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IV. Rules for Inducing Soul Control - Part 2

c. THE URGE TO FORMULATE A PLAN

The third divine instinct or hidden inner trend is the urge to formulate a plan.  It will be apparent that this urge grows out of, or is dependent upon, the previous two trends considered.  It finds its microcosmic reflection in the many plans and projects of finite man as he lives his little life or runs busily about the planet in connection with his tiny personal affairs.  It is this universal capacity to work and plan which is the guarantee that there exists in man the capacity to respond eventually and in group formation to God's plan, based on God's vision.  All these basic, developing, divine instincts and expressions of God's consciousness and awareness find their embryonic reflections in our modern humanity.  It is no part of my purpose to indicate my understanding of God's Plan.  This is limited naturally by my capacity.  Only dimly do I sense it, and only occasionally and faintly does the outline of God's stupendous objective dawn on my mind.  This Plan can only be sensed visioned and known in truth by the Hierarchy, and then only in group formation and by those Masters Who can function in full monadic consciousness.  They alone are beginning to comprehend what it is.  Suffice it for the rest of those in the Hierarchy—the initiates and disciples in their ordered ranks and various gradings—to cooperate with that immediate aspect of the Plan which they can grasp and which comes down to them through the inspired minds of their Directors at certain stated times, and in certain specific years.  Such a year was 1933.  Such another will be the year 1942.  At those times, when the Hierarchy meets in silent conclave, a part of God's vision, and His formulation [242] of that vision for the immediate present, is revealed for the next nine year cycle.  They then, in perfect freedom and with full mutual cooperation lay Their plans to bring about the desired objectives of the Heads of the Hierarchy, as They in Their turn cooperate with still higher Forces and Knowers.

The above information will probably evoke much interest from those students who are not as yet attuned to the higher values.  For all who read this, could they but grasp it, this is the least important part of the chapter and carries for them the minimum of usefulness.  It has for us, you will note, no practical application.  Some might enquire then and rightly: why then give out this information?  Because this Treatise is written for the future disciples and initiates, and all that is here set forth is part of a revelation of truth which it is desired should be given out.  It comes today through many channels and from many sources—such is the wonder of the power behind the present world adjustments!

This instinct of Deity is closely connected with the Law of Economy and is an expression of the Principle of Materialisation.  For man, it has to be studied, grasped, and wrought out through the right use of the mental body, working under the influence of Atma or Spirit.  The principle of Continuance has to be wrought out into conscious knowledge by the right use of the astral or desire nature, working under the influence of Buddhi.  The Trend to Synthesis has finally to be wrought out in the brain consciousness upon the physical plane, under the influence of the Monad, but its real expression and man's true response to this urge only become possible after the third initiation.  So it is easily to be seen that this Treatise is indeed written for the future.

We have here received much upon which to ponder, to [243] think and to meditate.  Let us search for the thread of gold which will lead us, in waking consciousness, into the treasure house of our own souls, and there let us learn to be at-one with all that breathes, to sense the vision for the whole, as far as we can, and to work in unison with God's plan as far as it has been revealed to us by Those Who know.

These ancient rules, or determining factors—the essential conditioning laws in the life of the Soul—are in their nature basically psychological.  For that reason, they warrant our study.  On its own plane, the soul knows no separation, and the factor of synthesis governs all soul relations.  The soul is occupied not only with the form that the vision of its objective may take, but with the quality or the meaning which that vision veils or hides.  The soul knows the Plan; its form, outline, methods and objective are known.  Through the use of the creative imagination, the soul creates; it builds thoughtforms on the mental plane and objectifies desire on the astral plane.  It proceeds then to externalise its thought and its desire upon the physical plane through applied force, creatively actuated by the imagination of the etheric or vital vehicle.  Yet because the soul is intelligence, motivated by love, it can (within the realised synthesis which governs its activities) analyse, discriminate and divide.  The soul likewise aspires to that which is greater than itself, and reaches out to the world of divine ideas, and thus itself occupies a midway position between the world of ideation and the world of forms.  This is its difficulty and its opportunity.

In this way the life of the soul is affirmed in terms of its conditioning factors.  The value of this lies in the fact that, upon the Path of Discipleship, these factors must begin to play their part in the life of the personality.  They must begin to condition the lower man so that his life, his habits, his [244] desires and his thoughts are brought into line with the higher impulses initiated by the soul.  This is only another way of dealing with those expressions of the spiritual life which every initiate must demonstrate.

