THE PRESENT AGE AND THE FUTURE - Part 2
With these precautions in mind the fear vibration can be faced and eventually eliminated. Fears fall into two categories for the worker:—Fear of what the future holds, and, secondly, doubt as to the outcome of any effort. With most people it is a combination of the two. Most aspirants have no basic doubt as to the ultimate issue, but they do doubt at times the working out of those issues in the present time, and they shrink back also from the path of endeavour, knowing—and rightly knowing—that it leads through trial and loneliness to the Feet of the Hierophant. They are likewise distressed by troubles and high vibrations which seem to emanate from high spiritual sources. Strong vibrations will come with ever increasing frequency, and as the race progresses in evolution the vibrations will wax stronger and their reactions must be dealt with in wisdom.
Two things manifest when the spiritual vibration is exceedingly potent. All good aspirations and synchronous high vibrations are stimulated and, secondly, all that we term "evil" is likewise stimulated. Aspirants should bear this carefully in mind. There may demonstrate such a factor as a crime wave, but there will also demonstrate an increasing number of groups that stand for [348] spiritual endeavor and high aspiration. The effect of the heightening of the vibration on you, the aspirant, may manifest in various ways also. It may result in bodily fatigue and this must be dealt with—not so much by sleep and by rest, though a just proportion of them is necessary—but above all by a change of vibration, of recreation and of amusement. Secondly, it results frequently in a profound depression, in an utter sinking of the heart as the future is faced. Face that future, however, and remember that what the future holds is not revealed, but that "joy cometh in the morning". It results also in a sensitiveness of the astral body that is, perhaps, even more hard to bear. This must be dealt with by the individual as best he may, bearing in mind the suggestions that I have given him. It results also in a permanent stimulation of the atoms in the various vehicles and their coherent, stabilized vibration. It lifts a little nearer to the goal, though perhaps the aspirant may not realize it.
Everything depends upon the pupil's ability to grasp the inner meaning of all events. His entire progress upon the Path rests upon his attitude in making the teaching his own. It is only as we transmute the lessons on the inner planes into practical knowledge that they become part of our own experience and are no longer theoretical. Expansion of consciousness should be an ever increasing practical experience. Theories are of no value until we have changed them into fact. Hence the value of meditating on an ideal. In the meditation our thoughts vibrate temporarily to the measure of the conception, and in time that vibration becomes permanent.
Those who, with open eyes, enter on occult training need indeed to count the cost. The reward at the end is great, but the path is rough and the true occultist walks it alone. The capacity to stand alone, to assume responsibility, [349] and then to carry all through single-handed, and to brave evil for the sake of the good achieved is the mark of a White Brother. Be prepared then for loneliness, for dangers of a dim and obscure character, and expect to see your life spent for no reward that touches the personality. It is only as the consciousness expands, and one finds one's true position in the cosmic whole that the reward becomes apparent; but cease from fear, and know that the personality is only temporary, and what matter if it suffer? Some good gained for the universal Brotherhood, some law explained and demonstrated in the life of every day, may make the Master say eventually (yes, eventually, after all is over) well done! Let your eyes therefore look straight on. Turn not to the right hand nor to the left. The path leads upward and on to greater rapidity of vibration and to greater sensitiveness. Seek the point of balance in your work and keep that balance, for the years hold much work, much pressure and much suffering.
Are you strong enough to see the world's woe, to see disaster and yet keep joyful? Can you be a partner in the work of furthering the evolution of the race and see the necessity for trouble and for discipline and yet not move to stem the tide of sorrow? Picked and tried souls are being trained all over the world at the present time. The Masters are overwhelmed with the work and Their time is over-occupied. They give what They can but on the individual aspirant depends the use made of that which is given.
Those of us who watch and guide on the inner side of life realize more than perhaps you who bear the burden and heat of physical plane existence know. We know your physical disabilities and some day may be able to help definitely in the building up of strong bodies for world service. Now—such is the astral miasma—it is well nigh impossible for you, our struggling brethren, [350] to have good health; the karma of the world prohibits it. The astral corruption and the foul cesspools of the lower levels of the mental plane infect all, and lucky is he who escapes. We watch with tenderness all of you, who, with weak and sensitive bodies, struggle, work, fight, fail, continue and serve. Not one hour of service, given in pain and tension, not one day's labor followed with racked nerves, with head tired and with heart sick, is allowed to pass unnoticed. We know and we care, yet, we may do naught that you, struggling in the field of the world, can do of that which is needed. The world's karma engulfs each of you at this epoch. If you could but realize it, the time is short, and rest, joy and peace are on their way.
