Occultism, in the real sense of the term, is neither magic nor witch-craft but a sustained and all-comprehending effort at self-knowledge, namely, knowledge of the self working in an through the Shahasrar Chakra, the higher plane. This coronal center is characterized by cosmic vastness, a grandeur of the Supreme Light, the treasure house of miraculous knowledge. It is this Divina Mensura of the mighty forces; and the man who has realized this coronal center is indeed the Divine or Cosmic Man who is the measure of the universe. Not Humina Mensura but Divina Mensura. is the decided object of real occultism; it is this Divina Mensura that is termed Shiva-Yoga and the Divine Man is called Shiva-Yogin in Virashaivism.
The primary object of all occultism, Yoga shastra is Self knowledge, that is to say, knowledge and control of all and every vehicle in or through which the self functions on every plane of the Cosmos. The occult teaching, whether it be based upon the Eastern Yoga and Vedanta philosophy or the Western Hermetic and Kabalistic systems, runs thus: Man is the measure of the Macrocosm. The fundamental principle of all knowledge is therefore correspondence and analogy, -as above, so below-, whilst the fundamental method is 'man, know thyself'. No man can know God in any greater measure than he knows himself, and he rises through such self-knowledge to the apprehension of a unitary supreme knowledge which, so long as he imagines himself to be a separate self, he ascribes to a separate God.
In the motto 'know thyself first', the act of knowing necessarily involves the fact of being. Epistemology or the science of knowing is indissolubly wedded to Ontology or the science of being. What then does the self know itself to be? It knows itself to be a Knower. Whatever object the self may know, it knows itself with it as the knower; with whatever object- consciousness its self- consciousness is - -I am the knower-. It is only as a knower that the self knows itself. But the term -knower- is relative; it implies an object of knowledge. A knower who knows nothing is absurd and unmeaning. But cannot the self, it may be asked, know itself? Yes, it can, we reply; but in knowing itself it must know itself as possessing some characteristics. Under whatever characteristic it may know itself, it will be seen that every one of these characteristics is related to some object or other; and that unless some object or other is known or thought of, these characteristics cannot be known or thought of. If the self thinks of itself as unextended, as spaceless, such thought is possible only in relation to the thought of extended objects. If it thinks of itself as permanent and unchangeable, such thought is possible only in relation to transient, changeless objects. If it thinks of itself as one, such thought is possible only in relation to the thought of many objects. We therefore see that self-consciousness is impossible without object-consciousness.
There is no denial of the fact that object-consciousness is invariably accompanied by self consciousness forming its source and support and making it possible. Self-consciousness is the universal principle that remains constant in the midst of the changes of object-consciousness; nothing can enter into consciousness without being conditioned by it. We cannot know anything else without knowing -I know-; and we cannot anticipate any future knowledge without thinking -I shall know-. All knowledge is wound as it were, with the thread of self-knowledge. The whole structure of the world-knowledge stands on the ground work of self-knowledge. What, indeed, is the whole world-process but the unfolding of the knowledge-aspect of the total content of Reality or the Self? We shall therefore say that in the development of our whole nature which is co-existent with the whole world-process, to know is as necessary as to be.
Now it is seen that the universe or the world process is presented to our experience in the dual manner of Consciousness and Substance, or Being and Becoming, or Unity and Multiplicity, or Reality and Appearance, or Perfection and Process - each of the corresponding terms of these dualities being more or less equivalent. We shall then ask, can the self be really known if only one of the terms of this duality is known? On the one side we have Consciousness, Being, Unity, Reality, Perfection; on the other Substance, Becoming, Multiplicity, Appearance, Process. And we may state the same question in another form. What would consciousness be without object, or being without becoming, or a bare unity without multiplicity, or reality without the appearance which it subsumes, or perfection without that which is perfected as process? Hence all experience, all rationality, all knowledge of the why and wherefore is required to complete that perfection of our nature which is implied in the attainment of a full conscious unity with the spiritual Life, by which, through which and in which all things are brought forth into manifestation. If there is any choice at all between the knowledge of that Life as being, and a knowledge of it as Becoming, it is because of the human intellect which is unable to comprehend that Life as a whole. In and behind each individual is the whole of the Life, it is one and indivisible; it is Continuity, Unity Passivity as Being; it is Relativity, Multiplicity, Activity as Becoming. It is immanent in all things, for the thing is never other than it; yet to the thing as thing, to the individual as creature, it is supremely transcendent.
