The Causal Body and the Ego by Arthur E Powell.pdf

THE CAUSAL BODY

AND

THE EGO

Arthur E. Powell

A publication of The Theosophical Society

PART 1 OF 2

DEDICATION

This book, like its three predecessors, is dedicated with gratitude and appreciatoin to those

whose painstaking labour and researches have provided the materials out of which it has been

fashioned

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

THE FIELD OF EVOLUTION

THE COMING FORTH OF MONADS

THE FORMATION OF THE FIVE PLANES

THE KINGDOMS OF LIFE

THE ATTACHMENT OF THE ATOMS : HIGHER TRIAD

THE ATTACHMENT OF THE LOWER ATOMS : LOWER TRIAD

THE CREATIVE HIERARCHIES

GROUP SOULS

MINERAL GROUP SOULS

VEGETABLE GROUP-SOULS

ANIMAL GROUP-SOULS

INDIVIDUALISATION :MECHANISM AND PURPOSE

INDIVIDUALISATION :METHODS AND DEGREES

FUNCTIONS OF THE CAUSAL BODY

COMPOSITION & STRUCTURE OF THE CAUSAL BODY

CAUSAL THOUGHT

DEVELOPMENT AND FACULTIES OF THE CAUSAL BODY

LIFE AFTER DEATH: THE FIFTH HEAVEN

THE SIXTH HEAVEN

THE SEVENTH HEAVEN

TRISHNA: THE CAUSE OF REINCARNATION

PERMANENT ATOMS ANDTHE MECHANISM OF REINCARNATION

In section II of this document will be found

THE EGO AND REINCARNATION

THE EGO AND HIS "INVESTMENT"

THE EGO AND THE PERSONALITY

THE EGO IN THE PERSONALITY

THE EGO & THE PERSONALITY: SACRAMENTAL AIDS

MEMORY OF PAST LIVES

THE EGO ON HIS OWN PLANE

INITIATION

BUDDHIC CONSCIOUSNESS

THE EGO AND THE MONAD

THE SECOND AND HIGHER INITIATIONS

CONCLUSION

INTRODUCTION

This book forms the fourth, and last, of the series of compilations dealing with the bodies of

man. Throughout the series the same plan has been adopted. Approximately forty volumes

mostly those written by Annie Besant and by C.W. Leadbeater, have been thoroughly

searched, the material thus found has been sorted, arranged and classified into its appropriate

departments, so as to present to the student of modern Theosophy a coherent and sequential

account of the finer bodies of man.

In addition, there has been incorporated a considerable amount of information regarding the

planes, or worlds, associated with these four bodies of man. It is therefore, probably near the

truth to say that the gist of nearly everything that has been published by the two principle

pioneers into the mysteries and complexities of the Ancient Wisdom, with the exception of

certain clearly marked specialities [such as Occult Chemistry, for example] is to be found in

these four books.

The compiler thus hopes that the intensive labour, which has occupied him for about three

years and a half years, will serve to make a little easier the path of those who desire to obtain a

comprehensive grasp of what may be termed the technical aspects of modern Theosophy.

In view of the fact that our occult knowledge, of planes finer than the physical, is likely to be

enormously increased in the near future, it has seemed desirable to undertake the not

inconsiderable task of arranging, in textbook form, such data as are already in our possession,

before the total mass becomes too unwieldy to be handled in this manner. Moreover, by such

orderly arrangement of our materials, we construct for ourselves an outline, or skeleton into

which further information can be built, as it becomes available.

As in the previous volumes, references to the sources of the information have throughout been

given in the margin (when using the book) , so that any student who so desires, may verify for

himself every statement made, at its original source. In the few cases where the compiler has

stated his own unsupported views, the initials A.E.P. have been printed in the margin. About

two thirds of the diagrams are original, the remainder having been taken, sometimes with slight

modifications, from the works of C.W.Leadbeater, and a few from A Study In Consciousness,

by Annie Besant.

A further department of Theosophical knowledge, to a great extent self-contained, and

therefore specialised, is that of the Scheme of Evolution in which man evolves: this includes

Globes [ such as the Earth] Rounds, Chains, Races, Sub-Races, and so forth. The writer hopes

to compile a volume dealing with this section of technical Theosophy, in the near future.

A.E.Powell

CHAPTER I

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

In the three preceding volumes of this series, viz., The Etheric double , The Astral Body , and

The Mental Body , the life history of each of the three lower vehicles of man has been studied.

