Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, an early 19th century

German Thinker is well known as one of the most

influential minds to have ever incarnated on earth. Most of
modernity still bites off his ideas and even a distortion of
his concepts can cause revolutions in history. I am
referring to Karl Marx who mis-interpreted the
transcendental aspect of his teachings and created an
embodied physical version of it leading to the dialectical
materialism thesis which ultimately culminated in the birth
of Communism. Hegel is a notoriously complex thinker
and it is not surprising that even great minds like Bertrand
Russell expressed utter disregard for him. Hegel is not a
Thinker in the traditional sense we understand thinkers to
be. Humanity is still polarized in the astral or emotional
body and so thinking for us is still outward oriented, in the
world of form. Form is essentially about linearity, whether
in time or space. One can create non-linear forms only
within the given parameters of the linear system defined
by three dimensions. This domination of geometry in outer
life also confines our thinking to linear topologies. Thus
the most impeccable logic we use, is also linear in nature
and so is our thinking. Only in advanced mathematics
right now are we able to transcend this iron-grip of
linearity. One of the most promising areas of math,
Reimannian Geometry is a field which disproves many
classical axioms of Euclidian Geometry which has defined
our way of thinking for two thousand years. To be sure,
this knowledge has helped mankind in getting control of
outer reality. But every controlled element in time
becomes a controller and today we find ourselves unable
to shake off this obsession with linearity, whether in
thought or life. Partly this has to do with our medium of
language which is based on a subject/object dichotomy
embedded in linear time. Language constrains us by its
very structure to speak of events embedded in time. This
is the reason why great Philosophers always have to
redesign language to express their ideas. They have to
invent new terms simply because the culture does not
have linguistic expressions to enrobe the idea which
wants to come in existence through the thinker. The best
evidence for this is the publication of Glossaries of great
thinkers like Hegel and Kant which are simply specific
dictionaries to explain meanings of certain terms used by
these great minds.Hegel wrote an extra-ordinary amount
of deep, obscure philosophy most of which remains
unread even by scholars till date and worse, is even
rejected as being deficient of any value. It is the aim of
this small tract to explain something of the profound
esoteric relevance of Hegel and the need for a radical
change in perspective when trying to understand Hegel in
his own right.