The half-gained victory, the days lived through with a certain measure of success, yet with an unachieved ideal, the minutes of exhaustion of soul and body when the emptiness of everything, even of service itself, seems the only noticeable thing, the weeks and months of endeavor and of struggle against apparently insuperable odds, against the stupendous power of the forces of evolution, against the roaring tide of the world's ignorance,—all are known. Take comfort in the assurance that love rules all; take courage from the realization that the Hierarchy stands.
Those who are to teach the world more about the Masters and who are being trained to be focal points of contact are put through a very drastic disciplining. They are tested in every possible way and taught much through bitter experience. They are taught to attach no importance to recognition. They are trained not to judge from the appearance but from the inner vision. Capacity to recognize the Master's purpose and the ability to love are counted of paramount importance. Aspirants who seek to be chosen for work as disciples must lose all desire for the things of self and must be willing at any [351] cost to pay the price of knowledge. If proof is to be given to the world of the subjective realm of reality it will be bought with the heart's blood, for only "in the blood of the heart" can power be safely gained and wisely wielded. As you go on and, as aspirants, study the hidden laws of nature, you will realize the need for the price paid. The spiritual unfoldment of the disciple's character must keep pace with his inner knowledge. This knowledge grows in three ways:
1. By definite expansions of consciousness, which open up to the disciple a realization of the points to be attained. This produces in his mind a formulation of what lies ahead to be grasped and is the first step towards acquirement. An aspirant is definitely taken on the inner planes and shown by a more advanced chela what is the work to be done, much in the same way as a pupil is shown by his master the lesson to be learned.
2. The next step is the mastering of the lesson and the working out in meditation and experiment of the truths sensed. This is a lengthy process, for all has to be assimilated and made part and parcel of the disciple's very self before he can go on. It resembles the working out of a sum—figure by figure, line by line, the working out being carried forward until the answer is achieved. This work is done both on the inner planes and on the physical. In the Hall of Learning the pupil is taught nightly for a short time before proceeding with any work of service. This teaching he brings over into his physical brain consciousness in the form of a deep interest in certain subjects, and in an increasing aptitude to think concretely and abstractly on the various occult matters that are occupying his attention. He attempts to experiment and tries various methods of studying the laws and in process of time arrives at results that are of value to him. Time passes and as he appropriates and knows more, his knowledge takes a synthetic form and he becomes [352] ready to teach and to impart to others the residue of knowledge of which he is sure.
3. In teaching others comes further knowledge. The definition of truth in teaching crystallises the facts learnt, and, in the play of other minds, the aspirant's own vibration becomes keyed up to ever higher planes, and thus fresh intuition and fresh reaches of truth pour in.
When one lesson has, in this way, been mastered, a further one is set, and when a pupil has learnt a particular series of lessons he graduates and passes an initiation. The whole group he teaches is benefited by his step forward, for every disciple carries those he instructs along with him in a curious indefinable sense. The benefit to the unit reacts upon the whole. A Master carries His disciples on and up with Him in a similar manner. The matter is abstruse and largely one of the secrets of the law of vibratory expansion. The initiation of the Logos has a universal effect.
You are right in your assumption that the probationary path corresponds to the later stages of the period of gestation. At the first initiation what is called in the New Testament "the babe in Christ" starts upon the pilgrimage of the path. The first initiation simply stands for commencement. A certain structure of right living, of thinking and of conduct has been attained; the form that the Christ is to occupy has been constructed and now that form is to be vivified and indwelt. The Christ life enters and the form becomes alive. Therein lies the difference between theory and making that theory a part of yourself. You can have a perfect picture or image but it lacks the life. You have a person who has modelled his life on the divine as far as he can. He has a good copy yet something is lacking. What is this something? The manifestation of the indwelling Christ. The germ has been there but it has lain dormant. Now it is fostered and brought to birth, and the first initiation is [353] attained. Much then remains to be done. The analogy is complete. Many years were spent by the disciple Jesus between the birth and baptism. The remaining three initiations were taken in three years. You have the same situation on the path of the aspirant.
The second initiation marks the crisis of the control of the astral body. After baptism there remain the three temptations, demonstrating the complete control of the three lower vehicles. Then comes the Transfiguration, followed by knowledge of the future and complete self-abnegation. Therefore, you have the following:
1. The moment of conception—i.e. individualization.
2. Nine months gestation—i.e. the wheel of life.
3. First initiation—i.e. the birth hour.
The path is, therefore, a path on which steady expansion of consciousness is undergone with increasing sensitivity to the higher vibrations. This works out at first as sensitiveness to the inner voice and this is one of the most necessary faculties in a disciple. The Great Ones are looking for those who can rapidly obey the inner voice of their soul. The times are critical and all aspirants are urged also to render themselves sensitive to the voice of their Master as well. His time is fully occupied and disciples must train themselves to be sensitive to His impression. A slight hint, a pointed finger, a hurried suggestion, may be all that He has time to give, and each disciple must be upon the watch. The pressure upon Them is great now that They are moving closer to the physical plane. More souls are conscious of Them than when They worked on mental levels only and They also, working on denser planes, are finding conditions more difficult. The devas and disciples, aspirants and those upon the probationary path are being gathered around Them now and are being organized into groups with special work assigned. Some souls can work only in mass [354] formation, banded together and unified by a common aspiration. Such are the majority of Christians, for instance, in the churches. These, knowing not the laws of occultism, and only sensing the inner truth, work on broad lines of preparation. They are aided by bands of lesser devas or angels who suggest, guide and control.
