ॐ – Traou an Dour

Quotations, ॐ, Esoteric Psychology, Rāja yoga, Esoteric

Initiation V – Revelation – Ray I

The Energy of the Will-to-Good. Power.

This initiation has always been called in the Christian church by the name of the Resurrection, whereas it is the seventh initiation which is the true resurrection. The correct name for the fifth initiation is the Initiation of Revelation; this signifies the power to wield light as the carrier of life to all in the three worlds, and to know likewise the next step to be taken upon the Way of the Higher Evolution. This Way is revealed to the initiate in a new light and with an entirely different significance when the fifth initiation is taken. It is the true time of emergence from the tomb of darkness and constitutes an entrance into a light of an entirely different nature to any hitherto experienced.

Development and revelation or (if you so prefer it) a developing revelation, form essentially the entire theme and objective of all activity upon our planet. This gives us a clue to the goal of the planetary Logos. All life, from the first descent of the soul into incarnation, is only a series of revelations, all of which lead up to the revelation accorded at the fifth initiation. The relation between the fifth and the seventh initiations is exceedingly deep and mysterious. It is the revelation accorded in the fifth initiation which makes the seventh initiation possible. The Master, as He emerges at the fifth initiation into the light of day, realizes in that light:

The true and hitherto unknown significance of the three worlds which he has viewed almost entirely from the angle of meaning. Now its significance is apparent, and the revelation is so tremendous that “he withdraws into the world of light and joins his brothers. He gathers all his forces and seeks new light upon the Plan. That light shines forth and with the force of its revealing power, new loyalties arise, new goals are seen, and that which shall be and the thing which is, both become lost in the radiant light of revelation.”
That the first vibration or influencing energy of the cosmic ray of prevailing energy in its highest aspect is the Ray of Love-Wisdom, and this is now contacted; this is made possible by the Master’s response to the first Ray of Power or of the Will-to-Good, experienced in its second aspect at the fifth initiation. Forget not that all rays have three aspects, and that all three can be contacted by the human consciousness of the spiritual man, thus placing at his disposal the energies of the seven rays and of the twenty-one forces. It is this synthesis which is revealed at the fifth initiation and – as I said above – the combination of these forces produces the Ascension; this is an exceeding great mystery and one which cannot as yet be grasped by you. From the height of the Mount of Ascension light is thrown upon the hierarchical Plan in such a manner that the purpose in the mind of the planetary Logos is (for the first time) truly grasped.
From that height also, the mystery of the human soul is revealed and a great triangular pattern will be seen, relating the human spirit to the world of forms, to the united Hierarchy and to the Council Chamber of the Lord. Upon this I may not here enlarge, for we must not diverge too far from our study. One thing only can be said: from that high place, atma-buddhi-manas (will, love and intelligent action) can be seen in united activity and the theory of an existing Plan and the belief in the three divine aspects, or in the Trinity of Energies, is factually demonstrated.

The first Ray of Will or Power is distinguished by the highest known divine quality (there are others still higher). In the word, Goodwill, the secret purpose of the planetary Logos is hidden. It is being slowly brought to the attention of humanity by means of the three phrases: God is Love. Goodwill. The Will-to-Good. These three phrases, in reality concern the three aspects of the first ray.

When a Master takes the fifth initiation He already knows the significance of the first two aspects, and must become consciously aware of the highest aspect: the Will-to-Good. He has developed in Himself “the love necessary to salvation, His own and that of those He loves, His fellowmen;” all His actions and His thinking are qualified by goodwill, in its esoteric sense, and the significance of the Will-to-Good lies ahead of Him and will be later revealed.

As this first ray is not in incarnation at this time, and therefore souls who can fully express it are absent, the entire theme anent this type of energy, and its influence and quality when related to the energies and the forces, is most difficult to express. Each great ray, as it comes into incarnation, transforms the speech of the cycle, enriches the existent vocabulary, and brings new knowledge to humanity; the many civilizations – past and present – are the result of this.

I would ask you to consider the relation of the fifth initiation, the fifth Ray of Science and the first Ray of Will, for there lies the key to the revelation accorded to the initiate-Master.

As you can see, we are venturing into realms far beyond your comprehension; but the effort to grasp the unattainable and to exercise the mind along the line of abstract thought is ever of value.

It must be remembered therefore (and I reiterate) that the revelation accorded to the disciple-initiate is along the line of the first Ray of Will or Power, and that is a ray which is as yet a long way from full manifestation. From one angle, it is of course always in manifestation for it is the ray which holds the planet and all that is upon it in one coherent manifesting whole; the reason for this coherent synthesis is the evolutionary effort to work out divine purpose. The first ray ever implements that purpose. From another angle, it is cyclic in its manifestation; here I mean from the angle of recognized manifestation – and such is the case at this time.

—-

The Effect of Ray I on Humanity Today

Owing to extra-planetary stimulation, to the immediate planetary crisis and to the present invocative cry of humanity, energy from Shamballa has been permitted to play upon the “center which is called the race of men” and has produced two potent results: first, the world war was precipitated and, secondly, the fission of the atom, resulting in the atomic bomb, was brought about. Both these events were made possible by the pouring-in of the energy and power of the third aspect of the first Ray of Power or Will. This is the lowest aspect, and definite material effects were produced. The destroyer aspect was therefore the first aspect to take effect. It split the thought-form of materialistic living (which was governing and controlling humanity everywhere) upon the mental plane and, at the same time, it produced a great agent of destruction upon the physical plane.

Thus was the new era ushered in; thus was the stage set for a better future. This was the intent and the purpose of Those Who compose the Council Chamber of the Lord. It rests with humanity itself to take advantage of the proffered opportunity which this destructive manifestation made possible.

Shamballa having acted in this manner, it is nevertheless the Hierarchy which will bring into expression a measure of the second aspect of the first Ray of Will or Power, and it is for this that the Hierarchy is preparing; it is for this event that the Christ is fitting Himself to be the distributing Agent and the directing Factor, with the concentrated assistance of the united Hierarchy; it is this that will begin to manifest when He appears. You have here the true reason for His proclaimed Coming or Reappearance. The distinction between material living and spiritual living will be clearly demonstrated. This is made possible by the cleavage of the ancient materialistic thought-form on mental levels; the reorientation of human thinking, as this fact is grasped, will have its first results upon emotional levels through the focused expression of human goodwill; this is the lowest aspect of the second Ray of Love-Wisdom, implemented and strengthened by the second aspect of the first Ray of Will.

On the physical plane, the great scientific discovery, called colloquially the “splitting of the atom,” will be turned eventually to the production of those conditions which will enable mankind to follow the good, the beautiful and the true. This men will then be able to do, freed from the dread presence of purely materialistic thinking. This is no idle vision or vague dream. Many scientists today (and particularly those who love their fellowmen) are not only visioning the non-destructive aspect of atomic energy but are already engaged in harnessing – for the good of humanity – some of its products and its radioactive properties.

Curiously enough, it is the wise, controlled use of the results of this scientific adventure in connection with the atomic bomb which will eventually bring about a specific revelation of the nature of certain forces in relation to light; this event will transform world thinking and lead to a new type of transmutative process, as far as man is concerned.

It must not be inferred from the above that humanity, as a whole, will be taking the fifth initiation, for such is not the case. Many advanced souls (perhaps amounting to many thousands) may and will take this initiation, but the masses of men everywhere, constituting the sum total of the world disciple, will eventually take either the first or the second initiation. The effect however of hierarchical happenings, in conjunction with Shamballa, will lead finally to the great stimulation of the fifth Principle of manas, the intelligence principle in man. A revelation which is not perceived, which remains unrelated and unexpressed, is of no true service to mankind, except from a purely subjective standpoint; nevertheless, through the proposed stimulation, through the efforts of those who have taken or who will take the fifth initiation, and through the new direction of first ray energy from Shamballa, the mental plane will receive such an inflow of energy that the thinking principle, the reasoning factor within humanity, will reach new heights. Thus will the “light stream forth into the minds of men,” and the first stanza of the Invocation prove that it can and does receive an answer to its invocative appeal.

It would be good to let your spiritual imagination look forward into the future, and then vision – if you can – what is the true significance of the tremendous activity of the Hierarchy. One of the signs of the coming of this new light and energy inflow is a definitely curious one; it is to be found in the instability of the human mental mechanism and the human thinking processes at this time. This is due to their premature response to the new incoming potency. It is a mass reaction, and therefore the statistical returns are somewhat misleading. It is the unready who thus react, and this entails no possible reflection upon those thus distressed (and they are to be found today in all classes and nations). The Law of Rebirth will take care of this reaction, and in the next incarnation these same people will enter a physical body with a better equipment. In reality, it is this energy from Shamballa in its third and destructive aspect which is acting upon certain members of the human family and unfortunately evoking a ready response. I tell you this for your encouragement; destruction always evokes questioning in minds attuned to human welfare and in those thinkers who are apprehensive of the suffering to which their fellowmen are subjected.

One of the most difficult things for the average thinking man to understand and to interpret is the destructive processes of what he (for lack of a better name) calls “the will of God.” This is one of the results (and only one) of a purely materialistic civilization which has laid all its emphasis upon the form side of experience and thus regards physical well-being and physical comfort, plus material possessions, as the true goal of all human effort. It is upon this widespread attitude and reaction that the new incoming light will concentrate itself; as the light reveals reality, the world of phenomena and the world of spiritual values will enter into a better, directed relation.

From all the above, you will note that some of the effects upon humanity as a whole and the skeleton structure of the new and beautiful future will take place as a result of the new incoming first ray activity. No details can yet be given, but enough has been written down anent the basic, predisposing cause to enable you who read to ponder upon the possible effect, spiritually speaking. What is coming is a civilization of a different yet still material nature, but animated by a growing registration by the masses everywhere of an emerging spiritual objective which will transform all life and give new value and purpose to that which is material.

Next we must consider what will be the effect of this first ray energy upon the individual disciple as he prepares for and undergoes the fifth initiation, and keys himself up for the promised revelation, thus laying himself open to an entirely new inflow of force. This he must do consciously. It is conscious absorption of energy and its conscious assimilation, plus its conscious use which distinguishes the initiate from the rest of mankind; there are of course many degrees of this desired consciousness. What the initiate will receive as a result of first ray energy will be an inflow of the second aspect of this ray – a blazing forth of the light which will focus clearly for him, and in a flash of time, the significance of that which is slowly being revealed on Earth; he sees this vision in toto for the first time. At the fourth initiation, he responds to the third aspect of this ray, the aspect of destruction; this divested him of everything, and finally and eternally destroyed all that which held him in the three worlds of human endeavor. Thus was harmony produced through conflict, and the success of the individual initiate is the guarantee of the final success of the world disciple.

When it comes to a consideration of the effect of this ray at the time of the fifth initiation, you must bear in mind that the disciple has passed, in a previous incarnation, through the Initiation of Renunciation, and has established within himself a condition of complete harmony as a result of conflict – a conflict which has been raging for millennia of years and whose goal has ever been revelation. Just as a camera has to be correctly focused in order to register correctly that which is visioned, so this harmony, once finally achieved, can be regarded as a form of focused orientation. Throughout the many lives the disciple has lived, there have been many such moments, but they were brief and passing, serving only to stir the aspiration into activity. With the disciple of the fourth initiation, submitting himself to the fifth initiation, the orientation and the focus attained remains a permanent condition. This prefaces an entirely new cycle of spiritual experience – the experience of the higher evolution – leading to that great moment when the revelation of the seven Paths is accorded to him at the following or sixth Initiation of Decision.

Where the ordinary everyday man is concerned, the propelling aspiration (if I may use such an unusual phrase) is of a material nature and concerns his successful progress in the world of everyday physical plane life. It might be wise to consider ambition as the lower expression of aspiration; this ambition covers all the many phases of the Path of Evolution, from the ambition of the raw savage in primeval times to gain food and shelter for himself and family to the ambition of the modern businessman to reach the height of financial gain or power. Having achieved that goal, it frequently happens that, on the way to the higher octave of ambition (aspiration), there may come a cycle of lives where the ambition is directed to the creative arts. Next comes gradually the transmutation of all these ambitions into a steadily growing and consciously spiritual aspiration. The man treads then the Probationary Path and eventually the Path of Discipleship, and as his spiritual ambition grows and is paralleled by an equally steady growth in mental realization, he passes from initiation to initiation, until there comes the culminating fifth initiation.

All his past realizations – both his material and also his spiritual realization – have been renounced. He stands entirely free from every aspect of desire. The spiritual will has been substituted for desire. Then, reinforced by the inflow of the first ray Shamballic energy, and offering no obstructions or hindrances from within himself, as a personality, he is in a position to receive the stimulation which will enable him “to see that which is to be revealed and to accept revelation,” transmuting it into that definite realization which will enable him to live by means of its light. You have, therefore, certain words which are concerned with the method whereby the vision is accorded and revelation given:

Ambition, implemented by determination.
Aspiration, implemented by devotion or one-pointed attention.
Revelation, implemented by the will in its two lower aspects.
Realization, implemented by the will in its highest aspect.

That, briefly, is the evolutionary story of the “initiate in good standing” and it is basically the story of the will to self-betterment, the will to human service, goodwill, and finally, the will-to-good. You can see, therefore, how the great first aspect of divinity, through its three aspects, is the hidden, basic, motivating potency of life and of evolution, from the very dawn of the evolutionary cycle.

The initiate in good standing looks into the heart of things; he has forced his way to the very “Heart of the Sun” (using those words in a “planetary” and not in a “solar” sense) and – from that vantage point – he becomes aware of the “Central Spiritual Sun” and the Way of the Higher Evolution which leads inevitably to that assured center of the Most High. The three worlds of material living and the inner world of meaning which the soul has revealed to him are now left behind; he is suddenly confronted with the world of significances, with the true world of causes and of origination, and by the realm of the universal. He discovers that all he had thought anent the Law of Cause and Effect was so limited that – in the light of this Higher Evolution – it has practically become meaningless, except as the ABC whereby he can teach the children of men. He realizes, through the revelation accorded, more clearly than has hitherto been possible, the Purpose of the planetary Logos. From the time of the third initiation, this purpose has been gradually revealing itself; he sees it expressing itself through Sanat Kumara, Who is the Personality expression of the planetary Logos. During the coming interval and cycle of preparation for the sixth initiation, that purpose will burst upon him in blazing and synthetic glory.

The way to the Central Spiritual Sun is therefore revealed to him, and he knows that he faces a period of intense preparation (not training, as that word is usually understood) for a length of time determined by world need, the nature of his service and certain undefinable ray conditions.

