Masonic, Occult and Esoteric Online Library
Septenary Man
By J.A. Anderson
Prana
While a portion of man's Principles are derived from, or are the very essence of, beings higher than he, there are others which are not so derived, but which seem to root in the very- Absolute itself. They are as direct aspects of the Absolute in man (the microcosm) as they are in the Universe (or macrocosm). Such are Atma, man's seventh; Buddhi, his second; and Prana, the third Principle. Viewed from a purely physical standpoint, all life upon the earth is derived, primarily or secondarily, from the sun, which seems to be a great storehouse for all forms offorce, or modes of motion. Heat, light, electricity, magnetism,"vital" force—all radiate apparently from this great center of Cosmic energy. Blot the sun out of the heavens, and this earth would, in a very few days at the most, float aimlessly in space, a huge,frozen, lifeless corpse. There are, of course, other, and very greatly modifying, conditions which affect, favorably or unfavorably, the continuance oflife here, such as the inclination of the earth's axis to the sun, the percentage of moisture in the atmosphere, etc.; but as these are but secondary causes, at best, whose primaries depend uponthe sun for their modifying influence, the latter may be said to betruly the giver of physical life to the earth.
This life seemsto be the result of, or due to, motion or vibration, which latter is transmitted to the earth by means of a medium which science conjectures to be its " ether," and reaches the earth in the formof vibrations. It is interesting to note how exactly the conclusions of science, as to the manner in which these vibrations reach andreact upon the molecular matter of the earth, repeat unconsciously the occult formula as to the mode in which Prana, or theLife Principle, is related to the human body. Just as the vibrations from the sun are transmitted by an intermediary agent the ether,—so does Occultism declare that Prana reaches the body through and by means of an astral or ethereal body—the Linga Sharira. But one must not fall into the error of confusing these vibrations in the ether with Prana, or the Life Principle itself. That would be to say that the vibrations set up in the Linga Sharira by Prana constituted the essence of Prana itself, and would land one in the purely materialistic theory of the mechanical origin of all life. !
Prana roots in Absolute Motion—in the force or will-aspect of the Causeless Cause. The Sun is the active agent in its stor- ing, and the " ether" or some intermediary substance in its trans- mission to the earth, but the Life Essence itself is something quite apart from the mechanical vibrations which transmit it, or exhibit its presence It is but the effects of Prana acting in the atoms of astral or ethereal matter that science is vainly striving to materialize in its hypothesis of the ether. In its real essence or nature, Prana is, of course, undiscoverable; for that which Occultists classify as Prana is but the phenomenal manifestation of the universal Life Principle acting upon the plane of molecular substance. This universal Life Principle may be said to be one of three hypostases of the Absolute ; which hypostases appear to our perception as Motion, Substance, and Consciousness. Into one or other of these infinite aspects of the Absolute, or Causeless Cause, every finite phenomenon finally resolves itself. They are the Absolute as this is reflected in Time and Space. They are, as we have seen, never dissociated under manifested conditions the onlv ones which finite minds are capable of comprehending; can not even be thought of separately. Consciousness, often spoken of as Spirit, is at the base of all ideation, perception, and sensation. Substance furnishes the material substratum for all form, and is the medium in which Motion (will or force) is clothed, as well as the vehicle for the manifestation of Consciousness.
Motion divested of all other attributes represents the Universal Life Principle in the Universe—is Life, in its very essence, it would seem; for if motion ceases upon any plane, so-called death upon that plane occurs at once, and the entity which was clothed in the substance in which motion has thus ceased must retreat or follow the life vibration to other and inner planes. If we look upon the human monad as a ray from the Absolute, and as therefore containing potentially the three aspects or hypostases of this, then its conscious aspect may be thought of, or distinguished, as Atma; its Substance aspect as Buddhi, or the Akasa, or " mulaprakriti," of Eastern philosophy; and its active or life aspect as Jiva. Indeed, this seems to be the sense in which these two Sanscrit words, "Jiva" and "Atma," are used in much theosophic literature. It is only when Jiva, or the manifested aspect of Absolute Life or motion, reaches the molecular plane of the Universe that it is termed Prana, and is then classed as the third human Principle. It is evident that it is no more a Principle in man than it is in the rock, the vegetable, the animal, or in any form composed of molecules. It is simply the aspect of Jiva, the universal life Principle, upon this, the molecular plane of the universe.
