CHAPTER 4: THE HIGHER SELF.

Crudity of conventional ideas concerning the soul — The spiritual part of the superphysical man — Gradual involvement of the spiritual soul in a child — The growth of the Higher Self the purpose of life—The working of the Higher Self in waking consciousness — Its identity through successive incarnations — Its disregard of minor experiences — The scope of its evolution — Perverted version of the teaching — Higher consciousness embraces lower — The rewards of Lower Self merit — Relations of Higher and Lower Self.

A fundamental error concerning the constitution of the human soul, which crude conceptions of spiritual science have imposed on modern thinking, has been that which leads many people to regard it as a simple entity, complete in itself, self-contained on the plane of Nature to which it belongs, as the incarnate man is, or appears to be, self-contained in reference to the other similar beings around him. People think of the soul — when so far acquiescent in conventional religious teaching as to put trust in the theory that there is such a thing — much as they think of the Djin, of the old fairy tale, imprisoned for a time in the bottle found by the fisherman of the Arabian Nights. Death is a process of letting it out of the bottle, and then it proceeds to live according to its nature — a complete entity set free, which was formerly imprisoned. But the more we study Nature, even on the physical plane, the more complex do we find her phenomena to be, and the same rule holds good on the higher planes of natural activity. Conceptions we form of super-physical processes, expand ad infinitum the longer the mind dwells on their wider significance. The first notion we may put together of any such process can rarely, indeed, in the beginning bear any closer resemblance to the truth than the notion we form of a solid by examining one of its sides. The mind may ultimately be enabled to hold all the attributes of the solid in its grasp, but that achievement is only possible as the consequence of a large development of its first impressions. It may be unnecessary to discard those impressions. From the later standpoint they will seem to have afforded a very crude idea of the truth, but they will be valued still as having led up to more complex conceptions, which for that matter may in their turn be developed still further as our capacity for knowledge is expanded.

In this way the picture of the soul's growth through Re-incarnation under the guidance of the Karmic law, which is presented to the mind by the first broad analysis of esoteric teaching, is, to begin with, a stupendous advance on the happy-go-lucky theory of soul creation. Even the view of life which accepts the soul as a primary fact without seeking or offering any explanation of its genesis, which* treats it as a new creation originating with the birth of each child, is no doubt an advance upon the blank unconsciousness of anything connected with life beyond sensation, which we may reasonably impute to the animal kingdom, but which even the savage feebly endeavours to rebel against when he constructs a vision of the happy hunting grounds, though modern materialism endeavours to cultivate the gloomy doctrine with much intellectual ingenuity. In doing this, by the bye, he is pleasantly unaware of the fact that he is illustrating in his own person one of the principles brought to light by esoteric science — that the culmination of the physical intellect is the nadir point of spiritual enlightenment. He will eventually appreciate the further principle that in the progress of the cycle evolution will go on, even after that point is reached, illuminating the physical intellect with an influx of spiritual perception without requiring it to forfeit any portion of its own independent conquest. But, to go back to our comparison, just as blank ignorance of soul is well superseded by the illuminating conjecture which recognises it as at all events a something, even if created ex nihilo; and just as that idea in turn is enormously elevated in the philosophical scale when harmonised with the principles of Re-incarnation and Karma, so may the first conception of spiritual evolution, as proceeding along that path, be developed by a fuller examination of the highly complicated constitution of the soul, and of the methods by which the experiences, opportunities, and sufferings of each incarnate existence are made to react on the permanent immortal consciousness, and translated into so much cosmic growth.

In approaching such problems we may be coming into the neighbourhood of the boundaries beyond which precise language is inapplicable to spiritual research. In handling such topics it is well to remember that any attempt to pass beyond those boundaries will necessarily be futile. The attributes and modes of consciousness of Universal Spirit, for example, are beyond the reach of language because they are beyond the reach of thought functioning in a physical brain; and metaphysicians, who sometimes attempt, by the construction of quaint phrases, to suggest the belief that their thoughts have outrun in subtlety the resources of expression, are probably, in most cases, as little qualified to apprehend, as their phrases to convey, ideas that are really entitled to be so described. But, on the other hand, as long as we find it possible to be precise, it is a fatal mistake for the student of spiritual science to be content with vague suggestions. Cloudiness of language is not depth of thought. Obscure, allegorical forms of expression are not superior, in occult dignity, to definite and exact phraseology — though in the past such forms have often been pardonable, either because the writers who used them were pledged to partial secrecy or precluded by the bigotry of their age from being quite explicit. That which we have now to aim at — now that spiritual research has been endowed with advantages it never possessed in the days of the alchemists and mediaeval mystics — is the exact comprehension, as far as that is possible, of mysteries till now cloaked in an almost impenetrable obscurity. Of course, as we extend our conquests there will always at their confines be a region of thought and conjecture which baffles exposition. But it is of the utmost importance that we should push precision as far as possible, and with care and patience it will be found practicable to analyse some of the processes by which soul evolution is accomplished and realise them, unseen and intangible as they may be, even as it is possible to realise some of the intricate laws governing the no less intangible and unseen molecules of matter in their chemical reactions.