Every aspirant must, as time elapses, develop the power to see the whole and not only the part, and to view his life and sphere of influence in terms of its corporate relationships and not in terms of the separated self.  He must not only see the vision (for that the mystic has always done) but he must penetrate behind it to those essential qualities which give meaning to the vision.  The instinct to formulate plans, inherent in all and so dominant in the highly evolved, must give way to the tendency to make plans in tune with the Plan of God, as expressed through the planetary Hierarchy.  This in time will produce the urge to create those forms, conveying meaning, which will transmute evil into good and produce the transfiguration of life.

But to do this within the Plan and at the same time to recognise the basic synthesis in which we live and move, the disciple must learn to analyse, discriminate and discern those aspects, qualities and forces which must be creatively used in the materialisation of the intuited Plan, based on the sensed vision.  We might well ponder on this rapport between the man, and the Hierarchy, via a man's own soul.  The Hierarchy exists in order to render possible in form that sensed Plan and divine Vision.  To produce this emergence of truth, the man stands also at the midway point, and in handling the great dualities of life, must produce the new world.

As we study these rules of soul control, it should not be necessary constantly to affirm the three basic relationships of the soul:

1. The relationship to other souls within the enveloping life [245] of the Oversoul.  Only through an understanding of this relation do we arrive at a practical knowledge that all souls are one Soul.

2. The relationship to the Hierarchy of governing souls.  Though this Hierarchy has in it all the seven elements which constitute the primary differentiation to which the One Life, as consciousness, submits itself, yet it must be borne in mind that this Hierarchy is essentially an embodiment of the will aspect of the Logos—the will to good, the will to love, the will to know, the will to create.  This will is served by the Universal Mind of Deity, but it is the expression of a still higher consciousness in which that Deity shares.  This concept is necessarily beyond our comprehension, but we must bear in mind that this section of the book is for use in days to come and not merely for today's understanding.

3. The relationship to the Plan of God as it is working out at the present time.

These thoughts will serve to set the stage for what should now be made clear.  It is of use at times to swing the consciousness back to the centre, when the orbit the mind travels is of vast extent.  The synthesis of the divine concept, the vision of its structural outline and the plan for its materialisation—these are the factors which govern souls on their plane, condition their activity, and, within the limits wherein they work, are the factors which (in time and space) condition and limit Deity, for such is His divine Will.  Looking at the whole subject from another angle, it is these rules of soul contact which set the rhythm and determine the pulsation of the life of God as it steadily beats upon the lower rhythms and will finally obliterate them.  This happens in the case of individual human beings; it will happen in the case of humanity, [246] as a whole, some day; it will determine finally the life, purpose and activity of all forms in and upon our planet.

d. THE URGE TO CREATIVE LIFE

This realisation brings us to the consideration in a little more detail of our fourth point, which is the urge to creative life through the divine use of the imagination.  As we have seen, it is necessary for humanity to recognise that there is a world of meaning behind the world of appearances, of form—behind what has been called the "world of seeming."  It is the revelation of this world of inner meaning that lies immediately ahead of the race.  Hitherto we have—as a race—been occupied with the symbol and not with that for which it stands, and of which it is the outer appearance.  But we have today largely exhausted our interest in the tangible symbol, and are searching—again as a race—for that which the outer world of appearance is intended to express.

Much is heard today of the New Age, of the coming revelation, of the imminent leap forward into an intuitive recognition of that which has hitherto been only dimly sensed by the mystics, the seer, the inspired poet, the intuitive scientist and the occult investigator who is not too preoccupied with the technicalities and the academic activities of the lower mind.  But one thing is oft forgotten in the great expectancy.  There is no need for too great an upward straining or too intense an outward looking, to use terms which the usual limited point of view can grasp.  That which is to be revealed lies all around us, and within us.  It is the significance of all that is embodied in form, the meaning behind the appearance, the reality veiled by the symbol, the truth expressed in substance.

