NIRVANA
Nirvana
A Study in
Synthetic
Consciousness
by
George Sidney
Arundale
First published 1926
Dr Arundale was International President of
the Theosophical Society (Adyar) from 1933 to 1945
__________
CHAPTER III
The Inner Light
Upon Outer Things
The atom is a sun in miniature in its own
universe of the inconceivably minute.
ANNIE BESANT AND C. W. LEADBEATER (Occult
Chemistry).
AS the glow comes before the fire, the dawn before the sunrise,
so must the glow of dawning perfection slowly but surely steal over us, body
after body, as a sign that the Sun within is learning to shine as shines so
gloriously the Sun without. We need to be set on fire so that we may gradually
become one with the Fire Eternal. We cannot know God as He is until we become
all fire, even as He is all fire. Open your hearts, then, to His Sunlight, that
your whole being may some day burst into flame, and thence into many flames -
flames of Power, of Wisdom, and of Love. In each one of us the spark is ready,
the spark of Divinity waiting to become a Fire. Nothing can extinguish this
spark, however dimly it may glow. At last the time must come for its emergence
into flame, and thence into that Fire which till then has slept in the world of
the potential.
We are set ready for the lighting. Let us concentrate upon
ourselves the Rays of our Lord the Sun through the burning-glass of aspiration
and of service, and Time, the sure and certain moulder
of this burning glass, is God’s witness that the spark shall thus become the
Fire. May our service and our aspiration glow with the warmth of understanding,
the warmth which stimulates, with the light of wisdom, the wisdom which
clarifies, with the burning of power, the burning which purifies. I seem to
contact here a note of a great Ritual of Light, and Light the medicine of the
future. Light the Healer, Light the Redeemer, the Creator, the Preserver, the
Regenerator. The inoculations and drugs of the future will be Light-variants,
and the very food we eat will be concentrated Light, the form being used to
collect, in varying ways, the sustenance which is the Sunlight.
But even more than this is there not a great Ceremonial of Light,
a mystery of Light? Not on this globe, perhaps, but on some other more advanced
than this earth there is, I think, a mighty Magic of the Light which some day
we shall know and use. I think that is the life of the colony of which Dr.
Besant and Bishop Leadbeater write in Man: Whence, How and Whither.
Light already begins to play a definite part, but Light is in
fact the philosopher’s “stone,” the potent force of the alchemist, and some day
the Science of Light will be recognized as the Science of Sciences, with its
Laws, its Ritual, its Worship, its Philosophy, its Ethic and AEsthetic. I wish I had the wisdom to understand even a
little of the Science, for it is the key to all other sciences. Some day it
will be a Science intensely applicable even to the little things of everyday
life. We shall become in a wonderful way children of Light because we are
children of the Sun, and there will be a Eucharistic Service of the Light even
more glorious, if possible, than the Eucharistic Service of our Lord the
Christ.
I see our Lord the Sun distributing Himself through His universe,
extending Himself through its immeasurable distances. I see His world learning
gradually to use him in His myriad aspects to meet its many needs.
I see these things to be, and I see that our Lord the Sun grows
because He shines. He grows by shining. So must we. As we shine so we grow. And
as I realize this I turn outwards from the blinding glory of Nirvana to this
world of ours living and growing in relative darkness. Light-sparks everywhere,
glittering and scintillating as do the lights of a seaside town when viewed in
the night from passing ships. Light-sparks in every kingdom of nature, some dim
indeed, feeble, looking as if the slightest breath of adverse wind would blow
them out and leave a darkness blacker than ever. But no spark that God has
lighted from His Divinity can ever fade. Long may it remain feeble, slight may
be the change through ages of time.
But it grows irresistibly. In each kingdom, sparks there are of
more vivid brightness - the jewels, the fruition, of the kingdom these. In the
human kingdom I perceive that the sparks have become flames, some small, some
large. I see that some of these flames are veritable lighthouses, shedding
light upon the true pathway of Life, warning from the ways of ignorance and
pointing towards the pathways of wisdom. They warn from the rocky places and
beckon along the channels of rapid growth. These are the world’s true
benefactors, seers and teachers, themselves on the threshold of those kingdoms
beyond the human in which are the mighty Fires growing into the semblance of
the Fire of God. These are the Elder Brethren of the worlds, veritable Pillars
of Fire upholding the
And here once again I compare the Buddhic plane with the Nirvanic, and I strive to distinguish. It is very difficult
to express the facts at all accurately. I seem to see in the former an act of
coalescence and in the latter an act of identity. I perceive the former to be
the assertion, the realization, of Unity amidst, above, resolving diversity;
while I perceive the latter to be a condition of receding from all diversity,
with a consequent readjustment, reconfiguration, rearrangement of the Unity, so
that it becomes a Oneness.