Life is everywhere; in every conceivable point in space it is potentially, if not actually, present. Being the motion or will-aspect of the unknowable Causeless Cause, it must pervade every possible region in all the inconceivable abysses of space. Therefore, when Prana, that aspect of the universal life Principle acting in molecular substance, passes from form to form of such matter, it simply abandons one, at the so-called I' death" of this, to associate itself with another; assuming during the brief interval (if, indeed, there really be an interval) its jivic or universal life-aspect again. For Prana of itself is unable to construct a molecular form, or even to maintain or preserve one beyond the cycle of the entity which has synthesized it and so made a molecular form possible. Just as we have seen in our study of the Linga Sharira that the human monad is unable to create (synthesize) for itself a form, but that conscious entities have to do this for it, so also this Pranic aspect of the universal life Principle is guided in its workings in lower forms by entities who synthesize or construct such lower " lives" into forms, and control and direct the forces of Prana so long as this association continues.
Thus, Prana, from another point of view, may be described as the force of the "fiery lives"—the first and "fiery" differ- entiations of the homogeneous substance of planes above the molecular, and even the atomic—which, synthesized ancT coordinated in a manner to be described, builds into the form of cells the lower Pranic molecular " lives." These cells, again, are synthesized into an appropriate form by the entity thus swinging into the objective arc of its life cycle, and Jiva now becomes Prana, because its energy is directed to and acts within the molecular plane of substance. But the action of the " fiery lives," thus sweeping downwards, or (to coin a term) molecular-wards, would be chaotic, as we have seen, and quite unintelligent as regards this plane, were not this action directed to the production of a particular form by the molds or models cut and shaped in astral matter (which matter we have also seen when dealing with the Linga Sharira to have the quality of responding instantaneously to thought) by the action of ideation. The endeavor was made, in the chapter referred to, to point out the source of and the various modifying influences acting upon the Linga Sharira, or the model for the human form.
This guiding influence thus exerted upon the action of the "fiery lives" again illustrates how complex is the origin of man's form even, and how all his Principles act and react upon and within each other in completing his many-sided nature. The withdrawing of the Higher Ego does not release the synthesis of Prana necessary to the maintenance of the human form; it only leaves man an intellectual ani- mal; but the withdrawal of the "Animal Soul" of the older classi- fications, or of that (human) elemental which synthesizes the action of Prana in the human form, exactly as lower elementals do in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, means the surrender of the human form to the uncontrolled action of the lower lives, who soon tear and rend it asunder. Then Prana as a human Principle disappears, which is to say that the coordinated action of the "fiery lives" dis- appears. Prana does not disappear; its activity is now greater than before; but, being no longer synthesized and coordinated, causes the so-called death and disintegration of the body. It is thus evident that, as thought has the power to cause substance to take form, so have all centers of consciousness, from atom-soul to god, the power to receive from, or to assimilate out of, the unknowable Fount of Life enough of Jiva or Prana, as the case may be, to bestow vitality—using Western and highly inaccurate phraseology—upon, or, according to Eastern philosophy, to synthesize it j in, their respective bodies, and that when they abandon these material forms they withdraw this synthesizing influence or power. But such abandoned forms have still within them the Prana or Life Principle appropriate to a lower plane of consciousness. This power to thus assimilate, or, as Mr. Judge* puts it, to *' secrete," Prana out of the great ocean of Jiva, which every conscious entity from atom to god possesses, is one derived, no doubt, from the very Absolute itself; results, indeed, because life (or motion) substance and consciousness are always associated—are but aspects of the one indivisible, omnipresent Absolute. Life and force, or motion, are indissolubly associated; and when the force of modern science becomes "latent" it only means that the eternal motion has changed its rate of vibration—has passed into a lower plane of substance as well as of consciousness. Life is thus seen to be one, indestructible and continuous, and death but a change in the conditions of its manifestation. The third human principle is shown to be a universal one; and is called Prana merely to distinguish one field of the operation of this universal Principle. Let us now look for a moment at the question of Life from its purely physical aspect. Materialists have in vain sought for its mysterious origin in the " matter" which constitutes their god. For many years spontaneous generation, or abiogenesis, as it is scientifically termed, was universally believed in, and was an immense support to the materialistic hypothesis. If it were, indeed, possible for blindly working forces to push inorganic or lifeless matter up out of the mineral into the vegetable and animal kingdoms, then the origin of life and consciousness might, with some show of reason, be attributed to certain properties of matter—which is the materialistic claim.
But later and still more "scientific" researches, by Pasteur and others, have completely disproven the spontaneous-generation theory, so that one of the most important of the strongholds of materialism has been demolished to its very foundations. Science has now to loo.< beyond the mere properties of matter if it would find even a working hypothesis to explain the origin of life. And this, indeed, it is beginning to do. Many of its greatest exponents, including such devoted adherents as Huxley and Haeckel, admit the impossibility of abiogenesis at present, but claim that in distant periods of the world's evolution there was a time when the magnetic, electric, temperature, and other conditions prevailing upon the earth were such that that which has since become impossible was possible then; that then matter did respond to force, and the organic appear out of the inorganic—using these terms, of course, in the older scientific sense. Such scientists are very nearly in accord with the theosophic theory of evolution.
