The changing world, and lectures to theosophical students.: Fifteen lectures delivered in London during May, June, and July, 1909Besant, Annie
Religion
The changing world, and lectures to theosophical students.: Fifteen lectures delivered in London during May, June, and July, 1909
Besant, Annie
Theosophy; Theosophy -- Study and teaching
There is one other thing that will help us a little as well as the
principle of correspondences, but, so far as I know, this other clue
of ours has not been adopted or used in modern science. I say, so far
as I know, for science is going on so rapidly at the present time
that it is not possible to keep abreast with all the details of the
later investigations. This second principle is called the principle
of reflexion. As you may have a mountain reflected in a lake, and all
the peculiarities, the outlines, the foliage on the mountainside, will
be reproduced in the calm water of the lake that washes the foot of
the mountain; as in that reflexion the highest in the object will be
reflected as the lowest in the image, and as at every intermediate point
where the mountain is reproduced in the image, the reflexion of the
mountain, there will be a reversal, the higher being the lower, and so
on, until you come to the point of junction between water and mountain,
and there the nearest to you on the mountain will be reflected in the
nearest to you on the water—just so may we in studying man understand
something of him by regarding him as a reflexion of divinity, the great
threefold aspect of divine life showing itself out in man. But you may
ask me: What do you exactly mean when you say reflexion? I mean the
reproduction of similar characteristics in a grosser and denser form
of matter. That is what we mean by reflexion thus applied. Just as the
mountain which you see by the air is reflected in the denser water, so
are spiritual attributes reflected in grosser matter; or, otherwise
expressed, the same, or rather a similar characteristic, works in grosser
matter; therefore with powers more limited, therefore with faculties less
potent. That is the use we make of this term “reflexion” in theosophical
literature. The characteristics are the same, but because of the denser
matter their manifestation is limited and confined. So the great Will
which brings the universe into existence is reflected in the Will to
Live in man; and as that is the highest manifestation of Deity, so,
reflected in man, does it appear at the lowest stage of evolution as the
one prominent characteristic of the dawning human consciousness. In the
babe, that will to live is practically the only sign of consciousness,
showing itself out in groping movements, whereby the will to live is
striving to come into contact with the outer world and discover something
of its environment. And so the second great manifestation of Deity, the
Wisdom-Love which in the Christian nomenclature shows itself out in the
person of the Son, that reflected in human nature comes out as the
emotions, the refined, gentle, unselfish emotions that form the second
great stage of human consciousness, beginning with the lowest stage of
passion, and gradually rising unbroken to the loftiest manifestation of
emotion; and then the third, the creative activity, which, again, in the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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