The Spiritual Man and Nirvana – Selections from Theosophy’s Sacred Teachings in “The Key to Theosophy,” Part 1 of 2

Today, on Words of Wisdom, we invite you to join us for excerpts from “The Key to Theosophy.” ON THE VARIOUS POST MORTEM STATES. THE PHYSICAL AND THE SPIRITUAL MAN.

“Enquirer: I am glad to hear you believe in the immortality of the Soul.

Theosophist: Not of ‘the Soul,’ but of the Divine Spirit; or rather in the immortality of the reincarnating Ego.

Enquirer: What is the difference?

Theosophist: A very great one in our philosophy. We shall have to analyze them separately, and then in conjunction. We may begin with Spirit. We say that the Spirit (the “Father in secret” of Jesus), or Atman, is no individual property of any man, but is the Divine essence which has no body, no form, which is imponderable, invisible and indivisible, that which does not exist and yet is, as the Buddhists say of Nirvana. It only overshadows the mortal; that which enters into him and pervades the whole body being only its omnipresent rays, or light, radiated through Buddhi, its vehicle and direct emanation. This is the secret meaning of the assertions of almost all the ancient philosophers, when they said that “the rational part of man’s soul” never entered wholly into the man, but only overshadowed him more or less through the irrational spiritual Soul or Buddhi.

We say that we only allow the presence of the radiation of Spirit (or Atman) in the astral capsule, and so far only as that spiritual radiancy is concerned. We say that man and Soul have to conquer their immortality by ascending towards the unity with which, if successful, they will be finally linked and into which they are finally, so to speak, absorbed. The individualization of man after death depends on the spirit, not on his soul and body.”

“Enquirer: Would you call the Soul, the human thinking Soul, or what you call the Ego—matter?

Theosophist: That matter, we say, is co-eternal with Spirit, and is not our visible, tangible, and divisible matter, but its extreme sublimation. Pure Spirit is but one remove from the no-Spirit, or the absolute all.

Theosophist: That which is infinite and unconditioned can have no form, and cannot be a being. An ‘entity’ is immortal, but is so only in its ultimate essence, not in its individual form.”