To the Self by the Self

To the Self by the Self

Let us look at this a little more closely, with its appropriate

methods. The path on which the faculty of Buddhi is used

predominantly is, as just said, the path of the metaphysician. It

is the path of the philosopher. He turns inwards, ever seeking to

find the Self by diving into the recesses of his own nature.

Knowing that the Self is within him, he tries to strip away

vesture after vesture, envelope after envelope, and by a process

of rejecting them he reaches the glory of the unveiled Self. To

begin this, he must give up concrete thinking and dwell amidst

abstractions. His method, then, must be strenuous,

long-sustained, patient meditation. Nothing else will serve his

end; strenuous, hard thinking, by which he rises away from the

concrete into the abstract regions of the mind; strenuous, hard

thinking, further continued, by which he reaches from the

abstract region of the mind up to the region of Buddhi, where

unity is sensed; still by strenuous thinking, climbing yet

further, until Buddhi as it were opens out into Atma, until the

Self is seen in his splendour, with only a film of atmic matter,

the envelope of Atma in the manifested fivefold world. It is

along that difficult and strenuous path that the Self must be

found by way of the Self.

Such a man must utterly disregard the Not-Self. He must shut his

senses against the outside world. The world must no longer be

able to touch him. The senses must be closed against all the

vibrations that come from without, and he must turn a deaf ear, a

blind eye, to all the allurements of matter, to all the diversity

of objects, which make up the universe of the Not-Self. Seclusion

will help him, until he is strong enough to close himself against

the outer stimuli or allurements. The contemplative orders in the

Roman Catholic Church offer a good environment for this path.

They put the outer world away, as far away as possible. It is a

snare, a temptation, a hindrance. Always turning away from the

world, the Yogi must fix his thought, his attention, upon the

Self. Hence for those who walk along this road, what are called

the Siddhis are direct obstacles, and not helps. But that

statement that you find so often, that the Siddhis are things to

be avoided, is far more sweeping than some of our modern

Theosophists are apt to imagine. They declare that the Siddhis

are to be avoided, but forget that the Indian who says this also

avoids the use of the physical senses. He closes physical eyes

and ears as hindrances. But some Theosophists urge avoidance of

all use of the astral senses and mental senses, but they do not

object to the free use of the physical senses, or dream that they

are hindrances. Why not? If the senses are obstacles in their

finer forms, they are also obstacles in their grosser

manifestations. To the man who would find the Self by the Self,

every sense is a hindrance and an obstacle, and there is no

logic, no reason, in denouncing the subtler senses only, while

forgetting the temptations of the physical senses, impediments as

much as the other. No such division exists for the man who tries

to understand the universe in which he is. In the search for the

Self by the Self, all that is not Self is an obstacle. Your eyes,

your ears, everything that puts you into contact with the outer

world, is just as much an obstacle as the subtler forms of the

same senses which put you into touch with the subtler worlds of

matter, which you call astral and mental. This exaggerated fear

of the Siddhis is only a passing reaction, not based on

understanding but on lack of understanding; and those who

denounce the Siddhis should rise to the logical position of the

Hindu Yogi, or of the Roman Catholic recluse, who denounces all

the senses, and all the objects of the senses, as obstacles in

the way. Many Theosophists here, and more in the West, think that

much is gained by acuteness of the physical senses, and of the

other faculties in the physical brain; but the moment the senses

are acute enough to be astral, or the faculties begin to work in

astral matter, they treat them as objects of denunciation. That

is not rational. It is not logical. Obstacles, then, are all the

senses, whether you call them Siddhis or not, in the search for

the Self by turning away from the Not-Self.

It is necessary for the man who seeks the Self by the Self to

have the quality which is called "faith," in the sense in which I

defined it before--the profound, intense conviction, that nothing

can shake, of the reality of the Self within you. That is the one

thing that is worthy to be dignified by the name of faith. Truly

it is beyond reason, for not by reason may the Self be known as

real. Truly it is not based on argument, for not by reasoning may

the Self be discovered. It is the witness of the Self within you

to his own supreme reality, and that unshakable conviction, which

is shraddha, is necessary for the treading of this path. It is

necessary, because without it the human mind would fail, the

human courage would be daunted, the human perseverance would

break, with the difficulties of the seeking for the Self. Only

that imperious conviction that the Self is, only that can cheer

the pilgrim in the darkness that comes down upon him, in the void

that he must cross before--the life of the lower being thrown

away--the life of the higher is realised. This imperious faith is

to the Yogi on this path what experience and knowledge are to the

Yogi on the other.