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Page 4
There are two main points in this book which give it its chief interest:
(1) "The past history of the human race as now living on this planet;"
and (2) "The manner in which, and the circumstances under which, any
individual man works out his own salvation." But before entering upon
these, we should say a word about the Buddhist statements regarding the
nature of man.
Seven is the sacred number in the Buddhist system. As there are seven
worlds in the planetary chain, seven kingdoms in Nature, seven
root-races of men, in like manner man is a sevenfold being, continuing,
through untold millions of years, his existence as an individual, yet
changing, one knows not how many times, many of his component elements.
As the Buddhist sees the mortal body to be dissolved into its molecules,
and these molecules to be transferred with their inherent vitality to
other organisms, so some of his higher elements, among them his "astral
body," his impulses and desires, under the name, as our author gives it,
of _animal soul_, may separate from the more enduring parts of his
composition, and become lost to him in Nature's great store of material
substance. As there is an _animal soul_, the seat of those
faculties which we possess in common with the lower beings about us, so
there is a _human soul_, the seat of intelligence; and, higher
still, a _spiritual soul_, possessing powers of which as yet we
know but little, yet destined to give us, when it shall be more fully
developed, new powers of sense, new avenues for the entrance of
knowledge, by which we shall be able to communicate directly with
Nature, and become as much greater than the present race of men, as
_that_ is greater than the lowest brutes. Above all these elements
of man, controlling all, and preserving its individuality throughout, is
"spirit." Yet even this, when absorbed into Nirvana, is lost in that
great whole which includes all things and is Nature herself. Lost, do I
say?--yes, lost for inconceivable ages upon ages, yet destined to come
forth again at some moment in eternity, and to begin its round through
the everlasting cycle of evolution.
Here, you will say, is materialism. As the intelligent man of early ages
looked out upon the world, he felt the wind he could not see, he smelt
the odor that he could not feel, and he reasoned with himself, I think,
as follows; "There is somewhat too subtile for these bodily senses to
grasp it. Something of which I cannot directly take cognizance brings
to me the light of sun and stars." These somethings were, in his
conception, forms of matter. He saw the intelligence and the moral worth
of his friend, and then he saw that friend a lifeless body stretched
upon the ground, and he said some _thing_ is gone. This thing was
again to him only another and more subtile form of matter. We, with all
the aids of modern knowledge and thought, are absolutely unable to say
what distinction there is between matter and spirit. The old philosopher
was logical. He could find no point at which to draw his line. Therefore
he drew no line. He recognized only different manifestations of one
substance. In terms of our language, he was a materialist. So is the
modern scientist; yet I cannot help thinking that the Buddhist stands
much nearer to truth than the materialist of to-day. The various
faculties of human sense and human intellect are so many molecules
forming, by their accretion, the animal and the human soul. As, at
death, the molecules of the body separate and are, by-and-by, absorbed
with their inherent vitality into new agglomerations, and become part of
new living forms, so the elements of the human soul may be torn apart,
and some of them, being no longer man, but following the fortunes of the
lower principles, may be lost to us, while other elements, clinging to
the spiritual soul, follow its destiny in the after-life. I know a
thinking man who believes in nothing but matter and motion; add time and
space, and we have the all in all, the Nature, of Buddhism. Yet the
Buddhist believes in a state of being beyond this earthly life: a state
whose conditions are determined absolutely by the use which the human
soul has made of its opportunities in the life that now is, and my
friend says he does not. Truly, Buddhism is better than the materialism
of to-day.
Let me now turn to the history of humanity as revealed to us in our
book. Every monad, or spirit-element, beginning its course by becoming
separated from what I conceive as the great central reservoir of Nature,
must, before returning thither, make a certain fixed round through an
individual existence. If it belongs to the planetary chain, of which our
earth is the fourth and lowest link, it must pass seven times through
each of the kingdoms of Nature on each one of the seven planets. Of
these seven planets, Mars, our Earth, and Mercury, are three. The other
four are too tenuous to be cognizable by our present senses. Of the
seven kingdoms of Nature, three are likewise beyond our ken or
conception; the highest four are the mineral, the vegetable, the animal,
and man. Our immortal part has therefore passed already through six of
the kingdoms of its destiny, and is, in fact, now near the middle of its
fourth round of human existence upon the earth. One life on earth is,
however, not sufficient for the development of our powers. Every human
being must pass through each of the seven branch races of each of the
sub-races of each of the root-races of humanity; and must, in short,
live, or, as our author expresses the idea, be incarnated about eight
hundred times--some more and some less--upon this planet, before the
hour will come when it will be permitted to him, by a path as easy of
passage for him then, as is that followed by the rays of light, to visit
the planet Mercury, for his next two million years of existence.
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