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Reincarnation: A Study of the Human Soul

By J.A. Anderson

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The Reincarnating Ego

'E have now reached a point where we may perhaps profitably study the nature and function of man's Fifth Principle, omitted in the general review because its importance required a more extended and careful consideration. This Principle is variously spoken of as Higher Manas, the Reincarnating Ego, the Thinker, and other names. It is the true individuality, as contra- distinguished from the lower, fleeting personalities of its successive incarnations. It represents that aspect or power of the Absolute which causes individualized centers of consciousness to first form and then to at- tain to self-consciousness in the Phenomenal Universe.

It is this Principle which reincarnates, for it alone represents the true man. The Quaternary disappears as an entity at death. Buddhi and Atman are universal non-individualized Principles; Manas, the Thinker, alone journeys as a self-conscious entity from body to body by means of Reincarnation. This Thinker, then, in its various relations to the body, and especially in its aspect as the Lower Manas, or the personal self, re- mains, after all possible elimination of other factors, as of prime and paramount importance in the problem of human existence. Let us study it carefully and reverentially, for in and through it alone shall we be able to come into an understanding of the Divine in nature and in man; for they are One.

There has been shown, in the chapter devoted to the evolution of, the soul, the gradual process by which an atomic center of consciousness, through continuous conscious experiences, attains to the self-conscious, or human stage, while on its way to godhood. We have also seen that the law of cyclic periodicity shows how and why such centers are graded into great hierarchies, by the natural limits thus set to their emergence from the bosom of the Absolute. The relation which the Reincarnating Ego bears to this world and its cycle is thus capable of logical solution.
It is evident both phenomenally and philosophically that the material Universe is embodied Consciousness, or Consciousness of infinite gradations, clothed in equally infinite expressions of form. As the Universe ebbs and flows to finite perception from subjective to objective states throughout the eternities of Duration, it follows that worlds appear and disappear endlessly; the Great Prayala, even, being only a subjective arc of larger immensity. In the life history of all worlds, as is proven by the records now visible in the heavens, there comes a time when they cool down sufficiently to become habitable; when they pass through this stage; when, by the ebbing of their life force, or the completion of their limiting cycle, humanities can no longer exist upon them in material form. There is no doubt but that their minor pralayas, or deaths, overtake them with the consciousness of their entities in states of infinite diversity, such as we now perceive upon this earth. Hence, there would be Egos passing through the human stage overtaken when
their world became uninhabitable for them ; for the life cycle of a planet pursues its course perfectly uninterrupted and uncontrolled by the evolution of any humanity upon it, although the two always correspond. Similarly, were pralaya to strike for this earth to-day, would all entities, human, animal, or elemental, be arrested in their material evolution and be compelled to remain in subjective states until other worlds arrived at stages capable of affording them expression in suitable material forms.

Our Higher Egos have witnessed, it is claimed, the death or pralaya of many such worlds, for matter on our own physical or molecular plane, by its power of illusion, and by the ease and rapidity with which its unstable nature permits of disintegration and the entering of the out-worn constituents into new combinations, is evidently a very important, if humble, school in a Universe where every entity "is, was, or prepares to become a man."*
Planetary pralayas, therefore, have overtaken our Higher Egos, it may be a great number of times; for who can estimate the period necessary in material states of consciousness for them to arrive at their present stage ? At any rate, when their last world went into pralaya they had not yet passed beyond the desire for material or sensuous existence, and so were, under the law of cause and effect, drawn to human-animal bodies which nature,
through its lower hierarchies of " Builders," had been preparing for their occupation during those interminable periods which geology is beginning to recognize as necessary factors in human evolution. This reincar- nation of already highly advanced Egos of former worlds in human-animal forms, prepared for them under the physical aspect of the triple-sided process (physical, intellectual, and spiritual) of evolutionary activity upon this world, is the key of the whole scheme of human evolution upon this planet. It also solves many otherwise hopelessly insoluble problems in human consciousness, such as clairvoyance, prophetic dreams, and the "buried selves," so strangely dug out of their unsuspected graves by hypnotic processes. All such phenomena, as we have seen, prove that there is in man's body a soul too superior to that body to be the product of the same
evolutionary process which has produced its transient tenement of clay.

