Condensation next ensues. The fire and waters meet, the form swells and grows. Let the magician get his form upon the proper path.
[257] Rule number nine is found on page 1017 in A Treatise on Cosmic Fire , and the comment given in the Treatise is noticeably brief:
“This rule is very briefly summed up in the injunction: Let desire and mind be so pure and so equally apportioned and the created form so justly balanced that it cannot be attracted towards the destructive or ‘left-hand’ path.”
The reasons for this brevity may be stated to be due to the extreme simplicity of this rule in the consciousness of the man who knows, and its extreme complexity from the standpoint of the casual reader. Only the simplest and most practical of its significances is there given but perhaps a few of the deeper meanings can be imparted.
It is interesting to note that as progress is made upon the path, the forms in which truth can be given become more and more simple, whilst the meaning grasped becomes more and more wide and inclusive, and hence involves (on analysis) more and more complexity. Finally, resort is had to symbols and the cosmic plan is grasped through the presentation of geometrical forms to the inner eye of the aspirant.
The cardinal point emphasized in this rule is purity and, in the last analysis, purity is largely a question of motive. If the incentive to action of any kind in the three worlds is based on personality desire and brought about by the applied use of the mind, then impurity characterizes that action. If the impulse emanates from the [258] Dweller in the form, it is then subordinated and controlled by the Dweller to the desired end. Then the characteristic is purity within the group limitations, for absolute purity only exists when entire freedom from control has been brought about. The soul is group conscious and group controlled, and (until the causal body has been overcome and liberation from its control achieved) the real significance of purity will not be comprehended. Suffice it to say that there is a close connotation between impurity and limitation of any kind, physical, emotional and mental.
But absolute purity need not here be considered by the aspirant. No one in the esoteric groups of the world has yet achieved the fifth initiation, wherein the meaning will enter the consciousness in a blaze of intensest realisation. For the majority, physical and emotional purity are the objectives, and primarily therefore liberation from emotional control and desire. Hence the constant, e’en though badly worded injunction in many of the esoteric books “Kill out desire”. Perhaps a more just rendering for the immediate present would be “re-orient desire” or “re-direct desire”, for a constant process of re-orientation of the entire desire nature so that it eventually becomes a habitual state of mind is the clue to all the transmutation processes, and to effective magical work.
As progress on the Path is made the thought processes of the aspirant become more potent, and the thought-forms—created with definite purpose and in the meditation work—become more effective in the bringing about of results. It will be apparent therefore that in magical work (which has ever to be wrought out on the physical plane) there will always exist the tendency towards the “left-hand path” until soul consciousness is permanently established, and purity of motive has become a habit of the mind.
[259] May I remind all who read that the establishing and stabilizing of right habits is, for the aspirant to discipleship, a prime requisite. Those who are working in the field of planetary evolution are looking for dependable instruments, and this cannot be too emphatically impressed upon all of you. People whose emotional moods and feelings run riot or who lack physical control cannot be counted upon in an emergency by Those who are seeking helpers. People whose minds are clouded or whose inability to hold the mind “steady in the light” is inherent, are unsuitable workers in the high places of world endeavour. This remark need deter no one in these groups from pushing forward, for the recognition of a defect is a preliminary step towards its overcoming. These groups are in training and this must be borne in mind or else discouragement is apt to ensue when the ideal is enunciated. World need and opportunity go hand in hand at this time. The Great Ones, Who stand as a wall between humanity and planetary Karma are, we are told, hard pressed at this time, and I assure you that this is but an inadequate statement of the case.
The thoughts of men since the middle of the Atlantean period have steadily been attracted toward the destructive or left-hand path, because selfishness has been the motive, and self-interest the dominant factor. Part of the work of the Christ when He came 2000 years ago was to offset this tendency by the inculcation, through example and precept, of sacrifice and unselfishness, and the martyr spirit (tinctured as it oft was by hysteria and a heavenly self-interest) was one of the results of this endeavour. Seen from the standpoint of the Hierarchy, the effort has been successful, for the Christian spirit stands for re-orientation to heavenly things. Hence purity of motive and the instinct for service, which latter keynote is new from the standpoint of the past eternities.
[260] In spite of this, however, the tendency to selfish interest is the most potent factor in the world at this time, and hence the critical situation existing between the Hierarchy of Light and the hierarchy controlling the left-hand path, or the path of control by form and desire.
