Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. II (the Corpus Hermeticum) — G. R. S. Mead (1906)

In other words, one who has reached the Nirvanic Consciousness — that is to say, a Master — can teach or be active on " planes " that are as yet unmanifest to us ordinary folk ; these " planes," however, even when the disciple is conscious of them, are conditioned by the self-limitation of his own imperfection. The Vehicles of this Activity are called Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya and liirmanakaya ; and the limitation of their Activity is determined on the side of the disciple by the degree of his ability to function consciously in those states which are known in Neo-theosophical nomenclature respectively as those of Atman, Buddhi and Higher Manas, or, in more general terms, those of the divine, spiritual and human aspects of the self.

In the first degree of conscious discipleship, then, the Master communicates with His disciples and teaches them by means of the Nirmanakaya ; that is to say, He quickens the highest form of consciousness or conception of masterhood they have so far attained to — taking the form of their greatest love, perhaps, as they have known Him in the flesh, or as He has been told of as existing in the flesh, but not His own-form, which would transcend their consciousness.

The next stage is when the disciple learns to transcend his own "egoity," in the ordinary sense of the word; this does not mean to say that his true individuality is destroyed, but instead of being tied down to one ego-vehicle, he has gained the power of manifesting himself wherever and however he will, at any moment of time ; in brief, the power of self-generation on the plane of egoity, in that he has reached a higher state which is free from the limitations of a single line of egoity.

He now begins to realise in the very nature of his being that the " Self is in all and all in the Self." Such a disciple, or Bodhisattva, is taught by the Master in this state of being, and the Kaya which he supplies for the energizing of his beloved Father is perfectly unintelligible to us, and can only be described as an expanded consciousness of utmost sympathy and compassion, which not only strives to blend with the Life of all beings, but also with the One Being in the world for him, the Beloved. Such a sensing of the Master's Presence is called the Sambhogakaya of the Master, His Body of Bliss.

There is a still higher Perfection, the Dharmakaya, or Own-Nature of Masterhood. But how should the dim mind of one who is Without imagine the condition of One who is not only Within, but who combines both the Without and the Within in the Transcendent Unity of the Perfect Fullness ?

THE PREACHING OF THE GNOSIS

27. With the exposition of the Consummation of the Teaching and the return to earth of the consciousness of the Seer, our treatise breaks off into a graphic instruction of how the Gnosis is to be utilized. The Wisdom is no man's property ; he who receives it holds it in trust for the benefit of the world-folk.

I am, however, inclined to believe that §§ 27 to 29 are a later interpolation, and that the treatise originally ran straight on after the conclusion of the Shepherd's Instruction with the words : " But I recorded in my heart the Shepherd's benefaction " (§ 30).

Until the end of § 26 we have moved in the atmosphere of an inner intimate personal instruction, set forth in a form evidently intended only for the few ; indeed, as we find in other treatises emphatic injunctions to keep the teaching secret, we cannot but conclude that the oldest and most authoritative document of the school was guarded with the same secrecy. The general impression created by the instruction is not only that it itself is the consummation and reward of a strict and stern probation, and not a sermon to be preached on the house-tops, but also that those who followed that way were not propagandists, but rather members of a select philosophic community.