He has to fulfil the magnetic condition which will enable him to form his own Ashram; he has to unfold a new phase of selective spiritual discrimination. The word discrimination is, however, misleading, because the form of it which he can now express carries no quality of rejection or of separation. It is a right knowledge and understanding of those karmically linked to him, a right use of an impelling attractive force which will, occultly speaking, attract the attention of those who should enter his Ashram, plus an esoteric process of blending himself and his Ashram into the full body of the Hierarchy. New Ashrams within the Hierarchy present much the same type of difficulty and problems as the entrance of a new disciple into an Ashram.

It might be said that that which holds the Hierarchy together, and that which produces a coherent Ashram, is the revelation, received in the light which that revelation produced and which leads to realization. Ashramic responsibility, constant service within the planetary Life and the subjection of Himself and of His Ashram to cyclic stimulation from Shamballa, plus certain mysterious processes which have naught to do with form or consciousness, but with the “sensitivity of the universe,” occupy the interim between the fifth and the sixth initiations.

————-

Initiation V – The Revelation

As we undertake the consideration of the next initiation, you will find that three factors will emerge in a new light in your consciousness. That they are factors related to past experiences, and yet which have reference to experiences which lie far ahead of you upon the Path, will also be inferred from what I say; these will not necessarily meet with your real understanding. These factors are:

The factor of Blindness, leading to revelation.
The factor of the Will, producing synthesis.
The factor of the Purpose, externalizing itself through the Plan.

These are all implicit in this new initiatory experience, but they should be approached by you with as much use of the intuition as you can employ; your effort will have to be that you endeavor to think as if you had taken the higher initiations. You have to bear in mind that each initiation enables the initiate to “see ahead” a little further, for revelation is always a constant factor in human experience. The whole of life is revelation; the evolutionary process is, in relation to consciousness, a process of leading the blind out of darkened areas of consciousness into greater light, and therefore into a vaster vision.

As you know, this particular initiation has been called the “Resurrection” by the Christian world, emphasizing that aspect in the experience of the initiate which leads to revelation; i.e., his “rising out of the ocean of matter into the clear light of day.” The thought of revelation can be seen also in the Christian teaching anent the “Ascension” – an initiation which has no factual existence and should not be called an initiation. You have, therefore, the following sequence, connected with the fourth and fifth initiations:

Renunciation, producing crucifixion and leading to
Ascension, or a complete “rising out of,” or “mounting higher,” leading to
Revelation, giving vision, the reward of the two above stages.

Christian theologians have made three distinct episodes out of these two initiations, but this has in no way mattered (as the initiate in the West soon learns); he now knows that the whole series of initiations, with their causes, their effects and their resultant intentions are only a sequence of processes, leading from the one to the other. A corresponding sequence can be seen in the unfoldment of the consciousness of the human being from infancy to full maturity; each unfoldment is part of a series of revelations, as his vision of life and his capacity to experience develops. This is true of all men from the most primitive to the advanced initiate, the difference consisting in that which each brings to the experience as the result of past effort, his point in consciousness and the quality of the vehicles through which that consciousness is developing. With the initiate-disciple this is also the case; he enters consciously into each experience; they are integral parts of his intention.

Having renounced the three worlds, and having returned – back from a contact of great importance and interest – to those three worlds and with all that is familiar in them, the initiate suddenly realizes that he has indeed been liberated, that he is indeed free, that he has been raised out of darkness and is now free in a new world of experiences. He knows that he has climbed to the mountain-top or has “ascended” to the buddhic plane, from which plane he must permanently work and not just occasionally, as has been the method hitherto.

He can work through a physical body (with its subtler sheaths) or not, as he sees fit. He realizes that he, as an individual, no longer needs a physical body or an astral consciousness, and that the mind is only a service instrument. The body in which he now functions is a body of light which has its own type of substance. The Master, however, can build a body through which He can approach His incoming disciples and those who have not taken the higher initiations; He will normally build this body in semblance of the human form, doing so instantaneously and by an act of the will, when required. The majority of the Masters who are definitely working with humanity either preserve the old body in which They took the fifth initiation or else They build the “mayavirupa” or body of maya, of physical substance. This body will appear in the original form in which They took initiation. This I personally did in reference to the first case; i.e., preserving the body in which I took initiation. This the Master K.H. did in creating a body which was made in the form in which He took the fifth initiation.

————

Excerpted from “The Rays and the Initiations – Part Two – Section Two – The Aspirant and the Major Initiations”.

By Alice Bailey and Djwhal Kuhl

ॐ, Dreams, Personal Development, Poetic Prose, Vis Viva - A Journey to Sirius

Vis Viva – Chapter #9 – Voices on the Wind

Eric says that after yesterday’s writing we should be a little more true to our predilection for dreaming and start to talk more of ephemera and the sort of things that differ from the day to day, well for most people. Just before I started writing I went outside to collect my thoughts out of the top left hand corner of my eye I saw a flash of cornflower blue and I allowed my eye to look up in the direction whence it came. My eyes followed the line up to the top of one of our yew trees as a large crow hopped onto the very crest of the tree. It waited there a while and then hopped back out of sight. Crows are couriers of power. This was a type of omen, because I was thinking about talking about dreaming and the silent acknowledgment of the crow agreed.

All today I have felt things jangling in a rather positive way in the web of life and my dreaming colour has come to me and into view a number of times, as it usually does when something relevant to me is going on. Tell this to someone in the church of reason and they may well reach for the diagnoses book. Such things though are a little beyond the scope of the normal human medical texts as yet.

The first time these types of phenomena begin to appear it can be both frightening and very easy to get obsessed by them. Now though I have had them for years and years; they no longer freak me out. The colour flashes are not physical plane colour flashes, in that if you were to take a picture with a conventional camera they would not be there. They appear in the perception as if you are seeing them with your eye; they are a flicker in the perceptual field that the brain recognises as seeing in the ocular sense. It clearly is not that though, it is something to do with the web of life, though, some form of oscillation. After monitoring this over a number of years I have found that the shade of colour often has information attached to it, some indication about what one should be doing.

Eric reminds me that we have as far as we can remember always had such things going on and that it was voices on the wind that we first really noticed. He is pretty sure that we have never ever spoken explicitly about this to anyone. These are perhaps the voices from Annwn, the other world of dreams, where everything is connected. They are of an ephemeral and floating kind, they hang haunting on the wind, just within and just beyond hearing. Like the colours one does not hear them with ears, one just hears them with consciousness. The power within registers the voices as a knowing the brain interprets as a hearing; different from insight, inner-sight and intuition, inner-tuition. The quality is very sound like in that it has tonal qualities and cadence, together with a sense of breathing to it. The feeling of breath is what brings the voices on to the wind and, in.

The world these days is a very noisy place and I don’t just mean all the mechanical noise that is around, the mobile phones and all that talking, talking, talking. Everywhere there appears to be a need for some background music sometimes tuned to Prozac station at the supermarket for all the desperate Stepford wives, other times to add some gaiety to the shop floor. That noise is in people’s heads. Go to any train station, fall silent and listen, listen to the incessant internal dialogue running round and around.

Eric says that one has to be quiet, very quiet to hear the voices in the wind and that it is very hard to do in the city. He reckons that if anyone really listens to the winds then they can turn off this internal dialogue and help learn how to listen with every fibre of being and this leads to a heightened state of awareness. Here, in that awareness, one can get a sense of the qualities and tones of the flow of the world, here then one can sense all the interconnectedness and that that tree and me are not that different. One can get a sense of the quantity of the universe and all its immensity, hear then one can get a sense of perspective. The silence beyond the clamour is where it is all at.

When I first heard those voices I thought they were nothing unusual, pretty ordinary and just took them as a day to day thing. Then I saw the film Betty Blue about a French woman who was a little crazy; “C’est seulement le vent, Betty”. After that I doubted whether it was such a good thing to hear these voices and tried to block them out. I found that singing helped a lot here. I lived in the city back then and it was on those late night walks back from the night bus stop when I used to hear them most. I used to get back from working in the club in the early hours of the morning. Even London is quiet then and the voices would come telling me about which plants were used for which ceremonies and that now that the hawthorn is blooming it is a good time for such and such. It was quite spooky, all alone, walking down those streets in North West London. After a while I relaxed about it, hadn’t one of my relatives been a gwrach? Perhaps then this was some lingering talent that I had inherited and I should not be afraid. Best not tell anybody though.

So the voices came and I listened to many, many winds; the soft gentle rustle as the yew trees play catch with the wind outside today, the haunting Aeolian scythe of wind in the telephone wires, the surf sparkled spray on an Atlantic day surging over the cliffs and the haunting melancholy of a late Spanish moor. The blotting paper wetness of mossy Welsh mist that creeps along a valley wearing a muffler and gloves and the timeless freezing fog of a Blumenthal forest, ancient and pregnant with snow.

Each wind has its own voice and mood. And those words they just kept coming, too. Sometimes it was a snippet of conversation from another land, or a pearl of wisdom. Sometimes it was a voice of trickery that scared me. I would catch a whiff of emotion too, borne on the wind, a tinge of fear here, a cloudburst or anger there. And my moods would match those of the wind, wild and windswept, stagnant and stifling. I learned to read the wind and its shift, both in me and not.

Eric says that the listening had paid dividends of a most peculiar nature. Now that I could listen people told me all sorts of things, things they never told anyone. He says that when people are truly deeply listened to it stirs something in them and acts like a magnet drawing out all those long held back words, it provides a wind to the sail of emotion and the timbre of their expression changes. Their stories come alive and vital. The silence acts as a void that draws and coaxes the first words out.

He reminds me how many times I have listened and for how long I have sat there and waited. He says that true listening is something that the world is bereft of these days. People do not take the time to make space and that what people are really afraid of is silence. He reckons a part of that is because it is for them the unknown and another part of it is that they know the seductiveness of silence and the power it has to make them lose their control. The precious doesn’t like this.

He says that listening can be very healing but reminds me that I have in the past carried that burden for many, many people and to my own detriment. He wonders if people remembered all the things they told me; they might be surprised at the level of disclosure. That is the good thing about introverts we joke; they keep it all in and safe. Yet it is all stored there.

So the voices and the colours are all phenomena experienced by the consciousness and are in some way related to things happening in the fabric of the web of life. The vis viva is animating it all and in heightened awareness the world we perceive can differ from the concrete day to day world which is shared as part of the common dream. These extra things are leaking through the concrete bastions the precious has set up and offer a hint at the other world journey. The other world is here too. It is not at another location, it is just that most of us don’t perceive it because the precious won’t let us.

The dream is fixed and until we wake up in the dream it is the only reality available to us. Yet that dream is Maya, it is Samsara and it is the folly of the precious that keeps it so.

When I stopped the world and saw that it was a dream, I knew I had begun to wake up to a separate reality that is every bit as real as the one that I thought I had been living in. To learn the ways of navigating this place pervaded by power is a work in progress, because that power is very, very real and it transcends the concrete reality of the world. It come before it and sets this dense physical plane in motion. It is the vis viva, that animates the power within and it is the power within that has chosen to experience the challenges of physical plane existence. After physical plane death the power within continues, it is no longer the power within per se; it has re-merged with the power without until such time as it has the next urge to incarnate.

The first step to waking up in the dream is to first of acknowledge that one possible hypothesis is that there is more to life than the “concrete” world, that perhaps that there are other realities and then to start building intent towards waking up in the dream. This is a neat trick because it placates the precious, miss-directs it, after all the precious is still in control because it is testing a hypothesis isn’t it?

What it doesn’t realise is that intent is way beyond the capacity of the precious to understand and because intent is related to true mind and not rationing rational mind; the precious likes the separative-ness of testing a hypothesis with perhaps a yes or no answer because there is an element of separating polarities at the level of true mind too and so it seems somehow familiar.

The next step is to build this intent by doing dreaming practice. Dreaming is best done, at least initially, in quiet with subdued lighting and no noise. The problem is that unless we have trained our bodies to relax properly and function well, the physical form is a source of noise. It doesn’t really matter how one gets one’s body under control, muscle relaxation techniques, martial arts and breathing all work. Then, the internal dialogue must be silenced. This can be done by focusing on a mantram, or visualising a yellow rose for example.

The noise of the precious needs stilled. The use of mantras has inherent in it a trap, the mantra becomes all. It is just a technique and nothing more than that. Working with the sound of Aum can help; it must not become all though, otherwise one cannot go further. When true calm comes the object of visualisation fades and then there is only blackness and silence. It is pretty hard to achieve and “noise” keeps breaking through. This is normal.

After some time practising; the darkness and quiet can be maintained for quite a while. Then one day specks of colour begin to pierce the darkness. Soon the “visual” field in inner space gets blotchy and expands into a rough edged ink blot; eventually the whole of the inner space can be filled with colour. This colour can and will change with time, it will settle down though. This then is how one gets into resonance with the power within and how one learns what part of the spectrum of the vis viva has incarnated. By staying in the colour things come, they are the guidance of your power within. You have learned to actively dream and sooner or later you will have the waking consciousness that the world of the precious is, but a dream. And that dream has inherent in it all the madness of human folly, the Maya and Samsara that cloaks the purpose of the power within and hence your true self. This is the initial act of waking up in the dream.

In parallel to active dreaming there is night time or passive dreaming. Everyone dreams and all one has to do is to remember the dream. This is a direct corollary for waking up in the dream, that is remembering the purpose of the power within and living true to the fate that one has set up for one self, in a sense manifesting the dream of the power within upon the physical plain. To do passive dreaming all one does is set one’s intent on remembering dreams. Sooner or later these can be remembered and written down; it is good to keep a notebook for these. These are the guidance of the power within that point at the next steps in unfolding fate. In time you will be fully conscious in the night time dreams, aware that you are dreaming.

As it is at night so it is in the day.

In time shifting into the dreaming colour can be done in the middle of Shinjuku station at rush hour. Eric says that it might be worth pointing out that when one is fully conscious whilst night dreaming, one can hear things going on in the physical world, be fully conscious of them and still be dreaming. He says that when fully operational in dreaming that consciousness can expand out over very large areas. He says that by listening to the wind and developing sensitivity to all sorts of things what in effect we are doing is training that sense of heightened awareness that the precious likes to keep quiet about. Deep down, you see, the precious knows that humans are capable of a lot more than they are ready to admit to and the precious is a jealous God, who needs constant worship.

The wind is calling now and whispering in my ear; time to finish for today and start again tomorrow.