Buddhi the One with the Second; Nirvana the One without a Second.
Yes. I confirm my previous judgment. And beyond Nirvana? Even the One changes,
casts aside another of the veils of the Real. Can I grope beyond this lowest
sub-plane of Nirvana and look upwards upon the higher rungs of the Nirvanic ladder? No hard and fast divisions, no Light-tight
compartments. Is there not perhaps an intensification of the Oneness, for even
at the bottom I find that any qualification of the Oneness, however true, is a
limitation, a negation, of Nirvanic reality? Light?
Yes, you can use the word to convey an infinitesimal fraction of the truth.
Music, Sound? Yes, you can use these words too. But while you are using them
you know that they veil the glory, even the little shaft of glory which is all
you yet perceive. But let me drop these veils. What remains all the way up?
Oneness, and of this Oneness no words may be used, no expression in terms of
Light or Sound or Form conveys the slightest real meaning, only a suggestion
which points in the direction of the Real. I will meditate on this Oneness,
live in it. So shall I begin to know it, though not to convey the sense of it.
And then shall come that which I can only now describe as Transcendence.
But I have said enough. I am foolish to strive to measure with
words the immeasurable.I see that we evolve under the
laws of counterpart and reflection.
The world of Nirvana itself is a sublimated counterpart of the
world below as much as it is an archetype. The planes above Nirvana are
sublimated counterparts, each in its own degree, of the Nirvana below them, the
quality and nature of the counterpart being determined by the Light-vibration
quality of the plane.
The development of the Nirvanic
consciousness seems to affect the spirillae in the
brain, the kundalini, and the various centres
generally; as also, of course, the various bodies. I am conscious of a much
more intense sensitiveness, of being much more highly strung. I am, as it were,
an extremely sensitive plate, rather over-sensitive for conditions in the outer
world. Probably I shall tone down in due course, but in the earlier stages
outer living becomes almost painful.* (*As a matter of fact, in the light of
further growth, I do not seem to tone down.
On the contrary, the sensitiveness increases steadily. But I have
it under increasing self-control, at all events up to a certain point. Life is
more difficult from the standpoint of daily contacts, and does not grow less
difficult. But to counteract the growing difficulty there is also growing an
inner Peace which acts, may I descend for a moment into a very material simile,
as a wonderful shock-absorber. But I realize that the time must come when it
will no longer be possible to live in the outer world and maintain a maximum of
effectiveness. It is for this reason, for the sake of more generous service,
that our Elder Brethren live away from the haunts of Their younger comrades.
They prefer to give of Their all rather than to have continually
to protect Themselves against the discords of immaturity, thus using power
which otherwise might be free for service.) One seems to know people and things
far more accurately; they become impressed upon me as they are, rather than as
they seem to be.
It would seem that as the causal body disintegrates when the
individual enters the Buddhic plane, so is it with the Buddhic vehicle as one
enters the Nirvanic plane. This seems inevitable on
what I call the plane of apotheoses, the essential plane, the plane of
fundamental archetype. I notice that I do not write “archetypes,” and the
reason seems to be that from one point of view there is no plurality on the Nirvanic plane. Plurality begins on the plane below, and
even there it is plurality overshadowed, dominated, by Unity. Of course, as one
descends, the various bodies of lower planes are re-formed out of the matter of
the planes according to the vibration rate of the permanent atom. Return from
Nirvana, and the Buddhic vehicle is instantaneously formed. Return from the Buddhic
plane, and a causal body is immediately ready for use, though not, of course,
the age-long friend which reintegrates no more.
Why cannot anyone enter Nirvana? It is a question of time, of course,
and a question as to how the time is occupied. Entry into Nirvana involves an
expansion of consciousness, and the lesser expansions must precede the greater.
