APPENDIX III

SOME PSYCHOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS

A few words technically used in the notes in this edition require some explanation, as also certain metaphysical and psychological presuppositions.

Each plane of our being—mental, vital, physical—has its own consciousness, separate though interconnected and interacting. These can be said to be interconnected because there is a continuity from one end to the other, and interacting because all the psychological processes in man—mental, vital, physical— are mixed up with one another. To our outer mind and sense they are all confused together; for the purpose of analysis, however, they may be distinguished thus:—

Mind proper

The Mind proper is divided into three parts—thinking Mind, dynamic Mind, externalising Mind—the former concerned with ideas and knowledge in their own right, the second with
the putting out of mental forces for realisation of the idea, the third with the expression of them in life (not only by speech, but by any form it can give). The word "physical mind" is rather ambiguous, because it can mean this externalising mind and the mental in the physical taken together.

Vital Mind

A similar ambiguity arises when one has to speak of the "vital mind"; for this is a comprehensive term for the mental vital and the vital mental. Vital Mind proper is a sort of
mediator between vital emotion, desire, impulsion etc. and the mental proper. It expresses the desires, feelings, emotions, passions, ambitions, possessive and active tendencies of the
vital and throws them into mental forms (the pure imaginations or dreams in which men indulge of greatness, happiness etc. are one peculiar form of the vital mind activity). There is a still lower stage of the mental in the vital which merely expresses the vital stuff without subjecting it to any play of intelligence. It is through this mental vital that the vital
passions, impulses, desires rise up and get into the Buddhi and either cloud or distort it.

Mental physical

As the vital Mind is limited by the vital view and feeling of things, (while the dynamic Intelligence is not, for it acts by the idea and reason), so the mind in the physical or mental

Page 288

physical is limited by the physical view and experience of things, it mentalises the experience brought by the contacts of outward life and things and does not go beycnd that (though it can do that much very cleverly), unlike the externalising mind which deals with them more from the reason and its higher intelligence. But in practice these two usually get mixed together. The mechanical mental physical or body-mind is a much lower action of the mental physical which, left to itself, will simply go on repeating the past customary thoughts and movements or will, at the most, add to them such further mechanical reactions to things and reflexes as come in the round of life.

Vital physical

The lower vital as distinguished from the higher is concern- ed only with the small greeds, small desires, small passions etc. which make up the daily stuff of life for the ordinary sensational man—while the vital physical proper is the nervous being giving vital reflexes to contacts of things with the physical consciousness.

The foregoing are only a selection from among the various possible subdivisions, which might be set out more systematically as follows:—

I. THE MENTAL PLANE

The mind proper is concerned with reasoning, formulation of ideas or mental forms, and the activity of the thinking will* (the dynamic mind). This is called the Buddhi (at once intelligence and will) as distinguished from the other parts of the mind which are called the Manas or the Sense-mind. Above the mind is the higher mind which organises all these functions; this higher mind again is itself the instrument of the supermind which organises and intuitivises the higher mind.

The mind itself has different levels, the mental proper, the vital in the mind, the physical in the mind. The emotions belong to the vital part of the mind. These are things of the vital plane which pressing upon the mind produce mental forms. They are not created by the mind itself. As examples of things belonging to this vital mental, one might cite imaginations of lust, cinematographic stories told to oneself of great adventures
etc. of which one is the hero, and mentalisation of desires generally.

The physical part of the mind is the receiving and externalising intelligence which has two functions—first, to work upon external things and give them a mental order with a way of practically dealing with them—secondly, to be the channel of materialising and putting into effect whatever the thinking and dynamic mind sends down to it for the purpose.

Page 289

II. THE VITAL PLANE

The vital plane is a realm of desires, not only sexual or physical desires, but desires for power, activity, ambition, pride. In the vital proper the life-force seeks to realise itself, to possess materials and to put its stamp upon them; but in its crude form this vital urge appears as lust, ambition, desire for possession, for money, for enjoyment of all kinds.

The mental part of the vital is the mental activity which accompanies the vital desires, knows and expresses them in mental forms and speech. Thus when Mussolini says, "Italy must have a place in the sun," this is not the result of thinking or reasoning, the desire rises from the vital being, though it may seek to support itself by the reasoning or the Buddhi. As
examples of things which belong to the mental vital, one might cite the following: all mentalised impulses and emotions and sensations, thoughts of anger, despair, lust, hatred etc. These have a less imaginative character than the vital mental* and are more practical or mechanical, turning about something actual, e. g., some love affair, quarrel, disappointment,—they may be turned towards fulfilment of the feeling or impulse or turn round some memory of something done or enjoyed, try to repeat what has been felt or prolong it, etc.

