THE PRISONERS OF THE PLANET
Having dealt with the work of the magician in his own interior consciousness and with the need for him to learn the importance of seizing the "midway point" in his work of using the interludes, both major and minor, we come now to the consideration of the objective of all his work, that is if he is a true white magician. It is stated clearly that this is to release the "prisoners of the planet". It would profit us therefore to study who these prisoners are and what is the mode of their release to be employed by the working disciple.
These prisoners of the planet fall into two major groups, which embody necessarily certain subdivisions. Inclusively they constitute all forms of life that we usually call subhuman, but these words must be given a [522] wider connotation than is normally the case. They must be extended to include all lives which are embodied in forms.
The two divisions are as follows:
First, the substance of all forms, or the multiplicity of tiny atomic lives which, through the power of thought, are drawn into the form aspect through which all existences or all souls, mineral, vegetable, animal and the animal body of man, express themselves. This opens up a wide horizon and covers practically the work of creation on the physical plane so that we cannot even touch upon it. Under the Law of Magnetic Attraction and owing to the impulsive activity of the Universal Mind as it works out the purposes of the solar Logos or of the planetary Logos these constituents of the matter of space, these atoms of substance, are drawn together, manipulated in a rhythmic manner and held together in form. Through this mode of creation, existences come into manifestation, participate in the experience of their particular cycle, whether it is ephemeral, like the life of a butterfly or relatively permanent like the ensouling life of the planetary deity, and vanish. The two aspects concerned, spirit and matter, are brought thus into a close rapport, and necessarily exert an effect upon each other. Matter, so-called, is energised or "lifted up" in the occult sense of the term by its contact with spirit so-called. Spirit, in its turn, is enabled to enhance its vibration through the medium of its experience in matter. The bringing together of these two divine aspects results in the emergence of a third, which we call the soul, and through the medium of the soul, spirit develops a sentiency and a conscious awareness and capacity to respond which remains its permanent possession when the divorce between the two comes around eventually and cyclically.
Much anent this will be found in A Treatise on Cosmic [523] Fire and there is no need for me to repeat myself here. This second treatise is intended to be more practical and generally useful. It deals primarily with the training of the aspirant so that he can, in his turn, act as a conscious creator, and as he works serve the higher ends of the Life which enfolds him. Thus he aids in the materialising of the plans of God. The training of the aspirant, the indicating to him of possible trends and lines of evolution, and the definition of the underlying purpose is all that it is wise to impart at the present stage in which the average aspirant finds himself. This has been attempted in these Instructions and there has been given also some new teaching anent the emotional vehicle. In the next century, when man's equipment is better developed and when a truer meaning of group activity is available, it will be possible to convey more information, but the time is not yet. All that is possible for me is to grope for those feeble words which will somewhat clothe the thought. As they clothe it they limit it and I am guilty of creating new prisoners who must ultimately be released. All books are prison houses of ideas, and only when speech and writing are superseded by telepathic communication and by intuitive interplay will the plan and the technique of its expression be grasped in a clearer fashion. I talk now in symbols; I manipulate words in order to create a certain impression; I construct a thought-form which, when dynamic enough, can impress the brain of a transmitting agent, such as yourself. But, as I do so, I know well how much must be left unrelated and how seldom it is possible to do more than point out a cosmology, macrocosmic or microcosmic, which will suffice to convey a temporary picture of divine reality.
I talk to you of laws, and I seek to formulate them intelligently but I am dealing really with those divine impulses which emanate from a cosmic Creator and become laws as they produce effects in the matter of space, meeting [524] therein practically no resistance. Other divine impulses which also cyclically stream forth have not as yet carried such a strong vibration, and have not therefore been as powerful as the vibration of the combined substance affected. These latter are those impulses to which we give the name spiritual, and which we look forward to seeing established as the laws of the new era, and which will then supersede or coalesce with the present laws of the universe. Together they will bring in the new synthetic world.
