The Metaphysical Magazine 2, no. 4 (October 1895), 257-262.[1]
“Do not attempt to deal with the highest and most sacred of all sciences, unless you are resolved to walk in the way of holiness; for those who are not pure in heart will not see the true light and not understand the true doctrine. Only those who feel the presence of holy truth in their souls will behold the divine mysteries. Only those who have overcome the bondage of self will know the secrets of eternity.”
These are the words of a Master. Within the soul of man is a spark of that Divinity from whom all things take their origin, their consciousness, and their knowledge; therefore the power to become and to know all things rests within the constitution of man. By means of his bodily senses he learns to know the qualities of the external world of phenomena; by means of his inner perceptions he investigates the realm of the soul; and the understanding of his awakened spirit penetrates into the highest and deepest mysteries. No man can really know anything beyond that which enters his consciousness. The field of his consciousness is the sphere of his being; but the consciousness of his mortal personality is not that of his soul; nor is the consciousness of his (astral) soul the same as that of the spiritual spark slumbering within his heart. The field of his lower consciousness embraces that which is low; the high that which is high; the highest embraces the highest. If we wish to attain real knowledge of that which is high, holy, and exalted, we must acquire the art of closing the door to the influences that come from the lower plane, and enter into that higher state of consciousness which is related to the spiritual realm.
The fact that there are persons ignorant of such a higher state — denying the possibility of its existence because they have never entered it themselves—does not change this law of nature. Even orthodox science, superficial as it may be, is on the way to acknowledging the existence of a double consciousness in man, each of which states is independent of the other; thus it begins to approach a truth taught thousands of years ago by the Indian and Egyptian sages, and scientifically explained by the great Shankarāchārya in his “Tattwa Bodha” (Philosophy of Self-knowledge). Moreover, every person of ordinary sensibility, be he learned or not, knows from introspection that within his personal self there is a higher state of consciousness, different from that of the outer self, which admonishes, guides, and instructs him, and is commonly called his inner and better self. Those who have looked still deeper find that even beyond that there is a still higher power, called the conscience. In the outer personal self there resides the sense of egoism, the craving for life and for the gratification of self. In the inner consciousness there is also the sense of self, and it considers the advantage or disadvantage resulting from its actions; but in that innermost power there exists no personal consideration, no sense of egoism, no idea of limitation, isolation, or separateness, no conception of “mine and thine,” but the sense of justice resulting from the recognition of good and evil; in other words, the soul-knowledge of eternal law.
This innermost consciousness is in a certain sense our own Self, for it is the recognition of truth in ourselves, the highest power which we possess; but it is not a power which has different qualities in different persons; it differs according to the degree of its manifestation, but not in its essence; it is in its own nature unlimited, infinite, the one Self of all beings, the truth, the law, and the ver), life. It is “God,” the divine ideal, whose realization is the object of all existence—the true Self, that cannot be realized or known in any other way than by the sacrifice of that illusive personality which is not the true Self of man, but the seat of his egoism. The full recognition of truth is only possible when the delusion of self-conceit disappears.
To illustrate this by an example, let us say: The personal self craves for the gratification of a certain passion, and contemplates the pleasure resulting from it. The inner self considers the advantages and disadvantages resulting from such a gratification, and the effect it would have upon its physical, intellectual, and moral state. But in the innermost self there exists no consideration of any personal advantage; there exists the impersonal sense of right and wrong, the product of spiritual knowledge acquired by previous experiences perhaps in former lives. There, in the innermost centre, the law exists and dictates without giving any logical reasons for it, and this law is the foundation of man’s existence; it is the recognition of truth, having become manifested in the consciousness of the terrestrial personality.
In one of his aspects man is a unity, and in another aspect a very complicated being. His physical, emotional, intellectual, moral, and spiritual natures are entirely different from each other, forming in the perfect man one harmonious whole. They are not the products of each other, but each has for its foundation its own particular principle. No amount of feeding, moving, and exercising a corpse will create life therein; no amount of developing muscular strength will create intelligence; no amount of intellectual cleverness will create morality; no amount of selfish morality will grow into that true spirituality which can manifest itself only in those who are unselfish. We must not mistake the manifestation of a principle in an organism for a creation of the organism. A healthy body will be a good vehicle for the manifestation of intelligence; but no degree of physical health will create the principle of intelligence, nor can any amount of lies cause the existence of a new truth.