Only two things will enable man to penetrate into this inner realm of causes and of revelation.  These are:

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First, the constant effort, based on a subjective impulse, to create those forms which will express some sensed truth; for thereby and through this effort, the emphasis is constantly shifted from the outer world of seeming to the inner side of phenomena.  By this means, a focussing of consciousness is produced which eventually becomes stable and withdrawn from its present intense exteriorisation.  An initiate is essentially one whose sense of awareness is occupied with subjective contacts and impacts and is not predominantly preoccupied with the world of outer sense perceptions.  This cultivated interest in the inner world of meaning will produce not only a pronounced effect upon the spiritual seeker himself but will eventually bring about the emphasis, recognised in the brain consciousness of the race, that the world of meaning is the sole world of reality for humanity.  This realisation will, in its turn, bring about two subsequent effects:

1. A close adaptation of the form to the significant factors which have brought it into being on the outer plane.

2. The production of a truer beauty in the world and, therefore, a closer approximation in the world of created forms to the inner emerging truth.  It might be said that divinity is veiled and hidden in the multiplicity of forms with their infinite detail, and that in the simplicity of forms which eventually will be seen, we shall arrive at a newer beauty, a greater sense of truth and at the revelation of God's meaning and purpose in all that He has accomplished from age to age.

Secondly, the constant effort to render oneself sensitive to the world of significant realities and to produce, therefore, those forms on the outer plane which will run true to the hidden impulse.  This is brought about by the cultivation of the creative imagination.  As yet, humanity knows little about [248] this faculty, latent in all men.  A flash of light breaks through to the aspiring mind; a sense of unveiled splendour for a moment sweeps through the aspirant, tensed for revelation; a sudden realisation of a colour, a beauty, a wisdom and a glory beyond words breaks out before the attuned consciousness of the artist, in a high moment of applied attention, and life is then seen for a second as it essentially is.  But the vision is gone and the fervour departs and the beauty fades out.  The man is left with a sense of bereavement, of loss, and yet with a certainty of knowledge and a desire to express that which he has contacted, such as he has never experienced before.  He must recover that which he has seen; he must discover it to those who have not had his secret moment of revelation; he must express it in some form, and reveal to others the realised significance behind the phenomenal appearance.  How can he do this?  How can he recover that which he has once had and which seems to have disappeared, and to have retired out of his field of consciousness?  He must realise that that which he has seen and touched is still there and embodies reality; that it is he who has withdrawn and not the vision.  The pain in all moments of intensity must be undergone and lived again and again until the mechanism of contact is accustomed to the heightened vibration and can not only sense and touch, but can hold and contact at will this hidden world of beauty.  The cultivation of this power to enter, hold and transmit is dependent upon three things:

1. A willingness to bear the pain of revelation.

2. The power to hold on to the high point of consciousness

at which the revelation comes.

3. The focussing of the faculty of the imagination upon the revelation, or upon as much of it as the brain consciousness can bring through into the lighted area of external [249] knowledge.  It is the imagination or the picture-making faculty which links the mind and brain together and thus produces the exteriorisation of the veiled splendour.

If the creative artist will ponder upon these three requirements—endurance, meditation, and imagination—he will develop in himself the power to respond to this fourth rule of soul control, and will know the soul eventually as the secret of persistence, the revealer of the rewards of contemplation and the creator of all forms upon the physical plane.

This use of the creative imagination and the fruits of its endeavor will work out into the many fields of human art according to the ray of the creative artist.  We must not forget that the artist is found on all rays; there is no particular ray which produces more artists than another.  The form will apparently take spontaneous expression when the inner life of the artist is regulated, producing the outer organisation of his life forms.  True creative art is a soul function; the primary task, therefore, of the artist is alignment, meditation and the focussing of his attention upon the world of meaning.  This is followed by the attempt to express divine ideas in adequate forms, according to the innate capacity and the ray tendencies of the artist in any field which he may choose and which is for him the best medium for his endeavor.  It is paralleled by the effort, constantly made upon the physical plane, to equip, instruct, and train the mechanism of brain and hand and voice through which the inspiration must flow, so that there may be right expression and a correct externalisation of the inner reality.

