044-049
[44] EAST AND WEST,
[45] EDUCATION,
[46] THE EGO (Soul),
[47] ELECTRICITY,
[48] ELEMENTALS,
[49] ELIMINATION (AFTER DEATH)
[44]
EAST AND WEST
(1) An oriental type of body has one set of qualifications, and an occidental body has another set, and equally good, if I might so express it. I seek here to make this point clear, for the tendency of the westerner is to ape the oriental, and to endeavour to force his vibrations to the same key as that of the oriental. At times, this causes concern to the inner Teachers, and occasionally leads to trouble in the vehicles. There has been too much tendency to believe that to be an oriental holds the goal for all. Forget not that even the Great Ones Themselves are not all orientals, and the Masters in European bodies, are of equal accomplishment to the better known Eastern Adepts. Ponder on this. (2 - 45/6).
(2) The seething millions of the Orient, present a more serious problem to the Great Ones than do the peoples of the Occident, for ignorance is deeply prevalent among the masses of Asia, as to the trend of affairs in the world of religion, owing to the widespread illiteracy of the races, and their consequent easy exploitation and control by the religious demagogues, fervent prophets, and reactionaries.
Disciples or workers on the second ray, are now actively handling this [Page 98] problem. It is interesting to note that the reason for success in breaking down old barriers, and in bringing about a condition of spiritual readiness everywhere in the Occident, is largely due to the work of the Orientalist scholars in France, Germany and England. They have made the literature of the East available, in all its beauty, to the West, and so have linked the spiritual truths of all ages, with the truth of the Christian presentation, showing them all to be of equal progressive value. Now the masses in India, China, and northern Africa, must be awakened to the inner significance of their own faiths, and to the part that Christianity plays in the same great religious programme. This is occupying the close attention of certain second ray teachers in India, Japan, and Siria. (14 - 176/7).
(3) The Occident and the Orient are linked through the personality ray of the Occident, and the egoic ray of the Orient, and this indicates eventual understanding, once the second ray occidental soul becomes the dominant factor. When these various relationships are somewhat grasped by the peoples of the world, you will get the clue of the various happenings taking place today, and will understand the goal and the method of its attainment more clearly. (16 - 526).
[45]
EDUCATION
(1) In the educational world an apprehension of man's true nature will bring about a fundamental change in the methods of teaching. The emphasis will be laid upon teaching people the fact of the Ego on its own plane, the nature of the lunar bodies, and the methods of aligning the lower bodies so that the Ego can communicate direct with the physical brain, and thus control the lower nature and work out its purposes. Men will be taught how, through concentration and meditation, they can ascertain knowledge for themselves, can develop the intuition, and thus draw upon the resources of the Ego. Then will men be taught to think, to assume control of the mental body, and thus develop their latent powers. (3 - 814).
(2) The true education is consequently the science of linking up the integral parts of man, and also of linking him up in turn with his immediate environment, and then with the greater whole in which he has to play his part. Each aspect, regarded as a lower aspect, can ever be simply the expression of the next higher. In this phrase I have expressed a fundamental truth which embodies not only the objective, but also indicates the problem before all interested in education. This problem is to gauge rightly the centre of the focus of a man's attention, and to note where the consciousness is prima-[Page 99] rily centered. Then he must be trained in such a way that a shift of that focus into a higher vehicle becomes possible. We can also express this idea in an equally true manner by saying that the vehicle which seems of paramount importance, can become and should become of secondary importance, as it becomes simply the instrument of that which is higher than itself. (12 - 6).
(3) Towards this consummation all education should tend: Response to the Thinker or the soul. With the registration of this response, the man enters into his kingdom. The above and the below become as one. The objective and the subjective worlds are unified. Soul and its mechanism function as a unit. (12 - 12).
(4) The Atlanteans had no educational system as we understand the term. The kings and priests intuited; the masses obeyed. (12 - 40).
