NIRVANA
Nirvana
A Study in
Synthetic Consciousness
by
George Sidney Arundale
First published 1926
Dr Arundale
was International President of
the
Theosophical Society (Adyar) from 1933 to 1945
__________
CHAPTER I
The First Glimpse
Magnificent
The morning rose, in
memorable pomp,
Glorious as ere I had
beheld. In front
The sea lay laughing at
a distance; near
The solid mountains
shone, bright as the clouds,
Green-tinctured,
drenched in empyrean light;
And in the meadows and
the lower grounds
Was all the sweetness
of a common dawn, -
Dews, vapours, and the
melody of birds,
And labourers going
forth to till the fields.
Ah I need I say, dear
Friend, that to the brim
My heart was full; I
made no vows, but vows
Were then made for me;
bond unknown to me
Was given, that I
should be, else sinning greatly,
A dedicated Spirit. On
I walked,
In thankful
blessedness, which yet survives.
WORDSWORTH, (The
Prelude, Bk. IV)
MY first remembrance is of seeing the Master K.H. * (*Those who have undergone occult
training are aware how supremely magnificent as a Teacher is this Great Master.
He is, of course, a high Official in the world’s education department, and
apprentices from all departments have the honour to come under His inspiring
guidance. I myself have had this honour, and although I do not belong to the
education department, I still have the inestimable privilege of His gracious
guidance. It was a great joy to me to enter the new pathway under the
benevolent watchfulness of this gracious Friend, to Whom I owe so much; and it
was a great joy, too, to make the entry with the help of the Master’s
representative in the outer world, our wonderful elder brother Bishop
Leadbeater.
Only those who have had
C. W. L. as teacher can possibly know all that a teacher can really be. The
evil-minded and the ignorant traduce him, as it is their habit to traduce
others of his great line; but future generations shall rise up and call him
blessed, while today there are many who count it their greatest joy to stand by
his side as his persecutors yelp at his heels.) looking as I had never seen Him
before. Radiant He is always, supremely radiant, but now He was more than
radiant, and I cannot find a word down here to describe Him in the glory in
which I perceived Him with the first flash of Nirvanic consciousness. Majestic
and radiant are poor words - “blinding” perhaps expresses it better, for just
for a moment I was overwhelmed. I almost wanted to veil my face from sight of
Him, and yet I could not keep my eyes from Him, so unfathomably splendid did He
appear-only less glorious than the KING* (*The Supreme Ruler of this world, the
veritable KING, within Whose consciousness all things live and move and have
their being. Some there are in the world who have seen Him, but who can only
gaze upon Him as He veils His glory before their feeble eyes.
He is indeed the
Lightning, in the Light of which Nirvana is but shadow. And as the first
glimpse comes of Nirvana, there comes with it the memory of an audience of the
KING-the marvellous stillness, then the blinding Presence, and then the power
to see.) as I afterwards realised, though at the time no greater glory could I
conceive.
I summon up my courage.
I feel as if He were saying to me: “Welcome to a new kingdom which you must
learn to conquer.” In His power my consciousness unfolds, and I step as it were
across a threshold into Nirvana. Words and phrases, however beautiful, however
majestic, almost desecrate as they strive to describe conditions there. Even
the faint touch of first experience of this lofty level dwarfs into
insignificance all other experiences of all other planes, save only the entry
into the presence of the One Initiator.
I remember my first
glimpse of the Buddhic plane on the occasion of admission to the ranks of the
Great White Brotherhood. I recall to this day my marvelling at the vision of
the Master in His Buddhic vehicle; and well do I remember in the days that
followed, the wondrous sense of unity with all things, with the trees and
flowers, feeling with them all, growing with them and in them, suffering and
rejoicing in and with them. I remember, too, the casting off of the friend of
ages - the causal body, and I remember a vivid rending contrast between the
moment before and the moment after the glimpse into the new kingdom. I remember
how it was as if from out the sunshine I had suddenly entered a dark tunnel
with a seemingly unending vista of blackness stretching infinitely far into a
limitless beyond.
Was there light at the
end? I could see none. Must this blackness last for ever? Well, be it as it
may, I must enter this tunnel, for I can do no other, to quote the words of
Luther. Darkness enfolds me, blackness permeates me. Shall I never again know light?
Yet I look forward and press onward. And at last the tunnel ends, the blackness
vanishes, and I step into a light more glorious by far than the light I left. I
had to let go the light I knew in order that I might enter into a light more
real. It seems to be ever thus.