In these studies, it has been sufficient for us to take each of the three vehicles as we find it

actually existing in man, and to examine its methods of functioning, the laws of its growth, its

death, and then the formation , from the nucleus provided by the permanent atoms and mental

unit, of new vehicles of the same kind, in order that man's evolution on the three lower planes

can be continued.

When we come to study the causal body of man, we enter upon a new phase of our work, and

must take a far wider sweep in our purview of man's evolution. The reason for this is, that whilst

the etheric, astral and mental bodies exist for one human incarnation only, i.e.., are distinctly

mortal , the causal body persists throughout the whole of man's evolution, through many

incarnations, and is therefore relatively immortal . We say relatively immortal advisedly

because, as will be seen in due course, there is a point where a man, having completed his

purely normal human evolution, commences his supernormal human evolution, and actually

loses the causal body in which he has lived and evolved during the past ages of his growth.

Hence, in dealing with man's causal body, we are no longer standing within the personality ,

looking upon any vehicle of that personality, and seeing from its own standpoint how it is

serving the evolution of the real man who uses it, but instead we must take up our stand by the

side of the man himself, looking from above on the vehicles of the personality, and regarding

them as so many temporary instruments fashioned for the use of the man himself, and

discarded, as a broken tool is discarded, when they have served their purpose.

Furthermore, in order to make our study comprehensive, and to round it off in a manner that

will be intellectually satisfactory, we must discover and study the origin and birth of the causal

body, i.e ., how it has formed in the first instance. Finding that it had a beginning, we see at

once, not only that it must have an end, but also that there must be some other form of

consciousness which uses the causal body, much as the ego in the causal body uses the

vehicles of the personality. This other form of consciousness is, of course, the human Monad.

Hence, in order that we may fully comprehend the part that the causal body plays in the

tremendous story of human evolution, we must study also the human Monad.

Reverting to the birth or formation of the causal body, we are at once plunged into a

consideration of the somewhat intricate subject of Group-Souls, with which we shall have to

deal. Tracing the origin of Group-Souls, we are led back, step by step, to the Three Great

Outpourings of the Divine Life, from which all forms of manifested life arise. Whilst studying the

Three Outpourings, we must necessarily consider to some extent the formation of the material

world into which the Outpourings are projected.

Thus in order that our study of the Causal Body may be a comprehensive one, we must

describe, though in brief outline only, the formation of the field of evolution, the flow into that

field of the great streams of life, the coming forth of the Monads, the building of the many

kingdoms of life, and the plunging of the Monads, with the assistance of the permanent atoms,

into the material universe, and the gradual development of the life in the Group Souls until

eventually, after aeons of existence, the point of Individualisation is reached, when the causal

body for the first time appears.

Thereafter, our study will follow much the same lines as in the previous books of this series.

We shall have to deal in turn with the functions of the Causal Body: its composition and

structure; the nature of causal thought; the development and faculties of the causal body; the

portion of life after death spent in the causal body in the higher heaven worlds.

Then we must pass to a fuller examination of the entity, the ego to wit, who inhabits and uses

the causal body, projecting from it personality after personality into the cycle of reincarnation.

We must examine what is known as Trishna, the "thirst", which is the true cause of

reincarnation; the permanent atoms and the mechanism of reincarnation; the attitude which the

ego takes toward the whole process of reincarnation and to the personalities which he projects

into the lower worlds.

The whole relationship of the ego to the personality, his link with it, and the way in which he

uses it, must be carefully examined. A special chapter will be devoted to certain Sacramental

aids towards strengthening and improving the link between the ego and the personality, and

another chapter to the rationale of the memory of past lives.

Then we pass to describe, so far as is possible, the life of the ego on his own plane. This leads

us on to Initiation into the Great White Brotherhood, when the causal body vanishes for a time.

Some description of the buddhic consciousness must be attempted, and a succinct epitome of

such facts as are known regarding the Second and Higher Initiations.

Finally, we conclude our long history with the relation of the ego to his "Father in Heaven", the

Monad.

The field which this book attempts to cover is thus, as already said, a far greater one than that

covered in any of the three preceding volumes of the series. The book will, it is hoped, enable

the student of Theosophy to obtain a broad grasp of the wonderful panorama of human

evolution, and to see in true perspective the part played by each of the four subtler bodies of

man - the etheric, the astral, the mental and the causal.

CHAPTER II

THE FIELD OF EVOLUTION

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