MAN´S DIVINITY AND SOPHISTICATION  
by B P Wadia 


© 2003 Online Teosofiska Kompaniet Malmö 

"How can a man expect spiritual gifts or powers if he persists in
ignoring spiritual conditions, in violating spiritual laws?"

At the core of every man's heart, there is the aspiration to be good, noble, and generous. What happens to it? How is it that that Divine Intuition which each feels from time to time does not express itself more abundantly and more frequently?

Man's divinity is natural to him. His sophistication is acquired. Born alone with his experience, the Soul possesses the capacity to deal with the material universe, to learn from it and to enrich his wisdom. The child experiences the first touch of sophisti- cation in his schooling at home and his breeding at school. He acquires by osmosis thoughts and feelings not natural to the Soul, which affect adversely his native goodness, rhythm, and light. The Soul's own vesture is of sattva-guna. Its native hue is golden. Its native content is bliss.

Every Soul is born with the prospective vision of his future life, the purpose of which is that he shall live in harmony by dissolving disharmony and labor for and in unity with others, with all men, with the whole of Nature.

The Great Seers have reported that at the end of Swargic bliss, of the joy which each disembodied Ego experiences, there comes to him, on the threshold of a new incarnated existence, a Vision of what is to be. The Soul sees in silhouette his next incarnation. The radiating lines of forces reveal the picture of his coming life. It is like an architect's plan of a new house -- a blueprint whose delineations are in its own peculiar language of linear measurements. It gives some idea, however hazy to intelligent beholders of the blueprint, of what the house is going to be. The details are not on the blueprint but the size of the rooms and the general character of the structure are shown.

The human soul comes down to material life "trailing clouds of glory." The doors and the windows of his body bring him intimations of his heavenly affiliations. Soon, however, by the influence of his family at home and his companions at school, a "strong personality" is developed, i.e., one that becomes possessive, fights for possessions, and overpowers others in
securing them. Thus, the boy or girl becomes a dual intelligence -- the Vision of the Being of Sattva is clouded over.

Shankara and other Occultists have taught that there is the projective power of ignorance. The power of projection that envelops the Soul is that of false knowledge, worldly wisdom. It leads men astray into the belief that "all is for enjoyment only" which the Gita describes in its Sixteenth Chapter. This force becomes in man the womb of love and hate -- for the world. Its chief characteristic is that it smothers the noetic memory of the divine and the heavenly, and induces the psychic memory of the devilish and the earthy.

In pain, anguish, and suffering, the Soul's noetic memory awakens. The man is lulled into sleep by worldly wisdom -- again and yet again. Thus a whole life, a full incarnation, finishes -- much lost, little gained.

There are two ways of beings in the world -- the one divine, the other demoniacal. The latter predominates in our civilization. How true is the description in the Gita of the demoniacal, who

" know not the nature of action nor of cessation from action, they know not purity nor right behavior, they possess no truthfulness. They deny that the universe has any truth in it, saying it is not governed by law, declaring that it hath no Spirit; they say creatures are produced alone through the union of the sexes, and that all is for enjoyment only ... Fast-bound
by the hundred chords of desire, prone to lust and anger, they seek by injustice and the accumulation of wealth for the gratification of their own lusts and appetites ... Indulging in pride, selfishness, ostentation, power, lust, and anger, they detest me who am in their bodies and in the bodies of others.

The Divine persists. Unlike the demoniacal, a quality that is changing and mortal, the Rhythm of the Divine persists for it is ever abiding, Immortal. Its intimations come to each of us in darkness and gloom as well as through light and beauty. Man has to seize these intimations and work with them. Therefore, it is said, "Put yourself at once in line with the Divine ways, in harmony with the Divine laws."

 

B. P. WADIA
From THUS HAVE I HEARD, pages 197-99. Utgiven av Indian Institute of World Culture, 1959.

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