But it
is a cause, the effects of which may manifest themselves throughout
succeeding re-births, unless the personality is annihilated. Otherwise,
from cause to effect, every effect becoming in its turn a cause, they
will run along the cycle of re-births, the once given impulse expending
itself only at the threshold of Pralaya. But of this anon.
Notwithstanding their esoteric meaning, even the words of the grandest
and noblest of all the adepts, Gautama Buddha, are misunderstood,
distorted and ridiculed in the same way. The Hina-yana, the lowest form
of transmigration of the Buddhist, is as little comprehended as the
Maha-yana, its highest form; and, because Sakya Muni is shown to have
once remarked to his Bhikkhus, while pointing out to them a broom, that
"it had formerly been a novice who neglected to sweep out" the
Council-room, hence was re-born as a broom (!), therefore, the wisest of
all the world's sages stands accused of idiotic superstition. Why not
try and find out, before condemning, the true meaning of the figurative
statement? Why should we scoff before we understand? Is or is not that
which is called magnetic effluvium a something, a stuff, or a substance,
invisible, and imponderable though it be? If the learned authors of
"The Unseen Universe" object to light, heat and electricity being
regarded merely as imponderables, and show that each of these phenomena
has as much claim to be recognized as an objective reality as matter
itself, our right to regard the mesmeric or magnetic fluid which
emanates from man to man, or even from man to what is termed an
inanimate object, is far greater.
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