The Writings of George S Arundale
Nirvana
A Study in Synthetic Consciousness
by
George S. Arundale
First published 1926
To
Two Elder
Brothers
Annie Besant and Charles Webster
Leadbeater by whose aid these experiences were possible and to those in
whom Nirvana shines revealed
FOREWORD
I HAVE been
asked by my life-long friend Bishop Arundale to write a few words of
introduction to his book. I consider it a very remarkable production - a
valiant attempt to describe the indescribable. Few among men still living on
earth are they who have experienced Nirvana; fewer still have made any
endeavour to record their impressions. Those of us who have touched that truly
tremendous altitude know well that all human words fall short in the effort,
that all earthly colours are hopelessly inadequate, to depict its supernal
glories; yet must we
try, even
though we are foredoomed to failure. That which is given to us we must share
with our brethren, so far as may be, for that is the law of the occult life; in
obedience to that law this book is written.
I have
myself tried to convey in words something of that supercelestial atmosphere, as
you may read in The Masters and the Path, but I think my brother Bishop has
been more
successful
than I. There is a living fire in his words. True, that which he has seen
cannot be portrayed; yet the enthusiasm which he throws into the essay is so
infectious that we feel ourselves on the very verge of understanding. Much of
upliftment, much of help he certainly can and does give us; if we cannot yet
know all, at least we are nearer to the knowing, at least we are encouraged by
the testimony of one who already knows. And where he stands now, all will stand
one day.
So let us
unite in outpouring our heartfelt gratitude for this rare book which he has
given us; and the best way in which we can show it is to aid him and to follow
him in the splendid work which he is doing in the service of our Holy Masters.
My son
George has asked me to add a few words to the above, written by one who knows.
To try to describe Nirvana is as hopeless a task as to try to empty the ocean
into a thimble. Yet it is one of the efforts that are made by heroes only.
I recall
the words spoken by one who greatly dared in this lower world, as marking the
heroic enthusiast:It is better to climb nobly and to fail,Than ignobly not to
climb at all.
AUTHOR’S
PREFACE
I THINK I
may say I have been a rather strenuous person for many years, for over
twenty-five years now, under the inspiring guidance of my revered Chief, Dr.
Annie Besant; and my strenuousness has been very much on the physical plane.
I confess
to having thought little of what people call “higher things,” of causes and of
origins, of theories of life, of planes of nature, of hierarchies of beings,
and so forth. I have had work to do in the outer world, and I have tried to do
it, and have not concerned myself with whys and wherefores. Whenever I
have
studied, I have studied specifically to the immediate ends of a particular
piece of work. I have never studied for study’s sake.
I have
never cared for wisdom for what wisdom is, but for what wisdom can do. My
universe is full of the things I need. If I could not relate a thing to my
work, then that thing has been out of my perspective, at all events for the
time being. I have been one-pointed, even though I may have turned my eyes from
much upon which they might usefully have rested.
But during
the last year or so I have been making a discovery. I have discovered that however
much I may have been strenuous on the physical plane, this physical plane
strenuousness has been almost as nothing compared with my strenuousness on
other planes. This is probably the case with everybody, but it came as a great
surprise to me on the physical plane. I began at once to realize that I must
cease to live in these plane-tight compartments. I must begin to live on many
planes simultaneously. I began to realize that the one life unites all planes
and all things; and that in reality there is nothing which should be
indifferent to me. Everything is related to everything else, and everything
modifies everything else. Why, the far-distant Sun Himself presses physically
upon every part of the world, as science itself teaches us.
So I
brooded much upon this unity, both in and out of the body, and tried to live
more from the universal than from the particular. The result has been, I hope,
bigger living, more effective living. But I had no clear perception ] of unity,
only a sense of it, a vague idea of it just sufficient to make life strangely
and intriguingly different.
Many years
ago, it was in 1912 at
It was
almost as if my consciousness flickered between George Arundale as George
Arundale and George Arundale as the orange grove. I was two entities, yet one.
And as I lived as the orange grove a gardener entered and began to pluck some
of the oranges and to cut off some of the branches. All these things the
gardener was doing to me. I rebelled
not as George Arundale might rebel, not with my mind and my will, but as
orange groves apparently do rebel. I was conscious of discomfort, of loss, not
exactly of pain but of something next door to it. I was the more discomforted
because the gardener did not treat me reverently or affectionately, but as if I
were inanimate with no feelings, with no capacity for sensation.
Why could
he not realise that the same life was in us both? If he had only had the
attitude of asking my permission, of begging my pardon, for his actions, of
conveying to me that I could make others happy by sharing myself with them, I
should not have minded so much. But he was callous, selfish, and treated the
orange grove as a slave instead of as a comrade. He hurt me every time he
plucked an orange or cut off a branch. With a different attitude on his part,
he might have had all my oranges, all my branches, and we might have rejoiced
together, for we could have worked together. As it was, being at his mercy and
treated as his chattel, life was only just worth living, and I was a poor
orange grove, because uncared for.
This
experience of consciousness in the vegetable kingdom opened before my eyes an
entirely new conception of consciousness at different levels of unfoldment, and
of the implications of the all-embracing unity. I have never been the same since.
I have never been able to pluck a flower, or even to uproot a weed, without as
it were silently explaining my reasons to the plant or to the weed, requesting
a sacrifice for some definite, I will not necessarily say larger, good.
