Pliability and Adaptability
It’s Monday 25th of November – we have just entered the ninth sign of Sagittarius, the Archer with its arrow pointing up to the last three signs: Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces. Tomorrow is the next to last new moon of the year 2019 - the last one (in Capricorn) falling within the Festival week of the NGWS on Boxing Day.
We are both in a lesser and greater preparation period (from prae ‘before’ + parare ‘make ready’) – a word worth pondering: to make (something) ready for use or consideration, created in advance; pre-planned, to make (a substance) by a chemical reaction or series of reactions, to make (someone) ready or able to do or deal with something, to be willing to do something etc.
Since the root word pare (common in prepare, repair, despair and many others) is defined as to carefully cut off the outside or the ends of (something) or to make (something) smaller, to reduce (something) in size, amount, or number- we should see how this procedure can consciously and willingly mold and forge the group mind, the group heart and the group activity.
Living as we do in unique times characterized as never before by an overall uncertainty and unpredictability, it is quite challenging not just to understand but also to embrace this common field of experience within the greater Plan of evolution. No group, individual, community or nation can refrain from this aspect of crisis bringing turbulent and rapid changes and the shattering of forms. Letting go of old patterns and mindsets of control widens the mind, opens the perspective, and elucidates the view. Rather than following the old standards and trends (instinctive life, survival) of holding back, being defensive, fearful and competitive and to turn instead to commanding, planning, predicting and managing, we have to learn individually and collectively in our groups how to purposefully slow down, step back, soften our gaze and listen – remaining silent, in order to be able to function more efficiently as mediators and mere conductors.
The Tibetan tells us that “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”.
How beautifully do these words synchronize with the focusing of mind in the fiery sign of Sagittarius and in the preparation of our posture and attitude before firing the arrow of insightful vision towards our goal!
“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”. (TWM/265)
Inspired by the Tibetan’s injunction to “think whenever possible in terms abstract or numerical”, we might want to explore further our well known symbol of the Triangle (as Tria is the number 3 and Triad unfolds from 1, 2 and 3). Yet by doing this, its previous form in our minds might need to be broken down or deconstructed in order to be reconstructed and vivified anew.
Geometrizing means literally the measuring of earth/Gaia and in this context we know the triangle as the first complete geometrical shape.
A line is the extension of a point in one direction until it finds another point. This movement and measurement of space brings forth the two – sides, poles, aspects etc – and hence duality. Our present solar system is dual: Love-Wisdom.
We find ourselves moving back and forth many times (if not lives) reaching from one extreme to another before we realize the nature and the purpose of the pairs of opposites – and also the despair and conflict they are producing. This movement may be depicted as an expanded line with repeated curves leading down and in and becoming ever narrower – but not before awareness has touched all the way to the extremities - their bottom and limits.
Drawing imaginatively these lines we might see them to our surprise filling a triangular shape with its apex pointing downwards. At the same time we realize that on that same pulsating line, similar to string, a center is formed with a middle point of balance resulting from the interplay between the opposites and their ultimate fusion. Paradoxically it is both a center of poise and a point of tension. It’s from there – and after having known the depths and center of our being – that we can draw or “be drawn” by the vertical up-leading magnetic line to the top of the ‘mountain shaped’ triangle; its form shaped now through and by the free flow of energy.
It may seem that we still find ourselves in an unknown and indefinable space but it’s from that point of uncertainty and tension that the new emerges as -at the center of the triangle this time- the light will burst like a radiant sun or an all-seeing eye– uplifting the whole triangle into a higher dimension. The symbol for this is the tetrahedron, which is the first, four faced , solid (or crystal) associated with fire, and perpetuating balance and stability.
Christina Kosmadaki
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“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. (…) 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”. (TWM/265)
“Perfect Poise indicates complete control of the astral body, so that emotional upheavals are overcome, or at least are greatly minimised in the life of the disciple. It indicates also, on the higher turn of the spiral, an ability to function freely on buddhic levels, owing to complete liberation (and consequent poise) from all the influences and impulses which are motived from the three worlds. This type or quality of poise connotes-if you will think deeply-an abstract state of mind; nothing which is regarded as nonperfection can create disturbance. You can realise surely that, if you were entirely free from all emotional reactions, your clarity of mind and your ability to think clearly would be enormously increased, with all that that involves.
