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The Secret Doctrine

Vol I - Cosmogenesis

 

 
 
  In the Anugita a conversation is given (ch. vi., 15) between a Brahmana and his wife, on the origin of Speech and its occult properties. The wife asks how Speech came into existence, and which was prior to the other, Speech or Mind. The Brahmana tells her that the Apana (inspirational breath) becoming lord, changes that intelligence, which does not understand Speech or Words, into the state of Apana, and thus opens the mind. Thereupon he tells her a story, a dialogue between Speech and Mind. "Both went to the Self of Being (i.e., to the individual Higher Self, as Nilakantha thinks, to Prajapati, according to the commentator Arjuna Misra), and asked him to destroy their doubts and decide which of them preceded and was superior to the other. To this the lord said: 'Mind is Superior.' But Speech answered the Self of Being, by saying: 'I verily yield (you) your desires,' meaning that by speech he acquired what he desired. Thereupon again, the Self told her that there are two minds, the 'movable' and the 'immovable.' 'The immovable is with me,' he said, 'the movable is in your dominion' (i.e. of Speech) on the plane of matter. To that you are superior. But inasmuch, O beautiful one, as you came personally to speak to me (in the way you did, i.e. proudly), therefore, O, Sarasvati! you shall never speak after (hard) exhalation." "The goddess Speech" (Sarasvati, a later form or aspect of Vach, the goddess also of secret learning or Esoteric Wisdom), "verily, dwelt always between the Prana and the Apana. But O noble one! going with the Apana wind (vital air), though impelled, without the Prana (expirational breath), she ran up to Prajapati (Brahma), saying, 'Be pleased, O venerable sir!' Then the Prana appeared again, nourishing Speech. And, therefore, Speech never speaks after (hard or inspirational) exhalation. It is always noisy or noiseless. Of these two, the noiseless is the superior to the noisy (Speech). . . . . The (speech) which is produced in the body by means of the Prana, and which then goes (is transformed) into Apana, and then becoming assimilated with the Udana (physical organs of Speech) . . . then finally dwells in the Samana ('at the navel in the form of sound, as the material cause of all words,' says Arjuna Misra). So Speech formerly spoke. Hence the mind is distinguished by reason of its being immovable, and the Goddess (Speech) by reason of her being movable."  
 

 

 

 

 
 
  "There is one unmoving (life-wind or breath, the 'Yoga inhalation,' so called, which is the breath of the One or Higher Self). That is the (or my) own Self, accumulated in numerous (forms)"  
 

 

 

 

 
 
  "To see in Nirvana annihilation amounts to saying of a man plunged in a sound dreamless sleep - one that leaves no impression on the physical memory and brain, because the sleeper's Higher Self is in its original state of absolute consciousness during those hours - that he, too, is annihilated."  
 

 

 

 

 
 
  "Man can neither propitiate nor command the Devas," it is said. But, by paralyzing his lower personality, and arriving thereby at the full knowledge of the non-separateness of his Higher Self from the One absolute SELF, man can, even during his terrestrial life, become as "One of Us." Thus it is, by eating of the fruit of knowledge which dispels ignorance, that man becomes like one of the Elohim or the Dhyanis; and once on their plane the Spirit of Solidarity and perfect Harmony, which reigns in every Hierarchy, must extend over him and protect him in every particular."  
 

 

 

 

 
 
  "The pure object apart from consciousness is unknown to us, while living on the plane of our three-dimensional World; as we know only the mental states it excites in the perceiving Ego. And, so long as the contrast of Subject and Object endures - to wit, as long as we enjoy our five senses and no more, and do not know how to divorce our all-perceiving Ego (the Higher Self) from the thraldom of these senses - so long will it be impossible for the personal Ego to break through the barrier which separates it from a knowledge of things in themselves (or Substance). That Ego, progressing in an arc of ascending subjectivity, must exhaust the experience of every plane. But not till the Unit is merged in the ALL, whether on this or any other plane, and Subject and Object alike vanish in the absolute negation of the Nirvanic State (negation, again, only from our plane),."  
 

 

 

 

 
 
  "Esoteric philosophy shows only physical man as created in the image of the Deity: but the latter is but "the minor gods." It is the HIGHER-SELF, the real EGO who alone is divine and GOD."