Others more advanced work in smaller groups. They idealize more and in them you see the thinkers and leaders of social reform, of humanitarian regeneration and of church leadership, either Christian or Oriental. The higher devas guide them, the blue and yellow devas, as the former group are guided by the blue and rose.
Back of them stand the still more advanced—the aspirants, probationers and disciples of the world. They work singly or in twos or threes and never in groups exceeding nine—the occult significance of these numbers being necessary to the success of their work. Great white and gold devas attend their labours.
Back again of these three groups stand the Masters and the devas of the formless levels—a Great Brotherhood, pledged to serve humanity.
Movements are being set on foot to transmute, if possible, the labours of destruction into constructive work. The time is critical, for a pause has come in the work of the destroyers. There is opportunity for the tide to turn and for the re-building of the body social.
It is for this reason that each one of you needs to make a fresh dedication of himself to the work of the redemption. Personalities must be submerged. Aspirants must live harmlessly in thought and word and deed. In this way each one of you will provide a pure channel, will become an outpost for the consciousness of the Master and provide a centre of energy through which the Brotherhood can work.
The prime problem of the aspirant is to dominate the emotional nature. Then he stands victor on the field of [355] Kurukshetra; the clouds have rolled away, and henceforth he can walk in the light. Let it here be remembered that this very freedom to walk in the light carries with it its own problems. You ask how this can be? Let me give one simple, yet (I think you will find) convincing argument.
When a man literally walks in the light of his soul and the clear light of the sun pours through him—revealing the Path,—it reveals at the same time the Plan. Simultaneously however, he becomes aware of the fact that the Plan is very far as yet from consummation. The dark becomes more truly apparent; the chaos and misery and failure of the world groups stand revealed; the filth and dust of the warring forces are noted, and the whole sorrow of the world bears down upon the astounded, yet illuminated, aspirant. Can he stand this pressure? Can he become indeed acquainted with grief and yet rejoice forever in the divine consciousness? Has he the ability to face what the light reveals and still go his way with serenity, sure of the ultimate triumph of good? Will he be overwhelmed by the surface evil and forget the heart of Love which beats behind all outer seeming? This situation should ever be remembered by the disciple, or he will be shattered by that which he has discovered.
But with the advent of the light, he becomes aware of a new (for him) form of energy. He learns to work in a new field of opportunity. The realm of the mind opens up before him, and he discovers that he can differentiate between the emotional nature and the mental. He discovers also that the mind can be made to assume the position of the controller, and that the sentient forces respond with obedience to mental energies. "The light of reason" brings this about—light that is always present in man but which only becomes significant and potent when seen and known, either phenomenally or intuitionally.
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Much false teaching is going about these days in connection with the mind and the soul. It might be summed up in the teaching of one school which shall be nameless, as follows:
Nature is cruel and selective. She works by the Law of the survival of the fittest; in the process of selection, millions of lives are sacrificed and much birthing of forms comes to naught. Hence the achieving of soul life is a rare event. Few people have souls and only a few therefore possess immortality and go hence to their own place of power to return no more. The rest are lost, submerged and swallowed up in the general process of nature, and the human kingdom as a whole is a dead loss except for a few emerging and significant figures which the past and the present produce. They have achieved through the sacrifice of the many.
But the reaction of men themselves to this teaching is an adequate answer. The sense of immortality, the surety of an eternal future, the innate belief in God, the revelation of the light, the achieving of a wisdom which helps and aids is not the prerogative of the Senecas, of the St. Pauls, of the Akbars of the race. It is found (and sometimes in its purest form) in the humblest peasant. Words of wise counsel fall from the lips of the illiterate, and a knowledge of God and a belief in the soul's immortality are discovered to be latent in the hearts of the most unlikely and oft of the most sinful. But when the highly evolved and the most intelligent of the race discover in themselves the divine Flame, and awaken the power of the supreme Controller, seated at the heart of their being, they are very apt to place themselves in a higher category than other people, and to classify those who do not have their mental grasp of the differentiations of the evolutionary development as differing so widely from them as not to deserve the name of Sons of God. They regard all not working in mental energy as lacking souls [357] and hence as lacking eternal persistence as individuals. This is only a glamour of the mind, is part of the great heresy of separateness, and indicates faintly the coming period wherein the mind will be as dominant and as misleading as is the sentient body at this time.
