One hundred and forty years have passed like a dream, with much heart-sore and soaring hope, since the Theosophical Society was founded on 17 November 1875 in New York. We have decided to mark this auspicious date by releasing a series of hitherto private study notes and analyses of H.P. Blavatsky's Esoteric Section (E.S.) Instructions. The True Colours of Man, amplifies and clarifies E.S. Instructions I and II, aided by 31 original drawings, diagrams, and tables. The seven prismatic colours are direct emanations from the Seven Hierarchies of Compassion, each of which is the creator and source of the corresponding human principle. Each prismatic colour is the “Father of the Sound” which corresponds to it; Sound being the Word, or Logos, of its “Father-Thought.” Thus the Creative Force produces colours, sounds, and numbers, in the shape of rates of vibration, which compound and dissociate atoms and molecules. The Seven Primordial Lights, manifested from Light Unmanifested, are Divine Principles. The Principles of Man are bright reflections of Divine Principles, a Great Sacrifice; they are the seven-stringed lyre of Apollo. Colours and sounds are all spiritual numerals. Colour is Spirit (Atman), sound is Voice (Buddhi), proportion of numbers is Word (Higher Manas). Colours and sounds are associated with the Hierarchy of Compassion, the Manifested Logos. Colours–sounds–numbers proceed from 1 to 7 and not from 7 to 1, as erroneously shown in the spectrum of the prismatic colours. As the Seven Colours of the solar spectrum correspond to the Seven Rays, or Hierarchies, so each Ray has its seven divisions corresponding to the same series of colours. Esoterically, the right eye corresponds with Soul Wisdom or true knowledge; the left, with mere head learning. The Spiritual Man corresponds directly with the “coloured circles” of the Divine Prism which emanate from the One Infinite White Circle; the physical man emanates from the Sephiroth of the Kabbalah, the “voices” or “sounds” of Eastern Philosophy. “Voices,” however, are lower than colours. The lower Sephiroth are the seven physical planets. Our triple physical Sun, personified by the Upper Triad, is the Sephirothal Crown. The real Sephiroth are the Four Maharajas of The Secret Doctrine: Sun, Moon, Mercury, and Venus. The ancients considered as the most holy those organs which we now associate with feelings of shame and secrecy. The lower organs have been evolved to perform six functions on six distinct planes of action, besides a seventh, the lowest and purely terrestrial function on the physical plane. The physical body is not a “principle” and has no place in the sevenfold division. It is furnished by Mother Earth. Numbers and harmonious proportions guide the first differentiations of the Homogeneous Substance into heterogeneous elements. Perfect knowledge of the correspondences between colours, sounds, and numbers is the first requisite for students of Occultism. The Eye of Dangma will awaken only when the mouth is supressed. The Auric Egg is the monadic envelope and amnion of the physical man. Initiates, saints, and pure men can help others as well as themselves in their hour of need, with the aid of the God within, who has been enabled to act on the outward plane. Advanced students are invited to pronounce the Word before going to sleep and first thing upon awakening. Beginners, who cannot help going into crowds, are advised to wear either a ring containing some jewel of the colour of the presiding planet for the particular day of the week, or else of the metal sacred to it. A word of advice concerning Instructions I and II: students should strive to spiritualise these Instructions and avoid materialising them.