Eric Rhosynglas

ॐ, Esoteric, Esoteric Psychology, Musings, New Age, Quotations

As Mad as a Sack of Ferrets or a Box of Frogs?

If you do a Google search on Ascended Masters, you will come across various articles and pictures of unknown provenance together with romantic colourful sketches of ideal and usually attractive faces. There are no ugly buggers. {Why not?} These images are nearly always stuck in a time warp and none of them are wearing jeans and a t-shirt or a baseball cap. They are not dressed in business suits or modern day ecclesiastical robes of whatever denomination.

It stands to reason that any image can only be of the apparent physical form or mayavi-rupa body {māyāvi-rūpa}. If you are obsessed by what someone’s meat looks like, then you are in effect missing the point. Yet people like icons, statues and the like. They like pictures of meat. There are terabytes of pictures of meat on the internet, some even have clothes on.

I will speculate that were these initiates to take on a form today, it would not be so old-fashioned as to belong in a museum. They would probably do their best not to stand out like a sore thumb or an idealised halo-wearing dude.

It’s astounding
Time is fleeting
Madness takes its toll

But listen closely
Not for very much longer
I’ve got to keep control

There have been claims by people “channelling” these masters. I have no idea what that entails.

I will speculate that any master would be entirely coherent, often terse and would rarely waffle in an overly flowery manner. They probably would not repeat themselves over and over.

This kind of organised intellect ought to be present in their thoughts and words, perhaps as the hallmark.

In the blue books opus and following on from the foundation of the Theosophical society, there is the notion of an ongoing and continued externalisation of the, for want of a better word, hierarchy. In this an increasing number of “evolved” or “trained” beings are entering humanity in a semi coincident manner. The discursive thrust is that these are to start to usher in a New Age. The emphasis is very deliberate.

The idea is that this process is currently early doors.

What kind of forms would these pioneers take on? One could speculate that education would be one arena, as would some kind of politics and agents for change. Some might be charismatic, others not, more behind the scenes in their approach.

I doubt very much they would be all shiny and glow radiantly.

The Mahatma letters suggest that over a century ago they were moving about in Tibet / Bhutan. They were trying to get through to the very arrogant and “we know best” English. Back then Britain was “top dog”.

Archaic language can also be stuck in a time warp and in need of modernisation. My own cultural references as a 58 year old already will/do not speak to young adults. People who cannot imagine TV screens taking time to warm up and telephones as big as shoe boxes are on a different wavelength.

In my view that externalisation and its rhetoric needs to be updated and sadly perhaps simplified for modern audiences. Attention spans may not be as long and as deep as perhaps they once were.

The way for magic and superpowers has already been cleared. Hogwarts for ever!

Perhaps an entirely new verbalisation is due.

I will speculate that were I to say to some of my former colleagues, irrespective of any quantum optics patents, that I have had “telepathic” contact with an “ascended master”, they would deem me mad as a box of frogs or as wildly-crazy as a sack of ferrets. I would be deemed bat-shit crazy, a whacko and a nut-job.

It takes all sorts…

Prejudice can come in many forms…

ॐ, Quotations

The Erice Statement {Sicily}

ॐ, Esoteric, Esoteric Psychology, Quotations

Where Does Your Frame of Reference End?

I quote below from “The Rays and Initiations”.

I will speculate that this tract of text cannot be understood from the socio-political construct frame of reference in which hedonistic materialistic acquisition is the driving motive. Thereby it lies outside of the frame of reference of humanity. There is no personal experience which is a suitable precedent to aid in its comprehension.

———————————

Rule X

The rules for work within the veils of maya are known and have been used. Let the group widen all the rents within those veils and thus let in the light. Let the Army of the Voice be no more heard and let the brothers onward move within the Sound. Then let them know the meaning of the OM and let them hear that OM as it is sounded forth by Him Who stands and waits at the very center of the Council Chamber of the Lord.

I would here remind you that we are considering work that the initiate must accomplish, and are not considering the usual effort of struggling aspirants to deal with and handle those forces which have worked through into physical expression. These, from the levels of the forty-eight subplanes are waiting to precipitate themselves into the dense physical manifested world. The aspirant must ever work from the outside to the within and must endeavor to direct his life from above downwards, if these forces are to be dominated by him and are not to control him. The initiate, however, works “from within the circle,” that is the circle or field of maya. His activity must therefore be carried forward from the very heart of the mystery of these forces; this he can do because he is in a position to know the type of energy with which he has to contend, to understand the nature of the forces with which he can and must manipulate the “mayavic energies,” and thus to dominate the etheric plane; he is also aware where one veil ends and another begins, and from what level he can successfully bring the swirling and living energies into conformity with the divine pattern.

It should also be noted here that the energies projected by the initiate into the world of maya are directed by him from the various centers in his own body and from the central point of energy in each particular center employed. It is the central “jewel in the lotus” from which the initiate works, and these seven central focal points, these seven jewels, so-called, are the correspondence of the jewel in the egoic lotus. This means, therefore, that successful work “within the veils of maya” involves ever the use of the will aspect and the conscious employment of that quota of the Shamballa force which the initiate is able to appropriate and to use because he has begun to work as a focusing agent of the Spiritual Triad and is no longer working as a soul or as a personality under soul control. This is an important point to remember.

——–

Students must remember that the four veils upon the etheric plane are only the lower symbolic correspondences to certain great areas of divine expression, and that ever the glory must be approached through the darkness. Such is the Law. These higher veiling factors can be mentioned and enumerated, but more information concerning these mysteries, this separating darkness encountered by the initiate may not be given:

Veil I. That which faces the disciple as he wrestles with the Dweller on the Threshold and becomes conscious of the Angel of the Presence, though as yet he sees Him not.
Veil II. That which the initiate encounters at the fourth initiation and which forces him to cry out in his blindness: “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me.” The words uttered by the Christ at that time, and as the Participator, have been forgotten by the orthodox, though preserved by the esotericist. To them H.P.B. refers in The Secret Doctrine.
Veil III. That mysterious blindness which overwhelms the initiate when – as the Embodiment of all the forces of the Spiritual Triad – He faces the Monad and is impelled forward by the “devastating Will” of the first aspect. Of this I may not write. It concerns the sixth and seventh initiations.
Veil IV. That “unknown impenetrable Void, the utter darkness of negation” which Those Who are in the Council Chamber of the Lord of the World and Who are focused in Shamballa face when the time comes for Them to “negate” our planetary life-expression and experience altogether. They must then leave behind all the seven planes of spiritual and human experience and pass onward and out into phases of Life and Being for which we have no words, and of which we have no conception. They leave through the fourth veil on the cosmic physical etheric levels (on the highest plane of our seven planes) and pass on to the cosmic astral plane. There They negate its existence as They have earlier negated the existence of the astral plane, so familiar an illusion to all of us. The initiate passes on to the cosmic astral plane and finds – What? Who knows? I do not.

Thus the veils serve their purpose; blindness nurtures and protects, provided it is innate and natural, soul-imposed or spiritually engendered. If it is willfully self-induced, if it provides an alibi for grasped knowledge, if it is assumed in order to avoid responsibility, then sin enters in and difficulty ensues. From this may all of you be protected.

Step by step, the Brothers of the Light and others who tread consciously the Lighted Way have removed Themselves from the lure of form; the Army of the Voice no longer can succeed in deflecting Their footsteps and the veils of illusion no longer block Their vision and Their moving forward. A relative freedom has been gained and the initiate stands free from much that has hitherto hindered his progress; the world of form, of glamor and of seduction has for him no further appeal.

He comprehends the significance of the injunction which is embodied in the third phrase of this tenth rule:

Let the Army of the Voice be no more heard, and let the brothers onward move within the Sound.

Putting the idea into esoteric terms, the above sentence could be paraphrased as follows: The voices and the Voice fade out. The AUM is replaced by the OM and at the center of that OM the brother stands.

The many voices of the world, the flesh and the devil are no longer distinguished; there is nothing within the consciousness of the initiate which can respond to them. The Voice of the Silence dies out also and the Word itself cannot be heard. Only the Sound remains. This is the Sound which reverberates in the formless worlds; it is the Sound to which the Spiritual Triad responds and of which the initiate is a part, because the Sound which he makes as he proceeds upon his creative way is a part of the universal Sound. It should be pointed out that He Who stands at the very center of the Council Chamber of Shamballa sounds forth all words, the Word, and He also utters the Sound. This is apt to be forgotten. He it is Who intones the AUM and all things come to be; He it is Who voices the Word, the OM, and God incarnate in humanity appears on earth; He it is Who utters the Sound, and upon that outgoing Breath holds all things in life; and – in the rise and fall of its cadences – there is found the cyclic rhythm of the creative process. He it will be Who will withdraw the Sound and centering the vibration within Himself, will some day bring to a close this periodic manifestation and carry the Sound to other localities in space, holding it in quiescence on the withdrawn breath until a later cycle of expression dawns. Then it will again be exhaled and sent forth to provide a new field of experience for the Lives which, in cyclic rhythm, again seek to manifest. The entire story of incarnation is hidden in the understanding of the Sound and its differentiation into the OM and the AUM.

When we can identify the Sound and are no longer “moved” by the OM, then the initiate becomes a Christ in expression and makes His appearance, either in physical form or upon the planes of what to us might be called the “areas of non-appearance.” He can then contain and utilize the energies of which the Spiritual Triad is the custodian and which are the expression of the will and purpose of God. Though the initiate may not be a part of the planetary government, and though he may not be a member of the Council at Shamballa (for only a limited number of initiates are so placed), he nevertheless has the right to move on identical levels and to prepare himself for those higher evolutionary processes which will give him entrance to the cosmic astral plane. This will enable him to “see through” and to recognize “cosmic glamor,” and will give him the hidden key to the world of feeling and of sentiency, of which our feeling-response and our emotional and intuitional sensitivity are but the dim and distorted reflections. This is a factor of some importance to have in mind if a right sense of proportion is to be developed. The initiate has learnt on earth that the astral plane is in fact non-existent – at last for those of the higher degrees of initiation. This knowledge constitutes the first step towards the comprehension of the secret of negation, towards a true understanding of the basis of the ever-existent pairs of opposites, and towards the knowledge which lies behind the significance of negation. The above sentence is in all probability of little meaning to you, but it nevertheless contains a truth for which the trials, experiences and initiations of planetary existence prepare the initiate. They endow him with those qualities which will enable him to contact cosmic evil and yet remain untouched, eventually to play his part in bringing the Black Lodge and its Brotherhood to an unholy finish. The roots of the Black Lodge are on the cosmic astral plane, as the roots of the White Lodge and its Brotherhood are on the cosmic mental plane; this is, in reality, only for the time being and in order to see certain organized activities upon the star Sirius perfected and carried to a consummation. This has oft been hinted in my writings.

“The Way of the Higher Evolution” leads to the cosmic astral plane, and the goal which carries a man there is the transcendent vision accorded at some of the higher initiations; the quality which enables him to work as a creative factor in the great White Lodge is the developed buddhic faculty. It is upon the “wings of Sound” that he travels, to use a well-known though little understood metaphor.

This can only be when he can.

Hear the OM as it is sounded forth by Him Who stands and waits at the very center of the Council Chamber of the Lord.

These are grave and solemn thoughts, and of small use to the average reader. It is essential, however, that he avoid the concept that the attainment of the highest initiation upon this planet marks the end or the consummation of a great and final stage. It only marks the beginning of significance. This is a statement of esoteric value. Just as the attainment of physical control sets the neophyte free for the learning of higher lessons in preparation for the major initiations, so the surmounting of the conditions presented by the seven planes of our planetary life sets the initiate (such as the Buddha or the Christ) free for still higher and more important conditioning circumstances. Their real work as Members of the White Brotherhood is on the point of beginning, and the true purpose of the existence of the Great White Lodge begins faintly to dawn upon Their entranced and amazed understanding. It is of real value to us, therefore, to endeavor to grasp the continuity of revelation and the vast future or vista of unfolding wonder which, stage by stage, grade by grade and plane by plane, unfolds before the initiate-consciousness.

We enter here into a consideration of realms of advancement of which even advanced humanity has no faintest idea; we are touching upon goals and objectives which confront the advanced Members of the Hierarchy; we are dealing with ideas and concepts for which we have no adequate terminology and which are of such a nature that the human mechanism of thought proves incapable of registering them. What, for instance, do the words or phrases, “Divine purpose, Shamballa, the Lord of the World, states of registration or awareness which have no relation to sentiency as it expresses itself through consciousness, the Lodge on Sirius” and similar concepts convey to you? I would venture to suggest that in reality, they represent nothing, and this because the goal of all who read these words is contact with the soul, recognition of and by the Hierarchy, and initiation. If I say to you that the words “the OM, as it is sounded forth by Him Who stands within the confines of Shamballa” signify that the one Sound, rounded and full, of O is sounded forth, but that the concluding sound of the M is omitted, does that convey ought to your intelligence? Again I venture to say that it does not. It is therefore of small importance for me to enlarge upon this phase of the Rules. I would be more profitably employed if I elucidated somewhat the meaning of the words “the Council Chamber of the Lord.” Three concepts have perchance taken shape in your minds in connection with Shamballa, if you have sought the true esoteric attitude:

– That Humanity exists as a great center of intelligent energy in the substance of the planetary Life.

– That the spiritual center, where attractive, coherent, magnetic energy is focused and from whence it flows in two directions

Towards the three worlds and the four kingdoms of nature,

Towards Shamballa and the two higher kingdoms in manifestation is what we usually call the Hierarchy, the Kingdom of God, the center of love and of mediating understanding (note these last two words).

– That there is another center which is neither spiritual nor human but which is characterized by divinity. Divinity is the expression of the will or purpose of the One in Whom we live and move and have our being. That center where the will of God is focused and dynamically sent forth to carry out the purpose is Shamballa.

The time has now come when a distinction must be made by esotericists between the words “spiritual” and “divine.” They are not the same, nor do they have the same significance. The quality of spirituality is Love. The quality of divinity is Will. There is a definite distinction between the two and the mediating principle (or that which relates or unites the two qualities) is Wisdom. Of that Wisdom the Buddha was the expression in time and space; that means that there was only a relative and limited manifestation of that fusing linking principle. His great achievement, unrealized by Him, was an innate and (at that time, not now) unconscious recognition of the distinction between love and will, and an ability to express in Himself a fusing, blending energy which could and did bring together love and will, soul and Monad. At the same time (and later in full expression in Palestine) the Christ demonstrated – for the teaching of humanity – the at-one-ment of love and intelligence, of soul and personality. These are points of real importance to have in mind.

