ASTRAL ENERGY AND FEAR

ASTRAL ENERGY AND FEAR

The subject now to be considered is of most practical application for it concerns the astral body—the body in which a man is pre-eminently polarised and of which he is more potently conscious than of any other body. The etheric body is really below the threshold of consciousness. Human beings remain unaware of the passage of forces through this vehicle and the nearest they get to the recognition of it is when they speak in terms of vitality or lack of vitality. The physical body makes its presence felt when something goes wrong or through the gratification of one or other of the appetites. The situation is however different in connection with the astral body for there is the vehicle of experience for the majority, and few there are who do not pass the greater part of their conscious life, recording the reactions of that body and vibrating between the two poles of happiness and misery, of satisfaction or non-satisfaction, of assurance or doubt, of courage or of fear. This really means that the inherent force and life of the emotional sentient vehicle govern the life-expression and mould the experience of the incarnated soul. Therefore, it is of value to us to understand something of what those forces are, where they come from, and how they act and react on the man. There lies his battleground and there also lies his field of victory.

To begin with, it is advisable to bear in mind that all astral energy is part of the astral energy of the solar system and that therefore:

1. The sentient body of a human being is an atom of substance in the sentient body of the planetary Logos.

2. The sentient body (a term I much prefer to the term astral, and which I shall continue to use) of [294] the planetary Logos is an aspect—not an atom—of the sentient body of the solar Logos.

3. This in its turn is influenced by, and is a channel for sentient forces, emanating from vast centres of energy outside our solar system altogether.

If this is borne in mind it becomes apparent that man, being but a tiny fragment of a vaster whole which in its turn is incorporated into a still vaster vehicle, is the meeting ground of forces greater and more diversified than his brain is capable of recognizing. Hence the complexity of his problem and hence all the possibilities growing out of those expansions of consciousness which we call initiation. Every stream of energy pouring through his body of desire and of sentient reaction, is but a pathway leading him to wider and ever widening contacts and realisations. Here also lies the safeguard for the majority of human beings, in the fact that they possess as yet an apparatus inadequate for the registering and recording of those infinite possibilities which these avenues of realisation offer. Until the mental apparatus is sufficiently awakened and controlled it would not be possible for man to interpret rightly and utilise correctly the information which his body of sensitive response could, but fortunately does not yet, convey to him.

Apart from the constant circulation through his astral body of planetary and solar and cosmic energies, every human being has appropriated, out of the greater Whole, enough of the astral energy wherewith to construct his own individual and separate astral body, responsive to his peculiar note, coloured by his peculiar quality, and limiting him or not according to his point on the ladder of evolution.

This constitutes his astral ring-pass-not, defining the limits of his emotional response to life experience, embodying [295] in its quality the range of his desire life, but being at the same time capable of tremendous expansion, development, adjustment and control under the impulse of the mental body and of the soul. It is subject also to vibratory activity as the result of the interplay between it and the physical plane life experience, and thus the great wheel of experience is set in motion and will persist until the four Noble Truths of the Buddha are understood and realised.

This astral body has in it the counterparts of the etheric or laya centres, and through them stream the forces and energies, earlier dealt with, into the etheric body. These centres carry energies from the seven planets and from the sun to every part of the astral organism, thus putting man en rapport with all parts of the solar system. This results in the fixation of a man's life destiny, until such a time as the man awakens to his immortal heritage and so becomes sensitive to forces that are as yet—for the many—unrecognised. These emanate from the form. This is the reason why a horoscope is frequently quite accurate in its delineation for the unevolved and for the unawakened, but is quite in error and at fault in the case of the highly evolved man. Man is, en masse, what his desire body makes him. Later, "as a man thinketh so is he". The astral body, with its longings, appetites, moods, feelings, and cravings moulds the physical body through the attractive forces which flow through it, and so guides the man on unerringly to the fulfilment of his desires. If the cravings of the sentient nature are dominantly animal in their objective we shall have the man with strong appetites, living a life given over to the effort to satisfy them. If the craving is for comfort and for happiness, we shall have the man with a sensuous, beauty-loving and pleasure-loving disposition, governed practically entirely by selfish effort. So it is through all the many grades of desire, good, bad, [296] and ordinary, until that re-orientation takes place which so refocusses the astral energies that they are turned in a different direction. Desire becomes aspiration. Thus liberation from the wheel of birth is brought about and a man is freed from the necessity to reincarnate. Then the horoscope as now understood proves futile, untrue and useless and the term sometimes used, but wrongly, 'the horoscope of the ego or the soul' means nothing. The soul has no individual destiny, but is submerged into the One. Its destiny is the destiny of the group, and of the Whole; its desire is the working out of the great Plan, and its will is the glorification of the incarnated Logos.

