Home
Preface
5 Planes of Existence
Introduction
Five Planes of Manifestation
A to Z
Related Information
|
INDIVIDUALITY
This term is taken in its highest sense as
signifying the direct embodiment of the Self in the manifest, in
which the Self for the time is limited to the mode of Its
manifestation. The individuality, therefore, is the immediate
manifestation of the Self's otherwise unmanifested Self. Regarded in
relation to the myriad human souls, the individuality is the point
at which we pass forth from the Higher Self wherein we are rooted
and centred in unity within.
"He, the monarch of the Sakyas, of native pre-eminence, but whose
actual pre-eminence was brought about by his numberless councillors
of exalted wisdom, shone forth all the more gloriously, like the
moon." - Buddha Karita, Bk. I. 14.
The Self as the individuality,—the essential One,—but whose actual
power is ensured by the numerous modes of its activity upon the
lower planes, shines forth all the more gloriously as it undertakes
to manifest upon the planes of illusion as the personality (moon).
"There is one unborn being (feminine) red, white and black, but
producing manifold offspring. There is one unborn being (masculine)
who loves her and lies by her; there is another who leaves her,
while she is eating what has to be eaten." - Svetas. Upanishad, IV.
5.
"The text must be interpreted in accordance with the context, and in
harmony with a similar passage in the Chandogya Upanishad : the red
colour of fire is the colour of heat, white is the colour of water,
and black the colour of earth.'" - A. E. GOUGH, Phil. of Upanishads,
p. 204.
The feminine being signifies Buddhi functioning as goodness (heat)
and truth (water) in the lower nature (earth). Buddhi produces the
innumerable qualities of the soul, both higher (white) and lower
(black). The masculine being is the Causal Self or Individuality who
is united to Buddhi. The other being is the Personality who evolves
under the influence of Buddhi, and when perfected dies and
disappears while Buddhi transmutes the lower qualities to the higher
planes.
“Christianity accepts the Platonic distinction between the higher
and the lower self, and agrees with Plato that the higher self is
born of influences which belong to the Eternal world, the
supernatural source of truth and goodness. This law of growth
through the clash and union of opposites runs all through the
Christian experience. There is no self-expenditure (self-sacrifice)
without self-enrichment, no self-enrichment without
self-expenditure. . . . Anyone who tries to attain complete
self-expression-to build his pyramid of existence, as Goethe put it,
as an isolated individual, is certain to fail ignominiously. The
self that he is trying to bring to perfection is a mere abstraction,
a figment of his imagination. And conversely, any one who lived a
purely external life, with no inner soul-centre to which all
experiences must be related, would be nothing either. unifying
consciousness is the type and the copy of all-unifying consciousness
of God. Our individuality is a shadow of His." - W. R. INGE, Paddock
Lectures, p. 87.
"The Rational Soul which rules over that which is under it, and
comes to know the higher by means of the enlightenment given by the
World-Spirit, is then the real Man-brought into existence. but as
unmixed essence, as individual substance indestructible, immortal."
- DE BOER, Hist. of Phil. in Islam, p. 142.
“Note clearly the unity of the Self. You individualised are but one
being, though you do not yet know very much about the nature and
potentialities of that being; I individualised am another self of
whom the same thing is true. And your Selfhood is in essence good,
eternal, divine, because it is an expression of the very life of
God; so is mine; so is that of all mankind. It is in the task of
manifesting it that we have to a great extent gone wrong, and are
conscious of discord and failure." - R. J. CAMPBELL, Serm., The Self
and the Body.
|
See Also
|