Article selections from “Ultimate Philosophy” by Herbert L. Courtney | Notes by H.P.B.
Ultimate Philsophy1
1. The “last,” however, are not always the first—on this plane of existence, whatever may be the case in “Heaven.”—Ed. [H.P.B.]
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To grant the ego is to assume existence, the possibility of which assumption necessitates consciousness (sensation). And it needs but to grasp the full signification of the word consciousness, to see at a glance the drift of the whole argument. I am bound to play upon some word, and I have my choice of several—in this instance let me use the word consciousness. Now is there (to me) aught beyond consciousness?2 If there is, give me a larger name, good critic, and let me use that instead—I wish a word which shall include the whole sum of personal existence. I need but one simple equation for the sake of argument. Let “I am” = consciousness—or “sensation” or any other word you please, so that it includes all thought, feeling, desire, or fancy, in short all connected with the ego in itself.3
2. Most decidedly not. “There is naught beyond consciousness,” a Vedantin and a Theosophist would say, because Absolute Consciousness is infinite and limitless, and there is nothing that can be said to be “beyond” that which is All, the self-container, containing all. But the Hylo-Idealists deny the Vedantic idea of non-separateness, they deny that we are but parts of the whole; deny, in common parlance, “God,” Soul and Spirit, and yet they will talk of “apprehension” and intuition—the function and attribute of man’s immortal Ego, and make of it a function of matter. Thus they vitiate every one of their arguments.—Ed. [H.P.B.]
3. In this paragraph we find the old crux of philosophy—the question as to whether there is any “external reality” in nature—cropping up again. The solution offered is a pure assumption, reached by ignoring one of the fundamental facts of human consciousness, the feeling that the cause of sensation, etc., lies outside the limited, human self. Mr. Courtney, we believe, aims at expressing a conception identical with that of the Adwaita Vedantins of India. But his language is inaccurate and misleading to those who understand his words in their usual sense, e.g., when he speaks of the “I am” outside of which nothing can exist, he is stating a purely Vedantin tenet; but then the “I” in question is not the “I” which acts, feels or thinks, but that absolute consciousness which is no consciousness. It is this confusion between the various ideas represented by “I” which lies at the root of the difficulty—the only philosophical explanation of which rests in the esoteric Vedantin doctrine of “Maya,” or Illusion.—Ed. [H.P.B.]
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To be conscious beyond myself is to exist beyond myself, that is to say “I am” = “I am not!” Ego = I am : non-ego = I am not:—and to suppose that there can be the slightest relationship between the two, between the “I am” of reasonable apprehension and the mere meaningless absurdity (“I am not”!) is to suppose an idea worthy only of Bedlam.4 Self cannot transcend self, and the ego conceiving a “beyond” only through its own medium and according to its own measure does not go “beyond” at all. That which is conceived by me is part of me—if not, by what means have I transcended my own consciousness? How can I be self and yet not self at the same time?5
4. From the standpoint of a materialist, most decidedly; not from that of a Vedantin.—Ed. [H.P.B.]
5. Very easily. You have only to postulate that self is one, eternal and infinite, the only Reality; and your little self a transient illusion, a reflected ray of the Self, therefore a not-Self. If the Vedantin idea is “meaningless” to the writer, his theory is still more so—to us.—Ed. [H.P.B.]
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How on earth or in heaven do, or can I, know anything about this “Kosmos”? All that I know, or think, or fancy, or conceive (if multiplicity of terms can make the matter clear), is part of myself, because (if, again, repetition can make the matter clear), if it be not so, I must have out-thought or out-conceived myself, etc.6 Beyond consciousness all is (to me) a blank, and all that enters consciousness becomes part of myself thereby;7—nor beyond myself can any origin be traced, for if it can be, then has consciousness gone beyond itself and then would “I am” = “I am not.”
6. This is dwarfing human consciousness and bringing it to the level of animal instinct and no more.—Ed. [H.P.B.]
7. “All that enters consciousness becomes part of myself thereby.” This phrase is an admirable illustration in proof of the remarks made in the last foot-note. “Things enter consciousness,” says Mr. Courtney, and it is no word-splitting to point out to him, that not only is it impossible for him to speak without these words or others equivalent to them, but further that he cannot think at all except in terms of these conceptions. It follows that, since he is not talking nonsense, he is trying to express in terms of the mind, what properly transcends mind—in other words we are brought back to the ancient doctrine of “Maya” again. Daily experience shows him that things do enter consciousness and, in some sense, become part of himself—but where and what were they, before entering his consciousness? Let him study the doctrine of limitation and “reflected” centres of consciousness, and he will understand himself more clearly.—Ed. [H.P.B.]