That which we are ready
to let go, to lose, we find unto life eternal. In the occultist there must be a
spirit of daring, of adventure, of eagerness to risk. He must be willing to let
the lesser go before he has grasped the greater. And in the interspace there is
a momentary loneliness which must be borne happily and joyfully, for it is in
loneliness that is born the power to strive, the strength to sustain and to
protect. Those who cannot endure loneliness are not yet ready to be moulded
into leaders of men.
But to-day the Master
seems to me as One Whom I have never known before, robed in the glories of a
Kingdom I am entering as a little child.
The new consciousness
enfolds me, and in a moment my world is full of new, strange, glorious values.
All is different, supremely different, though the same. A new Divinity is open
to my eyes, and unfolds to my gaze a new meaning, a new
purpose. It is the
Buddhic unity transcended, glorified - a more marvellous unity; in some
wonderful way it is merged in a state vaster and more tremendous.
There is something even
more true than the truth in the unity I have so far known, something more real.
It seems impossible, and yet it is so.What is the nature of that of which even
Buddhic glory is but a limitation? I must use words, and words seem a terrible
anti-climax. I can only say it is the Glory of a Light Transcendent, a world of
Light which is the image of God’s own Eternity.
Face to face do I seem
to be with an “unspotted mirror” of His Power and with an image of His
Goodness. And the mirror, the image, is an endless
It is another baptism,
another immersion into the Waters of the Real. At every stage of growth a
baptism, to be succeeded by a confirmation, to be followed some day by an
ordination, a consecration to, because an identification, whether complete or
not, with the Higher Self. Brotherhood in the outer world; unity in the Buddhic
world; light transcendent in Nirvana. And if on the threshold I am transported
by its glory, how shall it be when I begin to ascend to the summit? Description
falters even before this first lifting of the veil. Thought and feeling distort
and narrow infinitely. At best one can but suggest and hint. The rest is a
matter of individual incommunicable experience.
This Light Transcendent
is even nearer to the Real than the Buddhic Unity which hitherto had seemed the
most stupendous fact in all the world. Light the beginning; Light the path;
Light the future. God said: “Let there be Light,” and there was and is Light
indescribable. Beautiful as is the light in the world, it is but the faint and
feeble image of the Light Triumphant - the adjective somehow seems appropriate
- of these regions of the Real.It is the Sun-Light of the Sun ere it descends
into the forms in which we know it. It is Light purified of form. It is Light
which is the Life of form. It is an ever-present “intimation of immortality,” a
Future within the Now, and thus Eternal. It is an I do not say “the” -
apotheosis and essence of the light we know.
All the glory of the
most wonderful dawn (and one feels nothing can be more wonderful than a perfect
Eastern dawn), is brought to glorious fruition and splendid perfection in that
eternal noon-day which is Nirvana. The glory of the Buddhic plane is but the
dawning of a Nirvanic Day.
Yet, as I write these
words, I remember knowing, as I stood awe-struck upon the threshold of Nirvana,
that beyond even that, to me, supreme unfoldment lay unfathomable, immeasurable
splendours, to which Nirvana itself - the noon-day of the Buddhic dawning - is
but as a dawn, a promise, a shadow. I could sense this.
I had to sense it to
preserve my balance. I must hold fast to proportion even in these stupendous
regions. That Unity could be transcended I knew, for was not the Light-Glory
before my eyes? But there is more even than Light-Glory. Some day in the
far-off future I shall know a Glory that is even more than the
Glory of Light.
I call this Light of
Nirvana the noon-day of the Buddhic dawn. But it is only noon-day because for
the time being it represents the utmost capacity of my consciousness. Same
years ago the Light of Buddhi was the
I look back upon
glorious dawns, and upon glorious noondays. I see before me other noon-days
before which this Nirvanic noon-day itself must pale into a dawn. Is there no
limit to growth? None that I can perceive. And if I talk of dawns and
noon-days, are there also evenings, even-tides, glorious evenings, evenings no
less wonderful than the dawns, with light as beautiful as the light of dawn, as
the light of noon-time? I think there are.
