Three Aspects of Mind
The Three Aspects of Mind on the Mental Plane:
Some of their individual and group effects.
Emmanuel Sackeyfio
It is a major objective of discipleship in the new age training that students increasingly become mentally focused, for it is on the mental plane that all the work to be done becomes possible. Unless we achieve this mental focus, occult meditation will escape our grasp and become inaccessible. In the more advanced training on the path of discipleship, the need for this mental focus, which was always emphasized emphasized in a preparatory way through the practice of occult meditation, now becomes all important. The more advanced stages of discipleship involve the fundamental and foundational building of the antahkarana. This building work demands an intensely focused creative attention on the mental plane.
It is the plane of the fifth ray Lord, this fifth ray Lord “is one of unique and peculiar potency in relations to the human kingdom.” This fifth ray is a Being of the most intense spiritual light and His manifestation on this fifth plane, which is peculiarly His, symbolizes the three aspects in a way achieved by no other ray”(Esoteric Psychology, Vol. I, p. 76).
Of supreme interest to us is the triple expression of mind found on the mental plane— 1.the concrete or lower mind, 2. the son of mind and 3. the higher mind. Just what do we find on the mental plane? This fifth plane has a dual division and a triple expression which are indicative of the fivefold origins of mind. The two divisions of this plane are the higher and the lower mental plane, which is reflected in the dual physical plane composed of its dense and etheric divisions.
We are told that it was “the coming in of the Manasadevas, (cosmic prototypes of the Solar Angels) that produced self-consciousness …”, during the second stage of this great event that took place aeons ago, There then “appears a triangle on the mental plane produced by manasic (mental) activity.” This triangle is made of fire that is creating and traveling along a fiery path, from the manasic permanent atom on the highest sub-plane of the mental plane, through the center of the egoic lotus and then to the mental unit, the lower mental body.
Let us simplify all this with a visualization. On the mental plane imagine three points of light, the first brings light into our mental body, the second brighter light is located in the center of the lotus, and the third and brightest light, shining with a light all its own, is located on the highest level of the higher mental plane, in the higher mind. A line of fire travels back and forth, connecting all three points or stations of light along a fiery path from each points to the next point. And at a certain stage, we are told, the fire withdraws into the center of the egoic lotus and the fiery path disappears. This triangle of points, we are told, is the nucleus of the future antahkarana.
We are instructed that: “The work of the highly evolved man (aspirants and disciples) is to reduce this triangle (The Rays and the Initiations, p. 456) into a unity, and by means of high aspiration (which is simply transmuted desire affecting mental matter) turn it into the Path ….” (A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, p. 709). This re-establishes the original relationship between the three points and re-creates consciously the PATH OF RETURN. When this is achieved a great and enduring pathway has been established on the mental plane, between the soul on its own plane and the higher, abstract mind (manasic permanent atom), thus relating with the spiritual Triad. This is putting the process lightly, simply and in a greatly condensed form. About this process, the Tibetan tells us that: “This building of the antahkarana is the great and ultimate service which all true aspirants can render” (The Rays and the Initiations, p. 497). This work is going on in many phases in all true esoteric schools, where aspirants and disciples are struggling with the work of building as best they can. And so are all people who are seeking to be inclusive and, with selflessness and harmlessness, creating thoughtforms of solution to world problems.
The effort of aspirants and disciples to focus on the mental, in particular in the mental unit, may be said to be evoking a great impulse, since as we know energy follows thought, and this is contributing a great deal of activity in the mental world -- the threefold world of human endeavor. This can be seen reflected in the activity of the global educational push and the world efforts in all nations, as they seek to offer their peoples some form of education, primary, secondary, tertiary and beyond and to increasingly include the traditionally excluded female gender in a broad spectrum of intelligent actions. Through this global activity, going on in every country, average humanity is becoming mentally stimulated and embarking on its very very long journey towards mental polarization. And today, the increasing appreciation of the lifting effect of the masses, through some form of education, is readily accepted and acknowledged everywhere, even if with intense reluctance in a few places.
The efforts of esoteric students all over the world, in the many truly new age groups, are strengthening their soul contact towards soul fusion which has produced, and is still producing, untold number of groups of cohesive activity. These groups are an effect of soul-activity and they are tackling every possible problem or challenge on the planet. These goodwill groups, some very faulty in action, but all well-intentioned, are the direct effect, among other factors, of soul-infused activity. Their influence is enormous, arresting and penetrating and cannot be ignored.
The growing groups of disciples who are becoming mature and proficient in their esoteric work, are bridging towards the Spiritual Triad, the region of the higher mental planes and there contacting and evoking a sense of synthesis and universality and thus making more available in the world consciousness, illumination, understanding and Love as “the life expression of God Himself [and] the coherent force which makes all things whole” (Esoteric Healing, p. 356). Another subtle effect of this latter group is the increasingly pervasive appreciation and response to the problems of humanity in the world today.
All of these ideas are dependent on some activity of the triple expression of mind found on the mental plane. These in turn have been made possible by the unique qualities, capabilities and achievement of the Fifth Ray Lord, who is said to own the mental plane in a “peculiar” manner. In concluding, let us recognize some of the names given to the Fifth Ray Lord of the mental plane, which provide hints as to His nature, revealing some of the gifts from this Ray Lord and which awaits the future developments of the three-fold expression of mind on the mental plane: ”The revealer of Truth; The great Connector; The Divine Intermediary; The Crystallizer of Forms; The Three-fold Thinker; The Cloud upon the Mountain-top; The Precipitator of the Cross; The Dividing Sword; The Winnower of the Chaff; The Fifth great Judge; The Rose of God; The Heavenly One; The Door into the Mind of God; The Initiating Energy; The Ruler of the Third Heaven; The Guardian of the Door; The Dispenser of knowledge; The Angel with the Flaming Sword; The Keeper of the Secret; The Beloved of the Logos; The Brother from Sirius; The Master of the Hierophants” (Esoteric Psychology, Vol. I, p. 77).