Page:A Collection of Esoteric Writings.djvu/281

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lower. Or again, the ooza with the seven luths hanging from it, "the combined melody of which creates one man," say the hieroglyphics. Or again, the hexagon formed of six traingles whose apices converge to a point—thus the symbol of the Universal creation, which Kenneth Mackenzie tells us "was worn as a ring by the Sovereign Princes of the Royal Secret"—which they never knew by the bye. If seven has nought to do with the mysteries of the universe and men, then indeed from the Vedas down to the Bible all the archaic Scriptures—the Puranas, the Avesta and all the fragments that have reached us—have no esoteric meaning, and must be regarded as the Orientalists regard them—as a farago of childish tales.

It is quite true that the three upadhis of the Taraka Raj Yoga are, as Mr. Subba Row explains in his little article "The Septenary Division in different Indian Systems," "the best and the simplest"—but only in purely contemplative Yoga, and he adds: "Though there are seven principles in man there are but three distinct upadhis, in each of which his Atma may work independently of the rest. These three upadhis can be separated by the Adept without killing himself. He cannot separate the seven principles from each other without destroying his constitution" ("Five Years of Theosophy," p. 185). Most decidedly he cannot. But this again holds good only with regard to his lower three principles—the body and its (in life) inseparable prana and linga sarira. The rest can be separated, as they constitute no vital, but rather a mental and spiritual necessity. As to the remark in the same article objecting to the fourth principle being "included in the third kosa as the said principle is but a vehicle of will-power, which is but an energy of the mind." I answer: Just so. But as the higher attributes of the fifth (Manas), go to make up the original triad, and it is just the terrestrial energies, feelings and volitions which remain in the Kama-loka, what, is the vehicle, the astral form, to carry them about a bhoota until they fade out—which may take centuries to accomplish? Can the "false" personality, or the pisacha whose ego is made up precisely of all those terrestrial passions