes Brahman. ( Mund., III, ii,9 ) When desires cease the mortal becomes
immortal and obtains Brahman. ( Kathop., vi, 14). Buddhism, as it exists in its
northern form, is quite at one with the most ancient faiths, but in the
southern form it seems to have let slip the idea of the Logoic Trinity as of
the One Existence from which They came forth. The LOGOS in His triple
manifestation is: the First LOGOS, Amitâbha, the Boundless Light ; the Second,
Avalokiteshvara, or Padmapani (Chenresi) ; the Third, Manjusri – "the
representative of creative wisdom, corresponding to Brahmâ." ( Eitel’s
Sanskrit Chinese Dictionary, sub voce. ) Chinese Buddhism apparently does not
contain the idea of a primordial Existence, beyond the LOGOS, but Nepalese
Buddhism postulates Âdi-Buddha, from Whom Amitâbha arises. Padmapâni is said by
Eitel to be the representative of compassionate Providence and to correspond
partly with Shiva, but as the aspect of the Buddhist Trinity that sends forth
incarnations He appears rather to represent the same idea as Vishnu, to whom He
is allied by bearing the Lotus (fire and water, or Spirit and Matter as the
primary constituents of the universe).
Reincarnation and Karma
are so much the fundamentals of Buddhism that it is hardly worth while to
insist on them save to note the way of liberation, and to remark that as the
Lord Buddha was a Hindu preaching to Hindus, Brâhmanical
doctrines are taken for
granted constantly in His teaching, as matters of course. He was a purifier and
a reformer, not an iconoclast, and struck at the accretions due to ignorance,
not at fundamental truths belonging to the Ancient Wisdom.
"Those beings who
walk in the way of the law that has been well taught, reach the other shore of
the great sea of birth and death, that is difficult to cross."
(Udanavarga, xxix. 37).
Desire binds man, and
must be gotten rid of:
"It is hard for one
who is held by the fetters of desire to free himself of them, says the Blessed
One. The steadfast, who care not for the happiness of desires, cast them off
and do soon depart (to Nirvana)….Mankind
has no lasting desires: they are impermanent in them who experience them ; free
yourselves then from what cannot last, and abide not in the sojourn of death (
Ibid., Ii, 6, 8).
He who has destroyed
desires for (worldly )goods, sinfulness, the bonds of the eye of the flesh, who
has torn up desire by the very root, he, I declare, is a Brahmana (Ibid.,
xxxiii, 68)."
And a Brâhmana is a man
"having his last body," (Udânavarga, xxxiii, 41) and is defined as
one.
"Who, knowing his
former abodes (existences) perceives heaven and hell, the Muni, who has found
the way to put an end to birth". (ibid., xxxiii,55). In the exoteric
Hebrew Scriptures, the idea of a Trinity does not come out strongly, though
duality is apparent, and the God spoken of is obviously the LOGOS, not the One
Unmanifest: "I am the Lord and there is none else. I form the light and
create darkness; I make peace and create evil ; I am the Lord that doeth all
these things." (Is., xlvii, 7) Philo, however, has the doctrine of the
LOGOS very clearly, and it is found in the Fourth Gospel:
"In the beginning
was the Word [Logos] and the Word was with God and the Word was God….All things
were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. (St.
John i, 1, 3).
In the Kabalah the
doctrine of the One, the Three, the Seven, and then the many, is plainly
taught:
The Ancient of the
Ancients, the Unknown of the Unknown, has a form, yet also has not any form. It
has a form through which the universe is maintained. It also has not any form,
as It cannot be comprehended. When It first took this form [Kether, the Crown,
the First Logos] It permitted to proceed from It nine brilliant Lights [Wisdom
and the Voice, forming with Kether the Triad, and then the seven lower
Sephiroth] …It is the Ancient of the Ancients, the Mystery of the Mysteries,
the Unknown of the Unknown.
It has a form which
appertains to It, since It appears (through it) to us, as the Ancient Man above
all as the Ancient of the Ancients, and as that which there is the Most Unknown
among the Unknown. But under that form by which It makes Itself known, It
however still remains the Unknown (Issac Myer’s Qabbalah, from the Zohar, pp.
274-275).
Myer points out that the
"form" is "not ‘the Ancient of the Ancients,’ who is the Ain
Soph. Again:
"Three Lights are
in the Holy Upper which Unite as One ; and they are the basis of the Thorah,
and this opens the door to all….Come, see! the mystery of the word. These are
three degrees and each exists by itself, and yet all are One and are knotted in
One, nor are they separated one from another….Three come out from One, One
exists in Three, it is the force between Two, Two nourishes One. One nourishes
many sides, thus All is One. (ibid., 373, 375,376).