But how can the whole be comprehended by the part? How can the entire plan be noted by a soul which sees as yet but a tiny fraction of the structure? Bear this steadily in mind as you study and ponder these Instructions and remember that, in the light of the future knowledge of humanity, all that is here conveyed is like a fifth reader in grammar school to the text books utilised by a college professor. It will serve however to graduate the aspirant out of the Hall of Learning into the Hall of Wisdom, if he uses the information given.
Learn to be telepathic and intuitive. Then these forms of words and these ideas, clothed in form, will not be needed. You can then stand face to face with naked truth, and live and work in the terrain of ideas and not in the world of forms.
So we leave the vast expanse of lives, covered by the unmeaning phrase "atomic substance," and pass on secondly to a consideration of those prisoners of the planet which can be more easily contacted, whose general plight can be more specifically understood, and who stand in a closer relation to man. Men are not yet equipped to comprehend the nature of those units of electrical energy which embody what we call the soul of all things and which has been termed the "anima mundi"—the life and soul of the One in whom all embodied existences live and move and have their being.
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To do this, it will be necessary to understand somewhat the part that the fourth kingdom in nature plays in relation to the whole, and the purpose for which that aggregate of forms which we call the human family exists. We must study this from the standpoint of the relation of the fourth kingdom to the whole, and not from the standpoint of man's own individual progressive development and the part he plays as a human unit within the ring-pass-not of the human family. We will use the word humanity, and speak of its mission and function in the big scheme and the working out of the plan. We will infer a humanity which is composed of all the sons of men. It includes on the one hand the hierarchy of adepts who have deliberately incarnated on the physical plane in order to work within the limits of the human kingdom, and on the other we find the undeveloped types which are more animal than human. Between these two extremes we find the many and varied types, the developed and the undeveloped, the intelligent and the unintelligent—all who are covered by the word man.
Humanity constitutes a centre of energy within the cosmos, capable of three activities.
I. First of all, humanity is responsive to the inflow of spiritual energy. This pours into it from the cosmos, and speaking symbolically these energies are basically three in number:
1. Spiritual energy, as we inadequately term it. This emanates from God the Father and reaches humanity from the level of what is technically called the monadic plane, from the archetypal sphere, the highest source of which a man can become conscious. To this type of energy there are few so equipped that they can respond. It is for the majority practically nonexistent. I use the words "God the Father" in the sense of the One Self-Existent Life, or Absolute Being.
2. Sentient energy—the energy which makes man a [526] [526]soul. It is the principle of awareness, the faculty of consciousness, that something, inherent in matter (when brought into relation with spirit), which awakens responsiveness to an outer and far-reaching field of contacts. It is that which eventually develops in man a recognition of the whole, of the self, and which leads him to self-determination and self-realisation. When these are developed, as they are not in the subhuman kingdoms, a man can become aware of the first type of energy, mentioned above. This energy of sentient consciousness comes from the second aspect of deity, from the heart of the sun, just as the first, technically but symbolically speaking, emanates from the central spiritual sun. The parallel to these two types of force in a human being is the nervous energy working through the nervous system with headquarters in the brain, and the life energy which is seated in the heart.
3. Pranic energy, or vitality. This is that vital force, inherent in matter itself and in which all forms are immersed, as they constitute functioning parts of the greater form. To this all forms respond. This type of energy comes from the physical sun and works actively upon the vital bodies of every form in the natural world, including the physical form of humanity itself.
In the terminology of the Ageless Wisdom, these three are called electric fire, solar fire, and fire by friction, and their purpose in relation to each other is summed up for us in the words of The Secret Doctrine as follows:
"Matter is the Vehicle for the manifestation of Soul on this plane of existence, and Soul is the Vehicle on a higher plane for the manifestation of Spirit and these three are a Trinity, synthesized by Life which pervades them all." S. D. I. 80 [1st ed: 49].
