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Annie Besant

(1847 -1933)

The Seven Principles of Man

Annie Besant

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Principles VI & VII

Âtma – Buddhi, The Spirit

As the completion of the thought of the last section, we will look at Âtma-Buddhi first in its connection with Manas, and will then proceed to a somewhat more general view of it as the "Monad." The clearest and best description of the human trinity, Âtma-Buddhi-Manas, will be found in the Key to Theosophy, in which H.P.Blavatsky gives the following definitions:- THE HIGHER SELF is Atma, the inseparable ray of the Universal and ONE SELF. It is the God above, more than within us. Happy the man who succeeds in saturating his inner Ego with it THE SPIRITUAL divine EGO is the spiritual soul, or Buddhi, in close unionwith Manas, the mind-principle, without which it is no EGO at all, but only the Atmic Vehicle.

THE INNER or HIGHER EGO is Manas, the fifth principle, so called, independently of Buddhi. The mind-principle is only the Spiritual Ego when merged into one with Buddhi... It is the permanent individuality or the reincarnating Ego. (Page 175-176)

Âtmâ must then be regarded as the most abstract part of man’s nature, the "breath" which needs a body for its manifestation. It is the one reality, that which manifests on all planes, the essence of which all our principles are but aspects.

The one Eternal Existence, wherefrom are all things, which embodies one of its aspects in the universe, that which we speak of as the One Life – this Eternal Existence rays forth as Âtmâ, the very Self alike of the universe and of man ; their innermost core, their very heart, that in which all things inhere.

In itself incapable of direct manifestation on lower planes, yet That without which no lower planes could come into existence, It clothes itself in Buddhi, as Its vehicle, or medium of further manifestation. "Buddhi is the faculty of cognising, the channel through which divine knowledge reaches the Ego, the discernment of good and evil, also divine conscience, and the spiritual Soul, which is the vehicle of Âtmâ"( Secret Doctrine, Volume I, p. 2).

It is often spoken of as the principle of spiritual discernment. But Âtma-Buddhi, a universal principle, needs individualising ere experience can be gathered and self-consciousness attained. So the mind-principle is united to Âtma-Buddhi, and the human trinity is complete. Manas becomes the spiritual Ego only when merged in Buddhi ; Buddhi becomes the spiritual Ego only when united to Manas; in the union of the two lies the evolution of the Spirit, self-conscious on all planes.

Hence Manas strives upward to Âtma-Buddhi, as the lower Manas strives upward to the higher, and hence, in relation to the higher Manas, Âtma-Buddhi, or Âtma, is often spoken of as "the Father in Heaven," as the higher Manas is itself thus described in relation to the lower. (See ante page 40)

The lower Manas gathers experience to carry it back to its source ; the higher Manas accumulates the store throughout the cycle of reincarnation; Buddhi becomes assimilated with the higher Manas; and these, permeated with the Âtmic light, one with that True Self, the trinity becomes a unity, the Spirit is self-conscious on all planes, and the object of the manifested universe is attained.

But no words of mine can avail to explain or to describe that which is beyond explanation and beyond description. Words can but blunder along on such a theme, dwarfing and distorting it. Only by long and patient meditation can the student hope vaguely to sense something greater than himself, yet something which stirs at the innermost core of his being.

As to the steady gaze directed at the pale evening sky, there appears after while, faintly and far away, the soft glimmer of a star, so to the patient gaze of the inner vision there may come the tender beam of the spiritual star, if but as a mere suggestion of a far off world.

Only to a patient and persevering purity will that light arise, and blessed beyond all earthly blessedness is he who sees but the palest shimmer of that transcendent radiance.

With such ideas as to "Spirit," the horror with which Theosophists shrink from ascribing the trivial phenomena of the séance-room to "spirits" will be readily understood. Playing on musical boxes, talking through trumpets, tapping people on the head, carrying accordions round the room – these things may be all very well for astrals, spooks and elementals, but who can assign them to "spirits" who has any conception of Spirit worthy of the name?

Such vulgarisation and degradation of the most sublime conceptions as yet evolved by man are surely subjects for the keenest regret, and it may well be hoped that ere long these phenomena will be put in their true place, as evidence that the materialistic views of the universe are inadequate, instead of being exalted to a place they cannot fill as proofs of Spirit.

No physical, no intellectual phenomena are proofs of the existence of Spirit. Only to the spirit can Spirit be demonstrated. You cannot prove a proposition in Euclid to a dog ; you cannot prove Âtma-Buddhi to Kâma and the lower Manas.

As we climb, our view will widen, and when we stand on the summit of the Holy Mount the planes of Spirit shall lie before our opened vision.

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