There are no nights,
perhaps; at least no blackness. But there comes from time to time a stillness,
a hush, which is the Silence of a consummation.[There comes the hush, the
silence, the stillness, just before a birth into a new region of Light, just
before a new dawn. It is not that the noon-day light has lessened, but that a
light more glorious still is beginning to shed its refulgence upon a lesser
light, so that it is as if a noon-time had turned to evening by reason of
contrast with the greater glory to be. And in that evening, in that hush which
is the shadow of a greater glory, the neophyte gathers up reverently the powers
he has gained, to use them in the conquest of the new kingdom of Light about to
appear above the horizon.
God is Light, Light is
God. Man is Light. All is Light. A new meaning to the ancient Egyptian
exhortations: “Look for the Light!” “Follow the Light!” Perceive and learn to
be at one with the Light of God in all things. I look upon the world. I see the
world in terms of Light. God-Light in manifestation in man-light, in
rock-light, in tree-light, in creature-light. All is light - a blinding glory
at the centre, translated into colour-light, into sound-light, into form-light,
into substance-light as it descends into ever-increasing manifestation. At the
circumference light as we know it in the manifested universe, light [expressed
in innumerable ways. At the centre that glory which is beyond all form, all
colour, all substance. Yet the circumference is but the centre externalised, so
there is the blinding glory everywhere - the God-Light - the blazing seed of
futurity in each individual thing in every kingdom.* (*Compare, in this
connexion, that very interesting book “Colour-Music: The Art of Light,” by A.
B. Klein. (Crosby Lockwood & Son,
In each
May I quote here a
beautiful passage from Ruskin’s The Ethics of the Dust in which he describes
the glorious pathway of evolution in the mineral kingdom, the Light in prison
becoming the Light free, thence to enter into higher tabernacles to tread
pathways no less glorious and virtually identical in process?
A pure or holy state of
anything is that in which all its parts are helpful or consistent. The highest
and first law of the universe, and the other name of life, is, therefore,
‘help’. The other name of death is ‘separation’. Government and co-operation
are in all things, and eternally, the laws of life. Anarchy and competition,
eternally, and in all things, the laws of death.
Perhaps the best,
though the most familiar, example we could take of the nature and power of
consistence, will be that of the possible changes in the dust we tread on.
Exclusive of animal
decay, we can hardly arrive at a more absolute type of impurity, than the mud
or slime of a damp over-trodden path, in the outskirts of a manufacturing town.
I do not say mud of the road, because that is mixed with animal refuse; but
take merely an ounce or two of the blackest slime of a beaten footpath, on a
rainy day, near a manufacturing town. That slime we shall find in most cases
composed of clay (or brickdust, which is burnt clay) mixed with soot, a little
sand, and water. All these elements are at helpless war with each other, and
destroy reciprocally each other’s nature and power: competing and fighting for
place at every tread of your foot; sand squeezing out clay, and clay squeezing
out water, and soot meddling everywhere, and defiling the whole. Let us suppose
that this ounce of mud is left in perfect rest, and that its elements gather
together, like to like, so that their atoms may get into the closest relations
possible.
Let the clay begin.
Ridding itself of all foreign substance,
it gradually becomes a white earth,
already very beautiful, and fit, with help of congealing fire, to be made into
finest porcelain, and painted on, and be kept in kings’ palaces. But such
artificial consistence is not its best. Leave it still quiet, to follow its own
instinct of unity, and it becomes, not only white, but clear; not only clear,
but hard; not only clear and hard, but so set that it can deal with light in a
wonderful way, and gather out of it the loveliest blue rays only, refusing the
rest. We call it then a sapphire.
Such being the
consummation of the clay, we give similar permission of quiet to the sand.
It also becomes, first a white earth;
then proceeds to grow clear and hard, and at last arranges itself in
mysterious, infinitely fine parallel lines, which have the power of reflecting,
not merely the blue rays, but the blue, green, purple, and red rays, in the
greatest beauty in which they can be seen through any hard material whatsoever.
We call it then an opal.
In next order the soot
sets to work. It cannot make itself white at first; but, instead of being discouraged,
tries harder and harder; and comes out clear at last; and the hardest thing in
the world: and for the blackness that it had, obtains in exchange the power of
reflecting all the rays of the sun at once, in the vividest blaze that any
solid thing can shoot. We call it then a diamond.
Last of all, the water
purifies or unites itself; contented enough if it only reach the form of a
dewdrop: but, if we insist on its proceeding to a more perfect consistence, it
crystallises into the shape of a star. And, for the ounce of slime which we had
by political economy of competition, we have, by political economy of
co-operation, a sapphire, an opal, and a diamond, set in the midst of a star of snow.
