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Instruction no. II - b

Hierarchies

Enough has been said to shay that while for the orientalista and profane masses the sentence, Om Mani Padme Hum, means simply “O, the Jewel in the Lotus,” esoterically it signifies “O my God within me.” Yes; there is a God in each human being, for man was and will re-become God. The sentenct points to the indissoluble union between Man and the Universe. For the Lotus is the universal symbol of Kosmos as the absolute totality, and the Jewel is Spiritual Man or God.

In the preceding Instruction, the correspondences between Colors, Sounds, and “Principles” were given; and those who have read the second volume of the Sec. Doc. will remember that these seven principles are derived from the seven Great Hierarchies of Angels or Dhyan Chohans, which are, in their turn, associated with Colors and Sounds, and form collectively the Manifested Logos. In the Eternal Music of the Spheres we find the perfect scale corresponding to the colors, and in the numbers, determined by the vibrations of color and sound “which underlies every form and guides every sound”, we find the summing up of the manifested universe.

We may illustrate these correspondences by showing the relation of color and sound to the geometrical figures which, as explained in the Sec. Doc. (Vol. I, p. 4 et seq., new Edit. pp. 39, 624), expresses the progressive stages in the manifestation of Kosmos. But the student will be liable to confusion if, in studying the Diagrams, he does not remember two things:

•  That, our plane being a plane of reflection, and therefore illusionary, the various notations are reversed and must be counted from below upwards. The musical scale begins from below upwards, commencing from the deep Do and ending with the far more acute Si.

•  That Kama Rupa (corresponding to Do in the musical scale) containing as it does all potentialities of matter, is necessarily the starting point on our plane.

Further, it commences the notation on every plane, as corresponding to the “matter” of that plane. Again, the student must also remember that these notes have to be arranged in a circle, thus shading how Fa is the middle note of Nature. In short, musical notes, or Sounds, Colors, and Numbers proceed from one to seven, and not from seven to one, as erroneously shown in the spectrum of the prismatic colors, in which red is counted first; a fact which necessitated my putting the principles and the days of the week at random in Diagram II. The musical scale and colors, according to the scale of vibrations, proceed from the world of gross matter to that of Spirit thus:

Here, again, the student is asked to dismiss from his mind any correspondence between “principles and numbers”, for reasons already given. The Esoteric enumeration cannot be made to correspond with the convential exoteric. The one is the Reality, the other classified according to elusive appearances. The human principles, as given in Esoteric Buddhism, were tabulated for beginners, so as not to confuse their minds. It was half a blind. The point in the circle is the unmanifested Logos, corresponding to Absolute Life and Absolute Sound. The first geometrical figure after the circle or the Spheroid is the Triangle. It corresponds to Motion, Color and Sound. Thus the Point in the Triangle represents the Second Logos, “Father-Mother” or the White Ray which is no color, since it contains potentially all colors. It is shown radiating from the Unmanifested Logos, or the Unspoken Word-Around the First Triangle is formed on the plane of primordial Substance in this order (re-versed as to our plane). •  The Astral Double of Nature, or the Paradigm of all forms. •  Divine Ideation or Universal Mind. •  The synthesis of Occult Nature, the Egg of Brahma, containing all and radiating all. •  Animal and vegetable intelligence and instinct. •  The aggregate of Dhyan Chohanic Intelligence, Fohat. •  Life Principle in Nature. •  The Life Procreating Principle in Nature.

That which on the Spiritual plane corresponds to sexual. affinity on the lower. Mirrored on the plane of gross Nature, the World of Reality is reversed, and becomes on Earth and our plane:

The above is on the manifested plane; after which we get the seven and the manifested prism, or the Man on Earth. With the Latter, the Black Magician alone is concerned.

In Kosmos, the gradations and correlations of Colors and Sounds, and therefore of numbers, are infinite. This is suspected even in Physics for it is ascertained that there exist slower vibrations than those of the Red, the slowest perceptible to us, and far more rapid vibrations than those of the Violet, the most rapid that our senses can perceive. But on earth n Our physical world, the range of perceptible vibrations is limited. Our physical senses cannot take cognizance of vibrations above and below the septenary and limited gradations of the prismatic colors, for such vibrations are incapable of causing in us the sensation of color or sound.

It will always be the graduated septenary and no more, unless we learn to paralyze our Quarternary and discern both the superior and inferior vibrations with our Spiritual Senses seated in-the upper Triangle. Now, on this plane of illusion, there are three fundamental colors, as demonstrated by physical science, Red, Blue, and Yellow (or rather Orange-Yellow). Expressed in terms of the human principles they are: -

•  Kama-Rupa, the seat of the animal sensations, welded to, and serving as a vehicle for the animal soul or lower manas (Red and Green, as said, being inter-changeable);

•  Auric Envelope, or the Essence of man; and

•  Prana, or Life Principle.