(5) The world itself is a great fusing pot, out of which the One Humanity is emerging. This necessitates a drastic change in our methods of presenting history and geography. Science has always been universal. Great art and literature have always belonged to the world. It is upon these facts that the education to be given to the children of the world must be built - upon our similarities, our creative achievements, our spiritual idealisms, and our points of contact. Unless this is done, the wounds of the nations will never be healed, and the barriers which have existed for centuries will never be removed. (12 - 46).
(6) Two major ideas should be taught to the children of every country. They are: the value of the individual and the fact of the one humanity. (12 - 47)
(7) The first effort of education to civilise the child, will be to train and rightly direct his instincts.
The second obligation upon the educators will be to bring about his true culture, by training him to use his intellect rightly.
The third duty of education will be to evoke and to develop the intuition.
When these three are developed and functioning, you will have a civilised, cultured and spiritually awakened human being. A man will then be instinctively correct, intellectually sound, and intuitively aware. His soul, his mind, and his brain will be functioning as they should and in right relation to each other, thus again producing co-ordination and correct alignment. (12 - 50).
(8) One of our immediate educational objectives must be the elimination of the competitive spirit, and the substitution of the co-operative consciousness. (12 - 74).
[Page 100]
(9) What. . . should be the effort on the part of parents and educators? First, and above everything else, the effort should be made to provide the atmosphere wherein certain qualities can flourish and emerge.
1. An atmosphere of love, wherein fear is cast out and the child realises he has no cause for timidity, shyness or caution, and one in which he receives courteous treatment at the hands of others, and is expected also to render equally courteous treatment in return. . . . Love always draws forth what is best in child and man.
2. An atmosphere of patience, wherein the child can become, normally and naturally, a seeker after the light of knowledge; wherein he is sure of always meeting with a quick response to inquiry, and a careful reply to all questions, and wherein there is never the sense of speed or hurry. . . . This impatience on the part of those upon whom they are so pathetically dependent, sows in them the seeds of irritation, and more lives are ruined by irritation than can be counted.
3. An atmosphere of orderedactivity, wherein the child can learn the first rudiments of responsibility. The children who are coming into incarnation at this time, and who can profit by the new type of education, are necessarily on the very verge of soul consciousness. One of the first indications of such soul contact is a rapidly developing sense of responsibility. This should be carefully borne in mind, for the shouldering of small duties and the sharing of responsibilities (which is always concerned with some form of group relation) is a potent factor in determining a child's character and future vocation.
4. An atmosphere of understanding, wherein a child is always sure that the reasons and motives for his actions will be recognised, and that those who are his older associates will always comprehend the nature of his motivating impulses, even though they may not always approve of what he has done, or of his activities . . .
It is the older generation who foster in a child an early and most unnecessary sense of guilt, of sinfulness and of wrongdoing. So much emphasis is laid upon petty little things that are not really wrong, but are annoying to the parent or teacher, that a true sense of wrong (which is the recognition of failure to preserve right relations with the group) gets overlaid and is not recognised for what it is. The many small and petty sins, imposed upon the children by the constant reiteration of "No", by the use of the word "naughty", and based largely on parental failure to understand and occupy the child, are of no real moment. If these aspects of the child's life are rightly handled, then the truly wrong things, the infringements upon the [Page 101] rights of others, . . . the hurting or damaging of others in order to achieve personal gain, will emerge in right perspective and at the right time. (12 - 75/8).
(10) In the future, education will make a far wider use of psychology than heretofore. (12 - 84).
(11) A better educational system should, therefore, be worked out which will present the possibilities of human living in such a manner that barriers will be broken down, prejudices removed, and a training given to the developing child which will enable him, when grownup, to live with other men in harmony and goodwill. This can be done, if patience and understanding are developed and if educators realise that "where there is no vision, the people perish". (12 - 87).