And I have
never found any lack of co-operation. Interestingly enough, I always feel that
I must justify my actions to the life which I am thereby affecting, and for
this very reason I am more than ever a vegetarian. How can I explain, how can I
have the face to explain, to sheep or cattle, to birds or fishes, that I ask
them to sacrifice themselves, with an inevitable accompaniment of much
suffering, simply to gratify my palate, or because I myself suffer from the
delusion that I cannot live without eating flesh food? To make such a request
is grossly, disgustingly selfish; and though I can behave, if I choose, like a
robber or pirate, and steal by force, still there is fortunately just enough of
the honourable gentleman about me, at least in this particular direction, to cause
me utterly to decline to make so monstrous a demand, whereby I must inevitably
lower the dignity of the kingdom to which I belong, making the subhuman
kingdoms wonder what kind of evolution it is that causes those who should know
better to prey upon those who cannot resist force, whose only defence is their
right to live.
From time
to time I have had other visions of this glorious unity, but none so
inexpressible as that which marked the opening of the doors of Nirvana to the
knock I had learned to give.
One night I
suddenly awoke with a most vivid remembrance of a supreme exaltation, of a
marvellous expansion of consciousness, absolutely indescribable, though then
and there I felt I must somehow or other record it on paper. It was about 1
a.m., and part of me was very much disinclined to take the trouble to sit up
and write, even though pencil and paper were by my bedside as has been my habit
for some time in case an idea came during the fruitful hours when sleep
minimizes physical interference. But another part of me insisted. So I sat up
and wrote that with which this book begins, and I remember hearing:
“This is
Nirvana.” And I knew it was Nirvana. I was immensely astonished, I confess, for
I had never before given a thought to Nirvana, at all events on the physical
plane.
What I
wrote was very i strange to me at first. My waking consciousness was not
accustomed to reflect Nirvanic consciousness, and the process of remembrance
was physically painful. However I wrote down all that came to me, and my pencil
found it exceedingly difficult to travel at the rate at which the thoughts
poured through. I could hardly read my own handwriting, so fast I wrote; and
certainly I hardly knew what I was writing. I wrote for hours, and was all
aglow with exaltation.
The whole
of my being seemed re oriented. I was born again; and when the day came I found
all changed. A new note had been sounded in my being, new values had come to
everything, and since then I have been occupied in readjustment, so that I may
gradually blend my old world with my new world.
Practically
the whole of the book had been written either between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. or
between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m., and many nights have been passed in the physically
painful, though spiritually wonderfully uplifting, process of striving to hold
a reflection of Nirvana in the physical brain and in the waking consciousness.
Needless to
say, even the most beautiful description of Nirvana which could be
conceived out here must inevitably be
nothing less than a caricature of Nirvana as it in reality is. What then must
my poor efforts be! It is almost a blasphemy to publish them, even as a feeble
attempt to indicate a shadow of Nirvanic glories. They fall indescribably short
of the reality. Yet it seems to be better to have even these than nothing; and
many who have read some extracts have felt an upliftment. With Bishop
Leadbeater’s encouragement, therefore, this book is issued as a poor sketch by
an unpractised hand, conveyed through deadening media, of a world of incomparable
glories. I ought to add that even the glories I know can only be those of the
very lowest sub plane of Nirvana, and even then only a few of the glories of
this sub-plane, for I have only just been born into Nirvana, and have yet to
develop the senses appropriate to my new world.
As time
passes, however, more and more of Nirvanic consciousness penetrates my being,
and it is as if I had begun a stupendous journey from a great Resurrection to
an Ascension the glories of which are as different from those of Nirvana as is
the Sun from our Earth.
I hope the
account of my own experiences will help others to contact this royal
consciousness of Nirvana. It is within the near reach, no doubt, of many; while
some today, and many in days gone by, have known Nirvana as I can only hope to
know it after long effort and concentration. My own description is not, of
course, of Nirvana as it actually is, even on the lowest subplane. It is of
Nirvana as it has appeared to me, of as much of Nirvana as I have been able to
assimilate. Much of the description is doubtless coloured by my personality.
Another
description, totally different, might well be quite as true, possibly far more
true. I can only say I have done the best I could with the powers at my
disposal, and I am well aware that the narrative is in many ways made up of a
number of disconnected parts. The reason for this is that I have written night
after night as I was moved to write, without thought of what I had already
written. Each section is, therefore, the pen impression of a particular vision
of the Nirvanic landscape, just as it impressed itself upon me at the time.
NOTE TO THE
SECOND EDITION
I AM
naturally gratified that after a few months a second edition of Nirvana is
demanded. I think the value of the little book has been more in the direction
of suggestion as to lines of experiment than as a description of the conditions
obtaining under the Nirvanic mode of consciousness. Frankly, the reader will
find little description, for description is impossible; but he will find many
impressions, and my advice to him is to pay just as much or as little attention
as he feels disposed to the details of the various impressions, and to
concentrate on the atmosphere of which they are particular expressions as the
result of the medium, George Arundale, through which the atmosphere must needs
filter. For example, I write of Lightning-standing-still. A reader might well
exclaim: “Ah! I think I know what you mean. I should not call it Lightning, nor
Lightning-standing-still. I should call it so and so. That would be the kind of
filtration ix] I should get from that selfsame atmosphere which we both sense,
but which I should describe so differently.” Let Nirvana help you to Nirvana,
be your road what it may. All I can say is that I happened to take a route
which I have described as best I could in the following pages.
