If, as Patanjali tells us, this universe exists for the purposes of the soul, there must be one general evolutionary law throughout nature. If all evolutionary processes are directed toward the same goal, their operations in all departments of nature must be identical. The unity of the impetus behind nature is thus a measurable aid in the comprehension of orderly phenomena that may otherwise seem to be chaotic and purposeless.
Materialistic science has already gone far toward a conformity with the teachings of the secret doctrine. Leaving upon one side all its unwarranted assumptions, all its guesses, and all its illegitimate wanderings from its own domain into the domains of philosophy and religion, we find that it has reached a certain basis of more or less demonstrated fact with which the Theosophist can have no quarrel. The philosopher who argues strictly from that basis will find himself carried irresistibly upon the broad current of occult truth toward a comprehensive system that will explain all the phenomena of nature from the highest to the lowest, from those states of matter that it pleases science to call inorganic up to the loftiest forms of human intelligence. In other words, as soon as we know exactly what nature is doing we seem to know also what she intends to do, and to perceive a unity of purpose behind all her activities.
Confining ourselves for the moment to the materialistic conceptions of matter, we find certain general conclusions that are of the deepest significance to the ultimate study of the mind and its modifications. For example, we are now told that matter is homogeneous in its ultimate nature; that it is in all cases a massing of atoms, themselves containing electrons; and that inconceivable potencies are stored up in those atoms and in the molecules. Furthermore, we are told that matter is in no case inert, but that the atoms of which it is composed are in perpetual motion and at a great velocity. We learn also that all atoms are identical in their potencies, and that the apparent differences between them are due to the display of certain powers while others remain latent or unmanifested. The differences between one object and another—for example, an orange and a piece of flint—consist only in the different arrangement of the atoms and the potencies that they variously display or conceal. Moreover, it is now known that the atoms forming parts of bodies are continually being thrown off into space and their places taken by others. When we remember further that the atoms thus thrown off and attracted are not new matter, but that each is saturated with the essence of its experiences, that each becomes a picture gallery of all the events in which it has taken part, we seem to have the groundwork for a philosophy of mind that is so obvious as to be almost aggressive.
At this point we may leave materialistic science as having reached the confines of its proper domain. Physical science concerns itself with the observation of material facts and with their due arrangement. Outside these boundaries it becomes a trespasser. It is for philosophy and for religion to say why the atoms act in the way that they do, and to detect the agency of a universal life or consciousness that energizes, directs, and controls them. And we find the evidences of that universal life or consciousness in the order that pervades nature and in the unvarying arithmetical and geometrical methods that characterize her activities. The laws of periodicity in the chemical elements as indicated by Mendeleev, Bode’s law of planetary distances, the symmetries of the color and musical scales, are a few among the more obvious proofs of the order, design, and intention that permeate nature, and of an all-pervasive consciousness that regulates and controls matter “for the purposes of the soul.”
Let us then see in what way these activities of matter, well known immemorially to the secret science and now discovered by the physicist, are related to human evolution and the mysteries of fate and fortune. Let us look, moreover, at their bearing upon the practical study of occultism and the search for the soul. This may best be done by a reminder of the course of the Monad upward through the lower kingdoms of matter until it manifests as human consciousness, as ourselves.
It is thus evident that when we speak of the Monad in the mineral kingdom, we mean the divine consciousness thinking of itself as being at that point on its way to an individualized self-consciousness. And because it is thinking of itself as at that stage in its evolution, it attracts to itself and energizes the atoms that constitute the mineral kingdom as we know it. The mineral kingdom is therefore the divine consciousness expressing itself through the medium of appropriately energized atoms that have a corresponding mass and cohesion. Exactly the same thing is implied by the term “the vegetable kingdom.” Consciousness is now thinking of itself as at a further point in its evolution, and once more it attracts and energizes the appropriate atoms, giving them as before the necessary form and cohesion. But the situation is now somewhat more complex, since consciousness is now not only thinking of itself as being at the vegetable stage, but it has also brought upward with it the essence of its mineral experiences, and these in their turn continue to attract a certain number of corresponding material atoms for their expression. Therefore, by the vegetable kingdom we mean the divine consciousness thinking of itself as at that stage in its evolution, plus its mineral experiences or memories, and therefore both vegetable and mineral atoms must enter into the composition of the plant. The same process is repeated in the animal kingdom, but the material vehicle has now become still more complex, since not only animal atoms but also vegetable and mineral atoms have their parts to play in the animal body; and every one of these atoms preserves the memory of every scene in which it has played a part.