Let us therefore study the types of mental energy with which the individual has to work and see how this great heresy of separateness and the "fallacy of repudiation", as it is sometimes called, can be offset.
One of the first things we have to remember as we consider these types of energy is that their trend and work can be grasped more easily in a larger sense in relation to humanity than can their effects in an individual use of mental energy. Only a few human beings are as yet consciously using this type of force and only a few can therefore understand what it really entails. Increasingly men will come, as units, into possession of their intellectual heritage but, numerically speaking, scarce one in ten thousand is utilising this inherent power and knowingly functioning in his mental body.
When however we look at humanity as a whole and cast our eyes back over the past racial development, we can see how mental energy has had a most definite effect and has produced outstanding results. The use of two factors differentiates man from the animal, whether he uses them consciously or unconsciously. Both are latent in the animal but man is the only entity in the three worlds who can consciously reap benefit from them. One of these factors is pain, and the other is the faculty of discrimination. Through the means of pain and a subsequent process of analysis, of relation plus memory and visualisation, man has learnt what to avoid and what to cultivate. This works in the realm of physical plane happenings and of sensory experience. Through discrimination as to ideas and as to thought currents, man has learnt to decide upon what to base his activities in all departments [358] of human affairs, even though he has but an imperfect grasp as to the true nature of ideas and his application of the truths sensed is quite imperfect. That he often chooses unwisely, that the ideas governing group conduct are not of the highest, that public opinion is proverbially moulded by personal and selfish interests may be only too sadly true. Nevertheless—through pain and learning to utilise the power of choice in the realm of ideas—man is steadily forging ahead towards full liberty and full control of the earth, which it is his right to inherit. The Old Commentary says in relation to these two characteristics of man something that conveys much of beauty, couched in symbolic language. The phrases run as follows and it must be borne in mind whilst pondering upon them that water symbolises sentiency or astral reaction, and fire is the symbol of the mentality.
"The assuaging waters cool. They slowly bring relief, abstracting form from all that can be touched. The quivering fever heat of long repressed desire yields to the cooling draught. Water and pain negate each other. Long is the process of the cooling draught.
"The burning fire releases all that blocks the way of life. Bliss comes and follows after fire, as fire upon the waters. Water and fire together blend and cause the great Illusion. Fog they produce and mist and steam and noise, veiling the Light, hiding the Truth and shutting out the Sun.
"The fire burns fiercely. Pain and the waters disappear. Cold, heat, the light of day, the radiance of the rising sun and perfect knowledge of the Truth appear.
"This is the path for all who seek the light. First form, and all its longing. Then pain. Then the assuaging waters and the appearance of a little fire. The fire grows, and heat is then active within the tiny sphere and does its fiery work. Moisture likewise is seen; dense fog, and to the pain is added sad bewilderment, for they who use the fire of mind during the early stage are lost within a light illusory.
"Fierce grows the heat; next comes the loss of power to suffer. When this stage has been outgrown, there comes [359] the shining of the unobstructed sun and the clear bright light of truth. This is the path back to the hidden Centre.
"Use pain. Call for the fire, oh, pilgrim in a strange and foreign land. The waters wash away the mud and slime of nature's growth. The fires burn the hindering forms which seek to hold the pilgrim back and so they bring release. The living waters, as a river, sweep the pilgrim to the Father's Heart. The fires destroy the veil hiding the Father's Face."
Perhaps one of the first things that every student has to learn, as he seeks to grasp the nature and use of mind, is that public opinion has to give place to individual consciousness of right, and that then that individual consciousness has to be so employed and concentrated that it is seen in its right proportion as that living germ which can expand into the divine flower of the Son of Mind, the Manasaputra, and as the thread which leads back into the realm of the Universal Mind. This thread and this consciousness, when followed, will lead the individual into the Council Chamber wherein the plan and the purpose of the great Life will stand revealed, and wherein all human selfishness and self-seeking fade out in the clear light of the Will of God. Through right understanding and right use and control of the astral nature and a comprehension of the nature of the sentient consciousness, man can penetrate into the very heart of God Himself and know past all controversy that all is well, for all is Love. Through right use of the mind, and through correct understanding of the nature of the intellect, man can enter into the mind of God and know that all is well, for all is planned, and divine purpose is steadily working out its objectives.
