(32) What is bondage by expedient methods unsupported by wisdom? It is bondage caused by a Bodhisattva’s lack of determination to keep from desire, anger, perverse views and other troubles (klesa) while planting all wisdom roots. This is called bondage by expedient methods, which lack wisdom.

(30) What is bondage by wisdom unsupported by expedient methods? It is bondage caused by the Bodhisattva’s desire to embellish the Buddha land (with merits) in order to bring living beings to perfection while practicing for his self-control (the three gates to nirvana, namely,) voidness, formlessness and inactivity. This is called bondage by wisdom unsupported by expedient methods (upaya).

(8) Thus does one bind together and heal any break in the sacrifice by means of (the Vyâhritis or sacrificial interjections which are) the essence and strength of the three worlds, of the deities, and of the threefold knowledge. That sacrifice is healed in which there is a Brahman priest who knows this.

(4) Of the man who is devoid of attachment, who is liberated, whose mind is established in knowledge, the whole action performed in the spirit of sacrifice is dissolved.

(8) After this laying-aside process has been performed, the student will find himself in conscious possession of a "Self" which may be considered in its "I" and "Me" dual aspects. The "Me" will be felt to be a Something mental in which thoughts, ideas, emotions, feelings, and other mental states may be produced. It may be considered as the "mental womb," as the ancients styled it-capable of generating mental offspring. It reports to the consciousness as a "Me" with latent powers of creation and generation of mental progeny of all sorts and kinds. Its powers of creative energy are felt to be enormous. But still it seems to be conscious that it must receive some form of energy from either its "I" companion, or else from some other "I" ere it is able to bring into being its mental creations. This consciousness brings with it a realization of an enormous capacity for mental work and creative ability.

(10) Every thought, emotion or mental state has its corresponding rate and mode of vibration. And by an effort of the will of the person, or of other persons, these mental states may be reproduced, just as a musical tone may be reproduced by causing an instrument to vibrate at a certain rate--just as color may be reproduced in the same may. By a knowledge of the Principle of Vibration, as applied to Mental Phenomena, one may polarize his mind at any degree he wishes, thus gaining a perfect control over his mental states, moods, etc. In the same way he may affect the minds of others, producing the desired mental states in them. In short, he may be able to produce on the Mental Plane that which science produces on the Physical Plane--namely, "Vibrations at Will." This power of course may be acquired only by the proper instruction, exercises, practice, etc., the science being that of Mental Transmutation, one of the branches of the Hermetic Art.

(344) He who having got rid of the forest (of lust) (i.e. after having reached Nirvâna) gives himself over to forest-life (i.e. to lust), and who, when removed from the forest (i.e. from lust), runs to the forest (i.e. to lust), look at that man! though free, he runs into bondage.

(6) Thus it is demonstrated that to capture a man it is not sufficient to enslave his body--it is necessary to enlist his reason; that to free a man it is not enough to strike the shackles from his limbs--his mind must be liberated from bondage to his own ignorance. Physical conquest must ever fail, for, generating hatred and dissension, it spurs the mind to the avenging of an outraged body; but all men are bound whether willingly or unwillingly to obey that intellect in which they recognize qualities and virtues superior to their own.

(2) If the first stage of the Bardo path been taken by the forelock, that is best. But if not, by application of this distinct recalling [to the deceased], while in the second stage of the Bardo, his intellect is awakened and attaineth liberation.

(3) We may treat of the Soul as in the body- whether it be set above it or actually within it- since the association of the two constitutes the one thing called the living organism, the Animate.

Now from this relation, from the Soul using the body as an instrument, it does not follow that the Soul must share the body's experiences: a man does not himself feel all the experiences of the tools with which he is working.

It may be objected that the Soul must however, have Sense-Perception since its use of its instrument must acquaint it with the external conditions, and such knowledge comes by way of sense. Thus, it will be argued, the eyes are the instrument of seeing, and seeing may bring distress to the soul: hence the Soul may feel sorrow and pain and every other affection that belongs to the body; and from this again will spring desire, the Soul seeking the mending of its instrument.

But, we ask, how, possibly, can these affections pass from body to Soul? Body may communicate qualities or conditions to another body: but- body to Soul? Something happens to A; does that make it happen to B? As long as we have agent and instrument, there are two distinct entities; if the Soul uses the body it is separate from it.

But apart from the philosophical separation how does Soul stand to body?