For Theosophy teaches that the door for monadic ingress was closed at the middle of this Round; which, put in scientific terms, means that at that period spontaneous generation ceased, be- cause of the earth having reached its lowest condition of materiality—one so low, indeed, that spirit or thought is unable to act upon it directly, but must approach it through the medium of the finer, more plastic astral matter, of the preceding Round or World Period. But as to the nature of the force causing their so-called spontaneous generation, these thinkers are as far from the theosophic conception as are the poles asunder. For with them the appearance of form is, after all, but blind force taking the direction of the least resistance; while for Theosophists astral forms followed by molecular ones is the action of force representing the will of conscious thinking entities, which entities are the real cre- ators of all form. Blind force taking the direction of either the least or greatest resistance never has produced nor never can pro- duce form. So deeply philosophical is the theosophic conception of the origin of life that it is recognized that even the Spirit- ual Monad, after its differentiation within the Absolute and its start downward through its cycle of manifested existence, is still unable, as we have seen, to construct for itself a form, but needs the assistance of thinking entities, farther differentiated and so relatively lower than itself, to accomplish this. Theosophists, indeed, recognize that there was a time when spontaneous generation (but not that of the scientists) was a universal fact and factor throughout nature.
This period is represented by the Third Round, when the earth was composed of the astral matter previously described, and the first half of this, or the Fourth Round. The type of all life upon the earth is the cell, and it is from cells that all the wilderness of forms which we see in nature about us are built up. The earth itself represents, as do all earths and suns, but an immense cell made up of an infinite number of lesser cells, and stars and planets, even in their fcrm, conform to the cellular or spherical model. Abiogenesis, or the spontaneous generation of the scientists, having been disproved, and Occultism declaring that the door for monadic ingress closed at the middle of the Fourth Round, it remains, then, to examine the nature of the real physical basis of life, or the means by which physical forms are transmitted from parent to offspring. The theory most in accord with the occult teaching, and one, indeed, which explains purely physical heredity correctly, is that of Weissmann. He declares that there is one cell, formed by the union of the male and female plasm, from divisions and modifications of which the entire human form is built up. That is to say, that every cell in the human body has a minute portion of this original cell, and that by means of the pres- ence of the matter of this primordial cell in every cell of the body physical heredity is carried forward. These primordial cells repre- sent the completed type of life on their plane, for they are sevenfold in their constitution.
They have a germinal spot, a nucleolus, a nucleus, a membrane limiting the nucleus, a cell plasm, and an inner and outer membrane of the cell proper. Such perfect cells, then, are capable of being used, through various modifications of them, in order to build up the multiform tissues of the body; and it is the various subdivisions of these germinal cells with which the hierarchies of elementals clothe themselves in building upthe human form. Thus, each living being, of whatever degree, nowclothed in flesh has within it certain cells which have never died since the time that the primordial " matter" of this earth yielded to the primordial impress of "spirit," or the modifying associations of spiritual entities seeking re-embodiment. Such cells are, as Weissmann points out, relatively eternal; and are handed down from par- ent to offspring, and with them comes all the modifying influences of past associations as to form and physical functions. There is little if any doubt but that any entity now upon the earth has been here many, many times before, clothed in a similar material form to that which it now occupies, and which it only very slowly modifies under the stress of its necessity for developing new ave- nues for consciousness. The real entity, however, is concealed, and its presence only revealed by the material form it occupies, and which is but the outward expression of such an inner presence.