We are now in a sound position to understand the principles of occultism, the first of which is that there is an Infinite Life which is at once static and dynamic, personal and impersonal and yet utterly transcends them both. The second principle is that there is an unbroken continuity of Life represented by various orders of beings - of which the individual is only an almost infinitesimal unit - from what we arbitrarily call the -lowest-, to that which we call the -highest-. And the third principle is that there is an unbroken line of communication through all these orders, so that, at whatever stage the individual may be, he will always find the possibility of communicating with individuals - whether incarnate or discarnate - who represent a further stage than that which he has himself attained. It is this possibility of communications with higher individuals, with other orders of beings that is the occult meaning of the Sutra. In Virashaivism, the fountain-head of pure occultism, the meaning of Sutra has yet retained its constant and living sense of occultism. Sutra is generally understood to convey the maximum of meaning with minimum of words. But in reality it means the thread of communion by which the identity if the individual through the other and higher orders of beings with the Absolute in the totality of his nature, is realized. Thus in principle we are bound to believe in Masters, Initiates, higher Spirits, in unbroken line up to the Logos Himself. To each one of us must be sufficient the evidence personally received of the particular line of communication, which has been opened up for him in this matter. There is no one favoured channel, no one communication or cult, which can offer the knowledge or the method. By few or many stages, by few or many lives, by various routes, direct or devious, the individual comes at last to that stage which is sometimes spoken of as the beginning of the -way- - the stage at which he definitely sees his goal and bends the whole of his energies towards its attainment.
In the physical or gross body there are three principle Nadis which are called Ida, Pingala and Susumna. Nadis are the astral channels composed of astral matter that carry psychic currents. Ida starts from the right testicle and Pingala from left; they meet with Susumna Nadi at the Muladhara or Root Chakra, the base of the physical body. This conjuction of the three Nadis is known as the Triad or Triveni. This meeting again takes place in the Anahata Chakra or at the heart; and at the middle of the eye-brows or in the Agneya Chakra, the conjunction again occurs. Thus there are three Triads in the human body corresponding to the mystic number 333. This is the real signification of 333 Sutra intuitively apprehended by Dr. Mohan Singh, the author of the Secrets of Spiritual Life. The first Triad in the Muladhara represents the subconscious state where the Kundalini or Serpent fire lies coiled up with her three Vrittis; the second in the Anahata stands for the surface-consciousness, a welter of three gunas - Sattva, Rajas and Tamas which keep up themselves continually transforming; and the third in the Agneya is symbolic of the super-conscient state of Nada, Bindu and Kala.
The sine quo non of occult teaching is that man is the measure of the universe. The universe can never be explained otherwise than in terms of man - until, indeed, Man realizes and thus -becomes- what he is now, in the wholeness of his nature, Cosmic Man. But manifestation (of the universe) is a relative term; by manifestation is to be understood that schematized plan of the universe which we are obliged to formulate within our empirical consciousness of time and space; that is to say, anything of which we are compelled to affirm that -in the beginning- and subsequently something took place. The Absolute or the ever-concealed Godhead is thus manifested in the Divine Trinity; the Divine Trinity is manifested in the Logos, who is the synthesis of the Trinity. The Logos in his turn is manifested as Cosmic Man on the lower planes of the Cosmos; whilst Cosmic Man is again manifested in individual man. When occultism says that man is the measure of the universe, it means not the individual but the Cosmic Man who exists on all the planes of the Cosmos, and in an appropriate manner fulfills his function thereon. The way of occultism is therefore destined to remake the individual into the Cosmic Man; and this is possible when the individual transfers his center of interest from the Physical to the Spiritual plane. If man appears to be individual and fragmentary on the physical plane he must appear to be less so on the physical plane, and still less so on the mental plane, whilst on the spiritual plane we can only postulate that he exists in its eternal perfection as the unitary Man, -made in the image of God-.