Hegel wrote his first book, The Phenomenology of Spirit in

1807 followed by his great masterpiece The Science of
Logic in 1812. While the Phenomenology has been
discussed to no end by his followers, the Logic remains
untouched largely even after two centuries with signs of
revival coming in the last decade. Its useful to understand
the goal Hegel set himself while writing these majestic
texts. Hegel came of age in the great philosophic age of
German Idealism which changed the texture of human
thought forever. Through Kant, Fichte, Schelling and
Hegel, this movement gave the world, its most abstract
and far reaching philosophies ever. While not all of it is
worth gold, Hegel and Kant have stood the test of time. To
understand where Hegel is going with his philosophy, it is
important to know where he is coming from. Kant
inaugurated the age of Epistemology in Philosophy which
revolutionized the direction of philosophical thought
forever. In esoteric terms, He was the first thinker to
investigate the mechanics of the human mind and how it
works while forming thoughts. This is not the same as the
modern science of neuroscience which also investigates
the mind but through the exterior brain and its workings.
Kant wanted to understand theapriorinature of mental
constructs, meaning those thoughts and conditions which
make outward cognition possible. In simpler words, are
there certain unique elements in our thought constructs
which do NOT depend on outer reality and in-fact make,
cognition of outer events possible ? So if I am looking at a
tree and interpreting it to be tree, is there something in my
mental body without which I can never complete this
interpretation of this outer object to be a tree ? In a
stupendous feat of deep philosophy, Kant showed that
there indeed are such objects in our minds, which not
only do not depend for their existence on the outer world
of form, but in fact, are necessary if we are to live and
interpret our external reality. These objects, he called
Categories. Quality, Quantity, Modality etc are a few of
these categories. Its a herculean task to follow the
complex logic involved in the deduction of these
categories in a section of the Critique of Pure Reason
called the Transcendental Deduction. At the end of it, one
can be convinced that these objects which we ordinarily
use in everyday speech are not elements of speech
which are inherently out there in everyday objects of
interaction. The human mind actually projects these
categories into outer reality. This is already a huge step in
the evolution of human awareness as it gives a big blow
to the materialists who speak of realities independent of
the human consciousness. This is a much more larger
debate to which I wont get into right now. But Kant gave
the first indication that the mental realms of humans have
certain original elements which support embodied
existence. In esoteric sciences and yoga, it is well known
that man has many cloaks, progressively subtle in which
he lives called Koshas. He also has many bodies which
he inhabits called Sariras. The outer cloak is Sthula Sarira,
the subtle body, Sukshma Sarira and the causal body,
Karana Sarira. Only when one is highly advanced in yoga,
can the seeker access these bodies independently of the
physical body. Until then, we live unconsciously in these
bodies. Many secrets of dreams and deep sleep are
contained in the science of these bodies. Kant, in a way
was giving the first logical evidence of the existence of
the subtle bodies of thought in every human being. He is
not always interpreted in this way but that is only because
the West has not come to understand the yogic
implications of his Philosophy. This mis-understanding
goes back to the beginning of the Christian ages where
the initiatic Wisdom of the Greeks was disparaged and its
sages, forgotten. Plato spoke eloquently of the existence
of Higher realities which he called the realm of pure forms
or ideas which is responsible for everything down below.
Being an initiate, he must have journeyed to these realms
in his meditative states. There are clear hints in his
writings that he cannot speak of many things being under
oath, a classic requirement of any student who wants to
access the deeper Mysteries. Kant, then can be
considered a partial revealer of the existence of the
mental plane. Now these Categories which he spoke of
are not everything in this plane. In fact, these are a very
small aspect of that level of reality. It just happens to be
one which a majority of human beings are able to access
unconsciously. These are the thought forms which run our
daily businesses and livelihood. Kant did not derive the
existence of these Categories from anything more
fundamental but took the existing Aristotelian categories
and derived their logical justification.

