FUNDAMENTAL FORMS
The simplicity of this Rule nine is such that in a few words the entire process of creative evolution is summarized. On the mental plane an idea takes form. On [262] the desire plane sentient energy pervades that form. Under the evolutionary process the form "swells and grows". Through the right direction of the form and its orientation in the needed direction, the purpose of the thinker is fulfilled.
All life is vibration and the result of vibration is form, dense or subtle, and ever subtler as ascension takes place. As the pulsating life progresses its rate of vibration changes, and in this changing of vibration lies hid the secret of form-shattering and form-building. Forms are of four kinds in this era of the fourth round:
1. The Form of the Personality, that vehicle of physical, astral and mental matter that provides the means of contact in the three worlds. It is built in each life, the key of the vibration being set up in the life preceding the present. That form proves adequate for the average man and serves him till death. The man who is entering on the occult path starts with the vehicle provided, but during incarnation builds for himself ever a newer and better vehicle, and the more progressed he is the more consciously he works. Hence eventuates that constant turmoil and frequent ill-health of the beginner in the occult life. He senses the law, he realises the need of raising his key, and frequently he begins with mistakes. He starts to build anew his physical body by diet and discipline, instead of working from the inner outward. In the careful discipline of the mind and the manipulation of thought-matter and in transmutation of emotion comes the working out on the physical plane. Add to the two above, physical plane purity as to food and manner of life, and in seven years time the man has built for himself three new bodies around the permanent atoms.
2. The Form of the Environment. This is really the evolutionary working out of the involutionary group soul. It relates to our contacts, not just exterior, but on the inner planes as well. In similarity of vibration [263] comes coherency. When therefore a man raises his vibration and builds anew from the beginning, and alters consequently his key, it results in dissonance in his surroundings and subsequent discord. Therefore—under the law—there comes always to the striver after the Mysteries and the manipulator of the law, a period of aloneness and of sorrow when no man stands by and isolation is his lot. In lesser degree this comes to all, and to the arhat (or initiate of the fourth degree) this complete isolation is a characteristic feature. He stands midway between life in the three worlds and that in the world of adepts. His vibration does not synchronise, prior to initiation with the vibrations of either group. Under the law he is alone. But this is only temporary. When the environment satisfies then is the moment of anxiety; it indicates stagnation. The application of the law causes primary disruption.
3. The Form of the Devotee. Yes, I mean just that word, for it expresses an abstract idea. Each person of every degree has his devotion, that for which he lives, that for which—in ignorance, in knowledge or in wisdom—he wields as much of the law as he can grasp. Purely physical may that devotion be, centred in flesh, in lust for gold, in possessions concrete. He bends all his energies to the search for the satisfaction of that concrete form and therein learns. Purely astral may be the aim of the devotee—love of wife or child, or family, pride of race, love of popularity, or lust of some kind—to them he devotes the whole of his energy, using the physical body to fulfil the desire of the astral.
Higher still may be the form of his devotion,—love of art, or science or philosophy, the life religious, scientific, or artistic—to them he consecrates his energies, physical, astral and mental, and always the form is that of devotion. Always the vibration measures up to the goal, finds that goal, passes it and disintegrates. Pain enters [264] into all shattering of the form, and changing of the key. Many lives, for millennia of years, are spent under the lower vibrations. As evolution progresses, more rapid is the development, and the key changes from life to life, whereas in the earlier stages one key or tone might be sounded for several lives in their entirety. As a man nears the Path, the Probationary Path becomes strewn with many shattered forms, and from lesser cycle to lesser cycle he changes the key, often in one life heightening his vibration several times. See therefore how the life of all aspirants, if progressing with the desired rapidity, is one of constant movement, constant changes and differentiations, and continuous building and breaking, planning and seeing those plans disrupted. It is a life of ceaseless suffering, of frequent clashing with the environing circumstances, of numerous friendships made and transferred, of mutation ceaseless and consequent agony. Ideals are transcended only to be found to be stations on the road to higher; visions are seen, only to be replaced by others; dreams are dreamt only to be realized and discarded; friends are made, to be loved and left behind, and to follow later and more slowly the footsteps of the striving aspirant; and all the time the fourth form is being built.
4. The Form of the Causal Body. This is the vehicle of the higher consciousness, the temple of the indwelling God, which seems of a beauty so rare and of a stability of so sure a nature that, when the final shattering comes of even that masterpiece of many lives, bitter indeed is the cup to drink, and unutterably bereft seems the unit of consciousness. Conscious then only of the innate Divine Spirit, conscious only of the Truth of the Godhead, realizing profoundly and to the depths of his being the ephemeral nature of the form and of all forms, standing alone in the vortex of initiatory rites, bereft of all on which he may have leant (be it friend, Master, doctrine [265] or environment), well may the Initiate cry out: "I am that I am, and there is naught else." Well may he then figuratively place his hand in that of his Father in Heaven, and hold the other out in blessing on the world of men, for only the hands that have let slip all within the three worlds are free to carry the ultimate blessing to struggling humanity. Then he builds for himself a form such as he desires,—a new form that is no longer subject to shattering, but suffices for his need, to be discarded or used as occasion warrants.
In these days you will need to ponder on this matter of the form, for with the entering in of a new ray, and the commencement of a new era comes ever a period of much disruption until the forms that be have adapted themselves to the newer vibration. In that adaptation those who have cultivated pliability and adaptability, or who have that for their personality ray, progress with less disruption than those more crystallized and fixed.
Particularly now should pliability and responsiveness of form be aimed at, for when He Whom we all adore comes, think you His vibration will not cause disruption if crystallization is present? It was so before; it will be so again.
Cultivate responsiveness to the Great Ones, aim at mental expansion and keep learning. Think whenever possible in terms abstract or numerical, and by loving all, work at the plasticity of the astral body. In love of all that breathes comes capacity to vibrate universally, and in that astral pliability will come responsiveness to the vibration of the Great Lord.
This summation of process and of the forms is equally true of God and His cosmic creative work; of the soul, as it builds its instrument for expression, either unconsciously in the early stages or consciously in the later; of the disciple, as he seeks to express his realization of the work through group work and the organization of his [266] life; and of perfected man, as he learns, through experience, to centre his forces on the mental plane and from there accomplish his purpose in generating and producing those thought-forms which mould the minds of men, and embody in themselves that aspect of the Universal Mind which is needed for the right production of that immediate fraction of the Plan which his age and generation require.
All these various applications of the rule could be elucidated and enlarged upon. Our problem, however, must be kept clearly in mind. We are conscious souls, or in process of becoming conscious. We are beginning, through our meditation work and our application to study, to work on mental levels. We are creating forms continuously, pervading them with energy and sending them out to fulfill their function in line with our realized subjective purpose.
The emphasis should be laid upon the word realized in the above paragraph. According to the clarity of vision and the depth of the inner realization so will be the adequacy of the created form, and so will be the strength of the life which will enable it to perform its intended function.
Up to the present time the majority of aspirants in the world express the results of little and weak thought, but rapid action. The goal for students should at this time be rapid concentrated thought and slow action. That slow action however will be potent in result; there will be no lost motion, no delayed reactions, and no tendency towards hesitation. The attention of the thinker being focussed on the mental plane, the progress of his manifested thought will be sure and inevitable. When the idea is clearly grasped, the attention closely focussed, and the energy or life aspect steadily applied, the result will be irresistible appearance and potent action on the physical plane.
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This thought must be borne in mind if the dangers of the left hand path are to be avoided. Let me here make some statements in brief tabulated form, which will produce a truer understanding of the words "left hand path". We are dealing here primarily with those thought-forms which man creates:
1. The left hand path concerns the matter aspect and the life poured into the form serves only to vitalize the atoms in substance. The potency of the love aspect—as wielded by the soul—is lacking.
2. The form created is constituted of mental matter, of astral matter and of physical substance. It lacks the soul contribution. Its purpose is in line with the development of form, but not in line with soul expression.
3. The left hand path, therefore, is the path of progress for substance or matter. It is not the path of progress for the soul aspect. It is the "way of the Holy Ghost" but not the way of the Son of God. I express this truth in these words as it serves peculiarly to make the distinction clear and yet preserves the integrity of substance-matter and their Unity within the One Life.
4. All forms created at every stage are either confined to the left hand path or embrace it and yet go beyond it, and follow the right hand way. This sentence provides food for thought and its meaning is difficult to gather. It should be borne in mind that all forms, whether they follow the right or left hand way are alike up to a certain point; they travel the same progressive stages and at one time in their career they appear uniform and alike. Only when their purpose appears does the distinction become apparent, and hence the training of the aspirant in right motive as a preparatory step to true occult work.
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The question might be asked: What is meant by occult work?
True occult work involves:
1. The contacting of the Plan.
2. Right desire to co-operate with the Plan.
3. The work of thought-form building and the confining of the attention of the creator of these thought-forms to the mental plane. This is of so potent a nature that the thought-forms created have a life cycle of their own and never fail to manifest and perform their work.
4. The direction of the thought-form from the mental plane and the confining of the attention to that specific enterprise, knowing that right thought and right orientation lead to correct functioning and the sure avoidance of the left hand path.
This is a lesson little appreciated by aspirants. They engage in emotional desire for the appearance of their thought-form and the manifestation of the idea. They spend much time following the orthodox methods of work and in physical plane activities. They wear themselves out by identifying themselves with the form they have created instead of remaining detached from it, and acting solely as the directing agents. Learn to work on the plane of mind. Build there your form, remembering that if you submerge yourself in the form for which you are responsible it may obsess and dominate you and then the form will be the dominant factor and not the purpose of its existence. When the form controls then comes the danger that it may be turned in the wrong direction and find its way on to the left hand path and so increase the power of matter and its hold over sentient souls.
It might be briefly added that anything that tends to increase the power of matter and add to the potent energy of form-substance produces a tendency to the left [269] hand path and a gradual attraction away from the Plan and the Purpose which it veils and hides.
All work and all created thought-forms (whether they materialize as an organization, a religion, a school of thought, a book or a life work of any kind) which express spiritual ideals and lay the emphasis upon the life-aspect come under the category of white magic. They then form part of the stream of life which we call the right hand Path, because it leads humanity out of form into life, and away from matter into consciousness.
In an ashram of one of the Great Ones not long ago, a disciple asked his master to express this truth to him in such a way that though the words might be few yet the import would be worthy of continuous consideration. His master made this reply:
"Only the Sons of Men know the distinction between the magic of the right and left hand ways and when they have achieved, these two ways will disappear. When the Sons of Men know the distinction which exists between matter and substance, the lesson of this epoch will be grasped. Other lessons will be left but this one passes. Matter and substance together work out the way of darkness. Substance and purpose blended indicate the way of light."