When we say that spirit is the final term, we do not mean the Absolute, or God as the Godhead; for these are not a term, are not the end or summation of a series, but are the wholeness of all, and are, therefore, outside and beyond all relations, classifications or definitions. Spirit is simply the final term of manifestation; we can only, therefore, say that -God is a Spirit- in the case of the hypostatized -persons- of the Divine trinity in Christian theology, of Sat-Chit-Ananda in Hindu philosophy, of Nada, Bindu, Kala in occultism. It is only by means of this hypostasis that we are able to speak of a spiritual plane, for that plane is the plane of the Logos, which it is legitimate to consider as having a relation to the lower planes of the cosmos and as being the highest term in manifestation. "Coming forth from the depth of One Existence, from the One beyond all thought and all speech, the Logos or the spirit by imposing on himself a limit, circumscribing voluntarily the range of his own being, becomes the manifested God and tracing the limiting sphere of his activity thus outlines the area of his universe. Within that sphere the universe is born, is evolved and dies; it live, it moves, it has its being in him; its matter in his emanation; its forma and energies are currents of his life. He is immanent in every atom, all-pervading, all-sustaining, all-evolving. He is at its source and its end, its cause and its object, its center and its circumference. It is built on him as its sure foundation, it breathes in him as its encircling space, he is in everything and everything in him. Thus have the sages of the Ancient Wisdom taught us of the beginning of the manifested words…. And from the same source we learn of the self-unfolding of the Logos into a three-fold form or trinity."
Hence we find in all occult teaching the symbol of a Triangle held sacred as representing the three-fold aspects of the Logos or Spirit as the final term of manifestation. We may thus note with both Swedenberg and Bohme a most fundamental recognition of a three-fold division of the Divinity in the manifested universe or cosmos. With Swedenberg this is what he calls the -three discrete degrees-; with Bohme they are what he calls -the three principles of the Divine Essence- having their correspondence in the -three-fold life of man-. "My book" says Bohme, "hath only three leaves, the same are the three principles of Eternity, wherein I can find all whatsoever Moses and the Prophets, Christ and his apostles have taught and spoken; I can find therein the foundation of the world of all mysteries, yet not I, but the spirit of God doth it according to the measure, as he pleaseth." When we turn to Swedenberg we find that his doctrine is practically the same. Cosmic Man contains within himself the whole manifested universe, and is God-s self-expression. His doctrine of discrete degrees is briefly as follows: Every act implies three factors;
(a) the act itself, constituting the external event,
(b) a psychological process as the immediate cause of the act and
(c) a motive or purpose as the originating cause of the act.
In his own terminology these are, effect, cause and end, and they also correspond with organism, function and faculty. Cosmically we might represent these as Material world, Cosmic mind or man and God - the later being principally identified with Love as the originating cause or we might analyze them into the three principles of man,
(a) Body or Form (or perhaps action, phenomenon),
(b) Mind or Ideation (or perhaps imagination), and
(c) Emotion or (perhaps Will).
We may notice a similar triple classification utilized by Fabre d-olivette who entitles his three principles, respectively, Providence, Man (cosmic) and Destiny; and his work an effort to interpret history in terms of these principles.
Modern psychology has taken for its starting point the discoveries and the fundamental theses of the physical sciences and has worked as a continuation of physiology. The physical sciences are the study of inconscient Force working in inconscient Matter; a psychology which accepts this formula as the basis of all existence must regard the consciousness as a phenomenal result of the inconscient working on the inconscient. Mind is only an out-come and as it were a record of nervous reactions. The true self or spirit of existence is, for the Modern Psychology, the inconscient Freud, the foremost psycho-analyst seized upon this inconscient and developed the conception of a dynamic unconscious one, previously imagined by philosophers like Schopenhauar and Von Hartman. But here the difficulty confronts us with the problem whether this spirit of existence of which our working life is only a surface and a phenomenon, is conscient or inconscient. If it is inconscient in its very nature, then we cannot hope to illuminate ourselves with the hidden light - for light there is none - or to possess ourselves of the secret of its power. On the other hand, if it is conscient, that is to say, a consciousness deeper, greater, more powerful than our superficial self, an endless vista or self-development opens out before us and the human race matches towards infinite possibilities. The conscient therefore and not the inconscient was the truth at which the ancient Indian psychology arrived; and it distinguished three strata of the conscient self - the superficial existence, the sub-conscientt and the super-conscient. Hence the source and support of life is not the unconscious but the super-conscious whose creative word is Aum, the Pranava, the Ever-lasting Yea, perpetually uttered within the depths of the divine nature. This is the occult meaning of Nada. Nada is not a physical sound which emits when a tuning fork is vibrating, nor is it an internal sound which is heard when the ears are closed. It is indeed a Spandan, a vibration, a perpetual movement of the Logos or the Spirit in the divine depths of the Absolute.