Embodying, therefore, divinity in a sense and form incomprehensible to disciples, and which constitutes the goal of such advanced individuals as the Christ, are a group of Lives or focused integrated Beings Who stand around Sanat Kumara, the Lord of the World.

As I have earlier said, Sanat Kumara is to the Planetary Logos what the personality, plus soul, is to the disciple. He is also the coherent force within the planet, holding, through His radiatory influence, all forms and all substances in the planetary form so that they constitute one coherent, energized and functioning whole. A parallel to this, though on a much smaller scale, can be seen in the radiatory influence of the Christ as it permeates, energizes and holds in coherent expression the Christian Church in all its many aspects in the world; a still smaller analogy can be seen in the influence wielded by a disciple who stands at the center of a group and holds it also in coherent and useful manifestation. Intermediate between these two symbols of will and love, united in manifestation (the Christ and a disciple), is the work of a world disciple, for the influence is wider and more far-reaching than that of a disciple, yet not as potent or comprehensive as that of the Christ.

Coherency, affecting lives, forms and substances, is an expression of will and purpose, motivated by love and implemented intelligently in carrying forward the plans through which the Purpose seeks expression. When, however, you arrive at the potency of such a Being as Sanat Kumara, you find His individual potency enhanced and amplified by the fused ability of a group of Lives Who – though not as far advanced as He is upon the Path of Evolution which stretches before the Planetary Logoi – are yet greatly in advance of the most developed members of the spiritual Hierarchy. It is these Lives Who constitute the innermost circle of the Council Chamber of the Lord of the World. Their normal contacts are extra-planetary and are very seldom of a planetary nature. They are in direct rapport with the Planetary Logos upon His own high plane, the cosmic mental plane; this great and Unknown Being uses Sanat Kumara as the soul uses a temporary personality when that personality is at an advanced stage of initiate consciousness. This is only a parallel and an analogy, and must not be unduly elaborated in the detail of relationship.

The major characteristic of these Lives is Will or Purpose. They embody and consciously know and intelligently appreciate what is the motivating idea which the Planetary Logos – working consciously on His own high level – seeks to work out and achieve in His planned incarnation through a planet. He functions when in incarnation on the cosmic physical plane, and embodies the seven principles of which we know, and all is focused in and through the Individuality of Sanat Kumara, implemented and energized through the seven planetary centers. The three Buddhas of Activity (Who are also Members of the Great Council) are expressions of the counterparts on cosmic levels of the energies latent in the three permanent atoms in the three worlds of human endeavor. This is again a dangerous parallel to propose for – as a symbol – it lacks any true analogy.

The Seven Spirits before the Throne of God are also Members of the Council, and each of Them is in close rapport and contact with one or other of the seven sacred planets in our solar system, and can thus draw upon the energies which they embody.

It will therefore be apparent to you inferentially, how comparatively few of the Members of our Hierarchy have yet been able to reach the state or condition of development which would warrant Their forming a part of the great Council, or which would enable them to respond to the O, sounded out at intervals of one hundred years by Sanat Kumara. It is this sound which gathers together the responsive Units into the Council. This Council is held at one hundred year intervals, and as far as our modern humanity is concerned, these Councils have been held – under our arbitrary dates – in 1725, 1825, 1925.

{2025 council is due soon!}

At these Councils, Those Who are responsible for the planetary development, along certain predetermined lines, make Their reports; decision is made as to new unfoldment; certain types of energy, cosmic and solar, are made available for the carrying forward of the Plans which implement the Purpose; the evolution of consciousness in the three worlds receives, necessarily, major attention.

I would have you remember that this refers not Only to the human kingdom and its unfoldment, but to the three subhuman kingdoms also which are – from many points of view – of equal importance to the human. This is a hard saying for humanity to accept.

It is these great goals which slowly dawn on the consciousness of the initiate as he advances step by step along the Path of Initiation. They must perforce be noted here, even if dealing with matters incomprehensible to the reader; initiation otherwise would be apt to be regarded as the attainment of a relatively static condition and would land the initiate in an eternal impasse or impassable cul-de-sac. Initiation is in fact the recognition of the goals which are implemented from Shamballa. It is not a process whereby a man becomes solely a Member of the Spiritual Hierarchy. Initiation (as the candidate understands it) is in reality only incidental and preparatory to the Path of the Higher Evolution.

There is little more that I can tell you anent this Rule. The subject is, as you can see, too advanced even for the initiate who, in a few decades, will read and study these instructions. That your vision may expand, and your power to think and reflect abstractly may grow, is my hope and wish for you.

—————–

By Alice Bailey and Djwhal Kuhl

ॐ, Esoteric, Esoteric Psychology

“The Mahatma Letters” : First Letter of K. H. to A. O. Hume

The original of this letter is not extant, although the major portion of it did appear in The Occult World. Why it was omitted in The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett is not known. We can only suppose that the copy that Patience Sinnett had made of it was not to hand when Trevor Barker was transcribing the Mahatma letters, otherwise he undoubtedly would have included it in his published volume. It follows K. H.’s letter of October 29, 1880, to Mr. Sinnett (Letter 4).

We reproduce the letter in its entirety, checked against Mrs. Sinnett’s handwritten copy in the British Museum (Mahatma Papers, Vol. VII, Additional MS. 45289 B). The copy is liberally blue pencilled, indicating A.P.S.’s editing prior to publication, and in three places several sentences deleted — appropriately so at the time. As stated, the text used here is verbatim with Patience Sinnett’s copy.

It is of note that despite later difficulties which ended in the final breach between Mr. Hume and the Brothers, his “first letter was so sincere, its spirit so promising, the possibilities it opened for doing general good seemed so great, that . . . I carried it to our venerable Chief” (K.H. to A.O.H., Letter 28). — Grace F. Knoche.

Amritsur Nov. 1st {1880}

Dear Sir,

Availing of the first moments of leisure to formally answer your letter of the 17th ultimo, I will now report the result of my conference with our chiefs upon the proposition therein contained; trying at the same time to answer all your questions.

I am first to thank you on behalf of the whole section of our fraternity that is especially interested in the welfare of India for an offer of help whose importance and sincerity no one can doubt. Tracing our lineage through the vicissitudes of Indian civilization to a remote past, we have a love for our motherland so deep and passionate, that it has survived even the broadening and cosmopolitanizing (pardon me if this is not an English word) effect of our studies in the hidden laws of nature. And so I and every other Indian patriot feel the strongest gratitude for every kind word or deed that is given in her behalf.

Imagine then, that since we are convinced that the degradation of India is largely due to the suffocation of her ancient spirituality; and that, whatever helps restore that higher standard of thought and morals must be a regenerating national force; every one of us would naturally and without urging be disposed to push forward a Society whose proposed formation is under debate; especially if it really is meant to become a society untainted by selfish motive, and whose object is the revival of ancient science and tendency to rehabilitate our country in the world’s estimation. Take this for granted, without further asseverations. But you know, as any man who has read history, that patriots may burst their hearts in vain if circumstances are against them. Sometimes, it has happened that no human power, not even the fury and force of the loftiest patriotism, has been able to bend an iron destiny aside from its fixed course, and nations have gone out like torches dropped into water in the engulfing blackness of ruin. Thus, we who have the sense of our country’s fall though not the power to lift her up at once, can not do as we would either as to general affairs or this particular one. And with the readiness but not the right to meet your advances more than half way we are forced to say that the idea entertained by Mr. Sinnett and yourself is impracticable in part. It is in a word impossible for myself or any Brother or even an advanced neophyte, to be specially assigned and set apart as the guiding Spirit or Chief of the Anglo-Indian Branch. We know it would be a good thing to have you and a few of your selected colleagues regularly instructed and shown the phenomena and their rationale. For though none but you few would be convinced, still it would be a decided gain to have even a few Englishmen of first-class ability enlisted as students of Asiatic Psychology. We are aware of all this and much more; hence we do not refuse to correspond with and otherwise help you in various ways. But what we do refuse is to take any other responsibility upon ourselves than this periodical correspondence and assistance with our advice; and, as occasion favours, such tangible, possibly visible proofs as would satisfy you of our presence and interest. To “guide” you we will not consent. However much we may be able to do, yet we can promise only to give you the full measure of your deserts. Deserve much and we will prove honest debtors; little and you need only expect a compensating return. This is not a mere text taken from a school boy’s copybook, though it sounds so, but only the clumsy statement of the law of our order; and we can not transcend it. Utterly unacquainted with Western, especially English modes of thought and action, were we to meddle in an organization of such a kind you would find all your fixed habits and traditions incessantly clashing, if not with the new aspirations themselves, at least with their modes of realisation as suggested by us. You could not get unanimous consent to go even the length you might yourself. I have asked Mr. Sinnett to draft a plan embodying your joint ideas for submission to our chiefs, this seeming the shortest way to a mutual agreement. Under our “guidance” your Branch could not live, you not being men to be guided at all in that sense. Hence the Society would be a premature birth and a failure, looking as incongruous as a Paris Daumont drawn by a team of Indian yaks or camels. You ask us to teach you true Science, the occult aspect of the known side of nature: and this you think can be as easily done as asked. You do not seem to realize the tremendous difficulties in the way of imparting even the rudiments of our Science to those who have been trained in the familiar methods of yours. You do not see that the more you have of the one the less capable you are of intuitively comprehending the other, for a man can only think in his worn grooves, and unless he has the courage to fill up these and make new ones for himself he must perforce travel on the old lines. Allow me a few instances.

In conformity with exact modern Science you would define but one cosmic energy, and see no difference between the energy expended by the traveller who pushes aside the bush that obstructs his path, and the scientific experimenter who expends an equal amount of energy in setting a pendulum in motion! We do. For we know there is a world of difference between the two. The one uselessly dissipates or scatters force, the other concentrates and stores it. And here please understand that I do not refer to the relative utility of the two as one might imagine; but only to the fact, that in the one case, there is but brute force flung out without any transmutation of that brute energy into the higher potential form of spiritual dynamics, and, in the other there is just that. Please do not consider me vaguely metaphysical. The idea I wish to convey is, that the result of the highest intellection in the scientifically occupied brain is the evolution of a sublimated form of spiritual energy, which, in the cosmic action, is productive of illimitable results, while the automatically acting brain holds or stores up in itself only a certain quantum of brute force that is unfruitful of benefit for the individual or humanity. The human brain is an exhaustless generator of the most refined quality of cosmic force, out of the low, brute energy of nature; and the complete adept has made himself a centre from which irradiate potentialities that beget correlations upon correlations through Aeons to come. This is the key to the mystery of his being able to project into and materialise in the visible world the forms that his imagination has constructed out of inert cosmic matter in the invisible world. The adept does not create anything new, but only utilises and manipulates materials which nature has in store around him; a material which throughout eternities has passed through all the forms; he has but to choose the one he wants and recall it into objective existence. Would not this sound to one of your “learned” biologists like a madman’s dream?

You say there are few branches of science with which you do not possess more or less acquaintance, and that you believe you are doing a certain amount of good, having acquired the position to do this by long years of study. Doubtless you do. But will you permit me to sketch for you still more clearly the difference between the modes of — physical called exact — often out of mere politeness — and metaphysical sciences? The latter, as you know, being incapable of verification before mixed audiences, is classed by Mr. Tyndall with the fictions of poetry. The realistic science of fact, on the other hand, is utterly prosaic.

Dated circa 1840…

——

Now for us poor and unknown philanthropists, no fact of either of these sciences is interesting except in the degree of its potentiality of moral results, and in the ratio of its usefulness to mankind. And what, in its proud isolation, can be more utterly indifferent to every one and everything, or more bound to nothing, but the selfish requisites for its advancement than this materialistic and realistic science of fact? May I not ask then without being taxed with a vain “display of science” what have the laws of Faraday, Tyndall, or others to do with philanthropy in their abstract relations with humanity viewed as an integral whole? What care they for man as an isolated atom of this great and harmonious Whole, even though they may sometimes be of practical use to him? Cosmic energy is something eternal and incessant, matter is indestructible, and there stand the scientific facts. Doubt them and you are an ignoramus; deny them, a dangerous lunatic, a bigot; pretend to improve upon the theories — an impertinent charlatan. And yet even these scientific facts never suggested any proof to the world of experimenters, that nature consciously prefers that matter should be indestructible under organic rather than under inorganic forms; and that she works slowly but incessantly towards the realisation of this object — the evolution of conscious life out of inert material. Hence their ignorance about the scattering and concretion of cosmic energy in its metaphysical aspects; their division about Darwin’s theories; their uncertainty about the degree of conscious life in separate elements; and, as a necessity, the scornful rejection of every phenomenon outside their own stated conditions and the very idea of worlds of semi-intelligent if not intellectual forces at work in hidden corners of nature. To give you another practical illustration. We see a vast difference between the qualities of two equal amounts of energy expended by two men, of whom one, let us suppose, is on his way to his daily quiet work, and another on his way to denounce a fellow creature at the police station, while the men of science see none. And we — not they — see a specific difference between the energy in the motion of the wind and that of a revolving wheel. And why? Because every thought of man upon being evolved passes into the inner world and becomes an active entity by associating itself — coalescing, we might term it — with an elemental; that is to say with one of the semi-intelligent forces of the kingdoms. It survives as an active intelligence, a creature of the mind’s begetting, for a longer or shorter period proportionate with the original intensity of the cerebral action which generated it. Thus, a good thought is perpetuated as an active beneficent power; an evil one as a maleficent demon. And so man is continually peopling his current in space with a world of his own, crowded with the offsprings of his fancies, desires, impulses, and passions, a current which reacts upon any sensitive or and nervous organisation which comes in contact with it in proportion to its dynamic intensity. The Buddhist calls this his “Skandha,” the Hindu gives it the name of “Karma”; the Adept evolves these shapes consciously, other men throw them off unconsciously.

The adept to be successful and preserve his power must dwell in solitude and more or less within his own soul. Still less does exact science perceive that while the building ant, the busy bee, the nidifacient bird accumulate, each in their own humble way as much cosmic energy in its potential form as a Haydn, a Plato, or a ploughman turning his furrow, in theirs; the hunter who kills game for his pleasure or profit, or the positivist who applies his intellect to proving that + x + = -, are wasting and scattering energy no less than the tiger which springs upon its prey. They all rob nature instead of enriching her, and will all in the degree of their intelligence find themselves accountable.