Clearly there is a combination. And for this several modes are possible. There might be a complete coalescence: Soul might be interwoven through the body: or it might be an Ideal-Form detached or an Ideal-Form in governing contact like a pilot: or there might be part of the Soul detached and another part in contact, the disjoined part being the agent or user, the conjoined part ranking with the instrument or thing used.

In this last case it will be the double task of philosophy to direct this lower Soul towards the higher, the agent, and except in so far as the conjunction is absolutely necessary, to sever the agent from the instrument, the body, so that it need not forever have its Act upon or through this inferior.

(4) Now as a caterpillar, when it has come to the end of a blade of grass, in taking the next step draws itself together towards it, just so this soul in taking the next step strikes down this body, dispels its ignorance and draws itself together [for making the transition].

(23) I explain: A living body is illuminated by soul: each organ and member participates in soul after some manner peculiar to itself; the organ is adapted to a certain function, and this fitness is the vehicle of the soul-faculty under which the function is performed; thus the seeing faculty acts through the eyes, the hearing faculty through the ears, the tasting faculty through the tongue, the faculty of smelling through the nostrils, and the faculty of sentient touch is present throughout, since in this particular form of perception the entire body is an instrument in the soul's service.

The vehicles of touch are mainly centred in the nerves- which moreover are vehicles of the faculty by which the movements of the living being are affected- in them the soul-faculty concerned makes itself present; the nerves start from the brain. The brain therefore has been considered as the centre and seat of the principle which determines feeling and impulse and the entire act of the organism as a living thing; where the instruments are found to be linked, there the operating faculty is assumed to be situated. But it would be wiser to say only that there is situated the first activity of the operating faculty: the power to be exercised by the operator- in keeping with the particular instrument- must be considered as concentrated at the point at which the instrument is to be first applied; or, since the soul's faculty is of universal scope the sounder statement is that the point of origin of the instrument is the point of origin of the act.

Now, the faculty presiding over sensation and impulse is vested in the sensitive and representative soul; it draws upon the Reason-Principle immediately above itself; downward, it is in contact with an inferior of its own: on this analogy the uppermost member of the living being was taken by the ancients to be obviously its seat; they lodged it in the brain, or not exactly in the brain but in that sensitive part which is the medium through which the Reason-Principle impinges upon the brain. They saw that something must be definitely allocated to body- at the point most receptive of the act of reason- while something, utterly isolated from body must be in contact with that superior thing which is a form of soul of that soul apt to the appropriation of the perceptions originating in the Reason-Principle.

Such a linking there must be, since in perception there is some element of judging, in representation something intuitional, and since impulse and appetite derive from representation and reason. The reasoning faculty, therefore, is present where these experiences occur, present not as in a place but in the fact that what is there draws upon it. As regards perception we have already explained in what sense it is local.

But every living being includes the vegetal principle, that principle of growth and nourishment which maintains the organism by means of the blood; this nourishing medium is contained in the veins; the veins and blood have their origin in the liver: from observation of these facts the power concerned was assigned a place; the phase of the soul which has to do with desire was allocated to the liver. Certainly what brings to birth and nourishes and gives growth must have the desire of these functions. Blood- subtle, light, swift, pure- is the vehicle most apt to animal spirit: the heart, then, its well-spring, the place where such blood is sifted into being, is taken as the fixed centre of the ebullition of the passionate nature.

(7) A writer well says of this particular state of newly awakened consciousness: "Although this feeling of separateness and apartness grows less acute as the man grows older, yet it is always present to a greater or less degree until a still higher stage is reached, when it disappears. And this self-conscious stage is painful to many. Many find themselves entangled in a mass of mental states which one thinks is himself, or inextricably bound up with himself, and the struggle between the awakening Ego and its confining sheaths is very painful in some cases. And this becomes more painful as the individual advances in self-consciousness and nears the end at which he is to find deliverance. Man eats of the Tree of Knowledge and begins to suffer, and is driven out of the garden of Eden of the child consciousness in which the individual has lived like the birds, concerning not himself about the affairs of his higher nature. Man pays dearly for the gift of Self-Consciousness—yet it is worth it all, for finally he reaches heights of higher consciousness and is delivered from his burden." With the dawning awareness of one's own mental states, one comes to the realization that other human beings possess similar states, and one begins to speculate and reason about the working of these states in others. Then comes the desire to communicate one's ideas to the mind of the others, and to appeal to his feelings or reason. All this promotes the development of Intellect and logical thought, which is a marked characteristic of evolving human consciousness. Man begins to seek for an answer to the many "whys" which are presenting themselves to him, and he seeks to reason from the known to the unknown. He proceeds to invent appliances conducive to the accomplishment of things which lie desires. He harnesses his Intellect to the chariot of his Desires, and drives it along by command of Will, the chariot-driver.

