Monadic body
Sanskrit = anama (nameless) 4
The information available on the subject of the Monad is necessarily scanty. We are not at present in a position to supplement
it to any great extent; but a statement of the case, as far as it is at present comprehended, may save students some
misapprehensions.
That many misconceptions should exist on such a subject is inevitable, because we are trying to understand with the physical brain
what can by no possibility be expressed in terms intelligible to that brain.
The Monad inhabits the second plane of our set of planes [ see 7 Planes chart ] - that which used
to be called the paranirvanic or the anupadaka.
It is not easy to attach in the mind any definite meaning to the word plane or world [or body] at such an altitude as this, because
any attempt even to symbolise the relation of planes or worlds to one another demands a stupendous effort of the imagination in a
direction with which we are wholly unfamiliar.
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Let us try to imagine what the consciousness of the Divine must be - the consciousness of the Solar Deity altogether outside any
of the worlds or planes or levels which we ever conceived. We can only vaguely think of some sort of transcendent Consciousness for
which space no longer exists, to which everything (at least in the Solar System) is simultaneously present, not only in its actual
condition, but at every stage of its evolution from beginning to end. We must think of that Divine Consciousness as creating for Its
use these worlds of various types of matter, and then voluntarily veiling Itself within that matter, and thereby greatly limiting
Itself. By taking upon Itself a garment of the matter of even the highest of these worlds, It has clearly already imposed upon
Itself a certain limitation; and, equally clearly, each additional garment assumed, as It involves Itself more and more deeply in
matter, must increase the limitation. One way of attempting to symbolise this is to try to think of it in connection with what we call dimensions of space. If we may suppose an infinite number of these dimensions, it may be suggested that each descent, from a higher level to a lower, removes the consciousness of one of these dimensions, until, when we reach the mental plane or world, the power of observing but five of them is all that is left to us. The descent to the astral level takes away one more, and the further descent to the physical leaves us with the three which are familiar to us. |
In order [for us to] even to get an idea of what this loss of additional dimensions means, we have to suppose the existence of a creature whose senses are capable of comprehending only two dimensions. Then we must reason in what respect the consciousness of that creature would differ from ours, and thus try to image to ourselves what it would mean to lose a dimension from our consciousness. Such an exercise of the imagination will speedily convince us that the two-dimensional creature could never obtain any adequate conception of our life at all; he could be conscious of it only in sections, and his idea of even those sections must be entirely misleading. This enables us to see how inadequate must be our conception even of the plane or world next above us; and we at once perceive the hopelessness of expecting fully to understand the Monad, which is raised by many of these planes or worlds above the point from which we are trying to regard it. 19
(ADVANCED)
Of the condition of consciousness of the Solar Deity outside the planes of His system, we can form no true conception. He has been
spoken of as the Divine Fire; and if for a moment we adopt that time-honoured symbolism, we may imagine that Sparks from that Fire
fall into the matter of our planes - Sparks which are of the essence of that Fire, but are yet in appearance temporarily separated
from it. The analogy cannot be pushed too far, because all sparks of which we know anything are thrown out from their parent fire
and gradually fade and die; whereas these Sparks develop by slow evolution into Flames, and return to the Parent Fire. This
development and this return are apparently the objects for which the Sparks come forth; and the process of the development is that
which we are at the present moment concerned to try to understand.
It seems that the Spark, as such, cannot in its entirety veil itself beyond a certain extent; it cannot descend beyond what we
call the second plane, and yet retain its unity. One difficulty with which we are confronted in trying to form any ideas upon this
matter is that, as yet, none of us who investigate are able to raise our consciousness to this second plane; in the nomenclature
recently adopted [1920's] we give to it the name of monadic because it is the home of the Monad, but none of us have yet been able
to realise that Monad in his own habitation, but only to see him when he has descended one stage to the plane or level or world
below his own, in which he shows himself as the triple Spirit, which in our earlier books we call the Atma in man. Even already
he is incomprehensible, for he has three aspects which are quite distinct and apparently separate, and yet they are all
fundamentally one and the same.
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