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leadings and spiritual ideals. Such apostles have often found that their wisdom left them even in life, when their work was done the overshadowing adept then withdrawing his inspiration thus overshadowing by a high adept is what is called a divine incarnation, an avatár.
It is probable that Shankaracharya was such an incarnation.
He was already a great adept when he was sixteen years old; at which time he wrote his great philosophical works.
It seems that Gautama Buddha was not such an incarnation as we see in him the actual life struggle of man striving to perfection, and not the fruition of a great soul who had already reached its goal. But in Shankarâchârya we see no such struggle; this is why we say he is a divine incarnation.
The seven rays we have spoken of represent the outflowing energy from the seven centres of force in the Logos; represent seven forces, so to speak, which must enter into every thing in the universe. No object can exist without the presence of each of these seven forces.
A man's past Karma determines which of the seven, or, practically speaking, five rays of occult wisdom he shall take his place in; but it is impossible to say that the fact of belonging to one of these rays indicates the presence in a man of any particular moral or mental quality; such as patience, honesty, or courage, on the one hand; or the poetic or artistic faculty, on the other.
The Southern Occult school divides the states of consciousness into three:—(1) jagrat, or waking consciousness; (2) swapna, or dream consciousness, and (3) sushupti, or the consciousness of dreamless sleep. As this classification stands, however, it is purposely obscure: to make it perfect, it must be understood that each of these three states is further divided into three states.
Let us take these in their order beginning with the lowest.
The jagrat conciousness is divided into three; (1) the jagrat of jagrat, which is ordinary waking consciousness; (2)