But if from the realm of illusion or the living man as he is on Earth, subject to his sensuous perceptions only, we pass to that of semi-illusion, and observe the natural colors themselves, or those of the principles, that is, if we try to find out which of those that in the perfect man absorb all others, we shall find that the colors correspond and become complementary in the following way:

VIOLET

Hence the full septenary man, symbolically as to the geometrical figures, and in reality as to the various colors of his principles, present some such appearance as Plate II (p. 38-a).

A faint violet mist-like form represents the Astral Man within an oviform bluish circle, over which radiates in ceaseless vibrations the prismatic colors. That color is predominant, of which the corresponding principle is the most active generally, or at the particular moment when the clairvoyant perceives it. Such man appears during his waking state; and. it is by the predominance of this or that color, and by the intensity of its vibrations, that a clairvoyant, if he is acquainted with, correspondences, can judge of the inner state or character of a person; for the latter is an open book to every practical Occultist.

In the trance state the Aura changes entirely, the seven prismatic colors being no longer discernible. In sleep also they are not all “at home.” For those which belong to the Spiritual Elements in the man, viz: Yellow, Buddhi; Indigo, Higher Manas; and the Blue of the Auric Envelope will be either hardly discernible, or altogether missing. The Spiritual Man is free during sleep, and though his physical merrory.may not become aware of it, lives, robed in his highest essence, in realms on other planes, in realms which are the land of reality, called dreams on our planes of illusion.

A good clairvoyant, moreover, if he had an opportunity of seeing a Yogi in the trance state and a mesmerized subject, side by side, would learn an important lesson in Occultism. He would learn to know the difference between self-induced trance and an hypnotic state resulting from extraneous influences. In the Yogi, the “principles” of the lower Quaternary disappear entirely. Neither Red, Green, Red-violet, nor the Auric Blue of the Body are to be seen; nothing but hardly perceptible vibrations of the golden-hued Prana principle and a violet flame streaked with gold rushing upward from the head, in the region where violet, flare Third Eye rests, and culminating in a point.

If the student remembers that the true violet, or the extreme end of the spectrum, is no compound color of Red and, Blue, but a homogenous color with vibrations seven times more rapid than those of the extreme Red (note Diagram below) and that of the golden hue is the essence of the three yellow hues from Orange-Red to Yellow-Orange and Yellow, he will understand the reason why he lives in his own Auric Body, now become the vehicle of Buddhi-Manas.

Plate II

On the other hand, in a subject in an artificially produced hypnotic or mesmeric trance, an effect of unconscious, when not conscious Black Magic, unless produced by a high Adept, the whole set of the principles will be present, with the higher manas paralyzed, Buddhi severed from it through that paralysis, and the Red-Violet Astral Body entirely subjected to the lower manas and kama rupa (the Green and Red animal monsters in us).

One who comprehends well the above explanations will readily see how impossible it is for every student, whether he is striving for practical Occult powers or only for the purely psychic and spiritual gifts of clairvoyance and meta-physical knowledge, to master thoroughly the right correspondences between the human or nature principles and those of Kosmos.

It is ignorance which leads materialistic science to deny the inner man and his Divine Powers; knowledge and personal experience that allow the Occultist to affirm that such powers are as natural to a man as swimming to fishes.

It is like a Laplander, in all sincerity, denying the possibility of the catgut, strung loosely on the sounding board of a violin, producing comprehensive sounds, or melody. Our principles are the Seven-stringed lyre of Apollo, truly. In this our age, when oblivion has surrounded ancient knowledge, man's faculties are no better than the loose strings of the violin of the Laplander. But the Occultists who know how to tighten them and tune his violin in harmony with the vibrations of color and sound, will extract Divine harmony from them. The combination of these powers and the attuning of the Microcosm and the Macrocosm will give the geometrical equivalent of the invocation “Om Mani Padme Hum”. This is why the previous knowledge of music and geometry was obligatory in the school of Pythagoras.

The roots of Color and Sound

Plate III

Further, each of the Primordial Seven, the first Seven Rays forming the Manifested Logos, is again seven-fold. Thus, as the seven colors of the solar spectrum correspond to the seven rays, or Hierarchies, so each of these latter has again its seven divisions corresponding to the same series of colors. But in this case, one color, viz: that which characterizes the particular. Hierarchy as a whole, is predominant and more intense than the others.

