Karma

Author(s): Annie Besant
Publisher: Theosophical Publishing House

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mental stature as he treads the path of his aconian evolution; and the fundamental identity of the higher and lower manas must be constantly kept in mind. For convenience sake we distinguish between them, but the difference is a difference of functioning activity and not of nature: the higher manas is manas working on the spiritual plane, in possession of its full consciousness of its own past; the lower manas is manas working, on the psychic or astral plane, veiled in astral matter, vehicled in kāma, and with all its activities intermingled with and coloured by the desire nature; it is to a great extent blinded by the astral matter that veils it, and is in possession only of a portion of the total mānasic consciousness, this portion consistingfor the vast majority—of a limited selection from the more striking experiences of the one incarnation then in progress. For the practical purpose of life as seen by most people, the lower manas is the “I” and is what we term the Personal-Ego; the voice of conscience, vaguely and confusedly regarded as supernatural, as the voice of God, is for them the only manifestation of the higher manas on the psychic plane, and they quite rightly regard it as authoritative, however mistaken they may be as to its nature. But the student must realize that the lower manas is one with