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Esoteric Buddhism by A.P. Sinnett
Esoteric Buddhism
by A.P. Sinnett
Author also of The Occult World
President of the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society
Fifth edition, annotated and enlarged by the author
London, Chapman and Hall Ltd 1885
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Esoteric Buddhism by A.P. Sinnett
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I - Esoteric Teachers
Nature of the Present Exposition - Seclusion of Eastern Knowledge - The Arhats and their Attributes - The
Mahatmas - Occultists generally - Isolated Mystics - Inferior Yogis - Occult Training - The Great Purpose -Its
Incidental Consequences - Present Concessions
Esoteric Cosmogony - Where to Begin - Working back from Man to Universe - Analysis of Man - The Seven
Principles
CHAPTER III - The Planetary Chain
Esoteric Views of Evolution - The Chain of Globes - Progress of Man round them - The Spiral Advance - Original
Evolution of the Globes - The Lower Kingdoms
CHAPTER IV - The World Periods
Uniformity of Nature- Rounds and Races - The Septenary Law - Objective and Subjective Lives - Total Incarnations
- Former Races on Earth - Periodic Cataclysms - Atlantis - Lemuria - The Cyclic Law
CHAPTER V - Devachan
Spiritual Destinies of the Ego - Karma - Division of the Principles of Death - Progress of the Higher Duad -
Existence in Devachan - Subjective Progress - Avitchi - Earthly Connection with Devachan - Devachanic Periods
CHAPTER VI - Kâma Loca
The Astral Shell - Its Habitat - Its Nature - Surviving Impulses - Elementals - Mediums and Shells - Accidents and
Suicides - Lost Personalities
CHAPTER VII - The Human Tide-Wave
Progress of the Main Wave - Obscurations - Twilight and Dawn of Evolution - Our Neighbouring Planets -
Gradations of Spirituality - Prematurely Developed Egos - Intervals of Re-Incarnation
CHAPTER VIII - The Progress of Humanity
The Choice of Good or Evil - The Second Half of Evolution - The Decisive Turning-point - Spirituality and Intellect -
The Survival of the Fittest - The Sixth Sense - Development of the Principles in their Order - The Subsidence of the
Unfit - Provision for All - The Exceptional Cases - Their Scientific Explanation - Justice Satisfied - The Destiny of
Failures - Human Evolution Reviewed
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Esoteric Buddhism by A.P. Sinnett
CHAPTER IX - Buddha
The Esoteric Buddha - Re-Incarnations of Adepts - Buddha’s Incarnation - The Seven Buddhas of the Great Races
- Avalokiteshwara - Addi Buddha - Adeptship in Buddha’s Time - Sankaracharya - Vedantin Doctrines - Tsong-ka-
pa - Occult Reforms in Tibet
CHAPTER X - Nirvana
Its Remoteness - Preceding Gradations - Partial Nirvana - The Threshold of Nirvana - Nirvana - Para Nirvana -
Buddha and Nirvana - Nirvana attained by Adepts - General Progress towards Nirvana - Conditions of its
Attainment - Spirituality and Religion - The Pursuit of Truth
CHAPTER XI - The Universe
The Days and Night of Brahma - The Various Manvantaras and Pralayas - The Solar System - The Universal
Pralaya - Recommencement of Evolution - “Creation” - The Great First Cause - The Eternal Cyclic Process
CHAPTER XII - The Doctrine Reviewed
Correspondences of the Esoteric Doctrine with Visible Nature - Free Will and Predestination - The Origin of Evil -
Geology, Biology, and the Esoteric Teaching - Buddhism and Scholarship - The Origins of all Things - The Doctrine
as Distorted - The Ultimate Dissolutions of Consciousness - Transmigration - The Soul and the Spirit - Personality
and Individuality - Karma
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Esoteric Buddhism by A.P. Sinnett
Preface to the Annotated Edition
SINCE this book was first published in the beginning of 1883, I have come into possession of much
additional information bearing on many of the problems dealt with. But I am glad to say that such later
teaching only reveals incompleteness in my original conception of the esoteric doctrine, - no material
error so far. Indeed I have received from the great Adept himself, from whom I obtained my instruction in
the first instance, the assurance that the book as it now stands is a sound and trustworthy statement of
the scheme of Nature as understood by the initiates of occult science, which may have to be a good deal
developed in the future, if the interest it excites is keen enough to constitute an efficient demand for
further teaching of this kind on the part of the world at large, but will never have to be remodelled or
apologized for. In view of this assurance it seems best that I should now put forward my later conclusions
and additional information in the form of annotations on each branch of the subject, rather than infuse
them into the original text, which, under the circumstances, I am reluctant in any way to alter. I have
therefore adopted that plan in the present edition.