The law which we have to bring under a higher microscopic power than that applied to it hitherto, is the law regulating the alternate physical and spiritual existence of the human entity. The human soul, we have seen, once launched on the stream of evolution as a human individuality, passes through alternate periods of physical and relatively spiritual existence. It passes from the one plane (or stratum, or condition) of Nature to the other, under the guidance of its Karmic affinities, living, in incarnation, the life which its Karma has preordained, modifying its progress within the limitations of circumstance, and developing fresh Karma by the use or abuse of its opportunities. It returns to spiritual existence after each physical life — through the intervening region of astral experience — for rest and refreshment and for the gradual absorption into its essence — as so much cosmic progress — of the life's training passed through "on earth" or during physical existence.

This broad view of the subject, however, though it may suggest to a thoughtful mind, does not necessarily include an all-important conception which is required to invest the whole process with a truly Nature-like aspect.

It is clear that, even during physical existence, people who possess certain unusual faculties — psychic senses that open other avenues to their consciousness besides those of the physical plane — remain in connexion in some way with the planes of superphysical consciousness. All of us, indeed, as the experiences of sleep show, are capable of entering into conditions of consciousness with which the five ordinary senses have nothing to do. And the phenomena of somnambulism, as it is sometimes called (the somnambulism of the soul, not of the body), or of clairvoyance, whether of spontaneous occurrence or induced by mesmerism, point to the same conclusion with very much greater force. We — the souls within us — are not, as it were, altogether contained in the material envelope we actuate during life. We clearly retain some rights and interests in the ocean of spirit, so to speak, from which we have been stranded on the shores of incarnation. The process of incarnation is not fully described when we speak of an alternate existence on the physical and spiritual planes, and thus picture the soul as a complete entity, slipping entirely from the one state of existence to the other. A more correct definition of the process might represent incarnation as taking place on this physical plane of Nature by reason of an efflux emanating from the soul. The spiritual realm would all the while be the proper habitat of the soul, which would never entirely quit it; and that non-materialisable portion of the soul which abides permanently on the spiritual plane may fitly be spoken of as the Higher Self.

In some theosophical writings, the term here employed has been identified with a highly profound metaphysical idea, which we may consider later on, and which contemplates the spiritual unity, if we push the conception back far enough, of all temporarily segregated centres of human consciousness. Between the explanation I am now endeavouring to give and that great conception there is no divergence of principle, but the term " Higher Self " seems to me most fitly assigned to the individual spiritual consciousness of each soul, and I will maintain the harmony of my own writings on this subject by continuing its employment in that sense.

I must not, however, be supposed to mean that absolutely every human being is to be thought of as associated with a more exalted form of consciousness on a higher plane than the physical, the lower orders of mankind, meaning by that term the savage races as a whole "and the least evolved amongst ourselves, may be as yet undeveloped beyond the stage of physical consciousness. Their quasi-spiritual existence between incarnations, would be little more than a pale reflection of that through which they have passed on earth. But as the human being advances as regards his interior complexity, developing in protracted lives of intellectual activity and intense emotion, great possibilities of thought and feeling which it would be difficult fully to express in any one life thereafter, he w gradually drifts into the condition of those referred to, whose real spiritual or higher self is so to speak, too great for expression in any one physical life. Of course it will be seen that between these two extremes lie all possibilities of intermediate development.

One great comfort at once afforded by the appreciation of the nature of the Higher Self is that we escape from the embarrassment of having to think of the whole complete soul of a highly advanced human being, inhabiting the highly unsuitable tenement of a young child's body. However unsatisfactory the notion of such an arrangement would appear, it would be futile to try and escape from it by the hypothesis that the child could be born first and, so to speak, ensouled afterwards. From the earliest beginning, the child and the soul, to which it might be destined to give incarnation, must evidently be regarded as already in union. But the conception with which I am now dealing harmonises with the fitness of things and with the analogies of Nature. The soul on the spiritual plane and ripe for Re-incarnation takes note, as it were, of the newly germinating human being whose physical associations and destiny render it the most appropriate physical habitation that soul can find. Of course, there is no conscious, deliberate selection in the matter. The Karmic affinities constitute a line of least resistance along which the soul throws out a magnetic shoot into the objective world, just as a root germinating in the earth throws out through that portion of the ground which most readily gives way before it, the first slender blade of green growth which makes its appearance at the surface. A more recondite but still more exact illustration might be drawn from the behaviour of an electric current choosing among several available channels of approach those which, though not necessarily the shortest, conduct it under circumstances best suited to its own nature to its 'goal, the earth. Along the magnetic fibre thus established — itself no doubt growing in vigour simultaneously with the growth of the child — the psychic entity flows into the new body by degrees.

