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Thrice-Greatest Hermes
The Shepherd Hermes was known as Thrice-Greatest, which described both his states of consciousness and the bodies in which he manifested. That trinity is carried forth in most modern religious and spiritual traditions. The Shepherd's name was Christ for those who prefer the name of the Christian tradition, or Buddha for those who are more familiar with Eastern terms. For instance, the so-called "three bodies" ( trikayam ) of the Buddha suggest he manifested on three levels not just earthly individuality. Buddhahood, like Christhood and Hermes, is a state beyond individuality in the separated sense in which we understand the term. In all three cases, the first step to existing in higher states is getting beyond the confines of one's individuality. In the Chinese Version of Ashvaghosha's now lost Sanskrit treatise, Mabajana-Shraddbotpada-Shastra we read: "It is characteristic of all the Buddhas that they consider all sentient beings as their own self, and do not cling to their individual forms. How is this? Because they know truthfully that all sentient beings as well as their own self come from one and the same Suchness and no distinction can be established among them."
The sentient beings who do not obtain Buddhahood or Christhood do not know that their Body of Transformation is merely the shadow (or reflection) of their own evolving consciousness. They imagine it comes from some external sources, and so they give it a corporeal limitation . But the Body of Transformation really has nothing to do with limitation or measurement. That is to say, a Buddha can only communicate with such minds by means of a form, that form being really that of their own most highly evolved consciousness. There are, however, others who have the consciousness of the "formless" state, but have not yet reached the Nirvanic Consciousness. These in Buddhism are called Bodhisattvas.
We have used the term "formless state" to signify the states of consciousness in higher worlds but these are only "formless" for consciousness that has not reached the Bodhisattva level. For this Body of Transformation has infinite forms and each form has infinite attributes. Each attribute has infinite excellencies. And the accompanying reward of Bodhisattvas -- that is, the region where they are predestined to be born -- also has infinite merits and ornamentations. Manifesting itself everywhere, the Body of Bliss is infinite, boundless, limitless, unintermittent, directly coming forth from the One Mind. An older Chinese version of the Sanskrit treatise quoted above says of this Body: "It is boundless, cannot be exhausted, is free from the signs of limitation. Manifesting itself wherever it should manifest itself, it always exists by itself and is never destroyed."
In other words, one who has reached the Nirvanic Consciousness -- that is to say, the Master -- can teach or be active on "planes" that are as yet unmanifested 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 by various names in different spiritual traditions (Dharmakaya, Astral Body, the Wedding Garment) 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 that are known in theosophical nomenclature as those of Atman, Buddhi, and the 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 human body. 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 true 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, he has attained the power of self-generation on the plane of egoity in that he has reached a higher state that is free from the limitations of a single line of egoity.
The disciple now begins to realize 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 body that 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 Body of Bliss.
There is a still higher Perfection, the Own Nature of Masterhood, the "I Am that I Am" state. But how should the dim mind of one who is outside imagine the condition of One who is not only Within, but who combines both the Outside and the Within in the Transcendent Unity of the Perfect Fullness?
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