As conveying an indirect acknowledgement of the general harmony to be traced between these
teachings and the recognized philosophical tenets of certain other great schools of Indian thought, I may
here refer to criticisms on this book, which were published in the Indian magazine the Theosophist in
June, 1883, by “a Brahman Hindoo.” The writer complains that in interpreting the esoteric doctrine, I have
departed unnecessarily from accepted Sanskrit nomenclature; but his objection merely is that I have
given unfamiliar names in some cases to ideas already embodied in Hindoo sacred writings, and that I
have done too much honour to the religious system commonly known as Buddhism, by representing that
as more closely allied with the esoteric doctrine than any other. “The popular wisdom of the majority of
HindГ»s to this day,” says my Brahman critic, “is more or less tinged with the esoteric doctrine taught in
Mr Sinnett’s book misnamed ‘Esoteric Buddhism,” while there is not a single village or hamlet in the
whole of India in which people are not more or less acquainted with the sublime tenets of the Vedânta
philosophy . . . . The effects of Karma in the next birth, the enjoyment of its fruits, good or evil, in a
subjective or spiritual state of existence prior to the reincarnation of the spiritual monad in this or any
other world, the loitering of the unsatisfied souls or human shells in the earth (Kâma loca), the pralayic
and manvantaric periods . . . . are not only intelligible, but are even familiar to a great many HindГ»s,
under names different from those made use by the author of ‘Esoteric Buddhism.’ “ So much the better, -I
take leave to rejoin, - from the point of view of Western readers, to whom it must be a matter of
indifference whether the esoteric Hindoo or Buddhist religion is nearest to absolutely true spiritual
science, which should certainly bear no name that appears to wed it to any one faith in the external world
more than to another. All that we in Europe can be anxious for, is to arrive at a clear understanding as to
the essential principles of that science, and if we find the principles defined in this book claimed by the
cultured representatives of more than one great Oriental creed as equally the underlying truths of their
different systems, we shall be all the better inclined to believe the present exposition of doctrine worth
our attention.
In regard to the complaint itself, that the teachings here reduced to an intelligible shape are incorrectly
described by the name this book bears, I cannot do better than quote the note by which the editor of the
Theosophist replies to his Brahman contributor. This note says: -“We print the above letter as it
expresses in courteous language, and in an able manner, the views of a large number of our Hindoo
brothers. At the same time it must be stated that the name of ‘Esoteric Buddhism’ was given to Mr
Sinnett’s latest publication, not because the doctrine propounded therein is meant to be specially
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Esoteric Buddhism by A.P. Sinnett
identified with any particular form of faith, but because Buddhism means the doctrine of the Buddhas , the
Wise i.e. the Wisdom Religion.” For my own part I need only add that I fully accept and adopt that
explanation of the matter. It would indeed be a misconception of the design which this book is intended to
sub-serve, to suppose it concerned with the recommendation, to a dilettante modern taste, of Old World
fashions in religious thought. The external forms and fancies of religion in one age may be a little purer,
in another a little more corrupt, but they inevitably adapt themselves to their period, and it would be
extravagant to imagine them interchangeable. The present statement is not put forward in the hope of
making Buddhists from among the adherents of any other system, but with the view of conveying to
thoughtful readers, as well in the East as in the West, a series of leading ideas relating to the actual
verities of Nature, and the real facts of man’s progress through evolution, which have been
communicated to the present writer by Eastern philosophers, and thus fall most readily into an Oriental
mould. For the value of these teachings will perhaps be most fully realized when we clearly perceive that
they are scientific in their character rather than controversial. Spiritual truths, if they are truths, may
evidently be dealt with in a no less scientific spirit than chemical reactions. And no religious feeling, of
whatever colour it may be, need be disturbed by the importation into the general stock of knowledge of
new discoveries about the constitution and nature of man on the plane of his higher activities. True
religion will eventually find a way to assimilate much fresh knowledge, in the same way that it always
finally acquiesces in a general enlargement of Knowledge on the physical plane. This, in the first
instance, may sometimes disconcert notions associated with religious belief, - as geological science at
first embarrassed biblical chronology. But in time men came to see that the essence of the biblical
statement does not reside in the literal sense of the cosmological passages in the Old Testament, and
religious conceptions grew all the purer for the relief thus afforded. In just the same way when positive
scientific knowledge begins to embrace a comprehension of the laws relating to the spiritual development
of man, -some misconceptions of Nature, long blended with religion, may have to give way, but still it will
be found that the central ideas of true religion have been cleared up and strengthened all the better for
the process. Especially as such processes continue, will the internal dissensions of the religious world be
inevitably subdued. The warfare of sects can only be due to a failure on the part of rival sectarians to
grasp fundamental facts. Could a time come when the basic ideas on which religion rests, should be
comprehended with the same certainty with which we comprehend some primary physical laws, and
disagreement about them be recognized by all educated people as ridiculous, then there would not be
room for very acrimonious divergences of religious sentiment. Externals of religious thought would still
differ in different climates and among different races, - as dress and dietaries differ, - but such differences
would not give rise to intellectual antagonism.
Basic facts of the nature indicated are developed, it appears to me, in the exposition of spiritual science
we have now obtained from our Eastern friends. It is quite unnecessary for religious thinkers to turn aside
from them under the impression that they are arguments in favour of some Eastern, in preference to the
more general Western creed. If medical science were to discover a new fact about man’s body, were to
unveil some hitherto concealed principle on which the growth of skin and flesh and bone is carried on,
that discovery would not be regarded as trenching at all on the domain of religion. Would the domain of
religion be invaded, for example, by a discovery that should go one step behind the action of the nerves,
and disclose a finer set of activities manipulating these as they manipulate the muscles? At all events,
even if such a discovery might begin to reconcile science and religion, no man who allows any of his
higher faculties to enter into his religious thinking would put aside a positive fact of Nature, plainly shown
to be such, as hostile to religion. Being a fact it would inevitably fit in with all other facts, and with
religious truth among the number. So with the great mass of information in reference to the spiritual
evolution of man embodied in the present statement. Our best plan evidently is to ask, before we look
into the report I bring forward, not whether it will square in all respects with preconceived views, but
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