The same idea has sometimes been expressed in other terms. The growing child has been said to be destitute of a sixth principle — morally irresponsible and incapable of generating Karma — till attaining the age of seven years. This amounts to the same thing. Before seven years, there is not enough of the soul passed down into the child's bodily consciousness to allow of the development of a moral sense. Conscience has not begun to assert itself. The Higher Self has not begun to brood over the impulses of the flesh. If the child dies, the soul has simply to sprout in another place. This reflection has an exceedingly important bearing on all problems concerning the death of young children and their states after death, but it will be most convenient to deal with them separately. Let us for the moment keep our attention fixed on the child, who advances successfully towards mature life. As the body develops, more and more of the true soul-consciousness passes into the new organism till at last in the grown-up man, all of the soul which is susceptible of expression in physical consciousness is once more re-established, or re-incarnated, on the earth plane.

But there is still an all-important something belonging to the soul remaining behind (if I may still for a while cling to a materialistic figure of speech quite inevitable if we are to have the idea clearly established in our minds) on the spiritual plane. This something is the most essentially spiritual element in the incarnating soul — its Higher Self — almost dormant an^d unconscious during the full activity of the incarnate being, but constantly, during the sleep of the body, recovering a more vivid sense of existence. Certainly the extent to which such consciousness is revived, differs for different people, within very wide limits. The Higher Self is not merely the colourless, imperishable, spiritual monad, but the growing spiritual individuality of the man, in each given case. As we shall realise more fully later on, the growth of the spiritual individuality is, in fact, the purpose of human life, and thus the Higher Self may in one case be backward in its development, in another very greatly progressed; but in any case where it may be advanced to any considerable degree, it must enjoy a certain degree of consciousness on the spiritual plane whenever the incarnate being, in which it is manifest on the earth plane, is plunged in profound slumber.

For most people, however, belonging to the normal development of the present race, the physical brain is not organised finely enough to reflect the spiritual consciousness of the inner Ego during ordinary periods of waking. At the best, sleep will sometimes be found morally refreshing. Worries and temptations that may have been oppressive overnight will seem to have diminished in power or importance in the morning, and where such ameliorations of feeling are very marked, one may fairly assume that the influence of the Higher Self, restored during sleep to a fuller consciousness than usual, has had something to do with the sensation experienced. It is only in the case of persons psychically and spiritually advanced beyond the normal stage of progress that the Higher Self consciousness is remembered. That it is so remembered in some cases, is most assuredly the fact. At a stage of development considerably short of that which would take a human being out of the range of physical attraction altogether, people may lead, as it were, a double life, fully conscious of and remembering in daily life the spiritual life of their deep sleep or trances. This possibility it is which points to the sublimest achievements of mesmerism; for a person so gifted may be able to converse, while in a mesmeric trance, with a waking incarnate friend, conversing from the point of view of the true spiritual consciousness. But some intermediate possibilities may also be considered. It may happen that a person with some psychic faculties — with the bodily consciousness of the spiritual plane partially but imperfectly developed, may perceive the Higher Self, as it were, but have the impression, in their waking remembrance, that they have been conversing with some being external to themselves. They do not realise, so to speak, that they are beholding the other end of the curve through Nature, which constitutes in its entirety their own complete individuality. As the Higher Self would, by the hypothesis, be manifesting thoughts of a kind that had not fully passed into incarnation, there might seem to be a complete interchange of ideas between itself and its incarnate phase, as though two persons were concerned. In a still less distinctly understood relationship with the Higher Self, the incarnate man would regard its promptings as nothing more than what is generally called the voice of conscience.

The theory we are considering harmonises very well with the treatment of this world in which we live as a phenomenal world of illusion, though the meaning of that doctrine of Oriental philosophy is often grotesquely misconceived. The intention of the doctrine is not that the earthly plane of existence, with all its countless attributes, has no existence, but that the idea of its permanence and self-sufficing completeness which sometimes fills the incarnate consciousness, is a delusion. The spiritual world, of which it is the emanation, is more real — if the phrase may pass current — than the world of transitory material conditions, but that material world is not alleged to be a delusion in the sense of being a deception. The highest consciousness of Man embraces its phenomena — the manifestations of Nature which it embodies — as well as the phenomena of superior planes of existence; and in the vast and perfectly balanced design of Nature the physical plane is as much a necessity of the whole scheme as any other. But a comprehension of the doctrine of the Higher Self shows the relations between the physical life and the plane of the spiritual consciousness in a way which may well teach us to forego the terrible mistake of living altogether for the sake of the lower consciousness. The region of Nature, in which the permanent Ego is thus seen to be rooted, is immeasurably more important to it than that in which its transitory blossoms appear for a brief space to wither and fall to pieces, while the plant recovers energy for sending forth a fresh flower. Supposing flowers only were perceptible to ordinary senses, and their roots existed in a state of Nature intangible and invisible to us, philosophers in such a world who divined that there were such things as roots in another plane of existence would be apt to say of the flowers, These are not the real plants; they are of no relative importance, merely illusive, phenomena of the moment.

The Higher Self doctrine is also recommended by its correspondence with that inbreathing and out-breathing of Brahm, which symbolises natural phenomena on the macrocosmic scale, and therefore probably fits in likewise with the microscomic scale. Physical incarnation is the out-breathing of the soul; the death of the body is associated with its inbreathing.