Exact experimental Science has nothing to do with morality, virtue, philanthropy, therefore can make no claim upon our help, until it blends itself with the metaphysics. Being but a cold classification of facts outside man, and existing before and after him, her domain of usefulness ceases for us at the outer boundary of these facts; and whatever the inferences and results for humanity from the materials acquired by her methods, she little cares. Therefore as our sphere lies entirely outside hers — as far as the path of Uranus is outside the earth’s — we distinctly refuse to be broken on any wheel of her construction. Heat is but a mode of motion to her, and motion developes heat; but why the mechanical motion of the revolving wheel should be metaphysically of a higher value than the heat into which it is gradually transformed — she has yet to discover. The philosophical but transcendental (hence absurd?) notion of the mediaeval theosophists that the final progress of human labour aided by the incessant discoveries of man, must one day culminate in a process, which in imitation of the sun’s energy — in its capacity of a direct motor — shall result in the evolution of nutritious food out of inorganic matter — is unthinkable for men of science. Were the sun, the great nourishing father of our planetary System, to hatch granite chickens out of a boulder “under test conditions” tomorrow, they (the men of Science) would accept it as a scientific fact, without wasting a regret that the fowls were not alive so as to feed the hungry and the starving. But let a Shaberon cross the Himalayas in a time of famine, and multiply sacks of rice for the perishing multitudes — as he could — and your magistrates and collectors would probably lodge him in jail, to make him confess what granary he had robbed. This is exact science and your realistic world. And though as you say you are impressed by the vast extent of the world’s ignorance on every subject, which you pertinently designate as “a few palpable facts collected and roughly generalized and a technical jargon invented to hide man’s ignorance of all that lies behind these facts”; and though you speak of your faith in the infinite possibilities of nature — yet you are content to spend your life in a work which aids only that same exact science. You cause a waste of cosmic energy by tons, to accumulate hardly a few ounces in your volumes — to speak figuratively. And despite your intuitive perceptions of the boundless reaches of nature, you take up the position that unless a proficient in arcane knowledge will waste upon your embryonic Society an energy which without moving from his place he can usefully distribute among millions, you, with your great natural powers will refuse to give a helping hand to humanity by beginning the work single handed, and trusting to time and the great Law to reward your labour.

Of your several questions we will first discuss, if you please, the one relating to the presumed failure of the “Fraternity” to “leave any mark upon the history of the world.” They ought, you think, to have been able with their extraordinary advantages to have “gathered into their schools a considerable portion of the more enlightened minds of every race.” How do you know they have made no such mark? Are you acquainted with their efforts, successes, and failures? Have you any dock upon which to arraign them? How could your world collect proofs of the doings of men who have sedulously kept closed every possible door of approach by which the inquisitive could spy upon them. The prime condition of their success was, that they should never be supervised or obstructed. What they have done they know; all those outside their circle could perceive was results, the causes of which were masked from view. To account for these results, men have in different ages invented theories of the interposition of “Gods,” Special providences, fates, and the benign or hostile influences of the stars. There never was a time within or before the so-called historical period when our predecessors were not moulding events and “making history,” the facts of which were subsequently and invariably distorted by “historians” to suit contemporary prejudices. Are you quite sure that the visible heroic figures in the successive dramas were not often but their puppets? We never pretended to be able to draw nations in the mass to this or that crisis in spite of the general drift of the world’s cosmic relations. The cycles must run their rounds. Periods of mental and moral light and darkness succeed each other, as day does night. The major and minor yugas must be accomplished according to the established order of things. And we, borne along on the mighty tide, can only modify and direct some of its minor currents. If we had the powers of the imaginary Personal God, and the universal and immutable laws were but toys to play with, then indeed might we have created conditions that would have turned this earth into an Arcadia for lofty souls. But having to deal with an immutable Law, being ourselves its creatures, we have had to do what we could and rest thankful. There have been times when “a considerable portion of enlightened minds” were taught in our schools. Such times there were in India, Persia, Egypt, Greece and Rome. But, as I remarked in a letter to Mr. Sinnett, the adept is the efflorescence of his age, and comparatively few ever appear in a single century. Earth is the battle ground of moral no less than of physical forces; and the boisterousness of animal passions under the stimulus of the rude energies of the lower group of etheric agents, always tends to quench spirituality.

What else could one expect of men so nearly related to the lower kingdom from which they evolved? True also, our numbers are just now diminishing but this is because, as I have said, we are of the human race, subject to its cyclic impulse and powerless to turn that back upon itself. Can you turn the Gunga or the Brahmaputra, back to its sources; can you even dam it so that its piled up waters will not overflow the banks? No, but you may draw the stream partly into canals and utilize its hydraulic power for the good of mankind. So we, who can not stop the world from going in its destined direction, are yet able to divert some part of its energy into useful channels. Think of us as demi-gods and my explanation will not satisfy you; view us as simple men — perhaps a little wiser as the result of special study — and it ought to answer your objection.

“What good,” say you, “is to be attained for my fellows and myself (the two are inseparable) by these occult sciences?” When the natives see that an interest is taken by the English and even by some high officials in India in their ancestral science and philosophies, they will themselves take openly to their study. And when they come to realise that the old “divine” phenomena were not miracles, but scientific effects, superstition will abate. Thus the greatest evil that now oppresses and retards the revival of Indian civilisation will in time disappear. The present tendency of education is to make them materialistic and root out spirituality. With a proper understanding of what their ancestors meant by their writings and teachings, education would become a blessing whereas now it is often a curse. At present the non-educated as much as the learned natives regard the English as too prejudiced, because of their Christian religion and modern science, to care to understand them or their traditions. They mutually hate and mistrust each other. This changed attitude toward the older philosophy would influence the native Princes and wealthy men to endow normal schools for the education of pundits; and old MSS. hitherto buried out of the reach of the Europeans would again come to light, and with them the key to much of that which was hidden for ages from the popular understanding; for which your skeptical Sanscritists do not care, which your religious missionaries do not dare, to understand. Science would gain much — humanity every thing. Under the stimulus of the Anglo Indian Theosophical Society, we might in time see another golden age of Sanscrit literature. Such a movement would have the entire approbation of the Home Government as it would act as a preventive against discontent; and the sympathy of European Sanscritists who, in their divisions of opinion need the help of native pundits, now beyond their reach in the present state of mutual misunderstanding. They are even now bidding for such help. *At this moment two educated Hindus of Bombay are assisting Max Müller; and a young Pundit of Guzerat a Fellow of the T.S. is aiding Prof. Monier Williams at Oxford and living in his house. The first two are materialists and do harm; the latter single handed can do little, because the man whom he is serving is a prejudiced Christian.

If we look to Ceylon we shall see the most scholarly priests combining under the lead of the Theos. Society in a new exegesis of Buddhistic philosophy and — at Galle on the 15th of September, a secular Theosophical school for the teaching of Singhalese youth opened, with an attendance of over 300 scholars: an example about to be imitated at three other points in that island. If the T.S. “as at present constituted,” has indeed no “real vitality” and yet in its modest way has done so much of practical good, how much greater results might not be anticipated from a body organized upon the better plan you could suggest!

The same causes that are materialising the Hindu mind are equally affecting all Western thought. Education enthrones skepticism but imprisons spiritualism. You can do immense good by helping to give the Western nations a secure basis upon which to reconstruct their crumbling faith. What they need is the evidence that Asiatic psychology alone supplies. Give this and you will confer happiness of mind on thousands. The era of blind faith is gone; that of enquiry is here. Enquiry that only unmasks error, without discovering anything upon which the soul can build, will but make iconoclasts. Iconoclasm from its very destructiveness can give nothing, it can only raze. But man can not rest satisfied with bare negation. Agnosticism is but a temporary halt.

This is the moment to guide the recurrent impulse which must soon come, and which will push the age toward extreme atheism, or drag it back to extreme sacerdotalism, if it is not led to the primitive and soul-satisfying philosophy of the Aryans. He who observes what is going on today, on the one hand among the Catholics, who are breeding miracles as fast as the white ants do their young, on the other, among the free thinkers, who are converting by masses into agnostics — will see the drift of things. The age is revelling at a debauch of phenomena. The same marvels that the spiritualists quote in opposition to the dogmas of eternal perdition and atonement, the catholics swarm to witness as the strongest proof of their faith in miracles. The skeptics make game of both. All are blind and there is no one to lead them! You and your colleagues may help furnish the materials for a needed universal religious philosophy; one impregnable to scientific assault because itself the finality of absolute science; and, a religion, that is indeed worthy of the name, since it includes the relations of man physical to man psychical, and of the two to all that is above and below them. Is not this worth a slight sacrifice? And if after reflection you should decide to enter this new career, let it be known that your Society is no miracle-mongering or banqueting club, nor specially given to the study of phenomenalism. Its chief aim is to extirpate current superstitions and skepticism, and, from long sealed ancient fountains to draw the proof that man may shape his own future destiny, and know for a certainty that he can live hereafter, if he only wills; and that all “phenomena” are but manifestations of natural law, to try to comprehend which is the duty of every intelligent being. You have personally devoted many years to a labour benevolently conceived and conscientiously carried out. Give to your fellow creatures half the attention you have bestowed on your ‘little birds,” and you will round off a useful life with a grand and noble work.

Sincerely your friend

Koot’ Hoomi Lal Singh.

*Max Müller gave a series of lectures on Buddhism at The Royal Institution of Great Britain!!!

—–

Allan Octavian Hume, CB ICS (4 June 1829 – 31 July 1912) was a British political reformer, ornithologist, civil servant and botanist who worked in British India. He supported the idea of self-governance by Indians and founded the Indian National Congress. A notable ornithologist, Hume has been called “the Father of Indian Ornithology” and, by those who found him dogmatic, “the Pope of Indian Ornithology”.

As an administrator of Etawah, he saw the Indian Rebellion of 1857 as a result of misgovernance and made great efforts to improve the lives of the common people. The district of Etawah was among the first to be returned to normalcy and over the next few years Hume’s reforms led to the district being considered a model of development. Hume rose in the ranks of the Indian Civil Service but like his father Joseph Hume, a radical member of parliament, he was bold and outspoken in questioning British policies in India. He rose in 1871 to the position of secretary to the Department of Revenue, Agriculture, and Commerce under Lord Mayo. His criticism of Lord Lytton led to his removal from the Secretariat in 1879.

He founded the journal Stray Feathers in which he and his subscribers recorded notes on birds from across India. He built up a vast collection of bird specimens at his home in Shimla by making collection expeditions and obtaining specimens through his network of correspondents.

Following the loss of manuscripts that he had long been maintaining in the hope of producing a magnum opus on the birds of India, he abandoned ornithology and gifted his collection to the Natural History Museum in London, where it continues to be the single largest collection of Indian bird skins. He was briefly a follower of the theosophical movement founded by Madame Blavatsky. He left India in 1894 to live in London from where he continued to take an interest in the Indian National Congress. He also took an interest in botany and founded the South London Botanical Institute towards the end of his life.

ॐ, Esoteric, Esoteric Psychology, Quotations, Rāja yoga

The Effects of the Externalization

September 1949

In my previous instruction upon this theme I dealt with the various energies which would be brought into activity or utilized when the Masters emerged from the silence in which They have guarded Themselves for so many thousands of years. The point to be grasped is that the energies with which I dealt will be used in a new and more vital manner. These energies are ever present and ever active, but they swing into activity sequentially and under law and order, and some are more prominent at one time than others; they act vitally and energetically in the needed program which the plans of the Hierarchy may entail in any particular cycle.

These energies bring about what we idly call the “events” of the day; they condition our passing civilizations and are so much a part of the world in which we live and move and have our being that events, as expressions of directed energies, mean little to us, except in so far as they may affect adversely our personalities. They connote simply a way of life in any specific time. These energies were started on their activities in the very night of time; they established – each of them – their needed cyclic rhythm; they are responsible for the activity of substance on matter or of the action of the vital or etheric body upon matter; they are the lowest formulated expression of the creative Intelligence, embodying the principle of life or livingness because they essentially are life itself and life in action. Forget not that dense matter is not a principle; it is only that which is responsive to the creative principle.

When, however, the externalization of the Hierarchy begins to take place (and it will be spread over quite a long period of time), the impact of these substantial energies on matter will be radically altered because they will be – for the first time in history – directed from etheric levels, from the etheric body of the planet in the three worlds; hitherto, these energies have been directed from the buddhic plane which is the lowest of the cosmic etheric levels. Fundamentally, direction will still be from the buddhic plane, but the detailed and focused direction will be given from within the three worlds and upon the physical plane; this will be the task of the externalized Ashrams, organized to function openly.

It was the knowledge that this important development was imminent which made the Hierarchy in the last century widen the area or the scope of its teaching activity and thus bring to the consciousness of modern man the knowledge of what occultism essentially means. The keynotes upon which the occult philosophy is built are:

There is naught in manifestation except organized energy
Energy follows or conforms itself to thought
The occultist works in energy and with energies.

The thought of God brought the universe of energies into organized form upon the highest of the seven planes, or upon the first cosmic etheric level. These energies have for untold aeons been directed from the fourth or lowest of the cosmic etheric planes, the plane which we call the buddhic and regard as the first definitely spiritual plane, in our usually erroneous thought; this direction has been under impression from Shamballa, and the Masters have “manipulated these energies in conformity with the Plan, which is the blueprint of the Purpose.”

In the great Approach of the Hierarchy to humanity and its imminent appearance upon the physical plane, the center of direction will also necessarily approach still nearer, and – as a result of the future hierarchical manifestation – centers of energy direction will be found wherever the ashram of a Master is located in any part of the world. This is a statement of profound significance; it is an indication of hierarchical policy and a mode whereby modern science (working as it does with energies) can be brought into cooperative association and relation with an ashram upon the physical plane knowing it for what it is – an entirely new departure.

Earlier I stated that the physical plane areas or localities which constitute the present modern exits for energies, through which directed energies can pass to carry out the creative process, are five in number: New York, London, Geneva, Darjeeling and Tokyo. These five form a five-pointed star of interlocking energies, symbolic of the major divisions of our modern civilization. I would have you bear in mind that all that I am here giving you anent energy is in relation to the human kingdom and to nothing else; I am not relating these energies to the other kingdoms in nature; I am here concerned with physical plane utilization of energy through the power of directed thinking and on behalf of the evolution and well-being of mankind. At each one of these five centers one of the Masters will be found present, with His ashram, and a vortex of spiritual forces will there be organized to hasten and materialize the plans of the Christ for the new and coming world cycle.