It is said that God breathed into the nostrils of man and not into his mouth; breathing through the nostrils is therefore always invigorating and gives strength to the lungs. When man breaths through his nostrils slowly, serenely and spontaneously, a natural sound comes from his breath. What is that natural sound ? It is So-ham. When we drop S and H, the two consonants which stand for name and form or Maya, we have then Om, the pure and full vowel that represents the underlying Reality of name and form. The purport of what we have said above is contained in the Sanskrit verse which is found in the Shivayoga Pradipika:
So-ham Kritva atma mantram
Svapada-parapdam Vyakta varnadvyam tat
Vyalumpet vyanjane dve
Punarapi rachayet divyam omkara mantram.
This Om is the Pranava, the perfect Life, an all pervading presence, the seat of which is, as the occultist observes, in the Ajneya Chakra corresponding with the middle of the eye-brows in the human body. This is why a great Yogi focuses his attention and concentrates his energies at the middle of the eye-brows in order to galvanize into activity the higher astral sense. This higher astral or occult sense, which is termed the sixth organ or the third Eye is the spiritual Radium, the Meenkan, the Animish Drishti in Veershaiva terminology. Meenakan symbolizes the ever-wakeful eye of the Absolute. It is this ever-wakeful eye of the Absolute that goes by the name of Bindu in occultism. The Bindu is in the nature of light, but it is not the physical light of the heavenly luminaries, nor is it the internal light which is seen as soon as the eyes are tightly closed. It is the light of consciousness, it is the self-awareness of the Absolute, it is the transcendent Light intangible but unescapable, ever emanating its splendour through the universe. Therefore the Pranava which is all-life is also all-light, it is at once an infinite presence and an infinite Prakasha. Allam Prabhu, the master-occultist gives a correct, concise and all-comprehending description of this Light in his Mantra Gaupya.
If Nada is the breath or life of the Absolute and Bindu the light or knowledge of the Absolute, then Kala is the Law or Will of the Absolute. In occultism, Kala is defined as -Swatantrya Shakti-, that is, the Will of the Absolute. "But not Will as we understand it, something exterior to its object, other than its works labouring on material outside itself, but Will inherent in the Being, inherent in the Becoming, one with the movement of existence, self-conscious Will that becomes what it sees and knows in itself, Will that is expressed as Force of its own work and formulates itself in the result of its work"
Tennyson has had the glimpse of the truth when he says:
"God is Law, say the wise; O Soul, and let us rejoice,
For if He thunder by Law the thunder is yet his voice.
Law is God say some; no God at all, says the fool;
For all we have power to see is a straight staff bent in a pool."
In his preface to the Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman says: "What has ever happened, what happens, and whatever shall or may happen, the vital laws enclose all, they are sufficient for any case and for all cases - none to be hurried or retarded - any miracle of affairs or persons inadmissible in the vast clear scheme where every motion and every spear of grass and the frames and spirits of men and women and all that concerns them, are unspeakably perfect miracles all, referring to all each distinct and in its place."
The primary object of all occultism is, as we have seen, knowledge and control of all and every vehicle in or through which the Self functions on every plane of the cosmos. If so, then each plane of the cosmos has its own laws; and we can never explain the -higher- in terms of the -lower-, though we may be able to refer the lower to the higher as cause thereof. The laws of mind are no more applicable to the region of spirit than the laws of the physical body are applicable to mind. The higher is only conditioned by the lower as working in or through it; the lower is a limited manifestation of the higher. Spirit, mind and body - each of these stands in its own province and is governed by its own specific laws on its own plane; yet these planes interpenetrate and each and all act and react together in the constitution to that harmonious Whole which is Reality. The higher in the sense of being more universal or cosmic is never limited and conditioned by the laws of the lower; the lower is only a particular mode of its activity, and as such it is necessarily a limitation and a relativity, that is to say, a thing, but never a 'thing-in-itself'.