With this
latitude open to every reader, there is one door I want to shut in his face,
and that is the door of common sense. If you have nothing but common sense at
your disposal I am afraid Nirvana will mean little or nothing to you. To
understand either Buddhi or Nirvana a distinctly uncommon sense is needed.
Common
sense will not help you in these regions any more than it will help you to
understand modern physics since Einstein. Bertrand Russell tells us in his A.
B. C. of Relativity that a new kind of thinking must dawn upon our mental
worlds as a result of the introduction of new conceptions and notions regarding
physical things, even though these conceptions and notions be by no means yet
entirely verified. He adjures us to start thinking in terms of these “modern
physical notions rather than in terms of the notions derived from common sense
and embodied in traditional physics”.
That is
exactly what has to be done by those who have contacted the outer fringes of
Buddhi and Nirvana. It is not common sense and the tradition of the lower
worlds with which they are now concerned, but rather with an uncommon sense
which is an extraordinarily refined sense, as yet extremely uncommon but some
day to become common in its turn. Remember that the use of uncommon sense does
not mean that we cease to be efficient in the lower worlds.
On the
contrary, we become far more efficient, for we build with stone and not with
sand. We live more truly because nearer to the Real, even though in its
ignorance and common sense the outer world may laugh, ridicule, persecute,
despise. Indeed, Bertrand Russell goes further than I should have dared to go,
though by no means further than I should be prepared to go, in the following
startling utterance taken from the same little book:
It is
possible that the desire for rational explanation may be carried too far ...
every apparent law of nature which strikes us as reasonable is not really a law
of nature, but a concealed convention, plastered on to nature by our love of
what we, in our arrogance, choose to consider rational. Eddington hints that a
real law of nature is likely to stand out by the fact that it appears to us
irrational, since in that case it is less likely that we have invented it to
satisfy our intellectual taste.
A profoundly
true utterance which, had it been widely appreciated in times gone by and were
it widely appreciated today, would have saved many apostles of truth from
persecution and martyrdom and would enable the world to derive far more benefit
than it does from the researches of occultists and mystics - true pioneers,
true seekers after “real laws of nature” through the “irrational” and
superrational.
I have made
many corrections and a number of additions and modifications in this new
edition, and I have added a new chapter “Further Thoughts” - containing a few
results of further meditations. I hope these also will prove interesting, and
provocative of pioneering in the same direction.
G. S. A.
CONTENTS
Foreword
Author’s
Preface
Note to the
Second Edition.
I. The First Glimpse.
II. The First Readjustment.
III. The Inner Light upon Outer Things.
IV. A Meditation in the Himalayas
V. Some Reflections.
VI. The Awakening of Nirvana.
VII. The
Theosophical Society.
VIII. The
Immanence of Light.
IX. A Further Readjustment.
X. Further Thoughts.
XI. Mother-Light.
XII. The Dangers of Nirvana.
XIII. The Glorious Task
CHAPTER I
THE FIRST
GLIMPSE
Magnificent
The morning
rose, in memorable pomp,
Glorious as
ere I had beheld. In front
The sea lay
laughing at a distance; near
The solid
mountains shone, bright as the clouds,
Green-tinctured,
drenched in empyrean light;
And in the
meadows and the lower grounds
Was all the
sweetness of a common dawn, -
Dews,
vapours, and the melody of birds,
And
labourers going forth to till the fields.
Ah I need I
say, dear Friend, that to the brim
My heart
was full; I made no vows, but vows
Were then
made for me; bond unknown to me
Was given,
that I should be, else sinning greatly,
A dedicated
Spirit. On I walked,
In thankful
blessedness, which yet survives.
WORDSWORTH,
(The Prelude, Bk. IV)
MY first remembrance is of seeing the Master
K.H. * (*Those who have undergone occult
training are aware how supremely magnificent as a Teacher is this Great Master.
He is, of course, a high Official in the world’s education department, and
apprentices from all departments have the honour to come under His inspiring
guidance. I myself have had this honour, and although I do not belong to the
education department, I still have the inestimable privilege of His gracious
guidance. It was a great joy to me to enter the new pathway under the
benevolent watchfulness of this gracious Friend, to Whom I owe so much; and it
was a great joy, too, to make the entry with the help of the Master’s
representative in the outer world, our wonderful elder brother Bishop
Leadbeater.
Only those
who have had C. W. L. as teacher can possibly know all that a teacher can
really be. The evil-minded and the ignorant traduce him, as it is their habit
to traduce others of his great line; but future generations shall rise up and
call him blessed, while today there are many who count it their greatest joy to
stand by his side as his persecutors yelp at his heels.) looking as I had never
seen Him before. Radiant He is always, supremely radiant, but now He was more
than radiant, and I cannot find a word down here to describe Him in the glory
in which I perceived Him with the first flash of Nirvanic consciousness.
Majestic and radiant are poor words - “blinding” perhaps expresses it better,
for just for a moment I was overwhelmed. I almost wanted to veil my face from
sight of Him, and yet I could not keep my eyes from Him, so unfathomably
splendid did He appear-only less glorious than the KING* (*The Supreme Ruler of
this world, the veritable KING, within Whose consciousness all things live and
move and have their being. Some there are in the world who have seen Him, but
who can only gaze upon Him as He veils His glory before their feeble eyes.
He is
indeed the Lightning, in the Light of which Nirvana is but shadow. And as the
first glimpse comes of Nirvana, there comes with it the memory of an audience
of the KING-the marvellous stillness, then the blinding Presence, and then the
power to see.) as I afterwards realised, though at the time no greater glory
could I conceive.