In a more fundamental way, Kant began a movement

which showed humanity, the limits of thought itself. He
defined the boundaries in which thought can operate and
what it can achieve. Though the boundaries have been
breached in a way since then, but the fact that a
boundary exists, is no more in doubt. We can only know
so much in a mental framework in a logical sense, no
matter how sophisticated our thinking may be. One of the
things we can never know is what Kant called the Thing-
in-itself. Keeping the philosophical implications involved
in the terminology aside, Kant was referring to the
background or root-consciousness of all phenomena. The
phraseology of Kant is simply a result of a philosophical
belief of the independent existence of the things
independent of the human consciousness. Any self-
realized human will immediately recognize the fallacy of
such a philosophy but in essential terms, Kant was
reaching the limits of a subject/object oriented
philosophy. He called this root, the Transcendental
Apperception. In Yogic terms, Vedanta will call this
Brahman, and Kashmiri Shaivites will call it ParamaSiva
though they are not exactly the same thing. The first
Critique has essentially given man, the best description of
what can be known by us in a logical sense. Beyond
these, whatever we can know, there will not be a clear
logical (and linear) elucidation in that understanding. This
is not to mean that we can never realize higher
knowledge, just that it may not a cut-and-dried logical
structure which we are so used to. Now Hegel came to
fruition after Kant and his whole philosophy is an
elaboration and refinement, along with a widening of the
Kantian canvas. Hegel was deeply indebted to Kant for
his transcendental deduction and sought to expand of
this. Since the categories of Kant were arbitrarily taken
from Aristotle, Hegel did not consider them authentic and
absolute. There were many other categories, and since
Hegel was a systemic and ambitious thinker, He wanted
to encapsulate entire reality in the Thought plane, not just
the usual categories of the mental plane which Kant
explicated. This encapsulation is traditionally called
Metaphysics, or Ontology which is the study of Being.
Such Metaphysical structures exist in Eastern Philosophy
as well as Western. Platos Timaeus and Parmenides is
the best example of such an exposition. In the eastern
religions, Kashmiri Shaivism has probably the most
detailed cosmology of beings, starting from Parasiva,
through Mahamantreswaras, Mantreshwaras, Trimurties of
Rudra, Vishnu Brahma to our physical planet Earth. Such
exist in the Yogachara tradition of Buddhism also with 33
levels of reality above earth. Any metaphysical structure
will have ascending and descending levels of reality
described in language with an exposition of the function
and apparently necessary connection between these
levels. Whereas the functional aspect can be well
described, the necessary aspect is very difficult to
capture in words. Now we come to a very delicate
distinction between metaphysics and logic. A logical
delineation will have precise understanding of the
necessary aspect of relations between two or more
objects under investigation. The question of necessity is
an extremely complex one since it involves at its essence,
the physics and structure of being. And since the
human intellect has understood physics at only the
material level, we are not trained by our space-time
embodiment to understand the necessary aspect of
realities which are non-physical. This fundamental
difficulty is the reason why all cosmologies have many
contradictions in them. Some functional aspect of reality
will be described and then one can find many flaws in the
rational structure of that ontological structure. Its not the
problem of the reality itself but the limited nature of the
medium through which it is being expressed. Thus the
description of the functions is always given in all religions
but their mode of working is always absent. This gives
rise to many questions which have no real answer like
How does non-being enter into being ? or How can the
divine be immanent but yet transcendent ? These are
metaphysical conclusions that are being sought to be
drawn from essentially epistemological premises which
have also not been understood well. Traditional Indian
metaphysical speculation has always been restricted to
ontology and not epistemology beyond a limited realm. Its
the western mind which gave birth to epistemology. Thus
Hegel wanted to convert Metaphysics to Logic since he
understood that all we have is the Mind and as far as
metaphysical knowledge is concerned, we can go as far
as our Mind will take us. Beyond that, Knowing is of no
use as the faculties of understanding beyond that do not
involve any knower and the known. This insight was well
known to the Sages of India who always spoke of the
ultimate where the Knower becomes the Known and
sought to silence the mind so that the Clear Light can
dawn in the mind. The Light in itself not a mental power
but rather a transcendent Divine light which many times,
cannot even be understood in the limited brain. These
kind of realizations led to mystics who tried to speak of
what they have realized but their mental apparatus was
deficient which led to outright contradictions and fallacies
from the normal point of view. It requires a very sharp
intellect which was not the order of the day back then.
The intellect or Manas has developed tremendously since
then and today we are in a position to delve into much
deeper abstractions than before. In a way, human
psychology is the best we have come to understand
logic at a non-physical level but even here, there are
dark mysteries involved which is why Carl Jung is such a
reviled figure in mainstream psychology today. He
understood the psyche better than anyone but he was too
difficult for most people.