Man's Higher Ego, then, as shown by its possessing powers and faculties far transcending its material vehicle, must be the product of former world periods. Because of its derivation from the Conscious-Aspect of the Absolute, as a Ray from Mahat or the Cosmic Mind, the Reincarnating Ego is a center of potential self-consciousness upon all the planes of nature in the Cosmos. This potentiality has, during these former manvantaras, become a potency upon many of these planes, some of which, as shown by the Divine Wisdom of the Higher Ego, must be infinitely superior to the sensuous consciousness of this earth. It now seeks cosmic perfection by the evolution or attain- ment of this same, or perfect, self-consciousness, upon all planes of the Cosmos yet remaining unexplored. For Self-Consciousness is the aim, the end, and the crown of consciousness upon any plane, whether material or spiritual.

Being a Ray from the Absolute, emanating as it must from that Causeless Cause lying hidden behind all manifestation, the Higher Ego possesses the creative and ideative functions involved in its own emanation, or creation. This creative power in the Reincarnating Ego creative in the sense of changing or renewing form only is most important to bear in mind. It must not be supposed that ordinary men consciously create a power reached by Adeptship alone; or even that the Reincarnating Ego consciously creates or builds its own bodies: that again is only possible for those in whomthe Higher and Lower Egos have become one. But the Reincarnating Ego does build astral and thought forms unconsciously, under the potency of that power or force which is carried with it in its emanation from the Causeless Cause. This creative power is the source of the Linga Sharira, the second human principle; within which the physical molecules which constitute the Sthula Sharira, or physical form, are moulded. It is also the source of all thought forms, from the " Mayava Rupa," the consciously constructed " illusion body" of the Adept, to those airy forms and scenes which in dreams change and shift even while we gaze upon them, so unstable and feeble is the action of the will in these unrecognized, faint functioning of a soul thus unconsciously exercising creative faculties. In harmony with all nature, the Reincarnation of the Higher Ego occurs in regular cycles of alternating objective and subjective existence. Its objective arc is earth life; its subjective is termed Devachan.*

With the return of the Higher Ego to incarnation, when its subjective cycle of existence in Devachan is ended, the Linga Sharira for the new physical body which is to be built becomes an active, formative potency. It awakens into activity all those elemental or "skandhic" forces, in enforced pralaya during the devachanic interlude. Conception having taken place, these and still lower hier archies of Builders begin to mould physical cells within
the astral model, so furnished. Here and now occurs the first struggle with matter and material limitations which attends all the subsequent conscious experience of the Ego in the new body. Under the awakening presence of the Higher Ego, the hierarchies of Builders, called by scientists though very unscientifically " natural forces," must set to work; but this work is very greatly modified because of the stamp upon the physical cells by the parents of the physical form, under the law of physical heredity, the lowest phase of the triple evolution before referred to. On the other hand, this physical impress is again modified in a greater or lesser degree by the urgent tendencies of the Higher Ego to express certain dominant qualities under the force of " skandhas " of past incarnations. Unmodified by a Higher Ego, man would represent the exact average of the sum of his parents' qualities, both physical and pyschic, as is seen in the almost endless continuation of identical forms in the vegetable kingdom and in the lower animal in mollusks, for example.

Unmodified by physical heredity, the Higher Ego would have no real karmic hold upon earth. As experience is an absolute necessity for development,
the struggle with this physical impress given by parents under the law of physical heredity affords the opportunity required to develop the Higher Ego's functions and potencies upon this plane of consciousness. It also satisfies the law of cause and effect, or Karma, which compels Egos with certain characteristics to seek parents having similar ones, for growth must always proceed from the present point of attainment. Did physical heredity not modify the habitation and powers of the Reincar-nating Ego, there would be no reason why it should seek expression through one parent rather than another, and we would be forced back upon the unjust Christian hypothesis of the human soul having no voice in the selection of its body. Did not the Reincarnating Ego have the power to very greatly modify its material tenement, the faculties and psychic powers of the child would represent the average of the sum of those of its parents at best; and the innumerable instances where these are very greatly transcended, as well as those where the account is on the debit side, would be wholly unaccounted for. It is thus apparent that man's soul and body are each the exact complement of the other. The relation of the one to the other becomes explicable, and is but another illustration of the absolute play of cause and effect, or of action and reaction, between the material and spirit- ual poles of the One Reality. Intellectual, or Higher Ego, heredity brings over the results of man's entire conscious past; physical heredity enables him to begin further evolution or widening of consciousness at the exact point where he left off, and along just those lines where his spiritual need is greatest. Thus a man in a body full of any of the lower, rajasic qualities proclaims to the world that his Higher Ego has need to further evolve their opposites, and such instances ought to arouse all our sympathies call forth our best brotherly efforts, rather than that contempt and aversion which we are too apt to experience. It is as though we were to turn shudderingly away from a pure, saintly prisoner because the cell in which he is confined is loathsome.