Humanity, being the meeting-place for all the three types of energy, constitutes therefore a "midway point," [527] in the consciousness of the Creator. This "midway point" has to be seized by the active creating agent in some such manner as the aspirant has to learn to seize his midway points in the tiny bit of magical and creative work which he is seeking to carry forward. Humanity is intended to be the medium wherein certain activities can be instituted. It is in reality the brain of the planetary Deity, its many units being analogous to the brain cells in the human apparatus. Just as the human brain, made up of an infinite number of sentient responsive cells, can be suitably impressed when quiescence has been achieved, and can become the medium of expression for the plans and purposes of the soul, transmitting its ideas via the mind, so the planetary Deity, working under the inspiration of the Universal Mind, can impress humanity with the purposes of God and produce consequent effects in the world of phenomena.
The members of the hierarchy represent those who have achieved peace and quiescence, and can be impressed; aspirants and disciples represent those brain cells which are beginning to fall into the larger divine rhythm. They are learning the nature of responsiveness. The mass of men are like the millions of unused brain cells which the psychologists and scientists tell us we possess but do not employ. This analogy you can think out in greater detail for yourself, but even superficially it will be apparent to you that when this point is grasped, the purpose for which humanity exists, the objective before the group of world mystics and workers, and the ideal set before the individual aspirant, are the same as in the individual meditation; the achieving of that focussed attention and mental quiet wherein reality can be contacted, the true and the beautiful can be registered, divine purpose can be recorded, and it becomes possible to transmit to the phenomenal form, upon the physical plane, the needed energy whereby the subjective [528] realisation can be materialised. The aspirant does this in connection with his own soul purpose if he is successful in his endeavour; the disciple is learning to do this in relation to group purpose, and the initiate cooperates with the planetary purpose. These constitute the inner group of vitally alive brain cells in the planetary brain, the entire human group, and it is evident that the more powerful their united vibration and the clearer the light which they reflect and transmit, the more rapidly will the present inert mass of human cells be brought into activity. The occult hierarchy is to the planetary Life what the light in the head is to the average awakened disciple, only on so much vaster a scale, and with such an adequate inner alignment that students such as those who read these Instructions cannot understand the true significance of the words. The point to be grasped is that through humanity on the physical plane, the nature of reality will be revealed; the true and the beautiful will be manifested; the divine plan will eventually work out, and that energy be transmitted to all forms in nature which will enable the inner spiritual reality to emerge.
II. The second type of activity of which man is capable is an intense progressive and spiral development within the human ring-pass-not. This sentence covers the mode of development and the entire procedure of unfoldment of all the evolving units that we call men. With this I seek not here to deal. The history of the human structural growth, the entire field of the unfolding human consciousness and the history of all races and peoples that have lived or are living upon our planet can be dealt with under this heading. It concerns the use humanity has made of all the energies available within the natural world of which it is a part, inherent in the fourth kingdom itself and coming to it also from the world of spiritual realities.
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III. The third type of activity which should occupy the attention of humanity, and one as yet little understood, is that it should act as a transmitting centre of spiritual forces—soul force and spiritual energy united and combined—to the prisoners of the planet and to the lives, held in embodied existence in the other kingdoms of nature. Human beings are apt to be primarily concerned with their higher group relations, with their return to the Father's home, and with the trend which we call "upwards" and away from the phenomenal world. They are principally occupied with the finding of the centre within the form aspect, that which we call the soul, and, having found it, with the work then of acquainting themselves with that soul and thus finding peace. This is right and in line with divine intention but it is not all of the plan for man, and when this remains the prime objective, a man is dangerously near falling into the snare of spiritual selfishness and separateness.
When the centre is found by any human being and he becomes at-one with, and enters into relation with his soul, then he automatically shifts his position in the human family and—again speaking in symbols—finds himself part of the centre of light and understanding which we call, esoterically, the occult hierarchy, the cloud of witnesses, the disciples of the Christ, and other names according to the trend of the disciple's convictions. This hierarchy is also attempting to externalise itself in the form of the group of World Workers, and when a man has found his soul and the principle of unity is sufficiently revealed to him he shifts also into this more exoteric group. All who find the centre do not as yet link up with both the interior and exterior groups. Then he is pledged to the magical work, to the salvaging of souls, to the releasing of the prisoners of the planet. This is the goal for humanity as a whole, and when all the sons of men have attained the objective, these prisoners will be released. [530] The reason for this will be that the magical work will be carried forward intelligently and perfectly and human beings in group formation will act as transmitters of pure spiritual energy, which will vivify every form in every kingdom in nature.