… I have asked you to
hear that, children, because, from all that we have seen in the work and play
of these past days, I would have you gain at least one grave and enduring
thought. The seeming trouble - the unquestionable degradation - of the elements
of the physical earth, must passively wait the appointed time of their repose,
or their restoration. It can only be brought about for them by the agency of
external law. But if, indeed, there be a nobler life in us than in these
strangely moving atoms; - if, indeed there is an eternal difference between the
fire which inhabits them, and that which animates us - it must be shown, by
each of us in his appointed place, not merely in the patience, but in the
activity of our hope; not merely by our desire, but our labour, for the time
when the Dust of the generations of men shall be confirmed for foundations of
the gates of the city of God.
The human clay, now
trampled and despised, will not be - cannot be - knit into strength and light
by accidents or ordinances of unassisted fate. By human cruelty and iniquity it
has been afflicted; - by human mercy and justice it must be raised and, in all
fear or questioning of what is or is not, the real message of creation, or of
revelation, you may assuredly find perfect peace, if you are resolved to do
that which your Lord has plainly required - and content that He should indeed
require no more of you - than to do Justice, to love Mercy, and to walk humbly
with Him.
In every kingdom it is
the same. The free time after time realizing its imprisonment because it has
conquered its kingdom, and bursting its bonds afresh that a still mightier and
more splendid freedom may be achieved. The flower of every kingdom an unfolded
colour-glory, sound-glory, substance-glory, form-glory, passing thence to win a
nobler freedom. Of course, the word “imprisonment” is hardly accurate, for
there is probably little, if any, sense of imprisonment until the prison-doors
are about to be opened that the soul may enter into a bondage less restricted.
Fortunately for us, we generally see our prisons only as we leave them. Until
then a prison is an opportunity. Let us beware of so missing our opportunities
that bondage takes their place, and a veritable prison-house closes in upon us.
Another image in my
consciousness is of a Light-nucleus, imprisoned lightning, charged with the
spirit of Divinity, as a Sun below the horizon of the world, or of a
From out the dawn in
its tenderness comes the dawn in its iridescent vigour - a wonderful aurora of
colour - a veritable spectrum of Light. And then all colours bend before their
Lord and Master, merging themselves in Him. The Sun has risen and passes
onwards to the glory of a perfect day. The perfect Dawn is the Light which is
Buddhi, but Nirvana is the Light which is the Day; not yet the Eternal
Noontide, but a partial consummation of the dawn.
Thus my image in terms
of Colour-Light. But it comes to me in terms of Sound-Light. First, the soft
note expressing the Divine essence, the key-note or basic tone of the
individuality whatever it may be-the note which gives the individuality. Then the
mystic chord, swelling as it were out of the single sound, the nature chord of
the, individuality. And so on into an equally
veritable spectrum of
sound, an aurora of music, a great and majestic symphony declaring in terms of
music the new goal to be achieved. A hush of soundless silence in which the
glorious music of an achievement is marvellously merged, so that the very
silence has become more vibrant, the Voice of the
Silence
has gained articulateness. In the hush, sound stirs once more to greater ends,
and as time passes unfolds from archetypal note to mystic chord, from mystic
chord to magic symphony, and then again
that silence in which the symphony is blended, which it has enriched. Can you
not hear your own growth in terms of colour, in terms of music? Can you not
hear the faint beginnings, can you not pre-sense the mighty ends? I have heard
the beginnings of Nirvana in terms of sound, in terms of colour; and I seem to
hear as if far away in deep distance the symphony of the achievement of
Nirvana, as I can dimly perceive the apotheosis of that Light which even at the
outset is so hopelessly indescribable. Is there not a note which sounds the
beginning of the Birth into the Mysteries of the Real? Is there not a symphony
which marks its fruition, a symphony gathered up into a silence and issuing
forth therefrom as the note of a new endeavour, the note of the Baptism?
Is there not the note and symphony of the
Transfiguration, the note and symphony of a Crucifixion-Resurrection, of an
Ascension, and of consecrations yet beyond? And so with Light. Lose yourselves,
my readers, now and then at least in these reachings into the Real, bathe
yourselves in these true imaginings. So do you gain a glimpse and an
understanding of the Eternal, and of the inevitable, glory beyond those
contrasts which seem in time so dark and dreary but which thus serve to teach
us of the sunshine everlasting.