Needless to say that the
Hebrews held the doctrine of many Gods – "Who is like unto Thee, O Lord,
among the Gods?" –and of multitudes of subordinate ministrants, the
"Sons of God," the "Angels of the Lord," the "Ten
Angelic Hosts."(Exodus, xv,ii.)
Of the commencement of
the universe the Zohar teaches:
In the beginning was the
Will of the King, prior to any existence which came into being through
emanation from this Will. It sketched and engraved the forms of all things that
were to be manifested from concealment into view, in the supreme and dazzling
light of the Quadrant [the Sacred Tetractys] (Myer’s
Quabbalah, pp. 194-95).
Nothing can exist in
which the Deity is not immanent, and with regard to Reincarnation it is taught
that the Soul is present in the divine Idea ere coming to earth ; if the Soul
remained quite pure during its trial it escaped rebirth, but this seems to have
been only a theoretical possibility, and it is said:
All souls are subject to
revolution (metempsychosis, a’leen o’gilgoolah), but men do not know the ways
of the Holy One: blessed be It! they are ignorant of the way they have been
judged in all time, and before they came into this world and when they have
quitted it (ibid., p. 198).
Traces of this belief
occur both in the Hebrew and Christian exoteric
Scriptures, as in the
belief that Elijah would return, and later that he had
returned in John the
Baptist.
Turning to glance at
The Gods bow before Thy
Majesty by exalting the Souls of That which produceth them….and say to Thee:
Peace to all emanations from the unconscious father of the conscious Fathers of
the Gods…..Thou Producer of beings, we adore the Souls which emanate from Thee.
Thou begettest us, O Thou Unknown, and we greet Thee in worshipping each
God-Soul which descendeth from Thee and liveth in us (quoted in Secret Doctrine
iii, 485, 1893 ed.; v, 463, Adyar Ed.).
The "conscious
Fathers of the Gods" are the LOGOI, the "unconscious Father" is
the One Existence, unconscious not as being less but as being infinitely more
than what we call consciousness, a limited thing.
In the fragments of the
Book of the Dead we can study the conceptions of the reincarnating of the human
Soul, of its pilgrimage towards and its ultimate union with the LOGOS. The
famous papyrus of "the scribe Ani, triumphant in peace," is full of
touches that remind the reader of the Scriptures of other
faiths ; his journey
through the underworld, his expectation of re-entering his body (the form taken
by reincarnation among the Egyptians), his identification with the LOGOS:
Saith Osiris Ani: I am
the great One, son of the great One ; I am Fire, the son of Fire …I have knit
together my bones, I have made myself whole and sound ; I have become young
once more ; I am Osiris the Lord of eternity (xliii, 1, 4 ).
In Pierret’s recension
of The Book of the Dead we find the striking passage:
I am the being of
mysterious names who prepares for himself dwellings for millions of years (p.
22). Heart, that comest to me from my mother, my heart necessary to my
existence on earth …Heart, that comest to me from my mother, heart that is
necessary for me for my transformation (pp. 113-114).
In Zoroastrianism we
find the conception of the One Existence, imaged as Boundless Space, whence
arises the LOGOS, the creator Aűharmazd: Supreme in omniscience and goodness,
and unrivalled in splendor: the region of light is the place of Aűharmazd (The
Bundahis, Sacred Books of the East, v, 3,
4; v, 2).
To him in the Yasna, the
chief liturgy of the Zarathustrians, homage is first paid:
I announce and I (will)
complete (my Yasna [worship] to Ahura Mazda, the creator, the radiant and
glorious, the greatest and the best, the most beautiful (?) (to our
conceptions), the most firm, the wisest, and the one of all whose body is most
perfect, who attains his ends the most infallibly, because of His
righteous order, to Him
who disposes our minds aright, who sends His joy-creating grace afar ; who made
us and has fashioned us, and who has nourished and protected us, who is the
most bounteous Spirit (Sacred Books of the East, xxxi, pp. 195,196).
The worshipper then pays
homage to the Ameshaspends and other Gods, but the supreme manifested God, the
LOGOS, is not here presented as triune. As with the Hebrews, there was a
tendency in the exoteric faith to lose sight of this
fundamental truth.
Fortunately we can trace the primitive teaching, though it disappeared in later
times from the popular belief. Dr. Haug, in his Essays on the Parsis
(translated by Dr. West and forming vol. v of Trubner’s Oriental Series) states
that Ahuramazda – Aűharmazd or Hârmazd – is the Supreme Being, and that from
him were produced – Two primeval causes, which, though different were united
and produced the world of material things as well as that of the spirit (p.