It seems to be a matter of Sense of Reality. It is not enough to know what is
called Truth. One must know something of what is Truth, which is generally
quite another matter; and the Truth of things cannot be learned from books, or
speeches, except in part. These help, as does also experience. But in some way
one must not only discover Truth through experience, but also through a
reaching out into that which is beyond experience - gradually making experience
of that beyond. Similes come into my mind. Think of one of those curious
puzzle-pictures which they give to children. Each puzzle has a title, and one
works to that. This piece fits in here, that piece fits in there. Gradually the
picture forms and becomes complete. So is it with life, and with the various
planes of consciousness.
For example, an individual entering into Buddhic consciousness
obtains a general idea of Buddhic principles, and gradually the experience
fulfils the principles, so that they become built into his very being. The
Buddhic picture becomes well recognizable. Buddhi has ceased to be that which
it was at first, an empty circle, an unexplored vastness. He has travelled throughout the Buddhic world, has populated the
circle, the vastness, with experience after experience at ascending levels,
until he reaches the summit and looks up to new plains, or planes of being
leading to mightier summits still. The individual is ready, therefore, for
another picture - that of Nirvana. But one cannot begin on another picture
until the former is on the road to completion.
It is no doubt possible to imagine the stages ahead, and the effort
is very useful and helpful. But one must be strenuously working at the pictures
one has already in hand, deliberately and with the realisation
that in each case the principles must be fulfilled in practice.
The physical-body picture, the emotions picture, the mind picture
- all must be on the road to completion, and each of us who reaches this stage
must be hard at work on them all. Then only is it possible for us to be allowed
to begin something still further. We speak of Theosophizing
our lives. The word
“theosophizing” covers our duty, be the
centre of consciousness where it may.
But at each stage we must build into our lives the essence of our
highest achievement. If the causal body is the highest active principle, we
must see to it that we are in all things true to the experiences of which the
causal body is the custodian. We must live from that body. If Buddhi has
been contacted, we must see to it that
the spirit of that Unity ensouls each thought, each
feeling, each word, each deed. So with Nirvana, and so beyond and
beyond.
And we must remember that nothing short of Truth suffices. Our
conception of Truth is not enough, however good it may be, however useful to us
it may be. Facts, not theories, are required. Not, perhaps, absolute fact - that
is still beyond us; but relatively pure facts, at all events. I seem to see the
water of the
emotions fructifying the seed of the mind so that it bursts into
being.
Similarly I see the water of the mind fructifying Buddhi, and the
water of Buddhi fructifying the Nirvanic seed. But
the water must be pure, otherwise the seed remains potential. When the
potential within the seed becomes active, it sends out Light-rays of its own
quality which contact, summon to its aid, the
corresponding rays of Light without, and another Light-body is in
course of formation. Up till that time the Light-rays from without passed
through the vehicle, hardly, if at all, affecting it. But now they find
response to their stimuli, and in interaction the Light-body comes into being.
I have for some time been striving to bring down into the
physical brain the means whereby translation takes place into this new field of
consciousness - Nirvana. So far as I can contact, the process, it depends upon
the capacity to respond on the part of the embryonic atom of Nirvanic consciousness within
myself. I seem to notice that these embryonic counterparts of the
corresponding conditions without pass through stages of what I must call
prenatal development, the birth into consciousness synchronizing with an
expansion of consciousness which is the veritable Initiation itself.
There is the period of sleep, unconsciousness. There is the
period of stirring, restlessness, the dawn of consciousness. Then there is the
period of awareness - something less than awakening, yet a capacity
intermittently to vibrate to corresponding conditions without. And finally
there is the awakening itself, when the embryonic atom is not merely a nucleus,
an embryo, but a vehicle, a body. The Sun shines, and takes unto Himself a
world, a universe. This is Initiation.
I presume that at the fourth of the Great Initiations the
stirring of the life within the Nirvanic atom, due to
Buddhic and other impacts, is marvellously vitalized
from without by a treat Act of Unification on the part of the One Initiator or
His Deputy. A great expansion takes place; the vehicle is formed whereby entry
is gained into the kingdom now to be conquered. I take my abode for the first
time in a Nirvanic vehicle - if the word “vehicle” be
permitted - and now the task is mine to develop the senses of
this new potency; just as a little child has to learn to use his senses in the
physical world. Light, of course, is the first discovery, for it is the
primary, overwhelming experience. I have spoken of “lightning-standing-still”.
