von Hermann Hesse
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Musik des Weltalls und Musik der Meister
Sind wir bereit in Ehrfurcht anzuhören,
Zu reiner Feier die verehrten Geister
Begnadeter Zeiten zu beschwören.
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Wir lassen vom Geheimnis uns erheben
Der magischen Formelschrift, in deren Bann
Das Uferlose, Stürmende, das Leben
Zu klaren Gleichnissen gerann.
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Sternbildern gleich ertönen sie kristallen,
In ihrem Dienst ward unserm Leben Sinn,
Und keiner kann aus ihren Kreisen fallen
Als nach der heiligen Mitte hin.
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“The Seventh Ray of Ceremonial Order or Magic
Special Virtues:
Strength, perseverance, courage, courtesy, extreme care in details, self-reliance.
Vices of Ray:
Formalism, bigotry, pride, narrowness, superficial judgments, self-opinion over-indulged.
Virtues to be acquired:
Realization of unity, wide-mindedness, tolerance, humility, gentleness and love.
This is the ceremonial ray, the ray which makes a man delight in “all things done decently and in order,” and according to rule and precedent. It is the ray of the high priest and the court chamberlain, of the soldier who is a born genius in organization, of the ideal commissary general who will dress and feed the troops in the best possible way. It is the ray of the perfect nurse for the sick, careful in the smallest detail, though sometimes too much inclined to disregard the patients idiosyncrasies and to try and grind them in the iron mill of routine.
It is the ray of form, of the perfect sculptor, who sees and produces ideal beauty, of the designer of beautiful forms and patterns of any sort; but such a man would not be successful as a painter unless his influencing ray were the fourth. The combination of four with seven would make the very highest type of artist, form and color being both in excelsis. The literary work of the seventh ray man would be remarkable for its ultra-polished style, and such a writer would think far more of the manner than of the matter in his work but would always be fluent both in writing and speech. The seventh ray man will often be sectarian. He will delight in fixed ceremonials and observances, in great processions and shows, in reviews of troops and warships, in genealogical trees, and in rules of precedence.”
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As I may have mentioned before my personality ray is ray seven. If you look closely you will be able to see the influence in the blog content.
The incoming ray is this ray ceremonial order or magic. Inherent in this is a major challenge for humanity, which so often is disorganised and in disarray. Winging it, is not seventh ray. The seventh ray may be précised as “the ray of having your shit together”. This is a long way from higgledy-piggledy and in some ways anti-hippie but in other ways it is the ray, par excellence, of natural rhythm. Everything should be in synch and on time with natural law and rhythm.
Yes, ritual traditional magic, craft, and mantra are a part, but only a small one.
Organisation, vivification, and energising are what proper order brings. An organism needs to organise and carry out its given physical plane learning. Karma can be thought of as residual “shit” that you have to deal with. Hence in working off your shit you get your shit together, less new karma, debt paid off.
Many people resist being organised and have never experienced the slick and the smooth of all cogs working in unison. People who are self-obsessed are separative and do not view themselves as part of the holistic whole. ME is a luddite spanner in the works. It causes discordance and discord, dis-chord, the sound jars.
The challenge of the incoming ray is to eradicate this notion of self and alchemize it into the holistic-whole, or ONE. The one humanity.
To say to a sloppy ill disciplined person, who is fond of the weird and the whacky, that they need to have their shit together is to ask for resistance.
“Hey man, that is not New Age!”
“Yes, it is! Get a haircut and pull up your trousers. You need to focus and stop being so dissipated!”
If one meanders and only cherry picks the easy fruit off the tree of teaching, then one will not taste the golden apples higher up the tree, which need more and continued effort to attain. Many choose only those teachings that are strap-on to normal life. Few want radical change. One could say people want to keep their cherry pie and eat it.
The seventh ray is also the ray of constant evolution and application. This is because Synthesis takes new learning and incorporates it with the knowledge heretofore garnered. Knowledge is never complete, because of constant synthesis one could say that knowing is a present participle synonym of evolving, knowledge relates to evolution. True knowledge cannot ever be concrete and finished.
Synthesis is an antithesis of Idealism and Devotion, the departing sixth ray. Sixth ray separates, cleaves and divides, seventh ray heals, stitches the rent wounds of division and stirs its synthetic pot of alchemy in search of the new.
The seventh ray is unlike the division with which our current world is so very badly scarred!!
It is time to synthesise and not cleave, the synthetic cauldron of inspiration must overcome the axe of cleavage.