303).
These were called twins
and are everywhere present, in Ahuramazda as well as in man. One produces
reality, the other non-reality, and it is these who in later Zoroastrianism
became the opposing Spirits of good and evil. In the earlier teachings they
evidently formed the Second Logos, duality being his
characteristic mark.
The "good" and
"bad" are merely Light and Darkness, Spirit and Matter, the
fundamental "twins" of the Universe, the Two from the One.
Criticising the later idea, Dr. Haug says:
Such is the original
Zoroastrian notion of the two creative Spirits, who form only two parts of the
Divine being. But in the course of time this doctrine of the great founder was
changed and corrupted, in consequence of misunderstandings and false
interpretations. Spentômainyush [ the "good spirit"] was taken as a
name of Ahuramazda Himself, and then of course Angrômainyush [ the "evil
spirit"] by becoming entirely separated from Ahuramazda ; was regarded as
the constant adversary of Ahuramazda: thus the Dualism of God and Devil arose
(p. 205).
Dr. Haug’s view seems to
be supported by the Gâtha Ahunavaiti, given with other Gâthas by "the
archangels" to Zoroaster or Zarathustra:
In the beginning there
was a pair of twins, two spirits, each of a peculiar activity ; these are the
good and the base …And these two spirits united created the first (the material
things) ; one the reality, the other the non-reality …And to succor this life
(to increase it) Armaiti came with wealth, the good and
true mind ; she, the everlasting
one, created the material world….All perfect things are garnered up in the
splendid residence of the Good Mind, the Wise and the Righteous, who are known
as the best beings (Yas., xxx, 3,4,7,10; Dr. Haug’s translation, pp.149-151).
Here the three LOGOI are
seen, Ahuramazda the first, the supreme Life ; in and from him the
"twins," the Second LOGOS ; then Armaiti the Mind, the Creator of the
Universe, the Third LOGOS. ( Armaiti was a first Wisdom and the Goddess of
Wisdom, Later as the creator, She became identified with the earth, and was
worshipped as the Goddess of Earth). Later Mithra appears, and in the exoteric
faith clouds the primitive truth to some extent ; of him it is said:
Whom Ahura Mazda has
established to maintain and look over all this moving world ; who, never
sleeping, wakefully guards the creation of Mazda (Mihir Yast, xxvii, 103:
Sacred Books of the East, xviii).
He was a subordinate
God, the Light of Heaven, as Varuna was the Heaven itself, one of the great
ruling Intelligences. The highest of these ruling Intelligences were the six
Ameshaspends, headed by the Good Thought of Ahuramazda, Vohűman – Who have
charge of the whole material creation (Sacred Books of the East,v. p. 10 note).
Reincarnation does not
seem to be taught in the books which, so far, have been translated, and the
belief is not current among modern Parsis. But we do find the idea of the
Spirit in man as a spark that is to become a flame and to be reunited to the
Supreme Fire, and this must imply a development for which
rebirth is a necessity.
Nor will Zoroastrianism ever be understood until we recover the Chaldean
Oracles and allied writings, for there is its real root.
Travelling westward to
According to the
theology of Orpheus, all things originate from an immense principle, to which
through the imbecility and poverty of human conception we give a name, though
it is perfectly ineffable, and in the reverential language of the Egyptians in
a thrice unknown darkness in contemplation of which all knowledge is refunded
into ignorance (Thomas Taylor, quoted in Orpheus, ). From this the
"Primordial Triad," Universal Good, Universal Soul, Universal Mind,
again the Logoic Trinity. Of this Mr. Mead writes:
The first Triad, which
is manifestable to intellect, is but a reflection of, or substitute for the
Unmanifestable, and its hypostases are:
(a) the Good, which is
super-essential;
(b) Soul (the World
Soul), which is a self-motive essence;
(c) Intellect (or the
Mind), which is an impartible, immovable essence
(ibid., p. 94).
After this, a series of
ever-descending Triads, showing the characteristics of the first in diminishing
splendor until man is reached, who – Has in him potentially the sum and
substance of the universe…"The race of men and gods is one (Pindar, who
was a Pythagorean, quoted by Clemens, Strom., v.709)…Thus man was called the
microcosm or little world, to distinguish him
from the universe or
great world (ibid., p. 271).
He has the Nous, or real
mind, the Logos or rational part, the Alogos or irrational part, the two latter
again forming a Triad, and thus presenting the more elaborate septenary
division. The man was also regarded as having three vehicles, the physical and
subtle bodies and the luciform body or augoeides, that:
Is the "causal
body," or karmic vesture of the soul, in which its destiny, or rather all
the seeds of past causation are stored. This is the "thread-soul," as
it is sometimes called, the "body" that passes over from one
incarnation to another (ibid., p. 284).
