By looking into two explanations for the literal acceptation by some
people in the East of those laws of Manu which seem to teach the
transmigrating into brutes, insects, and so on, we can see how the true
student of this doctrine will not fall into the same error.
The first is, that the various verses and books teaching such
transmigration have to do with the actual method of reïncarnation, that
is, with the explanation of the actual physical processes which have to
be undergone by the Ego in passing from the unembodied to the embodied
state, and also with the roads, ways, or means of descent from the
invisible to the visible plane. This has not yet been plainly explained
in Theosophical books, because on the one hand it is a delicate matter,
and on the other the details would not as yet be received even by
Theosophists with credence, although one day they will be. And as these
details are not of the greatest importance they are not now expounded.
But as we know that no human body is formed without the union of the
sexes, and that the germs for such production are locked up in the
sexes and must come from food which is taken into the body, it is
obvious that foods have something to do with the reïncarnating of the
Ego. Now if the road to reïncarnation leads through certain food and
none other, it may be possible that if the Ego gets entangled in food
which will not lead to the germ of physical reproduction, a punishment
is indicated where Manu says that such and such practices will lead to
transmigration, which is then a “hindrance”. I throw this out so far
for the benefit of certain theosophists who read these and whose own
theories on this subject are now rather vague and in some instances
based on quite other hypotheses.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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