It is not uncommon for a hullabaloo to result when things do not adhere strictly to expectations. If the world differs from how it “ought” to be, how it “should” be people get all dramatic and there is suffering because how the world “is” does not conform to preconceptions. In fact people sometimes struggle to see and understand how the word “is” because the lenses of “should” and “ought” are so very thick that they prevent the clarity of actuality. People cannot see things how they are because they do not want to.
The shoe-horns of “ought” and “should” can struggle to get the foot of reality into the cobbler’s shoe of how the idealism, bias and prejudice have determined the world to be. There can be a disconnect between physical plane reality and an “idealistic” world view.
For example people are having trouble accepting that the “ideal” of Brexit in no way lives up to the hype with which it was miss-sold to the public. Brexit, in England, is almost a taboo word and Bregret is now being bandied about. Not all cunning “plans” work out. It was not even a plan, it was hyperbole, hot air, based on an faded jingoistic “Britannia Rules the Waves”, outdated illusion.
Now people have their blessed blue passports and can wait at immigration in the airport with the Bangladeshis and the Iranians.
I am picking up the “we are only making plans for Nigel {Alan} vibe again”.
Clearly people know best what is right for me and may even come to a consensual view of what that looks like. However, there is a lacking foundation stone. No bugger has asked me. The house is therefore unsteady.
It is so typical “they” get together and have a chat about how to “manage” others. Thank God for their omniscience. Where would we be without it?
I have no drama about my way of life. It is what it is. Others may deem that it did not “ought” to be like this. Why not?
In the news when someone dies it is often termed a “tragedy” especially if they were “well liked”, popular and below the age of 83. This drama over mundane reality is strange. Loads of people die in their fifties, so why are they “tragically” taken from us before their time?
There is a disconnect between “should”, “ought” and is. A hand wringing hullabaloo can result when someone dies of natural causes because the “should” have made it to their eighties.
Why, to be an added burden on the health services?
When the time comes, it comes. Why all the drama?
People have a real knack of making a big hullabaloo when is differs from “should” and “ought”.
It is a form of suffering caused by wanting to have life on one’s own terms, terms dictated by the lower self. The universe must comply with our desires and expectations.
{It is not fair mummy.}
Unfortunately shit happens, life goes on and then you die. Life does not comply with our required terms and expectations.
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In many ways I am glad that I no longer work in higher education and pastoral care in particular. This is because the socio-political consequences of pronoun misuse have inter alia reached ludicrous levels. I have read of a teacher being fired for refusing to call a biological male she because said penis owner insisted on being called, she. If you think about it for a little an experienced teacher, full of knowing, is fired because the thought police deem that it has to call a teenage, and hence an emotionally volatile being, by its chosen pronoun.
It is so out of balance, so coercive and well, silly.
Thus we have so many people walking on eggshells and going through the motions of compliance with these dictatorial norms required by socio-political conformity.
Pulling down statues of slave owners like say Julius Caesar, does not change history. Are we to close the great pyramid of Giza, because the Egyptians had slaves. Must we empty the British Museum of all of its artefacts?
How long before we are burning books because they might “trigger”?
When and where will the burning stop?
Are we obsessed with groundhogs?
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Who is the arbiter of this brave new world of coercive socio-political conformity?
We have started watching “The Handmaid’s Tale” and in that the main protagonist is walking on the most delicate and dangerous of eggshells. Is this the kind of future we envisage for ourselves, a future of intense coercive socio-political conformity. At present that conformity is enforced by exclusion and the cancel culture, how long before it is the bullet or the noose? A future where we are terrified of what we utter in public?
Pastoral care was always a minefield. In all honesty I doubt that I would be able to offer the care and support I once did in the current context. I am not phobic of people’s right to live how they wish, I do not wish to succumb if they seek to inflict their dogma on me. People call others transphobic. I doubt many are actually fearful, pitying perhaps, confused and unable to relate, maybe. Phobic, I doubt it.
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In chemistry we have cis-trans isomerism. Which means that cis and trans forms can interconvert, the barrier, the activation energy for this is often not so high. Someone who insists that they are cis can easily, either with or without catalysis, convert back. It is not black and white nor is it written in stone. Cis-trans isomerism is happening right now, in your eyes, as you read this!!
This world of opposites, of dare I say it, black and white thinking, is separative and divisive! The pointing finger soon becomes the carbine.
Why do we need an US and a THEM?
Might we be better as we?
Are we as one humanity really that stupid and ignorant?
This afternoon whilst walking through the orchard I was contemplating that many people are utterly unaware and ignorant as to the extent of their own ignorance. They are oblivious to it.
It goes along with my pet theory that the world is suffering from a pandemic of self-diagnosed omniscience.