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Where now shall this generalization be save in the “I am”? Suppose for example there were an actually existing “I am not” (!)—can “I” generalize therein or thereon? How suicidally absurd is that reasoning which attempts to treat non-egoism, “I am not,” nothingness as actuality, i.e. as though nothing = something after all!8 With non-egoism or nothingness I have naught to do.
8. Had Mr. Courtney studied, even superficially, Eastern metaphysics, and known something of the definition of Ensoph in the Kabala, let alone the Vedantin Parabrahm, he would not call so rashly the philosophy of a long series of sages “suicidal absurdity.” There really were “thinking” minds and brains before the day of Hylo-Idealism.—Ed. [H.P.B.]
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Now the result of each and all analysis has been to prove that in no one particular way can the ego establish the slightest relation with the non-ego, the result of each separate analysis proving that no such relationship exists. And then proceeding beyond analysis the further truth dawns upon me that no such relationship can exist, but that self is all in all both actually and potentially. But this I cannot prove,9 for I should have to get into the non-existent non-ego in order to do it; that is to say reasonable analysis entirely breaks down, obviously must break down, when it attempts to analyse its own origin, for this is simply chasing its own shadow. Upon the fact of its own existence the ego cannot reason.10 Yet of all facts this is to me the one indisputably true, the one fortress that no analysis can touch, but which is unfolded in its true extent by a grand synthesis summing up all individual analysis.
9. Just so. A self-evident truth.—Ed. [H.P.B.]
10. A Mystic would take exception to this statement, at least if the word “reason” is used by Mr. Courtney in the sense of “know”:—for his great achievement is “Self”-knowledge, meaning not only the analytical knowledge of his own limited personality, but the synthetical knowledge of “one” ego from which that passing personality sprang.—Ed. [H.P.B.]
In my search therefore for the origin and centre of existence, I find the former to be totally unknowable and incomprehensible, nor can I imagine any process by which it could in the vaguest manner be guessed at, and the only way in which I can treat the question is by throwing both beginning and ending out of court by reducing all time and all existence to one indefinable and yet eternal Present—which ever entirely passes comprehension and defies analysis.11
11. And, if so, why talk of it?—Ed. [H.P.B.]
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In the concluding words of my poor little makeshift pamphlet and expressed in popular parlance, How to a congenitally blind man can we adequately convey any idea of light? O, light divine, thy reproduction is impossible.12 I cannot picture thee to others, yet I know thee in myself. Would others know thee, they must see thee. So with all truth. . . .
12. How are we to understand “light divine” in the thought of a Hylo-Idealist, who limits the whole universe to the phantasms of the grey matter of the brain—that matter and its productions being alike illusions? In our humble opinion this philosophy is twin sister to the cosmogony of the orthodox Brahmins, who teach that the world is supported by an elephant, which stands upon a tortoise, the tortoise wagging its tail in absolute Void. We beg our friends, the Hylo-Idealists’, pardon; but, so long as such evident contradictions are not more satisfactorily explained, we can hardly take them seriously, or give them henceforth so much space.—Ed. [H.P.B.]
Editors’ Note [H.P.B.]
The editors were kindly informed by Dr. Lewins that Miss C. Naden was on her way to India via Egypt (whence she sent us her excellent little letter published in the February Lucifer), well furnished with letters from Professor Max Müller to introduce her to sundry eminent “Sanskrit Pundits in the Three Presidencies for the purpose of studying Occultism on its native soil,” as Dr. Lewins explains. We heartily wish Miss Naden success; but we feel as sure she will return not a whit wiser in Occultism than when she went. We lived in India for many years, and have never yet met with a “Sanskrit Pundit”—officially recognised as such—who knew anything of Occultism. We met with several occultists in India who will not speak; and with but one who is a really learned Occultist (the most learned, perhaps, of all in India), who condescends occasionally to open his mouth and teach. This he never does, however, outside a very small group of Theosophists. Nor do we feel like concealing the sad fact, that a letter from Mr. Max Müller, asking the pundits to divulge occult matter to an English traveller, would rather produce the opposite effect to the one anticipated. The Oxford Professor is very much beloved by the orthodox Hindus, innocent of all knowledge of their esoteric philosophy. Those who are Occultists, however, feel less enthusiastic, for the sins of omission and commission by the great Anglo-German Sanskritist are many. His ridiculous dwarfing of the Hindu chronology, to pander to the Mosaic, probably, and his denying to the Ancient Aryas any knowledge of even Astronomy except through Greek channels—are not calculated to make of him a new Rishi in the eyes of Aryanophils. If learning about Occultism is Miss Naden’s chief object in going to India, then, it is to be feared, she has started on a wild-goose’s chase. Hindus and Brahmins are not such fools as we Europeans are, on the subject of the sacred sciences, and they will hardly desecrate that which is holy, by giving it unnecessary publicity.