The physical basis of life, then, is these non-dying cells, handed down from parent to offspring, and bringing with them the impress of the entire physical characteristics of both parents, which meet and blend in the new form so provided. The spiritual plasm or force is that synthesized by the reincarnating entity, whose func- - tion it is, as we have seen, to control the action of Prana in the lower hierarchial "lives," so that this form can be constructed and maintained. The maintenance of the integrity of the physical form is effected by a constant synthesizing effort upon the part of the inner entity. * It is the expression of its will to live; the sum of its desires for sensuous existence. The force, which is but a phase of will-power, is exerted subconsciously in all instances. Thought can and does modify this force; but few among mortals know how to direct it. Sickness is thus due to failure on the part of the entity to control or synthesize the action of Prana in its organism. The natural action of the "fiery lives" is always at war with this synthesizing . effort, and unless the man has cultivated his will strongly in this direction very little suffices to turn the balance. When one has cultivated or strengthened his will to live in past lives, in this one he will be said to be full of "vitality,"—in other words, Prana will - be under his control, —while the ordinary man will be threatened by foes, both within and without. Any violation of the laws of nature, any infection or injury—the thousand pitfalls which sur- round man's footsteps—disturbs the balance of Prana, and shortens his life. So universally is life shortened by our ignorance and will- fulness that its span, which, we are taught, ought to cover some four hundred years, does not average a tenth of this period. One of the chief foes to the proper acton of Prana is to be found in the parasites, or "microbes," which have their normalhabitation in and upon man's tissues, as they also have in andupon those of every entity, however minute. These are the act- ive agents in the final disintegration of the body when deathoccurs—as was stated in the chapter upon the body. But thesemicrobes, as we have also seen, must not be confused with the«' lives" from which the human body is constructed. The microbes spoken of in the " Secret Doctrine" are the minute "lives" of which the tissuesof the body are built up, and are classified in the " Secret Doctrine"as belonging to " the first and lowest subdivision—that of materialPrana, or Life." When we consider that there are well-knownand well-studied bacteria which it requires a microscope with amagnifying power of several hundred of diameters to disclose, theexcessive minuteness of these molecularly clad lives can begin tobe appreciated. Every entity with a form independently constructed has these its natural enemies, and the human form is noexception. All diseases which have been and are being traced togerms—a large and constantly increasing class —are due to the restraining action of the entity, working through the "fiery lives,"being inhibited. All diseases of any kind are due, as has beenpointed out, to the same cause; and all true remedies either actas germicides upon the microbes, or as centers of modifying vibration in organs in which the action of Prana is so disturbed. Theselective action not only of remedies, but also of the tissues themselves in taking their proper nutriment out of a common and highlyheterogeneous stock of food, is due to an unison or chord betweenthe Pranic vibration of such remedy or food and the normal orabnormal vibration, as the case may be, in the healthy or diseasedtissues, which they thus help in the one case to build up or in theother to restore to the normal function.
The "fiery lives" through which the Pranic energy is transmittedgive of their own essence to the lower molecular lives, which theythus build up by merging, as it were, into these lower lives for thetime being. The process would seem to be similar to that whichtakes place when heat becomes latent, or a modification of vibration. Changes in the vibratory action of its molecules will cause the vapor of water, for instance, to pass by successive steps into the liquid and then into the solid state. So the Pranic vibrations of the "fiery lives," or of those entities constituting the ultimate division of matter within the Cosmos, pass by a similar modification of vibration into these molecular lives or states. But this action of the "fiery lives" is also subject to the universal law of -A cycles, and it is this cycHc action which sets a limit to life upon the molecular plane, despite the will of the Ego to live. Thus the body of even an Adept would yield to this law of periodicity when the downward sweep of the "fiery lives" came to its normal close. This fact alone negatives such theories of prolonged life as are set forth,, for example, in Bulwer Lytton's " Zanoni." While the nor- mal length of life is stated to be very much longer than that of the ordinary individual, still, there is a limit to continuance in a physical body, and this limit is determined by the action of Prana itself, as manifested in these "fiery lives."
Without, then, attempting to solve the ultimate origin or nature of life, which loses itself in the abysses of the Unknowable, we can, in a mechanical sort of way, trace the action and understand the nature of Prana in its working in our bodies, as well as in nature about us. Never losing sight of the fact that motion - (force), substance, and consciousness are always associated upon this plane of manifestation, we can peceive that the coming into being of the "fiery lives" is the result—in one aspect, and that grossly materialistic—of a change in the rate of vibration in inner, or to us subjective, or spiritual spheres. It is the descent of " spirit" into " matter," for by this change of vibration that aspect of the Absolute which appears to us as matter becomes ascendant. Thus, the "fiery lives" will represent the first ripple upon the ocean of manifestation, from our point of view. They may seem as gross as the granite rock to beings higher than we. And, mechanically again, they represent the higher, spiritual vibrations becoming latent, or potential only, upon this almost homogeneous plane. But the vibrations of these "fiery lives," thus limited and bound by differentiation are almost of infinite rapidity, compared with those which they assume when they again descend into the still lower material latency of the "lives" and "matter" out ofwhich our bodies are constructed.
The universe is thus seen to be one vast laboratory of life, wherein this mysterious essence is working in infinite variations,through infinitely different, yet harmonious, modes of manifestation. We are ourselves but as drops in this infinite ocean ofexistence; our very bodies composed of innumerable lower lives,in the one universe of Being. As we act in relation to theselower lives, so will they react upon us in our next association withthem, for there is but small doubt that we are associated for almostan infinite length of time with the same Pranic lives, which, againand again, build bodies similar to those in which we now find ourselves. Therefore, the lesson to be learned from the study of soabstract a Principle as Prana even, is the necessity for an uprightlife, for brotherliness towards each other; a life of purity, of morality, aud of altruism.
