The Complete Works of Yogy Ramacharaka. William Walker Atkinson
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impulse which started life along the path; other things which it has received from the intellect, including suggestions from others, as well as thought-waves sent out from the minds of others, which have taken lodgment within its corridors. All sorts of foolishness as well as wisdom is there. We will deal with this phase of the subject in future lessons, under the head of Suggestion and Auto Suggestion, Thought Power, etc.
Instinctive mind manifests varying degrees of consciousness, varying from almost absolute sub-consciousness to the simple consciousness of the highest of the lower animals and the lower forms of man. Self-consciousness comes to man with the unfoldment of the intellect, and will be spoken of in its proper place. Cosmic or universal consciousness comes with the unfoldment of the spiritual mind and will be touched upon later on. This gradual growth of consciousness is a most interesting and important branch of the subject before us, and will be referred to, and spoken of, at different points in this course.
Before we pass on to the next principle, we must call your attention to the fact that the instinctive mind is the seat of the appetites, passions, desires, instincts, sensations, feelings, and emotions of the lower order, manifested in man as well as in the lower animals. There are of course higher ideas, emotions, aspirations, and desires, reaching the advanced man from the unfolding spiritual mind, but the animal desires, and the ordinary feelings, emotions, etc., belong to the instinctive mind. All the "feelings" belonging to our passional and emotional nature belong to this plane. All animal desires, such as hunger and thirst, sexual desires (on the physical plane); all passions, such as physical love, hatred, envy, malice, jealousy, revenge, are a part of it. The desire for the physical (unless as a means of reaching higher things), the longing for the material, all belong to this plane. The "lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life," are on this plane. This principle is the most material of the three mental principles, and is the one which is apt to bind us the closest to the earth and earthly things. Remember, that we are not condemning material or "earthly" things - they are all right in their place; but man in his unfoldment grows to see these things as only a means to an end - only a step in the spiritual evolution. And with clearer vision he ceases to be bound too tightly to the material side of life, and, instead of regarding it as the end and aim of all things, sees that it is, at the best, only a means to a higher end.
Many of the "brute" instincts are still with us, and are much in evidence in undeveloped people. Occultists learn to curb and control these lower instincts, and to subordinate them to the higher mental ideals which open up to them. Be not discouraged, dear student, if you find much of the animal still within you. It is no sign of "badness," or evil; in fact the recognition of it by one is a sign that his unfoldment has begun, for, before, the same thing was there and not recognized for what it is, whereas now it is both seen and recognized. Knowledge is power; learn to know the remnants of the brute nature within you and become a tamer of wild beasts. The higher principles will always obtain the mastery, but patience, perseverance, and faith are required for the task. These "brute" things were all right in their time - the animal had need of them they were "good" for the purpose intended, but now that man is reaching higher points on the path, he sees clearer and learns to subordinate the lower parts of himself to the higher.
The lower instincts were not implanted in your nature by "the devil"; you came by them honestly. They came in the process of evolution as a proper and right thing, but have been largely outgrown and can now be left behind. So do not fear these inheritances from the past; you can put them aside or subordinate them to higher things as you journey along the path. Do not despise them, though you tread them under foot - they are the steps upon which you have reached your present high estate, and upon which you will attain still greater heights.
(5) The Intellect.
We now reach the mental principle which distinguishes man from the brute.
The first four principles man shares in common with the lower forms of life, but when the fifth principle begins to unfold he has reached an important stage of the journey along the path of attainment. He feels his manhood manifesting within him.
Now, remember, that there is no violent change or marked transition from the consciousness of the fourth principle into that of the fifth. As we have before explained, these principles shade into each other, and blend as do the colors of the spectrum. As intellect unfolds, it illuminates faintly the fourth principle, and endows instinctive life with reason. Simple consciousness shades into self-consciousness. Before the fifth principle dawns fairly, the creature having the four principles well developed has passions but no reason; emotions but not intellect; desires but no rationalized will. It is the subject awaiting the monarch, the sleeper awaiting the magic touch of the one who has been sent to awaken him from the enchanter's deep sleep. It is the brute awaiting the coming of that which will transform it into a man.
In some of the lower animals, the fourth principle has attracted to itself the lowest shading of the fifth principle, and the animal manifests signs of a faint reasoning. On the other hand, in some of the lower forms of man - the Bushman, for example-, the fourth principle has scarcely been perceptibly colored by the incoming fifth principle, and the "man" is scarcely more than a brute, in fact is more of a brute, mentally, than some of the higher domesticated animals, who, having been for many generations in close companionship with man, have been colored by his mental emanations.
The first sign of the real unfoldment of the fifth principle, intellect, is the dawning of self-consciousness. In order more fully to understand this, let us consider what consciousness really is.
Among the lower animals there is very little of that which we call consciousness. The consciousness of the lower animal forms is but little more than mere sensation. Life in the early stages is almost automatic. The mentation is almost entirely along subconscious lines, and the mentation itself is only that which is concerned with the physical life of the animal - the satisfaction of its primitive wants. After a bit, this primitive consciousness developed into what psychologists term simple consciousness. Simple consciousness is an "awareness" of outside things
- a perception and recognition of things other than the inner self. The conscious attention is turned outward. The animal, or low order of man, cannot think of his hopes and fears, his aspirations, his plans, his thoughts, and then compare them with the like thoughts of others of his kind. He cannot turn his gaze inward and speculate upon abstract things. He simply takes things for granted and asks no questions. He does not attempt to find solutions for questions within himself, for he is not aware that such questions exist.
With the advent of self-consciousness man begins to form a conception of the "I" He begins to compare himself with others and to reason about it. He takes mental stock, and draws conclusions from what he finds in his mind. He begins to think for himself, to analyze, classify, separate, deduce, etc. As he progresses he begins to think out things for himself, and passes along new and fresh suggestions to his instinctive mind. He begins to rely upon his own mind, rather than blindly accepting that which emanates from the mind of others. He begins to create for himself, and is no longer a mere mental automaton.
And from a mere glimmering of conscious intelligence there has grown the highest intelligence of today. A modern writer forcibly expresses the growth in the following words: "For some hundreds of years, upon the general plane of self-consciousness, an ascent, to the human eye gradually, but from the point of view of cosmic evolution rapid, has been made. In a race, large-brained, walking erect, gregarious, brutal, but king of all other brutes, man in appearance but not in fact, was from the highest simple-consciousness born the basic human faculty self-consciousness, and its twin, language. From these and what went with these, through suffering, toil, and war; through bestiality, savagery, barbarism; through slavery, greed, effort; through conquests infinite, through defeats overwhelming, through struggle unending; through ages of aimless semi-brutal existence; through subsistence on berries and roots; through the use of the casually found stone or stick; through life in deep forests, with nuts and seeds, and on the shores of waters with mollusks, crustaceans, and fish for food; through that greatest, perhaps, of human victories, the domestication and subjugation of fire; through the invention and art of bow and arrow; through the taming of animals and the breaking of them to labor; through the long learning which led to the cultivation of the soil; through the adobe brick and the building of houses therefrom; through the smelting