The Karmic progress of the soul, as depicted by the first simple conception of its passage backwards and forwards between the planes of spirit and matter, is in no way interfered with by the permanent existence of the Higher Self on the spiritual plane. No essential idea to which that broad statement of the case gives rise is discountenanced by the more advanced and elaborate theory. For instance, let us consider the case of an incarnate being regarding Nature from the point of view of the physical plane on which his consciousness seems to him to be altogether concentrated in his waking life, and clinging earnestly to the hope of retaining his present personal consciousness after death. This hope, unqualified by spiritual knowledge, has in a pre-eminent degree moulded the creeds of exoteric religions. People say, very reasonably as far as that one idea goes: "If I do not remember my present life in the next that I may lead, there is no 'I' left in the transaction at all — I do not obtain any immortality or survival." Nor does the esoteric doctrine put aside or rebuke this very natural aspiration. In its simplest form it certainly tells us: "You will eventually wear out, get tired of and be done with your present personality, as you have got rid of many others in the past, but you will not be violently torn from it. When you pass after death into the astral and then into the spiritual planes of existence you will still be your present self, remembering all that is essential in your present life, and finding, if all goes well, on the spiritual levels of Nature a much freer scope for the development of all that may be noblest and best in your present life than you can possibly hope for in the body. It is only when these phases of consciousness have vibrated to the last possible echo of the forces you have engendered during life, and when the spiritual soul is once more colourless as regards definite recollections, that it will return through the Lethe of a fresh incarnation to the experiences of an altogether fresh personality." But now let us see how this view of the matter is affected by the doctrine of the Higher Self. Its essential idea is preserved, according to that doctrine, as completely as by means of the most materialistic statement of which the case is susceptible.

The Higher Self may be regarded as dominating the lower or earthly personality with very different degrees of completeness in different people, and this consideration would show that personalities deeply attached to their own earthly consciousness would represent souls in which the lower elements were largely in the ascendant. The reunion of higher and lower selves in such cases, after death, would probably mean the saturation of the higher by the lower in a commanding degree.

ut in truth, after a soul has just been going through a complete span of earthly life, the lower elements can hardly fail, on reunion, to have so much to do with the completely restored consciousness as to determine the colour of the compound for the time being. And this infusion of the last personality through the Higher Self or saturation of the Higher Self therewith fully meets aspirations we may feel in the direction of a personal survival after death.

We need not regard that aspiration as either blameworthy or misleading. For all men below certain exalted levels of spiritual perfection, which we need not at present consider, a survival of the personality is alike required on abstract grounds of justice and common sense; and as a part of our primary conception of the esoteric doctrine we shall be, in the spiritual condition, in no sense less ourselves for feeling our personality expanded by a large super-addition of spiritual consciousness. And it will be to the gradual reassertion of the supremacy of the spiritual consciousness that we must look forward as constituting the fading out of the personality which is either dreaded or longed for by people in the flesh, according to the degree of their psychic advancement, but which will, probably, be no more a source of regret to the Higher Self in its actual occurrence than — on the poor plane of our physical analogies — the digestion of the day's dinner is a source of regret for a healthy man at night. That dinner may have played its part in the nutrition of "the body. At the time of its consumption, perhaps, it may have been a source of some transitory pleasure in itself; but, absorbed into the body it is merely so much renewed strength and health. So with the personality and the Higher Self which digests it. We need not push the analogy too far; but it is quite clear that the conversion of the specific experiences of a life just past, which constitutes its personality, into so much cosmic progress for the Higher Self — which is the ultimate motive, so to speak, with which those experiences have been incurred — is a process which, while it goes on, constitutes a prolonged preservation of identity for the personality itself, and one which only yields to the conscious pre-eminence of the Higher Self's identity, which is inextricably blended with that of the earthly personality during physical life, as soon as the two are united.

From the last phase of our conception, which shows us the Higher Self absorbing the experiences of each lifetime in turn, we can readily infer that all through the long ages of its existence it is going through a process of growth on that higher plane to which it belongs, just as a man's mind grows within the narrow limits of one physical life. And as we reflect upon all that is implied by such growth we shall find our conception of the whole process expanding readily in both directions. To go back on the. past, in the first instance, it is ciear that each Higher Self must have existed at one time in a very imperfectly developed state. As soon as any individuality is defined by the earliest process of human evolution in the beginning of a cosmic period, there must be associated with that individuality, throughout its incarnations, a focus of activity and consciousness on the spiritual plane of Nature, which constitutes from the beginning its Higher Self. But the Higher Self of the primitive savage and the Higher Self of the spiritualised man of later races are two very different entities. It is clearly by means of the experiences gathered by its successive manifestations of activity on the physical plane, that each Higher Self grows and advances to loftier perfection. Certainly, the quality of pure spirit can never vary, but the individualisation of spirit may be accomplished around different foci of activity with very different degrees of success. And as the process can rarely be a rapid one, we may easily comprehend that the growth of Higher Selves on the appropriate plane of existence during a planetary manvantara, is going on all the while pari passu with the improvement of the races in incarnation. The Higher Self must always exercise a consciousness of an elevated quality, though, in the beginning a consciousness deficient in vigour and intensity. But as it throws out one plant after another into incarnation, and successively draws back into itself such experiences of earthly life as may be susceptible of absorption into its own consciousness, its horizon widens,, its knowledge expands, its individuality intensifies. The normal rule of its growth appears to be very slow and to be symbolised in this respect by some of the physical processes of Nature, like the accumulation of sand on ocean beds, or the accretion of particles on a coral reef. But in the course of time seas are filled up and islands of coral built on foundations in deep water. So the Higher Self selects its spiritual particles from the lives of its innumerable offspring, and the greatest Adept, or the greatest being destined to arise out of humanity, is a final consequence of processes that must have been carried on as slowly at one time, as those by which the Higher Self of any African savage is rising in the scale of Nature by virtue of its all but unprofitable manifestations on earth.