Materiality, life, sensation, intellectuality, morality, spirituality—each of these principles constitutes for itself the basis of a certain and definite state in man, and man’s aspect differs according to the manifestations of this or that principle in his constitution. The corpse differs from the living man, the animal man from the intellectual, the physical from the spiritual, the selfish from the unselfish, etc. These are distinct and definite states, belonging to different planes of existence. A man cannot be a sage and a fool at one and the same time; but at one time the sage in him may become manifest and at another the fool, and during the time of such a manifestation he is identified with the principle manifesting in and through him.
Each of the fundamental principles in the constitution of man belongs to its own plane of existence, having its own sphere of activity and its own functions of perception and memory. The physical body does not know the nature of life; the external personality does not know the “inner man”; the inner man is not God and does not know him, unless God becomes manifested in him; but the light coming from a higher principle may penetrate into the lower, and cause therein a certain transformation comparable to the sunlight penetrating through the clouds, which causes the clouds to become luminous and the darkness to disappear. Thus the physical body is penetrated and filled with life, the animal mind illumined by intellectuality, and the intellectual and moral man may be transformed into a still higher being by the light of true spirituality, in which no sense of self or egotism exists, and which is unattainable to the selfish because self-conceit and the realization of universal truth are incompatible. To enable man to establish the required conditions under which the divine man within may become fully manifest in the terrestrial personality—this is the object and aim of all occult study and spiritual training.
The awakening of immortal consciousness within the mind of mortal man is the dawn of self-knowledge, the first step of Initiation. There may be those who find it sufficient for their religious training or spiritual development to follow blindly the rules of life taught by their teacher; but there are others who wish to understand what they are doing and the reasons therefor, and to those it will be highly useful and necessary to know the laws of spiritual evolution, so that they may obey it knowingly. To them it will be of the highest importance to know the nature of the constitution of man and the functions of his principles upon the different planes of existence; so that he may no longer be an ignorant instrument for the action of cosmic forces, but knowingly and wisely co-operate with the secret powers of nature in her great work of giving birth to a perfect man.
If we examine the selves within our own constitution, we find them to be the physical self, the soul in its higher and lower aspect, and the spirit with its two powers of understanding and enjoying the truth : while the whole is pervaded by the one life, manifesting its activity as the life of the body, the life of the soul, and spiritual life. In other words, that manifestation of individual self-consciousness in the one Life (God) which is called “the soul” assumes different envelopes, in clothing itself with matter, for the purpose of exercising the functions belonging to each plane of existence, and thus attaining perfect knowledge by the realization of Being. Upon this self-examination and self-observation is based the classification of principles in the constitution of man, taught by the great Shankarāchārya, as follows:
I. The physical body. (Sthula Sharira.) The outer garment or envelope of the soul; the “image grown out of nutriment” (Annamaya Kosha). It is made up of innumerable elements, organs, tissues, and cells, each of which constitutes for itself a certain individuality, although each is a constituent part of the body to which it belongs, and without that part the body would not be complete. Thus the eye is not the ear and not the body itself, but a part of the body; and the eye would not be an eye, but worthless, if separated from it. In a similar way each individual man is an organ in the great organism of the soul of the world, and he is only a man and of value to the extent in which he fulfils his function as a part of that great organism, according to the position he occupies therein. The physical body is a worthless corpse unless endowed by the life that animates the whole; it is the house in which the inner man dwells and the temple in which Divinity may manifest its presence. The physical body is of the greatest importance for the development of spiritual knowledge and power; for the germs of all powers are hidden therein. It is as necessary for man as the shell of the egg is necessary for the development of the bird within; but as the full-grown bird no longer requires the shell, so the fully-developed spiritual man may live even on this earth without a physical body and find himself all the better for being free of this impediment.
The physical body, aside from its merely physiological functions, has organs for the performance of spiritual functions, such as are entirely unknown to ordinary science, but well known to the occultist. Some of these organs have become nearly atrophied from disuse, others are considered “mean”; but as often the lowest things may be put to the highest use, so even those organs which are considered “meanest,” and often misused, are perhaps the most sacred and important for the higher evolution of man.
(To be continued.)
Note:
[1] Initiation. The Self and the “Selves.” Part I. Franz Hartmann, M.D. The Metaphysical Magazine 2, no. 4 (October 1895), 257-262. {This article was reformatted from the original, but with the content unchanged other than fixing minor typos, by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025}