The discipline involved is great and it is here that many artists fail.  Their failure is based on various things—on a fear that the use of the mind will cripple endeavor, and that spontaneous creative art is, and must be primarily emotional [250] and intuitive, and must not be crippled and handicapped by too great an attention to mental training.  It is based on inertia which finds creative work the line of least resistance and which seeks not to understand the way in which the inspiration comes, or how the externalisation of the vision becomes possible, or the technique of the inner activities, but simply follows an impulse.  Again it indicates an uneven, unbalanced development which results from the fact that, through specialisation or focussed intense interest over a period of lives, there comes a capacity to make a soul contact along one line of endeavor, but not the capacity to be in contact with the soul.  This is facilitated by the fact that the artist for many lives comes under the influence of one particular personality ray.  Hence the occult paradox stated above, which warrants the attention of artists.  Another factor upon which failure is often based is the supreme conceit and ambition of many artists.  There is the ability to excel in some field and, in that one particular, to evidence greater capacity than the average man.  But there is not the ability to live as a soul and the vaunted excellence is only in one direction.  There is frequently no life discipline or self-control but instead there are flights of genius, stupendous achievement in the chosen line of art, and a life lived in contradiction to the divinity expressed through the artistic achievement.  The understanding of the significance and technique of genius is one of the tasks of the new psychology.  Genius is ever the expression of the soul in some creative activity, thus revealing the world of meaning, of divinity, and hidden beauty which the phenomenal world usually veils but will some day indicate in truth.

e. THE FACTOR OF ANALYSIS

The fifth conditioning quality or activity of the soul is the factor of analysis.  It constitutes a law, governing humanity. [251] This must ever be remembered.  Analysis, discrimination, differentiation, and the power to distinguish are divine attributes.  When they produce a sense of separateness and of difference, they are then stimulating personality reactions and are consequently personally misused and misapplied.  When, however, they are preserved within the sense of synthesis and used in the application of the Plan for the whole, they are soul qualities and laws and are essential to the right unfolding of divine purpose.  The Plan of God comes into being through the right use of emphasis, and when we emphasise one aspect or quality, temporarily we exclude or relegate into brief abeyance another aspect or aspects.  This is a major part of the activity of the law of cycles with which the Masters work.  It involves, on Their part, the constant use of the faculty to analyse, and the power to discriminate.

The fact that in time and space the pairs of opposites hold sway and that they are used by the Masters to weave the web of life is indicative of this primary differentiation of the One into the two, and the two into three, the three into the basic seven and these seven into the many.  From unity to diversity the work proceeds and all of it emerges under the soul law which is the law of analysis within the field of synthesis.

The "seeds of difference", as they are called, are major factors used in producing the phenomenal world.  The Hierarchy works with the seeds, as a gardener works with the seeds of flowers, and from these seeds the needed differentiated forms appear, producing still further distinctions.  The sowing of these seeds, their care and nurturing is part of the phenomenal task of the Hierarchy, particularly at the inauguration of a New Age, as is the case today.  The Masters have to understand, first of all, what is the meaning which the will of God is seeking to express in any particular world cycle.  They must comprehend the significance of the impulses [252] emanating from sources higher than Their own field of expression and of dharma, and They must see to it that the seeds of the new forms are adequate to the desired intent.  They must appreciate the nature of the reality which any age must reveal in the progressive unfoldment of divine purpose; and then They have the responsibility of so working that the outer reality approximates (in appearance and in quality) the inner truth.  All this is made possible through an understanding of the factor or rule of analysis, regarding it as a law governing or producing soul control, both on soul levels and on the level of appearances.  This is one of the major tasks of the Hierarchy, and involves the keenest type of mind control, of intuitive apprehension and of analytical desire.  We would do well to ponder upon these terms.

It should be remembered that analysis governs the emergence of the fifth kingdom in nature, the Kingdom of God, upon the phenomenal plane.  This appearing presupposes a distinction between the fifth kingdom and the other four kingdoms.  It is, however, a distinction in one direction only and that is in the direction of consciousness.  Herein lies its major interest, for in this respect the fifth kingdom differs from the other kingdoms.  The other four kingdoms have separate phenomenal types and differentiated groups of forms.  The phenomena of the vegetable kingdom, for instance, and that of the animal kingdom are vastly unlike each other.  In the fifth kingdom, however, a new condition or state of affairs will be found.  The outer phenomenal appearance will be retained as far as the form is concerned, though refinement and quality will be intensified.  The kingdom of God materialises in and through humanity.  But in the realm of consciousness a very different state of affairs will be found.

A Master of the Wisdom appears phenomenally to be a human being.  He has the physical attributes, functions, habits [253] [253] and mechanism of the fourth kingdom in nature, but within the form, the consciousness is entirely changed.  The analysis, therefore, referred to in these pages relates to a distinction in consciousness and not to a distinction in form.  The symbol persists unchanged though perfected upon the outer plane, but its quality and state of awareness is as much changed as is that existing between a human being and a vegetable.  This is somewhat a new thought and its implications are stupendous.  It is the secret of the entire shift at this time into the world of meaning and involves a new awareness and a fresh appreciation by humanity of a greater world of values.  But—and here is a point of interest—it is an awareness carried forward into a new kingdom in nature whilst remaining a part of the old.  It is here that the new synthesis and fusion takes place.