I summon up
my courage. I feel as if He were saying to me: “Welcome to a new kingdom which
you must learn to conquer.” In His power my consciousness unfolds, and I step
as it were across a threshold into Nirvana. Words and phrases, however
beautiful, however majestic, almost desecrate as they strive to describe
conditions there. Even the faint touch of first experience of this lofty level
dwarfs into insignificance all other experiences of all other planes, save only
the entry into the presence of the One Initiator.
I remember
my first glimpse of the Buddhic plane on the occasion of admission to the ranks
of the Great White Brotherhood. I recall to this day my marvelling at the
vision of the Master in His Buddhic vehicle; and well do I remember in the days
that followed, the wondrous sense of unity with all things, with the trees and
flowers, feeling with them all, growing with them and in them, suffering and
rejoicing in and with them. I remember, too, the casting off of the friend of
ages - the causal body, and I remember a vivid rending contrast between the
moment before and the moment after the glimpse into the new kingdom. I remember
how it was as if from out the sunshine I had suddenly entered a dark tunnel
with a seemingly unending vista of blackness stretching infinitely far into a
limitless beyond.
Was there
light at the end? I could see none. Must this blackness last for ever? Well, be
it as it may, I must enter this tunnel, for I can do no other, to quote the
words of Luther. Darkness enfolds me, blackness permeates me. Shall I never
again know light? Yet I look forward and press onward. And at last the tunnel
ends, the blackness vanishes, and I step into a light more glorious by far than
the light I left. I had to let go the light I knew in order that I might enter
into a light more real. It seems to be ever thus.
That which
we are ready to let go, to lose, we find unto life eternal. In the occultist
there must be a spirit of daring, of adventure, of eagerness to risk. He must
be willing to let the lesser go before he has grasped the greater. And in the
interspace there is a momentary loneliness which must be borne happily and
joyfully, for it is in loneliness that is born the power to strive, the
strength to sustain and to protect. Those who cannot endure loneliness are not
yet ready to be moulded into leaders of men.
But to-day
the Master seems to me as One Whom I have never known before, robed in the
glories of a Kingdom I am entering as a little child.
The new
consciousness enfolds me, and in a moment my world is full of new, strange,
glorious values. All is different, supremely different, though the same. A new
Divinity is open to my eyes, and unfolds to my gaze a new meaning, a new
purpose. It
is the Buddhic unity transcended, glorified - a more marvellous unity; in some
wonderful way it is merged in a state vaster and more tremendous.
There is
something even more true than the truth in the unity I have so far known,
something more real. It seems impossible, and yet it is so.What is the nature
of that of which even Buddhic glory is but a limitation? I must use words, and
words seem a terrible anti-climax. I can only say it is the Glory of a Light
Transcendent, a world of Light which is the image of God’s own Eternity.
Face to
face do I seem to be with an “unspotted mirror” of His Power and with an image
of His Goodness. And the mirror, the image, is an endless
It is
another baptism, another immersion into the Waters of the Real. At every stage
of growth a baptism, to be succeeded by a confirmation, to be followed some day
by an ordination, a consecration to, because an identification, whether
complete or not, with the Higher Self. Brotherhood in the outer world; unity in
the Buddhic world; light transcendent in Nirvana. And if on the threshold I am
transported by its glory, how shall it be when I begin to ascend to the summit?
Description falters even before this first lifting of the veil. Thought and
feeling distort and narrow infinitely. At best one can but suggest and hint.
The rest is a matter of individual incommunicable experience.
This Light
Transcendent is even nearer to the Real than the Buddhic Unity which hitherto
had seemed the most stupendous fact in all the world. Light the beginning;
Light the path; Light the future. God said: “Let there be Light,” and there was
and is Light indescribable. Beautiful as is the light in the world, it is but
the faint and feeble image of the Light Triumphant - the adjective somehow
seems appropriate - of these regions of the Real.It is the Sun-Light of the Sun
ere it descends into the forms in which we know it. It is Light purified of
form. It is Light which is the Life of form. It is an ever-present “intimation
of immortality,” a Future within the Now, and thus Eternal. It is an I do not
say “the” - apotheosis and essence of the light we know.
All the
glory of the most wonderful dawn (and one feels nothing can be more wonderful
than a perfect Eastern dawn), is brought to glorious fruition and splendid
perfection in that eternal noon-day which is Nirvana. The glory of the Buddhic
plane is but the dawning of a Nirvanic Day.
Yet, as I
write these words, I remember knowing, as I stood awe-struck upon the threshold
of Nirvana, that beyond even that, to me, supreme unfoldment lay unfathomable,
immeasurable splendours, to which Nirvana itself - the noon-day of the Buddhic
dawning - is but as a dawn, a promise, a shadow. I could sense this.
I had to
sense it to preserve my balance. I must hold fast to proportion even in these
stupendous regions. That Unity could be transcended I knew, for was not the
Light-Glory before my eyes? But there is more even than Light-Glory. Some day
in the far-off future I shall know a Glory that is even more than the
Glory of
Light.
I call this
Light of Nirvana the noon-day of the Buddhic dawn. But it is only noon-day
because for the time being it represents the utmost capacity of my
consciousness. Same years ago the Light of Buddhi was the
I look back
upon glorious dawns, and upon glorious noondays. I see before me other
noon-days before which this Nirvanic noon-day itself must pale into a dawn. Is
there no limit to growth? None that I can perceive. And if I talk of dawns and
noon-days, are there also evenings, even-tides, glorious evenings, evenings no
less wonderful than the dawns, with light as beautiful as the light of dawn, as
the light of noon-time? I think there are.