Quite a while back someone told me that he did not think I was a nagal being. I said to him “it depends upon the way you look at it…” He insisted that he was right. I did not argue…
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Aiki, a Japanese budō term, at its most basic is a principle that allows a conditioned practitioner to negate or redirect an opponent’s power. When applied, the aiki practitioner controls the actions of the attacker with minimal effort and with a distinct absence of muscular tension usually associated with physical effort.
In Japanese Aiki is formed from two kanji:
合 – ai – joining
氣 – ki – spirit
The kanji for ai is made of three radicals, “join”, “one” and “mouth”. Hence, ai symbolizes things coming together, merging. Aiki should not be confused with wa which refers to harmony. The kanji for ki represents a pot filled with steaming rice and a lid on it. Hence, ki symbolizes energy (in the body).
Thus aiki’s meaning is to fit, join, or combine energy. However, care must be taken about the absolute meanings of words when discussing concepts derived from other cultures and expressed in different languages. This is particularly true when the words we use today have been derived from symbols, in this case, Japanese kanji, which represent ideas rather than literal translations of the components. Historical use of a term can influence meanings and be passed down by those wishing to illustrate ideas with the best word or phrase available to them. In this way, there may be a divergence of the meaning between arts or schools within the same art. The characters ai and ki have translations to many different English words.
Historically, the principle of aiki would be primarily transmitted orally, as such teachings were often a closely guarded secret. In modern times, the description of the concept varies from the physical to vague and open-ended, or more concerned with spiritual aspects.
Misogi (禊) is a Japanese Shinto practice of ritual purification by washing the entire body. Misogi is related to another Shinto purification ritual called Harae – thus both being collectively referred to as misogiharae (禊祓)
Budō (武道) is a Japanese term describing modern Japanese martial arts.Literally translated it means the “Martial Way”, and may be thought of as the “Way of War” or the “Way of Martial Arts”.
Budō is a compound of the root bu (武:ぶ), meaning “war” or “martial”; and dō (道:どう; dào in Chinese), meaning “path” or “way” (including the ancient Indic Dharmic and Buddhist conception of “path”, or mārga in Sanskrit). Budō is the idea of formulating propositions, subjecting them to philosophical critique and then following a “path” to realize them. Dō signifies a “way of life”. Dō in the Japanese context is an experiential term in the sense that practice (the way of life) is the norm to verify the validity of the discipline cultivated through a given art form. Modern budō has no external enemy, only the internal one: my ego that must be fought.
Similarly to budō, bujutsu is a compound of the roots bu (武), and jutsu (術:じゅつ), meaning technique.Thus, budō is translated as “martial way”,or “the way of war” while bujutsu is translated as “science of war” or “martial craft.” However, both budō and bujutsu are used interchangeably in English with the term “martial arts”. Budo and bujutsu have quite a delicate difference; whereas bujutsu only gives attention to the physical part of fighting (how to best defeat an enemy), budo also gives attention to the mind and how one should develop oneself.
The first significant occurrences of the word Budō date back to the Kōyō Gunkan (16th century) and were used to describe the samurai lifestyle rather than the practice of martial techniques. The word was later re-theorized and redefined to the definition we know today. First by Nishikubo Hiromichi and the Dai Nippon Butokukai when the name of their vocational school for martial arts was changed from bujutsu senmon gakkō to budō senmon gakkō. And later by Jigoro Kano, judo’s founder, when he chose to name his art judo instead of jujutsu.
From Wikipedia
Prāṇāyāma (Devanagari: प्राणायाम prāṇāyāma) is a Sanskrit compound
Pranayama is the yogic practice of focusing on breath. In Sanskrit, prana means “vital life force”, and yama means to gain control. In yoga, breath is associated with the prana, thus, pranayama is a means to elevate the prana shakti, or life energies. Pranayama is described in Hindu texts like the Bhagavad Gita and the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Later in Hatha yoga texts, it meant the complete suspension of breathing.
Monier-Williams defines the compound prāṇāyāma as “of the three ‘breath-exercises’ performed during Saṃdhyā (See pūrak, rechak (English: retch or throw out), kumbhak”.This technical definition refers to a particular system of breath control with three processes as explained by Bhattacharyya: pūrak (to take the breath inside), kumbhak (to retain it), and rechak (to discharge it).
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Rule Four
“Sound, light, vibration, and the form blend and merge, and thus the work is one. It proceedeth under the law, and naught can hinder now the work from going forward. The man breathes deeply. He concentrates his forces, and drives the thought-form from him.”