The organizing of these five centers will be done slowly and gradually. A senior disciple will appear and will work quietly at the foundation work, gathering around him the needed agents, aspirants and assistants. All these workers at any particular center will be trained to think, and the effort now present in the educational and social world to force men to think for themselves is a general part of this training process. Until a man can do his own thinking and deciding, he cannot be an intelligent, willing and understanding cooperator, working with an ashram and controlling and directing the creative process. If the new heavens and the new earth are to be a fact in manifestation and in reality, it means a great recreating process must get under way, and this is the concept lying behind the teaching anent the five centers on Earth and the part which they will play in rebuilding and reorganizing the world.

As the next few years bring into focus the hierarchical intention, disciples and aspirants must look for those men and those few women who will be working as a group along spiritual lines in or near one or other of these five localities.

Initial opposition to the founding of these centers of clear thinking men and women, working freely and understandingly with one of the Masters or senior initiates, is already unhappily present; it is to be found in the narrowness, the biassed information and the lack of freedom of the totalitarian schools of thought. This was inevitable, for the Black Lodge ever endeavors to parallel, offset and undo the work of the White Lodge, and hitherto quite successfully. But the cycle of success is slowly closing because the energy of goodwill, emanated by the Will-to-Good, is rapidly becoming effective.

In London, in New York, in Geneva and Darjeeling, and in Tokyo, a Master will eventually be found, organizing a major energy center; at the same time His Ashram will continue to function upon buddhic levels, for the entire personnel has not been alerted for externalization. The Ashram will therefore be working on two levels – and yet that is not a correct statement of fact, as there are no levels, as well you know, but only states of consciousness. Ask me not how this can be; ponder on the relation of this dual and simultaneous appearance by attempting to grasp the nature of the manifested form of the planetary Logos in the Person of Sanat Kumara. Sanat Kumara is not the personality of the planetary Logos, for personality as you understand it is not existent in His case. It is not the soul of the planetary Logos, because that soul is the anima mundi and the soul of all forms in all kingdoms. Sanat Kumara, the Eternal Youth, can be seen by Those Who have the right, presiding, for instance, over the Council in Shamballa, yet at the same time He is present as the life and the informing intelligence upon and within our planet.

You have therefore five points where the externalization of the Ashrams will take place and eventually be focused. From these points, as time elapses, other Ashrams, subsidiary in nature, will be found emerging, sponsored and founded by disciples and initiates from these five Ashrams, and representing the three major rays and two minor rays. To start with, they will be founded through the presence in these localities of some senior or world disciple; it must be remembered that the forerunner of all movements which appear upon the physical plane is an educational propaganda, therefore some disciple upon the second ray will come into action, first of all, in all these five points; he will be followed by a disciple upon the seventh ray. All world movements are, as well you know, externalizations of subjective ideas and concepts and of phases of formulated thinking; and the appearance of the Hierarchy upon earth in tangible form is no exception to this rule.

Disciples in these ashrams have been in training for nearly one hundred and fifty years to do this work; some have managed to keep the originating idea and impulse clear and untainted by their own thinking, and have adhered – even in their own intimate thoughts – to the hierarchical program, as presented to them by their Masters or the senior initiates. Others have not possessed so clear a reasoning faculty or so active an intuitive perception and – whilst grasping certain major concepts such as world unity or hierarchical gradations and control – have distorted the truth and produced the many ideologies which have wracked the world during the past century; even this distortion is, however, being turned to good, for it produced a redoubled effort on the part of the Hierarchy to offset it; it led to an increased forcing process by means of which many earnest and willing aspirants reached the grade of accepted disciple; it produced also a ferment of thought in the world which has served to awaken the mentality of the masses to possibilities and to horizons hitherto only visioned by advanced and initiate thinkers. The man in the street today has absorbed ideologies to an unforeseen extent, and the attempt to make him an active factor in our modern civilization is not too harmful in view of the time element, as divinely conceived, and from the point of view of the staunch and basic integrity of the divine human being. Time and divinity, events and instinctual goodness, will in the long run triumph. The intermediate agonies are distressing but not final, and they are not triumphant from the angle of the dark Forces. These Forces face (as a result of the war and of the resurrecting human spirit) a vista of nearing and inevitable defeat.

Already the centers in London and in New York are showing signs of life, and disciples are active in both places and along all lines of human expression. The center in Geneva is also active, but not so thoroughly and inclusively; it waits for a greater calm and a firmer sense of security in Europe.

The center in Darjeeling is what is termed occultly “vibrating”, but this is in response to the relative nearness and propinquity of the Himalayan Brotherhood; whilst in Tokyo there is small activity as yet, and what there is is of no great moment. The work at this center will actually be brought into being through the work of the Triangles. By that I do not mean that it will be a center of the Triangle work, but that the concentrated meditative activity of the people engaged in the Triangle activities will magnetically draw out that which must appear when a center is organized. They are in fact creating the needed atmosphere, and that is ever a preliminary step. Once the atmosphere or the air in which to breathe and move is existent, then the living form can appear.

Objectively, therefore, the second ray work of teaching is the first to be organized. Subjectively, the first ray workers are already active, for the work of the first ray with its disturbing, and destroying activity prepares the way; pain and disruption ever precede birth, and the agents of the first ray have been working for nearly two hundred years. The agents of the second ray started their preparation around the year 1825 and moved outward in force soon after 1860. From that date on, great concepts and new ideas, and the modern ideologies and arguments for and against aspects of the truth, have characterized modern thought and produced the present mental chaos and the many conflicting schools and ideologies, with their attendant movements and organizations; out of all these, order and truth and the new civilization will emerge. This civilization will emerge as the result of mass thinking; it will no longer be a civilization “imposed” by an oligarchy of any kind. This will be a new phenomenon and one for which the Hierarchy has had to wait, prior to reappearing. Had the Hierarchy come before this era of thought and of massed discussion and the fight to further creative ideas, the tenets and the truths for which the Hierarchy stands could be regarded as being also “imposed” upon humanity, and therefore as infringing human freedom. This will not now be the case, and the Hierarchy will come forth into exoteric manifestation because humanity has, of its own free will, developed a quality analogous to that of the Hierarchy and therefore magnetic to that spiritual organization. Goodwill will draw forth from its holy secret hiding place the Exponents of Love, and thus the new world will come into being.

These subsidiary ashrams are already being attempted in various parts of the world. It is necessary for you to remember that the members of these ashrams will not all be on the teaching line, but will be composed of disciples upon many rays; the attempt to form coherent and integrated ashrams is based upon the recognition of the initial difficulty of the various ray aspirants to comprehend each other’s point of view and mode of working, and to think in the many differing terms and modes of thought. There are, however, three fundamental requirements which must condition and color all the ashrams, no matter what the ray:

An internal group unity, conducive to a synthesis of understanding between the various ashrams. There spring out of a unified group objective a sense of loyalty to the Hierarchy and a uniformly disciplined life. I said uniform, brother of mine, for the discipline is that of spiritual inclination and an inspired intention which produces a similarity in the livingness of the units in the ashram; this is, of course, diversified by the ray quality of the aspirants and disciples and by personality tradition. Ponder on those last two words.
Similarity of objective. By that I mean an apprehension and appreciation of the hierarchical Plan and of the contribution each ashram has to make for its materialization on earth; to this must be added an united ashramic similarity of instinctual and intuitive telepathic rapport with the senior Members of the ashram – the Masters and initiates of high degree, and through Them – with the Christ. I would here call to your attention that the mental inclination of all the esotericists in the world for the past one hundred years has been directed towards individual rapport with a Master, and this because of the necessity of discovering the ashram with which the aspirant must make contact.

This attitude has now widened in its approach mentally, by the many diversified disciples in the many different ashrams, into a group movement or a group inclination towards the Christ, the major and most important factor in the implementation of the hierarchical Plan. This mental approach is not the same thing as the constant aspirational preoccupation of the earnest Christian follower with the thought of Christ. It is something quite different.

It is a unified group endeavor, generated in each ashram and fostered by all alike, to bring the entire group – as a band of world servers – into the aura of the thought currents of the Christ, as He formulates His ideas, creates the thought-forms needed prior to manifestation, and makes His arrangements for His reappearing. This is not the same thing as establishing a telepathic rapport between an individual disciple and the Christ, for that is not needed or desirable. The unity of aim, the desire to serve, the recognition of the present focused intention of the Hierarchy (under the guidance of the Christ), become an invocative, magnetic state of group consciousness; this evokes from the Christ and His informed Masters an identification of Their united thought with the group aspiration. This is the higher spiritual correspondence of what is called in the three worlds kama-manas.

This is not, I realize, an easy thing to understand when divorced from the usual Christian concept of the relation of Christ to the individual aspirant. The idea may perhaps be clarified for you by reminding yourselves that some who read these words know me and have found your way into my ashram, under the guidance of your own soul and my ready recognition. Others all over the world, through their spiritual intuition and their desire to serve and to know, have brought into their recognized area of consciousness the teaching which is given in my books. Their relation to me is symbolic of the type of relation which disciples and aspirants can and do establish with the Christ. Though the analogy is far from perfect, it is possible to recognize the correspondence in its many gradations of reciprocal sensitivity.

A fundamental and basic similarity of sympathetic response by the units in all ashrams to the needs of humanity, to the quality of the program for their development which the objective demands, and to the nature of goodwill and understanding (intelligently applied); all these qualities are not handicapped by undue emotional sensitivity.

These three conditions will be found in all the ashrams and will unite the members within any ashram to those in other ashrams in a measure or rhythm of telepathic relation. From this unified and central position a rapidly deepening telepathic relation will inevitably be established and sustained by the group, with the ashram and with the Christ, on the one hand, and with humanity, on the other. With this as a foundational and conditioning quality, the work can proceed as required.

You will note, therefore, why I have so consistently emphasized, during the past thirty years of teaching, the necessity for the development of a truly spiritual and psychic sensitivity, plus the unfoldment of the faculty of a scientific telepathic rapport. I have thereby laid the foundation of the Science of Impression, with the illumined and rightly oriented mind as the interpreter, the analyzer and the transmitter.

——————————————-

Excerpted from “The Externalization of the Hierarchy – Section IV – Stages in the Externalization”

By Alice Bailey and Djwhal Kuhl

ॐ, buddhism, Meditations, Poetry, Rāja yoga, Zen

Wide Empty Paths

beyond the point

of primal,

causal origination,

no cognition

nor perception

—

a void awakens

shimmering the nothing

into becoming

empty and yet Dao,

no re-cognition

—

before the void

no time

no place

no recollection

or, any memory

—

wide empty paths

towards the infinite

have no ending

nor any start,

the essence of being

—

a Soul alone,

sole and solar

radiates into space

a single spark

of a cosmic fire

—

beyond the point

of primal,

causal origination,

no cognition

nor perception

—

at the point before mind

bodhi svāhā

ॐ, Cause & Effect, Dreams, Esoteric, Esoteric Psychology, Karma, New Age, Quotations, Rāja yoga, Yoga

Dramatizations by the Soul

The Tibetan on Dreams:

We will now touch upon the subject of dreams, which is assuming such importance in the minds of certain prominent psychologists and in certain schools of psychology. It is not my intention to criticize or attack their theories in any way. They have arrived at a most important and indicative fact – the fact of the interior, inner subjective life of humanity, which is based on ancient memories, on present teachings, and on contacts of various kinds. A true understanding of the dream-life of humanity would establish three facts:

The fact of reincarnation.
The fact of there being some activity during sleep or unconsciousness.
The fact of the soul, of that which persists and has continuity.

These three facts provide a definite line of approach to the problems which we are considering and they would, if analyzed, substantiate the position of the esotericists.

The origin of the word “dream” is in itself debatable and nothing really sure and proved is known. Yet what is inferred and suggested is of itself of real significance. In a great standard authority, Webster’s Dictionary, two origins of the word are given. One traces the word back to a Sanskrit root, meaning “to harm or to hurt”; the other traces it back to an old Anglo-Saxon root, signifying “joy or bliss.” Is there not a chance, that both derivations have in them a measure of truth, and that in their mutual tracing back to some most ancient origin and root we should discover a real meaning? In any case two thoughts emerge from an understanding study of these derivations.

The first is that dreams were originally regarded as undesirable, probably because they revealed or indicated, in the majority of cases, the astral life of the dreamer. In Atlantean times, when man was basically astral in his consciousness, his outer physical consciousness was largely controlled by his dreams. In those days, the guidance of the daily life, of the religious life, and of the psychological life (such as it was) was founded on a lost science of dreams, and it is this lost science (little as he may like the idea) which the modern psychologist is rapidly recovering and seeking to interpret. Most of the people (though necessarily not all of them) who find themselves needing the care and instruction of the psychologist are Atlantean in consciousness, and it is this fact which has predisposed the psychologist unconsciously to lay the present emphasis upon dreams and their interpretation.

May I point out again that the true psychology will only appear and right techniques be used when psychologists ascertain (as a first and needed measure) the rays, the astrological implications and the type of consciousness (Aryan or Atlantean) of the patient.

However, as time elapsed, the dreams of the more intelligent minds became of an increasingly forward-looking, idealistic nature; these, as they came to the surface and were remembered and recorded, began to control the brain of man so that the Anglo-Saxon emphasis on joy and bliss eventually became descriptive of many so-called dreams. We have then the emergence of the utopias, the fantasies, the idealistic presentations of future beauty and joy which distinguishes the thought life of the advanced human being, and which find their expression in such presented (and as yet unfulfiled) hopes as Plato’s Republic, Milton’s Paradise Regained and the best Utopian, idealistic creative productions of our Western poets and writers. Thus Occident and Orient together present a theory of dreams – of a lower astral or higher intuitional nature – which are a complete picture of the wish life of the race. These range all the way from the dirty ideas and the bestial filth, drawn forth at times from their patients by psychologists (thus revealing a wish life and an astral consciousness of a very low order), up to the idealistic schemes and the carefully thought-out paradises and cosmic orders of the higher types of aspirants. All, however, come into the realm of Dreams. This is true, whether such dreams are tied up with frustrated sex or unfulfiled idealism; they are all indicative of an urge, a powerful urge, either to selfish satisfaction or group betterment and group welfare.

These dreams can embody in themselves ancient astral illusions and glamors, potent and strong because of ancient origin and racial desire, or they can embody the sensitive response of advanced humanity to systems and regimes of existence which are hovering on the borderland of manifestation, awaiting future precipitation and expression.

This will indicate to you how vast is this subject, for it includes not only the past astral habits of the race, ready – when given certain pathological conditions or fostered by fretting frustrations – to assert themselves, but they also include the ability of the spiritually-minded aspirant in the world today to touch the intended plans for the race and thus see them as desirable possibilities.

