PRELIMINARY REMARKS

It might be here of value, my brothers, if I again laid emphasis upon the fact that the formless world is only entered when the aspirant has acquired somewhat the capacity to center himself on the abstract levels of the mental plane.  This involves necessarily certain developments within the aspirant's own nature.  The demanded contact would otherwise be impossible.  What is needed is self-exertion, the resultant developments of which might be touched upon as follows:

I. The Repolarisation of the Entire Lower Man so that his attitude toward the aggregate of forms which make up his field of general contact has changed.  He is no longer deluded by the things of the senses but has in his hand that thread or clue which will eventually guide him out of the maze of the lower life perceptions into the field of clear knowledge and the realm where daylight is found; he will then no longer need to walk in the dark.  This repolarisation is brought about in four ways, each of which provides the next step forward, and in their totality (and when definitely followed) will eventuate in the total subjugation of the personality.  These four ways are:

A constant and unfailing attempt to center the consciousness within the head.  From this central position the real man, the directing agency will direct and guide all his members, imposing upon the "lunar lords" of the physical body a new rhythm and habit of response.  Two factors are of value and helpful in the production of the necessary polarisation:

The reiterated appreciation of the words "I am the Self, the Self am I."

The habit of early morning meditation wherein the Thinker centers himself in the point of control and [4] starts upon his day's experience and contacts with the realisation that he is only the Observer, the Perceiver and Actor.

A close consideration throughout the day as to the use and misuse of energy.  Every man should realise that in the use of energy lies direction and the treading of the Path.  It produces eventually truthful manifestation and the displaying of one's light in order that circumstances may be irradiated and fellow pilgrims helped.  Students should familiarise themselves with the "energy concept" and learn to regard themselves as energy units displaying certain types of energy.  In this connection it should be borne in mind that when spiritual energy and material energy (the two opposite poles) are brought into relationship, a third type of energy is produced, and the work of the fourth or human kingdom is to demonstrate this peculiar type.  It might serve to clarify thought if students remembered that

Superhuman entities display spiritual energy.

Subhuman entities display the energy of matter.

Human entities display soul energy.

In the perfect manifestation of these three will the plan of creation be consummated.  It should also be borne in mind that these three are nevertheless a manifestation of duality—spirit and matter—and that this is the manifestation of a great Existence and of His appearing.  Therefore, what are called the "three gunas" in Hindu philosophy are but the qualities He manifests through these types of entities.

Superhuman lives express sattva, the guna of rhythm and of harmonious response to divine urge, of perfect display of coordinated cooperation with the purpose of manifestation.

Human lives demonstrate the quality of rajas, of mobility, of constant and conscious change in order to ascertain what is the Real and through the medium of experience demonstrate the true nature of rhythmic response.

Subhuman lives express the guna of tamas or of inertia.  They work blindly and have no ability to respond consciously [5] to the plan.  They are the sumtotal of the "units of inertia" just as the human units are called "the points of light moving within the square."  This may have its appeal to Masons.

This subject of the use or misuse of energy is capable of infinite expansion, and in my other books where I give you more upon the centres I have enlarged upon it.  I but seek at this time to give you that which can be of immediate use to students and thus lay the foundation for later work.

A close study of the needed transmutation of astral and emotional energy into love, the energy of love.  This involves the sublimation of personal feeling into group realisation or consciousness, and when carried out successfully produces in time the construction of a higher and subtler body, the buddhic sheath.  When this sheath is thus materialised a very high stage of advancement is marked, but the earlier stages can be intelligently approached by any earnest student and probationer.  To transmute emotion into love the following realisations will be found necessary:

1. A realisation that all moods, all display of sorrow, of pain, or of happy excitement are due to our identification with the objects of desire, with the form aspect, and with that which is material.

2. An understanding of the emotional or astral body and the place it plays in the student's development.  It should be recognised as the shadow of the monad, and a connection should be traced between

The Astral Sheath....6th Plane

The Buddhic Sheath...4th Plane

The Monadic Sheath...2nd Plane

and the place the love petals in the egoic lotus play should also be carefully considered.

3. A comprehension of the potency of the astral sheath owing to its undivided nature.

4. A study of the purpose of the solar plexus, and the part it plays as an organ of transference of energy from the three great centres below the diaphragm to the three higher [6] centres.  There is a very close analogy here to the solar lotus, the egoic body, occupying a midway point between the threefold Monad and the threefold lower man.  The more advanced should follow this.