There are
no nights, perhaps; at least no blackness. But there comes from time to time a
stillness, a hush, which is the Silence of a consummation.[There comes the
hush, the silence, the stillness, just before a birth into a new region of
Light, just before a new dawn. It is not that the noon-day light has lessened,
but that a light more glorious still is beginning to shed its refulgence upon a
lesser light, so that it is as if a noon-time had turned to evening by reason
of contrast with the greater glory to be. And in that evening, in that hush
which is the shadow of a greater glory, the neophyte gathers up reverently the
powers he has gained, to use them in the conquest of the new kingdom of Light
about to appear above the horizon.
God is
Light, Light is God. Man is Light. All is Light. A new meaning to the ancient
Egyptian exhortations: “Look for the Light!” “Follow the Light!” Perceive and
learn to be at one with the Light of God in all things. I look upon the world.
I see the world in terms of Light. God-Light in manifestation in man-light, in
rock-light, in tree-light, in creature-light. All is light - a blinding glory
at the centre, translated into colour-light, into sound-light, into form-light,
into substance-light as it descends into ever-increasing manifestation. At the
circumference light as we know it in the manifested universe, light [expressed
in innumerable ways. At the centre that glory which is beyond all form, all
colour, all substance. Yet the circumference is but the centre externalised, so
there is the blinding glory everywhere - the God-Light - the blazing seed of
futurity in each individual thing in every kingdom.* (*Compare, in this
connexion, that very interesting book “Colour-Music: The Art of Light,” by A.
B. Klein. (Crosby Lockwood & Son,
In each
May I quote
here a beautiful passage from Ruskin’s The Ethics of the Dust in which he
describes the glorious pathway of evolution in the mineral kingdom, the Light
in prison becoming the Light free, thence to enter into higher tabernacles to
tread pathways no less glorious and virtually identical in process?
A pure or
holy state of anything is that in which all its parts are helpful or
consistent. The highest and first law of the universe, and the other name of
life, is, therefore, ‘help’. The other name of death is ‘separation’.
Government and co-operation are in all things, and eternally, the laws of life.
Anarchy and competition, eternally, and in all things, the laws of death.
Perhaps the
best, though the most familiar, example we could take of the nature and power
of consistence, will be that of the possible changes in the dust we tread on.
Exclusive
of animal decay, we can hardly arrive at a more absolute type of impurity, than
the mud or slime of a damp over-trodden path, in the outskirts of a manufacturing
town. I do not say mud of the road, because that is mixed with animal refuse;
but take merely an ounce or two of the blackest slime of a beaten footpath, on
a rainy day, near a manufacturing town. That slime we shall find in most cases
composed of clay (or brickdust, which is burnt clay) mixed with soot, a little
sand, and water. All these elements are at helpless war with each other, and
destroy reciprocally each other’s nature and power: competing and fighting for
place at every tread of your foot; sand squeezing out clay, and clay squeezing
out water, and soot meddling everywhere, and defiling the whole. Let us suppose
that this ounce of mud is left in perfect rest, and that its elements gather
together, like to like, so that their atoms may get into the closest relations
possible.
Let the
clay begin. Ridding itself of all
foreign substance, it gradually becomes a white earth, already very beautiful, and fit, with
help of congealing fire, to be made into finest porcelain, and painted on, and
be kept in kings’ palaces. But such artificial consistence is not its best.
Leave it still quiet, to follow its own instinct of unity, and it becomes, not
only white, but clear; not only clear, but hard; not only clear and hard, but
so set that it can deal with light in a wonderful way, and gather out of it the
loveliest blue rays only, refusing the rest. We call it then a sapphire.
Such being
the consummation of the clay, we give similar permission of quiet to the sand.
It also becomes, first a white earth;
then proceeds to grow clear and hard, and at last arranges itself in
mysterious, infinitely fine parallel lines, which have the power of reflecting,
not merely the blue rays, but the blue, green, purple, and red rays, in the
greatest beauty in which they can be seen through any hard material whatsoever.
We call it then an opal.
In next
order the soot sets to work. It cannot make itself white at first; but, instead
of being discouraged, tries harder and harder; and comes out clear at last; and
the hardest thing in the world: and for the blackness that it had, obtains in
exchange the power of reflecting all the rays of the sun at once, in the
vividest blaze that any solid thing can shoot. We call it then a diamond.
Last of
all, the water purifies or unites itself; contented enough if it only reach the
form of a dewdrop: but, if we insist on its proceeding to a more perfect
consistence, it crystallises into the shape of a star. And, for the ounce of
slime which we had by political economy of competition, we have, by political
economy of co-operation, a sapphire, an opal, and a diamond, set in the
midst of a star of snow.
… I have
asked you to hear that, children, because, from all that we have seen in the
work and play of these past days, I would have you gain at least one grave and
enduring thought. The seeming trouble - the unquestionable degradation - of the
elements of the physical earth, must passively wait the appointed time of their
repose, or their restoration. It can only be brought about for them by the
agency of external law. But if, indeed, there be a nobler life in us than in
these strangely moving atoms; - if, indeed there is an eternal difference
between the fire which inhabits them, and that which animates us - it must be
shown, by each of us in his appointed place, not merely in the patience, but in
the activity of our hope; not merely by our desire, but our labour, for the
time when the Dust of the generations of men shall be confirmed for foundations
of the gates of the city of God.