Let there be no discouragement, however, for the spiritual thought, resulting in magical work, of one brother of pure intent is of far greater potency than that of many brothers who follow the tendencies of the personality. Though every true aspirant as he grasps the magnitude of the Plan and surveys the forces arrayed against him may be overcome by the apparent futility of his effort and the seeming smallness of the part he plays, let him remember that there is a steadily growing group of those similar to him and that this is a group effort. Under the Law the Great Ones work through Their disciples in all countries and never before have there been so many endeavouring to fit themselves for this function of being “Transmitters of the Purpose,” and never before has there existed such a strong inner integrity and subjective relation between workers in all fields in all parts of the world. For the first time in history is there a coherent group for the Masters to use. Heretofore, there have been lonely isolated workers or tiny detached groups, and this has greatly hampered the work. Now this is changed.
I want to charge you all to realize this and to work to substantiate this group integrity and to develop the power to recognize all such workers everywhere under any name or organization and to cooperate with them when so recognized. This is no easy thing to do. It presupposes the following:
1. An inner sensitiveness to the Plan.
2. An ability to recognize principles, governing conduct and administration. [261]
3. A capacity to overlook the non-essentials and to emphasize the essentials.
4. A submergence of personal ambition and interest in the furthering of the group ideals and
5. A steady preservation of the inner contact through meditation and the overlooking and non-emphasis of personality reactions.
These are basic pre-requisites and should receive the attention of workers and students in all groups.
It would be of value if each student would link up every day at five o’clock by an act of the will with this rapidly integrating group of servers, mystics and brothers. To this end it might be wise to commit to memory the following brief dedication to be said silently at that hour with the attention focussed in the head:
“May the Power of the one Life pour through the group of all true servers.
“May the Love of the One Soul characterize the lives of all who seek to aid the Great Ones.
“May I fulfil my part in the One work through self-forgetfulness, harmlessness and right speech.”
Then carry the thought forward from the rapidly forming group of world-servers to the Great Ones who stand back of our world evolution.
This can be done in a few seconds of time wherever one may be and in whatever company, and will not only aid in the magical work of the forces of light, but will serve to stabilize the individual, to increase his group consciousness, and to teach him the process of carrying forward interior subjective activities in the face of and in spite of outer exoteric functioning.
The simplicity of this Rule nine is such that in a few words the entire process of creative evolution is summarized. On the mental plane an idea takes form. On [262] the desire plane sentient energy pervades that form. Under the evolutionary process the form “swells and grows”. Through the right direction of the form and its orientation in the needed direction, the purpose of the thinker is fulfilled.
All life is vibration and the result of vibration is form, dense or subtle, and ever subtler as ascension takes place. As the pulsating life progresses its rate of vibration changes, and in this changing of vibration lies hid the secret of form-shattering and form-building. Forms are of four kinds in this era of the fourth round:
1. The Form of the Personality, that vehicle of physical, astral and mental matter that provides the means of contact in the three worlds. It is built in each life, the key of the vibration being set up in the life preceding the present. That form proves adequate for the average man and serves him till death. The man who is entering on the occult path starts with the vehicle provided, but during incarnation builds for himself ever a newer and better vehicle, and the more progressed he is the more consciously he works. Hence eventuates that constant turmoil and frequent ill-health of the beginner in the occult life. He senses the law, he realises the need of raising his key, and frequently he begins with mistakes. He starts to build anew his physical body by diet and discipline, instead of working from the inner outward. In the careful discipline of the mind and the manipulation of thought-matter and in transmutation of emotion comes the working out on the physical plane. Add to the two above, physical plane purity as to food and manner of life, and in seven years time the man has built for himself three new bodies around the permanent atoms.
2. The Form of the Environment. This is really the evolutionary working out of the involutionary group soul. It relates to our contacts, not just exterior, but on the inner planes as well. In similarity of vibration [263] comes coherency. When therefore a man raises his vibration and builds anew from the beginning, and alters consequently his key, it results in dissonance in his surroundings and subsequent discord. Therefore—under the law—there comes always to the striver after the Mysteries and the manipulator of the law, a period of aloneness and of sorrow when no man stands by and isolation is his lot. In lesser degree this comes to all, and to the arhat (or initiate of the fourth degree) this complete isolation is a characteristic feature. He stands midway between life in the three worlds and that in the world of adepts. His vibration does not synchronise, prior to initiation with the vibrations of either group. Under the law he is alone. But this is only temporary. When the environment satisfies then is the moment of anxiety; it indicates stagnation. The application of the law causes primary disruption.