I would like to suggest to students that they procure if possible The Science of the Emotions by Bhagavan Das. It is an able treatise on the astral and sentient body, and deals with the factors that most nearly concern the aspirant as he faces the problem of understanding and of controlling his emotional nature, of mastering the technique of development, and of reorienting it to wider experience and of preparing it for the tests and expansions of the second major initiation—the baptism and the final entering of the stream. Metaphorically speaking, the experience that lies ahead upon the Path is covered in the following esoteric phrases:

"When the stream enters the River of Life, its passage can be traced for a short moment and then is lost. When the currents of the sentient life meet where the river passes round the mountain's massive foot, then one vast stream is seen which floweth north."

The symbology of this is apparent, and can be also used to depict the flow of the two currents—Ida and Pingala—and their blending in the river of energy that mounts to the head. There is the meeting place, and there the sacrifice, enacted upon the mount of Golgotha (the place of the skull).

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In considering the sentient body of a human being I will probably help the most if I deal with it in terms of its moods and ordinary expressions, for it is only in dealing with its effects and in seeking to master them that man arrives at knowledge of himself and so becomes a Master. The most ordinary manifestations of astral activity are:

I. Fear.

II. Depression or its opposite pole, hilarity.

III. Desire for the satisfaction of the animal appetites.

IV. Desire for happiness.

V. Desire for liberation. Aspiration.

In these five are summed up practically most of the sentient experiences of man and we will consider each one from the following angles:

1. The cause.

2. The effect.

3. The method of direction.

You will note that I say 'method of direction' not method of control. Aspirants must learn that they are working with, and in, forces, and that right and wrong activity on the physical plane is due simply to a right or wrong direction of the force currents and not to anything inherently wrong or right in the energies themselves.

I. Fear. This is one of the most usual of the manifestations of astral energy, and is put first because it constitutes, for the vast majority, the Dweller on the Threshold and also in the last analysis is the basic astral evil. Every human being knows fear and the range of the fear vibrations extends from the instinctual fears of the savage man based on his ignorance of the laws and forces of nature, and on his terror of the dark and the unknown, to the fears so prevalent today of loss of friends and loved ones, of health, of money, of popularity [298] and on to the final fears of the aspirant—the fear of failure, the fear which has its roots in doubt, the fear of ultimate negation or of annihilation, the fear of death (which he shares equally with all humanity) the fear of the great illusion of the astral plane, of the phantasmagoria of life itself, and also fear of loneliness on the Path, even to the very fear of Fear itself. This list could be largely extended but suffices to indicate the prevalence of fears of all kinds. They dominate most situations and darken many happy moments. They reduce man to a timid and frightened atom of sentient life, standing afraid before the stupendousness of the problems of existence, aware of his insufficiency as a man to cope with all situations and unable to leave his fears and questionings behind and step into his heritage of freedom and of life. Often he is so ridden by fear that he becomes afraid of his very reason. The picture cannot be too blackly coloured, for fear is the dominant astral energy at this time and sensitive humanity succumbs all too easily to it.

You ask: What are the basic causes of fear? To that question, if carried far enough back into the esoteric history of the solar system there is no intelligible answer to be given. Only the advanced initiate can comprehend. Fear has its roots in the warp and woof of matter itself, and is par excellence, a formulation or effect of the mind principle, and a result of mental activity. The fact that birds and animals know fear puts the whole subject upon a wider footing than if it were simply a human failing and the result of the activity of the functioning of the human mind. It is not incident upon a man's possessing a reasoning mind; if he used his reason in the correct way he could eliminate fear. It lies in what is called cosmic Evil—a high sounding phrase, conveying little. It is inherent in the fact of matter itself and in the play of the pairs of opposites—soul and matter. The sentient souls [299] of animals and of men are subconsciously aware of factors such as:

1. The vastness and therefore the sensed oppression of the Whole.

2. The pressure of all other lives and existences.

3. The working of inexorable Law.

4. The sense of imprisonment, of limitation, and of consequent inadequacy.

In these factors, growing out of the manifested process itself and persisting and growing in potency during the ages, are found the causes of all modern fear and the basis of all terror, above all that which is purely psychological and not just the instinctual fear of the animal.