Having thus indicated the scope of our theme, I would like to point out that I seek only, in the limited space at my disposal, to do two things:

Touch briefly upon the conditions which foster dreams.

Indicate the sources from which dreams can come and what produces them.

I do not expect to have these theories accepted by the average psychologist, but there may be somewhere those minds which will be open enough to accept some of the suggestions and thus benefit themselves and certainly benefit their patients.

he major cause of a distressing dream life is, in every case, a frustration or an inability of the soul to impose its wishes and designs upon its instrument, the man. These frustrations fall into three categories:

Sex frustration. This type of frustration leads in many cases, especially in the average person, to an over-emphasis of the fact of sex, to an uncontrolled sex thought-life, to sexual jealousies (oft unrecognized) and to physical underdevelopment.

Frustrated ambition. This dams back the resources of the life, produces constant inner fret, leads to envy, hatred, bitterness, intense dislike of the successful, and causes abnormalities of many kinds.

Frustrated love. This would perhaps be included under sex frustration by the average psychologist, but it is not so viewed by the esotericist. There can be full sexual satisfaction or else complete freedom from its grip and yet the outgoing magnetic love nature of the subject may meet only with frustration and lack of response.

Where these three types of frustration exist, you will frequently have a vivid, unwholesome dream life, physical liabilities of many kinds and a steadily deepening unhappiness.

You will note that all these frustrations are, as might be expected, simply expressions of frustrated desire, and it is in this particular field (tied up as it is with the Atlantean consciousness) that the work of the modern psychologist primarily and necessarily lies. In an effort to bring the patient to an understanding of his difficulty and in line with that which constitutes the way of least resistance, the psychologist endeavors to relieve the situation by teaching him to evoke and bring to the surface of his consciousness forgotten episodes and his dream life. Two important facts are sometimes forgotten and hence constitute a fruitful source of the frequent failure to bring relief.

First, the patient as he descends into the depths of his dream life, will bring to the surface not only those things which are undesirable in his unrecognized “wish-life” but also those which were present in previous lives. He is penetrating into a very ancient astral past. Not only is this the case, but also – through the open door of his own astral life – he can tap or tune in on the astral life of the race. He then succeeds in producing the emergence of racial evil which may have absolutely no personal relation to him at all. This is definitely a dangerous thing to do, for it may prove stronger than the man’s present capacity to handle.

Secondly, in his desire to be freed from the things in himself which are producing trouble, in his desire to please the psychologist (which is encouraged by certain of them under the method of “transference”) and in his desire to produce what he believes the psychologist wants him to produce, he will frequently draw upon his personal imagination, upon the collective imagination or, telepathically, tune in on the imagination of the one who is seeking to treat and help him. He, therefore, produces something which is basically untrue and misleading.

These two points warrant careful attention and the patient must be safeguarded from himself, from the environing racial thought life, and also from the psychologist whose aid he is seeking. A difficult thing to do, is it not?

I would like, at this point, to make what I feel to be a needed and suggestive interpolation. There are three main ways in which the person who seeks psychological aid can be helped and this is true of all types and cases. There is, first of all, the method with which we have been dealing. This method delves into the patient’s past; it seeks to unearth the basic determining conditions which lie hidden in the happenings of childhood or infancy. These discovered events, it is held, gave a wrong direction or twist to the desire nature or to the thought life; they initiated predisposing germ-complexes, and therefore constitute the source of all the trouble. This method (even if the psychologist does not realize it) can carry over into past lives, and thus open doors which it might be well to leave shut until they can be more safely opened.

The second method which is sometimes combined with the previous one is to fill the present moment with constructive creative occupation and so drive out the undesirable elements in the life through the dynamic expulsive power of new and paramount, engrossing interests. I would like to point out that this method could be more safely applied if the subjective dream life and the hidden difficulties were left untreated – temporarily at least. This method is (for the average ordinary person who is pure Atlantean in consciousness but is just beginning to develop mental activity) usually a sound and safe way to work, provided the psychologist can gain the understanding cooperation of the person concerned.

The third method, which has the sanction of the Hierarchy and which is the one its members employ in Their work, is to bring in consciously the power of the soul. This power then pours through the personality life, vehicles and consciousness, and thus cleanses and purifies all aspects of the lower nature. It will be apparent to you, however, that this method is of use only to those who have reached the point in their unfoldment (and there are many such today) where the mind can be reached and trained, and where the soul can consequently impress the brain, via the mind.

If these three methods are studied, you can arrive at an understanding as to the three systems which psychologists could elaborate and develop in order to handle the three types of modern consciousness – the Lemurian, which is the lowest found upon our planet at this time; the Atlantean, which is the commonest found today, and the Aryan, which is developing and unfolding with great rapidity. At present, psychologists are using the lowest type of aid for all groups and states of consciousness. This does not seem wise, does it?

The question now arises as to the source of dreams. Again, as in those cases we considered in connection with the sources of guidance, I shall simply enumerate such origins and leave the student of psychology to make adequate application of the information, when faced with a dream problem. These sources are about ten in number and could be enumerated as follows:

1. Dreams based upon Brain Activity. In these cases, the subject is sleeping too lightly. He never really leaves his body and the thread of consciousness is not completely withdrawn as it is in deep sleep or in unconsciousness. He remains, therefore, closely identified with his body, and because of the partial withdrawal of the thread of consciousness, his condition is more like a dazed, benumbed self-recognition than real sleep. This condition may persist throughout the entire night or period of sleep, but it is usually found present only in the first two hours of sleep and for about one hour prior to returning to full waking consciousness. The problems, worries, pleasures, concerns, etc., etc. of the waking hours are still agitating the brain cells, but the recognition and interpretation of these vague or agitated impressions is uncertain and of a confused nature. No importance whatever need be attached to this type of dream. They indicate physical nervousness and poor sleeping capacity but have no deep psychological significance or spiritual meaning. These dreams are the most common at this time, owing to the prevalence of the Atlantean consciousness and the stress under which people live today. It is easy to attach undue importance to the wild and stupid or jumbled vagaries of a restless brain, yet the sole trouble is that the man is not sleeping soundly enough.

The effort to make people dream and to train them to recover their dream life when they are naturally sound sleepers, and drop easily into deep and dreamless sleep is not good. The evocation of the dream life, as brought about through the methods of certain schools of psychology, should only be brought about forcibly (if one may use this word in that connection) through the determination of the will during the later stages upon the Path. To do so earlier produces frequently a kind of continuity of consciousness which adds the complexities of the astral plane to those of daily living upon the physical plane; few people are competent to handle the two and, when there is persistence in the endeavor to evoke the dream life, the brain cells get no rest and forms of sleeplessness are apt to supervene. Nature wills that all forms of life should “sleep” at times.

We now come to two forms of dreams which are related to the astral or emotional nature and which are of great frequency.

2. Dreams of Remembrance. These are dreams which are a recovery of the sights and sounds encountered in the hours of sleep upon the astral plane. It is on this plane that the man is usually found when the thread of consciousness is separated from the body. In this case, the man is either participating in certain activities, or he is in the position of the onlooker who sees actual sights, performances, people, etc., etc., just as any person can see them as he walks down a street in any large city or as he looks out of a window in any environment. These sights and sounds will often be dependent upon the wish-life and the predilections of the subject, upon his likes and dislikes and his desires and recognized attractions. He will seek for and often find those he loves; he will sometimes search for and find those he seeks to damage, and find occasion to hurt those he hates; he will favor himself by participating in the fulfilment of what he desires, which is always imaginatively possible upon the astral plane. Such desires may range all the way from desire for sexual gratification to the longing of the spiritually-minded aspirant to see the Master, the Christ or the Buddha. Thought forms, created by the similar wishes of the multitude, will be found to meet his desire and – on returning to his body in the morning – he brings with him the recollection of that satisfaction in the form of a dream. These dreams, related to astral satisfactions, are all of them in the nature of glamor or illusion; they are self-evoked and self-related; they indicate however real experience, even if only astral in accomplishment and can be of value to the interested psychologist in so far as they indicate the character trends of the patient. One difficulty can, however, be found. These thought forms (to which the man has responded and in which he has found an imaginative satisfaction) embody the expression of the wish-life of the race and exist, therefore, upon the astral plane for all to see. Many people do see and contact them and can identify themselves with them upon returning to waking consciousness. In fact, however, they have really done no more than register these thought forms in the same manner as one can register the contents of a shop window when passing by. A shocked horror can, for instance, induce a person to relate, quite innocently, a dream which is, in reality, no more than the registering of a sight or experience which was witnessed in the hours of sleep but with which the man has no real connection whatever. This experience he relates with dismay and disgust; most feelingly he tells the experience to the psychologist, and frequently receives an interpretation which reveals to him the depths of evil to which his unrealized desires apparently bear witness. His unexpressed longings are “brought to the surface” by the psychologist. He is told that these longings, when faced, will then leave him, and that the ghost of his mental and psychological disorder will then be laid. Unless the psychologist is of real enlightenment, the subject of his care is then saddled with an experience which was never his but which he simply witnessed. I give this as an example of great frequency and of much damaging value. Until psychologists recognize the actuality of the life of humanity when separated at night from the physical body, such errors will be of increasing occurrence. The implications are obvious.

3. Dreams which are Recollections of true Activity. These dreams are registrations of true activities. They are not simply witnessed, registered and related by the subject. As soon as a person has reached:

A state of real integration of the astral body and the vital or etheric body, plus the physical body, then these three aspects function harmoniously.
A capacity to pursue ordered activity at night or in the hours of sleep. Then the man can impress the physical brain with a knowledge of those activities and on returning to waking consciousness put it to actual use by the physical body.

The man’s dreams will then be, in reality, nothing more nor less than the relation of the continuance of the day’s activities, as they have been carried forward on the astral plane. They will be simply the record, registered on the physical brain, of his doings and emotions, his purposes and intentions, and his recognized experiences. They are as real and as true as any of those which have been recorded by the brain, during waking hours. They are, nevertheless, only partial records in the majority of cases, and mixed in nature, for the glamors, illusions and the perceptions of the doings of others (as recorded in the second category of dreams above) will still have some effect. This condition of mixed recording, of erroneous identifications, etc., leads to much difficulty. The psychologist has to make allowance for:

The age or soul experience of the patient. He has to determine whether the related dream is an illusory participation, a perceived or registered activity, or a real and true happening in the experience of the man during the hours of sleep.
The ability of the subject to bring through correctly the related experience. This ability is dependent upon the pre-establishing of continuity of consciousness, so that at the moment of return, the brain of the man concerned is easily impressed by the experience of the true man when out of the body.
The freedom of the patient from the desire to make an impression upon the psychologist, his innate truthfulness, his control of the imagination, and his power of verbal expression.

Where advanced aspirants and disciples are concerned, we have a somewhat different situation. The demonstrated integration has involved the mind nature and is involving the soul likewise. The activity, registered, recorded and related, is that of a server upon the astral plane. The activities which interest a world server are, therefore, quite different in nature to those earlier experienced and related. They will be concerned with deeds which are related to other people, to the fulfilment of duties involving other people, to the teaching of groups rather than individuals, etc. These differences, when carefully studied, will be recognized by the psychologist of the future (who will necessarily be also an esotericists) as most revealing because they will indicate in an interesting manner, the spiritual status and hierarchical relationship of the patient.

4. Dreams which are of a Mental Nature. These have their origin upon the mental plane and presuppose a consciousness which is, at least, becoming more sensitive mentally. At any rate, they are not recorded in the waking brain consciousness until there is some measure of mind control. I might add at this point that one of the major difficulties with which a psychologist is confronted, as he attempts to interpret the dream life of his patient, is based not only on his inability esoterically to “place” his patient as to ray type, evolutionary status, astrological indications and inherent characteristics, but also he is confronted with the inability of the patient to relate his dream correctly. What is presented to the psychologist is a confused and imaginative description of brain reactions, astral phenomena, and (where there is a measure of intellectual poise) some mental phenomena also. But there is no capacity to differentiate. This confusion is due to lack of alignment, and of true mental relation between the mind and the brain. It becomes, therefore, oft a case of the “blind leading the blind”.

Dreams which are of mental origin are fundamentally of three kinds:

Those dreams which are based on contact with the world of thought forms. This comprises a vast realm of ancient thought forms, of modern thought forms, and those thought forms also which are nebulous and emerging. They are of purely human origin and are definitely a part of the Great Illusion. They constitute, in the bulk of cases, man’s effort at the interpretation of life and its meaning down the ages. They merge with the soul of glamor which is astral in nature. It will be obvious to you that these thought forms comprise all possible themes. They do not embody the wish-life of the race, but are concerned with men’s thoughts about the ideas and ideals which – down the ages – have controlled human life and which, therefore, form the basis of all history.

Those dreams which are geometrical in nature, and in which the subject becomes aware of those basic patterns, forms and symbols which are the blue prints of the archetypes determining the evolutionary process, and which produce eventually the materializing of God’s Plan. They are also the great symbols of man’s unfolding consciousness. For instance, the recognition of the point, the line, the triangle, the square, the Cross, the pentagon and similar symbols are simply the recognition of a connection with, and a founding upon, certain lines of force which have, to date, determined the evolutionary process. There are seven such forms, evolved and recognized in every race and, for our present purposes, there are, therefore, twenty-one basic symbols which, in geometrical form, embody the concepts which determine the Lemurian, Atlantean and Aryan civilizations. It is interesting to realize that there are fourteen more to come. The symbols which are already evolved are deeply ingrained in the human consciousness, and lead, for instance, to the constant use of the cross in its many diverse forms. Two symbols are at this time taking form as the basis of the coming civilization. These are the lotus and the flaming torch. Hence the frequent appearance of these two in the life of meditation and the dream life of the world aspirants.

Those dreams which are symbolic presentations of teaching received in the hours of sleep by aspirants and disciples in the Hall of Learning on the highest level of the astral plane, and in the Hall of Wisdom on the mental plane. In the first Hall is the best that the race has already learnt through its Atlantean experience and in the world of glamor. Through these, wise choice can be developed. The Hall of Wisdom embodies the teaching which the two coming races will develop and unfold, and thus trains the disciple and the initiate.

I cannot do more than thus indicate the nature of these three basic mental experiences which find their way into the dream life of the man on the physical plane. These are given expression by him in the form of related dreams, creative work, and the expression of the ideals which are building the human consciousness.