In considering the problem of the prisoners of the planet and their eventual release, it must be remembered that one of the forces which lie back of the entire evolutionary scheme is that of the Principle of Limitation. This is the primary impulse which brings about the act of creation, and is intimately linked with that of will and its lower reflection, desire. Will is desire, formulated so clearly and carried so powerfully to an intelligent climax that the mode of its materialisation is grasped with such accuracy and energised with such intent that the result is inescapable. But pure will is only possible to a coordinated thinker, to truly self-conscious entities. Desire is instinctual or rather inherent in all forms, for all forms and organisms constitute part of some primary thinker and are influenced by the powerful intent of that primary force.
The Principle of Limitation therefore is the outcome of the purposeful will and formulated desire of some thinking Being, and governs consequently the form-taking process of all incarnated lives. This Principle of Limitation controls the scope of an incarnation, sets its measure and rhythm, determines the radius of its influence, and brings about that illusory appearance of reality which we call manifestation.
The "prisoners of the planet" fall into two categories:
1. Those lives which act under the influence of a conscious purpose, and who "limit the life that is in them" for a time. They consciously take form, knowing the end from the beginning. These Beings in their turn fall into three main groups.
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a. The Being Who is the life of our planet, the One in Whom we live and move and have our being. This being, or sum total of organised lives is sometimes called the planetary Logos, sometimes the Ancient of Days, sometimes God, and sometimes the One Life.
b. Those lives who constitute the Principle of Limitation in a kingdom of nature. The Life that is, for instance, expressing itself through the medium of the animal kingdom is a self-conscious intelligent entity, working in full awareness of intent and objective, and limiting his sphere of activity in order to provide due opportunity and expression for the myriad lives that find their life and being and sustenance in him. See you how the law of sacrifice runs throughout creation.
c. The sons of mind, human souls, solar Angels, the divine sons of God who in full self-consciousness work out certain well seen ends through the medium of the human family.
2. Those lives who are limited in form because they are not self-conscious but are unconscious constituent parts of a greater form. They have not yet evolved to the point where they are self-conscious entities.
It might be said that this second category includes all existences, but the line of demarcation between self-produced limitation and unrealised form-taking lies entirely in the realm of consciousness. Some lives are prisoners and know it. Others are prisoners and know it not. The clue to suffering lies right here in the realm of mind. Pain and agony, rebellion and the conscious urge towards betterment and the changing of conditions are only found where what we call individuality is present, where the "I" complex is controlling, and where a self-conscious entity is functioning. There is of course [532] the equivalent to pain in kingdoms below the human, but it enters into another differentiation. It is not self-related. Subhuman forms of life suffer and undergo discomfort and are subject to the throes of death but they lack memory and prevision, and possess not that mental apprehension which will enable them to relate past and present and anticipate the future. They are exempt from the agony of foreboding. Their entire reaction to what are called evil conditions is so different to that of humanity that it is difficult for us to grasp it. The Old Commentary describes these two groups in the following terms:
"The Sons of God, who know and see and hear (and knowing, know they know) suffer the pain of conscious limitation. Deep in the inmost depths of conscious being, their lost estate of liberty eats like a canker. Pain, sickness, poverty and loss are seen as such, and from them every son of God revolts. He knows that in himself, as once he was before he entered prisoner into form, he knew not pain. Sickness and death, corruption and disease, they touched him not. The riches of the universe were his, and naught he knew of loss.
"The lives that enter into form alone with lives self-conscious, the deva lives which build the forms indwelt by all the Sons of God, they know not pain or loss or poverty. The form decays, the other forms retire, and that which is required to nourish and keep strong the outer, lacks. But lacking also will and planned intent, they feel no aggravation and know no clear revolt."
