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Preface
5 Planes of Existence
Introduction
Five Planes of Manifestation
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ARHATS OF THREE GRADES
Symbolic of three states of consciousness
successively experienced on the higher mental and buddhic planes,
after the attainment of perfection on the lower planes.
“First, the simple Arhat (who is perfect, freed from all pain, from
all the ten fetters and from all attachment to existence). Second,
far above the simple Arhat, the Pratyeka-Buddha or Solitary Saint,
who has attained perfection for himself and by himself alone. Third,
the supreme Buddha or Buddha par excellence, who having by his own
self-enlightening insight attained perfect knowledge, and having, by
the practice of the transcendent virtues and through extinction of
the passions and of all desire for life, become entitled to that
complete extinction of bodily existence, in which the perfection of
all Arhatship must end, has yet delayed this consummation that he
may become the Saviour of a suffering world by teaching men how to
save themselves. -MON. WILLIAMS, Buddhism, p. 134.
The first Arhat signifies the perfected individuality in the
causal-body freed from attachment to the lower nature and without a
personality. In this state the consciousness is buddhi-manasic. The
second grade is represented by the individual monad or Divine Spark
(Paccekabuddha) on the plane of atma, who is perfect of himself and
has no lower nature. The third grade specifies the Higher Self
(Buddha) who has descended into the matter of the lower planes in
the cycle of involution, and, as the Archetypal Man, has attained
all knowledge, power, and virtue, with complete control over the
lower nature of humanity in its desires, passions, and appetites.
He, the indwelling Self, being perfect and complete in the inner
being of each striving human soul, remains in manifestation to be
the Saviour of the suffering world of humankind. He saves all souls
by teaching them how to discipline their lives and thoughts so that
they may fit themselves for the redeeming grace which he is ever
ready to bestow.
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