The theory of the Higher Self thus conceived seems to me to recommend itself to the mind as a scientific idea, that is to say, as a view in harmony with the pure and subtle dignity of natural operations, which often as they may be symbolised by theatrical or fantastic allegories, never betray the taint of such a character when exhaustively understood.

It is only when the doctrine of the Higher Self fully takes possession of the mind that we can begin to realise the purpose of earthly existence, and be in some measure reconciled to the strain of emotion and feeling with which that existence is often associated. Viewed as a complete thing in itself, the earthly existence but too often seems to justify the gloomy despair of the pessimist — and, indeed, if the earthly existence were either complete in itself, or a singular experience in a human career, to be followed either by good or bad conditions of existence hereafter — pessimism as a philosophy applied to the phenomena of life as we . behold them would be an irresistible conclusion. But the development of the Higher Self as a purpose of existence is an aim which may reconcile us to life, and justify the fact of suffering. For the time being — for most of us — it is impossible to feel the identity of the higher and lower self from the incarnate point of view, but an intellectual perception of the truth may enable us to foresee the inevitably superior capacity of the Higher Self in this respect. And a full appreciation of all that lurks in that forecast will do a great deal to illuminate the pathway we have to travel, if we resolve to live in the lower self on conditions conducive to the interests of the higher. As a general rule — and by that I mean in all cases but those of people exquisitely spiritualised already in their earthly nature, and endowed with clairvoyant vision of a high order — the lower self must be content to regard itself as appointed to undergo the suffering phase of existence for the benefit — not really of another being, but for the benefit of a phase of itself, of which it can never have any direct consciousness in the flesh. But on the other hand it may acquire a confident certainty that the consciousness of the Higher Self will ultimately be so adjusted as to provide for the enjoyment of the fruit of this suffering in a manner that will constitute a complete recompense to the true individuality of the lower self.

Is it necessary here to take note of the occult theory that calculations of recompense do not furnish the highest motives of human action? We may all be aware of that, but at the same time be interested, on all grounds, in studying the methods by which Nature provides a recompense for the suffering incurred through aspirations towards a higher life.

The comprehension of the problem before us turns on a realisation of the fact that while the lower is not conscious of the Higher Self, the higher is conscious of the lower, and will be increasingly conscious thereof in proportion to the extent that the lower applies itself deliberately to the task of living for the sake of the higher. Let us keep in view the theory or principle, or fact of Nature, that consciousness on the superior planes or spiritual realms of Nature is accompanied by a vivid sense of enjoyment. In proportion as the Higher Self is expanded and developed is that sense of enjoyment broadened and deepened. In such expansion, in such development, the reward of the efforts made by the lower self is realised. This appears to me to be an all-important point on which it is desirable for us to dwell with the closest attention.

The crude, guardian angel theory of the Higher Self, as well as that which looks too far ahead and seeks to identify the higher individual with the Universal Self, or God, both err in leading us to think, so to speak, too well of the Higher Self as a rule. There are, no doubt, as I have suggested, advanced human beings still in the flesh for that matter, and far below the Adept level of advancement, with whom the Higher Self is a very exalted and highly conscious kind of guardian angel. But with the vast majority of people it would be an immense mistake to regard the Higher Self as anything but higher in kind. It may not be nearly so much higher in degree — on the general scale of human progress, that is to say — than the lower self, as people are sometimes apt to imagine. Of course its affinities are all spiritual in their order. The Higher Self, such as it is, of the most grovelling sensualist is wholly indifferent to sensual things; and in touch, to some very limited extent, with the ocean of real knowledge, which is the same ocean on which a Planetary Spirit floats. But its consciousness on that plane of existence is, to a corresponding extent, torpid and imperfect. For its growth, for its happiness, for its awakenment to the opportunities within its reach in the higher realms of Nature, it is altogether dependent — altogether, at all events, in the earlier stages of such growth — on its lower self; on its own material phase; oti the earthly fulcrum which it leans upon to accomplish an upward movement. Let us remember, indeed, that though thus dependent, it is not itself lethargic in the matter. The lower self action which conduces to such growth is necessarily, when accomplished, the result of promptings from the Higher Self thought, or suggestion. The growth we are considering may thus be said — by an enlargement of the view already expressed — to be dependent on the responsive action of the lower self; on the efforts and exertions made by the lower in response to the influence of the higher. The action and reaction, in short, by which progress is accomplished should always be thought of as started, in the first instance, by the Higher Self. But, keeping this in view, we may safely shut our eyes for the moment to the capacity said to be latent in every human soul of universal knowledge. "Your own soul," say some occult students, "is omniscient. You only have to get into union with it, to share its knowledge." The doctrine may not be false, but it is misleading. Your own soul, your own Higher Self, may grow into omniscience — or something approaching that — if you give it time and adequate help — through, certainly, more than one life, from the date at which that enterprise is first set on foot by "you" yourself — the earthly phase of the being we are considering. But the Higher Self of an ordinary man of the world is certainly not yet in the perfection of its potential development. On the contrary, the fact that it is not, and cannot be, will be seen, on reflection, to square exactly with the information which has been formulated during the last few years (with the help of high authority as well as of the investigations carried on by advancing students among ourselves), in respect to the Devachanic state. For the majority of those who attain to it, that state is not one of highly advanced insight into truth. It is a state of great happiness, the intensity of which is probably proportioned to the advancement of the soul which experiences it; but it is a state replete with illusion. And yet, undoubtedly, those are the Higher Selves of the human beings concerned who are enjoying the Devachanic happiness; and more than this, if they are capable of consciousness on the Devachanic plane at all, they must be already human beings who in the flesh have been animated with very well defined spiritual aspirations, or deeply moved b}' truly spiritual emotions.

Their gradual elevation into Higher Selves of the true guardian angel type may be looked upon — if for the moment we do not look further — as the purpose and justification for physical existence. This view of the situation, be it observed, is quite compatible with the view which in all cases assumes the best and noblest impulses of each man's life, be he higher or lower as an incarnate being on the scale of spirituality, as emanations, warnings, or guidance from his Higher Self. To the extent that they are active, the aspirations of the Higher Self must be all towards good. But except as regards its kind and affinities, it would be a mistake to consider the mental activity of the Higher Self as very greatly superior to that of the lower. Before the Higher Self can use the faculties latent in its nature, before it can be awakened from its lethargy on the higher plane, which, in fact, has deepened in the course of ages as its periodical presentations on the plane of matter became more and more intense, it must be revived by the conscious effort of its own lower self — of itself on the lower plane — an effort which is analogous to the rebound of a ball dropped on the ground from a height.

This group of conceptions, I think, will prepare the mind for an appreciation of the manner in which the recompense for meritorious but painful action on this plane of life is worked out. The Higher Self, in proportion to the extent that its perceptions are awakened, can survey the whole process, embrace in one retrospective glance the suffering and the beneficial consequence, and thus feel that the efforts made were not thrown away. In the case of an undeveloped Higher Self, indeed, the fruits of the good deeds of the lower self are enjoyed without being analysed in the way just supposed. But by the hypothesis the correspondingly undeveloped lower self would never in such a case have been oppressed by metaphysical speculations concerning its own future. It would have been content to regard that future in the light of some exoteric religious fiction, and though its expectations might not be fulfilled to the letter, their essence would be fulfilled in the unreflective bliss of the Higher Self — the same individuality, really, though not yet inspired with an interest in the observation of the fact of its own identity with its physical phases. But by the time a long succession of physical lives and spiritual interludes have cultivated the consciousness of the Higher Self to such a degree that it begins to approximate to the guardian angel type of Higher Self, its relations with the lower become sensibly modified. The true Ego begins not alone to feel, but to think, on the higher plane. It becomes more and more a conscious, directing power, watching and influencing the acts of its lower self, and alive to the advantages it may derive from the co-operation thereof. For metaphysical purposes one might, of course, throw the idea just expressed into other language, which would, perhaps, avoid some crudities involved in the more dramatic formula, but at the expense of vivid significance. It could be argued that the physical and spiritual aspects of the Ego act and react on each other, and that the soul as manifested in the phenomenal world is an illusory counterpart of the true Ego, whose absorption in the universal self is more or less retarded by the greater or less subjection of its physical consciousness to the plane of maya. But the processes of development we are examining will be rendered more intelligible, I think, for most observers — incarnate, for the time being, on this plane of maya — by language in harmony with the conditions of the physical consciousness.

It will be understood that I am not supposing the Higher Self to be standing sentinel over the lower at all moments of its existence, and in respect of all the acts of its daily life to be nervously watchful lest its protege should take a false step. With persons of advanced development there is, perhaps, a greater approximation towards such a condition of things than a first glance at the situation would lead us to suppose; for the spiritualisation of the lower self or aspect, renders the higher all the more continuously conscious; but I take it that in conditions of ordinary human life the Higher Self is always more or less asleep on the higher plane, when the lower is awake and only conscious of its place in Nature, of its relations with the lower self, and of the consequences to itself of the exertions its lower self, or its allied personality (to suggest an alternative phrase), may have been making — when that allied personality is asleep on the physical plane — plunged, that is to say, in a spontaneous or artificially induced trance as regards its lower consciousness. A proviso should be interpolated here, indeed. Sleeping and waking are the best terms we can use to describe the alternate states of the Higher Self during the life of the body, but we should remember that its sleep has reference only to its own Higher plane consciousness, and its influence is not extinct as regards •the incarnate personality at any time. Thus the so-called voice of conscience, which asserts itself, and is heard from time to time, even in the most unspiritualised personalities, is neither more nor less than the influence of the Higher Self making itself felt. This influence is, of course, feeble and incomplete in cases where the lower self does not, by action responsive to this influence, increase and strengthen its power. But in endeavouring to realise the oscillation, as it were, of the centre of consciousness between the higher and the lower planes, it would be undesirable to lose sight of the fact that the Higher Self is always the source of the best impulses of the lower.

