Reflections on Maya

REFLECTIONS ON MAYA – THE CHALLENGE OF THE BULK OF HUMANITY

Emmanuel Sackeyfio

We are told that the cause of Glamour “is primarily based on the sense of duality.” (Glamour: A World Problem, p. 94) And this applies to all the different aspects of glamour – maya, glamour, illusion and the dweller on the threshold. It is also suggested that the technique or the method of achieving a resolution or release from all four types of glamour is through some kind of unity, the unification of the duality.

The treading of the Path up to and including the stage of the Transfiguration of the personality by the soul, may be considered in terms of overcoming the four aspects of world glamour, which are Maya, Glamour, Illusion and the Dweller on the threshold—these are glamour on the etheric-physical, astral, mental and the energies and the forces of the sum total of all debits and credits of the integrated personality respectively. In all these conflicting conditionings, harmony lies in bringing about fusion between some energy from a higher plane than the plane on which the duality is sensed or experienced, this then unifies the duality and the conflict is resolved.

Let us briefly distinguish between the four aspects of glamour -- illusion is mental and consists in the misunderstanding of ideas, thought forms and the wrong use of the mind. It underlies all division, creating pride, separateness/separativeness and cruelty and their many ramifications and evil outcomes. Glamour is essentially based on selfishness as it qualifies desires and produces all the distortions of wrong desires. In the case of maya, the qualities of the astral and the mental activate and qualify our etheric bodies and the energies flowing through the etheric automatically condition the dense physical plane activity and expression.

The indulgences associated with these wrong tendencies are natural in their own time and place when the human unit is at an earlier stage of development. They become wrong and evil when indulged in past their educational usefulness. And it is important to point out that, it is only when we are at the point of reorientation, a turning point, that these vices or wrong tendencies become a glamour. Glamour presupposes that the aspirant is awakening to some better quality, value or moving towards some form of selflessness. We shall be focusing a little more on maya.

MAYA We know that duality is basic and underlies all aspects of human life. This duality is reflected on all the planes, creating a dual relationship calling for some unification. Thus, on the etheric physical plane we find the etheric energies proper, which are simply energies inherent in the etheric physical plane as distinct from etheric forces derived from the effect of the quality of all dense physical matter in the etheric plane. So there are two factors to consider -- the etheric energies proper and the etheric forces, each working and affecting humanity differently. These form a great duality on the etheric physical plane, one from above and one from below, so to say, and both impacting the whole of humanity, the group and the individual.

Control by the etheric forces pulls one towards the gratification of the dense physical appetites, while the etheric energies seek to be vehicles for all purified and higher incoming energies. The interaction of this duality of energy and forces on the etheric plane and the human reaction to it, when not harmonized, when not unified, creates “the sense of duality” in human consciousness which is the cause of maya--the impulse towards materialism and the “sins of the flesh” in the individual, the group, the nation and the world.

Resolution comes through the Technique of Indifference. “By means of this technique, maya is ended; for the control of the purified astral vehicle is consciously and technically brought into activity producing the freeing of the energies of the etheric body from the control of matter or force-substance and bringing men in large numbers on to the Probationary Path.” (Glamour: A World Problem, p. 172) Some of the characteristic struggles during this conflict are described by Saint Paul in Chapter Seven of his letters to the Romans (Rom7:15…). He writes: 15 “What I do, I do not recognize as my own action. What I desire to do is not what I do, but what I am averse to is what I do… 19 For I do not do the good [that] I want to do—this I keep doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin [unregenerated etheric forces] living in me that does it. 21 So I find this law at work [in me]. Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being [my soul] I delight in God’s Law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, [Conflict, Duality] waging war against the law of my mind [light of the soul] and making me a prisoner of the law of sin [the principle of evil, unregenerated matter] at work in me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subjected to death [the dense physical body, mine]? All of us, perhaps I should say many of us, recognize the conflict between the dualities clearly described by Paul, and for many of us they are too familiar.

Some Contrast Between Maya and the Dweller Because maya challenges us at the beginning of the Path, and we confront the Dweller towards the end, let us note some of the contrasting correspondence between maya and the Dweller on the Threshold, in order to clarify our way, as we struggle towards Transfiguration, noting that the human first and second initiations are progressive aspects of the third initiation of the Transfiguration -- the first Hierarchical Initiation.

Maya is the awareness that becomes possible at the beginning of or at the earliest orientation towards the Path. At this stage the student is not yet on the Path, but some discontent has stirred something within her and her orientation is changing. The stage of the Dweller on the Threshold takes place towards the final stage and towards the goal of the Transfiguration initiation.

Maya is the effect of the sum total of the subjective effects of illusion or glamour or both in combination with the glamour on the etheric-physical plane. At this point the aspirant is in a deep state of inertia and under the sway of all three glamours to which he is a victim. In contrast, the Dweller on the Threshold is the sum-total of all the forces of the integrated personality, purified and unpurified, regenerated and unregenerated, subjected to the obliterating power of the angel of the presence, the soul, who is now becoming triumphant and demonstrating its power of Light, Love and the Will-to-Good. The disciple is no longer the helpless victim and she is becoming a true disciple, a victor. This disciple is demonstrating control over the lower forces and energies of the dense-etheric physical. In regards to the Dweller, the forces, purified and unpurified, are being raised upwards and coming under the control of the “higher” mental planes and being subjected consciously to the fire. Another contrasting correspondence is that the student struggling with maya is a beginner on the path, whereas the individual confronting the Dweller on the Threshold of divinity is an initiate of the second degree, the Baptism. A further contrast between these two stages of development is that in the case of those individuals struggling with maya, the many untold accumulated previous life experiences are not recognized and only some of their effects are simply experienced, while in the case of those individuals confronting the Dweller it’s said a mysterious process takes place-- mysterious to us who have not gone through it. At this stage the faculty of memory is intensely stimulated and brought into sharp wakefulness, to such a degree that all accumulated experiences, from all previous lives and up to the immediate present are recalled, brought to the memory with exacting accuracy and dealt with and accounted for once and for all. This is that stage on the path wherein the disciple declares “Let all the dross be burnt and let me enter through that gate; and tread the Way of Fire”.

In the case of maya, the beginner learns to handle the fires of purification. Devitalization of maya is a major commencement and the later stage of discrimination between the Dweller and the Angel of the Presence at the Transfiguration is a great consummation.

Let us end with an inspiring statement, from the Tibetan: “As the maya of distorted energy currents ceases to swing you into lines of undesirable activity, the light that is in you will shine forth with greater clarity. Incidentally the Dweller on the Threshold will slowly and surely disintegrate and leave your way, to the door of Initiation, free and unimpeded.” (Glamour: A World Problem, p. 29)