Article selections by N. D. Khandalavala | Notes & Editor’s Note by H.P.B.
. . .
Protoplasm in its substance is a nitrogenous carbon compound, differing only from other similar compounds of the albuminous family of colloid by the extremely complex composition of its atoms. Its peculiar qualities, including life, are not the result of any new and peculiar atom added to the known chemical compounds of the same family, but of the manner of grouping and motions of these elements.1 . . .
. . .
Science has not been able to prove the fact of “spontaneous generation” by experiment, but the best of scientists think it safe to believe that there must have been spontaneous generation2 at one time. Thus far, scientific thought is in accord with esoteric teachings.
Occult philosophy has it, that motion, cosmic matter, duration, space, are everywhere. Motion is the imperishable life, and is conscious or unconscious, as the case may be. It exists as much during the active period of the Universe, as during Pralaya, or dissolution, when the unconscious life still maintains the matter3 it animates in sleepless and unceasing motion.
. . .
When once the life-principle has commenced to differentiate, and has become sufficiently individualized, does it keep to organisms of the same kind, or does it after the death of one organism go and vivify an organism of another kind? For instance, after the death of a man, does the Kinetic energy which kept him alive up to a certain time go after death and attach itself to a protoplasmic speck of the human kind, or does it go and vivify some animal or vegetable germ?5
. . .
After the death of a man, the energy of motion which vitalized his frame is said to be partly left in the particles of the dead body in a dormant state, while the main energy goes and unites itself with another set of atoms. Here a distinction is drawn between the dormant life left in the particles of the dead body and the remaining Kinetic energy, which passes off elsewhere to vivify another set of atoms. Is not the energy that becomes dormant6 life in the particles of the dead body a lower form of energy than the Kinetic energy, which passes off elsewhere; and although during the life of a man they appear mixed up together, are they not two distinct forms of energy, united only for the time being?
. . .
Every atom has contained within it its own life, or force, and the various atoms which make up the physical frame always carry with them their own life wherever they travel. The human or animal life principle, however, which vitalizes the whole being, appears to be a progressed, differentiated, and individualized energy of motion, which seems to travel from organism to organism at each successive death. Is it really, as quoted above, “subtle super-sensuous matter,” which is something distinct from the atoms that form the physical body?(1)
If so, it becomes a sort of a monad, and would be something akin to the higher human soul which transmigrates from body to body.
Another and more important question is:–Is the life-principle, or Jiva, something different from the higher or spiritual soul? Some Hindoo Philosophers hold that these two principles are not distinct, but one and the same.(2)
To make the question plainer, it may be enquired whether occultism knows of cases in which human beings have been known to live quite separated from their spiritual soul?(3)
A correct comprehension of the nature, qualities, and mode of action of the principle, called “Jiva,” is very essential for a proper understanding of the very first principles of Esoteric Science, and it is with a view to elicit further information from those who have kindly promised to give help to the Editors of Lucifer on deep questions of the science, that this feeble attempt has been made to formulate a few questions which have been puzzling almost every student of Theosophy.
Ahmedabad
N.D.K.
Editor’s Note [by H.P.B.]
(1) Modern Science, tracing all vital phenomena to the molecular forces of the original protoplasm, disbelieves in a Vital Principle, and in its materialistic negation laughs, of course, at the idea. Ancient Science, or Occultism, disregarding the laugh of ignorance, asserts it as a fact. The One Life–is deity itself, immutable, omnipresent, eternal. It is “subtle, super-sensuous matter” on this lower plane of ours, whether we call it one thing or the other; whether we trace it to the “Sun-force”–a theory by B. W. Richardson, F.R.S.–or call it this, that, or the other. The learned Dr. Richardson–an eminent authority–goes further than words, for he speaks of the life-principle as of “a form of matter”(!!) Says the great man of science: “I speak only of a veritable material agent, refined, but actual and substantial, an agent having quality of weight and of volume; an agent susceptible of chemical combination, and thereby of change of physical state and condition; an agent passive in its action, moved always, i.e., by influences apart from itself, obeying other influences; an agent possessing no initiative power, no vis or energia naturæ, but still playing a most important, if not a primary part in the production of the phenomena resulting from the action of the energia upon visible matter” (p. 379). As one sees, the Doctor plays at blind man’s buff with occultism, and describes admirably the passive, “life elementals” used–say–by great sorcerers to animate their homunculi. Still the F.R.S. describes one of the countless aspects of our “subtle, super-sensuous-matter-life-principle.”