But the thing-in-itself is the spirit that belongs to the plane of the Logos; and below the plane of the Logos, in the manifested universe, all action is governed by law. Hence the individual can no more be helped from a higher plane apart from natural law, in the widest sense of the term, than he can help himself on this plane without such knowledge. For the practical means of doing any action, whether on this or any other plane, a knowledge of natural law is essential. Thus natural law is the living Will of the Absolute, on whatever plane it may operate; and in each further -descent- there is a further limitation, not merely of the form but also of the will. This limitation exists just in proportion as the individual is identified with the form, and is unable to rise above it - primarily in conceptual thought, but finally in actual consciousness. But the individual has to transform himself in the Cosmic Man, as he is the measure of the universe; therefore the individual man has now to unlimit himself, to detend as Bergsom calls it. Our whole evolution is the recovery in what we call knowledge of the whole content of the self. We have to know as well as to be; either of this without the other is only one half of our nature. Where the individual unlimits himself or detends into the depths of the cosmic consciousness, there, in that sphere, knowing and being are identical. Law and Logos are one. There, in that still and serene atmosphere the Cosmic Man experiences what Chit-kala is, enjoys the full and unhampered play of Will of the Absolute.
It is seen that an attempt, however perfunctory, has been made to unravel the net-work of Nada-Bindu-Kala, the very matrix of occultism, which, on its disclosure, revels the secret of the Logos as Life, Light and Law. These are three terms but they are really one and therefore can be regarded as a triune basis of all conscious being. The conception of Linga as understood and explained by the Virashaiva Saints in an occult sense, is Nada-Bindu-Kala Swarupa, that is to say, the Linga is the Logos revealed. The seat of this Linga is, as Allama Prabhu says in his Sayings and in his Mantra Gaupya, in the Sahasrara Chakra, the thousand petalled lotus.
The Sahasrara Chakra is the seventh centre, the coronal, which is at the top of the head and which, when stirred into full activity, is the most resplendent of all the centers of the astral plane, full of indescribable chromatic effects and vibrating with victorious and vertiginous rapidity. The realm of this Sahasrara Chakra or the higher astral plane is therefore described as Satyam, Ritam, Brihat - the Truth, the Law, the Vast. In this cosmic vastness which is supra-mental is situated the Logos or Linga, which is at once a Cosmic Medium, a Cosmic Memory and a Cosmic Agent. And the man who has realized the Logos or Linga of this Cosmic Consciousness is indeed the Cosmic Man, the much sought for object of occultism.
The existence of this higher astral plane, which is described by occultists as an imponderable -Cosmic Medium-, that is beyond the plane of normal sensual perceptions yet inter-penetrating and binding up the material world, has been sensed by many a philosopher, ancient as well as modern and traces of it may be detected in their writings. It is really identical with the -Archetypal world-, that is to say, with the world of Platonic Ideas, or Yesod of the Kabalah - the -Perfect Land- of old Egyptian religion, in which the true or spirit forms of all created things are held to exist. Human consciousness in the course of its transcendence, passes from the normal sensual perceptions of the object to a deeper perception of the subject; it is this deeper and higher perception of a causal world that is symbolized in the -archetypal plane- or world of Platonic Ideas in which are contained the realities, patterns or ideas, whose shadows constitute the world of appearance in which we dwell. When Plotinus asks us -What other fire could be a better image of the fire which is there, than the fire which is here? Or what other earth than this, of the earth which is there?", we are sure of a hint of that deeper and higher perception of the Causal World. The most distinctive feature of Professor Whitehead-s philosophy is, as Professor Joad remarks, the postulation of eternal objects which, entering into the flux of events, confer upon the physical world the characteristics which it is seen to possess. Thus Whitehead-s eternal objects bear a strong resemblance of Plato-s forms, both in respect of their intrinsic nature and of their relation to what Plato called the world of becoming. At the beginning of his most substantial metaphysical work, Process and Reality, Professor Whitehead owns and welcomes the analogy and refers to Plato as his chief teacher. "If" says he, "we had to render Plato-s general point of view, with the least changes made necessary by the intervening two thousand years of human experience, in social organization, in aesthetic attainment, in science and in religion, we should have to set about the construction of a philosophy of organism."