The work of the Atlantean Adepts was to impress upon the world consciousness the fact that God is Love. This is a symbolic expression of the truth as is the use of the word God. The work of the Aryan Adepts is to impress upon the world consciousness that God is Will. To do [360] this for the human family, They work with the intellect so as to bring it into control, to subordinate other forms to the mind and through the mind to reveal to man the vision of what is and what will be. Man is therefore brought into line with the esoteric head centre of the one Life. In the animal kingdom, through the development of sentiency and its allied unfoldment through pain, They are bringing those types of forms into line with the heart centre in Nature. This is a phrase conveying a truth which cannot be more clearly expressed until man has become more inclusive in his consciousness. Through colour in the vegetable Kingdom those forms of divine manifestation are also brought into vibratory contact with that centre of force in Nature which is analogous to the throat centre in man.
In using these words I refer primarily to the Life which is expressing itself through our planet, to our planetary Logos, but the idea can (needless to say) be progressed to include the great Life of which our planetary Logos is but a reflection and an expression. Man, the brain of nature; the animals, the expression of the heart; the vegetable world, the expression of the creative force or of the throat centre; these three kingdoms in nature forming, in a peculiar manner, correspondences to the three higher centres in man, as the three kingdoms on the involutionary arc correspond to the three lower centres, and the mineral kingdom—abstruse as the idea may seem to those of you who have not the consciousness of the life-aspect—corresponding to the solar plexus, the great clearing house between that which is above and that which is below.
These analogies change as time progresses. In Lemurian days, viewing it as a kingdom in nature, humanity expressed the solar plexus aspect, whilst the animal kingdom stood for the sacral centre, and the centre at the base of the spine was symbolised by the vegetable [361] kingdom. In the middle of the Atlantean period, when certain great changes and experiments were wrought, a shift in the entire process took place; certain egos came in, as you know, as related in the Secret Doctrine and in a Treatise on Cosmic Fire, and a tremendous stepping forward became possible through their efforts. The chitta or mind-stuff became more vibrant and now we have the period of its intensest activity in the concrete sense.
We are told in the esoteric teaching that all three aspects of Divinity are themselves triple, and hence we can divide the energy of mind as far as humanity is concerned into three aspects also. We have therefore:
1. The lower concrete mind, called the chitta or mind-stuff in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.
2. The abstract mind, or that aspect of the mind which is related to the world of ideas.
3. The intuition or pure reason which is for man the highest aspect of the mentality.
These three find their overshadowing or enveloping field of expression in the third aspect of the Logos, which we call the Universal Mind, the active intelligent Deity. The lines of force from these three lower aspects lead back (if one may use so inadequate an expression) on to the third plane, as the astral lines of force lead back to the second or monadic plane, though as far as man's consciousness is concerned they only lead back to the buddhic or intuitional plane.
It is interesting to note that just as the Monad, impelled by desire, produces that form of life which we call the personality, so the mind aspect, as part of the purpose working out through the Universal Mind, in its form produces that manifestation which we call a Manasaputra, the great Son of Mind on the mental plane. Hence it is the mind principle in humanity which brings into [362] manifestation the egoic body, the causal vehicle, the karana sarira, the twelve-petalled lotus. We are of course talking entirely in terms of the form aspect here. The reason for this lies back on the cosmic planes, whereon the planetary Logos has His life. From the cosmic astral plane comes the impulse which produces form existence and concrete expression—for all form-taking is the result of desire. From the cosmic mental plane comes the will-to-be in time and space, which produces the seven groups of egoic lives and the third outpouring.
It will be seen then inferentially, how the right use of energy by the initiate puts him en rapport not only with the higher planes of the solar system but also with those cosmic planes whereon our Logos has His Personality aspect, using these words in symbolic fashion. The right use of physical energy by the initiate gives him the 'freedom' of the cosmic physical plane. The right use of astral energy gives him power on the cosmic astral, and the correct use of mental energy gives him entrance on to the cosmic mental. Inferentially then, the three higher centres in man when functioning perfectly play their part in this work of carrying energies from these exalted spheres into the field of activity of the initiate and of being doorways into realms hitherto closed to him.
Each centre or chakra is composed of three concentric interblending whorls or wheels which in the spiritual man upon the probationary path move slowly in one direction, but gradually quicken their activity as he nears the portal of the Path of Initiation. On initiation, the centre of the chakra (a point of latent fire) is touched, and the rotation becomes intensified, and the activity, fourth dimensional. It is difficult to express these ideas in words that can be comprehended by the uninitiated, but the effect could be described as a changing from a measured turn to one of a scintillating radiation, a 'wheel [363] turning upon itself', as the ancient Scriptures express it. Hence, when by purification, conformity to rule, and an aspiration that brooks no hindrance and that ceases not for pain, the aspirant has caused his centres to pulsate and to rotate, then—and only then—can the Master lead him into the Presence of the Hierophant. The Initiator then, with full knowledge of the disciple's ray and of his sub-ray, both egoic and personal, and recognising any karma that still may cling, touches the centre or centres which are in line for vivification, and the hidden fire will then rush up and become focalised. Remember always that in the vivification of a centre there is always a corresponding vitalisation of the analogous head centre, till eventually the seven centres in the body and the seven centres in the head rotate in unison. Remember also that just as the four minor rays pass into the three major rays, so the four minor centres carry on the correspondence and pass into pralaya, finding their focal point in the throat centre. Thus you will have the three centres—head, heart and throat—carrying the inner fire, with the three major head centres vibrating in unison also.