[46]
THE EGO (Soul)
(1) For a long period of lives the Ego remains practically unconscious of the Personality. The magnetic link exists, but that is all until the time comes when the personal life reaches a point where it has somewhat to add to the content of the causal body - a body at first small, colourless and insignificant. But the hour comes when the stones are first brought perfected from the quarry of the personal life, and the first colours are painted in by the man, the builder and the artist. Then the Ego begins to give attention, rarely at first, but with increasing frequency, until lives come around in which the Ego definitely works at the subjugation of the lower self, at the enlargement of the communicating channel, and at the transmission to the physical brain consciousness, of the fact of its existence, and the goal of its being. Once that is accomplished, and the inner fire is freer in its passage, lives are then given to the stabilising of that impression, and to the making of that inner consciousness a part of the conscious life. The flame radiates downward more and more, until gradually the different vehicles come into line, and the man stands on the Probationary Path. He is ignorant yet of what lies ahead, and is conscious only of wild and earnest aspiration, and of innate divine longings. He is eager to make good, longing to know, and dreaming always of someone or something higher than himself. All this is backed by the profound conviction that in service to humanity will the dreamed-of goal be reached, will the vision become reality, the longing fructify into satisfaction, and aspiration be merged in sight.
[Page 102]
The Hierarchy begins to take action, and his instruction is carried out as aforesaid. . . . Until now the Teachers have only watched and guided, without definitely dealing with the man himself; all has been left to the Ego on his own plane. The Ego bends every effort to quicken vibration, and to force the oft-rebelling lower vehicles to respond and measure up to the rapidly increasing force. It is largely a matter of increased fire or heat, and consequent intensification of vibratory capacity. The egoic fire waxes ever greater until the work is done, and the purificatory fire becomes the Light of Illumination. Ponder on this sentence. As above, so below; on each rung of the ladder the process is repeated; the Monad, at the third initiation, begins itself to be conscious of the Ego. The work, then, is more rapid owing to the rarity of the material, and to the fact that resistance is a factor in the three worlds, but not elsewhere. (2 - 35/7).
(2) The factor of periodicity. Egos that are in incarnation, and egos that are out of incarnation, are differentiated and capable of different work. Egos whose reflections are in incarnation, are more limited than those who are not. It is almost as if the Higher Self were directed downwards, or willingly circumscribing itself to three-dimensioned existence, whereas the egos out of incarnation are not so limited, but work in another direction or dimension. (2 - 38). See also: "The Soul", and (5 - 762).
[47]
ELECTRICITY
(1) Exoteric science is slowly, yet steadily, finding out the nature of phenomena, and discovering for itself the character of electrical manifestation. In their slowness of discovery lies safety. It is not wise nor right yet for the true nature of these different forces and powers to be fully known. (3 - 641).
(2) In the manipulation of electricity lies hid much that concerns the vivification of the bodies, especially just now of the etheric. The principal use of the sun is electrical force adapted to the need of the great average majority, in all the kingdoms of nature. As progress is made, an intensification of this force will be possible in individual cases. Herein lies one of the secrets of initiation. (2 - 336).
(3) The electricity of the solar system is threefold: There is fire by friction, solar fire, and electric fire - fire of body, of soul, and of spirit. Fire by friction is coming to be somewhat understood by the scientists of [Page 103] the world, and we are harnessing to our needs the fire which heats, which gives light, and which produces motion. This is in the physical sense of the words. One of the imminent discoveries will be the integrating power of electricity, as it produces the cohesion within all forms, and sustains all form life during the cycle of manifested existence. It produces also the coming together of atoms, and of the organisms within forms, so constructing that which is needed to express the life principle. (14 - 373/4).