Going beyond the emotional body, we come to the mental

realm where in mathematics, we have an understanding
of logical systems but all these are artificially constructed
systems. defined by axioms of our own choosing under
which all subsequent results follow. All such systems are
essentially structures of thought created by Man in the
mental plane. They dont describe the structure of the
mental plane itself. They are like little buildings in a land
which has its own parameters. Understanding the
building is easy but how to understand the system which
makes the building possible ? Kant was giving certain
hints about the systemic parameters and Hegel wanted to
go further. Understanding the logical aspect of
Metaphysics means that one has to understand the LAWS
of the mental plane itself. The laws which make all thought
possible. These laws will not have the same features of
the usual logic because the mental plane is not a system
of fixed linear realities. We can of course construct a
linear system in it to correspond to our outer-reality but as
one goes deeper into thinking out the parameters of
thought itself, one encounters more and more abstraction
and rarified domains. There are concrete and abstract
levels of the mental plane as esoteric philosophy
describes. The abstract levels give rise to the ideas which
are eventually cloaked in more concrete thought
structures which can be implemented in the outer world.
But thought essentially takes birth in the abstract levels of
the mental plane. Abstraction is today sometimes
considered useless because it has no use in daily life.
But who is to say that daily life is the only life in which one
can live ? In the esoteric structure of reality, everything
down here has its impulse in the high domains of
abstraction and in truth, even beyond the abstract mental
plane itself in realms of Pure Will. But since we are
interested here in Hegel, we will restrict ourselves to the
abstract mental plane. Hegel wanted to understand the
realms of abstract mind in its purity. That means, he
wanted to realize the laws of the high mental planes
where Creation takes its first subtle steps. In yoga, such a
realm is called Mahat, or the Universal Mind. There are
great beings who reside in these realms called the Sons
of the Mind or Kumaras. In Puranas, the stories of such
beings are said in metaphorical language through
Brahma who produced four young beings from his mind
called the four Sanats. He asked them to procreate and
they refused as they considered matter to be too impure.
They came to fulfill the plans of the Most High and could
not carry out the Creators bidding. The esoteric secrets of
this will be described elsewhere but the essence is that
the Universal Mind is populated by great beings who
perform the Divine function of encasing Will in Thought.
Siva in the Indian myths is the Lord of Will who created
Universes by his Will. But this Will is realizable only in very
high realms of reality. By the time, it reaches us poor
mortals, It has been encased first in abstract, then in
concrete thoughts and eventually given an admixture of
impure ego and self-gratification to be manifested in
physical reality. Thus proceeds the world Plan. Now
encasing Divine Will in abstract thoughts in the Divine
Mind is a function about which we should dread even
thinking, for such is the High Office of Divinity and its
tremendous might, which is why only profound beings do
this job. But Hegel wanted to understand the mechanics
of such a work. What are the laws by which the Divine
Plan is encased in Thoughts ? What are the logical
necessities by which thoughts at such a High plane
operate ? The assumption that there must be Logic even
at these planes is a valid one else we will accuse the
Divine of being without Reason. It is a different matter that
we are unable to comprehend the Reason which speaks
to only a question of capacity of human minds and
nothing about the inherent absence of such a Rational
structure. Now the abstract mental plane is the first station
of Maya beyond which lies the Buddhic or Divine Intuitive
planes. These are realms beyond the highest reaches of
the Mind where Truth in its Wholeness resides. Writing
about such a realm in language is not possible for
reasons involving the linear and temporal aspect of
language described earlier. But suffice to say, Sages who
have realized this level of reality speak of Identification
with truth rather than Knowledge. They speak of Knowing
and Being becoming fused together. In ordinary
language, here is where the Nirvanic Planes begin or the
Samadhis of Yogis start happening. Being beyond the
reach of Mind, here causation and hence, Necessity as
we understand stops having having any relevance. The
work of the Sons of the Mind essentially involves serving
as a Channel to convert the Non-Sequential Will into an
initial form of Sequentiality. We have no idea as to how
this is done but Hegel wants to take our mind at the very
edges of such a level of Reality. He wants to show how
the Divine Mind operates, how Will is brought down into
Thought and enrobed in ordinary ideas which will
proceed into Manifestation. This is never more clear as in
his profound statement at the beginning of the Science of
Logic, This is the Mind of God before he enters into
Creation. The scholars of today, being bereft of any true
wisdom have tended to neglect this statement in favor of
more material interpretations but in Esoteric Circles, such
a statement has absolutely profound relevance. Some
problems immediately appear at the very outset of such a
project like Hegel has. He has to re-design the very
structure of his language and convert it into a Whole-istic
form if a Totality which is non-temporal has to be encased
in a structure embedded in time. Thus we find repeated
mentions of the Circularity and Totality of this Thesis in
the Logic. He has to constantly maintain a delicate
balance between the onward pull of linear thought and
the circularity of the whole. Its like doing abstruse
gymnastics in pure Thought where the force comes from
the inherent pull of language and the High responsibility
of faithful depiction of the inherently non-linear Idea which
seeks to be encased in words. Its a world where one has
to have two mental feet, one sunk in the words
immediately being read and the other waiting to grasp the
opposite which is lurking behind the words and this
constant to and fro will keep the mind from running away
with any one-sided conclusions from his Philosophy. As
Hegel said, The True is the Whole. Also, while reading
Hegel, one has to be very careful what implications are
entering our mind when we read his words because such
implications are wholly external to the Idea which is being
expressed. This is why Hegel called the Logic, a pre-
supposition less philosophy. One cannot assume anything
in his Logic

