THEOSOPHY, Vol. 23, No. 9, July, 1935
(Pages 409-411; Size: 10K)WHAT IS MANAS?
SOME SECRET DOCTRINE STATEMENTS
COSMIC Ideation focussed in a principle or upadhi (basis) results as the consciousness of the individual Ego. Its manifestation varies with the degree of upadhi, e.g., through that known as Manas it wells up as Mind-Consciousness. (I, 329 footnote).
Occult Science has been teaching for ages that Akasa ... the fifth universal Cosmic Principle (to which corresponds and from which proceeds human Manas) is ... creative in its physical nature, correlative in its grossest aspects and portions, immutable in its higher principles. ... In its higher aspect it is the Soul of the World; in its lower -- the DESTROYER. (I, 13 foot-note).
"Follow the law of analogy" -- the Masters teach. ... Manas is triple; ... i.e., as a principle per se, which gravitates, in its higher aspect, to Atma-Buddhi, and follows, in its lower nature, Kama, the seat of terrestrial and animal desires and passions. (II, 254 foot-note ).
Manas is immortal, because after every new incarnation it adds to Atma-Buddhi something of itself, and thus, assimilating itself to the Monad, shares its immortality. ... The astral through Kama (desire) is ever drawing Manas down into the sphere of material passions and desires. But if the better man or Manas tries to escape the fatal attraction and turns its aspirations to Atma -- Spirit -- then Buddhi ... conquers, and carries Manas with it to the real of eternal Spirit. (I, 243-245).
The mind is Manas ... for it is Manas that springs from Ahamkara or (Universal) Self-Consciousness, as Manas in the microcosm springs from Mahat, or Maha-Buddhi (Buddhi, in man). For Manas is dual, and ... "is serving both for sense and action, is an organ by affinity, being cognate with the rest." "The rest" means, here, that Manas, our fifth principle (the fifth, because the body was named the first, which is the reverse of the true philosophical order) is in affinity both with Atma-Buddhi and with the four lower principles. Hence, our teaching: namely, that Manas follows Atma-Buddhi to Devachan, and that the lower (dregs, the residue of) Manas remains with Kama rupa, in Limbus, or Kama-loka, the abode of the "Shells." (I, 334).
"Manas is dual -- lunar in the lower, solar in its upper portion," says a commentary. That is to say, it is attracted in its higher aspect towards Buddhi, and in its lower descends into, and listens to the voice of its animal soul full of selfish and sensual desires; and herein is contained the mystery of an adept's as of a profane man's life, as also that of the post-mortem separation of the divine from the animal man. (II, 495-6).
The human Ego is neither Atman nor Buddhi, but the higher Manas: the intellectual fruition and the efflorescence of the intellectual self-conscious Egotism -- in the higher spiritual sense. The ancient works refer to it as Karana Sarira on the plane of Sutratma, which is the golden thread on which, like beads, the various personalities of this higher Ego are strung. (II, 79).
It is a strange law of Nature that, on this plane, the higher (Spiritual) Nature should be, so to say, in bondage to the lower. Unless the Ego takes refuge in the Atman, the ALL-SPIRIT, and merges entirely into the essence thereof, the personal Ego may goad it to the bitter end. This cannot be understood unless the student makes himself familiar with the mystery of evolution, which proceeds on triple lines -- spiritual, psychic and physical. (II, 109).
It is the Fifth and Fourth principles -- Manas and Kama rupa -- that contain the dual personality: the real immortal Ego (if it assimilates itself to the two higher) and the false and transitory personality, the mayavi or astral body, so-called, or the animal-human Soul -- the two having to be closely blended for purposes of a full terrestrial existence. (II, 241-2).
It does not mean that Monads entered forms in which other Monads already were ... but their "Egos," or Manas ... had to pass through earthly human experiences to become all-wise, and be able to start on the returning ascending cycle. The Monads are not discrete principles, limited or conditioned, but rays from that one universal absolute Principle. The entrance into a dark room through the same aperture of one ray of sunlight following another will not constitute two rays, but one ray intensified. It is not in the course of natural law that man should become a perfect septenary being, before the seventh race in the seventh Round. Yet he has all these principles latent in him from his birth. Nor is it part of the evolutionary law that the Fifth principle (Manas), should receive its complete development before the Fifth Round. All such prematurely developed intellects (on the spiritual plane) in our Race are abnormal. ... Even in the coming seventh Race, at the close of this Fourth Round, while our four lower principles will be fully developed, that of Manas will be only proportionately so. This limitation, however, refers solely to the spiritual development. The intellectual, on the physical plane, was reached during the Fourth Root-Race. (II, 167).
... the conscious Manas [is] the connecting link between Spirit and Matter, heaven and earth. (II, 98).
... Manas, Mind and Self-consciousness. In each of us that golden thread of continuous life -- periodically broken into active and passive cycles of sensuous existence on Earth, and super-sensuous in Devachan -- is from the beginning of our appearance upon this earth. It is the Sutratma, the luminous thread of immortal impersonal monadship, on which our earthly lives or evanescent Egos are strung as so many beads. ... it is our Mind -- our tempter and Redeemer, our intelligent liberator and Saviour from pure animalism. Without this principle -- the emanation of the very essence of the pure divine principle Mahat (Intelligence), which radiates direct from the Divine mind -- we would be surely no better than animals. ... Without this quickening spirit, or human Mind or soul, there would be no difference between man and beast ... (II, 513).
COMPILER'S NOTE: The following is a separate item which followed the above article but was on the same page. I felt it was useful to include it here:
POWER OF THOUGHT
Man, made of thought, occupant only of many bodies from time to time, is eternally thinking. His chains are through thought, his release due to nothing else. His mind is immediately tinted or altered by whatever object it is directed to. By this means the soul is enmeshed in the same thought or series of thoughts as is the mind....
Every thought leaves a seed in the mind or manas of the thinker, no matter how fugitive the thought was. The whole sum of such small seeds will go to make up a larger seed for thought, and thus constitute a man of this, that, or the other general character. Thoughts, then, are highly important, for, as the Buddha said, we are made up of thought and built of thought; as we think, so we act and will act, and as we act and think so will we suffer or rejoice, and the whole world with us.
--William Q. Judge
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