The development of the faculty of mind control, so that the Thinker grips and holds steady the mental processes and learns to regard the mind as the interpreter of the states of consciousness, as the transmitter of egoic intent to the physical brain and as the window through which the Ego, the real Man looks out upon vast and (to the majority) unknown fields of knowledge.

II. An emergence into Manifestation of the Subjective Aspect in Man.  One of the objects of evolution is that the subjective reality should eventually be brought forward into recognition.  This can be expressed in several symbolic ways, all of them dealing with the same one fact in nature:

The bringing to the birth of the Christ within.

The shining forth of the inner radiance or glory.

The demonstration of the 2nd or the Love aspect.

The manifestation of the solar Angel.

The appearing of the Son of God, the Ego or the Soul within.

The full expression of buddhi, as it utilises manas.

This emergence into manifestation is brought about through what is understood by the following terms:

The refining of the bodies which form the casket or sheath hiding the reality.

The process of 'unveiling' so that one by one those bodies which veil the Self are brought to a point where they are simply transparencies, permitting the full shining forth of the divine nature.

An expansion of consciousness, which is brought about through the ability of the self to identify with its real nature as the Onlooker, and no longer regarding itself as the organ of perception.

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III. A Re-alignment of the Lower Sheaths so that the contact with the Real Man, the Thinker, the Solar Angel, on the higher levels of the mental plane may become complete and continuous.  This only becomes possible as the other two points are beginning to be grasped and the theory as to man's constitution and purpose is somewhat understood.  As meditation is practiced, as the lower bodies are painstakingly dominated, and as the nature of the Sutratma or Thread is better comprehended it will become increasingly possible to bring into the lower personality on the physical plane that spiritual illumination and that divine energy which is the soul's heritage.  Little by little the light will shine forth, year by year the strength of the higher contact will grow, gradually the downpour of divine love and wisdom into the head centres will be increased until eventually the entire lower man will be transformed, his sheaths will be refined, controlled and used, and he will demonstrate upon earth the powers of Director, Teacher or Manipulator according to the major ray upon which his Monad may be found.

IV. A Series of Tests Leading to Initiation.  When a man is beginning to demonstrate the qualities of his ray and to prove of gradually increasing importance to his group, he will be prepared through tests, through trials, and through temptations for those final stages in development which will put into his power:

The knowledge of certain laws governing matter and form.

The keys of the mysteries connected with energy, with polarity, and with group relation.

Certain Words of Power which will give him control over the elemental forces of nature.

Insight into the planetary plans.

Upon these I need not enlarge, nor need I take up with you here the subject of initiation.  (Discipleship in the New Age, Volumes I and II).  The first work to be done is the stimulating [8] of aspirants and the preparing of the few earnest ones to tread the Path of Discipleship.  The final point of our theme concerns:

V. The Basic Essential of Pure Character.  This is something more than just being good.  It deals with the matter aspect and has relation to the hold or control that the form has over the man.  We might express it this way and therefore give its more occult connotation.  If one or other of the three lower elementals (the physical, the astral and the mental) are the controlling factors in the life of the man, he is—by that very fact—put into a position of danger and should take steps to arrest that control prior to an attempt to enter into the formless realm.  The reason for this will be apparent.  Under the governing law of matter, the law of Economy, the elemental life will attract to itself similar lives and this will result in a dual danger.  These dangers are:

One:  the gathering into the form, through the dominant note sounded by the form elemental, of matter with a synchronous vibration.  This will tend to increase the magnitude of the task before the Ego and sweep into increasing dominance the lower man.  The "lunar lords" will become increasingly powerful and the solar Lord correspondingly less august.

Two:  the man will find himself surrounded in time with thoughtforms of a lower order (from the standpoint of the soul) and before he can penetrate into the Arcana of Wisdom and find his way into the Master's world he will have to dispel the clouds of thoughtforms which he has attracted to himself.

Unless the disciple learns that aspiration and self-discipline must proceed side by side, he will find that the spiritual energy he may appreciate and contact will only serve to stimulate the latent seeds of evil in his nature and thereby demonstrate the exactitude of the truth that the great Lord taught when He pictured the man who swept his house, cast out seven devils and eventually was in a worse condition than ever.  It is essential that aspirants should [9] understand the nature of the lower man and should grasp the fact that every coherent system has its varying types of energy, and that perfection is achieved when the highest type of energy inherently possible dominates.