1. The human manas is pure and impure: divided on earth, united in heaven. The immortal Manas or Higher Ego is an emanation from the Supreme Spirit. Its reflection on earth, fashioned by the creative and intelligent forces in nature, is but a temporary vehicle of its divine parent on earth. The Higher Ego, at incarnation, shoots out a Ray — the lower ego or manas. That portion of the Lower Manas, which is one with the Higher is termed Antahkarana. On it are impressed all good and noble aspirations, and in it are the upward energies of the Lower Manas. The whole fate of an incarnation depends on whether this pure essence, Antahkarana, can restrain Kama-Manas or not. It is the only salvation. Break this and you become an animal. Ahamkara is the perception of “I,” or the sense of one’s personal individuality, typified by the term Egotism. When Manas or Ahamkara thins out the guna “rope” into a single thread, that of Sattva or Purity, it becomes one with the “unevolved evolver” and wins immortality or eternal conscious existence. Shankaracharya renders Sattva or Understanding as Antahkarana, refined by sacrifices and other sanctifying operations. 2. Esoteric overview of Manas: Its potency, functions, and potential. When the lower manas begins to bring forth the green clusters of the philosophical vine for the Husbandman, the “Father” or Higher Ego, the merging process with its higher counterpart also begins. But the danger is not quite over, for the Antahkarana is not yet destroyed. Let us imagine a bright lamp casting its light upon the wall. Let the lamp represent the divine Ego, and the light thrown on the wall the lower Manas, and let the wall stand for the body. The atmosphere which transmits the ray from the lamp to the wall represents the Antahkarana. In an Eastern parable the divine Ego is likened to the Master who sends out his labourers to till the ground and gather in the harvest, and who is content to keep the field so long as it can yield even the smallest return. But when the ground becomes sterile, not only is it abandoned, but the labourer also (the lower Manas) perishes. When Esoteric Teachings allude to the “second death,” they refer to the terrible possibility of the death of the Astral Soul, that is, its severance from the Higher Ego during a person’s lifetime. Only Occultists of the White Lodge, by explaining the circumstances that can lead a soul to its demise, can protect mankind from falling into such a dreadful pitfall. If the Antahkarana is destroyed before the lower had an opportunity of aligning with the Higher Manas, the selfish man ends up living as a “soulless” creature. Brain is the organ of Consciousness but only on the objective plane of the Lower Manas. The “Seven Harmonies” are the Seven Cavities of the brain. Brain perception is located in the aura of the Pineal Gland, the chief organ of spirituality in the brain, while the Pineal Gland itself, when illuminated, corresponds with Divine Thought. The former is associated with the spiritual fiery emanation that proceeds from the blood. Pure psychic vision is caused by the molecular motion of the Pituitary Body, which is directly connected with the optic nerve, and thus affects the sight and gives rise to hallucinations. Its motion may cause flashes of light seen within the head, similar to those that may be obtained on pressing the eyeballs, and so causing molecular motion in the optic nerve. The seven steps of Antahkarana correspond with the seven Lokas, i.e., are material places or spheres, however, of a spiritual character. 3. Higher Manas is the Voice of Wisdom crying in the wilderness of matter. The Voice urges Antahkarana, his lower counterpart, to purify itself inwardly, and to fear no one and nought, save the tribunal of his own conscience. “Personality,” being the illusion of separateness, is the root cause of all selfishness and evil in the world. It has to be conquered and crushed before the human mind is united with its divine parent. Loss of mind is due to the paralysis of the higher functions of Kama-Manas, the physical mind; and in cases of incurable insanity, to the destruction of Antahkarana itself (i.e., the severance of the lower from the Higher Ego during a person’s lifetime), thus preventing their reunion. When one falls into a love of self and love of the world, with all its pleasures, losing the divine love of God and of the neighbour, he falls from the shadows of life and fear of death to real death. The higher principles, which constituted the essential elements of his humanity being withdrawn, he now lives on the lower plane of his faculties. Manas or Antahkarana, being the organ of self-consciousness or “personality,” is material hence mortal. At death, when the ray from Higher Manas withdraws, the “personality,” no matter how illustrious it was, perishes along with the physical body. Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas! At death, the higher triad, drawn by its affinity to those triads it loved most, with Manas in its highest aspect of self-consciousness, is disconnected from Antahkarana, the path of communication between soul and body. Then, the energies and tendencies of Antahkarana become spiritual experiences in the Devachanic period between incarnations, as they were during life on earth. 4. Manas is the Jewel of the Universe. In order to understand that which follows, note that the upper Indigo Manas is connected with the lower Green Manas by a thin line which binds the two together. This is the Antahkarana, a path or bridge of communication, which serves as a link between the personal being, whose physical brain is under the sway of the animal mind, and the reincarnating Individuality or the Spiritual Ego, the “Divine Man.” Look at the Drawing again. Observe the divine Ego tending with its point upwards towards Buddhi, and the human ego gravitating downwards, immersed in matter and connected with its higher, divine parent, only by that thin line of Antahkarana. Four distinct features of Antahkarana and an all-important difference between exoteric and esoteric teaching: 1. In dreams the personality is only half awake, therefore Antahkarana is said to be drunk or insane during sleep. 2. Let the student view the lower Manas as the personal ego during the waking state, and as Antahkarana only during those moments when it aspires towards its higher counterpart, and thus becomes the medium of communication between the two. 3. As when a limb or physical organ is left in disuse, it becomes weak and finally atrophies, so also is it with any mental faculty — hence the atrophy of Antahkarana permits those shamelessly materialistic and depraved minds to degrade themselves even further. 4. As long as the personal “I” (Ahamkara) or selfishness is not completely crushed out, and the lower mind not as yet merged with the Higher (Buddhi-Manas), it stands to reason that to destroy Antahkarana is like destroying a bridge over an impassable chasm: the traveller can never reach the goal on the other shore. Exoteric Vedanta teaches that so long as the lower manas clings through Antahkarana to Buddhi-Manas, it is impossible for it to acquire true spiritual Wisdom, and that this can only be attained by seeking to resonate with Atman, the Universal Soul and, in fact, it is by circumventing the Higher Manas altogether that one reaches Raja-Yoga. We say that it is not so. No single rung of the ladder leading to Inner Knowledge can be skipped. No personality can ever reach or bring itself into communication with Atman, except through Buddhi-Manas. If we destroy Antahkarana before the personal is absolutely under the control and guidance of the impersonal Ego, we risk to be permanently disconnected from It, unless we hasten to re-establish the communication by a supreme and final effort. It is only when we are indissolubly linked with the essence of the Divine Self within, that we have to destroy Antahkarana. Expelled forever from the Aegis of their Divine Self, those who had hitherto sat alone in haughty seclusion and bare selfishness are immediately reincarnated, only in a lower and still more abject creatures — human beings only in form, doomed to endless karmic torments and punishment before final annihilation. 5. When the mind is finally freed from its finite consciousness, it merges with and becomes one with the Infinite.

The Visible Sun is a veil of the Invisible Central Spiritual Sun of Truth. The Invisible Sun is the ever-concealed Central Point of all Universes and Solar Systems from which all emerged, and toward which all gravitates. It is the Central Sun’s passive emissions of Creative Light, that impart Motion and awaken Life in the numberless Solar systems of the Infinite Kosmos (manifested worlds). The Atoms of Science are the Vibrations of Occultism: they keep the wheels of life going. The “extra-cosmic” God has killed the belief in intra-cosmic Intelligent Forces, that govern the rotatory motion in the infinitudes of Space. Cosmic Motion, circular and perpetual, is Attraction and Repulsion, not as understood by modern physics and the “law of gravity;” but in harmony with the Immutable Laws of Manvantaric Motion regulated by interhuman (not supernatural) Intelligences within the Cosmic Soul. The Solar Flames are reflections of the Central Spiritual Sun, the Life-giver to Kosmos, radiating from the Central Point which is “everywhere and nowhere,” from whence emanates and whither returns the Kosmic Intelligence (sentient Beings) scattered throughout the manifested worlds. The visible Sun is the Father of the physical man; the Moon is his Mother. The visible Sun is a ball of electromagnetic forces, glowing but not burning. It is not even the proximal source of visible light and heat in our solar system. It is the focus, reflector, and veil of the ever-Concealed Central Spiritual Sun — therefore mere illusion. Our Sun will become a comet in future manvantaras. The Central Spiritual Sun is the storehouse of Vital Force (noumenon of Electricity), those life currents which thrill through Space, as through every creature on Earth. The Vital Force, intelligently guided, radiates around man like a luminous sphere. Suspended like a fœtus within the Macrocosm (Universe or Spiritus Mundi, i.e., Spirit of the visible Universe) the Microcosm (Mankind) is vitalised and energised by the Archæus or Liquor Vitæ, the Fluid of Life (Nerve Aura), through which the Cosmic Forces, regulated and sustained by the never-resting Breaths (Agents of Cosmic Laws) act upon the astral body of man curled in the spleen. Pantheism was known and felt by the whole of antiquity. It manifests itself in the vast expanse of the starry heavens, in the breathing of the seas and oceans, and in the quiver of life of the smallest blade of grass. Esoteric Philosophy rejects the finite and imperfect God in our Universe, as the anthropomorphic deity of the monotheist is represented by his followers. The Vedic Aryans were as familiar with the mysteries of colour and sound as our physiologists are on the physical plane. Moreover, they had mastered the potencies of colour, sound, and number on planes inaccessible to the materialists. The spiritual senses, those that act on higher planes of consciousness, are rejected by physiology because the latter is ignorant of the Sacred Science. Yet mental as well as physical correlations of the senses (seven on the physical, and seven on the mental planes) are clearly explained and defined in the Vedas. The seven notes of the scale are the principles of sound. The qualities of every element, as of every sense, are also septenary and to dogmatize upon them, from their likewise septenary manifestation, is whimsical. It is only when Manas (Higher Ego) soars above the mists of ignorance, that the qualities of objects of sense on their dual plane of manifestations (visible and invisible) can be clearly seen and comprehended. The division of the physical senses into five comes to us from great antiquity. But while adopting the number, no modern philosopher has asked himself how these senses could exist, i.e., be perceived in a self-conscious way, unless there was a sixth sense (mental perception) to register and record them; and this, for the Occultist, is the Seventh Sense, that preserves the spiritual fruition and remembrance thereof, as in a Book of Life. Nature shall unveil her mysteries only to those sincere and diligent students of Occult Philosophy — who when pure, impartial, and unexpecting, act as centres of benevolent work — and shall lead them to the contemplation of celestial powers. We keep cycling back and forward. Having lost in spirituality pro rata what we had gained in physicality near the end of the Four Race (Atlantean), we are now cycling forward and upward until we reach the period that will bring the Sixth Race (Enlightened) on a parallel line with the spirituality of the Second (Sweat-born), the long extinct Race of humanity. Then, by cutting the Tree of Life, the slaves of birth–life–death shall be finally freed from the trammels and tyranny of matter. Colours and sounds are associated with the Hierarchy of Compassion, the Manifested Logos. Colour is Spirit (Atman), sound is Voice (Buddhi), and proportion of numbers is Word (Higher Manas). Each prismatic colour is the “Father of the Sound” which corresponds to it; Sound, being the Word or Logos, is his “Father’s Thought.” Thus the Creative Force produces colours, sounds, and numbers, in the shape of rates of vibration, which compound and dissociate atoms and molecules. Perfect knowledge of the correspondences between colours, sounds, and numbers is the first requisite for the student of Occult Philosophy. Who can assume the flower of power, the plant of the golden stem, and the azure blossom? The calamitous error leading to the sum total of mistaken views among the materialists is this: the so-called Nervous Ether is not an animal product, it is the living animal itself. It is the lowest principle of Primordial Essence, which is Life — that animal vitality diffused all around Nature; the flowers of self-consciousness, unfolding from within outwardly, are its products. But beware, under every flower there is a serpent coiled. Even when death arrives the Fluid of Life does not abandon the body. It only changes its state from activity to passivity, assuming dormancy because of the morbid state of tissues upon which it has no more hold. Once the rigor mortis has set it, the Liquor Vitæ reactivates and begins its work on the atoms chemically. The Vital Force radiates within and around a person like a luminous aura. It can be made to act at a distance to poison a fellow human being or, conversely, to heal the sick and restore health.

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