(2) And the Hindu philosophers are right. It is here that we have real need of the divisions of everything–Prakriti, Jiva, etc.–into principles to enable us to explain the action of Jiva on our low planes without degrading it. Thence, while the Vedantin philosopher may be content with four principles in his universal Kosmogony, we occultists need at least seven to enable ourselves to understand the difference of the Protean nature of the life-principle once it acts on the five lower spheres or planes.
Our readers, enamoured with Modern Science, at the same time as with the occult doctrines–have to choose between the two views of the nature of the Life Principle, which are the most accepted now, and–the third view–that of the occult doctrines. The three may be described as follows:–
I. That of the scientific “molecularists” who assert that life is the resultant of the interplay of ordinary molecular forces.
II. That which regards “living organisms” as animated by an independent “vital principle,” and declares “inorganic” matter to be lacking this.
III. The Occultist or Esoteric standpoint, which looks upon the distinction between organic and inorganic matter as fallacious and nonexistent in nature. For it says that matter in all its phases being merely a vehicle for the manifestation through it of Life–The Parabrahmic Breath–in its physically pantheistic aspect (as Dr. Richardson would say, we suppose) it is a super-sensuous state of matter itself the vehicle of the One Life, the unconscious purposiveness of Parabrahm.
(3) It is just this. A human being can “live” quite separated from his Spiritual Soul–the 7th and 6th principles of the One Life or “Atma-Buddhi”; but no being–whether human or animal –can live separated from its physical Soul, Nephesh or the Breath of Life (in genesis). These “seven souls” or lives (that which we call Principles), are admirably described in the Egyptian Ritual and the oldest papyri. Chabas has unearthed curious papyri and Mr. Gerald Massey has collected priceless information upon this doctrine; and though his conclusions are not ours, we may yet in a future number quote the facts he gives, and thus show how the oldest philosophy known to Europe–the Egyptian–corroborates our esoteric teachings.
1. Vide Mr. Samud Laing’s new book “A Modern Zoroastrian.” The whole of the work is well worth study, as it is as interesting as it is scientific. Several quotations have been made in this article from that excellent volume.—N.D.K.
Notwithstanding its excellency, it is a very materialistic work.—ED. [H.P.B.]
2. Esoteric Science, holding that nothing in nature is inorganic, but that every atom is a “life,” does not agree with “Modern Science” as to the meaning attached to “Spontaneous Generation.” We may deal with this later.—ED. [H.P.B.]
3. Esoteric Science does not admit of the “existence” of “matter,” as such, in Pralaya. In its noumenal state, dissolved in the “Great Breath,” or its “laya” condition, it can exist only potentially. Occult philosophy, on the contrary, teaches that, during Pralaya, “Naught is. All is ceaseless eternal Breath.”—ED. [H.P.B.]
5. As far as the writer knows, Occultism does not teach that the life-principle–which is per se immutable, eternal, and as indestructible as the one causeless cause, for it is that in one of its aspects–can ever differentiate individually. The expression in Five Years of Theosophy must be misleading, if it led to such an inference. It is only each body–whether man, beast, plant, insect, bird, or mineral–which, in assimilating more or less the life principle, differentiates it in its own special atoms, and adapts it to this or another combination of particles, which combination determines the differentiation. The monad partaking in its universal aspect of the Parabrahmic nature, unites with its monas on the plane of differentiation to constitute an individual. This individual, being in its essence inseparable from Parabrahm, also partakes of the Life-Principle in its Parabrahmic or Universal Aspect. Therefore, at the death of a man or an animal, the manifestation of life or the evidences of Kinetic energy are only withdrawn to one of those subjective planes of existence which are not ordinarily objective to us. The amount of Kinetic energy to be expended during life by one particular set of physiological cells is allotted by Karma–another aspect of the Universal Principle–consequently when this is expended the conscious activity of man or animal is no longer manifested on the plane of those cells, and the chemical forces which they represent are disengaged and left free to act in the physical plane of their manifestation. Jiva–in its universal aspect–has, like Prakriti, its seven forms, or what we have agreed to call “principles.” Its action begins on the plane of the Universal Mind (Mahat) and ends in the grossest of the Tanmatric five planes–the last one, which is ours. Thus though we may, repeating after Sankhya philosophy, speak of the seven prakritis (or “productive productions”) or after the phraseology of the Occultists of the seven jivas–yet, both Prakriti and Jiva are indivisible abstractions, to be divided only out of condescension for the weakness of our human intellect. Therefore, also, whether we divide it into four, five or seven principles matters in reality very little.—ED. [H.P.B.]
6. A dormant energy is no energy.—ED. [H.P.B.]