Out of sleep and dream
I am awake, though to regions beyond I may still be dreaming. But the dream is
true, for it is the vision of the final conquest of the kingdom of man and the
standing upon the threshold of the kingdoms of the superman. Let me try to put
my vision otherwise. I look upon the world, and I see our Lord the Sun
expressed in myriad suns. Each monad I perceive to be a Sun in miniature.
The Sun Divine throws
off spark-suns charged with all His attributes. The process of evolution
begins, and these sparks burst into colour, or rather gradually unfold in terms
of colour; rainbows with sun-hearts, or nuclei or centres. God’s Light thus
imprisoned in form begins its long pathway of transcending form, thus acquiring
self-consciousness. Every atom of light is an atom of unconscious Divinity,
slowly but surely fulfilling the will of the Sun that it shall become unfolded
into self-conscious Divinity. Every atom is a Sun unconscious, and shall become
a Sun self-conscious. And the Sun-Light, which is the Light that is free,
shines upon the Sun-Light, which is the Light imprisoned; Light the wanderer in
the darkness, until the Light within and the Light without blend into a perfect
whole, earth-light kissing Heaven-Light and becoming Sun-Light.
Bathed in the
Lightning-standing-still which is Nirvana, I perceive the imprisoned lightnings
in all things. I perceive the Light which is dull-the savage; the Light which
is bright - the man evolved; the Light which is glory - the Superman, the
Master. I see colour everywhere in process of transmutation, of glorification,
of transcendence. There is no blackness anywhere in the sense of a negation of
Light. God said: “Let there be Light.” And there was and is light everywhere.
“His Light shineth even in our darkness.”
And as before I might
express my vision in terms of sound, of music, in terms of gloriously growing
forms. For, as time passes, I begin to perceive that while my first impression
found instant expression in the word “Light,” and specially in the phrase
“Lightning-standing-still,” I now know that this Light conception is but a
quality of Nirvana, an aspect, a facet of the diamond sphere. In truth, Nirvana
is an essence of things and a flower of things. It is an Alpha and an Omega. I
am gradually, though only very, very slowly, beginning to look for Nirvana in
all things. I cannot say that I have found Nirvana in all things, but I think I
have reached the point of at least knowing that Nirvana is there. I know,
though I do not yet perceive. I may, perhaps, best describe to you this
knowledge in terms of Light, or it may be in terms of Sound, or in terms of
Form.
But Nirvana is beyond
all these. Nirvana is a Mode of Being, a Mode that transcends Light and Sound
and Form, though shadowed at least in all that we can know down here of the
most glorious Light, Sound and Form. Have you tried to transcend the farthest
limits of your consciousness? Have you ever striven to rise, first measurably
and then almost immeasurably, above and beyond yourself? Have you ever tried to
know your bondage and then to burst the bonds? Have you ever recognized your
limitations, your many weaknesses, and have you then ever known yourself as
having triumphed over them, so that you have become unrecognizable to yourself
as well as to others? Thus do you reach after Nirvana, however long may be the
road on which you have to travel. Light - yes; Sound - yes; even Form from out
the Formless - yes. But Nirvana is a mighty Spiritual Essence of all these
things, and you approach it by learning to transcend yourself, to be an
alchemist transmuting marvellously the lower into the higher. Awake! Arise!
Know that Nirvana is your very being, and therefore realise yourself.
Everywhere in God’s
workshop of the world, Master-Painters, Master-Singers, Master-Sculptors,
Master-Builders at work. Sun-Light the common material. Sun-Light fashioned
into forms - colour-forms, sound-forms, forms of every kind; but all Sun-Light.
And we are apprentices to these Masters of Crafts, and fashion after them in
our childish ways. Yet we, too, are some day to become Master-Craftsmen,
Masters of the Light in the future as we are children of the Light to-day. From
darkness our Masters of the Light lead us to the Light, from the darkness and
colour-divisions of unconscious divinity into the pure white radiance of Divine
Self-Consciousness. But as I hold Nirvanic consciousness in the valleys of my
being, as I remember the summits while living on the plains, I can for the time
being transcend time.
There is, as long as
the Nirvanic consciousness holds, no becoming, no dawning, no colour-only a
perfect Radiance, beginningless and endless. It is thus that Nirvana is Bliss,
and I know now why some Great Ones enfold Themselves in it to the end of the
Age.