Entry into the Nirvanic world is as
into lightning, blinding, penetrating, drenching. One plunges into a sea of
vibrant, vocal lightning. One cannot sink, but one has to learn to swim.
One does not sink, because the light within makes one buoyant. It
is impossible to conceive entry into this kingdom without the warrant of the
awakened light within, but were such a conception possible I realize that the
only result would
be annihilation. And this shows me the relatively irresistible
power of this lightning-Light. I have striven to describe its glorious beauty;
I might now try to describe its awful power. Scientists speak of the mighty
power within the atom, and of the tremendous consequences could it be released.
God tempers the Light, or we should be destroyed. Only as self-control grows
stronger, and the Path of Purification is trodden with ever more rapid and
firmer footsteps, are potentialities released within ourselves, the negative within
uniting with the positive without.
At this point I have since noticed that this Resurrection into
the
Lightning-standing-still has been preceded by the vigil of a
Crucifixion. The Crucifixion and the Resurrection, therefore, are the
interdependent constituents of the Epoch of the fourth of the Great
Initiations, the Resurrection unsafe without the Crucifixion. And to this end
are there not indeed at every stage of life these twins of Crucifixion and
Resurrection? Do you not know innumerable crucifixions, innumerable
resurrections, some great, some small, some tremendous, some insignificant? Are
not Crucifixions and Resurrections distributed throughout life, in every
typified by this fourth Stage on the Path of Holiness, at which
takes place the Crucifixion of Selfishness, the utter subordination of the
lower, the offering of all one is in the service of all that lives, and the
consequent Resurrection
into Power – Power that may now be grasped because it can only be
used to the Glory of God and in the service of His worlds?
I look upon those who have achieved the Resurrection and I
perceive the justificatory Crucifixions, Crucifixions none the less real and
effective though some who have gone through them have been conscious of no
suffering. I would venture to deny that suffering is an inevitable concomitant
of Crucifixion, or at least of the final Crucifixion in the human kingdom. It
is often present, but it need not be.
It is not suffering that is indispensable, but offering, holding
nothing back. I find, then, that the capacity, aroused in the course of the
ceremony of the fourth of the Great Initiations, to respond to Nirvanic consciousness, opens to me this new kingdom. If I
am correctly describing the actual process of entry, I can only suggest that it
is a matter of setting up, or rather intensifying, certain potentialities of
vibration, so that all that vibrates differently falls away, or at least goes
out of perspective.
Do these other rates of vibration, which we may call the lower
bodies, either retire into a kind of body-formula or, if they remain actually
corporeal, do they lose for the time practically all save the elemental life? I
start vibrating at the Nirvanic rate, and find myself
in the Nirvanic consciousness. I sound the Nirvanic note, which I heard definitely for the first time
during the course of the Initiation (though an echo of it may have come to me
now and then before), and the portals open to my summoning.
I shall soon find - indeed, I am beginning now to find - that it
is not in the least necessary to be physically asleep in order to contact this
consciousness. It may be contacted in full waking consciousness, and I am now
striving to learn to do that. But if I try to examine this further step I seem
to be using the physical brain in a new way, or through new brain channels.
Part of the process consists in getting temporarily out of focus, out of
perspective, so far as lower planes are concerned; but this is done as in a
flash.* (*As experience grows, even this stage of getting out of focus is
hardly noticeable. The only simile at all appropriate is that of the jelly-fish
which breathes in and out,
so that its body opens out and withdraws, expands and contracts.
This is what seems to take place as one uses Nirvanic
consciousness.
One expands to outer things, contacts them in all their parts,
interpenetrates them. This is how the Oneness is experienced. Can you follow me
when I describe my consciousness unfolding and contacting outer things? On
every plane of consciousness this can and must be done, so that one contacts Buddhically, Nirvanically, and so
on.)Being very infantile in this new world I find it difficult to hold the
ordinary waking consciousness simultaneously with the Nirvanic.
I notice a tendency to drop off to sleep - to get out of the physical body.
One curious effect is that I seem to “see” (the word does not at
all suit) with the whole of myself, and not with any one organ. It is more
contact than perception, more attitude than sight.* (*This is the method of all
planes except the physical. It is so even in astral consciousness, but it
becomes more noticeable as one rises higher. And at these superior levels one
learns to see every object or entity from within as well as from outside - to
see it as part of one self, or rather of the Great Self in which one is now
merged. This is what our author expresses in his next paragraph. - C. W. L.)
I observe that Nirvanic consciousness
is not a consciousness apart; it is in a supreme degree one with the world in
which we live. It is all-penetrating, and in its light there is a marvellous
readjustment to Reality for everything. A similar readjustment happened in a
lesser degree in the case of the lower stages; and I perceive the great
expansions of consciousness which mark the
dividing lines between the kingdoms of nature to be similar
readjustments to Reality. There is nothing in the world not amenable to the Light
of Nirvana, for in it things are perceived infinitely more as they are than as
they seem to be.
The Light of Nirvana is as a great tuning-fork. External objects,
human and nonhuman, vibrate more or less in accord. Hence it becomes far more
possible for one who has heard the Nirvanic Sound to
gauge the relation between the things of the outer worlds and the Nirvanic Real. Either they ring true, or
not true; less real, or more real. In any case, there is unbroken
relationship between all planes of consciousness. Below is a reflection, a
shadow, of the above. That there is distortion is obvious, but this is because
the lower has not yet learned to reflect, within the measure of its capacity,
perfectly. With
increasing density is increasing limitation; yet on every plane
the limitation must gradually conform to the minimum rather than to that,
maximum density with which it began.
This brings me to a point which strikes me as of considerable
importance. I perceive that the doctrine of Transubstantiation is not merely a
truth in relation to the ceremony of the Holy Eucharist, but one of the great
laws of Nature, one of the great processes of evolution. I perceive that all
growth is in large measure a process of transubstantiation; not, necessarily
the abandonment of the lower, but rather the substitution, in increasing
measure, of the more real for the less real as the motive power behind or
within, or shall I say the disclosure, in increasing measure, of the substans, of the essence, as the Life of all the shadowing
forms?
Taking Nirvanic consciousness as an
example, I seem to perceive that in my own being a process of
transubstantiation has taken place. I still live in the outer world, and go
through the routine of daily life. I think, I feel, I act, I speak. I use the
senses of my various bodies. To outward appearances I am not at all changed. I
am as much recognizable as George Arundale as ever; and the mere superficial
observer will detect no changes. Yet a transubstantiation has taken place, the
old background has given way to, has become merged in, a new background. A
greater reality has been substituted for a lesser reality as the ensouling power of my being.
In the case of the Bread and the Wine of the Eucharist, there,
appears no change of outer form. Yet the consecration causes in each the
substitution of the Christ-principle for the lower principles normal to these
two substances. A supreme Reality has been substituted for a relatively
insignificant reality.
The Unity of all Life makes this possible, and indeed not merely
possible but inevitable. The whole of life is a process of gradual
transubstantiation, and in the Holy Eucharist we are given a striking reminder
of this essential fact.
Unfortunately, we do not generally realize that the ceremony of
the Eucharist is an epitome of the whole ceremony of Life. Life is a constant
process of substitution and transubstantiation, these being specially marked
and sharply defined at every one of the great stages on the Path of Holiness.
The expansion of consciousness that takes place at each of the great
Initiations is nothing less than a transubstantiation; and the same is true of
all lesser expansions of consciousness. But in each case the earlier
transubstantiation must be fulfilled ere a deeper transubstantiation can take
its place, leaving it potential but
merged, as the lesser merges in the greater.
I notice in myself many interesting effects of the
transubstantiation connected with the awakening of Nirvanic
consciousness. I notice, for instance, a great clarification of issues. Many
problems in life cease to be problems; the solution of them is obvious. Many
things which I go on doing I do differently, or with other intent. The whole of
daily life becomes, or is to become, an offering to the newly-realized higher.
Daily life must forsake the lesser Gods for the newly-perceived greater Gods.
At various stages in my existence I have been living as unto this, that or the
other standard. I may have been living as unto myself, my lower self; I may have
been living as unto men, or as unto a code or creed. Now I must live as unto
something beyond.
Perhaps, to some small extent, I have all the while been living
as unto the Lord - very haltingly and feebly of course. But now I must live as
unto Him less haltingly and feebly because He has condescended to enter more
closely into relationship with me through a veritable process of
transubstantiation, which is the same as saying a process of self-realisation.
__________
THEOSOPHY
NIRVANA
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