The human kingdom is the—so far, final—stage in the progress of the divine consciousness. We ourselves are that consciousness which is now thinking of itself as at the human stage. That thought process or stage is expressed in matter by the atoms which it has gathered to itself for the formation of the brain and nervous system. But there are also other aggregates of atoms in the human body which express the animal, vegetable, and mineral experiences of consciousness, and these also mass themselves into certain organs of the body and preserve the memory of the particular stages of evolution that they represent. Those memories do not intrude upon the normal human consciousness. But they may intrude upon the abnormal consciousness, as in cases of insanity, delirium, or criminal reversion to animal states. The true human consciousness may be imagined as the apex of a pyramid. Below the apex are strata of the lower states of consciousness through which the human consciousness has passed. Sometimes those lower strata, ordinarily kept under control, may revolt and gain the upper hand, and then we have insanity, mania, delirium, or criminality to deal with. We may also have a supposed memory of a past birth.
A simple illustration may be useful. Let us suppose that we have twelve electric lights, each enclosed in its glass bulb. But the first of these twelve bulbs is opaque and allows no light to pass. The second is less opaque, and we are able to see a faint glow. The third is more transparent, and allows an appreciable amount of light to pass. When we reach the twelfth bulb we find it is quite transparent and the light shines through in its full beauty. To make the parallel more exact—although all such similes are pitifully inadequate—let us suppose that the light is conscious and that it has the power, by the mode of its activity, to render its bulb more and more transparent. It does this by discharging from its bulb those atoms that are opaque and attracting, to take their place, other atoms that are transparent. Possibly it finds this difficult to do because it realizes neither its own power nor the translucent beauties that belong to it. There we have a rough picture of mankind. The spiritual consciousness is the same in all, but in some men it shines through a purified and transparent medium. In other men it shines through a medium that is nearly opaque. That is the difference between the saint and the sinner. But the analogy must not be taken too far.
In order to understand exactly what Patanjali means when he speaks of hindering the modifications of the thinking principle, let us suppose that our vision is keen enough actually to see some of the finer forces of nature working through men. We should see, first of all, that every atom in the physical body, as well as in the more rarefied bodies, is in a state of intense activity. That is admitted by science. We should see the atoms coming and going as a never resting army. That, too, is admitted by science. Every atom discharged from the body is saturated and energized by the essence of its human experience, and now goes forth into space to be attracted into other bodies and combinations with which it has affinity as a result of that saturation. We should see the places of these discharged atoms taken by other atoms similarly saturated with experiences gained elsewhere and attracted to ourselves by that same law of affinity or likeness. But there would be nothing fortuitous about this eternal coming and going. It would be wholly regulated by thought. Every discharged or attracted atom would be so attracted or discharged under the compulsion of some particular kind of thought. And according to the nature of the atoms thus selected by our thoughts and appertaining to their corresponding physical organs, so should we be healthy or diseased. But it is infinitely more important to note that, according to the nature of those thought-selected atoms, so would the various sheaths or bodies become opaque or transparent to the divine light within. Every selfish thought thus draws a blind over the windows of the soul. Every altruistic thought tends to sweep those blinds away. This is no vague morality. It is a definite and positive science, and it is sustained by everything that physics tells us of the laws of matter.
And so we understand why we must “hinder the modifications of the thinking principle,” and why this injunction is placed in the forefront of the Yoga aphorisms. We must control the mind because it is the mind that unceasingly calls unnumbered angels or demons to our aid or hindrance. We must control the mind because, in obedience to its every energy, come the movements to and fro of countless scores of physical atoms, each one saturated with the forces that make or mar, each one either veiling or transmitting the spiritual light within. We must control the mind because even the smallest of its thoughts means a rearrangement of the soul’s habitation and either a clearer vision of its destiny or a thickening of the curtains that hide its light. Every stage of evolution is an expression of the way in which consciousness is thinking of itself. How, then, are we thinking of ourselves, for we are that consciousness? There is no impotency that is not thought-produced, no limitation that is not self-created, no opacity of environment that is not self-induced by our magical powers over the atoms of matter that make that environment. In very truth, then, let us “hinder the modifications of the thinking principle.”