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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