Physical heredity is thus explained: There are, ac-cording to Weismann, certain cells in man's body which have never died since his appearance in a physical form upon this earth. These cells are, necessarily, according to him, transmitted directly from parent to offspring, and actually carry forward those physical qualities which constitute purely physical heredity. But it is not necessary to predicate an eternal cell, although this is possible and probable. It is enough that actual, physical matter is so transmitted, for no possible division of matter into smaller particles can destroy or even diminish its physical properties. The great and all-important quality of matter is to register and record conscious experiences obtained by material associations. Upon tablets of some degree of materiality all conscious records must be graven, even though this be the Mulaprakriti of Eastern, or Primordial Substance of Western, Philosophy.

At conception, there is an actual fusion of cells from the father with others from the mother, thus forming one cell, the type of all life. This cell divides, and subdivides, almost infinitely, for out of its subdivisions, through repeated modifications, all the various tissues of the body are constructed. There is not nor can not be an introduction of a single new or foreign cell in the entire organism. All increase or growth is by division of the original cell, and molecular accretions thereto by means of nutriment supplied a fact which explains the wonderful selective power the various tissues exercise upon the common food supply. Portions of this original cell are therefore present in every other cell of the body, and- by virtue of their registering qualities, carry into the new body the impress of all purely physical experiences or form limitations of both parents. The fusion of two necessarily differing parental cells gives also the opportunity and basis for all requisite variation. As the matter of the father or the mother predominates, so will the new body more closely resemble the one or the other parent. And back of this, even, a peculiarly strong physical impression made by an ancestor may dominate that of both parents, and atavism result, or the sam'e effect may be brought about by "skandhas" unable to incarnate previously, and so lying latent. Thus is seen how powerful is the influence from the physical line of heredity, when each cell of the entire body is tainted with every physical desire, appetite, or passion of the purely animal nature of both parents. Andthe Linga Sharira, enmeshed in these cells, and being the seat of the centers of sensation, bring its parent, the Reincarnating Ego, into direct karmic relations with all these animal propensities. It also affords a vehicle for the re-awakened skandhic elementals to pour their stream of muddy desires into the physical body ; owing to karmic attraction having drawn the Reincarnating Ego to parents having similar characteristics. Thus the physical conformation, the tendency to disease, to a long or a short life, to repeat such abnormalities as six fingers or toes, or such peculiarities as red hair or squint eyes, together with hosts of other purely physical limitations, are the result of physical heredity, and transmitted by the handing down from parent to offspring of actual physical matter so impressed, and with a subconscious tendency to repeat the original impression.

The emotional and passional nature, while afforded easy and fitting expression by physical cells from parents having like characters, appears to be of skandhic heredity, and carried over in this manner from former lives. It is a form of physical heredity, it is true, but not purely so, for it abandons one body to reincarnate in another; thus resembling the "seed" reincarnation in nature, while the physical cell heredity is a case of pure propagation by fission. But no mental characteristics can be carried over to the new life thus. As we have seen, the conservation of mental force requires a mental
vehicle, so that all purely mental qualities are the result of mental or intellectual heredity, and come by and through the Reincarnating Ego. Mental powers may be and are but too often sadly inhibited, or almost destroyed, by overwhelmingly bad psychic and physical heredity, which retard or prevent their manifestation; but they none the less come through the channel of the Reincarnating Ego alone.

The creative power of the Higher Manas, then, acting upon subconscious planes; produces or creates a Linga Sharira; similarly as on the subconscious planes of the Lower Manas, our personal self, all the vital activities as well as the repair of wounded or diseased tissue, go on quite independently of our conscious supervision. On its own planes its creative potencies are exercised consciously in the production of those higher astral forms which the Adept uses when he abandons the physical, in his journeyings. With this higher creative faculty mankind at large is not, at present at least, concerned. But since the Higher Manas builds, or rather, causes to be built, its physical body, through creative power thus unconsciously exercised, in what manner is it consciously, and so karmically, connected with the body?

This calls for an examination of its creative functions or^ideative or mental planes, or the reflection in matter of its true, individualizing consciousness. This reflection perhaps refraction would be the better term of itself is quite another process to that concerned in the formation of the Linga Sharira, which we have been considering, and is the most important of all. The Linga Sharira maybe said to represent its purely physical expression, so to speak; this refraction, the Lower Manas, is itself, mirrored in material thought processes. The former expresses its purely physical karma,* or its physical creative force taking the lines of least resistance; the latter connects it karmically with the thoughts and mental processes of past lives. Being, when its devachanic or subjective existence between two lives is closing, drawn to the parents pre- senting the greatest sum of karmic affinities, the contact of the soul with the growing form sets up in the physical brain of the latter a thinking principle similarly as a magnet upon being brought in contact with non-magnetic iron imparts magnetism to this, without having caused the smallest change in those physical qualities which constitute it iron.

And, as the evolution of the physical form, which it took ages for the Elemental Builders, or the ordinary evolutionary forces in nature, to accomplish,
is repeated swiftly during the first few weeks of gestation, so is the entire evolution of the Lower Manas also re- peated during the first few years of the child's life. For these Builders only push matter up to the animal or kamicf plane; the brooding presence of the Higher Manas must impart the stimulus which brings it where it is of sufficient transparency, so to speak, to receive and refract its image. It will be at once plain that our Lower Manas,
the ordinary self, is thus a portion of the very essence of the Higher, just as the magnetism in the iron is a portion of that in the magnet. And just as the magnet may be withdrawn from its contact with the iron, leaving a portion of its magnetic qualities to slowly dissipate, so may the Higher Manas be separated entirely from its lower reflec- tion, thus constituting for the latter a veritable "loss of the soul." For this portion of the Higher Manas actually refracted or incarnated in matter is ourselves, the " I am myself," of our earthly life. Could it remain simply a portion of the Higher, its functions and fate might be different, but this is impossible. As the pure ray of light is colored by the color of the glass which transmits it until it is indis- tinguishable from that tint, so is the Lower Manas colored and changed by its contact with Kama (sensuous desire), the chief and ruler of the earthly Quaternary. All the
fierce desires, the unrest, the sensuous appetites, the " lusts of the flesh," of the latter at once seize upon it, and impart to it that curious mixture of the animal with the Divine which we name the lower self, or Personality.

This could not occur had not the kamic Principle in the lower Quaternary already been evolved to a point where it is not only able to receive the magnetic impress of Manas, but to color this with its own qualities of passion and desire. It is the opinion of the writer that it must not be in- ferred from the above that only a portion, as it were, of the Higher Manas incarnates in the lower Quaternary, leaving the rest to enjoy a kind of superior consciousness upon other planes. While the teaching is reserved upon this point, still there is enough given out, in the Secret Doctrine and elsewhere, to make it reasonably certain that each individuality has but one center of consciousnesss, and that this is not in full activity in two places, nor in two or more states, at the same time. While it is active upon one plane it may have a subconsciousness on others, just as we may be reading and yet be conscious of noise about us. But this is only a subconsciousness, not a splitting of it.

Therefore, when once the Higher Manas has perfected its vehicle sufficiently to permit this, it would seem that it only functions through that vehicle
when this is active, for its very activity compels its use as a vehicle. In other words, our " I am myself," or individ- ualizing center of consciousness which comes from the Higher Manas and is its distinguishing characteristic, is functioning actively only through the body when this is in the waking state, although its subconsciousness may ex- tend over many higher planes. When the body ceases its activity, as in sleep or death, then it can of course retire to its own proper spheres, to be dragged down from these by its kamic connection with the body when this awakens. It follows, then, that when awake and occupied by material or sensuous thoughts only, the Higher Manas is simply paralyzed its consciousness upon this plane a
potentiality only, somewhat, perhaps, like that of the lower consciousness when inhibited by hypnotism.