The Science of the Breath
Now we come to the significant words in Rule IV. “The man breathes deeply.” This is a phrase covering many aspects of rhythmic living. It is the magical formula for the science of pranayama. It covers the art of the creative life. It sweeps a man into tune with the pulsating life of God Himself, and this through detachment and reorientation.
It is notably interesting as a demonstration of the succinctness and inclusiveness of occult phrases as in Rule IV. The art of breathing is dealt with in three phases, and these I commend to each of you for the most careful consideration.
There is first the aspect of Inhalation. “The man breathes deeply.” From the very depths of his being he draws the breath. In the process of phenomenal living, he draws the very breath of life from the soul. This is the first stage. In the process of detaching himself from phenomenal living, he draws from the depths of his being and experiences the life, that it may be rendered again back to the source from whence it came. In the occult life of the disciple, as he develops a new and subtler use of his response apparatus, he practices the science of the breath, and discovers that through deep breathing (including the three stages of the deep, middle, and top breath) he can bring into activity, in the world of esoteric experiences, his vital body with its force centers. Thus the three aspects of “deep breathing” cover the entire soul experience, and the relationship to the three types of breath, touched upon above, can be worked out by the interested aspirant.
Next we read “he concentrates his forces.” Here we have the stage indicated which can be called retention of the breath. It is a holding of all the forces of the life steadily in the place {palace my suggestion} of silence, and when this can be done with ease and with forgetfulness of process through familiarity and experience, then the man can see and hear and know in a realm other than the phenomenal world. In the higher sense this is the stage of contemplation, that “lull between two activities” as it has been so aptly called. The soul, the breath, the life has withdrawn out of the three worlds, and in the “secret place of the most high” is at rest and at peace, contemplating the beatific vision. In the life of the active disciple it produces those interludes which every disciple knows, when (through detachment and the capacity to withdraw) he is held by nothing in the world of form. As he is but wrestling toward perfection and has not yet attained, these interludes of silence, withdrawingness, and of detachment are frequently difficult and dark. All is silence and he stands appalled by the unknown, and by the apparently empty stillness in which he finds himself. This is called, in advanced cases, “the dark night of the soul ” – the moment before the dawn, the hour before the light streams forth.
In the science of Pranayama it is the moment following upon inhalation wherein all the forces of the body have (through the medium of the breath) been carried upward to the head and concentrated there, prior to the stage of breathing forth. This moment of retention, when properly carried forward, produces an interlude of intense concentration and it is in this moment that the aspirant must seize opportunity. Herein lies a hint.
Then comes the process of exhalation. We read in Rule IV “he drives the thought-form from him.” This is ever the result of the final stage of the science of the breath. The form, vitalized by the one who breathes in correct rhythm, is sent forth to do its work and fulfil its mission. Study this idea with care, for it holds the secret of creative work.
In the experience of the soul, the form for manifestation in the three worlds is created through intense meditation, which is ever the paralleling activity of breathing. Then by an act of the will, resulting in a “breathing forth”, and engendered or arrived at dynamically in the interlude of contemplation or retention of the breath, the created form is sent forth into the phenomenal world, to serve as a channel of experience, a medium of expression and a response apparatus in the three worlds of human living.
{This is the act of incarnation, my comment}
In the life of the disciple, through meditation and discipline he learns to reach high moments of interlude whenever he concentrates his forces on the plane of soul life, and then again by an act of his will, he breathes forth his spiritual purposes, plans and life into the world of experience. The thought form that he has constructed as to the part he has to play, and the concentration of energy which he has succeeded in bringing about become effective. The energy needed for the next step is breathed forth by the soul and passes down into the vital body, thus galvanizing the physical instrument with the needed constructive activity. That aspect of the plan which he has appreciated in contemplation, and that part of the general purpose of the Hierarchy in which his soul feels called upon to cooperate is breathed forth simultaneously, via the mind into the brain, and thus “he drives the thought forms from him.”
Finally, in the science of Pranayama, this stage covers that exhaling breath which, when carried forward with thought and conscious purpose behind it, serves to vitalize the centers and fill each of them with dynamic life. More need not be said here.
Thus, in this science of “breathing deeply” we have the whole process of creative work and of the evolutionary unfoldment of God in nature covered. It is the process whereby the Life, the One Existence, has brought the phenomenal world into being, and Rule IV is a digest of the Creation. It is equally the formula under which the individual soul works as it centers its forces for manifestation in the three worlds of human experience.
The right use of the Life-Breath is the whole art at which the aspirant, the disciple, and the initiate work, bearing in mind however that the science of the physical breath is the least important aspect and follows sequentially upon the right use of energy, which is the word we apply to the divine breath or life.