(4) As yet the mystery of electricity, and the true nature of electrical phenomena (than which there is naught else) is at this time an unrevealed secret, even to the most advanced of the modern scientists. . . . That there is such a thing as electricity, that it probably accounts for all that can be seen, sensed and known, and that the entire universe is a manifestation of electrical power - all this may be stated and is, today, coming to be recognised. But when that has been said, the mystery remains, and will not be revealed, even in partial measure, until the middle of the next century. Then revelation may be possible, as there will be more initiates in the world, and inner vision and inner hearing will be more generally recognised and present. When man arrives at a better understanding of the etheric body and its seven force centres . . . then some further light can intelligibly be thrown upon the nature of the seven types of electrical phenomena, which we call the seven rays. (15 - 82/3).
(5) Electricity, in relation to human ills, is as yet an infant science, but it has in it the germs of the new techniques and methods of healing. (17 - 48).
(6) Towards the close of this century, and when the world situation has clarified, and the period of reconstruction is drawing to a close, discoveries will be made which will reveal some hitherto unrealised electrical potencies. I know not what other word to use for these electrical rays, which will make their presence felt, and lead to possibilities beyond the dreams of investigators today. The coming science of electricity will be as different next century, as the modern usages of electricity differ from the understanding of the Victorian scientist. (17 - 376).
(7) People frequently are so preoccupied with the tangible instrument on this side of the veil, that they neglect the factor of what must be contributed from the other side, by those who have passed over.
The work will be done from there, with the material aid which as yet has not been provided in the outer scientific field.
To bring this about, collaboration of a conscious medium (not a trance medium, but someone who is consciously clairvoyant and clairaudient) will [Page 104] be required. There are many such growing up among the children of today, and the next generation after them, will provide still more. The separating veil will disappear through the testimony of the thousands of those who can see phenomena, and hear sounds which lie outside the range of the tangible.
. . . Everything in Nature is electrical in nature; life itself is electricity, but all that we have contacted and used today, is that which is only physical, and related to and inherent in, the physical and etheric matter of all forms. (17 - 377)
(8) As regards the use of radio as a means of communication with the "spirit world", the present electrical instruments are too slow in vibratory activity (if I may use such an unscientific term) to do the work; if astrally clothed "spirits" approach them, they are apt to have a shattering effect. Yet the first demonstration of existence after death, in such a way that it can be registered upon the physical plane, will come via the radio, because sound always precedes vision. Think on this. However, no radio now exists which is sufficiently sensitive to carry sound waves from the astral plane.
Future scientific discoveries, therefore, hold the secret. This is no evasion on my part, but a simple statement of fact. Electrical discovery is only in the initial stage, and all that we have is simply a prelude to the real discovery. The magic of the radio would be completely unbelievable to the man of the eighteenth century. The discoveries and developments lying ahead in the twenty-first century, will be equally unbelievable to the man of this century. . . . February 1944. (17 - 378).
[48]
ELEMENTALS
On a lower scale of the evolutionary ladder, are other groups of lives, wrongly entitled devas, which work in obedience to the law, and are controlled by the higher entities. There are, for instance, the denser forms of gaseous life, termed often salamanders, the elementals of fire. These are directly under the control of the Lord Agni, Lord of the mental plane, and, in this mental age, we have the element of fire entering into the mechanics of living as never before. Eliminate the products which are controlled by heat and you will bring our civilisation to a stop; you will bring all means of transportation to an end and all modes of lighting; you would throw all manufactories into the discard. Basically again, these fiery lives, are found in all that burns, and in the warmth that holds all life formation on earth and causes the flourishing of all living things. (4 - 389).
[Page 105]
[49]
ELIMINATION (AFTER DEATH)
We will now consider the activity of the inner spiritual man, who has discarded his physical and etheric bodies, and now stands within the shell of the subtle body - a body composed of astral or sentient substance and of mental substance. Owing to the strongly emotional and sentient polarisation of the average man, the idea has taken hold that man withdraws, after true death, first of all into his astral body, and then, later, into his mental vehicle. But this is not actually the case. A body constructed predominantly of astral matter is the basis of this idea. Few people are as yet so developed that the vehicle in which they find themselves after death is largely composed of mental substance. Only disciples and initiates who live mostly in their minds, find themselves, after death, immediately upon the mental plane. Most people discover themselves upon the astral plane, clothed in a shell of astral matter, and committed to a period of elimination within the illusory area of the astral plane.