3. The Form of the Devotee. Yes, I mean just that word, for it expresses an abstract idea. Each person of every degree has his devotion, that for which he lives, that for which—in ignorance, in knowledge or in wisdom—he wields as much of the law as he can grasp. Purely physical may that devotion be, centred in flesh, in lust for gold, in possessions concrete. He bends all his energies to the search for the satisfaction of that concrete form and therein learns. Purely astral may be the aim of the devotee—love of wife or child, or family, pride of race, love of popularity, or lust of some kind—to them he devotes the whole of his energy, using the physical body to fulfil the desire of the astral.
Higher still may be the form of his devotion,—love of art, or science or philosophy, the life religious, scientific, or artistic—to them he consecrates his energies, physical, astral and mental, and always the form is that of devotion. Always the vibration measures up to the goal, finds that goal, passes it and disintegrates. Pain enters [264] into all shattering of the form, and changing of the key. Many lives, for millennia of years, are spent under the lower vibrations. As evolution progresses, more rapid is the development, and the key changes from life to life, whereas in the earlier stages one key or tone might be sounded for several lives in their entirety. As a man nears the Path, the Probationary Path becomes strewn with many shattered forms, and from lesser cycle to lesser cycle he changes the key, often in one life heightening his vibration several times. See therefore how the life of all aspirants, if progressing with the desired rapidity, is one of constant movement, constant changes and differentiations, and continuous building and breaking, planning and seeing those plans disrupted. It is a life of ceaseless suffering, of frequent clashing with the environing circumstances, of numerous friendships made and transferred, of mutation ceaseless and consequent agony. Ideals are transcended only to be found to be stations on the road to higher; visions are seen, only to be replaced by others; dreams are dreamt only to be realized and discarded; friends are made, to be loved and left behind, and to follow later and more slowly the footsteps of the striving aspirant; and all the time the fourth form is being built.
4. The Form of the Causal Body. This is the vehicle of the higher consciousness, the temple of the indwelling God, which seems of a beauty so rare and of a stability of so sure a nature that, when the final shattering comes of even that masterpiece of many lives, bitter indeed is the cup to drink, and unutterably bereft seems the unit of consciousness. Conscious then only of the innate Divine Spirit, conscious only of the Truth of the Godhead, realizing profoundly and to the depths of his being the ephemeral nature of the form and of all forms, standing alone in the vortex of initiatory rites, bereft of all on which he may have leant (be it friend, Master, doctrine [265] or environment), well may the Initiate cry out: “I am that I am, and there is naught else.” Well may he then figuratively place his hand in that of his Father in Heaven, and hold the other out in blessing on the world of men, for only the hands that have let slip all within the three worlds are free to carry the ultimate blessing to struggling humanity. Then he builds for himself a form such as he desires,—a new form that is no longer subject to shattering, but suffices for his need, to be discarded or used as occasion warrants.
In these days you will need to ponder on this matter of the form, for with the entering in of a new ray, and the commencement of a new era comes ever a period of much disruption until the forms that be have adapted themselves to the newer vibration. In that adaptation those who have cultivated pliability and adaptability, or who have that for their personality ray, progress with less disruption than those more crystallized and fixed.
Particularly now should pliability and responsiveness of form be aimed at, for when He Whom we all adore comes, think you His vibration will not cause disruption if crystallization is present? It was so before; it will be so again.
Cultivate responsiveness to the Great Ones, aim at mental expansion and keep learning. Think whenever possible in terms abstract or numerical, and by loving all, work at the plasticity of the astral body. In love of all that breathes comes capacity to vibrate universally, and in that astral pliability will come responsiveness to the vibration of the Great Lord.
This summation of process and of the forms is equally true of God and His cosmic creative work; of the soul, as it builds its instrument for expression, either unconsciously in the early stages or consciously in the later; of the disciple, as he seeks to express his realization of the work through group work and the organization of his [266] life; and of perfected man, as he learns, through experience, to centre his forces on the mental plane and from there accomplish his purpose in generating and producing those thought-forms which mould the minds of men, and embody in themselves that aspect of the Universal Mind which is needed for the right production of that immediate fraction of the Plan which his age and generation require.