Finally, in the mental life of the disciple, and in the great work of learning to be a conscious creator in mental matter and so produce results in the phenomenal world, this fourth Rule holds the instructions upon which the work is based. It embodies the science of the entire magical work.
Therefore, this Rule warrants the closest consideration and study. Rightly understood and rightly studied it would lead each aspirant out of the phenomenal world into the kingdom of the soul. Its instructions, if carried out, would lead the soul back again into the phenomenal world as the creating force in soul magic and as the manipulator and dominating factor of, and through, the medium of the form.
In the training of the occidental student, blind unquestioning obedience is never asked. Suggestions are made as to method and as to a technique which has proved effective for thousands of years and with many disciples. Some rules as to breathing, as to helpful process and as to practical living on the physical plane will be imparted, but in the training of the new type of disciple during the coming age, it is the will of the watching Gurus and Rishis that they be left freer than has heretofore been the case. This may mean a slightly slower development at the beginning but will result, it is hoped, in a more rapid unfoldment during the later stages upon the Path of Initiation.
Therefore, students are urged to go forward during their period of training with courage and with joy, knowing that they are members of a band of disciples, knowing that they are not alone but that the strength of the band is theirs, the knowledge of the band is theirs too as they develop the capacity to apprehend it, – and knowing also that the love and wisdom and understanding of the watching Elder Brothers are back of every aspiring Son of God, e’en though apparently (and wisely) he is left to wrestle through to the light in the strength of his own omnipotent soul.
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Excerpted from “A Treatise on White Magic – Rule Four – The Science of the Breath”
By Alice Bailey and Djwhal Kuhl
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My Hint: Contemplate on the above in the light of AUM or A-U-M. The pauses have a significance.
I’ll try here to verbalise in a quasi-succinct manner some of my understandings.
The majority of people see themselves as separate from others and do not see themselves as a part of the One Humanity. They see Me, I, Us and They. Most people tend to be self-ish and self-centred, the world revolves around them.
They find it hard to don the moccasins of others. Why would they even bother?
I’ll estimate that most would be unable to answer in depth the question, what are you? If they were asked, who are you, they might give a manmade name and perhaps a curriculum vitae. In general, most people do not know themselves well and are not self-aware. They are too busy earning a living, engaging in pass times and their wants and desires.
A fair proportion of humanity allegedly believes in heaven and hell. But nobody can say where they are. Their images of these “places” may be similar to our manifested world. But that does not make any sense. When you die you cease to be manifest. Thus, the notion of a place in some 3-dimensional space plus time “world” is an invalid one. Fire may burn meat, but when you have disincarnated, there is nothing to burn. The concept of being gifted a virgin as a reward for faith, is not meaningful. You are dead, you have no genitalia. You are not matter; you can’t shag.
A scientist might say that a human being is an organized bag of soft wet matter than has a structural skeleton and can process other types of matter to extract the calorific value therein which it then reacts with oxygen to release energy to do work. In also needs that energy to fend off the tendency of entropy to increase disorder and keep the bodily chemicals organised and co-operating. Humans are counter entropic beings. Much bodily function is unconscious because it would be quite simply impossible to keep track of all the bodily goings on. Viewed from one angle any meaty being is already way too complex for say a supercomputer to keep track of at molecular levels.
I don’t think that science really understands what animates the organism. It can measure some of the effects of the process of organising by electroencephalography or functional magnetic resonance imaging. It cannot comment on the cause of the organisation. Many are perhaps looking for some cerebral explanation for the fact of life, some electromagnetic explanation of beingness just as astrobiologists are seeking chemical building blocks for the first extraplanetary life forms. They are assuming carbon, nitrogen and water-based building blocks. What will animate these molecules into a life form.
How does one define life?
Of late the world has been plagued by a virus. This self-replicating piece of biology invades, takes over and makes copies of itself. In the process it messes up the functioning of human beings, badly
Is a virus alive?
Is it intelligent?
Can you kill a virus?
A virus is a part of the One Life, just like you and I but it is not technically living according to science.
Some thing way smaller than the diameter of a human hair has turned “our” world, our “reality” upside down and inside out.
We could say that the virus is the cause of disease. But what caused the virus?
Did we as One Humanity cause this spiky bit of biology to invade. Perhaps we did but again we are not striving to understand causes. We are trying to juggle the effects and keep our materialistic plates spinning.
Humans are no doubt clever and resourceful but one day unless they start to look causally at causes; they will drop the balls and profound crisis will ensue.
I am guessing that humanity, as a whole, is heading for its very own dark night of the Soul.
These are not pleasant I can bear witness….
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Time to feed trip hazard and do dinner…
Traou an Dour 
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