As to reincarnation:
Together with all the
adherents of the Mysteries in every land the Orphics believed in reincarnation
(ibid., p. 292).
To this Mr. Mead brings
abundant testimony, and he shows that it was taught by Plato, Empedocles,
Pythagoras, and others. Only by virtue could men escape from the life-wheel.
Taylor in his notes to
the Select Works of Plotinus, quotes from Damascius as to the teachings of
Plato on the One beyond the One, the Unmanifest Existence:
Perhaps indeed, Plato
leads us ineffably through the one as a medium to the ineffable beyond the one
which is now the subject of discussion ; and this by an ablation of the one in
the same manner as he leads to the one by an ablation of other things…That
which is beyond the one is to be honoured in the most perfect silence…The one
indeed wills to be by itself, but with no other ; but the unknown beyond the
one is perfectly ineffable, which we acknowledge we neither know, nor are
ignorant of, but which has about itself super-ignorance.
Hence by proximity to
this the one itself is darkened ; for being near to the immense principle, if
it be lawful so to speak, it remains as it were in the adytum of the truly
mystic silence…The first is above the one and all things, being more
simple than either of
these (pp.341-343).
The Pythagorean,
Platonic, and Neo-Platonic schools have so many points of contact with Hindu
and Buddhist thought that their issue from the one fountain is obvious. R.
Garbe, in his work, Die Samkhya Philosophie (iii,pp.85-105) presents many of
these points, and his statement may be summarised as follows:
The most striking is the
resemblance – or more correctly the identity – of the doctrine of the One and
Only in the Upanishads and the Eleatic school. Xenophanes’ teaching of the
unity of God and the Kosmos and of the changelessness of the One, and even more
that of Parmenides, who held that reality is ascribable only to the One unborn,
indestructible and omnipresent, while all that is manifold and subject to
change is but an appearance, and
further that Being and
Thinking are the same – these doctrines are completely identical with the
essential contents of the Upanishads and of the Vedântic philosophy which
springs from them. But even earlier still the view of Thales, that all that
exists has sprung from Water, is curiously like the VaidiK
doctrine that the
Universe arose from the waters. Later on Anaximander assumed as the basis
(????) of all things an eternal, infinite, and indefinite Substance, from which
all definite substances proceed and into which they return – an assumption
identical with that which lies at the root of the Sankhya, viz., the Prakrti
from which the whole material side of the universe evolved.
And his famous saying
p??ta ´?eî (panta rhei) expresses the characteristic view of the Sânkhya that
all things are ever changing under the ceaseless activity of the three gunas.
Empedocles again taught theories of transmigration and
evolution practically
the same as those of the Sânkhyas, while his theory that nothing can come into
being which does not already exist is even more closely identical with a
characteristically Sânkhyan doctrine.
Both Anaxagoras and
Democritus also present several points of close agreement, especially the
latter’s view as to the nature and position of the Gods, and the same applies,
notably in some curious matters of detail, to Epicurus. But it is, however, in
the teachings of Pythagoras that we find the closest and most
frequent identities of teachings and argumentation, explained as due
to Pythagoras himself having visited
into relation with matter, in which the Light can be lessened
and at last quite obscured, in which case the Intelligence falls finally into
complete unconsciousness.
Of the highest
Intelligence it is maintained that it is neither Light nor Not-Light, neither
Darkness nor Not-Darkness, since all those expressions denote relations of the
Intelligence to the Light, which indeed in the beginning was free from these
connections, but later on encloses the Intelligence and mediates its connection
with matter. It follows from this that the Buddhist view ascribes to the
highest Intelligence the power to produce light from itself, and that in this
respect also there is an agreement between Buddhism and Gnosticism. Garbe here
points out that, as regards the features alluded to, the agreement between
Gnosticism and Sânkhya is very much closer than that with Buddhism ; for while
these views as to the relations between Light and Spirit pertain to the later
phases of Buddhism, and are not at all fundamental to, or characteristic of it
as such, the Sânkhya teaches clearly and precisely that Spirit is Light.
Later still the influence
of the Sânkhya thought is very plainly evident in the Neo-Platonic writers ;
while the doctrine of the LOGOS or Word, though not of Sânkhyan origin, shows
even in its details that it has been derived from India, where the conception
of Vach, the Divine Word, plays so prominent a part in the Brâhmanical system.
