Five Years of Theosophy | Page 6

this world, is (a) the development of a Will so powerful as to
overcome the hereditary (in a Darwinian sense) tendencies of the atoms
composing the "gross" and palpable animal frame, to hurry on at a
particular period in a certain course of Kosmic change; and (b) to so
weaken the concrete action of that animal frame as to make it more
amenable to the power of the Will. To defeat an army, you must
demoralize and throw it into disorder.
To do this then, is the real object of all the rites, ceremonies, fasts,
"prayers," meditations, initiations and procedures of self-discipline
enjoined by various esoteric Eastern sects, from that course of pure and
elevated aspiration which leads to the higher phases of Adeptism Real,
down to the fearful and disgusting ordeals which the adherent of the
"Left-hand-Road" has to pass through, all the time maintaining his
equilibrium. The procedures have their merits and their demerits, their
separate uses and abuses, their essential and non-essential parts, their
various veils, mummeries, and labyrinths. But in all, the result aimed at
is reached, if by different processes. The Will is strengthened,
encouraged and directed, and the elements opposing its action are
demoralized. Now, to any one who has thought out and connected the
various evolution theories, as taken, not from any occult source, but
from the ordinary scientific manual accessible to all--from the
hypothesis of the latest variation in the habits of species--say, the
acquisition of carnivorous habits by the New Zealand parrot, for
instance--to the farthest glimpses backwards into Space and Eternity
afforded by the "Fire Mist" doctrine, it will be apparent that they all
rest on one basis. That basis is, that the impulse once given to a
hypothetical Unit has a tendency to continue; and consequently, that
anything "done" by something at a certain time and certain place tends
to repeat itself at other times and places.
Such is the admitted rationale of heredity and atavism. That the same
things apply to our ordinary conduct is apparent from the notorious
ease with which "habits,"--bad or good, as the case may be--are
acquired, and it will not be questioned that this applies, as a rule, as
much to the moral and intellectual, as to the physical world.

Furthermore, History and Science teach us plainly that certain physical
habits conduce to certain moral and intellectual results. There never yet
was a conquering nation of vegetarians. Even in the old Aryan times,
we do not learn that the very Rishis, from whose lore and practice we
gain the knowledge of Occultism, ever interdicted the Kshetriya
(military) caste from hunting or a carnivorous diet. Filling, as they did,
a certain place in the body politic in the actual condition of the world,
the Rishis as little thought of interfering with them, as of restraining the
tigers of the jungle from their habits. That did not affect what the Rishis
did themselves.
The aspirant to longevity then must be on his guard against two dangers.
He must beware especially of impure and animal* thoughts. For
Science shows that thought is dynamic, and the thought-force evolved
by nervous action expanding outwardly, must affect the molecular
relations of the physical man. The inner men,** however sublimated
their organism may be, are still composed of actual, not hypothetical,
particles, and are still subject to the law that an "action" has a tendency
to repeat itself; a tendency to set up analogous action in the grosser
"shell" they are in contact with, and concealed within.
---------- * In other words, the thought tends to provoke the deed.--G.M.
** We use the word in the plural, reminding the reader that, according
to our doctrine, man is septenary.--G.M. ----------
And, on the other hand, certain actions have a tendency to produce
actual physical conditions unfavourable to pure thoughts, hence to the
state required for developing the supremacy of the inner man.
To return to the practical process. A normally healthy mind, in a
normally healthy body, is a good starting-point. Though exceptionally
powerful and self-devoted natures may sometimes recover the ground
lost by mental degradation or physical misuse, by employing proper
means, under the direction of unswerving resolution, yet often things
may have gone so far that there is no longer stamina enough to sustain
the conflict sufficiently long to perpetuate this life; though what in
Eastern parlance is called the "merit" of the effort will help to

ameliorate conditions and improve matters in another.
However this may be, the prescribed course of self-discipline
commences here. It may be stated briefly that its essence is a course of
moral, mental, and physical development, carried on in parallel
lines--one being useless without the other. The physical man must be
rendered more ethereal and sensitive; the mental man more penetrating
and profound; the moral