This is its daily crucifixion, and the true meaning of all the re- ligious myths of crucified Saviours.
Yet, though the Higher Manas be paralyzed as to conscious functioning, it cannot be said to be wholly or even partially incarnated in the body, nor is it even ever fully conscious upon this plane except when its Higher and Lower aspects have been enabled to unite, through the latter having conquered in its contest with Kama. The oneness and yet the separateness of the Higher and Lower Manas is one of the hardest of mystic teachings to understand. It is another illustration of the " Same and the Other" of which Plato taught that the Universe was constructed. Perhaps the phenomena of an ordinary Faradic electrical battery may help us, by analogy, to a better conception. In this, the current, generated by the zinc and carbon, or other elements, in the presence of an acid or saline solution, is passed through a coil of insulated wire.

Around this, in what is technically termed the helix, is coiled another wire, also completely insulated, and entirely disconnected from the first, or "primary," coil. There ought, therefore, to be no current in this latter, or " secondary," coil, yet the instant the current from the chemical cell is passed through the primary coil there is set up in the secondary at each opening and closing of the primary circuit a modified current, known as " induced"
electricity. Because there has been no actual contact between the two coils, this secondary current is thus said to have been produced by " induction" one of those convenient terms by means of which science seems to explain so much, while really explaining nothing. Without at- tempting to account for the real origin of this induced current, except to point out that the electro-dynamic waves in the ether, discovered by Prof. Hertz of Bonn, will give all necessary clews, the analogy to the origin of the Lower Manas and its relation to the Higher is very close.

The presence of the Higher Manas, overshadowing the body, originates a distinct Thinking Principle in the brain of the latter, in a manner strikingly similar to the induced cur- rent of electricity that is, by imparting to the latter its own essential qualities. Thus it can be at once seen that,
while the Lower Manas is caused by and is of the very essence of the Higher, it is yet distinct without being separate. Withdraw the primary current, and the induced will disappear; withdraw the Higher Manas, and the Lower perishes, the chief distinction being in the slower
process in the latter case. Perhaps a closer analogy to the behavior of the Higher and Lower Thinking Principles after death is afforded in the phenomena of transferred magnetism just referred to. For, in the illustration given, when artificial magnetism has been imparted to non-magnetic iron, upon the withdrawal of the true magnet is seen almost identically that phenomenon which takes place upon the separation of the
Higher and Lower Manas. A portion of magnetism re- mains in the iron, to be slowly or quickly dissipated, as the case may be; it having apparently become entangled, so to speak, in the molecules of the latter, or having, more correctly, caused a polarized arrangement among those molecules whose vibratory ratio exhibits the qualities of magnetism.