To concretise the matter more clearly would not help. Of what use is it to be told that fear is a quality of evil (or of matter) which colours fundamentally or characterises the astral or sentient body of our planetary Logos? What have you gained if I outlined to you the problem of the great Life in Whom we live and move and have our being as He, on His Own cosmic plane, seeks liberation and faces His Own peculiar trials and tests? How can words adequate be found to convey a cosmic struggle between Lives so impersonal and exalted in consciousness that the words his, or he or tests prove simply laughable and convey no possible aspect of truth or reality whatsoever? Cosmic evil, cosmic progression, or cosmic problems can well be left to that distant time when aspirants have taken the third initiation, have lost all sense of separateness, and—being identified with the Life Aspect and not with the form side—can therefore enter somewhat into the state of consciousness of our planetary Logos, sense His destiny, and vision fleetingly the wonder of the consummation.

Let us confine our attention therefore to man and more [300] particularly to average man, and see whence come the waves of fear which sweep him so constantly off his feet.

1. The Fear of Death is based upon:

a. A terror of the final rending processes in the act of death itself.

b. Horror of the unknown and the indefinable.

c. Doubt as to final immortality.

d. Unhappiness at leaving loved ones behind or of being left behind.

e. Ancient reactions to past violent deaths, lying deep in the subconsciousness.

f. Clinging to form life, because primarily identified with it in consciousness.

g. Old erroneous teaching as to Heaven and Hell, both equally unpleasant in prospect to certain types.

I speak about Death as one who knows the matter from both the outer world experience and the inner life expression:—There is no death. There is, as you know, entrance into fuller life. There is freedom from the handicaps of the fleshly vehicle. The rending process so such dreaded does not exist, except in the cases of violent and of sudden death and then the only true disagreeables are an instant and overwhelming sense of imminent peril and destruction, and something closely approaching an electric shock. No more. For the unevolved, death is literally a sleep and a forgetting, for the mind is not sufficiently awakened to react, and the storehouse of memory is as yet practically empty. For the average good citizen, death is a continuance of the living process in his consciousness and a carrying forward of the interests and tendencies of the life. His consciousness and his sense of awareness are the same and unaltered. He does not sense much difference, is well taken care of, and oft is unaware that he has passed [301] through the episode of death. For the wicked and cruelly selfish, for the criminal and for those few who live for the material side only, there eventuates that condition which we call 'earth-bound'. The links they have forged with earth and the earthward bias of all their desires force them to remain close to the earth and their last setting in the earth environment. They seek desperately and by every possible means to re-contact it and to re-enter. In a few cases, great personal love for those left behind or the non-fulfilment of a recognised and urgent duty holds the good and beautiful in a somewhat similar condition. For the aspirant, death is an immediate entrance into a sphere of service and of expression to which he is well accustomed and which he at once recognises as not new. In his sleeping hours he has developed a field of active service and of learning. He now simply functions in it for the entire twenty-four hours (talking in terms of physical plane time) instead of for his usual few hours of earthly sleep.

As time progresses and before the close of the next century death will be finally seen to be non-existent in the sense in which it is now understood. Continuity of consciousness will be so widely developed and so many of the highest types of men will function simultaneously in the two worlds that the old fear will go and the intercourse between the astral plane and the physical plane will be so firmly established and so scientifically controlled that the work of the trance mediums will rightly and mercifully come to an end. The ordinary common trance mediumship and materialisations under controls and Indian guides are just as much perversions of the intercourse between the two planes as are sex perversions and the distortions of the true relationship and intercourse between the sexes. I refer not here to the work of clairvoyants, no matter how poor, nor to the taking possession of the body by entities of high calibre, but of [302] the unpleasant phenomena of the materialisation seance, of ectoplasm, and the blind unintelligent work done by old Atlantean degenerates and earthbound souls, the average Indian chief and guide. There is nothing to be learned from them and much to be avoided. The reign of the fear of death is well-nigh ended and we shall soon enter upon a period of knowledge and of certainty which will cut away the ground from under all our fears. In dealing with the fear of death, there is little to be done except to raise the whole subject onto a more scientific level, and—in this scientific sense—teach people to die. There is a technique of dying just as there is of living, but this technique has been lost very largely in the West and is almost lost except in a few centres of Knowers in the East. More of this can perhaps be dealt with later but the thought of the needed approach to this subject can rest in the minds of the students who read this and perhaps as they study and read and think, material of interest will come their way which could be gradually assembled and published.