A word about pain might be in place here, though I have naught of an abstruse nature to communicate anent the evolution of the human hierarchy through the medium of pain. The devas do not suffer pain as does mankind. Their rate of rhythm is steadier although in line with the Law. They learn through application to the work of building and through incorporation into the form of that which is built. They grow through appreciation [533] of and joy in the forms built and the work accomplished. The devas build and humanity breaks and through the shattering of the forms man learns through discontent. Thus is acquiescence in the work of the greater Builders achieved. Pain is that upward struggle through matter which lands a man at the Feet of the Logos; pain is the following of the line of the greatest resistance and thereby reaching the summit of the mountain; pain is the smashing of the form and the reaching of the inner fire; pain is the cold of isolation which leads to the warmth of the central sun; pain is the burning in the furnace in order finally to know the coolness of the water of life; pain is the journeying into the far country, resulting in the welcome to the Father's Home; pain is the illusion of the Father's disowning, which drives the prodigal straight to the Father's heart; pain is the cross of utter loss, that renders back the riches of the eternal bounty; pain is the whip that drives the struggling builder to carry to utter perfection the building of the Temple.
The uses of pain are many, and they lead the human soul out of darkness into light, out of bondage into liberation, out of agony into peace. That peace, that light and that liberation, with the ordered harmony of the cosmos are for all the sons of men.
With the problem of limitation is closely linked that of liberation. Into the prison house of form enter all that live; some enter consciously and some unconsciously, and this we call birth, appearance, incarnation, manifestation. Immediately there sweeps into activity another law or the working out of an active principle which we call the Law of Cycles. This is the principle of periodic appearance—a beneficent operation of the lower wisdom of innate divinity, for it produces that sequence of the states of consciousness which we term Time. This produces therefore in the world field of awareness a [534] gradual and slow growth towards self-expression, self-appreciation, and self-realisation. To these principles of Limitation and of Cycles is added another principle, that of Expansion. This brings about the development of consciousness so that the latent germ of sentiency or of sensitive response to environment may be fostered in the living unit.
We have therefore three Principles:
1. The Principle of Limitation.
2. The Principle of Periodic Manifestation.
3. The Principle of Expansion.
These three Principles together constitute the factors underlying the Law of Evolution as men call it. They bring about the imprisonment of the Life in its various appearances or aspects; they produce the environing forms, and they lead the imprisoned lives on into ever more educational prison houses. Finally the time arrives when the Principle of Liberation becomes active and a transition is effected out of a prison house which cramps and distorts into one which provides adequate conditions for the next development of consciousness.
It is interesting here to note that death is governed by the Principle of Liberation, and not by that of Limitation. Death is only recognised as a factor to be dealt with by self-conscious lives and is only misunderstood by human beings, who are the most glamoured and deluded of all incarnated lives.
The next point to be noted is that each kingdom in nature acts in two ways:
1. As the liberator of the kingdom of forms which has not reached its particular stage of conscious awareness.
2. As the prison house of lives that have transitted into it from the level of consciousness next beneath it.
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Let it be remembered always that each field of awareness in its boundaries constitutes a prison, and that the objective of all work of liberation is to release the consciousness and expand its field of contacts. Where there are boundaries of any kind, where a field of influence is circumscribed, and where the radius of contact is limited there you have a prison. Ponder on this statement for it holds much of truth. Where there is an apprehension of a vision and of a wide unconquered territory of contacts then there will inevitably be a sense of imprisonment and of cramping. Where there is realisation of worlds to conquer, of truths to be learnt, of conquests to be made, of desires to be achieved, of knowledges to be mastered, there you will have a festering sense of limitation, goading on the aspirant to renewed effort and driving the living entity on along the path of evolution. Instinct, governing the vegetable and animal kingdoms, develops into intellect in the human family. Later intellect merges into intuition and intuition into illumination. When the superhuman consciousness is evoked these two—intuition and illumination—take the place of instinct and of intelligence.
Illumination—what does that lead to? Straight to the summit of achievement, to the fulfilment of cyclic destiny, to the emergence of the radiant glory, to wisdom, power, God consciousness. These words however mean but little or nothing in comparison with a Reality which can only be sensed by any human being when his intuition is awakened and his mind illumined.