The human
clay, now trampled and despised, will not be - cannot be - knit into strength
and light by accidents or ordinances of unassisted fate. By human cruelty and
iniquity it has been afflicted; - by human mercy and justice it must be raised
and, in all fear or questioning of what is or is not, the real message of
creation, or of revelation, you may assuredly find perfect peace, if you are
resolved to do that which your Lord has plainly required - and content that He
should indeed require no more of you - than to do Justice, to love Mercy, and
to walk humbly with Him.
In every
kingdom it is the same. The free time after time realizing its imprisonment
because it has conquered its kingdom, and bursting its bonds afresh that a
still mightier and more splendid freedom may be achieved. The flower of every
kingdom an unfolded colour-glory, sound-glory, substance-glory, form-glory,
passing thence to win a nobler freedom. Of course, the word “imprisonment” is
hardly accurate, for there is probably little, if any, sense of imprisonment
until the prison-doors are about to be opened that the soul may enter into a
bondage less restricted. Fortunately for us, we generally see our prisons only
as we leave them. Until then a prison is an opportunity. Let us beware of so
missing our opportunities that bondage takes their place, and a veritable
prison-house closes in upon us.
Another
image in my consciousness is of a Light-nucleus, imprisoned lightning, charged
with the spirit of Divinity, as a Sun below the horizon of the world, or of a
From out
the dawn in its tenderness comes the dawn in its iridescent vigour - a
wonderful aurora of colour - a veritable spectrum of Light. And then all
colours bend before their Lord and Master, merging themselves in Him. The Sun
has risen and passes onwards to the glory of a perfect day. The perfect Dawn is
the Light which is Buddhi, but Nirvana is the Light which is the Day; not yet
the Eternal Noontide, but a partial consummation of the dawn.
Thus my
image in terms of Colour-Light. But it comes to me in terms of Sound-Light.
First, the soft note expressing the Divine essence, the key-note or basic tone
of the individuality whatever it may be-the note which gives the individuality.
Then the mystic chord, swelling as it were out of the single sound, the nature
chord of the, individuality. And so on into an equally
veritable
spectrum of sound, an aurora of music, a great and majestic symphony declaring
in terms of music the new goal to be achieved. A hush of soundless silence in
which the glorious music of an achievement is marvellously merged, so that the
very silence has become more vibrant, the Voice of the Silence has gained articulateness. In the hush, sound stirs
once more to greater ends, and as time passes unfolds from archetypal note to
mystic chord, from mystic chord to magic
symphony, and then again that silence in which the symphony is blended, which
it has enriched. Can you not hear your own growth in terms of colour, in terms
of music? Can you not hear the faint beginnings, can you not pre-sense the
mighty ends? I have heard the beginnings of Nirvana in terms of sound, in terms
of colour; and I seem to hear as if far away in deep distance the symphony of
the achievement of Nirvana, as I can dimly perceive the apotheosis of that
Light which even at the outset is so hopelessly indescribable. Is there not a
note which sounds the beginning of the Birth into the Mysteries of the Real? Is
there not a symphony which marks its fruition, a symphony gathered up into a
silence and issuing forth therefrom as the note of a new endeavour, the note of
the Baptism?
Is
there not the note and symphony of the
Transfiguration, the note and symphony of a Crucifixion-Resurrection, of an
Ascension, and of consecrations yet beyond? And so with Light. Lose yourselves,
my readers, now and then at least in these reachings into the Real, bathe
yourselves in these true imaginings. So do you gain a glimpse and an
understanding of the Eternal, and of the inevitable, glory beyond those
contrasts which seem in time so dark and dreary but which thus serve to teach
us of the sunshine everlasting.
Out of
sleep and dream I am awake, though to regions beyond I may still be dreaming.
But the dream is true, for it is the vision of the final conquest of the
kingdom of man and the standing upon the threshold of the kingdoms of the
superman. Let me try to put my vision otherwise. I look upon the world, and I
see our Lord the Sun expressed in myriad suns. Each monad I perceive to be a
Sun in miniature.
The Sun
Divine throws off spark-suns charged with all His attributes. The process of
evolution begins, and these sparks burst into colour, or rather gradually
unfold in terms of colour; rainbows with sun-hearts, or nuclei or centres.
God’s Light thus imprisoned in form begins its long pathway of transcending
form, thus acquiring self-consciousness. Every atom of light is an atom of
unconscious Divinity, slowly but surely fulfilling the will of the Sun that it
shall become unfolded into self-conscious Divinity. Every atom is a Sun
unconscious, and shall become a Sun self-conscious. And the Sun-Light, which is
the Light that is free, shines upon the Sun-Light, which is the Light
imprisoned; Light the wanderer in the darkness, until the Light within and the
Light without blend into a perfect whole, earth-light kissing Heaven-Light and
becoming Sun-Light.
Bathed in
the Lightning-standing-still which is Nirvana, I perceive the imprisoned lightnings
in all things. I perceive the Light which is dull-the savage; the Light which
is bright - the man evolved; the Light which is glory - the Superman, the
Master. I see colour everywhere in process of transmutation, of glorification,
of transcendence. There is no blackness anywhere in the sense of a negation of
Light. God said: “Let there be Light.” And there was and is light everywhere.
“His Light shineth even in our darkness.”