If the lower energy of the aggregate of the form-atoms is the controlling factor three things will take place:

1. The form itself will grow by accretion and will become ever more potent, until the dominant voice of its 'lunar lords' will stifle all other voices and the man be swept back into

Inertia

Blindness

Bondage

2. Many people are not only under the control of some one or other of their forms but are the captives of all the three.  In studying the lower threefold man and the energies or lives that seek to control him it should be remembered that they fall into three categories:

a. The individual tiny lives which we call the atoms or cells of the body.  These exist in three groups and compose respectively the four types of bodies:  dense physical, etheric, astral and mental.

b. The aggregate of these lives which constitute in themselves four types of elementals or separate coherent, though not self-conscious, existences.  These four lunar lords constitute what the Ageless Wisdom teaching calls "the four sides of the square."  They are the "lower quaternary," "the imprisoning cubes," or the cross upon which the inner spiritual Man is to be crucified.  These four elementals have an intelligence all their own, are upon the involutionary arc, are following the law of their own being when they tend to become powerful, and thereby fully express that which is in them.

c. A dominant controlling lunar lord who is that which we understand by the term the 'lower personality'; he (if the personal pronoun can be used) is the sumtotal of the physical, astral and mental elementals, and it [10] is this power which at present forces the 'fiery energies' of the body to feed the lower three centres.  The etheric body has a unique and curious position, being simply the vehicle for prana or life and the centre which it uses exists in a category by itself.

3. All subhuman forms in their aggregate prove a powerful deterrent factor in the progress towards emancipation of the Real Man.  They form the opposite to what we understand by the world of the Master and the two are in direct opposition to each other from the standpoint of the aspirant.

The adept can enter the world of form, can contact it, work in it and remain unaffected by it because there is nothing in him to respond to it.  He sees through the illusion to the reality behind and, knowing where he stands himself, there is naught in the appeal and the demand of these lunar lords to attract him.  He stands midway between the pairs of opposites.  In the realisation of the nature of this world of form, in a comprehension of the lives which compose it, and in an ability to hear the voice of the "formless One" above the strife of all the lower voices, comes the opportunity for the aspirant to escape from the dominance of matter.

This is the true magical work, my brothers, the understanding of the sounds of all beings, and the ability to speak the language of the soul is the clue to the work.  These faculties rightly used impose upon these lesser lives that control which will lead to the final liberation, and which will in due time, lead these lives themselves into the realm of self-consciousness.  This aspect of the matter is as yet but little comprehended by the sons of men.  If they but realised that by a disposition to fall under lunar control they drive the tiny lives in their little system deeper into the darkness of ignorance, they might more rapidly assume their just responsibilities; if they realised that by the constant attempt to impose the rhythm of the solar Lord upon the aggregate of the lunar lords, they were driving these lives onward to self-conscious unfoldment, they might proceed more earnestly and more intelligently.  This is the message that must [11] go forth, for all the varying aspects of the life of God are interdependent and not one proceeds onward into fuller realisation without benefitting the entire group.

A few simple suggestions I will give you.  These can be useful to all sincere aspirants.

In the ordered regulation of the life comes eventual synthesis and the right control of time with all that eventuates therefrom.

In the right elimination of that which is secondary, and in a sense of rightly adjusted proportion comes that accuracy and one-pointedness which is the hallmark of the occultist.

In the right aspiration at the appointed time comes the necessary contact and the inspiration for the work that has to be done.

In the steady adherence to self-appointed rules comes the gradual refining of the instrument and the perfecting of the vehicles that will be—to the Master—the medium of help among many little ones.

I commend the above thought to you knowing that you will apprehend the implications and will seriously consider the purport of my remarks.

The world today is in the throes of agony.  Just as in the evolving Ego, the moment of greatest development is oft the moment of greatest pain (if apprehension measure up to opportunity) so in the evolving world.  To those of you who have the inner sight and intuitive comprehension comes the opportunity to aid that apprehension and to lead a despairing world—deep cast into darkness and distress—one step nearer to the light.  The work you have to do is to take the knowledge which is yours and adjust its application to the world's need so that recognition of the truth may be rapid.  In the heart of every man lies hid the flower of the intuition.  On that you can depend, and no eternal or cosmic fact clothed in a suitable form will fail to receive its need of recognition and understanding.

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