2. Fear of the Future. This is a fear that will as yet show a growing tendency to develop and will cause much distress in the world before it is obliterated. It grows out of three human capacities:

a. Instinctual psychological thought habits, which have their roots deep in the animal nature and hark back to the primal instinct of self-preservation. Savage races however, have little of this. That forward looking anticipatory state of mind is predominantly a human characteristic and is that germ of the imaginative faculty, linked to the mental processes, which will eventually merge into that intuitive meditation, plus visualisation, which is the true basis of all creative work. But at present it is a menace and a hindrance. Ancient suffering, dire memories, haunting miseries, deep-seated in the subconscious rise to the surface frequently and cause a condition [303] of fear and of distress which no amount of reasoning seems able to quiet. Facilities of communication put even the most unimportant en rapport with the tragedies, pains and sufferings of his brother thousands of miles away. The economic catastrophe of the present time has brought about a condition of mass terror, and the more sensitive the individual the more he will react to this state of mind. Fear of the future is therefore a distressing blend of instinctual memory and anticipatory imagination, and few there are who escape this menace. Worry and anxiety are the lot of every man and cannot and will not be offset and overcome by any lesser factor than the soul itself.

b. The flashes of prevision emanating from the soul who is dwelling in the consciousness of the Eternal Now. When contact with the soul is firmly established and the consciousness of the Knower is stabilised in the brain then prevision will carry with it no terror. The picture will then be seen as a whole, and not as a passing and fragmentary glimpse as is now the case. So again, the remedy remains the same: the establishing of such close relations between the soul and the brain, via the trained and controlled mind, that cause and effect will be seen as one, and right steps can be taken to handle situations correctly and to the best advantage. Prevision seldom takes the form of forecasting happiness, and the reason is not far to seek. The race is at a point where the prodigal son is conscious of the husks and of the futility of earthly life. He is ready for a careful consideration of the Buddha's message, and he is ready because he has been devoured for centuries by war and famine, by desire and by the economic struggle. The vista he sees before him appears black and forbidding and full of cataclysmic disaster.

Yet if men carried the concept of brotherhood with all its implications into the life and work of every day, into [304] all intercourse whether between the capitalist and the labourer, the politician and the people, between nation and nation, or between race and race, there would emerge that peace on earth which nothing could upset or overturn. So simple a rule, and yet utterly beyond the mental grasp of the majority!

c. A mass of individual distress and fear can be taken on by an individual and yet have nothing to do with him whatsoever. It is quite possible for a man to tune in on the fears of other people whilst he himself has literally nothing to fear of any kind. He can so identify himself with their forebodings of future disaster that he interprets them in terms of his own coming experience. He is unable to dissociate himself from their reactions and absorbs so much of the poison in their emotional and mental auras that he is swept into a very vortex of terror and of fear. Yet, if he did but know it, the future holds for him no hidden catastrophes. He is simply deluded, but the effect on his astral body and upon his solar plexus is identically the same. This is painfully the case now that there are so many thousands of sensitive aspiring souls, inexperienced in the handling of the world karma, wide open to the suffering of others and unable to distinguish between their own destiny in the immediate future and the destiny of others in their environment.

It is possible also for the more advanced aspirant and those upon the Path of Discipleship to contact ancient vibrations of evil and misery on the astral plane—evil long past and gone; it is possible for them to read a tiny fragment of the akashic records which concerns coming distress to an individual or a group, which they themselves may never see and yet nevertheless appropriate the conveyed information to themselves and suffer consequently.

3. Fear of Physical Pain. Some people have this fear as the underlying cause of all their anxieties, little though [305] they may recognise it. It is really a result of the other three classes of fears; of the strain which they put upon their astral body, and the tension caused by the use of the imaginative faculty and the reasoning tension in the physical nervous system. This system becomes very much over-sensitised and capable of the most acute physical suffering. Ills and ails which would seem of no vital importance to the ordinary and more phlegmatic types are aggravated into a condition of real agony. This should be recognised by those who care for the sick and steps should be taken to minimise the physical condition through the use of sedatives and of anesthetics so that undue strain should not be put on an already overworked nervous system.

You ask me whether I am endorsing the use of ether and chloroform in operations, and of sedative drugs. Not basically, but most certainly temporarily. When man's contact with his soul is firmly established, and when he has developed the faculty of passing in and out of his physical body at will, these helps will no longer be needed. They may be regarded in the meantime as emergency measures, necessitated by world karma and the point of evolution of the race. I am not of course referring to the use of narcotics and of drugs by hysterical and unbalanced people, but to the judicious use of ameliorants of pain under the wise guidance of the physician.

4. Fear of Failure. This affects many people along many lines. The fear that one may fail to make good, the fear that we may not gain the love and admiration of those we love, the fear that others despise us or look down upon us, the fear that one may fail to see and grasp opportunity, these are all aspects of the fear complex which colours the lives of so many worthy people. This can be based upon an environment which is uncongenial and unappreciative, on an equipment which seems inadequate [306] to its task, and in many cases has its roots in the fact that a man is a disciple, or a really big soul ready to tread the Probationary Path.

He has had a touch of soul contact; he has seen the vision and the possibility; he looks at his personality and ranges it up alongside the work to be done, and the quality of the people with whom that has brought him into contact. The result is an inferiority complex of a most powerful kind, because fed by real streams of force from above. Energy, we know, follows thought and is tinctured by the quality of that thought. The man turns a critical and disgusted eye upon his personality and by so doing feeds the very things which he deplores and thus renders himself still more inadequate to the task. It is a vicious circle of effort and must be offset by a complete realisation of the truth contained in the words: "As a man thinketh, so is he." As he dwells upon the nature of his omniscient soul, he becomes like that soul. His thought is focussed in the soul consciousness and he becomes that soul in manifestation through the medium of the personality.

This is but a brief summation of the major fears which afflict humanity and serves only to open up the subject and give opportunity for a few practical suggestions.

II. Depression or its polar opposite, hilarity. When we touch on the subject of depression we are dealing with something so widespread that few escape its attacks. It is like a miasma, a fog which environs the man and makes it impossible for him to see clearly, walk surely, and cognise Reality. It is part of the great astral illusion and, if this is grasped, it will become apparent why depression exists, for the cause of it is either astral or physical and incident to a world situation or a personal situation. We might therefore study depression in individuals and look at its causes. It is caused by:

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1. The world glamour. This sweeps an isolated unit, otherwise free from individual conditions producing depression, into the depths of a world reaction. This world glamour with its devitalising and depressing results has its roots in various factors which we have only the time to briefly indicate:

a. Astrological factors, either affecting the planetary chart and hence individuals, or primarily racial. These two factors are oft overlooked.

b. The path of the sun in the heavens. The southern path tends to a lowered vibratory influence and aspirants should bear this in mind in autumn and the early winter months.

c. The dark half of the moon, the period towards the end of the waning moon, and the early new moon. This, as you well know, affects the meditation work.

d. Psychological factors and mass inhibitions due undoubtedly to forces external to the planet and to plans, obscure in their intent to ordinary humanity. These forces, playing upon the human race, affect the most sensitive; they in their turn affect their environment and gradually a momentum is established which sweeps through a race or a nation, through a period or a cycle of years, and produces conditions of profound depression and of mutual distrust. It causes a sad self-absorption and this we term a panic or a wave of unrest. The fact that the working out may be military, economic, social or political, that it may take the form of a war, of a religious inquisition, of financial stringency or international distrust is incidental. The causes lie back in the blue prints of the evolutionary process and are governed—even if unrealised—by the good Law.