The physical part of the vital wants to move in grooves and fixed forms, such as habits and instincts. It is necessary for realising the vital impulses in the actual world. There may be the urge but the physical part may not be equal to the task. Thus there are many poets who cannot express themselves well as the physical vital in them is not strong.

III. THE PHYSICAL PLANE

In the physical plane again there is the mental, the vital-- and the material. The mental part of the physical is that which comes into contact with the physical world and sees only the physical aspect of things and nothing beyond it; it takes matter as being simply matter and nothing more, it does not see the consciousness inherent in matter. It depends on the material structure of the senses and is confined to them and to the material brain. The mind in the physical is thus a very small thing, it does not go far, but it is the thin end which is necessary for the work of the mind upon the physical world.

* It is not easy to distinguish mental vital and vital mental unless one has the necessary subtlety of observation or the habit of the differentiated experience.

Page 290

Sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch are really properties of the mind, not of the body; but the physical mind, which we ordinarily use, limits itself to a translation into sense of so much of the outer impacts as it receives through the nervous system and the physical organs. But the inner Manas has also a subtle sight, hearing, power of contact of its own which is not dependent on the physical organs. And it has, moreover, a power not only of direct communication of mind with object—leading even at a high pitch of action to a sense of the contents of an object within or beyond the physical range,—but direct communication also of mind with mind. Mind is able too to alter, modify, . inhibit the incidence, values, intensities of sense impacts. These powers of the mind we do not ordinarily use or develop; they remain subliminal and emerge sometimes in an irregular and fitful action, more readily in some minds than in others, or come to the surface in abnormal states of the being. They are the basis of clairvoyance, clairaudience, transference of thought and impulse, telepathy, most of the more ordinary kinds of occult powers,— so called, though these are better described W- less mystically as powers of the now subliminal action of the Manas The phenomena of hypnotism and many others depend upon the action of this subliminal sense-mind; not that it alone constitutes all the elements of the phenomena, but it is the first supporting means of intercourse, communication and response, though much of the actual operation belongs to an inner Buddhi. Mind physical, mind supra-physical,—we have and can use this double sense-mentality.

The vital in the physical is the vehicle of the nervous responses of our physical nature; it is the field and instrument of the smaller sensations, desires, reactions of all kinds to the impacts of the outer physical and gross material life. This vital part of the physical (supported by the lowest part of the vital proper) is therefore the agent of most of the lesser movements of our external life. It is the life which is bound up with matter, with the nervous system; it cannot exist apart from a mate- rial body. But the vital proper is quite independent of matter, it is a universal force. There is force also in matter, but that is not life-force. The real life-force is something apart from the material world, it exists for its own sake and its possibilities are not bound down by material conditions. When Napoleon said that there was nothing impossible, that the term ' impossible' was to be erased from the dictionary, it was the vital which was speaking through Napoleon; to the vital nothing seems impossible.

The vital part of the physical is very important, it gives health and strength to the body. It knows what is beneficial or what is injurious to the system. If left to itself, it would

Page 291

have been the safest guide in regard to health. But in civilized persons it is seldom left unimpaired; the activity of the mind has created great confusion.

Lastly, the material in the physical is the pure material part of it which is the basis of the rest. The characteristics of the physical proper are inertia and conservation.

Thus there are the different planes, the mental, the vital,* the physical; the psychic is behind all these. The word " soul", as also the word "psychic", is used very vaguely and in many different senses in the English language. More often than not Europeans in their ordinary parlance make no clear distinction between mind and soul, and often even confuse the true soul, the psychic being, with the vital being of desire—the false soul or desire-soul. The psychic being is quite different from the mind or vital; it stands behind them where they meet in the heart. Its central place is there, but behind the heart rather than in the heart; for what men call usually the heart is the seat of emotion, and human emotions are mental-vital impulses, not ordinarily psychic in their nature. This mostly secret power behind, other
than the mind and the life-force, is the true soul, the psychic being in us.

We can speak of a psychic plane also, but it is of a kind which cuts through all the other planes from behind, it enters into the other planes somewhat like rays. There is a direct connection between the psychic being and the higher Truth. There is a psychic consciousness, but it is simple and direct, not like the mental consciousness. The psychic touch helps to bring out the deeper potentialities in the mental, the vital and the physical and make these more fit to receive the higher Truth and Power. Thus mental love is egoistic and depends on mutual interchange and enjoyment. By the psychic touch the love becomes nobler and purer, the egoistic element. vanishes. *The "astral plane" of the Theosophists would appear to be essentially the same as what we have been describing as the " vital plane".

Page 292