And as
before I might express my vision in terms of sound, of music, in terms of
gloriously growing forms. For, as time passes, I begin to perceive that while
my first impression found instant expression in the word “Light,” and specially
in the phrase “Lightning-standing-still,” I now know that this Light conception
is but a quality of Nirvana, an aspect, a facet of the diamond sphere. In
truth, Nirvana is an essence of things and a flower of things. It is an Alpha
and an Omega. I am gradually, though only very, very slowly, beginning to look
for Nirvana in all things. I cannot say that I have found Nirvana in all
things, but I think I have reached the point of at least knowing that Nirvana
is there. I know, though I do not yet perceive. I may, perhaps, best describe
to you this knowledge in terms of Light, or it may be in terms of Sound, or in
terms of Form.
But Nirvana
is beyond all these. Nirvana is a Mode of Being, a Mode that transcends Light
and Sound and Form, though shadowed at least in all that we can know down here
of the most glorious Light, Sound and Form. Have you tried to transcend the
farthest limits of your consciousness? Have you ever striven to rise, first
measurably and then almost immeasurably, above and beyond yourself? Have you
ever tried to know your bondage and then to burst the bonds? Have you ever recognized
your limitations, your many weaknesses, and have you then ever known yourself
as having triumphed over them, so that you have become unrecognizable to
yourself as well as to others? Thus do you reach after Nirvana, however long
may be the road on which you have to travel. Light - yes; Sound - yes; even
Form from out the Formless - yes. But Nirvana is a mighty Spiritual Essence of
all these things, and you approach it by learning to transcend yourself, to be
an alchemist transmuting marvellously the lower into the higher. Awake! Arise!
Know that Nirvana is your very being, and therefore realise yourself.
Everywhere
in God’s workshop of the world, Master-Painters, Master-Singers,
Master-Sculptors, Master-Builders at work. Sun-Light the common material.
Sun-Light fashioned into forms - colour-forms, sound-forms, forms of every
kind; but all Sun-Light. And we are apprentices to these Masters of Crafts, and
fashion after them in our childish ways. Yet we, too, are some day to become
Master-Craftsmen, Masters of the Light in the future as we are children of the
Light to-day. From darkness our Masters of the Light lead us to the Light, from
the darkness and colour-divisions of unconscious divinity into the pure white
radiance of Divine Self-Consciousness. But as I hold Nirvanic consciousness in
the valleys of my being, as I remember the summits while living on the plains,
I can for the time being transcend time.
There is,
as long as the Nirvanic consciousness holds, no becoming, no dawning, no
colour-only a perfect Radiance, beginningless and endless. It is thus that
Nirvana is Bliss, and I know now why some Great Ones enfold Themselves in it to
the end of the Age.
It is a
supreme consummation, and opens out a Pathway of stupendous glory.I realise,
too, that here is no selfishness, there could be none, of course, in entering
Nirvana and exploring it to the end, if end there be. To abide in Nirvana, not
to go forth therefrom, is a form of service to the world, for to enter Nirvana
is to make a channel between the world and Nirvana so that the world is one
step nearer to the Nirvanic dawn, and in some indescribable way the world is
drawn into Nirvana, or should I rather say becomes more “Nirvanic,” because a
Son of the world abides therein.
I look upon
races, upon nations, upon peoples, upon faiths, upon communities - as colours
in the universal spectrum, and yet each a spectrum in itself. I must study
these colours, that I may the more purposefully serve. I see
I know the
power of Light, and therefore the power of colour. The Nirvanic Light is power,
not cold power, but blazing power, at least as I sensed it. And even the word
“power” is a limitation, for I know now in a measure that I can begin to
understand the meaning of the three great attributes of God-Light -
Omniscience, Omnipotence, Omnipresence. I see each colour emerging from its
archetype, descending into darkness, ascending into Light. At first faint, dim,
crude, changing from shade to shade. The swinging of the pendulum of growth
between the colours of darkness and the colours of Light. Gradually, slowly,
the fiercer hues of the colours of discord and of hatred mellow into the
splendid shades of Love.
I know the
Universes to be colour-schemes. One universe a rose scheme, another a yellow
scheme, a third a blue scheme, and so on. What is our colour-scheme? Rose?
Perhaps, and yet its heart is the blinding, glorious Light containing within
itself all light-rates within the mighty octave of its Being.
And now, in
the light of further experience, I can begin to interpret races, peoples,
nations, faiths, communities, in terms other than of Light, of colour. I hear
them all building their respective symphonies, resolving - slowly I am afraid -
their inevitable discords into equally inevitable harmonies. And these various
music-strivings go to the building of the great world Symphony, the basic note
and chord of which is present in variations in every subdivision of the world
whether large or small. I have written of our Universe as possibly a Rose
Universe. Is our earth a yellow sub-division of the general rose scheme? What
is the Note of our Universe, and what is the earth’s variant thereof? This is a
most fascinating theme for study, but as I am at present only in the region of
speculation, guessing, imagining, it seems hardly profitable to pursue the
investigation further.
The point
is that entry into Nirvana is an approach to the basic things of Being, those things
which are omnipresent and, from one point of view, changeless. Nirvana is
omnipresent. Nirvana is present in colour, in sound, in form, in substance.
Nirvana is the essence of them all; or should I not rather say a form of the
essence of them all, a fundamental mode of the root of their being?
I am living
in a Light-Eternity. I descend into a Colour-Time. Time is the breaking up of
Light-Eternal into colour; and there is the Light of the past, the Light of the
present, the Light of the future. Yet all within an Eternal Now.
