To
the Self by the Self
Let us look at this a
little more closely, with its appropriate methods. The path on which
the faculty of Buddhi is used predominantly is, as just said, the
path of the metaphysician. It is the path of the philosopher. He
turns inwards, ever seeking to find the Self by diving into the
recesses of his own nature. Knowing that the Self is within him,
he tries to strip away vesture after vesture, envelope after envelope,
and by a process
of rejecting them he reaches the glory of the unveiled Self. To
begin this, he must give up concrete thinking and dwell amidst abstractions.
His method, then, must be strenuous, long-sustained, patient meditation.
Nothing else will serve his end; strenuous, hard thinking, by which
he rises away from the concrete into the abstract regions of the
mind; strenuous, hard thinking, further continued, by which he reaches
from the
abstract region of the mind up to the region of Buddhi, where unity
is sensed; still by strenuous thinking, climbing yet further, until
Buddhi as it were opens out into Atma, until the Self is seen in
his splendour, with only a film of atmic matter, the envelope of
Atma in the manifested fivefold world. It is along that difficult
and strenuous path that the Self must be found by way of the Self.
Such a man must utterly
disregard the Not-Self. He must shut his senses against the outside
world. The world must no longer be able to touch him. The senses
must be closed against all the vibrations that come from without,
and he must turn a deaf ear, a blind eye, to all the allurements
of matter, to all the diversity of objects, which make up the universe
of the Not-Self. Seclusion will help him, until he is strong enough
to close himself against the outer stimuli or allurements. The contemplative
orders in the Roman Catholic Church offer a good environment for
this path. They put the outer world away, as far away as possible.
It is a snare, a temptation, a hindrance. Always turning away from
the world, the Yogi must fix his thought, his attention, upon the
Self. Hence for those who walk along this road, what are called
the Siddhis are direct obstacles, and not helps. But that statement
that you find so often, that the Siddhis are things to be avoided,
is far more sweeping than some of our modern Theosophists are apt
to imagine. They declare that the Siddhis are to be avoided, but
forget that the Indian who says this also avoids the use of the
physical senses. He closes physical eyes and ears as hindrances.
But some Theosophists urge avoidance of all use of the astral senses
and mental senses, but they do not object to the free use of the
physical senses, or dream that they are hindrances. Why not? If
the senses are obstacles in their finer forms, they are also obstacles
in their grosser manifestations. To the man who would find the Self
by the Self, every sense is a hindrance and an obstacle, and there
is no logic, no reason, in denouncing the subtler senses only, while
forgetting the temptations of the physical senses, impediments as
much as the other.
No such division exists
for the man who tries to understand the universe in which he is.
In the search for the Self by the Self, all that is not Self is
an obstacle. Your eyes, your ears, everything that puts you into
contact with the outer world, is just as much an obstacle as the
subtler forms of the same senses which put you into touch with the
subtler worlds of matter, which you call astral and mental. This
exaggerated fear of the Siddhis is only a passing reaction, not
based on understanding but on lack of understanding; and those who
denounce the Siddhis should rise to the logical position of the
Hindu Yogi, or of the Roman Catholic recluse, who denounces all
the senses, and all the objects of the senses, as obstacles in the
way. Many Theosophists here, and more in the West, think that much
is gained by acuteness of the physical senses, and of the other
faculties in the physical brain; but the moment the senses are acute
enough to be astral, or the faculties begin to work in astral matter,
they treat them as objects of denunciation. That is not rational.
It is not logical. Obstacles, then, are all the senses, whether
you call them Siddhis or not, in the search for the Self by turning
away from the Not-Self.
It is necessary for the
man who seeks the Self by the Self to have the quality which is
called "faith," in the sense in which I defined it before--the
profound, intense conviction, that nothing can shake, of the reality
of the Self within you. That is the one thing that is worthy to
be dignified by the name of faith. Truly it is beyond reason, for
not by reason may the Self be known as real. Truly it is not based
on argument, for not by reasoning may the Self be discovered. It
is the witness of the Self within you to his own supreme reality,
and that unshakable conviction, which is shraddha, is necessary
for the treading of this path. It is necessary, because without
it the human mind would fail, the human courage would be daunted,
the human perseverance would break, with the difficulties of the
seeking for the Self. Only that imperious conviction that the Self
is, only that can cheer the pilgrim in the darkness that comes down
upon him, in the void that he must cross before--the life of the
lower being thrown away--the life of the higher is realised. This
imperious faith is
to the Yogi on this path what experience and knowledge are to the
Yogi on the other.