What Dion Fortune writes in "The Cosmic Doctrine" about the Higher Self

The Secret Doctrine

Vol II - Anthropogenesis

"The phenomenal world receives its culmination and the reflex of all in MAN. Therefore he is the mystic square -- in his metaphysical aspect -- the Tetraktis; and becomes the Cubeon the creative plain. His symbol is the cube unfolded and 6 becoming 7, or the [[diagram]] three crossways (the female) and four vertically; and this is man, the culmination of the deity on Earth, whose body is the cross of flesh, on, through, and in which he is ever crucifying and putting to death the divine Logos or his Higher Self."

"How precise and true is Plato's expression, how profound and philosophical his remark on the (human) soul or EGO, when he defined it as "a compound of the same and the other." And yet how little this hint has been understood, since the world took it to mean that the soul was the breath of God, of Jehovah. It is "the same and the other," as the great Initiate- Philosopher said; for the EGO (the "Higher Self" when merged with and in the Divine Monad) is Man, and yet the same as the "OTHER," the Angel in him incarnated, as the same with the universal MAHAT. The great classics and philosophers felt this truth, when saying that "there must be something within us which produces our thoughts. Something very subtle; it is a breath; it is fire; it is ether; it is quintessence; it is a slender likeness; it is an intellection; it is a number; it is harmony. . . . . " (Voltaire)."

"Each class of Creators endows man with what it has to give: the one builds his external form; the other gives him its essence, which later on becomes the Human Higher Self owing to the personal exertion of the individual; but they could not make men as they were themselves - perfect, because sinless; sinless, because having only the first, pale shadowy outlines of attributes, and these all perfect -- from the human standpoint - white, pure and cold as the virgin snow."

"Higher Self or human Monad -- and the animal Monad, both one and the same, although the former is endowed with divine intelligence, the latter with instinctual faculty alone. How is the difference to be explained, and the presence of that Higher Self in man accounted for?"

"Remember in this connection the Tabula Smaragdina of Hermes, the esoteric meaning of which has seven keys to it. The Astro-Chemical is well known to students, the anthropological may be given now. The "One thing" mentioned in it is MAN. It is said: "The Father of THAT ONE ONLY THING is the Sun; its Mother the Moon; the Wind carries it in his bosom, and its nurse is the Spirituous Earth." In the occult rendering of the same it is added: "and Spiritual Fire is its instructor (Guru)." This fire is the Higher Self, the Spiritual Ego, or that which is eternally reincarnating under the influence of its lower personal Selves, changing with every re-birth, full of Tanha or desire to live. 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."

"So with the Atman: unless the Higher Self or EGO gravitates towards its Sun the Monad -- the lower Ego, or personal Self, will have the upper hand in every case. For it is this Ego, with its fierce Selfishness and animal desire to live a Senseless life (Tanha), which is "the maker of the tabernacle," as Buddha calls it in Dhammapada."

"The First Race, the "Self-born," which are the (astral) shadows of their Progenitors.** The body was devoid of all understanding (mind, intelligence, and will). The inner being (the Higher Self or Monad), though within the earthly frame, was unconnected with it. The link, the Manas, was not there as yet."

"On the other hand, regarded in the light of the LOGOS, the Christian Saviour, like Krishna, whether as man or logos, may be said to have saved those who believed in the secret teachings from "eternal death," to have conquered the Kingdom of Darkness, or Hell, as every Initiate does. This in the human, terrestrial form of the Initiates, and also because the logos is Christos, that principle of our inner nature which develops in us into the Spiritual Ego -- the Higher-Self -- being formed of the indissoluble union of Buddhi (the sixth) and the spiritual efflorescence of Manas, the fifth principle. "The Logos is passive Wisdom in Heaven and Conscious, Self-Active Wisdom on Earth," we are taught. It is the Marriage of "Heavenly man" with the "Virgin of the World" --Nature, as described in Pymander; the result of which is their progeny -- immortal man".

"It is not correct to refer to Christ -- as some theosophists do -- as the sixth principle in man -- Buddhi. The latter per se is a passive and latent principle, the spiritual vehicle of Atman, inseparable from the manifested Universal Soul. It is only in union and in conjunction with Self-consciousness that Buddhi becomes the Higher Self and the divine, discriminating Soul. Christos is the seventh principle, if anything."

"Now, "thy name" means the name of Christos, or Logos, or the spirit of true divine wisdom, as distinct from the spirit of intellectual or mere materialistic reasoning -- the Higher Self in short."

"Now when the Rabbi Jesus is requested (in Pistis Sophia) by his disciples to reveal to them, "the mysteries of the Light of thy (his) Father" (i.e., of the Higher Self enlightened by Initiation and Divine knowledge), Jesus answers: "Do ye seek after these mysteries? No mystery is more excellent than they which shall bring your souls unto the Light of Lights, unto the place of Truth and Goodness, unto the place where there is neither male nor female, neither form in that place but Light, everlasting, not to be uttered".

"The AEons of Valentinus are confessedly the Six Radicals of Simon (Magus)," with the seventh, Fire, at their head. And these are: Mind, Intelligence, Voice, Name, Reason and Thought subordinate to FIRE, the Higher Self, or precisely the "Seven Winds" or the "Seven Priests" of Anugita."

"The "great sages" who "receive hospitality" are explained as meaning the senses, "which, having worked as unconnected with the self are finally absorbed into it." But one fails to understand, if the senses are "unconnected" with the "Higher Self," in what manner can they be "absorbed into it." One would think, on the contrary, that just because the personal senses gravitate and strive to be connected with the impersonal Self, that the latter, which is FIRE, burns the lower five and purifies thereby the higher two, "mind and understanding" or the higher aspects of Manas* and Buddhi."

"In that same (Brahman, the 'Self') the Seven perfect Sages, together with their chiefs, abide and again emerge from the same. Glory, brilliance and greatness, enlightenment, victory, perfection and power -- these seven rays follow after this same Sun (Kshetragna, the Higher Self). . . . Those whose wishes are reduced (unselfish). . . . whose sins (passions) are burnt up by restraint, merging the Self in the Self,** devote themselves to Brahman. Those people who understand the forest of Knowledge (Brahman, or SELF) praise tranquillity. And aspiring to that forest, they are (re-) born so as not to lose courage."

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