(41) There being several turning-points, liberation should be obtained at one or other of them through recognizing. But those of very weak karmic connexions, whose mass of obscuration is great [because of] evil actions, have to wander downwards and downwards to the Sidpa Bardo. Yet since there are, like the rungs of a ladder, many kinds of settings-face-to-face [or remindings], liberation should have been obtained at one or at another by recognizing. But those of the weakest karmic connexions, by not recognizing, fall under the influence of awe and terror. [For them] there are various graded teachings for closing the womb-door and for selecting the womb-door; and, at one or other of these, they should have apprehended the method of visualization and [applied] the illimitable virtues [thereof] for exalting one's own condition. Even the lowest of them, resembling the brute order, will have been able -- in virtue of the application of the Refuge — to turn from entering into misery; and, [obtaining] the great [boon] of a perfectly endowed and freed human body, will, in the next birth, meeting with a guru who is a virtuous friend, obtain the [saving] vows.

(7) But as man rises in the scale of consciousness he is able to disentangle his "Me" from his idea of body, and is able to think of his body as "belonging to" the mental part of him. But even then he is very apt to identify the "Me" entirely with the mental states, feelings, etc., which he feels to exist within him. He is very apt to consider these internal states as identical with himself, instead of their being simply "things" produced by some part of his mentality, and existing within him--of him, and in him, but still not "himself." He sees that he may change these internal states of feelings by all effort of will, and that he may produce a feeling or state of an exactly opposite nature, in the same way, and yet the same "Me" exists. And so after a while he is able to set aside these various mental states, emotions, feelings, habits, qualities, characteristics, and other personal mental belongings--he is able to set them aside in the "not-me" collection of curiosities and encumbrances, as well as valuable possessions. This requires much mental concentration and power of mental analysis on the part of the student. But still the task is possible for the advanced student, and even those not so far advanced are able to see, in the imagination, how the process may be performed.

(41) By the reading of these properly, those devotees [or yogis] who are advanced in understanding can make the best use of the Transference at the moment of death. They need not traverse the Intermediate State, but will depart by the Great Straight-Upward [Path]. Others who are a little less practiced [in things spiritual], recognizing the Clear Light in the Chonyid Bardo, at the moment of death, will go by the upward [course]. Those lower than these will be liberated — in accordance with their particular abilities and karmic connexions — when one or other of the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities dawneth upon them, during the succeeding [two] weeks, while in the Chonyid Bardo.

(26) Now if sensations of the active order depend upon the Couplement of soul and body, sensation must be of that double nature. Hence it is classed as one of the shared acts: the soul, in the feeling, may be compared to the workman in such operations as boring or weaving, the body to the tool employed: the body is passive and menial; the soul is active, reading such impressions as are made upon the body or discerned by means of the body, perhaps entertaining only a judgement formed as the result of the bodily experiences.

In such a process it is at once clear that the sensation is a shared task; but the memory is not thus made over to the Couplement, since the soul has from the first taken over the impression, either to retain or to reject.

It might be ventured that memory, no less than sensation, is a function of the Couplement, on the ground that bodily constitution determines our memories good or bad; but the answer would come that, whether the body happens or not to be a hindrance, the act of remembering would still be an act of the soul. And in the case of matters learned , how can we think of the Couplement of soul and body as the remembering principle? Here, surely, it must be soul alone?

We may be told that the living-being is a Couplement in the sense of something entirely distinct formed from the two elements . But, to begin with, it is absurd to class the living-being as neither body nor soul; these two things cannot so change as to make a distinct third, nor can they blend so utterly that the soul shall become a mere faculty of the animate whole. And, further, supposing they could so blend, memory would still be due to the soul just as in honey-wine all the sweetness will be due to the honey.