Coming to the Christian
religion, contemporaneous with the Gnostic and Neo-Platonic systems, we shall
find no difficulty in tracing most of the same fundamental teachings with which
we have now become so familiar. The threefold LOGOS appears as the Trinity ;
the First LOGOS, the fount of all life being the Father ; the dual-natured
Second LOGOS the Son, God-man ; the Third, the creative Mind, the Holy Ghost,
whose brooding over the waters of chaos brought forth the worlds. Then comes
"the seven Spirits of God" [Rev. iv. 5.] and the hosts archangels and
angels. Of the One Existence from which all comes and into which all returns,
but little is hinted, the Nature that by searching cannot be found out ; but
the great doctors of the Church Catholic always posit the unfathomable Deity,
incomprehensible, infinite, and therefore necessarily but
One and partless.
Man is made in the
"image of God," [Gen. I, 26-27] and is consequently triple in his nature
– Spirit and Soul and body, [1-Thess. V, 23] he is a "habitation of
God," [Eph. Ii, 22] the "
asked as to Elijah coming before the Messiah, He answered that
"Elias is come already and they knew him not." [ Matt. xvii, 12 ].So
again we find the disciples taking reincarnation for granted in asking whether
blindness from birth was a punishment for a man’s sin and Jesus in answer not
rejecting the possibility of ante-natal sin, but only excluding it as causing
the blindness in
the special instance.
[John, ix, 1-13 ] The remarkable phrase applied to "him that overcometh"
in Rev. iii, 12, - that he shall be "a pillar in the temple of my God, and
he shall go no more out", has been taken as signifying escape from
rebirth. From the writings of some of the Christian Fathers a good case may be
made our for a current
belief in reincarnation ; some argue that only the pre-existence of the Soul is
taught, but this view does not seem to me supported by the evidence.
The unity of moral
teaching is not less striking, than the unity of the conceptions of the
universe and of the experiences of those who rose out of the prison of the body
into the freedom of the higher spheres. It is clear that this body of primeval
teaching was in the hands of definite custodians, who had schools in which they
taught, disciples who studied their doctrines. The identity of these schools
and of their discipline stands out plainly when we
study the moral
teaching, the demands made on the pupils, and the mental and spiritual states
to which they were raised. A caustic division is made in the Tao Teh Ching of
the types of scholars:
Scholars of the highest
class when they hear about the Tao, earnestly carry it into practice. Scholars
of the middle class, when they have hears about it, seem now to keep it and now
to lose it. Scholars of the lowest class, when they have heard about it, laugh
greatly at it (Sacred Books of the East, xxxix, op. Cit.,
xli, 1).
In the same book we
read:
The sage puts his own
person last, and yet it is found in the foremost place; he treats his person as
if it were foreign to him, and yet that person is preserved. It is not because
he has no personal and private ends that therefore such ends are realised?
(vii,2) – He is free from self-display, and therefore he
shines; from
self-assertion, and therefore he is distinguished ; from self-boasting, and
therefore his merit is acknowledged, from self-complacency, and therefore he
acquires superiority. It is because he is thus free from striving that
therefore no one in the world is able to strive with him (xxii, 2). There is no
guilt greater than to sanction ambition ; no calamity greater
than to be discontented
with one’s lot ; no fault greater than the wish to be getting (xlvi,2).
To those who are good
(to me) I am good ; and to those who are not good (to me) I am also good ; and
thus all get to be good. To those who are sincere (with me) I am sincere; and
to those who are not sincere (with me) I am also sincere ; and thus (all) get
to be sincere (xlix, 1).
He who has in himself
abundantly the attributes (of the Tâo ) is like an infant. Poisonous insects
will not sting him ; fierce beasts will not seize him ; birds of prey will not
strike him – ( lv, 1), I have three precious things which I prize and hold
fast.
The first is gentleness
; the second is economy ; the third is shrinking from taking precedence of
others …Gentleness is sure to be victorious, even in battle, and firmly to
maintain its ground. Heaven will save its possessor, by his (very) gentleness
protecting him (lxvii,2,4).
Among the Hindus there
were selected scholars deemed worthy of special instruction to whom the Guru
imparted the secret teachings, while the general rules of right living may be
gathered from Manu’s Ordinances, the Upanishads, the Mahâbhârata and many other
treatises:
Let him say what is true, let him say what is pleasing, let him utter no disagreeable truth, and let him utter no agreeable falsehood ; that is the eternal law (Manu, iv, 138). Giving no pain to any creature, let him slowly accumulate spiritual merit (iv, 238). For that twice-born man, by whom not the smallest danger even is caused to created beings, there will be no danger from any