It is a supreme
consummation, and opens out a Pathway of stupendous glory.I realise, too, that
here is no selfishness, there could be none, of course, in entering Nirvana and
exploring it to the end, if end there be. To abide in Nirvana, not to go forth
therefrom, is a form of service to the world, for to enter Nirvana is to make a
channel between the world and Nirvana so that the world is one step nearer to
the Nirvanic dawn, and in some indescribable way the world is drawn into
Nirvana, or should I rather say becomes more “Nirvanic,” because a Son of the
world abides therein.
I look upon races, upon
nations, upon peoples, upon faiths, upon communities - as colours in the
universal spectrum, and yet each a spectrum in itself. I must study these
colours, that I may the more purposefully serve. I see
I know the power of
Light, and therefore the power of colour. The Nirvanic Light is power, not cold
power, but blazing power, at least as I sensed it. And even the word “power” is
a limitation, for I know now in a measure that I can begin to understand the
meaning of the three great attributes of God-Light - Omniscience, Omnipotence,
Omnipresence. I see each colour emerging from its archetype, descending into
darkness, ascending into Light. At first faint, dim, crude, changing from shade
to shade. The swinging of the pendulum of growth between the colours of
darkness and the colours of Light. Gradually, slowly, the fiercer hues of the
colours of discord and of hatred mellow into the splendid shades of Love.
I know the Universes to
be colour-schemes. One universe a rose scheme, another a yellow scheme, a third
a blue scheme, and so on. What is our colour-scheme? Rose? Perhaps, and yet its
heart is the blinding, glorious Light containing within itself all light-rates
within the mighty octave of its Being.
And now, in the light
of further experience, I can begin to interpret races, peoples, nations,
faiths, communities, in terms other than of Light, of colour. I hear them all
building their respective symphonies, resolving - slowly I am afraid - their
inevitable discords into equally inevitable harmonies. And these various
music-strivings go to the building of the great world Symphony, the basic note
and chord of which is present in variations in every subdivision of the world
whether large or small. I have written of our Universe as possibly a Rose
Universe. Is our earth a yellow sub-division of the general rose scheme? What
is the Note of our Universe, and what is the earth’s variant thereof? This is a
most fascinating theme for study, but as I am at present only in the region of
speculation, guessing, imagining, it seems hardly profitable to pursue the
investigation further.
The point is that entry
into Nirvana is an approach to the basic things of Being, those things which
are omnipresent and, from one point of view, changeless. Nirvana is
omnipresent. Nirvana is present in colour, in sound, in form, in substance.
Nirvana is the essence of them all; or should I not rather say a form of the
essence of them all, a fundamental mode of the root of their being?
I am living in a
Light-Eternity. I descend into a Colour-Time. Time is the breaking up of
Light-Eternal into colour; and there is the Light of the past, the Light of the
present, the Light of the future. Yet all within an Eternal Now.
The world seems new
with a new sacredness. The Power of the Light is in all things. Through our
very physical senses we touch the Light which is Divinity. It lies about us,
and in us. As we have variations round a music-note or music-theme or motif, so
is the world an almost infinite number of variations upon the theme of the
Universal Light. It is a Symphony of Light. It is also a Symphony of Sound, and
no less a Symphony of Silence. It is a Symphony of Colour and of Form. And
there are those who, hearing the Archetypal Symphony, seek to mellow the harsh
notes and cruder colours and forms of ignorance so that the world orchestra,
composed of all manifested life as the musicians, may, under the baton, the
mighty Rod of Power of the world’s Supreme Conductor, make a music glorious -
the archetype one with the actual.
The process of
evolution is a process of the individualization of Light on the way to
re-universalization on the plane of self-consciousness. Music is Light. Fire is
Light. The Arts and the Sciences are Light in evolution growing under the laws
of Light. The Scriptures tell us of the Light. There is a great Gospel
of the Light, whence
comes every faith, and to proclaim which comes every Saviour. Light is right;
darkness is wrong. We grow towards the Light as do the trees and flowers.
I see our Lord the Sun
in each of us. Is the heart the sun of our body-world? Does the blood reflect
His rays? Are not all things Light-terms, Light-formulae?