I realise that this is all intricate and technical. It has its place and value however, and much that here is communicated will find its usefulness when you are all passed over to the other side and a fresh band of aspirants will follow in your footsteps. The training of the mental body has a value, and many evade such technicalities, hiding behind an emphasis upon the life side of truth, all due to an inherent mental laziness. This that you now receive is but the A. B. C. of esotericism. Waste not time however in too detailed deduction. All that is now possible is a broad general outline, patient reserve, a willingness to recognise physical brain limitations and the accepting of an hypothesis. Believe these hypotheses possible unless your intuition revolts or they are contradicted [364] by past teaching given by other of the Lodge's Messengers. I do not dogmatise to you. I only in these instructions give you certain information,—the correctness of which I leave the future to demonstrate. I simply ask that you make record and in the coming years much that may now seem peculiar or mayhap even contradictory will be elucidated, slowly unravelled, and more easily comprehended. A little knowledge leads to much confusion unless laid aside for future use when the years of instruction have increased the store.
To return to our theme:—The heart centre in man opens the door into what is called "the heart of the Sun." The throat centre opens the way into full understanding of the path of the physical Sun and all true astrologers must eventually have that centre functioning. The head centre opens the way to the central spiritual Sun, each passing, via the planetary correspondence, to one of the cosmic planes.
Thus we have a summation of technicalities, and of facts, which are (under the Law of Analogy) of purely academic interest and no more. Even those of us who are initiate know practically nothing of the cosmic planes beyond the cosmic physical. Our consciousness is only beginning to be solar, and we are labouring in our small measure to overcome those planetary limitations which hold us back from solar knowledge and life. For aspirants who have not even a knowledge of what planetary consciousness signifies, the above information has only one value and that is, that it emphasises the synthetic nature of the great plan and the fact that the smallest unit is an integral part of the whole. It enforces the idea that energy is a life fluid circulating throughout the entire body of the Logos, and vivifying therefore even the tiniest atom in that whole. It is valuable to endeavour to grasp the picture and to vision the wonder of what is transpiring. It is waste of time, nevertheless, to [365] ponder upon the cosmic astral plane, for instance, when even the plane of the ego (the fifth subplane of the cosmic physical plane, counting from above downwards) is as yet inaccessible to the average man and is the goal for all his aspiration and meditation.
For man, therefore, the Universal Mind can best be grasped as it expresses itself through what we call the concrete mind, the abstract mind, and the intuition or pure reason.
The concrete mind is the form building faculty. Thoughts are things. The abstract mind is the pattern building faculty, or the mind which works with the blue prints upon which the forms are modelled. The intuition or pure reason is the faculty which enables man to enter into contact with the Universal Mind and grasp the plan synthetically, to seize upon divine Ideas or isolate some fundamental and pure truth.
The goal of all the work of an aspirant is to understand those aspects of the mind with which he has to learn to work. His work therefore might be summed up as follows:
1. He has to learn to think; to discover that he has an apparatus which is called the mind and to uncover its faculties and powers. These have been well analysed for us in the first two books of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.
2. He has to learn next to get back of his thought processes and form building propensities and discover the ideas which underlie the divine thought-form, the world process, and so learn to work in collaboration with the plan and subordinate his own thought-form building to these ideas. He has to learn to penetrate into the world of these divine ideas and to study the "pattern of things in the Heavens" as it is called in the Bible. He [366] must begin to work with the blue prints upon which all that is, is modelled and moulded. He becomes then a student-symbolist, and from being an idolater he becomes a divine idealist. I use these words in their true sense and connotation.
3. From that developed idealism, he must progress even deeper still, until he enters the realm of pure intuition. He can then tap truth at its source. He enters into the mind of God Himself. He intuits as well as idealises and is sensitive to divine thoughts. They fertilise his mind. He calls these intuitions later, as he works them out, ideas or ideals, and bases all his work and conduct of affairs upon them.
4. Then follows the work of conscious thought-form building, based upon these divine ideas, emanating as intuitions from the Universal Mind. This goes forward through meditation.