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2. Astral polarisation. Just as long as a man identifies himself with his emotional body, just as long as he interprets life in terms of his moods and feelings, just as long as he reacts to desire, just so long will he have his moments of despair, of darkness, of doubt, of dire distress, and of depression. They are due to delusion, to the glamour of the astral plane, which distorts, reverses and deceives. There is no need to dwell on this. If there is one factor aspirants recognise it is the need of freeing themselves from the Great Illusion. Arjuna knew this, yet succumbed to despair. Yet in his hour of need, Krishna failed him not, but laid down in the Gita the simple rules whereby depression and doubt can be overcome. They may be briefly summarised as follows:

a. Know thyself to be the undying One.

b. Control thy mind, for through that mind the undying One can be known.

c. Learn that the form is but the veil which hides the splendour of Divinity.

d. Realise that the One Life pervades all forms so that there is no death, no distress, no separation.

e. Detach thyself therefore from the form side and come to Me, so dwelling in the place where Light and Life are found. Thus illusion ends.

It is his astral polarisation which lays a man open to his many emotional reactions and to waves of mass feeling of any kind. This is the cause of his being swept into that vortex of uncontrolled energy and misdirected emotional force which eventuates in a world war, a financial panic, a religious revival, or a lynching. It is this also that raises him to the heights of hilarity and of spurious happiness in which the "light deceptive" of the astral plane uncovers to him false sources of amusement, or the mass hilarity—owing to his sensitivity—sweeps him into that hysterical condition which finds its vent [309] in unrestrained merriment and which is the opposite pole of unrestrained weeping. I refer not here to true merriment nor the proper sense of humour, but to those hysterical outbreaks of hilarity which are so common among the rank and file of humanity and lead to reactions of fatigue.

3. A devitalised condition of the physical body. This is due to various causes, such as:

a. A depleted etheric or vital body.

b. Physical disease, either inherent or brought over from another life, accidental, or due to wrong emotional reactions, or produced as the result of group karma, such as an epidemic.

c. Atmospheric. This is sometimes overlooked, but the condition of the atmosphere, the nature of the climate, the density, humidity or dryness, the heat or cold have a definite effect upon the psychological outlook.

You will find, if you study, that all subsidiary and temporary causes of depression and its opposite can be grouped under one of these three heads, and when one has ascertained the cause, the cures will become apparent.

I have dealt somewhat at length with the two first manifestations of astral force—Fear—fear of death, of the future, of suffering, of failure, and the many lesser fears to which humanity is subject—and Depression—because these two fears constitute for man the Dweller on the Threshold in this age and cycle. Both of them indicate sentient reaction to psychological factors and cannot be dealt with by the use of another factor such as courage. They must be met by the omniscience of the soul working through the mind,—not by its omnipotence. In this is to be found an occult hint. I shall not deal with the other factors listed, such as desire for happiness, for the satisfaction of the animal appetites, and [310] for liberation, for these do not constitute for the majority such a problem as the first two. One could write at length on the manifestation and the cause of all these, but when fear and depression are overcome, the race will enter into its heritage of happiness, of true satisfaction (of which the cravings above indicated are but the symbols) and of liberation. Let us deal with the basic evils first. Once they have been dominated all that remains is right orientation and polarisation in the soul.

We will next consider the overcoming of wrong vibration in the astral body and the use of astral energy in the right direction.

We have been dealing at length with the subject of the astral or sentient body, and have considered the various wrong ways in which it makes its presence felt. Humanity vibrates primarily in one or other of these ways, and the sentient body of the average human being is scarcely ever free from some mood, some fear, some excitement. This has provided a condition whereby the solar plexus centre is abnormally developed. In the bulk of humanity the sacral centre and the solar plexus govern the life, and that is why desire for material living and for the sex life are so closely blended. The solar plexus in the animal is the brain and governs all the instinctual reactions, but is not so closely allied with the purely sex expression as it is in the human being. When the brain is becoming sensitive to the awakening mind and is not so entirely occupied with the mechanism which registers sensory impression, we shall have the orientation which will eventually raise the consciousness into those centres which lie above the diaphragm. The solar plexus will then again be relegated to its old function as a directing agent of the purely instinctual animal life. For the advanced pupil in the world, the solar plexus is largely the organ of psychic sensitivity and will remain so until the higher psychic powers supersede the lower [311] and man functions as a soul. Then the sensory life will drop below the threshold of consciousness.