5. Dream which are Records of Work done. This activity the aspirant carries on at night and when absent from the body, and it is carried on

In the borderland between the astral plane and the physical plane.
In the so-called “summerland” wherein the entire wish-life of the race is centered and all racial desire takes form.
In the world of glamor which is part of the astral plane which embodies the ancient past, which fertilizes the desire life of the present, and which indicates the nature of the desire life of the immediate future.

These phases and spheres of activity are very real in nature. Aspirants who succeed in functioning with any measure of consciousness on the astral plane are all occupied, at some level or another, with some form of constructive activity or work. This activity, selfishly performed (for many aspirants are selfish) or unselfishly carried forward, constitutes much of the material of many of the so-called dreams, as related by the average intelligent citizen. They warrant no more attention or mysteriously applied interpretation or symbolic elucidation than do the current activities and events of daily life as carried on in waking consciousness upon the physical plane. They are of three kinds:

The activity of the patient himself when freed, in sleep, from the physical body.
His observation of the activities of others. These he is apt to appropriate unwillingly and quite erroneously to himself because of the egocentric tendency of the average human mind.
Instruction which is given to him by those responsible for his unfoldment and training.

This category of dreams is becoming increasingly prevalent as the alignment of the astral body and the physical body is perfected and continuity of consciousness is slowly developed. The activity involves religious activity, sexual living in its many phases (for not all of them are physical, though all of them are related to the problem of the polar opposites and the essential duality of manifestation) political activity, creative and artistic activity and the many other forms of human expression. They are as varied and as diverse as those in which humanity indulges on the physical plane; they are the source of much confusion in the mind of the psychologist and need most careful consideration and analysis.

6. Telepathic Dreams. These dreams are simply the record upon the physical brain consciousness of real events which are telepathically communicated from one person to another. Some friend or relation undergoes some experience. He seeks to communicate it to his friend or – at the moment of crisis – he thinks powerfully of his friend. This registers on the friend’s mind but is often only recovered in the hours of sleep and is brought through in the morning as a man’s own personal experience. Many of the dreams related by people are records of the experiences of other people of which a man becomes aware and which he is appropriating to himself in all sincerity.

We come now to a group of dreams which are a part of the experience of those people who have made a definite soul contact and are in process of establishing a close link with the world of souls. The “things of the kingdom of God” are opening up before them and the phenomena, the happenings, the ideas, and the life and knowledge of the soul realm are being registered with increasing accuracy in the mind. From the mind, they are being transferred to or imprinted upon the brain cells. We have therefore:

7. Dreams which are Dramatizations by the Soul. This type of dream is a symbolic performance by the soul for the purpose of giving instruction, warning or command to its instrument, man, on the physical plane. These dramatic or symbolic dreams are becoming increasingly numerous in the case of aspirants and disciples, particularly in the early stages of soul contact. They can express themselves in the hours of sleep and also during the meditation period or process. Only the man himself, from his knowledge of himself, can rightly interpret this class of dreams. It will be apparent to you also that the ray type of the soul and of the personality will largely determine the type of symbolism or the nature of the dramatization employed. This must be determined, therefore, by the psychologist before interpretation can be intelligently given and prove useful.

8. Dreams concerned with Group Work. In this type of dream, the soul trains or fits its vehicle, the lower man, for group activity. This type of dream is also the higher correspondence of the dreams dealt with under our fifth heading. The group work involved is not this time carried on in the three worlds of human expression but in the world of soul life and soul experience. Soul knowledges and purposes are involved; work in a Master’s group may be registered and regarded as a dream in spite of its reality and basically phenomenal occurrence. The realities of the kingdom of God may for a time seep through into the brain consciousness in the form of dreams. Much of the experiences recorded in the mystical writings during the past few centuries in the Occident, are in this category. This is a point worth careful consideration.

9. Dreams which are Records of Instruction. This type of dream embodies the teaching given by a Master to His accepted disciple. With these I shall not deal. When a man can receive these instructions consciously, either at night when absent from the body or in meditation, he has to learn to direct them correctly from mind to brain and to interpret them accurately. They are communicated by the Master to the man’s soul. The soul then impresses them on the mind, which has been held steady in the light, and then the mind, in its turn, formulates them into thought forms which are then thrown down into the quiescent waiting brain. According to the mental development and educational advantages of the disciple so will be his response and his correct use of the communicated teaching.

10. Dreams connected with the World Plan, the solar plan, and the cosmic scheme. These can range all the way from the insane brain and recorded experiences of the mentally unbalanced to the wise and measured teaching of the World Knowers. This teaching is communicated to the world disciples and can be regarded by them as either an inspired utterance or a dream with a deep significance. It should be remembered in both cases (the mentally unbalanced and the trained disciple) that a similar condition exists; there is a direct line from the soul to the brain. This is true of both types. These dreams or recorded instructions indicate a high stage of evolutionary advancement.

A consideration of all the above will indicate to you the complexity of the subject. The superficial student or the mystically inclined person is apt to feel that all these technicalities are of minor importance. The charge is often made that the “jargon” of occultism and its academic information is of no true importance where knowledge of the divine is concerned. It is claimed that it is not necessary to know about the planes and their various levels of consciousness, or about the Law of Rebirth and the Law of Attraction; it is an unnecessary tax upon the human mind to study the technical foundation for a belief in brotherhood, or to consider our distant origin and our possible future. It is nevertheless just possible that if the mystics down the ages had recognized these truths we might have had a better managed world. It is only today that those forces are being set in motion which will lead, to a truer understanding of the human family, a wiser comprehension of the human equipment, and, therefore, to an effort to bring human living into line with the basic spiritual truths. The sorry condition of the world today is not a result of the intellectual unfoldment of man as is often claimed, but it is the working out of the unalterable effects of causes, originated in the past of the Aryan race.

That good can come from evil, that the bad effects of man’s mental laziness can be transmuted into teaching point in the future and that humanity is now intelligent enough to learn wisdom will be the result of the widespread dissemination of the academic truths of the esoteric teaching and its correct interpretation by the trained minds in the Occident. The East has had this teaching for ages and has produced numerous commentaries upon it – the work of the finest analytical minds that the world has ever seen – but it has made no mass use of the knowledge, and the people in the Orient do not profit by it, as a whole. It will be different in the West and is already modifying and influencing human thought on a large scale; it is permeating the structure of our civilization and will eventually salvage it. Be not, therefore, afraid of the technicalities of wisdom but seek for the reason of the undesirable reaction against them in the latent inertia of the mystical mind, plus the lowered vital condition of the entire race.

—————

Excerpted from:

Esoteric Psychology II – Chapter II – The Ray of Personality – Some Problems of Psychology

Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul

ॐ, Esoteric, Esoteric Psychology, New Age, Quotations, Rāja yoga

Problems Arising From Group Mind

c. Diseases connected with Group Conditions

We can only briefly touch upon this theme, owing to the fact that group work (esoterically understood) is relatively new, and because the individual, working at this time in a group, is scarcely affected at all by these factors, owing to his relatively partial integration. I refer here to his integration in the group. People are still so insulated in their personalities that they are shut off, in many cases, from group stimulation, group effects and group impulses. It is only as they become decentralized and, therefore, more easily responsive to the group ideas, the group idealism, and to the group aura (with its outbreathing and its inbreathing and its group livingness) that they can and do succumb to those difficulties which group life imposes. Today it is the central figure in the group life, the dominant personality or soul, who is the one to whom the group life and the group thought turns, with all the consequences of such turning. It is this person, upon whom the group life pivots (if I may use such a term), who is the group victim and it is he who pays the price of any group weakness. The expression of the group attitude finds its outlet in him and he is, at times, practically “killed” by the group. No group today is a perfect group. They are in the experimental stage and are largely composed of a few Aquarians, many Pisceans and a number of people who are in a transition stage between these two. The leader or leaders of the new groups are usually of as pure a type of the new age or Aquarian character as is possible or available at this time. This accounts for the failure of the group, as a rule, either to understand the leader or to cooperate with the new ideals as is desired. The leader is a pioneer in a new field of thought and of intention and, therefore, suffers the penalties of his daring and of his spirit of enterprise.

It is not my intention to deal here with group difficulties, for that is not my theme. I am considering the difficulties (amounting often to physical disease) and the problems of the individual who is sensitive to group pressures and group life – a very different thing to the usual problems of the mystics of the past. These can only be studied and investigated today by a consideration of the lives, physical condition, problems, difficulties and deaths of group leaders. I would call this definitely to your attention. The group members – little as they may like to recognize this fact – are not as yet prone to suffer much from the group life, the group emanation and the group energy for they are not yet sufficiently integrated into the group.

The problem we are considering falls into two major categories and as I seek to deal with them I realize that there is relatively little that I can say. The next century will see the problems more defined and the difficulties more clearly delineated. They are:

Those arising as a result of the directed thought of the group. On this I can say something.
Diseases, connected with the respiratory tract. On these I can say but little.

Let us, therefore, look at these problems. We shall have to study the first from the angle of the one most affected by them – the leader or focal point of the group. These same problems may also affect the three or four people who, with the group leader and in collaboration with him, direct the group policies.

—-

Diseases and Problems evoked by Directed Group Thought

It will be obvious to you that the first and most important of these difficulties will be those arising from group criticism, either voiced or strongly felt. This criticism can be based on many things, but is usually rooted in jealousy, thwarted ambition, or pride of individual intellect. Each member of any group, particularly those in the immediate circle of the leader or leaders, is prone to sit in judgment. The responsibility is not theirs; they know not the problems as they truly exist and criticism is, therefore, easy. It should here be remembered that criticism is a virulent poison. It damages in every case eventually the one who criticizes – owing to the fact of voiced direction – it hurts still more the one who is criticized. Where there is purity of motive, true love and a large measure of detachment, the subtler bodies of the one who is under attack may remain immune but the physical effects will be definite and where there is any physical weakness or limitation there will be found the localization of the projected poison.

Unvoiced criticism is very dangerous for it is powerfully focused and strongly, though not individually directed; it issues continuously and as a steady stream, sent forth on the wings of jealousy, ambition, pride in a personal grasp of a supposed situation and a belief that the one who criticizes is in a position to understand correctly and could – given right opportunity – take right action. Where the criticism is voiced and expressed in words, it is consequently strengthened by the cooperation of those influenced by the criticism and the consequences of this group-directed thought may result in the physical undoing, and disruption of the physical body of the leader or leaders. This may be a new thought to some and should cause many in the New Age groups to arrest their thoughts and so release their leaders from the disastrous impact of their criticism.

I refer not here to hate, though that is often present, either consciously or unconsciously, but simply to the “sitting in judgment” and to the idle critical gossip which seems necessary to the average group member. It is like the very breath of death and it can not only kill the leader through accumulated poison and distress but it can also kill the group life and render abortive the efforts which could, if given cooperation and time to develop, prove constructive agencies through which the Hierarchy might work.

From every side and in every group there streams in on the group leader directed criticism, poisonous thoughts, untrue formulated ideas, idle gossip of a destructive kind, the imputation of motives, the unspoken jealousies and hates, the frustrated ambitions of group members, their resentments and their unsatisfied desires for prominence or for recognition by the leader or leaders, their desires to see the leader superseded by themselves or by someone else and many other forms of selfishness and mental pride. These produce results in the physical bodies of the leader or leaders and often in the emotional bodies. The responsibility of the group member is, therefore, great and it is one which they seldom recognize or shoulder. It is hard for them to appreciate the dire effects when one person is the target for group criticism and when the directed thought of a number of persons is focused on one or two individuals.

The more highly evolved the group leader, the greater the pain and suffering. First ray people who have naturally a “technique of isolation” suffer less than many for they know how to shut off these directed streams of force and how to deflect them and – when they are not deeply spiritual people – they can return them to their originators and thus wreak havoc in their lives. Second ray persons do not and cannot work this way. They are naturally absorbers and magnetically attract all that is in their environment which is directed towards them. That is why Christ paid the penalty of death. He was killed, not only by His enemies, but also by His so-called friends.

You might here ask. What can a leader or a group of leaders do in these unfortunately normal and usual circumstances? Nothing, but continue in the work; retreat within themselves; speak the truth with love when occasion occurs; refuse to become bitter over the pain which the group occasions and wait until the group members learn the lessons of cooperation, of silence, of loving appreciation and a wise realization and understanding of the problems with which all group leaders are faced in these difficult and individualistic days. That time will come.

Then there is the reverse of this problem and one that must be faced by many group leaders. In this reverse situation, the leader is overcome and (if I might use such a phrase) is “smothered” by the devotion of certain of the group members. Group leaders can be almost annihilated by the personality love of people. But this is not of such a poisonous nature as the difficulties above referred to, for – though it is handicapping and leads to many forms of difficulty, misunderstanding and group reaction – it is along the line of love and not of separation and hate. It produces what is esoterically called “the crippling of the one who seeks to serve and the binding of his hands and feet.”

One other difficulty I will touch upon for it is important in so far that it is a group activity, carried forward as a whole and is not the act of one individual or a small handful of individuals within the group. I refer to the way in which at this time a group drains the life of its leader or leaders. The umbilical cord (speaking symbolically) is seldom cut between the leader and the group. That was the major mistake of the groups in the Piscean age. Always they remained attached to the leader or – when aroused to hate or dislike – they violently disrupted the tie and severed the relationship, causing much distress and unnecessary suffering to the group as well as to the leader. In the New Age the cord will be cut early in the life of the group but the leader or group of leaders will remain for a long time (as does the mother of a child) the guiding inspiration, the loving protecting force and the source of instruction and of teaching. When this is the case, the group can proceed upon its way and live its life as a self-directing agent even when the leader passes over to the other side or there is a change in leadership for some good reason or other.

According to the general flow of group life and activity so will be the effect – emotional and physical – upon any sensitive group member; the more frequent the physical contact between the group members the more definite will be the group problems and difficulties, however. Groups in the New Age will be held together by a subjective link and not so much by the emotional reaction induced by outer contact. I would ask you to ponder carefully upon this last paragraph for it holds the clue to the successful working of the new groups. It is from group life and group atmosphere that much infection arises, leading to difficulties of a physical nature. Disease is largely of group origin and the mystics and sensitive of the world most easily succumb. In these early stages of true group work, the difficulties which arise from group contacts are frequently of a purely physiological nature and are not so deep seated as those with which we have earlier been dealing. This is a point to be remembered. Physical trouble and disease is not of so serious a nature as psychological.

——————–

Excerpted from:

Esoteric Psychology II – Chapter II – The Ray of Personality – Problems of Disciples and Mystics

Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul