Man - Who and What Is He? © School of Universal Mind
That the Wisdom Religion or the Gnosis was taught within the early Christian Church cannot be any longer doubted. The Gnosis concerns itself with Man, who is defined as that being in the universe … in whom the highest Spirit and the lowest matter are joined together by Intelligence.
The word Man, comes from the root of the Sanscrit verb, to think. The Real Man or Soul as we know him, is the Thinker or the Christos within man. It is he who is the self-conscious and intelligent Entity, called in Christianity, the Soul. This Soul is clothed in various bodies belonging to the higher and lower mental regions, the astral or emotional world and physical matter. The Self, or the Spirit, is the "Father in heaven" and thus dwells upon a much higher plane of being, putting down a portion of Itself into the lower worlds of form in order that it may conquer them and develop into actuality the latent Divine Potentialities. "Be ye perfect as your Father who art in heaven is perfect."
The purpose of these Lessons is to teach and show you how to transcend the lower personality and become one with the Christos within the Soul, and therefore it is very wise to understand what we mean by the Soul of Man, for without this vital key the whole of the implications of the teachings and purpose of the Gnostic Christ becomes unintelligible to the student. The Soul or Manas, is the True Man, as Hermes has said: "As above, so below". This statement embodies a very great truth indeed, and mere words cannot possibly convey its true meaning. It is only when the student has begun to travel the 'strait and narrow way' that the full meaning of these words becomes clear, and he will find that it is the key to many of the difficult problems which beset the student who is seeking to travel the Path of Holiness.
In Genisis, 1:26, we find that God says: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness". This great truth is slowly being verified by modern science when they tell us that this same law governs everything from the planet to the flower in the field.
The Gnosis goes further and tells us that man is composed of three aspects: The Divine Spirit of the One Substance with the All; the Ego or the 'Self', and the personality; and the Gnosis teaches that there are two Souls within man - the mortal and personal, the consciousness of man, and the higher which is the impersonal and is sometimes called the 'Individuality'. It is this latter Soul which survives the death of the personality after each incarnation and retains the memory of all its past incarnations in the personality. Lastly, the personal ego or human soul, that which is the mask of the Self which is in incarnation, and is dissolved after the consciousness of the Divine Soul is withdrawn when its allotted span of life is finished.
St. Paul not only divided man into body, soul and spirit, but he takes considerable pains to distinguish the mortal nature, the gross, from the hidden or inner spiritual body, which is not limited to time and space and in the main not cognisable by the five senses. Only when man has spiritualised his gross body can he attain union with the Spiritual Man. In the Eastern Gnosis the three aspects of man are clearly defined as being: (a) the Higher Self, an inseparable ray of the One Self or God, it is said, that is God above, more than within us; the Spiritual or Divine Ego, that which is the Mediator between the lower and higher Souls, called the Christos Body. (b) The Inner or Higher Ego, that which is the non-material Soul of Man, the Individuality or Higher Ego is the reincarnating Soul and (c), the lower or personal soul, which is the physical man in conjunction with his lower self. It is sometimes called the 'false personality' and consists of the objective mind, emotions, the physical body and its 'phantom' or 'double'. Plato distributes man into two parts, the rational (noetic) and irrational (agnoia). The rational Soul is eternal in the heavens and although it is not God it is of the same essence as God, and that part of the Soul which is divested of reason (agnoia) dies. Here we see the word 'agnostic' should mean "the Soul divested of reason".
Pythagoras also divides the Soul of Man, which he refers to as the Monad, or Self-moving unit into three aspects: Nous, the Spirit; Phren the mind; and Thumus the Life or Nephesh of the Kabbalists. Socrates states that man is composed of Agathon or the Father; Psyche, the Soul; Phren the physical mind; and Thumus the passions of the mortal body, and there is also the phantom of the body which he called Eidolon, and then the body itself. The Egyptians also give these divisions and they claim that the Soul has to pass through seven chambers or bodies; So Jesus in Pistis Sophia, when he calls them "the Vestures of Glory". A thorough study of the ancient religions and philosophies show that they all claim without exception that man is composed of body, soul and spirit, and these three are again divided into seven principles or bodies.
Mana, the Thinker, then, is the image of the Universal Mind in the lower worlds, the Universal Mind is the creative aspect of the Holy Spirit of Christianity, and is shown as the Dove descending upon Jesus, at his baptism. This is the Real Man, called the Human Spirit, which works through the vehicles of the Soul. The story of Jesus giving up the Holy Ghost then means that he had given up his Soul to the God. It is also the activity of Man functioning in the higher worlds. It is the power or quality which makes Man what he is, and distinguishes him from the lower orders of creation, it is also the Missing Link of Charles Darwin and the physical evolutionists, who, until they come to the recognition of the existence of the Soul of Man, will never reach the solution of their own quest.
We are told by our Spiritual Teacher that man is a seven-fold Being. These seven-fold bodies could be likened to veils or sheaths which hides from us the True Light (Soul), and it is only when we are able to draw aside these veils one by one, that we can see our Real Self and return to the Garden of Eden, the original state of man at the dawn of creation. The superb drama of the opening of the Seals in the Book Of Revelations shows to us that when we do open the Seals we receive more and more spiritual light and power. When the veils are drawn aside we then know that we are one with the Father-God.
The story of John the Baptist and the Dance of the Seven Veils by Salome, is but a very clever mask to hide the true knowledge of the constitution of man from the profane. Jesus the Christos says in Mark 4:11: "Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom, but unto those who are without it is done in parables" (or myth and allegory). So the student will readily see that the stories and allegories given in the gospels are masks to hide the true Wisdom of the Gnosis of Man and the Path of Holiness. This Path of Holiness is the method of drawing aside the veils which stand between us and our Divine Selves, although we do not agree with the claims of the Physical Christian, that the New Testament is the history of the life of one man in time, we do claim with good authority, even from the lips of the Christ himself, that the Bible is truly a 'way of Life' and if we fulfil the instructions given, we shall surely attain the Kingdom of Happiness. So long as we obey all the rules given, and create all the right conditions, it will come about.
The student is warned that although these expositions are very interesting and satisfy the mental searchings, they in themselves do not give peace and happiness, they are shells where-in the Life is deposited. To find the Real Self, we must think and meditate upon these things until we find them manifesting within ourselves and then we know that they are true in every sense, the Soul will be illumined by the Spirit within and they shall surely see God. This is the true message of the Christ and all Saviours.
So man is the epitome of the cosmos and whatever happens in the cosmos is mirrored within man. Our physical scientists tell us that every atom of molecular matter is a perfect replica of the universe, and "So above and so below" is true. "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven".
The understanding of man and his vestures is most important to one such as yourself who is most anxious to awaken his spiritual development, so we will now proceed to discuss man and his vehicles of consciousness. Perhaps many of you will have heard and read of this teaching many times, but unless you know these regions and vestures as an actual fact in yourself, you will never understand the Plan of Spiritual Evolution.
We use the term 'region' to describe the various gradations of matter through which the Soul expresses Itself, and it must be realised therefore, that all the subtler regions are actually present and interpenetrate every particle of physical matter, and that by the development of consciousness we are able to see these many regions of matter all around us without changing our position in space and time.
Man consists of seven various bodies or vestures called 'principles', there are various aspects of consciousness of Life or a mode in which that Consciousness of Life manifests itself. There is only one life, but it presents different aspects according to the media through which it operates or the conditions which environ it: as the spectrum has many colours caused by the sun’s rays manifesting through a prism, Man, while being essentially a unity, shows different characteristics. However differentiated these rays appear to us by the vehicles through which the Life works, the Life of God is One and Undivided; one as regard his relationship to all other manifested beings; and one, also, with the Great Naught of all Life and consciousness, wherein this vital fact lies the assurance of Man's immortality and the verification of the Gnostics who claimed that there is only one way and that along the Path or Way, the possibility of man attaining the Union of the Soul is very definite. It is for this reason, alone, that the Gnostics claimed that the Christ taught of a Universal Creed and not the particular, as do the Christians today.
Thus the Undivided Life of God manifests and uses the seven modes of expression, and we call these regions of life as:-
Divine:
Spiritual The Monad or Spirit of Man.
Higher Monadic
Lower Monadic
Christos The Christos or Divine Soul.
Higher Mental
Lower Mental
Emotional The Personality or I.N.R.I., which includes the vital double.
Physical (+ vital/etheric double)
It will now be seen that the Spiritual Self is divided into three aspects, viz: The Divine, the region of the blessed Trinity; the Spiritual; the region of the Spirit of Man; and the higher levels of the Monadic.
The Soul Vesture is composed of the three lower levels of the Monadic, the Christos - the Ego; and the higher mental body. It is this aspect of man which survives the death of each personality.
The personality, which is composed of four aspects: the body physical, the duplicate of the phantom; the emotional and the lower mental body, or the objective mental region. The personality disintegrates after the Soul has withdrawn his principles.
Each human being is a personality which is composed of the physical, emotional vehicles and the Indwelling Consciousness which is the Soul or Thinker - the Real You. For the sake of brevity, throughout this course the word 'personality' is used to indicate the first four bodies or aspects.
Perhaps it would be wise for us to understand what consciousness means: consciousness and life are identical, that which is turned inward is Life and that which is turned outwards is Consciousness; as involution, or the descent of consciousness from the finer regions of Being; so evolution is a process by which the individual becomes once more successively aware of the finer and finer states of being, plus the additional awareness of his own experiences therein, or self-consciousness.
Your physical body belongs to you and thus is possessed by something - it obeys the Soul. The emotions are yours but not you. You use them as a means of expression here on the third dimension. They can only be felt or experienced; you cannot see, hear, taste, touch or sell feeling. Thus, being more subtle than the body, they express themselves. You possess a mind which is beyond the range of the five senses. It is possessed by something, in other words it is independent of the personality, yet uses it as a means of expression.
Remember, nothing can manifest unless it has like matter to manifest through, i.e. physical sensation can only be appreciated through the physical vehicle, and the same applies to the emotions and mind.
The Soul or Thinker is the only permanent portion of you. It continues on after the death of the physical vehicles and makes the journey into matter life after life; there to reap the benefits gained in each particular incarnation, and to transmute these into character and qualities. The Soul is also called the Super-Consciousness and as such is the reservoir of all the memories of Man's spiritual evolution.
The mental body is the vehicle of the Soul in its higher aspect or sphere. It is also called the 'thought body'. The emotional body is the vehicle which man uses as a means of expression on the emotional region, and by the development of this vehicle the individual is enabled to travel in this region; it also gives him astral sight and hearing or, as they are more commonly known - clairvoyance and clairaudience.
The ethereal or vital vehicle is the mould of the molecular structure of the body physical and is the vehicle of sensation. The subconscious mind is located in this vesture and it is this which contains the memory of man's animal evolution. This mind does not think of its own volition, it obeys and is amenable to the action of thought. This vehicle is the vehicle for all manifestations such as direct voice, telepathy, automatic writings and so on. In fact, without this vital body, psychic phenomena would not be possible. However, we will be discussing this later on in the lessons.
The subconscious mind is the realm of the mind which is normally shut off from the waking consciousness, it controls the automatic workings of the body, and in it are stored all the memories which have lapsed from the waking consciousness ad the desires and emotions which have been repressed.
The subtler vestures interpenetrate and project beyond the contours of the physical body, and it is this projection which produces the aura. All physical forms have their subtle counterparts, which are created by this subtler matter, and a person with clairvoyant vision, is able to see the vibrating colours of which the aura is composed and can tell much of the inner qualities of the person, as the radiance and clarity of the aura increase with the evolution of the individual. This aura is also affected by the health of the person, the colours becoming dulled with illness and disease.
The physical body is the densest part of the personality and can only respond to the higher forces when it is refined or "spiritualised". This body contains the conscious mind and has its seat in the brain cells and is called the mind of intellect. It also carries the memory of the individual's life from birth.
We have only really discussed the personality of man and its subtler aspects, and we hope that you will understand who and what Man is and of what he is constituted. Remember, that the cosmos and Man are worked and guided from within outwards, and all spiritual growth comes from within, and never from without!
Meditation
Meditation is a practice or discipline having for its object the steadying and control of the mind, the method varying with the temperament of the student concerned.
Meditation is an essential part of self-unfoldment. It is, as Annie Besant has said, surely a discipline for the control of the mind. This is important, for without the control of mind you will be unable to direct and control the forces which you possess and are about to awaken within you. If you develop without mind culture, you will find that you will be completely dominated by these awakened forces.
When you meditate you must learn to relax as relaxation is the most important factor in meditation. Whilst you are meditating you should be able to shut out all the everyday worries and just relax the mind, emotions and body. In a later Lesson you will be given the correct formula for meditation, as well as developing within yourself the powers of the emotional and mental vestures and the conditions of these regions.
RDP
For further details about this series of papers, please contact the secretary.
School of Universal Mind
Return