It is very difficult to understand Hegel from the point of

view of normal thought because his is not a normal Way
of Thinking. One of the great mysteries of Hegels life has
been his involvement in Esoteric Circles like the
Rosicrucian Order. Books are coming out (Hegel and the
Hermetic Traditionby Glenn Alexander Magee) which
for the first time are shedding lights on the sources of his
insights because there is no doubt that Hegel was an
accomplished Yogi of the highest order and his
Philosophy was a result of individual realizations. Only a
mystic who has himself risen to such levels of realization
can authentically comment on the Truth of Hegels
philosophy.Franklin Merrel-Wolfewas an an American
Yogi and philosopher who achieved self-realization in
1936 and wrote some profound texts on his experiences
after that. In one of his lectures, he speaks of arriving at a
level of reality where his relative or subject/object mind
was set aside as a mere witness whereas his
consciousness took on a infinite realm where whenever he
tried to posit something about that realm, the opposite
of that something entered his relative consciousness.
Thus he says, he knew where Hegel had been. Now
these are matters of deep yogic Truths and none but them
may judge each other. Now there are of-course
deficiencies in Hegel which are but the result of the final
exposition in language for the perfect philosophy has
never been written. But there has never been any better
understanding of these Divine Beings who Hegel seeks to
bring into the human realm.

We close with a matter of deep esoteric import of the

existence of these Divine beings of Mind. In the Secret
Doctrine of H.P. Blavatsky, these beings are called
Agnishwattas, Sons of the Mind who arrived from Venus
around 18 million years ago. Popular Science as well as
Esoteric Science understands that man learned to think
much later in his evolutionary journey. More specifically,
conceptualization was a step in evolution which brought
about radical changes in the rate of adaptability and
dominance of the outer world. What Science does not yet
understand is that this power of conceptualization was the
result of certain beings of a high evolution who arrived on
earth to embed the mental and conceptual plane in the
consciousness of the earth which till then could not think
as we do today. They had senses and instinct but no
mind, mostly like animals who can sense but not think.
The reason behind the arrival of these great beings
concerns a great Planetary Crisis where a Great Divinity
had to send a Cosmic SOS for help after which Help
arrived in the form of these Beings of Mind. Thus Thought
as we know it today is a Gift in the Literal sense of the
word and not some matter driven evolution. If it was truly
that, we would be sunk in much more darker mess than
we are today. Hegel and the German Idealists was the
Divine movement where in a way, they were trying to
comprehend these Beings and by seeking to understand
The Science of Logic, we too can attempt this majestic
task. Now it is an esoteric truth that thoughts are things,
and not just things, they are beings. Thinking is not some
private activity done in the privacy of our minds. Thinking
is a movement of a very complex order which involves
forces beyond our understanding right now. As one
widens his sphere of thoughts, he come in contact with
grander beings. At the Highest, he contacts the creators
of Thought itself. Thus was Philosophy considered a way
to Self Realization in Ancient Greece. All Thoughts are
Beings trying to come into Manifestation, this is an
esoteric truth. In Yoga, this truth is said as Devas who
reside in us, eat with us and help us. Hegel gives us the
Divine Mind which will come into reality someday too. By
understanding it in its Essence, we are being enabled to
rise in consciousness to meet these profound Beings.