The Key To Theosophy

	"To any man or woman with the slightest honorable feeling a pledge of secrecy taken even on one's word of honor, much more to one's Higher Self-the God within-is binding till death. And though he may leave the Section and the Society, no man or woman of honor will think of attacking or injuring a body to which he or she has been so pledged."

	"Even in some exoteric public branches, the members pledge themselves on their "Higher Self" to live the life prescribed by Theosophy. They have to bring their Divine Self to guide their every thought and action, every day and at every moment of their lives. A true Theosophist ought "to deal justly and walk humbly."

	"Q. But how can you explain those cases which are followed by full success? Where does a Theosophist look to for power to subdue his passions and selfishness? A. To his Higher Self, the divine spirit, or the God in him, and to his Karma. How long shall we have to repeat over and over again that the tree is known by its fruit, the nature of the cause by its effects? You speak of subduing passions, and becoming good through and with the help of God or Christ."

	"This shows, better than anything, that Gautama Buddha withheld such difficult metaphysical doctrines from the masses in order not to perplex them more. What he meant was the difference between the personal temporary Ego and the Higher Self, which sheds its light on the imperishable Ego, the spiritual "I" of man."

	Q. But what is it that reincarnates, in your belief? A. The Spiritual thinking Ego, the permanent principle in man, or that which is the seat of Manas. It is not Atma, or even Atma-Buddhi, regarded as the dual Monad, which is the individual, or divine man, but Manas; for Atma is the Universal All, and becomes the Higher-Self of man only in conjunction with Buddhi, its vehicle, which links it to the individuality (or divine man). For it is the Buddhi-Manas which is called the Causal body, (the United fifth and sixth Principles) and which is Consciousness, that connects it with every personality it inhabits on earth. Therefore, Soul being a generic term, there are in men three aspects of Soul-the terrestrial, or animal; the Human Soul; and the Spiritual Soul; these, strictly speaking, are one Soul in its three aspects. Now of the first aspect, nothing remains after death; of the second (nous or Manas) only its divine essence if left unsoiled survives, while the third in addition to being immortal becomes consciously divine, by the assimilation of the higher Manas.

	"Q. Do you mean to infer that which survives is only the Soul-memory, as you call it, that Soul or Ego being one and the same, while nothing of the personality remains? A. Not quite; something of each personality, unless the latter was an absolute materialist with not even a chink in his nature for a spiritual ray to pass through, must survive, as it leaves its eternal impress on the incarnating permanent Self or Spiritual Ego. (Or the Spiritual, in contradistinction to the personal Self. The student must not confuse this Spiritual Ego with the "Higher Self" which is Atma, the God within us, and inseparable from the Universal Spirit.) The personality with its Skandhas is ever changing with every new birth. It is, as said before, only the part played by the actor (the true Ego) for one night. This is why we preserve no memory on the physical plane of our past lives, though the real "Ego" has lived them over and knows them all."

	"During that time it is latent and potential, because, first of all, the Spiritual Ego (the compound of Buddhi-Manas) is not the Higher Self, which being one with the Universal Soul or Mind is alone omniscient; and, secondly, because Devachan is the idealized continuation of the terrestrial life just left behind, a period of retributive adjustment, and a reward for unmerited wrongs and sufferings undergone in that special life."

	"Atma, the "Higher Self," is neither your Spirit nor mine, but like sunlight shines on all. It is the universally diffused "divine principle," and is inseparable from its one and absolute Meta-Spirit, as the sunbeam is inseparable from sunlight."

	"The Spiritual realm would all the while be the proper habitat of the Soul, which would never entirely quit it; and that non-materializable portion of the Soul which abides permanently on the spiritual plane may fitly, perhaps, be spoken of as the Higher Self. This "Higher Self" is Atma, and of course it is "non-materializable," as Mr. Sinnett says. Even more, it can never be "objective" under any circumstances, even to the highest spiritual perception. For Atma or the "Higher Self" is really Brahma, the Absolute, and indistinguishable from it. In hours of Samadhi, the higher spiritual consciousness of the Initiate is entirely absorbed in the one essence, which is Atma, and therefore, being one with the whole, there can be nothing objective for it."

	"Speaking of Manas, the "causal body," we may call it-when connecting it with the Buddhic radiance-the "Higher Ego," never the "Higher Self." For even Buddhi, the "Spiritual Soul," is not the Self, but the vehicle only of Self."

	"Thus in this most excellent essay on the "Higher Self," this term is applied to the sixth principle or Buddhi; and has in consequence given rise to just such misunderstandings."

	"People with psychic faculties may indeed perceive this Higher Self through their finer senses from time to time."

	"The Higher Self is Atma, the inseparable ray of the Universal and One Self. It is the God above, more than within, us. Happy the man who succeeds in saturating his inner Ego with it! The Spiritual divine Ego is the Spiritual soul or Buddhi, in close union with Manas, the mind-principle, without which it is no Ego at all, but only the Atmic Vehicle. The Inner, or Higher "Ego" is Manas, the "Fifth" Principle, so-called, independently of Buddhi. The Mind-Principle is only the Spiritual Ego when merged into one with Buddhi-no materialist being supposed to have in him such an Ego, however great his intellectual capacities. It is the permanent Individuality or the "Reincarnating Ego." The Lower, or Personal "Ego" is the physical man in conjunction with his lower Self, i.e., animal instincts, passions, desires, etc. It is called the "false personality," and consists of the lower Manas combined with Kamarupa, and operating through the Physical body and its phantom or "double." The remaining principle Prana, or Life, is, strictly speaking, the radiating force or Energy of Atma-as the Universal Life and the One Self-Its lower or rather (in its effects) more physical, because manifesting, aspect. Prana or Life permeates the whole being of the objective Universe; and is called a principle only because it is an indispensable factor and the deus ex machina of the living man."

	"The theory we are considering (the interchange of ideas between the Higher Ego and the lower self) harmonizes very well with the treatment of this world in which we live as a phenomenal world of illusion, the spiritual plane of nature being on the other hand the noumenal world or plane of reality."

	"A God" is not the universal deity, but only a spark from the one ocean of Divine Fire. Our God within us, or "our Father in Secret" is what we call the Higher Self, Atma. Our incarnating Ego was a God in its origin, as were all the primeval emanations of the One Unknown Principle. But since its "fall into Matter," having to incarnate throughout the cycle, in succession, from first to last, it is no longer a free and happy god, but a poor pilgrim on his way to regain that which he has lost. I can answer you more fully by repeating what is said of the Inner Man.