What is Nirvana? The
Light Divine. I am touching, perhaps only for a moment, its lowest reaches, its
densest layers. All I have written is but of the Light Divine in its lowest
Nirvanic aspect. I cannot conceive down here even this Glory, but it leaves in
me as I return to earth a new perception of Reality. I have taken a step nearer
to the Real. There is a greater comradeship in the world than I had thought - a
deeper identity, a more glorious origin, a more glorious way, and a more
glorious goal. Round me everywhere and at all times are God's Sunshine
Messengers. Every colour speaks His Word and His Voice. Every form breathes His
purpose. I, dust in the Sunshine, yet am part of it, and looking upward to the
Sun I see the sign of my own Divinity, and the embodied promise of my ultimate
achievement. As is our Lord the Sun so shall we all be, for He has willed it
so.
Light is language,
thought, vesture and vehicle. A flash of light conveys for us down here a whole
philosophy. The whole of this pitifully feeble amount of Nirvanic experience
was doubtless within a single flash of Nirvanic Light penetrating my being, or
rather perhaps stirring at last from age-long dormancy within me.
Light is the Will of
the Sun, the Wisdom of the Sun, the Love of the Sun. It is written in books
that Nirvana is bliss. Even from that outermost region, at the frontiers, I
know Nirvana to be infinitely more. Just one glimpse and all things seem to be
made new, within me and without me. I remain, yet am wholly changed, and
everything round me seems to be undergoing a process of revaluation.
Even now, everything
means far more than before. Every object, in every kingdom, seems in one way
far more a shadow of Reality than a reality, for I perceive how feeble and
inadequate must be all reflections of the Light. I did not know before that
they were so feeble. And yet, equally true is it that every object is far more
real, far less of a shadow of Reality, than I had thought. I see the prison-opportunity
of form, and I perceive the shadows. I see the unfolding splendour of the
Light-Eternal, and I perceive the Real. All other worlds are shadow-worlds
compared with this Nirvanic world. And yet they are more real worlds because of
this Nirvanic world, for I now perceive the seal of God’s purpose set upon all
things, and I must reverence all things in far deeper measure than before.
Philosophers talk of
pure Being. I seem to be able to sense what pure Being must be, not because I
have contacted it, but because I have contacted that which is less short of
pure Being than all other consciousness-states I have so far experienced. At
present, speaking as a child in this new kingdom, Nirvana to me is pure Life,
Life which is Light. Not that colour has faded into this Light.
Colour remains, but the
spectrum of Nirvana is a glorification indescribable of the colour-spectra of
the planes below. It is more Light than colour. Indeed, only as I grow a little
accustomed to the Light, and my sensitiveness increases,
beginning to adapt
itself to its new environment, do I begin to perceive that within Nirvanic
Light are marvellous manifestations of colour apotheoses, of colour
relationships, schemes and interactions. For the moment, the sense of
evolution is lost in
the blinding glory of the Light. As I become more at home in a Home one never
thinks to own until one enters at its doors, I shall realize, as I do not yet
realize, that the eternal truth remains true, and becomes more true; that to
enter the Sun-Light, which is another way of saying to love God, there is only
one road - the service of that Light which lighteth
every man.
Thus, with a new power
which I shall learn to use, do I seem to enter upon a deeper service. We are
children of the Sun, sparks of this glorious Sun-Light. I look up into the sky
and I see my King. Sun-worshippers worship more truly, perhaps, than they know.
I, infinitesimal, ignorant and feeble, yes, even I, am a servant of the Sun. As
He shines upon the whole universe, so must I shine upon my world. I must be
sunshine, even as He is sunshine. It is sometimes said that we cannot see God.
I think I can see Him in part, and know something of His sublimity, as I look
upon the Sun. Even with my physical eyes, I know something of His glory, and
the whole world around me is His glory in manifestation. But looking upon Him
from the Nirvanic world, I know far, far more. Another veil is lifted, and a
fuller Glory shines upon me.
No words can express my
new sense of Him. It is, and must be, a mystery beyond words, beyond feeling,
beyond even thought. Indeed, I must not even make the attempt; it is little
short of blasphemy. But in the First Epistle General of
This then is the
message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is Light,
and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him,
and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth. But if we walk in the
light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.
And again in the second
chapter of the same Epistle, beginning at the ninth verse:He that saith he is
in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. He that
loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of
stumbling in him.
A simple message, but
profoundly true. “In Him is no darkness at all, neither shadow of turning.”
Upon us all shines His Light perpetual. May we ever dwell in the Light through
the service of our brethren.
__________
THEOSOPHY
NIRVANA
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