So, at death, only that portion of the Lower Manas is withdrawn which is untainted by kama. That portion colored by kama is left; a residue, having, by
virtue of its original Manasic origin, enough still of the unconscious creative power, before referred to, to clothe itself with an astral form; thus constituting the "KamaRupa," which, senseless and fallen as it is, is still the " guide" of many a poor, obsessed " medium." For while
having no center of consciousness capable of feeling and functioning as such, still it is capable again, by virtue of its Manasic origin, of having a false feeling of personality reflected into it by the Lower Manas of a medium. This reflection may so synthesize its fading consciousness as to enable it to connect itself with its past life, and to relate the leading events of this quite accurately. Its feeling of "I am myself" is thus an illusion of an illusion, if we may be allowed the expression, for the feeling of "I am myself," which we experience in our waking state, real as it seems, is entirely illusive, being reflected there in a similar manner by the overshadowing of the Higher Manas. 
It only exists because of its connection with the latter, and is added to the sum total of the experiences of its parent at death, as the memory of each day may be said to be added to the sum of the consciousness of our personal selves. For, having drawn what of wisdom it may from each association with a body, the Higher Manas withdraws at death, taking all of Lower Manas which has freed itself from Kama, leaving the remains of Lower Manas and Kama to disintegrate in Kama Loca.* 
And as there are many days that leave little or no impress upon the consciousness of our personal selves, so there may be many lives having but small record on the tablets of the Higher Manas, while some may be forgotten altogether. These forgotten lives are the most dreadful fate which may befall a personality, for they are truly "lost souls." The whole of the reflected portion of the Higher Manas has been sunk so low in Kamic desires and passions that there is no union possible after death ; and the Personality, strong by virtue of this robbing of the qualities of its parent, clothes itself in a powerful Kama Rupa and becomes an active agent for evil, while at the same time descending its own arc to utter annihilation amidst indescribable suf- fering, of which the realization of its impending fate is not the least. We may now, perhaps, dimly perceive the relation between Higher Manas, the Thinker, which, with Atma and Buddhi as a Monadic base constitute the Reincarnating Ego, and Lower Manas, its reflection in matter which constitutes the personal self. 
The one is the result of the evolution through unthinkable aeons of time, of an individ- ualized, spiritual self-conscious soul; a self-conscious Ray from the Great Cosmic Thinking Principle; the potency of Thought in the Atmic Ray individualized. It persists throughout all minor manvantaras and pralayas; through all obscurations or destructions of worlds or systems. Yet of itself it is not immortal. It must become one in essence with Buddhi, the Eternal Knower and Recorder, to win eternal persistence as an individual entity. Similarly, the Lower Manas can only survive one life by becoming one in essence with its source ; by freeing itself from the at- tractions of Kama and returning to its source with the tribute of its conscious experiences in matter to add to the already stored wisdom of the latter. 
The Lower Manas is thus but the illusory reflection of the Higher, when this has been karmically drawn to a human-animal body by its desire and necessity for complete knowledge of the material and sensuous states of consciousness upon this plane of existence. This reflection, or refraction, thus produced, wins its immortality according as it approximates towards its Divine parent or yields to the sensuous delights of Kama. And not only this, but of even more importance, since personal immortality is more the concern of many incarnations, it determines in each life by its thoughts and acts the social environment, the race, the nation, the family, the intellectual trend and capacity, and the ease or difficulty, even, with which the Higher Manas can control -the following life or personality; so intimate is the karmic relation between the two. For while the Higher Manas, as compared to its reflection, is god-like in its wisdom and powers, it by no means follows that it has perfected wisdom on this plane. 
If it had, the necessity for repeated incarnations might be questioned. And the tendencies of our finite minds is, all the time, to take the finite view of everything to want to complete and round out the whole scheme and plan of the Cosmos in a few years. This is the pitiful mistake which Christian theology falls into in predicating the completion of man's earthly destiny in one short life. Our Higher Egos may have spent manvantaras in other humanities developing on quite distinct lines from those which we vaingloriously imagine include all possible mental and spiritual characteristics; they may spend manvantaras to come, evolving consciousness along equally unsuspected lines. 
Yet, god-like and wise as is the Higher Manas, it has, as we have thus shown, to descend life after life to over- shadow, impart its own essence to, and acquire wisdom through and from the human bodies with which it is karmically associated. During the waking states of these bodies it can only function through them by means of its reflection, the Lower Manas, which is thus, for this period, its only conscious avenue for reaching this plane. Yet so dimmed and discolored is the Lower Manas by the desires and passions of kama, that the consciousness trans- mitted through it by the Higher Ego may well be compared to the light from a sunbeam struggling to penetrate 

an opaque, densely- stained prison window. To the pris- oner within, who has never known any other light, the purity and brilliancy of the source of the dim, scarcely discernible ray, penetrating the gloom of the cell, might well remain a matter of doubt, or even of absolute disbelief. Yet in a precisely similar manner does our Higher Ego overshadow our gross material body, struggling to penetrate and enlighten its inner darkness; whispering to our Lower Soul in the divine voice we recognize as conscience; prompting us to altruistic work for humanity; filling our hearts with its divine compassion; the true source of every aspiration to become purer, wiser, and more unselfish than we feel ourselves to be. 

And the task of every human soul is to help in this great evolution of spiritual consciousness; to turn the strength of a purified will consciously to the aid of nature in the warfare between good and evil; between light and darkness; between Life and Death. This struggling, sinning, suffering Personality can only return to and be- come one with its divine progenitor by freeing itself from all coloring of kama by the utter killing out of desire. How important, then, a correct conception and re- alization of the nature, interrelations, and mutual dependence of our Higher and Lower Egos become! 

By this knowledge, and only by it, is it possible to formulate a theory of ethics, a rule for human action, for right living and thinking, which shall explain why a man ought to strive to be pure, passionless, altruistic; to live in the spiritual portion of his nature ; to yield a willing, loving obedience to the dictates of his Higher Self; to treasure each glimmering Ray from its Divine Light, even though it take the form of stern rebuke, as of a million times more value than all the gold of Ophir !