All these various applications of the rule could be elucidated and enlarged upon. Our problem, however, must be kept clearly in mind. We are conscious souls, or in process of becoming conscious. We are beginning, through our meditation work and our application to study, to work on mental levels. We are creating forms continuously, pervading them with energy and sending them out to fulfill their function in line with our realized subjective purpose.
The emphasis should be laid upon the word realized in the above paragraph. According to the clarity of vision and the depth of the inner realization so will be the adequacy of the created form, and so will be the strength of the life which will enable it to perform its intended function.
Up to the present time the majority of aspirants in the world express the results of little and weak thought, but rapid action. The goal for students should at this time be rapid concentrated thought and slow action. That slow action however will be potent in result; there will be no lost motion, no delayed reactions, and no tendency towards hesitation. The attention of the thinker being focussed on the mental plane, the progress of his manifested thought will be sure and inevitable. When the idea is clearly grasped, the attention closely focussed, and the energy or life aspect steadily applied, the result will be irresistible appearance and potent action on the physical plane.
[267] This thought must be borne in mind if the dangers of the left hand path are to be avoided. Let me here make some statements in brief tabulated form, which will produce a truer understanding of the words “left hand path”. We are dealing here primarily with those thought-forms which man creates:
1. The left hand path concerns the matter aspect and the life poured into the form serves only to vitalize the atoms in substance. The potency of the love aspect—as wielded by the soul—is lacking.
2. The form created is constituted of mental matter, of astral matter and of physical substance. It lacks the soul contribution. Its purpose is in line with the development of form, but not in line with soul expression.
3. The left hand path, therefore, is the path of progress for substance or matter. It is not the path of progress for the soul aspect. It is the “way of the Holy Ghost” but not the way of the Son of God. I express this truth in these words as it serves peculiarly to make the distinction clear and yet preserves the integrity of substance-matter and their Unity within the One Life.
4. All forms created at every stage are either confined to the left hand path or embrace it and yet go beyond it, and follow the right hand way. This sentence provides food for thought and its meaning is difficult to gather. It should be borne in mind that all forms, whether they follow the right or left hand way are alike up to a certain point; they travel the same progressive stages and at one time in their career they appear uniform and alike. Only when their purpose appears does the distinction become apparent, and hence the training of the aspirant in right motive as a preparatory step to true occult work.
[268] The question might be asked: What is meant by occult work?
True occult work involves:
1. The contacting of the Plan.
2. Right desire to co-operate with the Plan.
3. The work of thought-form building and the confining of the attention of the creator of these thought-forms to the mental plane. This is of so potent a nature that the thought-forms created have a life cycle of their own and never fail to manifest and perform their work.
4. The direction of the thought-form from the mental plane and the confining of the attention to that specific enterprise, knowing that right thought and right orientation lead to correct functioning and the sure avoidance of the left hand path.
This is a lesson little appreciated by aspirants. They engage in emotional desire for the appearance of their thought-form and the manifestation of the idea. They spend much time following the orthodox methods of work and in physical plane activities. They wear themselves out by identifying themselves with the form they have created instead of remaining detached from it, and acting solely as the directing agents. Learn to work on the plane of mind. Build there your form, remembering that if you submerge yourself in the form for which you are responsible it may obsess and dominate you and then the form will be the dominant factor and not the purpose of its existence. When the form controls then comes the danger that it may be turned in the wrong direction and find its way on to the left hand path and so increase the power of matter and its hold over sentient souls.
It might be briefly added that anything that tends to increase the power of matter and add to the potent energy of form-substance produces a tendency to the left [269] hand path and a gradual attraction away from the Plan and the Purpose which it veils and hides.
All work and all created thought-forms (whether they materialize as an organization, a religion, a school of thought, a book or a life work of any kind) which express spiritual ideals and lay the emphasis upon the life-aspect come under the category of white magic. They then form part of the stream of life which we call the right hand Path, because it leads humanity out of form into life, and away from matter into consciousness.
In an ashram of one of the Great Ones not long ago, a disciple asked his master to express this truth to him in such a way that though the words might be few yet the import would be worthy of continuous consideration. His master made this reply:
“Only the Sons of Men know the distinction between the magic of the right and left hand ways and when they have achieved, these two ways will disappear. When the Sons of Men know the distinction which exists between matter and substance, the lesson of this epoch will be grasped. Other lessons will be left but this one passes. Matter and substance together work out the way of darkness. Substance and purpose blended indicate the way of light.”