It is not a part of the plan of God for a constant cyclic appearance of new and unpredictable forms to continue indefinitely.  Humanity will go on perfecting the human mechanism so as to keep pace with the growth of the divine consciousness in man, but because in man the three lines of divinity meet and blend, there is no need for further drastic distinctions to continue to appear in the outer world of phenomena as further states of consciousness are attained.  In the past each great unfoldment of consciousness has precipitated new forms.  This will no longer occur.  The consciousness of God working in and upon substance in the mineral kingdom produced totally different forms to those which the same consciousness, working upon higher substance, employed in the animal and human kingdoms.  Under the divine plan for this solar system, this form-differentiation has its limitations and cannot proceed beyond a certain point.  This point was reached in the human kingdom for this world cycle.  Now, in the future, the consciousness aspect of Deity will continue to perfect the forms in the fourth kingdom in nature through the instrumentality [254] of those whose consciousness is that of the fifth kingdom.  This is the task of the Hierarchy of Masters.  This is the delegated task of the New Group of World Servers who, upon the physical plane, can become the instrument of Their will.  Through this group, the inner divine qualities of good will, peace and love can increase and express themselves through human beings, functioning in the forms of the fourth kingdom.

These points of interest have been discussed as it is essential that some understanding of the factor of analysis within the field of synthesis should be grasped.  Analysis is too often confused with separativeness.  The problem is complex and difficult, but an understanding of the underlying implications will emerge as the race grows in wisdom and in knowledge.  We are here concerned with the concept of the Plan as initiates have grasped it.

f. THE QUALITY, INNATE IN MAN, TO IDEALISE

It is interesting to note how automatically and naturally the factors inducing soul control, as outlined up to this point, have brought us to the sixth law or rule, the power—innate, inherent, and spiritually instinctual—to idealise.  Instinct, intellect, intuition, ideation, and illumination—these are but differentiations and distinctive aspects of one great inherent capacity in man, and are found in all forms in all kingdoms in varying degree.  Whether it is the power of the tiny seed, deeply hidden in the dark earth, to penetrate through its surrounding barriers and to emerge into the light, or whether it is the power of a human being to rise from death in matter to life in God, and to penetrate into the world of the Real from the realm of the unreal, it is all the one basic factor of idealism.  Anthropology and history give us an account of the evolution of individual man and of nations and their [255] activities upon the plane of appearances.  But there is a history which today is slowly being formulated which is the history of the seed of consciousness in nature and the growth of the power to recognise ideas and to push forward towards their fulfillment.  This is the new history which—as might be expected—is carrying us steadily into the world of meaning and revealing to us gradually the nature of those impulses and tendencies which have led the race steadily forward from the densest point of concrete, primitive life into the world of sensitive perception.

It is in this field that the Masters work and in which They call Their disciples to be active.  The power of ideas is only today beginning to be understood.  The potency of ideation, the forms which ideas must take, and the promotion of the cult of right ideas is one of the major problems to be tackled in the New Age.

g. THE INTERPLAY OF THE GREAT DUALITIES

The seventh of these Rules—that of the interplay of the great dualities—is one of the basic rules of soul control and it is by no means an easy one for the student to grasp.  It is a fundamental law of soul life.  The reason why it is so hard to understand the paradox of soul unity through duality is that in speaking of the pairs of opposites, emphasis has for ages been laid upon the astral dualities and the need for humanity to choose the narrow path which runs between them.  Upon the battlefield of the dualities he stands and must find the razor-edged path which opens up before him and lands him before the portal of initiation.  But, essentially, these pairs of opposites are only reflections of a higher and divine correspondence.  The law here considered is that which governs the relations between life and forms, between spirit and matter.  Upon this we cannot here enlarge for only those initiates [256] who have, in their own lives, transcended the lower reflection of the dualities can even begin to grasp the true spiritual significance of this rule for soul control in its wider and more essential meaning.  There is, therefore, no need for us to enter upon that abstruse question in this Treatise.

Ours is rather the task to gain a wise understanding of the vision, as far as the capacity of each of us will permit.  Only in this way will there come to us not only eventual release, but also the strength to live in this world and to be of service to our fellow men.