It may be suggested the while the soul is perhaps not in itself a remembering principle, yet that, having lost its purity and acquired some degree of modification by its presence in body, it becomes capable of reproducing the imprints of sensible objects and experiences, and that, seated, as roughly speaking it is, within the body, it may reasonably be thought capable of accepting such impressions, and in such a manner as to retain them .

But, to begin with, these imprints are not magnitudes ; there is no resemblance to seal impressions, no stamping of a resistant matter, for there is neither the down-thrust nor as in the wax: the process is entirely of the intellect, though exercised upon things of sense; and what kind of resistance can be affirmed in matters of the intellectual order, or what need can there be of body or bodily quality as a means?

Further there is one order of which the memory must obviously belong to the soul; it alone can remember its own movements, for example its desires and those frustrations of desire in which the coveted thing never came to the body: the body can have nothing to tell about things which never approached it, and the soul cannot use the body as a means to the remembrance of what the body by its nature cannot know.

If the soul is to have any significance- to be a definite principle with a function of its own- we are forced to recognize two orders of fact, an order in which the body is a means but all culminates in soul, and an order which is of the soul alone. This being admitted, aspiration will belong to soul, and so, as a consequence, will that memory of the aspiration and of its attainment or frustration, without which the soul's nature would fall into the category of the unstable . Deny this character of the soul and at once we refuse it perception, consciousness, any power of comparison, almost any understanding. Yet these powers of which, embodied it becomes the source cannot be absent from its own nature. On the contrary; it possesses certain activities to be expressed in various functions whose accomplishment demands bodily organs; at its entry it brings with it the powers necessary for some of these functions, while in the case of others it brings the very activities themselves.

Memory, in point of fact, is impeded by the body: even as things are, addition often brings forgetfulness; with thinning and dearing away, memory will often revive. The soul is a stability; the shifting and fleeting thing which body is can be a cause only of its forgetting not of its remembering- Lethe stream may be understood in this sense- and memory is a fact of the soul.

(13) Of phenomena of this sphere some derive from the Kosmic Circuit and some not: we must take them singly and mark them off, assigning to each its origin.

The gist of the whole matter lies in the consideration that Soul governs this All by the plan contained in the Reason-Principle and plays in the All exactly the part of the particular principle which in every living-thing forms the members of the organism and adjusts them to the unity of which they are portions; the entire force of the Soul is represented in the All, but, in the parts, Soul is present only in proportion to the degree of essential reality held by each of such partial objects. Surrounding every separate entity there are other entities, whose approach will sometimes be hostile and sometimes helpful to the purpose of its nature; but to the All taken in its length and breadth each and every separate existent is an adjusted part, holding its own characteristic and yet contributing by its own native tendency to the entire life-history of the Universe.

The soulless parts of the All are merely instruments; all their action is effected, so to speak, under a compulsion from outside themselves.

The ensouled fall into two classes. The one kind has a motion of its own, but haphazard like that of horses between the shafts but before their driver sets the course; they are set right by the whip. In the Living-Being possessed of Reason, the nature-principle includes the driver; where the driver is intelligent, it takes in the main a straight path to a set end. But both classes are members of the All and co-operate towards the general purpose.

The greater and most valuable among them have an important operation over a wide range: their contribution towards the life of the whole consists in acting, not in being acted upon; others, but feebly equipped for action, are almost wholly passive; there is an intermediate order whose members contain within themselves a principle of productivity and activity and make themselves very effective in many spheres or ways and yet serve also by their passivity.

Thus the All stands as one all-complete Life, whose members, to the measure in which each contains within itself the Highest, effect all that is high and noble: and the entire scheme must be subordinate to its Dirigeant as an army to its general, "following upon Zeus"- it has been said- "as he proceeds towards the Intelligible Kind."

Secondary in the All are those of its parts which possess a less exalted nature just as in us the members rank lower than the Soul; and so all through, there is a general analogy between the things of the All and our own members- none of quite equal rank.

All living things, then- all in the heavens and all elsewhere- fall under the general Reason-Principle of the All- they have been made parts with a view to the whole: not one of these parts, however exalted, has power to effect any alteration of these Reason-Principles or of things shaped by them and to them; some modification one part may work upon another, whether for better or for worse; but there is no power that can wrest anything outside of its distinct nature.

The part effecting such a modification for the worse may act in several ways.