The Ego, as I have said, awake on the physical plane is normally quite unconscious of its periods of supraphysical or spiritual consciousness — of the existence, in other words, of its Higher Self — even though that same Higher Self, on its side, is fully conscious when itself in its wakefulness on the higher plane, of the lower personality, and of its efforts or inaction, as the case may be. How far it may consciously deplore the failures of its lower self to achieve this or that specific rung on the ladder of progress — how far it may be distressed, so to speak, at observing its own lower self give way to temptation, is a point to be considered separately. The conditions of the existence of the Higher Self may not afford it scope for emotions of distress or regret; and a failure or surrender to temptation by the lower self may take the shape, as regards the higher, of so much retardation in its progress in regard to which, with its sublime capacity for patience, it may be quite unconscious of any irritation. But, on the other hand, every success and every victory of the lower self over temptation may none the less be translated at once into so much progress for the Higher Self, and so much definite consciousness of satisfaction and enjoyment arising from that progress.

Now it may seem, at first sight, to an imaginative mind, that these views are comfortless, as regards what may be called the interests of the Personality. All its struggles, and all its sufferings, are undergone for the benefit of a Being that it can hardly help feeling external to itself — an almost pitiless taskmaster and a thankless consumer of the fruits of its physical slave's industry. Calm and impassive in the serene realms of spirit, the Higher Self lives for enjoyment only, luxuriating in the harvest of the toil carried on below — when there is a harvest to reap — but undisturbed by the disaster when the heavily-burdened labourer staggers or falls beneath his load! But though that would not be a satisfactory or equitable arrangement all round, if the two phases of the Ego were really the separate entities they look like from the earthly point of view, the propriety of the whole situation is amply vindicated as soon as we can be quite sure that, from the celestial point of view, the personality and the Higher Self or Individuality are felt and seen to be one and the same centre of consciousness, though functioning first under one and then under the other set of conditions. How, it may be asked, are we to get proof of this vitally important theory? In such a region of thought as this we are exploring, it is almost superfluous to answer that proof must be sought for in the interior consciousness, which is the more or less obscured reflection in each of us of the Higher Self to which such personality may belong. But, meanwhile, I venture to think that, in the "sweet reasonableness" of the position, a provisional guarantee of its security may be found. We stand face to face with the perennial problem of life — the hardship of existence and the necessity of accounting for this in some way that shall be coherent with the general drift of humanity towards perfection, and the prevalence of Justice as a law of Nature, in the long run. Around the leading ideas of the esoteric doctrine, which we in this generation have been stimulated to reflect upon, theosophical study has enabled us to group a considerable mass of inevitably certain detail. The alternate manifestations of the Ego on the physical and spiritual planes of Nature lead by an indisputable train of conjecture to the doctrine here spoken of as that of the Higher Self, and this, in turn, brings us along a causeway of trustworthy reasoning, to the consideration of the still more elevated subject — the evolution of the Higher Self — with which we are at present engaged.

In the comprehension of the laws thus governing the evolution of the Higher Self, we attain the innermost goal of esoteric study, as this study may be regarded from the incarnate point of view. The practical value of such a comprehension in its bearing on life and conduct, and on any capacity to bear whatever trials of one sort or another we may have to bear in our "lower selves" — that is to say, in the incarnate phase of our existence — is something that cannot be exaggerated. The old vague religious hope that we shall somehow be rewarded after we die for any meritorious behaviour we may have contrived to carry on here below, in spite of our manifold embarrassments, is thus replaced by a specific, scientific perception of the way that process is worked out.

The method is altogether in harmony with all truths of spiritual science we have been able to reach, and the consequence is, that once thoroughly assimilated, it is calculated to soothe in a remarkable degree the strain of emotion and the great vacuity of life which are among the well-known concomitants of any deliberate attempt to tread the upward path. It is not in human nature to be content — above all it is not in the highly speculative and introspective nature of an occult student to be content — with the attenuated promise of an ultimate absorption of his consciousness in the Infinite Consciousness, as a compensation for painful self-denial in this life, and as a readjustment, in accordance with infallible justice, of the long account of physical existence. Some exalted natures may be indifferent to compensations as far as they themselves are concerned, or may honestly imagine themselves so indifferent at all events, till some unforeseen turn of the screw, influencing them in an unexpected way, may betray their natural human weakness to their own inner consciousness. But at any rate even these will not be content to suppose that humanity at large is destined all along the line to the cheerless prospect of unremunerated labour. Let us each, leaving ourselves out of the calculation, and thinking only of our brother, admit that we have not made sense of the problem of Nature till we have distinctly provided, by our interpretation thereof, for the reward of merit.