As I have earlier told you, the astral plane has no factual existence, but is an illusory creation of the human family. From now on, however, (through the defeat of the forces of evil and the disastrous setback suffered by the Black Lodge) the astral plane will slowly become a dying creation, and in the final period of human history (in the seventh rootrace) it will become non-existent. Today this is not the case. The sentient substance which constitutes the astral plane, is still being gathered into forms of illusion, and still forms a barrier in the path of the soul seeking liberation. It still "holds prisoner" the many people who die whilst their major reaction to life is that of desire, of wishful thinking, and of emotional sentiency. These are still the vast majority . . .
The art of elimination falls into three categories:
1. As practised by those people who are purely astral in quality and constitution. These we call "kamic" people.
2. As practised by those balanced people who are integrated personalities, and who are called "kama-manasic" individuals.
3. As practised by advanced people and disciples of all grades, who are mainly mental in their "living focus". These are called "manasic" subjects.
The same basic rules control them all, but the emphasis differs in each case. I would have you bear in mind that where there is no physical brain, and where the mind is undeveloped, that inner man finds himself practically [Page 106] smothered in an envelope of astral matter, and is for a long time immersed in what we call the astral plane. The kama-manasic person has what is called the "freedom of dual life", and finds himself possessed of a dual form, which enables him to contact at will the higher levels of the astral plane, and the lower levels of the mental plane. I would again remind you that there is no physical brain to register these contacts. Awareness of contact is dependent upon the innate activity of the inner man, and his peculiar state of apprehension and of appreciation. The manasic person is possessed of a translucent mental vehicle, with a light density which is in proportion to his freedom from desire and emotion.
These three types of people all use an eliminative process of similar nature, but employ a different technique within the process. For the sake of clarity, it might be stated that:
1. The kamic person eliminates his astral body by means of attrition, and vacates it via the astral correspondence to the solar plexus centre. This attrition is brought about because all the innate desire and inherent emotion are, at this stage, related to the animal nature and the physical body - both of which are now non-existent.
2. The kama-manasic individual uses two techniques. This would naturally be so because he eliminates, first of all, his astral body, and then his mental vehicle.
a. He eliminates the astral body by means of his growing desire for mental life. He withdraws gradually and steadily into the mind body, and the astral body esoterically "drops away" and finally disappears. This takes place usually unconsciously, and may require quite a long time. Where, however, the man is above the average, and on the verge of becoming a manasic person, the disappearance is brought about suddenly and dynamically, and the man stands free in his mental body. This takes place consciously and rapidly.
b. He shatters the mental body by an act of the human will, and also because the soul is beginning to be slowly aware of its shadow. The inner man is therefore attracted towards the soul, though still only in a somewhat feeble manner. This process is relatively quick, and is dependent upon the extent of the manasic influence.
3. The manasic man, focussed now in his mental body, has also two things to accomplish:
a. To dissolve and rid himself of any astral sediment which may be discolouring his translucent mental body. The so-called astral body is now practically non-existent as a factor of expression. This he does by [Page 107] calling in increased light from the soul. It is soul light which, at this stage, dissolves the astral substance, just as it will be the combined light of the soul of humanity (as a whole) which will dissolve finally the astral plane - again so-called.
b. To destroy the mental body through the use of certain Words of Power. These Words are communicated to the disciple via the Ashram of his Master. They bring in soul power to a greatly enhanced extent, and produce consequently such an expansion of consciousness within the mental body, that it is broken up and no longer constitutes a barrier to the inner man. He can now stand, a free son of mind, within the Ashram of his Master, and "shall no more go out". (17 - 486/90).