Naturally, the perfect poise of an initiated disciple and that of the initiated Master are different, for one concerns the effect of the three worlds or their non-effect, and the other concerns adaptability to the rhythm of the Spiritual Triad; nevertheless, the earlier type of poise must precede the later achievement, hence my consideration of the subject. This perfect poise (which is a possible achievement for you who read) is arrived at by ruling out the pulls, the urges, impulses and attractions of the astral or emotional nature, and also by the practice of what I have earlier mentioned: Divine Indifference. (Esoteric Healing/672-3)
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Christina chose these interesting themes of pliability and adaptability for us to work with today. These qualities were highlighted for us in the Alice Bailey teachings as aids for the form nature to be better able to withstand the powerful vibration which the approach of the Spiritual Hierarchy’s externalisation is having and will increasingly have upon the human kingdom.
These qualities of pliability and adaptability are distinctive of our planet as a whole. In Alice Bailey’s outline of seven rays conditioning the planet they are rather third ray qualities, the third ray being qualified by adaptability and it is the ray that conditions our Logos. Like all desirable qualities, it is a soul quality and in this case, it leads to skill-in-action in the plane of form and the consequent ability to sit more lightly in the saddle of life. Children and the young in general, have more of this quality, not having been so much conditioned by the hardships that are so characteristic of life today. It is rare indeed to find a crystallized and inflexible child, although there is no shortage of willfull children--but that is something different. Why, we might ask, does this quality so often fade over time?
Children’s adaptable natures are the result of the tremendous growth they are experiencing which keeps them focused on all that is around them--they don’t have to be reminded to “make all things new” for that is their way of greeting the world. It is all new to them. Watching a child on a NY subway, for example, is so interesting. We can often see young children eagerly peering through the dirty windows to watch the other passing trains, bouncing around in their seats, swirling around the poles, grabbing their parents’ hands wrestling with their siblings and smiling at strangers who are also smiling at them. In contrast, the adults are staring at their phones or into space with blank stares or just catching a moment to relax.
How do we lose this pliability? It would seem to be a product of the loss of the inquisitive spirit and the joy of learning and doing new things. Instead adults are often stuck in fears, foreboding, or recriminations--stuck in the past or projecting fearfully into the future and rushing to accomplish that which our personalities are pressuring us to do. Whereas the child is free of past and present, and focused instead on the intense interest in the present moment if they are in an environment that offers them that which should be their birthright.
The great Teacher the Christ counseled us to renew ourselves by the renewing of our minds and it seems we haven’t always heeded this advice. It’s said that one of the problems with which the World Teacher will be confronted after His reappearance will be the habit of unhappiness that too often characterizes humanity. This human tendency to look back and project forward with all kinds of fears and sadness while forsaking the present creates a situation where the joy of that which lies all around is overlooked.
The Alice Bailey teachings have a suggestion for cultivating a greater richness within the daily life through the use of a spiritual diary. The Tibetan made the following suggestions:
“I have decided that the way of release for you will come in the writing each day of a diary which will embody certain releasing forces and which can...bring you much and eventually carry to your co-disciples something of beauty and of joy….I am suggesting something which will fill your life with vitality, expression and make you radiant.
Each evening write your diary from four points of view. Let it be written with real thought and a determination to find something to relate in connection with each point. This will engender in you a constant watchfulness over your daily life, a vital attentiveness to life as it is lived around you and a reflective daily meditative attitude:
1. What things, attitudes, and words of beauty did I come across today? Note these down and note also your reactions to them when recognised—a sunset of radiant colour; a face or look which brought good remembrance; a paragraph in a book which illumined your mind. Write it all down so as to share it with your fellow disciples. Write, for instance, the paragraph which attracted your attention or the spoken words which brought you light. Hunt every day for beauty and record it.
2. What act of service did I render which was other than my usual programme? What services did I note that other people were rendering? List what you see your fellow-men doing each day that strikes a note of selfless service and learn thereby the wonder of the human being. Give your reactions to that which you record.
3. What colour or colours predominated in my life today? Upon the physical plane—a blaze of sunshine, the grey of a rainy day, the blue of the sky, the riot of colour in [Page 483] the flowers in a garden or a shop? Upon the astral plane—the rose of affection and of friendly feeling, the blue of an inspiring contact, the gold of physical well being, the interplay of colours which your emotional nature can be trained to recognise?
4. What dramas came my way today, in my own life or in the life of others? Seek for drama under the dull exterior of a person, in the world of daily happenings as you see it functioning around you. See it everywhere—the drama of life as lived by yourself, your environing associates, and also the nations of the world. Evoke and cultivate the sense of the immanent beauty of drama, and note the recognition of it in your diary; note also the lessons to be learnt as you sense and study them.
This diary will reveal to you what you lack; it will train you in the objective and subjective recognitions which you so much need; it will lift you out of yourself and will carry to you revelation and joy and an enlarging horizon. Ponder upon the words: Beauty, colour, service, outer relationships, inner linkings. No more I give you now except my blessing” (Discipleship in the New Age, Vol. I, p. 482-83),
Kathy Newburn