It may set up some weakness restricted to the material frame. Or it may carry the weakness through to the sympathetic Soul which by the medium of the material frame, become a power to debasement, has been delivered over, though never in its essence, to the inferior order of being. Or, in the case of a material frame ill-organized, it may check all such action upon the material frame as demands a certain collaboration in the part acted upon: thus a lyre may be so ill-strung as to be incapable of the melodic exactitude necessary to musical effect.

(13) The student of Psychic Phenomena is aware of the wonderful phenomena classified under the head of Telepathy; Thought Transference; Mental Influence; Suggestion; Hypnotism, etc. Many have sought for an explanation of these varied phases of phenomena under the theories of the various "dual mind" teachers. And in a measure they are right, for there is clearly a manifestation of two distinct phases of mental activity. But if such students will consider these "dual minds" in the light of the Hermetic Teachings regarding Vibrations and Mental Gender, they will see that the long sought for key is at hand.

(53) The "other mind" of the human individual may be regarded as a mental womb-in fact the ancients so styled it—in which is generated a wealth of mental offspring. It is a mine of latent possibilities of generation—the generation of mental progeny of all sorts and kinds. Its powers of mental generative energy are enormous. But it does not generate except under the stimulus of the "conscious mind" of its owner, or some other individual. The phenomena of Suggestion and Hypnotism are explainable under the Rosicrucian Theory of Mental Sex. A writer on this subject has said: "Suggestion and Hypnotism operate in the same way, viz., by the Masculine Principle projecting its vibrations toward the Feminine Principle in the mind of the other person, the latter taking the seed-thought and allowing it to develop into maturity when it is born on the plane of consciousness. The Masculine Principle in the mind of the person giving the suggestion directs a vibratory current toward the Feminine Principle in the mind of the person who is the object of the suggestions, and the latter accepts it according to natural laws, unless the will interposes an objection. The seed-thought thus lodged in the mind of the other person grows and develops and in time is regarded as the rightful mental offspring of the person, whereas it is really like the cuckoo's egg placed in the nest of the sparrow; and like the offspring of the cuckoo, it destroys the rightful offspring of the owner of the nest. The proper method is for the Masculine and Feminine Principles in the mind of a person to co-ordinate and to act harmoniously in conjunction with each other. But unfortunately the Masculine Principle in the mind of the average person is too lazy to act—the activities of the Will too slight—the consequence being that such persons are ruled almost entirely by the minds and wills of other persons, whom they allow to do their thinking and willing for them. The majority of persons are but mere shadows and echoes of other persons having stronger wills and minds than themselves. The strong men and women of the world invariably manifest the Masculine Principle of Will, and their strength depends materially upon this fact. Instead of living by the impressions made upon their minds by others, they dominate their own minds by means of their own will, obtaining the kind of thoughts desired; and moreover they dominate the minds of others, likewise, in the same manner. Look at the strong people, see how they manage to implant their seed-thoughts in the minds of the masses of the people, thus causing the latter to think thoughts in accordance with the desires and wills of the strong individuals. This is why the masses of the people are such sheeplike creatures, never originating an idea of their own, nor using their own powers of mental activity. The manifestation of Mental Sex may be noticed all around us in our daily life. The magnetic persons are those who are able to use the Masculine Mental Principle in the direction of impressing their ideas upon others. The actor who makes people weep or cry as he wills is employing this principle, more or less unconsciously. So is the successful orator, statesman, preacher, writer, or other person who is before the public. The peculiar influence exerted by Mme persons over others is explainable in this way— the operation of Mental Sex activity in the form of vibratory mental currents. Here we may find the secret of personal magnetism, personal influence, fascination, etc." The Principle of Sex manifests and operates also on the Spiritual Plane of being, according to its characteristic principles, and its results are spiritual generation and regeneration. We regret that we are not permitted to go deeply into this phase of the subject in this book, but a detailed consideration of the operation of Sex on this high plane would be contrary to the interests of the best in occultism, and would invite a misuse of power on the part of unprincipled persons who fail to understand the evil consequences to themselves coming as a reaction following actions of this kind. The true student, however, by using his power of reasoning by analogy, doubtless will be able to work out some of the problems concerned with the phase of the question thus mentioned. Such will find the secret in the old axiom: "As above, so below; as below, so above." The further the student penetrates in his investigations along the lines of the physical, the mental, and the spiritual, the more will he become convinced of the truth of the ancient occult axiom that "Sex is omnipresent and all-pervasive in the universe. All creation is generation, and all generation proceeds from Sex." Finis