Every true student knows that this involves concentration in order to focus or orient the lower mind to the higher. Temporarily the normal thought-form building tendencies are inhibited. Through meditation which is the mind's power to hold itself in the light, and in that light become aware of the plan, he learns to "bring through" the needed ideas. Through contemplation he finds himself able to enter into that silence which will enable him to tap the divine mind, wrest God's thought out of the divine consciousness and to know. This is the work before each aspirant and hence the necessity of his understanding the nature of his mental problem, the tools with which he must perforce work, and the use he must make of what he learns and gains through right use of the mental apparatus.
How is this to be done? How bring through and how build afterwards?
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No matter how small or unimportant an individual thinker may be, yet in cooperation with his brethren, he wields a mighty force. Only through the steady strong right thinking of the people and the understanding of the correct use of mental energy can progressive evolution go forward along the desired lines. Right thinking depends upon many things, and it might be useful to state some of them very simply:
1. An ability to sense the vision. That involves a capacity in a faint measure to realise the archetype on which the Lodge is endeavouring to fashion the race. It involves cooperation in the work of the Manu, and the development of abstract as well as synthetic thought, the flashing forth of the intuition. The intuition wrests from the high places a touch of the ideal plan as it lies latent in the mind of the Logos. As men develop this capacity, they will touch sources of power that are not on mental levels at all but which constitute those from which the mental plane itself draws sustenance.
2. Then, having sensed the vision and glimpsed a fraction of the beauty (how little men see is astounding!) in your hands lies the opportunity to bring down to the mental plane as much of the plan as you possibly can. Nebulous and faint at first is your grasp after it, yet it will begin to materialise. Seldom at first will you find that you can contact it, for the vision comes through the medium of the causal body and few can hold that high consciousness for a long time. But the struggle to apprehend will lead to results, and little by little the idea will seep through to the concrete levels of the mental plane. Then it becomes a concrete thought, something that can be definitely visualised and appropriated as a basis for thought.
3. This accomplished, what comes next? A period of gestation, a period wherein you build your thought-form of as much of the vision as you can bring through into [368] your consciousness. Slowly must this be done, for a stable vibration and a well built form is desired. Hurried work leads nowhere. As you build there will gradually be sensed a longing, a desire to see this vision brought to earth, and see it becoming known to others among the sons of men. Then you vitalise the thoughtform with the power of your will, you seek to make it be; the rhythm becomes heavier and slower, the material built into your form is necessarily coarser, and you find that your thought-form of the vision is clothed in matter of the mental and astral planes.
4. Happy the disciple who can bring the vision nearer still to humanity, and work it into existence on the physical plane. Remember this, that the materialisation of any aspect of the vision on the physical plane is never the work of one man. Only when it has been sensed by the many, only when they have worked at its material form can their united efforts draw it into outer manifestation. Thus you see the value of educating public opinion; it brings the many helpers to the aid of the few visionaries. Always the Law holds good;—in descent, differentiation. The two or three sense the plan intuitively; then the rhythm they set up with their thought sweeps the mental plane matter into activity; thinkers seize hold of the idea. This is a hard thing to learn and difficult to do but the reward is great.
To those who wrestle, strive, and hold on, the joy is doubled when the materialisation comes. The joy of contrast will be yours, for knowing the past of darkness you will revel in the light of fruition; the joy of tried and tested companionship will be yours, for years will have proved to you who are your chosen associates, and in community of suffering will come the strengthened link; the joy of peace after victory will be yours, for to the tired warrior the fruits of achievement and rest are doubly sweet; the joy of participation in the Masters' [369] plan will be yours, and all is well that associates you closely with Them; the joy of having helped to solace a needy world, of having brought light to darkened souls, of having healed in some measure the open sore of the world's distress, will be yours, and in the consciousness of days well spent, and in the gratitude of salvaged souls, comes the deepest joy of all,—the joy a Master knows when He is instrumental in lifting a brother up a little higher on the ladder. This is the joy that is set before you all—and not so very far ahead it lies. So work, not for joy but towards it; not for reward, but from the inner need to help; not for gratitude, but from the urge that comes from having seen the vision and realisation of the part you have to play in bringing that vision down to earth.
It is helpful to differentiate between happiness, joy and bliss:
First, happiness, which has its seat in the emotions, and is a personality reaction.
Second, joy, which is a quality of the soul and is realised in the mind, when alignment takes place.
Third, bliss, which is the nature of the Spirit and about which speculation is fruitless until the soul realises its oneness with the Father. This realisation follows upon an earlier stage wherein the personal self is at-oned with the soul. Therefore speculation and analysis as to the nature of bliss is profitless to the average man whose metaphors and terminologies must perforce be personal and related to the world of the senses. Does the aspirant refer to his happiness or joy? If he refers to the latter it must come as the effect of group consciousness, of group solidarity, of oneness with all beings, and may not be interpreted in terms of happiness after all. Happiness comes when the personality is meeting with those conditions which satisfy it in one part or other of its lower nature; it comes when there is a sense of physical [370] well being, of contentment with one's environment or surrounding personalities, or of satisfaction with one's mental opportunities and contacts. Happiness is the goal of the separated self.
