Harmony Through the Heat of Conflict

Dear Co-worker,

The Ageless Wisdom teachings are based on the transmuting properties of Fire. They proclaim that: Fire is the most perfect and unadulterated reflection, in Heaven as on earth, of the One Flame. It is life and death, the origin and the end of every material thing. It is divine Substance.1 Fire, of course, generates heat, without which nothing moves. As such, Heat is the history of everything – the driving power behind evolution.

Of all the natural phenomena our senses experience, the feeling of gentle heat, or warmth, is perhaps the most primitive, for it brings a sense of comfort and security. But outside of the narrow temperature range that we define as ‘warmth,’ lies the experience of pain – either through too much heat or too little. Psychologically, this is equally true as is clear from words such as temper and temperament, which are directly related to temperature. We use the word ‘temper’ to describe a person’s disposition, often in the sense of overheated emotions; but equally, an ‘even temper’ describes a state of composure. While we would associate the former condition with a state of inner conflict, the latter indicates a state of inner harmony.

Since prehistoric times, the human being has constantly struggled to temper things – to bring harmony out of conflict and perpetuate a state of psychological warmth. Indeed, to temper something means “to bring to a proper state through a proportioned mixture of elements.” This endeavour is common to all living organisms, as the educational reformer, John Dewey, points out:

“Every need, say hunger for fresh air or food, is a lack that denotes at least a temporary absence of adequate adjustment with surroundings. But it is also a demand, a reaching out into the environment to make good the lack and to restore adjustment by building at least a temporary equilibrium. Life itself consists of phases in which the organism falls out of step with the march of surrounding things and then recovers unison with it – either through effort or by some happy chance. And, in a growing life, the recovery is never mere return to a prior state, for it is enriched by the state of disparity and resistance through which it has successfully passed... Life grows when a temporary falling out is a transition to a more extensive balance of the energies of the organism with those of the conditions under which it lives.” 2

These words eloquently describe how the perpetual struggle to bring harmony out of conflict transforms consciousness, over long ages, to ever increasing levels of refinement, and ultimately, into an aesthetic of creative living. For as Dewey surmises: “Art is... prefigured in the very processes of living. A bird builds its nest and a beaver its dam when internal organic pressures cooperate with external materials so that the former are fulfilled and the latter are transformed in a satisfying culmination.”3

According to the Ageless Wisdom, this capacity for creative living is intensified in the human kingdom under the influence of a Divine Life-Force that embodies the qualities of Harmony, Beauty and Art. Paradoxically, the initial effect of this life-force is to upset the equilibrium of consciousness causing inner conflict. But this serves to drive the human being through cycles of experience and growth, into a more extensive balance between consciousness and environment as described by John Dewey. From the esoteric angle, each cycle of conflict results in the attainment of a more dynamic state of equilibrium between Spirit and Matter. Through the skillful balancing of these two poles of existence, comes the harmony of spiritual warmth and the flourishing of art and beauty.

As “The Lord of Harmony, Beauty and Art,” continues to heat the consciousness of humanity, the Alice Bailey writings predict the gradual discovery of the laws of fire: “In them are summed up the basic laws of colour and of music and rhythm. When music produces warmth or stimulation, and when pictures, for instance, glow or reveal the subjective within the objective, then will this…Ray of Harmony be coming to fruition.” 4 Moreover, the large number of people who will be sensitively responsive to this stimulation will produce “beauty and harmony in the outer life, so that others can see the achievement,” and this will inspire many more to follow their lead.

However, as the conflagrated state of the world plainly shows, human consciousness is still consumed in the heat of conflict. Yet this need not be a cause for despair. Although it is an excruciating process, the conflict is serving to loosen the bonds of wrong attachments in the realm of matter. The power to change comes through the application of heat – and herein lies the secret of transmutation. Whether it is a chemical process or a psychological one, the cycle of heat follows three stages: A period of conflict, followed by rejection or renunciation of prevailing conditions, and then liberation. With transmutation achieved, consciousness moves on to express its freedom through greater acts of creative beauty.All earthly crises, individual or those related to humanity as a whole, are produced by the Principle of Conflict embedded in human consciousness, which drives it through this process. The crisis points that are currently emerging worldwide therefore hold the potential for accelerated human progress despite outer appearances. Crises hold the promise of imminent transmutation and the acquisition of a harmonizing power with which to create a new world of light and beauty. But this can only transpire if the right choices are made in directing the prevailing energies. This is a subject that will be further explored at this year’s World Goodwill online seminar: The Spiritual Dynamics of Crisis on the Path to Global Cooperation.

Returning to John Dewey’s observations, imagine gathering all the current global crises to one focal point – it is possible to detect a general, underlying cause that is similar to the urge that drives the bird to build its nest, the beaver its dam. Deep down, humanity is feeling homeless and pining for the warmth of security and community. The feeling of not belonging somewhere is a basic human anxiety. Through wrong identification and attachment, this quest to belong has been twisted into a quest for ownership and possessions to construct an artificial sense of identity and belonging. But this only drives consciousness further into the cold of isolation. The discovery of psychological warmth and security lies in realizing our innate connectedness with each other and the environment, and building a lighted home for one and all.  With this objective, the art of creative living flourishes. But that requires no less than “a new conception of human ecology” ...in which creativity is considered as important as literacy and celebrated as “the process of having original ideas that have value.” These are the words of Sir Ken Robinson, who was an international advisor on education in the arts. He was addressing the theme “Do schools kill creativity?” on TED – a platform devoted to spreading ideas in the form of short, powerful talks covering all manner of topics in over a hundred languages. It is the most watched talk ever given on TED and demonstrates how ideas can catch fire in the public imagination when expressed with the harmony of warmth and humour.

As we move through this testing world period, humanity needs inspiration from those who are emerging from the heat of psychological conflict to express the light and warmth of creative living. Heat and light, the familiar effects of fire, condition our everyday lives – for the whole of manifestation is a slow-moving frictional fire and just by being in the world, we are participating in this gradual combustion. This is the way of evolution. The key to harmony lies in more fire not less – the stimulation of the flame of the spirit within. Through it we join the growing number of creative thinkers everywhere to fire the world with the spirit of relationship.

In the light of group creativity,
Lucis Trust

1. H.P. Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, p.121 (Facsimile edition)
2. John Dewey, Art as Experience, p.12 (Kindle edition)
3. Ibid, p.24
4. Alice Bailey, A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, p.427

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