These Hierarchies can only be symbolized as concentric circles of prismatic colors; each Hierarchy being represented by a series of seven concentric circles, each circle representing one of the prismatic colors in their natural order. But in each of these “Wheels” one circle will be brighter and more vivid than the rest and the wheel will have a surrounding Aura (a fringe as the physicists call it) of that color. This color will be the characteristic color of that Hierarchy as a whole. Each of these Hierarchies furnishes the essence (soul) and is the “Builder” of one of the seven kingdoms of Nature, which are the three elemental kingdoms, the mineral, the vegetable, the animal, and the kingdom of Spiritual Man. (See Five Years of Theosophy, pp. 273-278).

Moreover, each Hierarchy furnishes the Aura of one of the Seven principles in man with its specific color. Further, as each of these Hierarchies is the Ruler of one of the Sacred Planets, it will be easily understood how Astrology came into existence, and that real Astrology has a strictly scientific basis.

Plate III demonstrates the fact by showing the symbol adopted in the Eastern Schools to represent the Seven Hierarchies of Creative Powers; call them Angels if you will, or Planetary Spirits, or again the Seven Rulers of the Seven Sacred Planets of our system, as in our present case. At all events the concentric circles stand as symbols for Ezekiel's Wheels with some Western Occultists and Kabalists, and for the “Builders” or Prajanati with us.

Plate III

The student should carefully examine the adjoining Diagram. Thus the Linga Sarira is derived from the violet sub-ray of the Violet Hierarchy; the Higher Manes is similarly derived from the Indigo sub-ray of the Indigo Hierarchy, and so on.

Every man being born under a certain planet, there will always be a predominance of that planet's color in him, because that “principle” will rule in him which has its origin in the Hierarchy in question. There will also be a certain amount of the color derived from the other planets present in his Aura, but that of the ruling planet will be strongest. Now a person in whom, say, the Mercury principle is predominant, will, by acting upon the Mercury principle in another person born under a different planet be able to get him entirely under his control. For the stronger Mercury principle in him will overpower the weaker Mercurial element in the other. But he will have little power over persons born under the same planet as himself. This is the key to the Occult Science of Magnetism and Hypnotism.

The student will understand that the Orders and Hierarchies are here named after the corresponding colors, so as to avoid using numerals, which would be confusing in connection with the human principles, as the latter have no proper numbers of their own. The real Occult names of these Hierarchies cannot now be given. The student must, however, remember that the colors which we see with our physical eyes are not the true colors of Occult Nature, but are merely the effects produced on the mechanism of our physical organs by certain rates of vibration.

For instance, Clark Maxwell has demonstrated that the retinal effects of any color may be imitated by combining properly three other colors. It follows, therefore, that our retina has only three color sensations and we therefore do not perceive the seven colors that really exist, but only their “limitations” so to speak, in our physical organism.

Diagram III

Thus, for instance, the Orange and Red of the first “Triangle” is not a combination of Orange and Red, but the “Spiritual” Red, if the term may be allowed, while the Red (blood-red) of the spectrum is the color of Kama, animal desire, and is inseparable from the material plane.

These words show the belief of the Ancients that all manifestation proceeds from one and the same source, all emanating from the one identical principle which can never be completely developed except in and through the collective and entire aggregate of its emanations.

The Pleroma of Valentinus is absolutely the Space of the Occult Philosophy; for Pleroma means “Fullness,” the superior regions. It is the sum total of all the Divine manifestations and emanations expressing the plenum or totality of the rays proceeding from the ONE, differentiating on all the planes, and transforming themselves into Divine Powers called Angels and Planetary Spirits in the Philosophy of every nation.

The Gnostic Aeons and Powers of the Pleroma are made to speak as the Devas and Addhus of the Puranas. The Epinoia, the first female manifestation of God, the `Principles” of Simon Magnus and Saturninus, holds the same language as the Logos of Basilides and each of these is traced to the purely esoteric Alethia, the TRUTH of the mysteries.

All of them, we are taught, repeat, at different times and in different languages the magnificent hymn of the Egyptian papyrus, thousands of years old: - “The Gods adore Thee, O the One Dark Truth”; and addressing Ra, they add: “The Gods bow before Thy Majesty, by exalting the Souls of that which produces them - and say to Thee, Peace to All emanations from the Unconscious Father of the Gods. Thou Producer of Beings, we adore the Souls which emanate from Thee. Thou begettest us, O Thou Unknown, and we greet Thee in worshipping each God-Soul which descendeth from Thee and live in us.” (Hymn to Amon-Ra). This is the source of the assertion “Know ye not that ye are Gods and the Temple of God.” This is shown in the “Roots of Ritualism in Church and Masonry”, in Lucifer, Mar. 1889. Truly then, as said seventeen centuries ago, “Man cannot possess truth (selethia) except he participates in the Gnosis. So we may say now: no man can know the Truth unless he studies the Secrets of the Pieroma of Occultism; and these secrets, are all in the Theogony of the ancient Wisdom-Religion, which is the Aletheia of Occult Science.

End of Instructions II - b

H. P. B.