Grasping these facts anent imprisonment how, to be practical, can a man become a releasing agent for the "prisoners of the planet"? What can humanity as a whole achieve along this line? What can the individual do?
The task of humanity fails primarily into three divisions of labour. Three groups of prisoners can be released [536] and will eventually find their way out of their prison house through the instrumentality of man. Already human beings are working in all three fields.
1. Prisoners within the human form. This involves working with one's fellow men.
2. Prisoners within the animal kingdom, and already much is being done in this field.
3. Prisoners within the forms of the vegetable world. A beginning has been made here.
Much work is being accomplished by man for men, and through the agency of scientific, religious and educational endeavour, the human consciousness is steadily expanding until one by one the Sons of God are breaking through their limitations into the world of souls. In the retrospect of history, the picture of the emerging prisoner, Man, can be seen in clear delineation. Little by little he has mastered the planetary boundaries; little by little, he has grown from the stage of cave man to that of a Shakespeare, a Newton, a Leonardo da Vinci, an Einstein, a St. Francis of Assisi, to a Christ and a Buddha. The capacity of man to achieve in any field of human expression seems practically unlimited, and if the past few thousand years have seen such a stupendous growth, what shall we see in the next five thousand years? If prehistoric man, little more than an animal, has grown into the genius, what unfoldment is not possible as more and more of innate divinity makes its presence felt? The superman is with us. What will the world manifest when all mankind is tending towards a concrete manifestation of superhuman powers?
Man's consciousness is being released in varying directions and dimensions. It is expanding into the world of spiritual realities and beginning to embrace the fifth or spiritual kingdom, the kingdom of souls. It is interpenetrating, through scientific research, the world of [537] super-human endeavour, and investigating the many aspects of the Form of God, and of the forms that constitute the Form.
In touching upon the work of humanity in releasing the units of which it is constructed, and in releasing the prisoners in the vegetable and animal kingdoms, I want to point out two things, both of profound importance:
First, in order to release the "prisoners of the planet" that come under the title of subhuman, man has to work under the influence of the intuition; when working to release his fellow men he has to know the meaning of Illumination.
When the true nature of Service is comprehended, it will be found that it is an aspect of that divine energy which works always under the destroyer aspect, for it destroys the forms in order to release. Service is a manifestation of the Principle of Liberation, and of this principle, death and service, constitute two aspects. Service saves, liberates and releases, on various levels, the imprisoned consciousness. The same statements can be made of death. But unless service can he rendered from an intuitive understanding of all the facts in the case, interpreted intelligently, and applied in a spirit of love upon the physical plane, it fails to fulfil its mission adequately.
When the factor of spiritual illumination enters into that service, you have those transcendent Lights which have illumined the way of humanity and have acted like search-lights, thrown out into the great ocean of consciousness, revealing to man the Path he can and must go.
I would like to point out another thing. I have given no specific rules for releasing the prisoners of the planet. I have made no classification of the prisons and their prisoners, nor of methods of work nor of techniques of release.
I urge only upon each and all who read these Instructions [538] the necessity for renewed effort to fit themselves for service by a conscious and deliberate effort to develop the intuition and to achieve illumination. Every human being who reaches the goal of light and wisdom automatically has a field of influence which extends both up and down, and which reaches both inwards to the source of light and outwards into the "fields of darkness". When he has thus attained he will become a conscious centre of life giving force, and will be so without effort. He will stimulate, energise and vivify to fresh efforts all lives that he contacts, be they his fellow aspirants, or an animal, or a flower. He will act as a transmitter of light in the darkness. He will dispel the glamour around him and let in the radiance of reality.
When large numbers of the sons of men can so act, then the human family will enter upon its destined work of planetary service. Its mission is to act as a bridge between the world of spirit and the world of material forms. All grades of matter meet in man, and all the states of consciousness are possible to him. Mankind can work in all directions and lift the subhuman kingdoms into heaven and bring heaven down to earth.