Next, the Astral plane is regarded as constituting the -Cosmic Memory- where the images of all beings and events are preserved as they are preserved in the memory of man. There the concepts of future creation are present in their completeness in the Eternal Now; -all duration is now, all distance here-. On this theory Prophesy, that is, to read the past and future is possible only if the eyes of the mind open upon this timeless Astral World. The Supreme Substance, namely God had Descartes held, created two Substance, mind and matter Extension. Thought and Extension, according to Descartes, proceed on two parallel lines, but matters are so arranged that an event in the one is always accompanied by an event in the other. How is this possible unless we believe in the law of universal causation? But we find Descartes playing fast and loose with the law of causation. To Spinoza, Thought, and Extension are one and the same thing - which thing is God, the only true reality of which they are merely appearances. But it is Leibnitz who envisaged the causal relation between the material process of Extension and the ideal process of Thought. "All our thoughts and perceptions," says Leibnitz, "are but the consequence contingent, it is true, of our precedent thoughts and perceptions, in such a way that were I able to consider directly all that happens or appears to me at the present time, I should be able to see all that will happen to me or that will ever appear to me." Is it not an endorsement on the saying of an occultist that the past and the future are rolled into the ever-present? Alas! by reducing the notion of cause and effect to a mere habitual association of ideas, Hume made it logically impossible to infer the past or to predict the future. But in spite of Hume's logic, we know that causation exists and there is an end of it.
Last, the Astral plane is a -Cosmic Agent- which connects soul with soul since all beings live and move there in an ineffable completeness and unalterable oneness. In that Astral plane which is the archetype of our material world, is the Logos who is the locus, namely, the place of souls. He is also a power of effective will and intuitive knowledge always apparent in its unfailing works and spontaneously perfect in every process. Rishi Patanjali says that the indicator of the Logos is the -word of glory-, Tasya vachakah pranavah; Tatra niratishayam sarvajnabeejam. By putting in tune with the Logos or Isvara, an occultist or Yogi may attain to omniscience. Shri Aurobindo, the present Yogi of a high order, true to the Indian genius, endorses the view of Patanjali in his Yogic Sadhana: "He (Yogin) simply puts himself into relation with the thing itself, not with its form, name or quality but with itself. He may never have seen the form, heard the name or had experienced of the quality, but still he can know the things. Because it is the thing itself and it is in himself and one with himself, that is, in the Maha-karana in a man. There all meet the Atman and are so entirely one with the Atman that by merely being in contact with it, I can know everything about it. Few Yogins reach that state. But all the same, even in the Karana, I can put myself in relation with the thing and know it by Bhava. I put myself, my soul into relation with the soul of the man I study or the thing I study. Prajna in me becomes one with the Prajna in him or it. How do I do this? Simply by becoming passive and facing him or it in my Buddhi. If my Buddhi is quite pure or fairly pacified, if my Manas is shanta then I get the truth about him. I get it by Bhava, by spiritual or subjective realization."
We may see then that occultism, in the real sense of the term, is neither magic nor witch-craft but a sustained and all-comprehending effort at self-knowledge, namely, knowledge of the self working in an through the Shahasrar Chakra, the higher plane. This coronal center is characterized by cosmic vastness, a grandeur of the Supreme Light, the treasure house of miraculous knowledge. It is this Divina Mensura of the mighty forces; and the man who has realized this coronal center is indeed the Divine or Cosmic Man who is the measure of the universe. Not Humina Mensura but Divina Mensura. is the decided object of real occultism; it is this Divina Mensura that is termed Shiva-Yoga and the Divine Man is called Shiva-Yogin in Virashaivism.
Allam Prabhu, who is believed by the Virashaiva tradition to have a strange encounter with Gorakhnath, a fact which still needs historical corroboration, was such a Shiva-Yogin, a Cosmic Man who had attained to the Vyomakaya, the cosmic medium. Although Virashaivism has produced a galaxy of occultists less in status to Allam, yet in these days, the occult-sense of knowing is fast fading away only to feast upon the mystic sense of being, that is, the emotional side of our nature.
- OM SHANTI | OM SHANTI | OM SHANTIHI -
This article -Divina Mensura- is taken from H.H.Mahatapasvi Shri Kumarswamiji-s book, -Virahsaiva Philosophy & Mysticism-.
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