And up to the very threshold of the theory I have endeavoured to set forth, this reward is not adequately provided for in the sense of being specifically apprehended. If the Higher Self were in all cases an already omniscient being, as some occultists have seemed to imagine, and if progress merely represented the efforts of the lower self in any given case to rise into conscious relations with it, the lower self or personality would go altogether unrewarded in the enormous number of cases where that conscious relationship is never established. The struggle to do right on this plane of existence would then indeed be a futile and miserable undertaking, at the very best rewarded only by the good Karma, that would render the next physical life, which the impassive Higher Self or Individuality might overshadow, a less painful experience for the practically new entity which would have no recollection of its former struggle to give zest to its relative enjoyment in the new and altogether detached physical existence. Without the evolution of the Higher Self to express the consequences of that struggle, the situation would go far to justify the familiar objection to the doctrine of Re-incarnation, which rests upon the forgetfulness in each physical life of the circumstances of the last. But let us once realise the position as occultists of even a moderate degree of advancement know that it actually stands, and the incarnate man, however little he may himself, in his own incarnate consciousness, fed the reward of his good deeds or self-denial, is nevertheless assured of being himself, in his spiritual condition after release from the body, the recipient of the harvest that he has sown. He may not, in the flesh, be conscious of the emotions and exhilaration of the Higher Self due to his work, but the consciousness of his Higher Self embraces his consciousness as he looks back on his past career from the point of view of the superior plane. We are not violently straining or materialising the facts; merely adapting them to the character of our present consciousness, if we imagine the Higher Self as reflecting: "If, in the physical environment from which I am now set free, I had not the strength of mind to do this or that," whatever the important achievement may have been, "I should not now be enjoying my present rich sense of spiritual blessedness." Indeed we may, in the attempt to realise the position in all its bearings, accept the service of illustrations drawn from commonplace life. A man, established from very early youth abroad to carve out his fortunes in some distant country, may have set his face during that undertaking against all kinds of wasteful and temporary self-indulgence. He may have been guided by the resolution to postpone the enjoyment of his earnings till circumstances should permit him to return to his own natural home, even though the ways and surroundings of life there should be unknown to him, and the lines along which it should be spent, left to be planned out later on. But assuming the programme to be fulfilled, the fruition of his efforts on his return home might be an ample compensation to him for the toil and self-denial of his earlier years. So, in a far more elevated and glorious degree, and unqualified by risks of disaster which may always dash any worldly cup of enjoyment from expectant lips, may we regard the programme of physical effort and fruition on the spiritual plane, as assuring us the reward which we must be able to discern as awaiting the meritorious actor in this life's drama, if the whole proceeding is to be regarded as something better than a farce and a tragedy in one.

It is not necessary to this speculation to treat, as an essential part of the scheme of Nature, the possibility that, by the conscious direction of our efforts on this plane of life to the fulfilment of the idea thus conceived, we may actually, if all circumstances are propitious, obtain, even during this life, something more than an intellectual conviction of the spiritual reward that will be secured by our efforts here. But we should let slip a very important consideration connected with the whole transaction if we did not take note, in reviewing it, of the possibility to which I refer. There may be here and there, even among people who are not obtrusively elevated to any remarkable degree above their fellows of this race to which we belong, some who in the lower self-consciousness are invested with the beautiful characteristics of a spiritualised clairvoyance. Such persons will be able, from time to time, to ascend into the consciousness of the Higher Self, retaining in the physical brain a recollection of those experiences. They are in a position to be the pioneers of spiritual progress for their less gifted brethren, rendering transparently obvious, as a fact in Nature, the existence of that relationship between the lower and Higher Self which I have endeavoured to depict. And they may afford to any resolute explorer of the higher life good ground for hoping that others in turn, by earnest endeavours in that direction, may anticipate the revelation — even while in this life — of that which has hitherto been regarded as the great and insoluble mystery of death.

In dealing with these problems I have endeavoured to avoid the comfortless dissipation of thought and conjecture apt to ensue if we endeavour to examine the conditions of our present existence by the light of metaphysical thinking which seeks to adapt itself to infinity. But if the subject has thus been kept upon a plane of thought below the level of some to which our speculations may occasionally soar, I would, nevertheless, suggest that, in dealing with the circumstances under which the lower self may be drawn towards the true individuality of the Ego, which is the Higher Self, we are really dealing also with the circumstances under which the true individuality — overshadowed by the spirit as it overshadows the incarnate man — is itself drawn towards the highest influence — the universal self or universal spirit. We may not, from our present standpoint, be able to divine very much concerning that process, but we can infer, with complete confidence, that the development, and evolution of the Higher Self, which it is within the power of the lower self, or incarnate man, to promote, is none the less its response to that mysterious emanation from the supreme, that is the ultimate goal towards which the later efforts of a perfected humanity, in some remotely future epoch, may consciously and appreciatively turn.

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