The world
seems new with a new sacredness. The Power of the Light is in all things.
Through our very physical senses we touch the Light which is Divinity. It lies
about us, and in us. As we have variations round a music-note or music-theme or
motif, so is the world an almost infinite number of variations upon the theme
of the Universal Light. It is a Symphony of Light. It is also a Symphony of
Sound, and no less a Symphony of Silence. It is a Symphony of Colour and of
Form. And there are those who, hearing the Archetypal Symphony, seek to mellow
the harsh notes and cruder colours and forms of ignorance so that the world
orchestra, composed of all manifested life as the musicians, may, under the
baton, the mighty Rod of Power of the world’s Supreme Conductor, make a music
glorious - the archetype one with the actual.
The process
of evolution is a process of the individualization of Light on the way to
re-universalization on the plane of self-consciousness. Music is Light. Fire is
Light. The Arts and the Sciences are Light in evolution growing under the laws
of Light. The Scriptures tell us of the Light. There is a great Gospel
of the
Light, whence comes every faith, and to proclaim which comes every Saviour.
Light is right; darkness is wrong. We grow towards the Light as do the trees
and flowers.
I see our
Lord the Sun in each of us. Is the heart the sun of our body-world? Does the
blood reflect His rays? Are not all things Light-terms, Light-formulae?
What is Nirvana?
The Light Divine. I am touching, perhaps only for a moment, its lowest reaches,
its densest layers. All I have written is but of the Light Divine in its lowest
Nirvanic aspect. I cannot conceive down here even this Glory, but it leaves in
me as I return to earth a new perception of Reality. I have taken a step nearer
to the Real. There is a greater comradeship in the world than I had thought - a
deeper identity, a more glorious origin, a more glorious way, and a more
glorious goal. Round me everywhere and at all times are God's Sunshine
Messengers. Every colour speaks His Word and His Voice. Every form breathes His
purpose. I, dust in the Sunshine, yet am part of it, and looking upward to the
Sun I see the sign of my own Divinity, and the embodied promise of my ultimate
achievement. As is our Lord the Sun so shall we all be, for He has willed it
so.
Light is
language, thought, vesture and vehicle. A flash of light conveys for us down
here a whole philosophy. The whole of this pitifully feeble amount of Nirvanic
experience was doubtless within a single flash of Nirvanic Light penetrating my
being, or rather perhaps stirring at last from age-long dormancy within me.
Light is
the Will of the Sun, the Wisdom of the Sun, the Love of the Sun. It is written
in books that Nirvana is bliss. Even from that outermost region, at the
frontiers, I know Nirvana to be infinitely more. Just one glimpse and all
things seem to be made new, within me and without me. I remain, yet am wholly
changed, and everything round me seems to be undergoing a process of
revaluation.
Even now,
everything means far more than before. Every object, in every kingdom, seems in
one way far more a shadow of Reality than a reality, for I perceive how feeble
and inadequate must be all reflections of the Light. I did not know before that
they were so feeble. And yet, equally true is it that every object
is far more
real, far less of a shadow of Reality, than I had thought. I see the prison-opportunity
of form, and I perceive the shadows. I see the unfolding splendour of the
Light-Eternal, and I perceive the Real. All other worlds are shadow-worlds
compared with this Nirvanic world. And yet they are more real
worlds
because of this Nirvanic world, for I now perceive the seal of God’s purpose
set upon all things, and I must reverence all things in far deeper measure than
before.
Philosophers
talk of pure Being. I seem to be able to sense what pure Being must be, not
because I have contacted it, but because I have contacted that which is less
short of pure Being than all other consciousness-states I have so far
experienced. At present, speaking as a child in this new kingdom, Nirvana to me
is pure Life, Life which is Light. Not that colour has faded into this Light.
Colour
remains, but the spectrum of Nirvana is a glorification indescribable of the
colour-spectra of the planes below. It is more Light than colour. Indeed, only
as I grow a little accustomed to the Light, and my sensitiveness increases,
beginning
to adapt itself to its new environment, do I begin to perceive that within
Nirvanic Light are marvellous manifestations of colour apotheoses, of colour
relationships, schemes and interactions. For the moment, the sense of
evolution
is lost in the blinding glory of the Light. As I become more at home in a Home
one never thinks to own until one enters at its doors, I shall realize, as I do
not yet realize, that the eternal truth remains true, and becomes more true;
that to enter the Sun-Light, which is another way of saying to love God, there
is only one road - the service of that Light which lighteth
every man.
Thus, with
a new power which I shall learn to use, do I seem to enter upon a deeper
service. We are children of the Sun, sparks of this glorious Sun-Light. I look up
into the sky and I see my King. Sun-worshippers worship more truly, perhaps,
than they know. I, infinitesimal, ignorant and feeble, yes, even I, am a
servant of the Sun. As He shines upon the whole universe, so must I shine upon
my world. I must be sunshine, even as He is sunshine. It is sometimes said that
we cannot see God. I think I can see Him in part, and know something of His
sublimity, as I look upon the Sun. Even with my physical eyes, I know something
of His glory, and the whole world around me is His glory in manifestation. But
looking upon Him from the Nirvanic world, I know far, far more. Another veil is
lifted, and a fuller Glory shines upon me.
No words
can express my new sense of Him. It is, and must be, a mystery beyond words,
beyond feeling, beyond even thought. Indeed, I must not even make the attempt;
it is little short of blasphemy. But in the First Epistle General of