When however we seek to live as souls, the contentment of the lower man is discounted and we find joy in our group relationships and in bringing about those conditions which lead to the better expression of the souls of those we contact. This bringing of joy to others in order to produce conditions in which they may better express themselves may have a physical effect as we seek to better their material conditions, or an emotional effect as our presence brings to them peace and uplift, or an intellectual result as we stimulate them to clarity of thought and understanding. But the effect upon ourselves is joy, for our action has been selfless and non-acquisitive, and not dependent upon the aspirant's circumstance or worldly state. Much happiness is necessarily foregone when ill-health makes its pressure felt, as the environment is difficult and the "accumulated karma of many births" presses down, or as the troubles of the family, nation or race weigh upon the sensitive personality. The happiness of youth or the self-centred contentment of the selfish insulated person (hiding himself behind the shield of his protective desires) must not be confounded with joy.
It is a platitude as well as an occult paradox to say that in the midst of profound personality distress and unhappiness, the joy of the soul may be known and felt. Such however is the case, and it is for this the student must aim. Some people are happy because they shut their eyes to truth, or are self-hypnotised, hiding themselves within a shell of illusion. But the aspirant has frequently reached the stage wherein his eyes are wide open; he has learnt to speak truth to himself, and has built up no separating wall between himself and [371] others. He is awake and alive; he is sensitive and frequently suffering. He wonders why apparently what the world calls happiness and peace have left him, and asks what is to be the outcome.
We who watch and guide on the inner side, watch with loving care all of you who struggle in the thick of the fray. We are like the General Headquarters Staff who follow the course of the battle from a secure eminence. In our security lies your ultimate success, for we hold in our hands the solution of many problems, and apply that solution when the battle goes contrary. One thing always would I have you remember. It is of vital importance. It is this statement, that in the destruction of the form lies hid the secret of all evolution. Think not this is truism. You will see it in constant application and need to be prepared for its demonstration. The Masters utilize the form to the uttermost; They seek to work through it, imprisoning the life in confining walls for just as long as the purpose is served and the race instructed through that form. Then the time comes that the form no longer serves the purpose intended, when the structure atrophies, crystallises and becomes easily destructible. Its destruction then becomes the matter of greatest concern and usefulness, and it goes, whilst a new form takes its place. Watch and see if this be not so. Always the building of the form, always its utilisation for as long as possible, always the destruction of the form when it hinders and cramps the expanding light, always then the rapid reconstruction of a new form. Such has been the method since the commencement of the aeon.
In the infancy of the race the forms endured for a long time. Evolution moved more slowly, but now on the upward trend of all things, the form has but short duration. It lives vitally for a brief period; it moves with rapidity and then is succeeded by another form. This [372] rapidity will increase not decrease as the consciousness or inner expansion of the life of the race vibrates ever to a faster and lighter rate of rhythm.
It is necessary likewise that you arrive at the realization that one of the principal objects of endeavor at the present time on the part of those whom you call the Elder Brothers of the race, is to stimulate, purify and coordinate the etheric body. This etheric body is not only the transmitter of prana but is the medium for all the energies which we are considering. Its importance also lies in other directions:
a. Being of physical plane matter, literally, etheric consciousness is the next step ahead for the race. This will demonstrate at first as the ability to see etherically and to cognize etheric matter.
b. It is the field of exploration immediately ahead of the modern scientist. In ten years time, many medical practitioners will be recognizing it as a fact of nature.
c. Most of the diseases that the physical body suffers from at present have their roots in the etheric body. There are few, if any, purely physical diseases. Disease has its source in astral and etheric conditions.
d. The secret of safe and sane clairvoyance and clairaudience depends upon the purification of the etheric vehicle.
e. The etheric emanations of people can be great contaminators. In the purification, therefore, of this body lies the secret of a sweeter and saner humanity.
Hence, the importance of the etheric. There are many other reasons which will later be emphasized. In beginning to form your ideas on the subject, however, it is the part of wisdom to adhere to wide generalities until the whole matter has taken clear shape in your mind.
Work on the etheric body, however, from the standpoint of the Hierarchy is not confined only to the bodies of men. It is a planetary process. The etheric body of [373] the earth itself is being subjected to a definite stimulation. The spirit of the earth, that mysterious entity—not the planetary Logos—is being vivified in a new sense and in his vivification many interesting developments eventuate. In three ways this is being attempted: