[273] As the waters bathe the form created, they are absorbed and used. The form increases in its strength; let the magician thus continue until the work suffices. Let the outer builders cease their labours then, and let the inner workers enter on their cycle.
In Rule Ten two facts about the form are stated, which are true of all forms, and three strong injunctions are given in the following terms:
The facts are:
1. The form absorbs and uses the waters in which it is immersed.
2. As a result it grows in strength.
The three injunctions are:
1. Let the magician go on building his form until its adequate potency is assured.
2. Then let the “outer builders” cease from labour.
3. Let the “inner builders” enter on their cycle.
We have seen how, in the process of thought-form building, the time came when the form had to be oriented in the right direction and set upon the proper path in order to carry out its creator’s will and purpose. This takes place fairly early in the work and after the process of orientation the work of building proceeds, for the thought-form is not yet ready for an independent life. There is a true analogy between the gestation period of an infant and that of a thought-form. The importance of the right placement of the child within the womb is never overlooked by a good physician, and where there is analogously a wrong position upon the path to be followed into manifested existence, death and trouble oft ensue. The analogy is close—as you well know. Birth is preceded by the “breaking of the waters” (in medical [274] parlance), and before the thought-form brings about the desired results on the physical plane there comes too a similar reaction; the waters of desire become so potent as to cause precipitation, and the consequent appearance of the desired form of expression.
Let us take the facts and analogies as they stand and study them from the standpoint both of the macrocosm and the microcosm.
We note that the form absorbs and uses the substance wherein it is immersed. Our solar system is one of many, and not the greatest. It constitutes a fragment of a greater whole. This greater whole, formed of seven parts (or seven solar systems), is itself immersed in the waters of space, is born of desire and, therefore, a child of necessity. It draws its life from its surroundings. Streaming into our solar system from all sides are force currents, emanating from what A Treatise on Cosmic Fire calls the “One about Whom naught may be said”. These currents embody His will and desire, express His love or attractive capacity, and manifest as that great thought-form we call our system.
In parentheses, it is well to note that this Existence is termed “the One about Whom naught may be said”, not because of secrecy or mystery, but because all formulation of ideas about His life and purpose are impossible until one has completed the term of evolution in our solar system. Note, I say, our solar system, not just our planetary existence. Speculation about the Existence who, through His life, informs seven solar systems is wasted energy. On our planet, only such great lives as the Buddha, the Kumaras and the planetary Logos, are beginning to sense the dynamic impulse of the greater Whole, and even they are only sensitive to it but are, as yet, utterly unable to conceive of its trend, for it lies beyond mind and love and will. It brings into play factors [275] for which we have no terms and tendencies which are as yet not even remotely visioned on our planet.
We have generated a term we call the ether. Occultly speaking, this is the modern way of expressing “the waters of space”, which are the waters of desire, in which we are immersed. It is in constant ebb and flux, and is the stream of life, constituted of forty-nine types of energy, which pours through the cosmic egoic lotus, and (radiating forth from it) feeds with its measure of sustenance the form—solar, planetary, or human—for which it is responsible. This is dealt with in A Treatise on Cosmic Fire.
Man is immersed in forces which are to him as the waters of space are to our solar system. He finds himself, as does our sun and its attendant planets, forming part of a whole, and just as our system is but one of seven systems, drawn together to form the body, or manifested expression of a life, so is the human kingdom of which he is an infinitesimal part, one of seven kingdoms. These are the correspondences in the life of the planetary Logos to the seven solar systems. When he begins to sense the life of the solar Logos as it expresses itself through the seven planetary schemes we will have touched the consciousness of the planetary Logos of our special scheme, who is sensing somewhat the united vibrations of the lives of the seven solar Logoi.
Bringing the analogy down closer still, the human kingdom itself is an analogous state of consciousness to the human unit through its subjective force existence, and from the standpoint of consciousness provides “the waters of space” in which a human being thrives and grows. Again, we are met in the fourth kingdom with expressions of the same seven forces, and as man awakens to a recognition of the seven rays or types, and begins to work consciously with them, he is taking the first step towards transcending them and controlling them [276] within his field of operation. This is now taking place. Knowledge of the seven ray types is beginning to permeate among the thinkers of the race and this knowledge was in past aeons the prerogative of the initiates of the time. Held latent in the astrological presentation is that information which will lead disciples to realization, and which will put them en rapport with the seven planetary schemes. Real developments in astrology may not be looked for, however, until the New Age is really with us and the new orientation achieved.
The form of humanity is completed. Its right placement within the womb of matter is the objective of the Hierarchy, with all the consequent implications. Note these words. The need at this time is terrific, and the soul is at the birthing in humanity as a whole. Cosmically speaking, if right direction of the forces of the human kingdom is now achieved, there will be manifested on the earth a humanity which will manifest a purpose, a beauty and a form which will be full expressions of an inner spiritual reality and in line with egoic purpose. Other eventualities can be sensed as sadly possible but these we will not consider for it is the hope and the belief of the watching Brothers that men will transcend all undesirable eventualities and make the goal. One word here, and one hint. The Hierarchy of the planet constitutes symbolically the head centre of humanity and their forces constitute the brain forces. On the physical plane are a large band of aspirants, probationary disciples and accepted disciples who are seeking to be responsive to the “head centre”, some consciously, others unconsciously. They are gathered from all fields of expression but are all creative in some way or other. They in their turn constitute what might be symbolically called the “pineal gland” of humanity. As in individual man this is usually dormant and asleep, so, in humanity, this group of cells within the brain of the body corporate is dormant, [277] but thrilling to the vibrations of the head centre—the occult Hierarchy. Some of the cells are awake. Let them intensify their endeavour and so awaken others. The pioneers of the human family, the scientists, thinkers and artists constitute the pituitary body. They express the concrete mind but lack that intuitive perception and idealism which would place them (symbolically speaking) in the pineal gland; they are nevertheless brilliant, expressive and investigating. The objective of the Hierarchy (again symbolically speaking) is to make the pineal gland so potent and, therefore, so attractive that the pituitary body of cell lives may be stimulated and thus a close interplay be brought about. This will lead to such potent action that there will be a streaming forth of new cells to the pineal gland and at the same time such a strong reaction set up that the entire body will be affected, resulting in the streaming upward of many stimulated lives to take the places of those who are finding their way into the centre of hierarchical endeavour.
The “waters of space”, in which this re-orientation and reversal of tendencies is progressing, are in a state of violent turmoil. The vortex of conflicting desire in which men find themselves is now chaotic and so potent that these waters are stirred to the very depths. Students of modern history and of social order are faced with an unprecedented condition, corresponding in the corporate body of humanity to that upheaval in the life of an individual aspirant which always precedes the passing onto the Path of Discipleship. Hence there is no cause for depression or undue anxiety, but only ardent desire that the transition may be made in due time and order and be neither too rapid—hence destructive to all right ties and affiliations—nor too prolonged and so strain beyond endurance the sorely tried fabric of humanity. All new manifestations in all kingdoms in all ages must come slowly, and therefore safely, to the birthing. [278] All new forms, if they are ultimately to carry weight and gather adequate momentum to carry them through their life cycle, must be built in silent subjectivity, in order that the building may be strong and sure and the inner contact with the creator (human or divine) and true conformity to the pattern may be substantial and unbreakable. This is true of a universe, a kingdom in nature, or a thought-form created by a human thinker.
In all form-building the technique of construction remains basically the same, and the rules and realizations may be summed up in the following aphoristic phrases.
Let the creator know himself to be the builder, and not the building.
Let him desist from dealing with the raw material on the physical plane, and let him study the pattern and the blue prints, acting as the agent of the Divine Mind.
Let him use two energies and work with three laws. These are the dynamic energy of purpose, conforming to the Plan, and the magnetic energy of desire, drawing the builders to the centre of endeavour.
Let these three laws hold sway, the law of synthetic limitation, of vibratory interplay, and of active precipitation. The one concerns the life, the second concerns the building, and the third produces manifested existence.
Let him deal first with the outer builders, sending his call to the periphery of his circle of influence.
Let him set the waters of living substance in motion by his idea and impulse, bending the builders to his purpose and plan.
Let him build with judgment and with skill, preserving always the “stool of the director” and coming not down into close contact with his thought-form.
Let him project, in time and space, his form through [279] visualization, meditation and skill in action, and so produce that which his will commands, his love desires, and his need creates.
Let him withdraw the builders of the outer form, and let the inner builders of dynamic force push it forth into manifestation. Through the eye of the creator are these inner builders brought to functioning, directed action. Through the word of the creator were the outer builders guided. Through the ear of the creator the volume of the greater Word vibrates through the waters of space.
Let him remember the order of creative work. The waters of space respond to the word. The builders build. The cycle of creation ends and the form is adequate in manifestation. The cycle of performance succeeds and depends for its duration on the potency of the inner builders, who constitute the subjective form and transmit the vitalising life.
Let him remember that the cessation of the form ensues when purpose is achieved, or when impotency of will produces failure of functioning in the cycle of performance.
Students would do well to study these cycles of creative building, of performance and of subsequent disintegration. They are true of a solar system, of a human being, and of the thought-forms of a creative thinker. The secret of all beauty lies in the right functioning of these cycles. The secret of all success on the physical plane lies in right understanding of law and of order. For the aspirant the goal of his endeavour is the correct building of forms in mental matter remembering that “as a man thinketh so is he”; that for him the control of mental substance and its use in clear thinking is an essential to progress.
This will demonstrate in organization of the outer life, [280] in creative work of some kind—a book written, a picture painted, a home functioning rhythmically, a business run along sound and true lines, a life salvaged, and the outer dharma carried out with precision, whilst the inner adjustments proceed in the silence of the heart.
For the disciple, the work extends. For him there has to be realization of the group plan and purpose and not simply of his own individual spiritual problem. There has to be conformity to the purpose for his immediate cycle and life period; the subordinating of his personal dharma and ideas to the need and service of that cycle. For him there has to be that attainment of knowledge, of strength, and of coordination between the personal self and the soul which will result in ability to build organized forms and groups on the physical plane and to hold them coherently together. This he does, not through the force of his own character and equipment but because that character and equipment enable him to act as a transmitter of the greater life energies and to serve as an efficient cooperator with a plan of which he can only vision a fragment. He works, however, faithfully at the building of his aspect of the great plan and finds one day when the building is completed and he sees the whole, that he has built true to design and in conformity with the blue prints as they have been carried in the minds of the architects (the Elder Brothers) who—in Their turn—are in touch with the Mind of the one Existence.
The practical application of these truths is of utmost importance. There is no life so circumscribed and no person so situated who cannot begin to work intelligently and to build thought-forms under law and with understanding. There is no day in any man’s life, particularly if he is an aspirant or a disciple, when a man cannot work in mental matter, control his use of thought, watch the effect of his mental processes on those he contacts, and [281] so handle his “chitta” or mind-stuff (as Patanjali calls it) that he becomes more and more useful.
There are two connections in which this Rule Ten can be studied and thereby results of practical value can be achieved. We can study it from the standpoint of the work which the soul does in relation to its instrument, the human being, and we can also study it from the standpoint of organisation work and of that form-building which the disciple does in relation to his service for the Hierarchy.
Back of the outer form of a human being, responsible for its creation, its maintenance and its use, lies, we know, the soul. Back of all activity for the furthering of human evolution as well as of other evolutionary processes stands the Hierarchy. Both represent centres of energy; both work under Law creatively; both proceed from subjective activity to objective manifestation and both are responsive (in the great sequence of graded lives) to vitalisation and stimulation from higher centres of energy. Some of the factors that the disciple has to learn to recognize as his particular series of lives unfolds falls into two main groups, each of them bringing his form aspect under seven types of energy, or influences.
There is first the group of forces which concerns purely the form side, that are the work of the outer Builders, and which are the predominant factors right up to the stage of the Probationary Path. These are the forces inherent in matter itself; they deal with the body nature and might be listed as follows:
1. Physical forces. These are due to the life of the cells which constitute the body. This cell life is responsive to the cell life of the environment. Never let it be forgotten that the occultist always sees the correlation [282] between the factors in himself and the corresponding factors in his surroundings. We live in a world of forms. These forms are made up of lives and these lives have their own emanatory and contributory influence. They fall in their turn into three main groups:
a. Those emanations, which issuing from the cells themselves and dependent upon their quality, produce a good or a bad effect, are coarsening or refining in their influence, and raise or lower the physical vibration of the united cell body. Thus, as we well know, the physical effect of a coarse brutal animal natured man will be different to that of the refined beautifying results of contact with an older soul, functioning in a body, cultured, clean, disciplined and purified.
b. Those emanations, of a purely physical kind which are responsible for that chemical affinity between one animal body and another which produces the coming together of the sexes. It is an aspect of animal magnetism and is the response of the cells to the call of other cells, acting under the Law of Attraction and Repulsion. It is shared by man with the animals, and is instinctive and free from all mental reactions.
c. Those forces or emanations, which are the response of the cells to harmonious rhythms and therefore dependent upon the cell having in itself something of that to which it responds. These emanations are little understood as yet, but will increasingly come to the fore as the race progresses. This type of force is that mysterious something which enables the physical body to recognise as harmonious or congenial a physical surrounding or environment, for instance. It is that undefinable reaction which results in two human beings (apart [283] from all sex attraction, for people of the same sex experience it with each other) having a harmonious effect physically upon each other. This is, on the outer plane, the esoteric basis for all group relation, and it is the understanding of these emanations that enables the isolation and segregation of races to be carried forward under the great evolutionary plan.
These three might be described as the quality of the cell forces operating entirely on the physical plane which produce a peculiar type of physical body, the magnetic attraction between two physical bodies, and the racial types . These three factors guide the Manu of the race as He builds a new race and impresses the outer Builders with His ideas. They also guide a Master of the Wisdom as He builds His physical body at will for the carrying forward of His work in any time or place. These emanations should, in measure, be understood somewhat by all those engaged in forming organisations and groups for active service in the world. What, should the disciple ask himself, should be the vibratory quality of the cells of that body, of the individuals who compose it? What should be the quality of its attractive force, and of the magnetic effect it is to have in the world? What does the group possess through the medium of its corporate units which will put it en rapport with other groups and so make it harmonious in its relations with them? These questions warrant careful attention and should be considered by all group builders.
2. Vital forces. These are often regarded by the materialists as intangible and therefore not material at all. But the occultist regards the etheric medium as a form or aspect of matter and as relatively tangible as the outer objective form. To him the ether of space, which term necessarily includes the etheric form of all bodies, the [284] astral or emotional sentient body and the mental body, constituted of mind-stuff, are all of them material and are the substance of the form side of life. As the basis of correct understanding, it should be noted that the cell life to which we have above referred is coordinated, influenced and vitalised by the blood stream, that intricate system which interpenetrates every part of the body, is responsible for its welfare and demonstrates in a manner not yet truly comprehended the fact that the “blood is the life”. The blood is an aspect of energy, as is the sap in the vegetable kingdom.
The sympathetic nervous system, that marvellous apparatus of sensation, is closely related to the emotional or astral body. The contact is made via the solar plexus, just as the vitality, governing the quality of the blood stream, makes its contact via the heart. In the heart is the centre of physical plane existence. The cerebrospinal system works in close relation to the chitta or mind stuff. Therefore we have the following to consider:
| 1. Cell life | Blood stream | Heart centre | Thymus gland. |
| 2. Sensory life | Sympathetic nervous system | Solar plexus centre | Pancreas. |
| 3. Mental life | Cerebro-spinal system | Ajna centre | Pituitary body |
| 4. Vital life | Seven centres | Spleen. |
This, as you see, governs the manifestations of the quaternary, but there are other aspects of humanity which manifest through the objective form and which complete the entire man and make the seven of his manifold objective existence.
| 5. Self-conscious | upper brain | Head centre | Pineal gland. |
| 6. Self-expression | lower brain | Throat centre | Thyroid. |
| 7. Self-perpetuation | sex organs | Sacral centre | Reproductive organs. |
| 8. Self-assertion | entire man | Centre at base of spine | Adrenals. |
[285] You will notice that eight factors are here enumerated, and it is here that many of the schools go astray. The heading ‘vital life’ is a comprehensive one, but it must be remembered that it relates entirely to the physical vitalisation of man through the lowest aspect of the centres. This vital life of the universe of matter enters into the human organism through the spleen.
The centres have three main functions:—
First, to vitalise the physical body.
Second, to bring about the development of self-consciousness in man.
Third, to transmit spiritual energy and sweep the entire man into a state of spiritual being.
The vitality aspect is shared by man with the animals and with all created forms, and his capacity to move freely in a three dimensional world is the outstanding achievement of that aspect. The self-consciousness aspect is the prerogative of the human family. When man has evolved, when all parts of his nervous system, his endocrine system, and his centres are coordinated and working in harmonious rhythm then the highest aspect (the spiritual) makes its presence felt. The spiritual energy and not just the consciousness or sentient energy pours through Man, the instrument of divine Life, and the custodian of forces, to be held and used for the other and lower kingdoms in nature.
The above enumeration might therefore be arranged in the following order. The table gives man as he is intended to be and not as he now is in the course of his evolutionary progress.[286]
| 1. Self-assertion (full development) | the coordinated quaternary | Centre at base of spine | Adrenals. |
| 2. Self-expression (creative work) | Lower brain | Throat centre | Thyroid. |
| 3. Self-conscious life (personality). | Upper Brain | Head centre | Pineal gland. |
| 4. Self-perpetuation | Sex organs | Sacral centre | Sex glands. |
| 5. Mental life | Cerebro-spinal system | Ajna centre | Pituitary. |
| 6. Sensory life | Sympathetic nervous system | Solar plexus | Pancreas. |
| 7. Cell life | Blood stream | Heart centre | Heart. |
The eighth point, the vital life, functioning through the seven centres and a whole system of lesser chakras and the nadis (which underlie the nerves and are the cause of their existence as the centres are of the glands) is the medium of many forces and energies—some purely physical, others related to the Anima Mundi, the World Soul, and others unknown as yet, because they will only make their presence felt later in the evolutionary programme. They will then express divinity, the energy of the Father or the highest aspect.
It should be noted that the above tabulation pictures the second ray unfoldment, and also that the self referred to is the self-realisation of the spiritual man. The lowest aspect of the vital life of God is the perpetuation of the species, and this is the result of the livingness of the incarnated Life; and the next is simply expressive of the stage when the “I” consciousness is dominant and has reached its consummation in the completed personality. Then comes the expression of the indwelling self, hidden by the personality, through its creative activity of a non-physical character. Finally, we have the assertion or full manifestation of the divine nature. This, curiously enough, can only occur when the lower spinal centre is aroused, when the energy of the material nature is carried by an act of the will up into Heaven, and when therefore the entire nature—material, sensitive or psychic, and the existence aspect—are unified and realised. Meditate upon these words, for they connote the consummation as far as humanity is concerned.
[287] The occult aphorism: “To will, to know, to dare, and to be silent” , has a special significance not hitherto revealed and at which it is only possible for me to hint. Those of you who have the inner knowledge will comprehend at once.
To Will . These words relate to the ultimate achievement, when, by an act of the combined will of the soul and of the lower man, unification and realisation are brought about. It concerns the centre at the base of the spine.
To Know. These words concern the Ajna centre, the centre between the eyebrows. A hint lies in the words ‘Let the Mother know the Father’. It has relation to the marriage in the Heavens.
To Dare. These words give the clue to the subordination of the personality, and have a close connection with the solar plexus, the great clearing house of desire and of the astral forces, and also the main centre of the transmutative work.
To Be Silent . This phrase relates to the transmutation of the lower creative energy into the higher creative life. The sacral centre has to relapse into silence.
It will be seen then that for the disciple the following centres are of paramount importance:
1. The ajna centre, through which the purified personality expresses itself.
2. The centre at the base of the spine, which is the centre through which complete and utter control and coordination is achieved, through the arousing of the purifying agency of fire.
3. The sacral centre, wherein the basic force of our particular solar system, the force of attraction of form to form is transmuted, and the attractive force of the soul takes the place of the reproductive creative material activity.[288]
4. The solar plexus centre which, situated in the centre of the body and being the organ of the astral body and of the lower psychism, gathers together all lower forces and redirects them under the impulse of the soul to their higher repositories.
I realise that the teaching given here is both deep and abstruse, but it is needed for the few, and their numbers will increase as time elapses.
The complexity of the subject is also increased by the fact that each ray holds within its teaching a different approach and a different method for those souls who are found responsive to its peculiar impulse.
I give here the seven keys for each of the ray methods. These can be studied in relation to the above tabulations and in connection with the four words we have been considering. We must remember that ‘To Will’ is the prerogative of Spirit, ‘To Know’ is the function of the Soul, ‘To Dare’ is the duty of the personality, and ‘To Be Silent’ is the ultimate dharma or destiny of the matter aspect, of the animal nature in its interplay with the soul.
First Ray :—”Let the Forces come together. Let them mount to the High Place, and from that lofty eminence, let the soul look out upon a world destroyed. Then let the word go forth: ‘I still persist!’”
Second Ray: —”Let all the life be drawn to the Centre, and enter thus into the Heart of Love Divine. Then from that point of sentient Life, let the soul realise the consciousness of God. Let the word go forth, reverberating through the silence: ‘Naught is but Me!’”
Third Ray: —”Let the Army of the Lord, responsive to the word, cease their activities. Let knowledge end in wisdom. Let the point vibrating become the point quiescent, and all lines gather into One. Let the soul realise the One in Many and let the word go forth in [289] perfect understanding: ‘I am the Worker and the Work, the One that Is.’”
Fourth Ray: —”Let the outer glory pass away and the beauty of the inner Light reveal the One. Let dissonance give place to harmony, and from the centre of the hidden Light, let the soul speak: Let the word roll forth: ‘Beauty and glory veil me not. I stand revealed. I am.’”
Fifth Ray: —”Let the three forms of energy electric pass upward to the Place of Power. Let the forces of the head and heart and all the nether aspects blend. Then let the soul look out upon an inner world of light divine. Let the Word triumphant go forth: ‘I mastered energy for I am energy Itself. The Master and the mastered are but One.’”
Sixth Ray :—”Let all desire cease. Let aspiration end. The search is over. Let the soul realise that it has reached the goal, and from that gateway to eternal Life and cosmic Peace, let the word sound: ‘I am the seeker and the sought. I rest!’”
Seventh Ray: —”Let the builders cease their work. The Temple is completed. Let the soul enter into its heritage and from the Holy Place command all work to end. Then in the silence subsequent, let him chant forth the Word: ‘The creative work is over. I, the Creator, Am. Naught else remains but Me.’”
The vital forces, which are simply the passing through the outer sheath of the constantly moving ether of space, are of many kinds. One of the concepts, lying back of the astrological theories, is that the etheric body of any form constitutes part of the etheric body of the solar system, and is therefore the medium for the transmission of solar energies, of planetary forces, and of extra-solar or cosmic impulses, esoterically called ‘breaths’. These forces and energies of the cosmic rays are constantly circulating and following definite paths through the ether [290] of space in all parts, and are therefore constantly passing through the etheric bodies of every exoteric form. This is a basic truth and must be carefully borne in mind, for its implications are many and varied; but all lead back to the idea of unity, and of the Oneness of all manifestation, only to be known and realised on the subjective side.
The second basic idea is that the response of the etheric vehicle of all forms and its capacity to appropriate, to utilise, and to transmit are dependent upon the condition of the centres, of the chakras, as they are called in the East. These include not only the well known seven major centres but numbers of lesser vortices of force, as yet unnamed and unknown in the occident. It is dependent also upon the quality of the etheric vehicle, upon its aliveness, and also upon the interlacing network in which the centres have their place, and which in its entirety is called ‘the web’ or the ‘golden bowl’. If this is clear of impediments and of sediment, and if its channels are not clogged then the circulating rays, energies and forces can find an easy medium and can circulate unimpeded throughout the entire body. They can then utilise those centres which are responsive to their vibrations, and can be passed on and through to forms in other or the same kingdoms in nature. Here lies the secret of all scientific and occult healing. Healers are experimenting with the etheric body and yet little real knowledge is theirs. They know little or nothing of the centres in their own body through which the magnetic or other currents must flow; they are unaware of the condition of the etheric centres of those they seek to heal and of the nature of the forces they wish to employ. All they can do is to discipline their lives, and so control their appetites that they build a clean body and provide clear channels for the passage of forces from and through themselves to others.
The third concept to be noted is that forms are, as yet [291] primarily responsive to the forces which reach them from other forms on the planet, to the seven basic types of energies emanating from the seven planets, and also to the life-giving solar ray. All forms in all the four kingdoms respond to these many forces, to these seven energies and to the one ray. The human family are responsive also to other energies and to solar rays,—all however coloured by the force generated within the solar ring-pass-not.
The work of the occultist and of the aspirant is to arrive at an understanding of these forces and so learn their nature and their use, their potency and vibratory rate. He has also to learn to recognise their source and be able to differentiate between forces, energies and rays. For the beginner a clear distinction can be made between forces and energies by appreciating the fact that personalities affect us through the forces emanating from their form aspect, but that these same personalities, purified and aligned, can be transmitters of the energies of the soul.
Broadly speaking, the work of the human kingdom is to transmit energy to the lower kingdoms in Nature, whilst the work of the Hierarchy, in its relation to the human kingdom, is to transmit energies from the spiritual realm, from other planetary centres, and from the solar system. These energies when stepped down for transmission differentiate into forces.
Students must not get confused by the complexity of the subject. They must learn certain large generalisations, and remember that as the omniscience of the soul is tapped, the more detailed knowledge will gradually fall into place.
The other types of energy which concern the first two main groups with which the aspirant has to deal are related entirely to the form side. The third and succeeding groups are: [292]
3. Astral energy.
4. The energy of the lower concrete mind, of the chitta, the mind-stuff.
5. The energy of the Personality.
6. Planetary energy.
7. Solar energy, or the Life Breath.
These can be subdivided as follows:
3. Astral Energy. Emanating from:
a. A man’s own astral or sentient body.
b. The human family as a whole.
c. The astral plane in the large sense.
d. The ‘heart of the Sun’.
4. Mental Energy. Emanating from:
a. The individual chitta or mind-stuff.
b. The mentality of:
1. The human family as a whole.
2. The particular race to which a man belongs.
c. The mental plane as a whole.
d. The Universal Mind.
5. Personality Energy . Emanating from:
a. The coordinated form of man.
b. Advanced human beings who are dominant personalities.
c. Groups, i.e.
1. The Hierarchy of the Planet. Subjective.
2. The integrating group of Mystics. Objective.
6. Planetary Energy . Emanating from:
a. The seven planets. This is the basis of astrological practice.
b. The Earth.
c. The Moon.
7. Solar Energy. Emanating from:
a. The physical Sun.
b. The Sun, acting as a transmitter of cosmic Rays. [293]
The subject now to be considered is of most practical application for it concerns the astral body—the body in which a man is pre-eminently polarised and of which he is more potently conscious than of any other body. The etheric body is really below the threshold of consciousness. Human beings remain unaware of the passage of forces through this vehicle and the nearest they get to the recognition of it is when they speak in terms of vitality or lack of vitality. The physical body makes its presence felt when something goes wrong or through the gratification of one or other of the appetites. The situation is however different in connection with the astral body for there is the vehicle of experience for the majority, and few there are who do not pass the greater part of their conscious life, recording the reactions of that body and vibrating between the two poles of happiness and misery, of satisfaction or non-satisfaction, of assurance or doubt, of courage or of fear. This really means that the inherent force and life of the emotional sentient vehicle govern the life-expression and mould the experience of the incarnated soul. Therefore, it is of value to us to understand something of what those forces are, where they come from, and how they act and react on the man. There lies his battleground and there also lies his field of victory.
To begin with, it is advisable to bear in mind that all astral energy is part of the astral energy of the solar system and that therefore:
1. The sentient body of a human being is an atom of substance in the sentient body of the planetary Logos.
2. The sentient body (a term I much prefer to the term astral, and which I shall continue to use) of [294] the planetary Logos is an aspect—not an atom—of the sentient body of the solar Logos.
3. This in its turn is influenced by, and is a channel for sentient forces, emanating from vast centres of energy outside our solar system altogether.
If this is borne in mind it becomes apparent that man, being but a tiny fragment of a vaster whole which in its turn is incorporated into a still vaster vehicle, is the meeting ground of forces greater and more diversified than his brain is capable of recognizing. Hence the complexity of his problem and hence all the possibilities growing out of those expansions of consciousness which we call initiation. Every stream of energy pouring through his body of desire and of sentient reaction, is but a pathway leading him to wider and every widening contacts and realisations. Here also lies the safeguard for the majority of human beings, in the fact that they possess as yet an apparatus inadequate for the registering and recording of those infinite possibilities which these avenues of realisation offer. Until the mental apparatus is sufficiently awakened and controlled it would not be possible for man to interpret rightly and utilise correctly the information which his body of sensitive response could, but fortunately does not yet, convey to him.
Apart from the constant circulation through his astral body of planetary and solar and cosmic energies, every human being has appropriated, out of the greater Whole, enough of the astral energy wherewith to construct his own individual and separate astral body, responsive to his peculiar note, coloured by his peculiar quality, and limiting him or not according to his point on the ladder of evolution.
This constitutes his astral ring-pass-not, defining the limits of his emotional response to life experience, embodying [295] in its quality the range of his desire life, but being at the same time capable of tremendous expansion, development, adjustment and control under the impulse of the mental body and of the soul. It is subject also to vibratory activity as the result of the interplay between it and the physical plane life experience, and thus the great wheel of experience is set in motion and will persist until the four Noble Truths of the Buddha are understood and realised.
This astral body has in it the counterparts of the etheric or laya centres, and through them stream the forces and energies, earlier dealt with, into the etheric body. These centres carry energies from the seven planets and from the sun to every part of the astral organism, thus putting man en rapport with all parts of the solar system. This results in the fixation of a man’s life destiny, until such a time as the man awakens to his immortal heritage and so becomes sensitive to forces that are as yet—for the many—unrecognised. These emanate from the form. This is the reason why a horoscope is frequently quite accurate in its delineation for the unevolved and for the unawakened, but is quite in error and at fault in the case of the highly evolved man. Man is, en masse, what his desire body makes him. Later, “as a man thinketh so is he”. The astral body, with its longings, appetites, moods, feelings, and cravings moulds the physical body through the attractive forces which flow through it, and so guides the man on unerringly to the fulfilment of his desires. If the cravings of the sentient nature are dominantly animal in their objective we shall have the man with strong appetites, living a life given over to the effort to satisfy them. If the craving is for comfort and for happiness, we shall have the man with a sensuous, beauty-loving and pleasure-loving disposition, governed practically entirely by selfish effort. So it is through all the many grades of desire, good, bad, [296] and ordinary, until that re-orientation takes place which so refocusses the astral energies that they are turned in a different direction. Desire becomes aspiration. Thus liberation from the wheel of birth is brought about and a man is freed from the necessity to reincarnate. Then the horoscope as now understood proves futile, untrue and useless and the term sometimes used, but wrongly, ‘the horoscope of the ego or the soul’ means nothing. The soul has no individual destiny, but is submerged into the One. Its destiny is the destiny of the group, and of the Whole; its desire is the working out of the great Plan, and its will is the glorification of the incarnated Logos.
I would like to suggest to students that they procure if possible The Science of the Emotions by Bhagavan Das. It is an able treatise on the astral and sentient body, and deals with the factors that most nearly concern the aspirant as he faces the problem of understanding and of controlling his emotional nature, of mastering the technique of development, and of reorienting it to wider experience and of preparing it for the tests and expansions of the second major initiation—the baptism and the final entering of the stream. Metaphorically speaking, the experience that lies ahead upon the Path is covered in the following esoteric phrases:
“When the stream enters the River of Life, its passage can be traced for a short moment and then is lost. When the currents of the sentient life meet where the river passes round the mountain’s massive foot, then one vast stream is seen which floweth north.”
The symbology of this is apparent, and can be also used to depict the flow of the two currents—Ida and Pingala—and their blending in the river of energy that mounts to the head. There is the meeting place, and there the sacrifice, enacted upon the mount of Golgotha (the place of the skull). [297]
In considering the sentient body of a human being I will probably help the most if I deal with it in terms of its moods and ordinary expressions, for it is only in dealing with its effects and in seeking to master them that man arrives at knowledge of himself and so becomes a Master. The most ordinary manifestations of astral activity are:
I. Fear.
II. Depression or its opposite pole, hilarity.
III. Desire for the satisfaction of the animal appetites.
IV. Desire for happiness.
V. Desire for liberation. Aspiration.
In these five are summed up practically most of the sentient experiences of man and we will consider each one from the following angles:
1. The cause.
2. The effect.
3. The method of direction.
You will note that I say ‘method of direction’ not method of control. Aspirants must learn that they are working with, and in, forces, and that right and wrong activity on the physical plane is due simply to a right or wrong direction of the force currents and not to anything inherently wrong or right in the energies themselves.
I. Fear. This is one of the most usual of the manifestations of astral energy, and is put first because it constitutes, for the vast majority, the Dweller on the Threshold and also in the last analysis is the basic astral evil. Every human being knows fear and the range of the fear vibrations extends from the instinctual fears of the savage man based on his ignorance of the laws and forces of nature, and on his terror of the dark and the unknown, to the fears so prevalent today of loss of friends and loved ones, of health, of money, of popularity [298] and on to the final fears of the aspirant—the fear of failure, the fear which has its roots in doubt, the fear of ultimate negation or of annihilation, the fear of death (which he shares equally with all humanity) the fear of the great illusion of the astral plane, of the phantasmagoria of life itself, and also fear of loneliness on the Path, even to the very fear of Fear itself. This list could be largely extended but suffices to indicate the prevalence of fears of all kinds. They dominate most situations and darken many happy moments. They reduce man to a timid and frightened atom of sentient life, standing afraid before the stupendousness of the problems of existence, aware of his insufficiency as a man to cope with all situations and unable to leave his fears and questionings behind and step into his heritage of freedom and of life. Often he is so ridden by fear that he becomes afraid of his very reason. The picture cannot be too blackly coloured, for fear is the dominant astral energy at this time and sensitive humanity succumbs all too easily to it.
You ask: What are the basic causes of fear? To that question, if carried far enough back into the esoteric history of the solar system there is no intelligible answer to be given. Only the advanced initiate can comprehend. Fear has its roots in the warp and woof of matter itself, and is par excellence, a formulation or effect of the mind principle, and a result of mental activity. The fact that birds and animals know fear puts the whole subject upon a wider footing than if it were simply a human failing and the result of the activity of the functioning of the human mind. It is not incident upon a man’s possessing a reasoning mind; if he used his reason in the correct way he could eliminate fear. It lies in what is called cosmic Evil—a high sounding phrase, conveying little. It is inherent in the fact of matter itself and in the play of the pairs of opposites—soul and matter. The sentient souls [299] of animals and of men are subconsciously aware of factors such as:
1. The vastness and therefore the sensed oppression of the Whole.
2. The pressure of all other lives and existences.
3. The working of inexorable Law.
4. The sense of imprisonment, of limitation, and of consequent inadequacy.
In these factors, growing out of the manifested process itself and persisting and growing in potency during the ages, are found the causes of all modern fear and the basis of all terror, above all that which is purely psychological and not just the instinctual fear of the animal.
To concretise the matter more clearly would not help. Of what use is it to be told that fear is a quality of evil (or of matter) which colours fundamentally or characterises the astral or sentient body of our planetary Logos? What have you gained if I outlined to you the problem of the great Life in Whom we live and move and have our being as He, on His Own cosmic plane, seeks liberation and faces His Own peculiar trials and tests? How can words adequate be found to convey a cosmic struggle between Lives so impersonal and exalted in consciousness that the words his, or he or tests prove simply laughable and convey no possible aspect of truth or reality whatsoever? Cosmic evil, cosmic progression, or cosmic problems can well be left to that distant time when aspirants have taken the third initiation, have lost all sense of separateness, and—being identified with the Life Aspect and not with the form side—can therefore enter somewhat into the state of consciousness of our planetary Logos, sense His destiny, and vision fleetingly the wonder of the consummation.
Let us confine our attention therefore to man and more [300] particularly to average man, and see whence come the waves of fear which sweep him so constantly off his feet.
1. The Fear of Death is based upon:
a. A terror of the final rending processes in the act of death itself.
b. Horror of the unknown and the indefinable.
c. Doubt as to final immortality.
d. Unhappiness at leaving loved ones behind or of being left behind.
e. Ancient reactions to past violent deaths, lying deep in the subconsciousness.
f. Clinging to form life, because primarily identified with it in consciousness.
g. Old erroneous teaching as to Heaven and Hell, both equally unpleasant in prospect to certain types.
I speak about Death as one who knows the matter from both the outer world experience and the inner life expression:—There is no death. There is, as you know, entrance into fuller life. There is freedom from the handicaps of the fleshly vehicle. The rending process so such dreaded does not exist, except in the cases of violent and of sudden death and then the only true disagreeables are an instant and overwhelming sense of imminent peril and destruction, and something closely approaching an electric shock. No more. For the unevolved, death is literally a sleep and a forgetting, for the mind is not sufficiently awakened to react, and the storehouse of memory is as yet practically empty. For the average good citizen, death is a continuance of the living process in his consciousness and a carrying forward of the interests and tendencies of the life. His consciousness and his sense of awareness are the same and unaltered. He does not sense much difference, is well taken care of, and oft is unaware that he has passed [301] through the episode of death. For the wicked and cruelly selfish, for the criminal and for those few who live for the material side only, there eventuates that condition which we call ‘earth-bound’. The links they have forged with earth and the earthward bias of all their desires force them to remain close to the earth and their last setting in the earth environment. They seek desperately and by every possible means to re-contact it and to re-enter. In a few cases, great personal love for those left behind or the non-fulfilment of a recognised and urgent duty holds the good and beautiful in a somewhat similar condition. For the aspirant, death is an immediate entrance into a sphere of service and of expression to which he is well accustomed and which he at once recognises as not new. In his sleeping hours he has developed a field of active service and of learning. He now simply functions in it for the entire twenty-four hours (talking in terms of physical plane time) instead of for his usual few hours of earthly sleep.
As time progresses and before the close of the next century death will be finally seen to be non-existent in the sense in which it is now understood. Continuity of consciousness will be so widely developed and so many of the highest types of men will function simultaneously in the two worlds that the old fear will go and the intercourse between the astral plane and the physical plane will be so firmly established and so scientifically controlled that the work of the trance mediums will rightly and mercifully come to an end. The ordinary common trance mediumship and materialisations under controls and Indian guides are just as much perversions of the intercourse between the two planes as are sex perversions and the distortions of the true relationship and intercourse between the sexes. I refer not here to the work of clairvoyants, no matter how poor, nor to the taking possession of the body by entities of high calibre, but of [302] the unpleasant phenomena of the materialisation seance, of ectoplasm, and the blind unintelligent work done by old Atlantean degenerates and earthbound souls, the average Indian chief and guide. There is nothing to be learned from them and much to be avoided. The reign of the fear of death is well-nigh ended and we shall soon enter upon a period of knowledge and of certainty which will cut away the ground from under all our fears. In dealing with the fear of death, there is little to be done except to raise the whole subject onto a more scientific level, and—in this scientific sense—teach people to die. There is a technique of dying just as there is of living, but this technique has been lost very largely in the West and is almost lost except in a few centres of Knowers in the East. More of this can perhaps be dealt with later but the thought of the needed approach to this subject can rest in the minds of the students who read this and perhaps as they study and read and think, material of interest will come their way which could be gradually assembled and published.
2. Fear of the Future. This is a fear that will as yet show a growing tendency to develop and will cause much distress in the world before it is obliterated. It grows out of three human capacities:
a. Instinctive psychological thought habits, which have their roots deep in the animal nature and hark back to the primal instinct of self-preservation. Savage races however, have little of this. That forward looking anticipatory state of mind is predominantly a human characteristic and is that germ of the imaginative faculty, linked to the mental processes, which will eventually merge into that intuitive meditation, plus visualisation, which is the true basis of all creative work. But at present it is a menace and a hindrance. Ancient suffering, dire memories, haunting miseries, deep-seated in the subconscious rise to the surface frequently and cause a condition [303] of fear and of distress which no amount of reasoning seems able to quiet. Facilities of communication put even the most unimportant en rapport with the tragedies, pains and sufferings of his brother thousands of miles away. The economic catastrophe of the present time has brought about a condition of mass terror, and the more sensitive the individual the more he will react to this state of mind. Fear of the future is therefore a distressing blend of instinctual memory and anticipatory imagination, and few there are who escape this menace. Worry and anxiety are the lot of every man and cannot and will not be offset and overcome by any lesser factor than the soul itself.
b. The flashes of prevision emanating from the soul who is dwelling in the consciousness of the Eternal Now. When contact with the soul is firmly established and the consciousness of the Knower is stabilised in the brain then prevision will carry with it no terror. The picture will then be seen as a whole, and not as a passing and fragmentary glimpse as is now the case. So again, the remedy remains the same: the establishing of such close relations between the soul and the brain, via the trained and controlled mind, that cause and effect will be seen as one, and right steps can be taken to handle situations correctly and to the best advantage. Prevision seldom takes the form of forecasting happiness, and the reason is not far to seek. The race is at a point where the prodigal son is conscious of the husks and of the futility of earthly life. He is ready for a careful consideration of the Buddha’s message, and he is ready because he has been devoured for centuries by war and famine, by desire and by the economic struggle. The vista he sees before him appears black and forbidding and full of cataclysmic disaster.
Yet if men carried the concept of brotherhood with all its implications into the life and work of every day, into [304] all intercourse whether between the capitalist and the labourer, the politician and the people, between nation and nation, or between race and race, there would emerge that peace on earth which nothing could upset or overturn. So simple a rule, and yet utterly beyond the mental grasp of the majority!
c. A mass of individual distress and fear can be taken on by an individual and yet have nothing to do with him whatsoever. It is quite possible for a man to tune in on the fears of other people whilst he himself has literally nothing to fear of any kind. He can so identify himself with their forebodings of future disaster that he interprets them in terms of his own coming experience. He is unable to dissociate himself from their reactions and absorbs so much of the poison in their emotional and mental auras that he is swept into a very vortex of terror and of fear. Yet, if he did but know it, the future holds for him no hidden catastrophes. He is simply deluded, but the effect on his astral body and upon his solar plexus is identically the same. This is painfully the case now that there are so many thousands of sensitive aspiring souls, inexperienced in the handling of the world karma, wide open to the suffering of others and unable to distinguish between their own destiny in the immediate future and the destiny of others in their environment.
It is possible also for the more advanced aspirant and those upon the Path of Discipleship to contact ancient vibrations of evil and misery on the astral plane—evil long past and gone; it is possible for them to read a tiny fragment of the akashic records which concerns coming distress to an individual or a group, which they themselves may never see and yet nevertheless appropriate the conveyed information to themselves and suffer consequently.
3. Fear of Physical Pain . Some people have this fear as the underlying cause of all their anxieties, little though [305] they may recognise it. It is really a result of the other three classes of fears; of the strain which they put upon their astral body, and the tension caused by the use of the imaginative faculty and the reasoning tension in the physical nervous system. This system becomes very much over-sensitised and capable of the most acute physical suffering. Ills and ails which would seem of no vital importance to the ordinary and more phlegmatic types are aggravated into a condition of real agony. This should be recognised by those who care for the sick and steps should be taken to minimise the physical condition through the use of sedatives and of anesthetics so that undue strain should not be put on an already overworked nervous system.
You ask me whether I am endorsing the use of ether and chloroform in operations, and of sedative drugs. Not basically, but most certainly temporarily. When man’s contact with his soul is firmly established, and when he has developed the faculty of passing in and out of his physical body at will, these helps will no longer be needed. They may be regarded in the meantime as emergency measures, necessitated by world karma and the point of evolution of the race. I am not of course referring to the use of narcotics and of drugs by hysterical and unbalanced people, but to the judicious use of ameliorants of pain under the wise guidance of the physician.
4. Fear of Failure . This affects many people along many lines. The fear that one may fail to make good, the fear that we may not gain the love and admiration of those we love, the fear that others despise us or look down upon us, the fear that one may fail to see and grasp opportunity, these are all aspects of the fear complex which colours the lives of so many worthy people. This can be based upon an environment which is uncongenial and unappreciative, on an equipment which seems inadequate [306] to its task, and in many cases has its roots in the fact that a man is a disciple, or a really big soul ready to tread the Probationary Path.
He has had a touch of soul contact; he has seen the vision and the possibility; he looks at his personality and ranges it up alongside the work to be done, and the quality of the people with whom that has brought him into contact. The result is an inferiority complex of a most powerful kind, because fed by real streams of force from above. Energy, we know, follows thought and is tinctured by the quality of that thought. The man turns a critical and disgusted eye upon his personality and by so doing feeds the very things which he deplores and thus renders himself still more inadequate to the task. It is a vicious circle of effort and must be offset by a complete realisation of the truth contained in the words: “As a man thinketh, so is he.” As he dwells upon the nature of his omniscient soul, he becomes like that soul. His thought is focussed in the soul consciousness and he becomes that soul in manifestation through the medium of the personality.
This is but a brief summation of the major fears which afflict humanity and serves only to open up the subject and give opportunity for a few practical suggestions.
II. Depression or its polar opposite, hilarity . When we touch on the subject of depression we are dealing with something so widespread that few escape its attacks. It is like a miasma, a fog which environs the man and makes it impossible for him to see clearly, walk surely, and cognise Reality. It is part of the great astral illusion and, if this is grasped, it will become apparent why depression exists, for the cause of it is either astral or physical and incident to a world situation or a personal situation. We might therefore study depression in individuals and look at its causes. It is caused by: [307]
1. The world glamour. This sweeps an isolated unit, otherwise free from individual conditions producing depression, into the depths of a world reaction. This world glamour with its devitalising and depressing results has its roots in various factors which we have only the time to briefly indicate:
a. Astrological factors, either affecting the planetary chart and hence individuals, or primarily racial. These two factors are oft overlooked.
b. The path of the sun in the heavens. The southern path tends to a lowered vibratory influence and aspirants should bear this in mind in autumn and the early winter months.
c. The dark half of the moon, the period towards the end of the waning moon, and the early new moon. This, as you well know, affects the meditation work.
d. Psychological factors and mass inhibitions due undoubtedly to forces external to the planet and to plans, obscure in their intent to ordinary humanity. These forces, playing upon the human race, affect the most sensitive; they in their turn affect their environment and gradually a momentum is established which sweeps through a race or a nation, through a period or a cycle of years, and produces conditions of profound depression and of mutual distrust. It causes a sad self-absorption and this we term a panic or a wave of unrest. The fact that the working out may be military, economic, social or political, that it may take the form of a war, of a religious inquisition, of financial stringency or international distrust is incidental. The causes lie back in the blue prints of the evolutionary process
and are governed—even if unrealised—by the good Law. [308]
2. Astral polarisation. Just as long as a man identifies himself with his emotional body, just as long as he interprets life in terms of his moods and feelings, just as long as he reacts to desire, just so long will he have his moments of despair, of darkness, of doubt, of dire distress, and of depression. They are due to delusion, to the glamour of the astral plane, which distorts, reverses and deceives. There is no need to dwell on this. If there is one factor aspirants recognise it is the need of freeing themselves from the Great Illusion. Arjuna knew this, yet succumbed to despair. Yet in his hour of need, Krishna failed him not, but laid down in the Gita the simple rules whereby depression and doubt can be overcome. They may be briefly summarised as follows:
a. Know thyself to be the undying One.
b. Control thy mind, for through that mind the undying One can be known.
c. Learn that the form is but the veil which hides the splendour of Divinity.
d. Realise that the One Life pervades all forms so that there is no death, no distress, no separation.
e. Detach thyself therefore from the form side and come to Me, so dwelling in the place where Light and Life are found. Thus illusion ends.
It is his astral polarisation which lays a man open to his many emotional reactions and to waves of mass feeling of any kind. This is the cause of his being swept into that vortex of uncontrolled energy and misdirected emotional force which eventuates in a world war, a financial panic, a religious revival, or a lynching. It is this also that raises him to the heights of hilarity and of spurious happiness in which the “light deceptive” of the astral plane uncovers to him false sources of amusement, or the mass hilarity—owing to his sensitivity—sweeps him into that hysterical condition which finds its vent [309] in unrestrained merriment and which is the opposite pole of unrestrained weeping. I refer not here to true merriment nor the proper sense of humour, but to those hysterical outbreaks of hilarity which are so common among the rank and file of humanity and lead to reactions of fatigue.
3. A devitalised condition of the physical body. This is due to various causes, such as:
a. A depleted etheric or vital body.
b. Physical disease, either inherent or brought over from another life, accidental, or due to wrong emotional reactions, or produced as the result of group karma, such as an epidemic.
c. Atmospheric. This is sometimes overlooked, but the condition of the atmosphere, the nature of the climate, the density, humidity or dryness, the heat or cold have a definite effect upon the psychological outlook.
You will find, if you study, that all subsidiary and temporary causes of depression and its opposite can be grouped under one of these three heads, and when one has ascertained the cause, the cures will become apparent.
I have dealt somewhat at length with the two first manifestations of astral force—Fear—fear of death, of the future, of suffering, of failure, and the many lesser fears to which humanity is subject—and Depression—because these two fears constitute for man the Dweller on the Threshold in this age and cycle. Both of them indicate sentient reaction to psychological factors and cannot be dealt with by the use of another factor such as courage. They must be met by the omniscience of the soul working through the mind,—not by its omnipotence. In this is to be found an occult hint. I shall not deal with the other factors listed, such as desire for happiness, for the satisfaction of the animal appetites, and [310] for liberation, for these do not constitute for the majority such a problem as the first two. One could write at length on the manifestation and the cause of all these, but when fear and depression are overcome, the race will enter into its heritage of happiness, of true satisfaction (of which the cravings above indicated are but the symbols) and of liberation. Let us deal with the basic evils first. Once they have been dominated all that remains is right orientation and polarisation in the soul.
We will next consider the overcoming of wrong vibration in the astral body and the use of astral energy in the right direction.
We have been dealing at length with the subject of the astral or sentient body, and have considered the various wrong ways in which it makes its presence felt. Humanity vibrates primarily in one or other of these ways, and the sentient body of the average human being is scarcely ever free from some mood, some fear, some excitement. This has provided a condition whereby the solar plexus centre is abnormally developed. In the bulk of humanity the sacral centre and the solar plexus govern the life, and that is why desire for material living and for the sex life are so closely blended. The solar plexus in the animal is the brain and governs all the instinctual reactions, but is not so closely allied with the purely sex expression as it is in the human being. When the brain is becoming sensitive to the awakening mind and is not so entirely occupied with the mechanism which registers sensory impression, we shall have the orientation which will eventually raise the consciousness into those centres which lie above the diaphragm. The solar plexus will then again be relegated to its old function as a directing agent of the purely instinctual animal life. For the advanced pupil in the world, the solar plexus is largely the organ of psychic sensitivity and will remain so until the higher psychic powers supersede the lower [311] and man functions as a soul. Then the sensory life will drop below the threshold of consciousness.
In considering the overcoming of wrong vibration and the right direction of astral energy it might be of value here if we were very briefly to list the major energies which impress the human organism and circulate through the sentient body of man.
1. Energies passing and repassing through the sentient body of the planet itself. This is, in other words, the astral body of the spirit of the earth. This entity is not the planetary Logos, but a being of great power on the involutionary arc, who holds the same relation to the planetary Logos as the astral elemental does to the human being. Facts about this life will be found in the Treatise on Cosmic Fire . Its life is the aggregate of a vast number of lives, and those lunar pitris or lesser builders who constitute the sentient life of the personality aspect of the planetary Logos—a more potent force for good and also for evil, as we use the word “evil”. Evil, per se, is non-existent, as is good in the sense of the pairs of opposites. Only in time and in space are there varying states of consciousness, producing differing outer effects. The energy of this involutionary life has a potent effect on that other tiny involutionary life which constitutes our astral elemental. The fact that protects from complete sensitive identification with this greater life is man’s individuality and the potency of his rapidly coordinating personality.
Man is an individual. He is the result of other factors and the combination of these factors constitutes his protection from complete absorption in the planetary sentient life, as is the case with the animals. At death, man’s astral body disintegrates and then its particles [312] again constitute undifferentiated fragments of the great whole.
2. Certain astral energies, emanating from some planetary forms which as yet exist not in the form of physical planets, nor yet in the etheric realm, but which are enclosed within the ring-pass-not of our solar system. They represent, in the planetary sense, two groups of lives:—First, those astral shells of decaying and disintegrating planets which are to be seen by the initiate, still revolving around our sun, but which are nevertheless fast disappearing. Our moon will join their number when the complete disintegration of the outer form has taken place. Second, the astral forms of those lesser solar lives on the evolutionary arc who are taking form slowly but have not yet taken an etheric body, and will never in this world period take a physical body. These two groups are the planetary correspondences to the re-incarnating types of men, and to those who have passed over and are slowly shedding their bodies, prior to eventual rebirth, or who have completely vacated their shells.
There are two of these astral forms in close proximity to our Earth, which are rapidly “decomposing”, if I may so term it, and yet have a very potent influence. On account of this close relation, they produce two types of desire or of astral tendency among men. One produces much of that instinctual tendency to cruelty which one sees in children and in certain types of men, and the other has an effect upon the sex life and produces some of those tendencies to perversions which cause so much difficulty now. Sadistic tendencies and sex perversions find much strengthening influence from these dying astral emanations. In ancient days they were still more potent, being closer to our earth than now; hence the ritualistic cruelties and the horrors, for instance, of Sodom and Gomorrah. Their power is rapidly declining and it should be remembered that they would have no [313] power at all were there not in humanity itself certain instincts upon which these energies can work. It should also be remembered that in Lemurian times their influence was constructive, for in those days, the lesson of sex and the intelligent registering of pain had a place in the schemes of those who were endeavouring to lead animal man into human consciousness—not into soul consciousness or even into self-consciousness in those very early times.
Close to our earth, on the road to rebirth, is a great Life in process of taking etheric form. This Life, being on the evolutionary arc and not constituting the life of a decaying shell, is having a real effect in the inauguration of the New Age. This effect is twofold:—through the emanations from the astral body of this great Life the work of breaking down the separative wall of individualism which demonstrates in man as selfishness and in nations as nationalism is carried forward. Through this rapidly integrating etheric body this Life is bringing the etheric body of our planet into a state of increased rapid vibration. Reference will be found in the Treatise on Cosmic Fire to an avatar from Sirius who comes to bring about certain planetary effects. This Life is not that avatar but is in the nature of a forerunner—of a St. John the Baptist, who “baptiseth with water (astral emanations) and the Holy Ghost”. More information along these lines is not possible, but mention is made of it, as the energies coming from these two factors must be borne in mind.
3. Astral energies emanating from the new sign of the zodiac into which we are now entering, the sign Aquarius. This sign, that of the water-carrier, is a living sign and an emotional sign. It will (through the effect of its potent force) stimulate the astral bodies of men into a new coherency, into a brotherhood of humanity which will ignore all racial and national differences and will [314] carry the life of men forward into synthesis and unity. This means a tide of unifying life of such power that one cannot now vision it, but which—in a thousand years—will have welded all mankind into a perfect brotherhood. Its emotional effect will be to “purify” the astral bodies of men so that the material world ceases to hold such potent allure, and may in its later stages bring about a state of exaggeration as potent in the line of sentiency as that which we have undergone in the line of materiality! The final stages of all signs produce over-development of the factor on which they most potently work. At present the effect of this sign is constructive among the pioneers of the race, and destructive among the rank and file of humanity. Facts about the coming Aquarian age can be searched for in the current books on the subject and it profits not for me to enlarge upon them here.
4. Faint emanations from the sacred “heart of the sun”, unrecognized by the masses but instantly calling forth response from the mystics of the race who are asserting increasingly a group integrity of a very real moment and interest. These emanations are too high to be sensed by humanity at large, but the mystics react and are drawn together by the sensing of the new vibration. Their work is then to step down the vibration so that its effects can be sensed in time by the foremost of the race. The work of this group of mystics must therefore inevitably grow, for the “heart of the solar Logos” beats now in closer rhythm with this planet than has heretofore been the case (this not being a sacred planet.) The love and thought of that divine Life is turned towards this “little daughter of a long lost son”, as our planet is sometimes called in the occult books of the Great Ones.
5. Another mass emanation which sweeps the astral body of man into strenuous activity is the impulsive desire of the astral body of the fourth or human kingdom, [315] viewing it as a whole, or as the expression of a life. This sentient body of humanity responds in an unrealised manner to all the four above types of astral energy and according to the calibre of the individual astral body, and according to the stage of development so will come response. It is in this fact that the roots of mass psychology and of mob rule lie. Also the roots of public opinion, so-called, are to be found here, but it will be long before the psychologists of the academic schools will recognize these four factors. It is with this type of sentient response that the leaders of men seek to work, moulding the thoughts of men in order to awaken desire for this, that and the other. They work with this type of sentient matter without the least understanding of the situation, and without any comprehension of the factors with which they are dealing; they work magnetically if on the second ray, and with the inspiring of fear through destruction if on the first ray. If on the third ray, they use the Law of Expediency. Thus all three work with the astral bodies of men, and their capacity to succeed is dependent largely upon their own type of astral body, and its power to attract others who are sufficiently developed to respond with adequate sentiency and then to carry forward the good work. The man in the street is therefore the victim of the astral potency of those who drive him either for their own ends or for the good of his soul—for it works in both directions.
6. The astral life, or sensitive emanations of a man’s surrounding family or friends. They affect him far more than he may credit, or he may affect them, according to which side is positive and which is negative. Everyone we meet, or contact, every person with whom we live or daily consort has an effect upon us, either for good or evil. They either stir up our emotional nature in a good and high sense, and so aid its work of re-orientation, or they lower its standard so that progress is hindered and [316] the work of drawing downwards towards materiality is carried forward. This we know well, and it is unnecessary for me to enlarge upon it here.
7. The emotional (astral sentient) equipment with which a man enters into life, which he utilises, and which he builds as life progresses. Many a man is the victim of an emotional body which he has himself constructed as he responded to the energies of the groups enumerated above. The astral body reacts to all emanations of a sensitive character in three ways:
a. Emotional. The astral body is swept into response of some kind to the emanations of the astral bodies—group bodies or individual—of those surrounding him. This phrase warrants careful study.
b. Sensitive . There is always a registering of all impressions by the sensitive astral body, even if emotional response lacks, and disciples have to learn to distinguish carefully between the two. Sometimes when emotional reaction lacks, as generally understood, there is nevertheless a registering of the originating cause which sought to bring about an effect on the emotional body.
c. Simple reaction. The registering or the refusal to register or respond to an impact, to an emotional impression. This can be either good or bad.
In all three cases, one or other of the pairs of opposites is chosen and the choice depends upon the quality of the astral mechanism of the man concerned. A fourth method involves complete detachment from the emotional body altogether, and a complete capacity to isolate oneself from any sensory impression at will—in order to serve with greater efficiency and to love with greater intelligence. Forget not that in the last analysis, love and emotion are not the same. [317]
The practical question now arises: How is one to overcome the wrong vibration?
First:—It is necessary that one recognises what wrong vibration is, and that one is able to register reaction. A vibration, an impulse, an emotion, a desire originate in a lower aspect of the form side. They differ from an emanation coming from the soul. The two impacts upon the sentient body must be recognised as different. The question has to be asked: Is this reaction a response to personality life or is it a response to the soul consciousness? Does this impulse which seeks to sweep my sentient body into activity come from the divine Life within me or is it coming from the form aspect in any of its manifestations? Does it cause my astral body to become active in such a way that those who are en rapport with me are hurt thereby or helped? Are they hindered or aided?
A close study of one’s emotional reactions brings one to the consideration of that basic characteristic which cannot be over-emphasized in view of the world’s present condition. Harmlessness . I tell you that the achieving of harmlessness in the positive sense (not in the negative) means the attainment of that step which leads definitely to the Portal of Initiation. When first mentioned, it sounds of small moment, and to bring the whole subject of initiation into such small account that it becomes unimportant. But let him who so thinks practice that positive harmlessness which works out in right thought (because based on intelligent love), right speech (because governed by self-control), and right action (because founded on an understanding of the Law), and he will find that the attempt will call forth all the resources of his being and take much time to achieve. It is not the harmlessness that comes from weakness and sentimental loving disposition, which dislikes trouble because it upsets the settled harmony of life and leads to consequent [318] discomfort. It is not the harmlessness of the little evolved negative impotent man or woman, who has not the power to hurt because possessing so little equipment wherewith damage can be done.
It is the harmlessness that springs from true understanding and control of the personality by the soul, that leads inevitably to spiritual expression in every-day life. It emanates from a capacity to enter into the consciousness and to penetrate into the realisation of one’s brother, and when this has been accomplished—all is forgiven and all is lost sight of in the desire to aid and to help.
Response to wrong vibration will not be basically prevented by the methods of either “building a shell”, or by “insulation” through the power of mantrams and visualisation. These two methods are temporary expedients by which those who as yet have somewhat to learn seek to protect themselves. The building of a shell leads to separativeness, as you well know, and necessitates the eventual overcoming of the habit of shell-building, and a shattering and consuming of the shells already built. This latter can be more easily done than the overcoming of the habit. Automatically the building process goes on until finally the aspirant has built so many ramparts around himself that he can neither get out nor can any contacts be made with him. The process of insulation, which is a more advanced practice and calls for more magical knowledge, consists of the emanating of certain energies of the vital body in a particular direction, which serve to keep other energies at a distance through what is called impact. Through this impact upon approaching energies, they are reversed and sent in another direction. But those energies must go somewhere, and should they damage another person, is not the one who reversed their direction through a desire to protect himself responsible?
The practice of harmlessness is the best and easiest [319] way for the aspirant to work. There is then nothing in him which is inimical to any life in any form, and he therefore attracts to himself only that which is beneficent. He uses the beneficent forces thus attracted for the helping of other beings. This has to be the first step, and the discipline it entails and the constant supervision of all the activities on the three planes of human evolution and of all reactions bring the emotional body under the dominance of the illumined mind. They also bring about the understanding of one’s fellow men.
There is secondly, a later stage wherein the disciple learns to absorb and transmute the wrong vibrations and the energies which are destructive. He has no shells nor barriers. He does not insulate himself nor isolate himself from his brothers. Through harmlessness he has learnt to neutralise all evil emanations. Now he acts with a positiveness of a new kind. Definitely and with full awareness of what he is doing, he gathers into himself all the evil emanations (destructive energies, and wrong forces) and he breaks them up into their component parts and returns them whence they came, neutralised, impotent and harmless, yet intact in nature. You say that this is a hard teaching and conveys but little to the average aspirant? Such is ever the way in esoteric teaching, but those who know will understand and for them I speak.
Another method is still more advanced and is utilised by the initiate. Through a knowledge of the law and of certain Words of Power he can command the energies to reverse themselves and to return to their originating centre. But with this method we have nothing to do. There must as yet be much practice in harmlessness and a close watch kept upon its application in the daily life.
The right direction of astral energy can be summed up in its three aspects from the ancient Book of Rules, given to chelas of the entering degrees. All true esoteric [320] schools begin with the control of the astral body and, the chela had to memorise and practice these three rules after he had made some real growth in the manifestation of harmlessness.
Rule I. Enter thy brother’s heart and see his woe. Then speak. Let the words spoken convey to him the potent force he needs to loose his chains. Yet loose them not thyself. Thine is the work to speak with understanding. The force received by him will aid him in his work.
Rule II. Enter thy brother’s mind and read his thoughts, but only when thy thoughts are pure. Then think. Let the thoughts thus created enter thy brother’s mind and blend with his. Yet keep detached thyself, for none have the right to sway a brother’s mind. The only right there is, will make him say: “He loves. He standeth by. He knows. He thinks with me and I am strong to do the right.” Learn thus to speak. Learn thus to think.
Rule III. Blend with thy brother’s soul and know him as he is. Only upon the plane of soul can this be done. Elsewhere the blending feeds the fuel of his lower life. Then focus on the plan. Thus will he see the part that he and you and all men play. Thus will he enter into life and know the work accomplished.
A note, appended to these three rules says:
“These three energies—of speech, of thought, and of purpose—when wielded with understanding by the chela and blended with the awakening forces of his brother whom he seeks to aid, are the three energies with which all adepts work.”
It is almost impossible to translate these ancient formulas into adequate terms, but the above rough paraphrase will convey the idea to the illumined; these rules [321] sum up the few thoughts which the average aspirant needs to grasp about the right direction of energy, and for which he is ready.
Thus we have seen the place that the tiny sentient unit, employed by an individual human being, plays in relation to the Great Whole. We have noted the various forms which astral evolution assumes. We have also recorded some of the sources from which astral energy comes. We have found that each of us is immersed in a sea of sentient forces which have their effect upon us because—under the Law—we have appropriated for our own use a portion of that universal energy, through the medium of which we are en rapport with the whole. One of the types of astral energy upon which we did not touch emanates, we are told, from the “Heart of the Sun”. I cannot, however, touch upon it at length owing to the inability of the human brain to understand it or the human heart to appropriate it until such time as the heart centre is opened and functioning. This stream of living energy can nevertheless be sensed in a large way, though not as yet appropriated in its pure essence. We call it the “love of God”. It is indeed that free flowing, outgoing, magnetically attractive force which leads each pilgrim home to the Father’s House. It is that force which stirs in the heart of humanity and finds expression through the medium of world avatars, through the mystical yearning found in every human being, through all movements that have for their objective the welfare of humanity, through philanthropic and educational tendencies of every kind, and (in the natural world so-called) through the instinct of protective motherhood. But it is essentially a group sentiency, and only in the coming Aquarian Age will its true nature find correct understanding and right appropriation. I touch on it here as it is one of [322] the factors to be considered. Only those, however, whose “hearts are opened and lifted up unto the Lord” will know whereof I speak.
It is needless for us to concern ourselves with that which lies far ahead of the race. Immediate problems call for attention—problems which are personal or racial and which all concern the control of the astral vehicle. Opportunity is offered to demonstrate in chaos the potentialities of the ego or soul, and its capacity to control and dominate in its little sphere of influence. Therein lies for all aspirants at this time the peculiar effort of the coming days, and I would—for your guidance—make certain suggestions to be followed by you or not as deemed wise.
We must remember that every aspirant is a focal point of energy and should be, in his place, a conscious focal point. In the midst of the whirl and storm he should make his presence felt. The Law of action and re-action works here, and often the Great Ones (foreseeing the need of just such points of inner contact in periods of world unrest, such as the present) gather into certain localities those who are aspirants to service. They act as a balance and aid the general plan, and at the same time they themselves learn much needed lessons.
The effort on the part of all aspirants should not be to resist and repel the pressure or to fight and ward off. Such a method centres the attention upon the not-self and leads to added chaos. The effort should be along the lines of an endeavour to make contact with the higher self, and keep it stable and steady, and to be in such direct alignment that the force and power of the soul may be poured upon and through the lower threefold nature. This pouring through will bring about a steady radiation which will affect the surroundings exactly in proportion to the extent of the inner contact, and in direct relation to the clarity of the channel linking the [323] physical brain to the causal body. The aspirant should also strive after that self-forgetfulness which merges itself in the good of those contacted. This self-forgetfulness refers to the lower self. Self-recollectedness and self-forgetfulness should be companions.
The man who aims at providing a point of contact, between conditions of chaos and Those Who work for constructive ends and order, should likewise use that most necessary factor of common-sense in all that he does. This involves always obedience to the law of economy of force, due to discrimination, and a true sense of values. Where these are present, time will be economised, strength will be husbanded, energy will be wisely distributed, excessive zeal will be eliminated, and the Great Ones will be able to depend upon an aspirant’s sagacity and thus find a helper.
All occult training has in view the development of the aspirant so that he may indeed be a focal point of spiritual energy. It should be remembered, however, that under the law, this training will be cyclic, and will have its ebb and flow, as all else in nature. Times of activity succeed times of pralaya, and periods of registered contact alternate with periods of apparent silence. Note here the choice of words. This alternation is due to the imposition of the Law of Periodicity and if the student develops as desired, each pralayic period is succeeded by one of greater activity, and of more potent achievement. Rhythm, ebb and flow, and the measured beat of the pulsating life are ever the law of the universe, and in learning to respond to time vibration of the high Places this rhythmic periodicity must be borne in mind. The same law governs a human being, a planet, a solar system—all centres or focal points of energy in some greater Life. If such work as you are doing is to succeed (and it is largely the work of developing the ability to touch certain currents on mental levels—currents which [324] emanate from the higher self, from your egoic group, or from the Master) definite planned conditions must be provided. Certain factors must be present. If they do not exist, then the currents are (if I may so express it) deflected, and contact fails of accomplishment. If occupation with mundane affairs is necessitated—and such periods come in every life cycle—then the attention should be concentrated on these details, and the higher contact may be then temporarily unrealised. Such attention to affairs on the physical plane is not necessarily loss of time, for it may be as much a part of the plan at that particular time as any other kind of service. Full expression and consciousness on each and every plane is the objective, remembering that each plane with its varying states of consciousness is equally a part of the divine Life. What is lacking as yet with the majority of aspirants is a synthetic consciousness and the capacity to hold and register continuity.
If emotional or mental chaos exists, then again the currents are deflected and the brain makes no record of that which may be inwardly seen and heard. If fatigue is present and the physical body is in need of rest, then likewise the inner fails to be recorded. It is the centres in the etheric vehicle which are vitalised and become active in this work of contact and consequent transmission of energy; if therefore the vitality is low and the pranic fluids are not assimilated, then the whole vibratory contact is lowered and the centre fails to register vibration and response. When again the stimulation is adequate and the other conditions are resolved into the necessary quietude, then again the currents may be encountered, response follows and a fresh cycle of receptivity eventuates. I have entered thus into explanation as I have seen many questioning, and am anxious that the process followed may be somewhat clarified. It is wise that all who work should have a clear understanding [325] of that work and should—along lines so closely affecting their power to serve—be fully aware of each step taken.
As regards the problems occupying the attention of all of you who are living in this time of world unrest and upheaval, I have a word of cheer to give you. Though, to you, the whole situation may have seemed clouded and the horizon darkened by storms, bear in mind that when the disturbance is general, as now, and the whole area involved, then the end is near. In nature, a general electric storm serves to clear the atmosphere, and ushers in a period of sunshine and more grateful living conditions. We have had the electrical storm of the world war, and the period of gradual dispersion of the clouds has been with us, with the thunder rumbling round, and sudden sharp storms of wind and rain upsetting the hopefulness of those desiring sunshine. Those who with patience carry on the work, who keep the inner calm and surety who lose sight of the foreground of personalities, and bear only in mind the formless forces that are at work through all forms and seasons, will see order brought out of chaos, construction out of past destruction and present adjustments; they will see the setting loose of fresh life forces, hitherto shut out by the crystallising shells built by man. So hold the inner vision steadily and have that long patience which endures through the lesser cycle, because the key to the greater cycle has been held with firmness.
It might be of value to touch briefly upon certain main lines of thought which are emerging at the present time and which are the outgrowth of the past and the promise of the future.
The thoughts of men have ever been religious. There has never been a time when religion or the thoughts of men about God, about the infinite, and about the Life which has brought all into being has not been present. [326] Even the most ignorant of savage races have recognized a Power and have attempted to define their relationship to that Power in terms of fear, of sacrifice or of propitiation. From the rudiments of nature worship, from the fetichism and degraded idol worship of primitive man we have built up a structure of truth which though as yet imperfect and inadequate, does verily lay the foundation of the future Temple of Truth where the light of the Lord will be seen and which will prove adequate as an expression of Reality.
Out of the darkness of time there have emerged the great religions. These religions though diverse in their theologies and forms of worship, though characterized by distinctions of organization and ceremonial, and though differing in their methods of application of truth, are united in three basic aspects:
1. In their teaching as to the nature of God and of man.
2. In their symbolism.
3. In certain fundamental doctrines.
When men recognize this and succeed in isolating that inner significant structure of truth which is the same in all climes and in all races, then there will emerge the universal religion, the One Church, and that unified though not uniform approach to God, which will demonstrate the truth of St. Paul’s words “One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in you all.” Theologies will disappear into the knowledge of God; doctrines and dogmas will no longer be regarded as necessary, for faith will be based on experience, and authority will give place to personal appreciation of Reality. The power of the Church over the group will be supplanted by the power of the awakened soul in men; the age of miracles and the disputations as to the why and how of those miracles [327] with the consequent scepticism or agnosticism will give way to the understanding of the laws of nature which control the superhuman realm and the supernatural stage of the evolutionary process. Man will enter into his divine heritage and know himself as the Son of the Father, with all the divine characteristics, powers and capacities which are his because of his divine endowment. But in the meantime what have we? A breaking away from old established tradition, a revolt from authority, whether of the Church, of dogma, doctrine or theology; a tendency towards self-determination and an overthrowing of the old standards, and of old barriers of thought and the divisions existing between races and faiths.
Hence we are passing through an intermediate stage of chaos and of questioning, of rebellion and consequent apparent license. The methods of science,—investigation and analysis, comparison and deduction,—are being applied to religious belief. The history of religions, the foundations of doctrine, the origin of ideas and the growth of the God idea are being subjected to research and study. This leads to much disputation; to the rejection of old established ideas as to God, the soul, man and his destiny. Schools of thought have ever existed differing in their ideas and methods and the six Schools of Indian Philosophy have embodied in themselves practically all the basic speculations of man as to the why and wherefore of manifestation. Little which is new has been added by the occident to these six speculative schools, though the western mind, with its genius for scientific techniques and method, has elaborated the ideas and differentiated the six theories into a multiplicity of lesser propositions. Out of the medley of ideas, theories, speculations, religions, churches, cults, sects and organizations, two main lines of thought are emerging—one doomed eventually to die out, the other to strengthen and grow until it, in its turn, gives birth to that (for us) [328] ultimate formulation of truth which will suffice for the next age and carry man to a high pinnacle of the Temple to the Mount of Initiation. These two lines are:
1. Those who look back to the past, who hang on to the old ways, the ancient theologies, and the reactionary rejection methods of finding truth. These are the people who recognize authority, whether that of a prophet, a bible or a theology. These are those who prefer obedience to imposed authority to the self-imposed guidance of an enlightened soul. These are the followers of a Church and a government, who are distinguished by a pure devotion and love, but refuse recognition to the divine intelligence with which they are gifted. Their devotion, their love of God, their strict but misguided conscience, their intolerance mark them out as devotees, but they are blinded by their own devotion and their growth is limited by their fanaticism. They belong mostly to the older generation and the hope for them lies in their devotion and the fact that evolution itself will carry them forward into the second group.
To this first group is committed the work of crystallization which will result in the complete destruction of the old form; to them is given the task of defining the old truths so that the mind of the race will be clarified, that non-essentials and essentials will be recognized for what they are, and fundamental ideas so contrasted with the formulation of dogmas that that which is basic will be seen and the secondary and unimportant beliefs therefore rejected, for only the basic and causative will be of value in the coming age.
2. The second group is as yet a very small minority, but a steadily growing one. It is that inner group of lovers of God, the intellectual mystics, the knowers of reality who belong to no one religion or organization, but who regard themselves as members of the Church universal and as “members one of another”. They are [329] gathered out of every nation, race and people; they are of every color and school of thought, yet they speak the same language, learn by the same symbols, tread the same path, have rejected the same non-essentials, and have isolated the same body of essential beliefs. They recognize each other; they accord equal devotion to the spiritual leaders of all races, and use each other’s Bibles with equal freedom. They form the subjective background of the new world; they constitute the spiritual nucleus of the coming world religion; they are the unifying principle which will eventually save the world.
In the past we have had world Saviours—Sons of God who have enunciated a world message and brought an increase of light to the peoples. Now, in the fullness of time, and through the work of evolution there is emerging a group who perhaps will bring salvation to the world, and who—embodying the group ideas and demonstrating the group nature, manifesting in a small way the true significance of the body of Christ, and giving to the world a picture of the true nature of a spiritual organism—will so stimulate and energize the thoughts and souls of men that the new age will be ushered in by an outpouring of the love, knowledge and harmony of God Himself.
Religions in the past have been founded by a great soul, by an Avatar, by an outstanding spiritual personality, and the stamp of their lives and words and teaching has been set upon the race and has persisted for many centuries. What will be the effect of the message of a group Avatar? What will be the potency of the work of a group of knowers of God, enunciating truth and banded together subjectively in the great work of saving the world? What will be the effect of the mission of a group of world Saviours, not as Christs, but all knowers of God in some degree, who supplement each other‘s efforts, reinforce each other’s message, and constitute an organism [330] through which the spiritual energy and principle of spiritual life can make their presence felt in the world?
Such a body now exists with its members in every land. Relatively they are few and far between, but steadily their numbers are increasing and increasingly their message will be felt. In them is rested a spirit of construction; they are the builders of the new age; to them is given the work of preserving the spirit of truth, and the reorganizing of the thoughts of men so that the racial mind is controlled and brought into that meditative and reflective condition which will permit it to recognize the next unfoldment of divinity.
Connected with these two groups, the reactionary doctrinaires and the subjective band of mystics, is the majority of the new generation of young people who are part of neither band and whose ideas are largely disorganized by the recognition of both. This majority do not belong to the past and refuse to accept the authority of that past. They do not belong to the inner group of Knowers who are working at the task of swinging the thoughts of men into right channels, for they have not reached as yet the point of knowledge. They only recognize two things: their need for freedom, and an intense eagerness for knowledge. They despise the tradition of the past; they reject the old formulations of truth; and because as yet they stand on no sure ground but are only in the position of seekers and enquirers, we have our present state of world upheaval, of apparent license and disruption. It should not be forgotten that this world state is therefore the result of the clashing of the three types of force prevalent in the world of today.
1. That emanating from the holders with the old tradition, who, emphasizing the forms and the past produce the destruction of those forms.
2. That emanating from the inner group of mystics, [331] who, under the guidance of the planetary Hierarchy are building the new form.
3. That emanating from the masses who belong to neither group and who are wielding force as yet blindly and often unwisely until such time comes when they recognize those constructive channels into which it can wisely be poured.
Hence the problem of this transition period and hence the necessity for the giving out of teaching which will enable the seeking aspirant and enquirer to find himself. Hence the need for the laws of the soul and for the truth as to individual unfoldment to be made clear to those who, rejecting the old tradition, and refusing recognition to the mystic, yet seek to know themselves as liberated souls. With that knowledge will come the steady growth of the Building Mystics, for when a man has found his soul and recognizes its relationship to its mechanism of expression, the threefold lower man, he automatically passes into the consciousness of the subjective life, begins to work with cause and is no longer lost in the world of effects. Then he finds himself standing shoulder to shoulder with the mystics and knowers of all time. This is the trend of the religious impulse at this time and this is the glory of the coming age.
If it is true that there is being gathered together in the background of our present world-state a group of mystics who are distinguished by knowledge, vision, and a power to work on mental levels, unseen and unrecognized by men, it could also be noted that this band is not confined to the strictly religious types. Men and women in every branch of human thought are found among this group including scientists and philosophers.
Like all else at this time, science itself is in process of transformation, and little as it is realized by many, their work with what they call matter, and their investigations of the atom are entering into a new field. In this [332] field the older techniques and mechanisms will gradually be discarded and a new approach and a different fundamental concept as to the nature of matter will mark the new age. Within the next twenty-five years, emerging out of the two seemingly different ideas as to the nature of the atom, a recognition of certain energy impulses will be seen and this will be based on the discovery of those energies which (playing on the atom and on atomic forms) produce the tangible concrete shapes to which we give names in the various kingdoms of nature. The truth of certain basic premises of the Ageless Wisdom will be demonstrated, such as:
1. The soul is the form-building principle, producing attraction and cohesion.
2. This soul is an aspect or type of energy, distinguished from that of matter itself.
3. The atom has been recognized as an energy unit, but as yet the energy which sweeps atoms into aggregates which we call organisms and forms has not been isolated. This the mystics in the scientific world will sense and work to demonstrate during the next generation. It is this type of energy, the energy of the form building aspect of manifestation which is the source of all magical work; and it is this energy in the various kingdoms of nature that produces form, shape, species, kind, type and the differentiations which mark and distinguish the myriad forms through which life itself manifests. It is the quality of the energy which produces the quantity of forms; it is the light which causes the emergence into consciousness of the race of heterogeneous shapes which aggregates of atoms can assume.
4. This type of energy which produces the shapes and forms and coherent organisms in all the kingdoms of nature is not the life principle. The life principle will remain undiscovered and unrecognized until such time as [333] the soul or qualifying principle, the builder of the forms is studied, recognized and in its turn investigated.
5. This is only possible as man steps forth into a fuller conscious possession of his divine heritage, and working as a soul and in control of his mechanism (physical, emotional, and mental) can work consciously en rapport with the soul in all forms.
This will be possible only as the race grasps the above hypothesis, and recognizes it as a possibility and seeks to demonstrate the fact of the soul-factor lying back of its structure or body of manifestation, or equally, seeks to disprove it. All great scientists and workers in the realm of objective nature have worked as souls, and all the most amazing of the developments in the realm of physics and chemistry, as in other departments of human knowledge, have been made when the worker in any particular field has launched forth with faith in some hypothesis he has formed, and has investigated and progressed his work forward stage by stage until he has contacted an aspect of the truth hitherto unformulated by man. Then, having through the use of his intuition entered into a new realm of thought, he takes the knowledge there discovered and formulates it in such way by theory, principle, experiment and mechanical contrivance that it becomes the possession of the group, and in due time is understood and utilized by the world. But in its genesis it has been mystical work and based on a mystical intuition.
It might be noted here that three great discoveries are imminent and during the next two generations will revolutionize modern thought and life.
One is already sensed and is the subject of experiment and investigation, the releasing of the energy of the atom. This will completely change the economic and political situation in the world, for the latter is largely dependent upon the former. Our mechanical civilization will be simplified, and an era ushered in which will be [334] free from the incubus of money (its possession and its non-possession), and the human family will recognize universally its status as a bridging kingdom between the three lower kingdoms of nature and the fifth or spiritual kingdom. There will be time and freedom for a soul culture which will supersede our modern methods of education, and the significance of soul powers and the development of the superhuman consciousness will engross the attention of educators and students everywhere.
A second discovery will grow out of the present investigations as to light and color. The effect of color on people, animals and units in the vegetable kingdom will be studied and the result of those studies will be the development of etheric vision or the power to see the next grade of matter with the strictly physical eye. Increasingly will people think and talk in terms of light, and the effect of the coming developments in this department of human thought will be triple.
a. People will possess etheric vision.
b. The vital or etheric body, lying as the inner structure of the outer forms, will be seen and noted and studied in all kingdoms of nature.
c. This will break down all barriers of race and all distinctions of color; the essential brotherhood of man will be established. We shall see each other and all forms of divine manifestation as light units of varying degrees of brightness and shall talk and think increasingly in terms of electricity, of voltage, of intensity and of power. The age and status of men, in regard to the ladder of evolution, will be noted and become objectively apparent, the relative capacities of old souls, and young souls will be recognized, thereby re-establishing on earth the rule of the enlightened.
Note here, that these developments will be the work of the scientists of the next two generations and the result [335] of their efforts. Their work with the atom of substance, and their investigations in the realm of electricity, of light and of power, must inevitably demonstrate the relation between forms, which is another term for brotherhood, and the fact of the soul, the inner light and radiance of all forms.
The third development, which will be the last probably to take place, will be more strictly in the realm of what the occultists call magic. It will grow out of the study of sound and the effect of sound and will put into man’s hands a tremendous instrument in the world of creation. Through the use of sound the scientist of the future will bring about his results; through sound, a new field of discovery will open up; the sound which every form in all kingdoms of nature gives forth will be studied and known and changes will be brought about and new forms developed through its medium. One hint only may I give here and that is, that the release of energy in the atom is linked to this new coming science of sound.
The significance of what has happened in the world during the last century in the realm of sound is not appreciated yet nor understood. Terrific effects are however being produced by the unbelievably increased noise and sound emanating from the planet at this time. The roar of machinery, the rumble of the transportation mechanisms in all parts of the world—trains, vessels and airplanes—the focussing of the sounds of men in such congested areas as the great cities, and, at this time, the universal use of the radio bringing musical sounds into every home and into street life are producing effects upon the bodies of men and upon all forms of life everywhere which will become apparent only as time elapses. Some forms of life in the animal kingdom, but primarily in the vegetable kingdom, will disappear and the response of the human mechanism to this world of sound, uproar and [336] music in which it will increasingly find itself will be most interesting.
These three developments will usher in the new age, will produce in this transition period the needed changes, and will inaugurate a new era wherein brotherhood will be the keynote, for it will be a demonstrated fact in nature. It will be an age wherein men will walk in the light, for it will be a world of recognized inner radiance, wherein the work of the world will be carried forward through the medium of sound, and eventually through the use of words of power and the work of the trained magician. These trained workers in substance, understanding the nature of matter, seeing always in terms of light and comprehending the purpose of sound will bring about those structural changes and those material transformations which will establish a civilization adequate for the work of the coming race. This work will be that of the conscious unification of the soul and its vehicle of manifestation. Those cultural methods also which will take the undeveloped of the race and carry them forward to a better manifestation, and a truer expression of themselves will be established and this it is the privilege of the coming generation of scientific investigators to bring about.
The outstanding characteristic, however, of the coming cycle will be an outgrowth of psychology. It will be the emergence of a new factor from the standpoint of the modern psychologist of the materialistic school and will involve the recognition of the soul.
The mechanistic school of psychologists has served and is serving an invaluable purpose, and the findings of the behaviorists are sound in fact, though erroneous in conclusion. They serve as a needed brake upon the more speculative and mystical school, which is dignified by the name of introspectionist. Like much else in the world at this time, from two great lines of thought, such [337] as the mechanistic and the introspective or subjective mentioned above, a third will manifest which will embody the truth in both positions and duly adjust them to each other. On a larger scale this is working out in the fusing of occident and orient, of mysticism and occultism. We have no quarrel with either, but in the evolution of thought the main trends of ideas at this time are rapidly approaching each other and from them a synthesis will emerge which will prove an adequate platform upon which the coming cycle may make its stand.
It might be of value here if we noted the tendency of three lines of thought, roughly speaking in the field of psychology.
1. The mechanistic, laying the emphasis upon structure, ascribing the reactions of the human organism, mental, emotional, and physical—entirely to the material aspect, and regarding the structure as responsible for and giving rise to all the lines of conduct and characteristics which man displays, both abnormal and normal.
2. The introspective school, positing a self or a conscious something which is responsible for conditions and which, as has sometimes been said, is “aware of awareness”. This school of psychologists recognizes the structure but goes further and regards certain aspects of conduct, and certain reactions and problems as insoluble under the pure mechanistic process. They approach more nearly the occult position, but do not go so far.
3. Then there are what I might call the vitalists, or that group of psychologists who, admitting the fact of the structure, yet regard it as subjected to the influences of energies and forces emanating from an outer environment. These are the energies of a wider nature than those arising entirely within a man’s own self, and number among them the great basic urges for which nature itself is responsible and which can be seen and felt in units of organic life, other than the human.
[338] The truth which is safeguarded in all these schools is one truth and each aspect of it is correlated.
There is a mechanism through which the real man functions, and there is a structure which he has built up in conformity to the laws of nature and which he can learn to use and control. But, in accordance with the more subjective and speculative school he must learn to differentiate between himself, as the conscious centre of awareness, the “I” upon the throne of intelligence, and the apparatus through which he can contact the outer world. When the “I”, the user of the mechanism, can do this he becomes aware of another fact and that is that not only is he a generator and user of energy, and the director of a quota of vitality which is his own, but that there are energies and forces in nature and the planet, and also extra-planetary or cosmic, to which he can also respond and which he can learn to use and adapt. The three present schools are therefore, in embryo, custodians of these three factors. Under the present system of quarrel and separation, these three schools are occupied largely with disproving each other’s theories. But they are all three of them correct in their facts though wrong in their deductions. They all three need each other and from a blending of the three presentations there will emerge the fourth, which will be nearer the truth than any of the separated three.
When we come to the consideration of other basic trends in the world of current thought it becomes apparent that one of the most dominant is the increasing emphasis laid upon group consciousness, or environal awareness. This has been recognized by the man in the street as a sense of responsibility and indicates in the individual an egoic vibration. It is one of the first signs that the soul is beginning to use its mechanism. No longer does the man live in the interests of the separated self but he begins to realize the need for adjustment to [339] and in the condition of his neighbor. He assumes the duty of being in a very real sense his brother’s keeper, and realizes that in reality progress, contentment, peace of mind and prosperity do not exist for him apart from that of his brother. This realization is steadily expanding from the individual to the state and nation, from the family unit to the world, and hence the big organizations, fraternities, clubs, leagues and movements which have for their objective the uplift and welfare of men everywhere. The necessity of giving instead of getting is growing in the racial consciousness and the recognition of certain of the basic concepts connected with brotherhood is steadily growing. Brotherhood as a fact in nature is as yet largely a theory, but brotherhood as an ideal is now fashioned in the racial consciousness.
One of the great schools of thought or trend of ideas which is destined to pass away is that of the current philosophies as we now know them. Philosophy in its technical sense as the love of wisdom will increase as men understand increasingly the meaning of wisdom and become epochally wiser, but the present schools of philosophy have nearly served their purpose. This has been the formulation of ideas concerning God and His relation to man, concerning divinity, eschatology and spiritual relationships.
The last great gestures of the philosophical schools remain yet to be made. Their place will be taken in later centuries by those who will in deed and in truth be cosmologists, for once the Word of Mankind is understood and grasped and the significance of the individual appreciated, the Word of the Cosmos will receive due and more correct attention, and the laws and nature of that great Being in Whom we live and move and have our being will be studied. The cosmic Christ can never be known by any except the individual Christ.
Man, as we shall see as we proceed, is on the verge of [340] establishing his divinity. Evolution has carried forward the perfecting of the mechanism to such an extent that it is now a coordinated integrated organism, a usable structure and ready for the divine user. In the course of the next few decades the fact of the soul will be established, and the work of the introspective thinkers, the mystics and occult students will be carried forward to the point where soul force will be established as a racial concept, and the laws of the soul will be recognized as superseding, though not abrogating (for the lesser is ever included in the greater) the laws of man. This in the sense that the law is ever kept by a manifesting soul, for, since there is no inclination to break it, there is no tendency on his part to infringe it.
This growing conviction as to the soul as the self is evidenced by the opposition to the theory called forth by the schools of thought which emphasize the dominance of matter and trace all phenomena, objective and subjective, to the activity of matter. Through the wrestling of those holding differing points of view truth emerges into the light, just as in a larger case, spirit “mounts on the shoulders of matter” back to its original position, plus the gain in quality which is the result of the experience. This being so, knowledge will take the place of theory, and direct evidence that of speculation. The theorising of men as to their divine nature must shortly give place to conviction and their philosophising to direct investigation of the soul. That which is recognized and admitted, even if not understood, is the object of attention and investigation and the day will dawn before so very long when an experimental science of the soul will have its place in the universities and public endowments and not the proving of the soul, but an analysis of its nature, purposes, and life will receive an attention equal to that now gives by modern scientists in their varying branches to the mechanism the soul seeks and eventually will use, [341] for naught can arrest that great evolutionary development.
Certain words of warning I would like to give and also a summarisation of much earlier said:
First, hold not on to the form no matter what it be. All forms are but experiments, and reach the point where they are in balance—to be either discarded or vivified.
Secondly, remember that all personalities (your own included) have their periods of ebb and flow, under the law. The periods of ebb in the case of those holding prominent position cause at times consternation to all those who follow their personalities, and not the inner God within their own heart.
Thirdly, bear in mind, also, that just as in the individual life there come the periods wherein the vision is obscured, the valley is traversed, and the stars shut out by the fog, so in connection with groups will the same be seen. But bear equally in mind that after the valley is crossed (for all aspirants and for all truly spiritual groups) the Mount of Initiation is seen and ascended; after obscuration succeeds the vision, and after night comes the day. In the great cycles affecting cosmic groups this also can be seen; in the lesser cycles, controlling the races, the same eventuates and the same law persists in all the lesser groups down to the groups of tiny lives that hold sway in the vehicles of man. This needs emphasis.
Fourthly, do not permit yourselves to be discouraged. Discouragement is due to three causes. Paramountly it is due to the lowering of the vitality of the bodily organism. When such is the case, the astral body makes too strong a demand upon the physical, and in the endeavour to respond and in the sensed incapacity to do so adequately, lies one cause of the sense of discouragement. This often attacks those of you who are finely organised in the physical vehicle. The cure for this type of discouragement [342] is obvious, is it not? Rest and relaxation build anew, and give time for nature to adjust the trouble. The sun too revitalises with prana and this should be considered. After all, sound common sense is the special requirement, and also the realisation that one’s work is adjusted to one’s capacity, and not to the overwhelming need. Meditate on this.
Another basis for discouragement is the over-development of the concrete mind, which in its turn makes too great a demand upon the emotional nature, and consequently again upon the physical. Too great a capacity to see all around a subject, too disproportionate a comprehension of the world’s need, and too quick an apprehension of the many issues involved in connection with some particular matter produce a violent vibration in the astral body. This leads to a shattering of the physical vehicle, and the result sensed we term discouragement. It is here that a sense of proportion must be cultivated, that the faculty of wise balancing enters, and that mental equilibrium must be achieved. The cure lies in the realisation that time, eternity, evolution (call it what you will) brings all things to pass, and that everything does not depend upon individual effort. It is possible for wise souls to hasten the good work, but the end, nevertheless, is sure. If the wise souls are not forthcoming yet the force of evolution brings all things to pass, even if more slowly. Do not forget this, but when discouragement from mental sources settles down upon you, in quietness adjust yourself, and in contemplation sense the ultimate achievement of that great factor, Time.
A third cause lies in more occult realms, and is due to the balancing of the pairs of opposites. When the pendulum swings—as it must and does—towards that which we call dark, evil, and undesirable, it produces in those of you who are oriented towards the light a tension which results in discomfort in all the bodies, and is specially [343] sensed as depression by the physical body. The more sensitive your body, the greater your responsiveness to this form of temptation. It is one of the things which specially hinders the aspirant. It renders him negative and receptive from the form side, and slows down his vibration. It prevents achievement and his service to the world suffers in consequence. The cure for discouragement does not lie in cultivating a violent counter vibration. It lies in the wise use of the mental body, and in a capacity to reason logically and to see the cause of the conditions, which lies either in your own personality or in your environment. Thus poise will he attained. It lies also in the appreciation of Time as a solvent as aforesaid. It lies also in the stilling of the concrete mind and a subsequent linking up with the soul and, via the soul, with the egoic group and consequently with the Master. It must never be forgotten that contact with the Master is made in this order, and that he who comes more and more under the guidance of the soul is he who more and more enters into the consciousness of his Master.
Then having with unselfish intent linked up with the Master, there comes next the deliberate and concentrated effort to work with pure dispassion, and with no desire to see the fruit of action. This process, long continued and pursued with patience, will result eventually in the attaining of an equilibrium which nothing can disturb.
I would like to state that there are five things which those who choose the path of occultism need to cultivate, and that the group should specially seek to attain. They are as follows:
1. Consecration of motive.
2. Utter fearlessness.
3. The cultivation of the imagination, balanced wisely by the reasoning faculty. [344]
4. A capacity to weigh the evidence wisely, and to accept only that which is compatible with the highest instinct and intuition.
5. A willingness to experiment.
These five tendencies, coupled with purity of life and regulation of thought will lead to the sphere of achievement. Remember too that it is not purposed that you should find out all the knowable, but only just as much of it as may be employed wisely for the illumination of the race and of those whom you can each, in your own place, influence.
A real problem, as you all realise, lies in the achieving of utter fearlessness. All fear, doubt, and worry have to be eliminated. If this can be done the development of the inner point of contact and the knowledge of how to tap the sources of inspiration will increase in a wonderful manner. So many close the sources of information through an uncontrolled emotional nature. The astral body can be controlled. How?
1. By direct inhibition. This method can be used to advantage by beginners, but it is not the best method to follow. It reacts on the physical body, leads to congestion in the astral body, and to a similar condition in the etheric vehicle. It often produces headache, congestion of the liver and other disorders.
2. By a direct realisation of the issues at stake and the consciousness that, for a pupil of the Master, nothing comes to pass but what can lead to increased knowledge and development, and greater usefulness in service. Fear with many is not based on timidity (a paradoxical statement!) but is often based on a mental condition, such as pride. Those who are becoming polarised in the mental body, find their fears allied to the intellect. They are therefore harder to overcome than the fears of a person polarised in the astral body. The latter can bring the [345] intellect to bear on the elimination of fear in the astral body. The mental types have to call directly on the Ego, for always the higher must be called in to deal with the lower. Hence the necessity for always keeping the channel clear. Do not crush out fear. Force it out by the dynamic power of substitution. This leads to my third suggestion that students in the group should cure the fear habit by—
3. A direct method of relaxation, concentration, stillness and flushing the entire personality with pure white light. Proceed in the following manner:
You are, we will say, in a state of panic; suggestions of great unpleasantness are crowding in; your imagination is running riot, and your mind enforces the riot. Forget not that the fears of an emotional person are not so potent as yours. Having a strong mental body, you clothe your fear reactions with mental matter, highly vitalised, which causes a powerful thoughtform to be created. This circulates between you and the feared event. Realising this you will proceed to seek quietness. You will relax your physical body, endeavour to quiet your astral body as far as may be, and to steady the mind. Then visualizing yourself (the personality), the soul and the Master—He, as the apex of the triangle,—you will with deliberation call down a stream of pure white light, and, pouring it through your lower vehicles, you will cleanse away all that hinders. Continue this process until you realise that the needed work is accomplished. At first you may have to do it many times. Later just once will suffice, and later still the whole process may be needless, for you will have achieved conquest.
This applies to the fears connected with the personality. You use the love aspect, flooding yourself with love and light. The legitimate fears which arise [346] from things connected with the circumstances of the work to be done, and from the knowledge of materialised obstructions to the work must be treated somewhat differently. Here again a definite method must be followed:
Still the physical body.
Quiet by temporary inhibition the astral body.
Link up with the Ego, and definitely reason out the proper method of procedure in meeting the difficulty. Having exhausted all the higher rational methods and having clearly seen your course of action, you then—
Raise your vibration as high as may be and call down, from intuitional levels, added light on the difficulty. If your intuition and reasoning faculty produce harmony and thus show the way out, then proceed. As an occult fact past all controversy, you know that naught can now happen but what is for the best. You are sure of guidance, and he who sees thus the end from the beginning makes no error.
A third class of fears—which aspirants contact more and more as they grow in strength and usefulness in service—is based on the realisation of the forces that are working against the Plan and hindering the work to be done. Occult attacks and occult powers, warring militantly against the aspirant will occur; they may make their power felt in one or other of the vehicles and—in rare cases—where the aspirant is important enough, on all at once. Sometimes they will be attacks directed against the individual worker, sometimes against groups of workers. To counter them you employ the first method with the following additions and changes. You link yourself up either as an individual or forming one of a group with your own soul and with the Lodge of Masters, [347] not simply with your own Master, but with the Brotherhood for which you are working. Then when stillness has been achieved, you visualise those Masters of whom you know, and raising your vibration higher still, you connect up, if possible, with the Chohans, with the Christ and the Manu, according to the line, religious or political, with which you may be working, and along which the attack will come. You then pour through the linking chain, and through all the vehicles, a stream of violet light. This method is only for use when the need is dire and the necessity great. The reason for caution lies in the etheric vehicle, which responds most violently to the colour violet.
With these precautions in mind the fear vibration can be faced and eventually eliminated. Fears fall into two categories for the worker:—Fear of what the future holds, and, secondly, doubt as to the outcome of any effort. With most people it is a combination of the two. Most aspirants have no basic doubt as to the ultimate issue, but they do doubt at times the working out of those issues in the present time, and they shrink back also from the path of endeavour, knowing—and rightly knowing—that it leads through trial and loneliness to the Feet of the Hierophant. They are likewise distressed by troubles and high vibrations which seem to emanate from high spiritual sources. Strong vibrations will come with ever increasing frequency, and as the race progresses in evolution the vibrations will wax stronger and their reactions must be dealt with in wisdom.
Two things manifest when the spiritual vibration is exceedingly potent. All good aspirations and synchronous high vibrations are stimulated and, secondly, all that we term “evil” is likewise stimulated. Aspirants should bear this carefully in mind. There may demonstrate such a factor as a crime wave, but there will also demonstrate an increasing number of groups that stand for [348] spiritual endeavor and high aspiration. The effect of the heightening of the vibration on you, the aspirant, may manifest in various ways also. It may result in bodily fatigue and this must be dealt with—not so much by sleep and by rest, though a just proportion of them is necessary—but above all by a change of vibration, of recreation and of amusement. Secondly, it results frequently in a profound depression, in an utter sinking of the heart as the future is faced. Face that future, however, and remember that what the future holds is not revealed, but that “joy cometh in the morning”. It results also in a sensitiveness of the astral body that is, perhaps, even more hard to bear. This must be dealt with by the individual as best he may, bearing in mind the suggestions that I have given him. It results also in a permanent stimulation of the atoms in the various vehicles and their coherent, stabilized vibration. It lifts a little nearer to the goal, though perhaps the aspirant may not realize it.
Everything depends upon the pupil’s ability to grasp the inner meaning of all events. His entire progress upon the Path rests upon his attitude in making the teaching his own. It is only as we transmute the lessons on the inner planes into practical knowledge that they become part of our own experience and are no longer theoretical. Expansion of consciousness should be an ever increasing practical experience. Theories are of no value until we have changed them into fact. Hence the value of meditating on an ideal. In the meditation our thoughts vibrate temporarily to the measure of the conception, and in time that vibration becomes permanent.
Those who, with open eyes, enter on occult training need indeed to count the cost. The reward at the end is great, but the path is rough and the true occultist walks it alone. The capacity to stand alone, to assume responsibility, [349] and then to carry all through single-handed, and to brave evil for the sake of the good achieved is the mark of a White Brother. Be prepared then for loneliness, for dangers of a dim and obscure character, and expect to see your life spent for no reward that touches the personality. It is only as the consciousness expands, and one finds one’s true position in the cosmic whole that the reward becomes apparent; but cease from fear, and know that the personality is only temporary, and what matter if it suffer? Some good gained for the universal Brotherhood, some law explained and demonstrated in the life of every day, may make the Master say eventually (yes, eventually, after all is over) well done! Let your eyes therefore look straight on. Turn not to the right hand nor to the left. The path leads upward and on to greater rapidity of vibration and to greater sensitiveness. Seek the point of balance in your work and keep that balance, for the years hold much work, much pressure and much suffering.
Are you strong enough to see the world’s woe, to see disaster and yet keep joyful? Can you be a partner in the work of furthering the evolution of the race and see the necessity for trouble and for discipline and yet not move to stem the tide of sorrow? Picked and tried souls are being trained all over the world at the present time. The Masters are overwhelmed with the work and Their time is over-occupied. They give what They can but on the individual aspirant depends the use made of that which is given.
Those of us who watch and guide on the inner side of life realize more than perhaps you who bear the burden and heat of physical plane existence know. We know your physical disabilities and some day may be able to help definitely in the building up of strong bodies for world service. Now—such is the astral miasma—it is well nigh impossible for you, our struggling brethren, [350] to have good health; the karma of the world prohibits it. The astral corruption and the foul cesspools of the lower levels of the mental plane infect all, and lucky is he who escapes. We watch with tenderness all of you, who, with weak and sensitive bodies, struggle, work, fight, fail, continue and serve. Not one hour of service, given in pain and tension, not one day’s labor followed with racked nerves, with head tired and with heart sick, is allowed to pass unnoticed. We know and we care, yet, we may do naught that you, struggling in the field of the world, can do of that which is needed. The world’s karma engulfs each of you at this epoch. If you could but realize it, the time is short, and rest, joy and peace are on their way.
The half-gained victory, the days lived through with a certain measure of success, yet with an unachieved ideal, the minutes of exhaustion of soul and body when the emptiness of everything, even of service itself, seems the only noticeable thing, the weeks and months of endeavor and of struggle against apparently insuperable odds, against the stupendous power of the forces of evolution, against the roaring tide of the world’s ignorance,—all are known. Take comfort in the assurance that love rules all; take courage from the realization that the Hierarchy stands.
Those who are to teach the world more about the Masters and who are being trained to be focal points of contact are put through a very drastic disciplining. They are tested in every possible way and taught much through bitter experience. They are taught to attach no importance to recognition. They are trained not to judge from the appearance but from the inner vision. Capacity to recognize the Master’s purpose and the ability to love are counted of paramount importance. Aspirants who seek to be chosen for work as disciples must lose all desire for the things of self and must be willing at any [351] cost to pay the price of knowledge. If proof is to be given to the world of the subjective realm of reality it will be bought with the heart’s blood, for only “in the blood of the heart” can power be safely gained and wisely wielded. As you go on and, as aspirants, study the hidden laws of nature, you will realize the need for the price paid. The spiritual unfoldment of the disciple’s character must keep pace with his inner knowledge. This knowledge grows in three ways:
1. By definite expansions of consciousness, which open up to the disciple a realization of the points to be attained. This produces in his mind a formulation of what lies ahead to be grasped and is the first step towards acquirement. An aspirant is definitely taken on the inner planes and shown by a more advanced chela what is the work to be done, much in the same way as a pupil is shown by his master the lesson to be learned.
2. The next step is the mastering of the lesson and the working out in meditation and experiment of the truths sensed. This is a lengthy process, for all has to be assimilated and made part and parcel of the disciple’s very self before he can go on. It resembles the working out of a sum—figure by figure, line by line, the working out being carried forward until the answer is achieved. This work is done both on the inner planes and on the physical. In the Hall of Learning the pupil is taught nightly for a short time before proceeding with any work of service. This teaching he brings over into his physical brain consciousness in the form of a deep interest in certain subjects, and in an increasing aptitude to think concretely and abstractly on the various occult matters that are occupying his attention. He attempts to experiment and tries various methods of studying the laws and in process of time arrives at results that are of value to him. Time passes and as he appropriates and knows more, his knowledge takes a synthetic form and he becomes [352] ready to teach and to impart to others the residue of knowledge of which he is sure.
3. In teaching others comes further knowledge. The definition of truth in teaching crystallises the facts learnt, and, in the play of other minds, the aspirant’s own vibration becomes keyed up to ever higher planes, and thus fresh intuition and fresh reaches of truth pour in.
When one lesson has, in this way, been mastered, a further one is set, and when a pupil has learnt a particular series of lessons he graduates and passes an initiation. The whole group he teaches is benefited by his step forward, for every disciple carries those he instructs along with him in a curious indefinable sense. The benefit to the unit reacts upon the whole. A Master carries His disciples on and up with Him in a similar manner. The matter is abstruse and largely one of the secrets of the law of vibratory expansion. The initiation of the Logos has a universal effect.
You are right in your assumption that the probationary path corresponds to the later stages of the period of gestation. At the first initiation what is called in the New Testament “the babe in Christ” starts upon the pilgrimage of the path. The first initiation simply stands for commencement. A certain structure of right living, of thinking and of conduct has been attained; the form that the Christ is to occupy has been constructed and now that form is to be vivified and indwelt. The Christ life enters and the form becomes alive. Therein lies the difference between theory and making that theory a part of yourself. You can have a perfect picture or image but it lacks the life. You have a person who has modelled his life on the divine as far as he can. He has a good copy yet something is lacking. What is this something? The manifestation of the indwelling Christ. The germ has been there but it has lain dormant. Now it is fostered and brought to birth, and the first initiation is [353] attained. Much then remains to be done. The analogy is complete. Many years were spent by the disciple Jesus between the birth and baptism. The remaining three initiations were taken in three years. You have the same situation on the path of the aspirant.
The second initiation marks the crisis of the control of the astral body. After baptism there remain the three temptations, demonstrating the complete control of the three lower vehicles. Then comes the Transfiguration, followed by knowledge of the future and complete self-abnegation. Therefore, you have the following:
1. The moment of conception—i.e. individualization.
2. Nine months gestation—i.e. the wheel of life.
3. First initiation—i.e. the birth hour.
The path is, therefore, a path on which steady expansion of consciousness is undergone with increasing sensitivity to the higher vibrations. This works out at first as sensitiveness to the inner voice and this is one of the most necessary faculties in a disciple. The Great Ones are looking for those who can rapidly obey the inner voice of their soul. The times are critical and all aspirants are urged also to render themselves sensitive to the voice of their Master as well. His time is fully occupied and disciples must train themselves to be sensitive to His impression. A slight hint, a pointed finger, a hurried suggestion, may be all that He has time to give, and each disciple must be upon the watch. The pressure upon Them is great now that They are moving closer to the physical plane. More souls are conscious of Them than when They worked on mental levels only and They also, working on denser planes, are finding conditions more difficult. The devas and disciples, aspirants and those upon the probationary path are being gathered around Them now and are being organized into groups with special work assigned. Some souls can work only in mass [354] formation, banded together and unified by a common aspiration. Such are the majority of Christians, for instance, in the churches. These, knowing not the laws of occultism, and only sensing the inner truth, work on broad lines of preparation. They are aided by bands of lesser devas or angels who suggest, guide and control.
Others more advanced work in smaller groups. They idealize more and in them you see the thinkers and leaders of social reform, of humanitarian regeneration and of church leadership, either Christian or Oriental. The higher devas guide them, the blue and yellow devas, as the former group are guided by the blue and rose.
Back of them stand the still more advanced—the aspirants, probationers and disciples of the world. They work singly or in twos or threes and never in groups exceeding nine—the occult significance of these numbers being necessary to the success of their work. Great white and gold devas attend their labours.
Back again of these three groups stand the Masters and the devas of the formless levels—a Great Brotherhood, pledged to serve humanity.
Movements are being set on foot to transmute, if possible, the labours of destruction into constructive work. The time is critical, for a pause has come in the work of the destroyers. There is opportunity for the tide to turn and for the re-building of the body social.
It is for this reason that each one of you needs to make a fresh dedication of himself to the work of the redemption. Personalities must be submerged. Aspirants must live harmlessly in thought and word and deed. In this way each one of you will provide a pure channel, will become an outpost for the consciousness of the Master and provide a centre of energy through which the Brotherhood can work.
The prime problem of the aspirant is to dominate the emotional nature. Then he stands victor on the field of [355] Kurukshetra; the clouds have rolled away, and henceforth he can walk in the light. Let it here be remembered that this very freedom to walk in the light carries with it its own problems. You ask how this can be? Let me give one simple, yet (I think you will find) convincing argument.
When a man literally walks in the light of his soul and the clear light of the sun pours through him—revealing the Path,—it reveals at the same time the Plan. Simultaneously however, he becomes aware of the fact that the Plan is very far as yet from consummation. The dark becomes more truly apparent; the chaos and misery and failure of the world groups stand revealed; the filth and dust of the warring forces are noted, and the whole sorrow of the world bears down upon the astounded, yet illuminated, aspirant. Can he stand this pressure? Can he become indeed acquainted with grief and yet rejoice forever in the divine consciousness? Has he the ability to face what the light reveals and still go his way with serenity, sure of the ultimate triumph of good? Will he be overwhelmed by the surface evil and forget the heart of Love which beats behind all outer seeming? This situation should ever be remembered by the disciple, or he will be shattered by that which he has discovered.
But with the advent of the light, he becomes aware of a new (for him) form of energy. He learns to work in a new field of opportunity. The realm of the mind opens up before him, and he discovers that he can differentiate between the emotional nature and the mental. He discovers also that the mind can be made to assume the position of the controller, and that the sentient forces respond with obedience to mental energies. “The light of reason” brings this about—light that is always present in man but which only becomes significant and potent when seen and known, either phenomenally or intuitionally.
[356] Much false teaching is going about these days in connection with the mind and the soul. It might be summed up in the teaching of one school which shall be nameless, as follows:
Nature is cruel and selective. She works by the Law of the survival of the fittest; in the process of selection, millions of lives are sacrificed and much birthing of forms comes to naught. Hence the achieving of soul life is a rare event. Few people have souls and only a few therefore possess immortality and go hence to their own place of power to return no more. The rest are lost, submerged and swallowed up in the general process of nature, and the human kingdom as a whole is a dead loss except for a few emerging and significant figures which the past and the present produce. They have achieved through the sacrifice of the many.
But the reaction of men themselves to this teaching is an adequate answer. The sense of immortality, the surety of an eternal future, the innate belief in God, the revelation of the light, the achieving of a wisdom which helps and aids is not the prerogative of the Senecas, of the St. Pauls, of the Akbars of the race. It is found (and sometimes in its purest form) in the humblest peasant. Words of wise counsel fall from the lips of the illiterate, and a knowledge of God and a belief in the soul’s immortality are discovered to be latent in the hearts of the most unlikely and oft of the most sinful. But when the highly evolved and the most intelligent of the race discover in themselves the divine Flame, and awaken the power of the supreme Controller, seated at the heart of their being, they are very apt to place themselves in a higher category than other people, and to classify those who do not have their mental grasp of the differentiations of the evolutionary development as differing so widely from them as not to deserve the name of Sons of God. They regard all not working in mental energy as lacking souls [357] and hence as lacking eternal persistence as individuals. This is only a glamour of the mind, is part of the great heresy of separateness, and indicates faintly the coming period wherein the mind will be as dominant and as misleading as is the sentient body at this time.
Let us therefore study the types of mental energy with which the individual has to work and see how this great heresy of separateness and the “fallacy of repudiation”, as it is sometimes called, can be offset.
One of the first things we have to remember as we consider these types of energy is that their trend and work can be grasped more easily in a larger sense in relation to humanity than can their effects in an individual use of mental energy. Only a few human beings are as yet consciously using this type of force and only a few can therefore understand what it really entails. Increasingly men will come, as units, into possession of their intellectual heritage but, numerically speaking, scarce one in ten thousand is utilising this inherent power and knowingly functioning in his mental body.
When however we look at humanity as a whole and cast our eyes back over the past racial development, we can see how mental energy has had a most definite effect and has produced outstanding results. The use of two factors differentiates man from the animal, whether he uses them consciously or unconsciously. Both are latent in the animal but man is the only entity in the three worlds who can consciously reap benefit from them. One of these factors is pain , and the other is the faculty of discrimination. Through the means of pain and a subsequent process of analysis, of relation plus memory and visualisation, man has learnt what to avoid and what to cultivate. This works in the realm of physical plane happenings and of sensory experience. Through discrimination as to ideas and as to thought currents, man has learnt to decide upon what to base his activities in all departments [358] of human affairs, even though he has but an imperfect grasp as to the true nature of ideas and his application of the truths sensed is quite imperfect. That he often chooses unwisely, that the ideas governing group conduct are not of the highest, that public opinion is proverbially moulded by personal and selfish interests may be only too sadly true. Nevertheless—through pain and learning to utilise the power of choice in the realm of ideas—man is steadily forging ahead towards full liberty and full control of the earth, which it is his right to inherit. The Old Commentary says in relation to these two characteristics of man something that conveys much of beauty, couched in symbolic language. The phrases run as follows and it must be borne in mind whilst pondering upon them that water symbolises sentiency or astral reaction, and fire is the symbol of the mentality.
“The assuaging waters cool. They slowly bring relief, abstracting form from all that can be touched. The quivering fever heat of long repressed desire yields to the cooling draught. Water and pain negate each other. Long is the process of the cooling draught.
“The burning fire releases all that blocks the way of life. Bliss comes and follows after fire, as fire upon the waters. Water and fire together blend and cause the great Illusion. Fog they produce and mist and steam and noise, veiling the Light, hiding the Truth and shutting out the Sun.
“The fire burns fiercely. Pain and the waters disappear. Cold, heat, the light of day, the radiance of the rising sun and perfect knowledge of the Truth appear.
“This is the path for all who seek the light. First form, and all its longing. Then pain. Then the assuaging waters and the appearance of a little fire. The fire grows, and heat is then active within the tiny sphere and does its fiery work. Moisture likewise is seen; dense fog, and to the pain is added sad bewilderment, for they who use the fire of mind during the early stage are lost within a light illusory.
“Fierce grows the heat; next comes the loss of power to suffer. When this stage has been outgrown, there comes [359] the shining of the unobstructed sun and the clear bright light of truth. This is the path back to the hidden Centre.
“Use pain. Call for the fire, oh, pilgrim in a strange and foreign land. The waters wash away the mud and slime of nature’s growth. The fires burn the hindering forms which seek to hold the pilgrim back and so they bring release. The living waters, as a river, sweep the pilgrim to the Father’s Heart. The fires destroy the veil hiding the Father’s Face.”
Perhaps one of the first things that every student has to learn, as he seeks to grasp the nature and use of mind, is that public opinion has to give place to individual consciousness of right, and that then that individual consciousness has to be so employed and concentrated that it is seen in its right proportion as that living germ which can expand into the divine flower of the Son of Mind, the Manasaputra, and as the thread which leads back into the realm of the Universal Mind. This thread and this consciousness, when followed, will lead the individual into the Council Chamber wherein the plan and the purpose of the great Life will stand revealed, and wherein all human selfishness and self-seeking fade out in the clear light of the Will of God. Through right understanding and right use and control of the astral nature and a comprehension of the nature of the sentient consciousness, man can penetrate into the very heart of God Himself and know past all controversy that all is well, for all is Love. Through right use of the mind, and through correct understanding of the nature of the intellect, man can enter into the mind of God and know that all is well, for all is planned, and divine purpose is steadily working out its objectives.
The work of the Atlantean Adepts was to impress upon the world consciousness the fact that God is Love. This is a symbolic expression of the truth as is the use of the word God. The work of the Aryan Adepts is to impress upon the world consciousness that God is Will. To do [360] this for the human family, They work with the intellect so as to bring it into control, to subordinate other forms to the mind and through the mind to reveal to man the vision of what is and what will be. Man is therefore brought into line with the esoteric head centre of the one Life. In the animal kingdom, through the development of sentiency and its allied unfoldment through pain, They are bringing those types of forms into line with the heart centre in Nature. This is a phrase conveying a truth which cannot be more clearly expressed until man has become more inclusive in his consciousness. Through colour in the vegetable Kingdom those forms of divine manifestation are also brought into vibratory contact with that centre of force in Nature which is analogous to the throat centre in man.
In using these words I refer primarily to the Life which is expressing itself through our planet, to our planetary Logos, but the idea can (needless to say) be progressed to include the great Life of which our planetary Logos is but a reflection and an expression. Man, the brain of nature; the animals, the expression of the heart; the vegetable world, the expression of the creative force or of the throat centre; these three kingdoms in nature forming, in a peculiar manner, correspondences to the three higher centres in man, as the three kingdoms on the involutionary arc correspond to the three lower centres, and the mineral kingdom—abstruse as the idea may seem to those of you who have not the consciousness of the life-aspect—corresponding to the solar plexus, the great clearing house between that which is above and that which is below.
These analogies change as time progresses. In Lemurian days, viewing it as a kingdom in nature, humanity expressed the solar plexus aspect, whilst the animal kingdom stood for the sacral centre, and the centre at the base of the spine was symbolised by the vegetable [361] kingdom. In the middle of the Atlantean period, when certain great changes and experiments were wrought, a shift in the entire process took place; certain egos came in, as you know, as related in the Secret Doctrine and in a Treatise on Cosmic Fire , and a tremendous stepping forward became possible through their efforts. The chitta or mind-stuff became more vibrant and now we have the period of its intensest activity in the concrete sense.
We are told in the esoteric teaching that all three aspects of Divinity are themselves triple, and hence we can divide the energy of mind as far as humanity is concerned into three aspects also. We have therefore:
1. The lower concrete mind, called the chitta or mind-stuff in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.
2. The abstract mind, or that aspect of the mind which is related to the world of ideas.
3. The intuition or pure reason which is for man the highest aspect of the mentality.
These three find their overshadowing or enveloping field of expression in the third aspect of the Logos, which we call the Universal Mind, the active intelligent Deity. The lines of force from these three lower aspects lead back (if one may use so inadequate an expression) on to the third plane, as the astral lines of force lead back to the second or monadic plane, though as far as man’s consciousness is concerned they only lead back to the buddhic or intuitional plane.
It is interesting to note that just as the Monad, impelled by desire, produces that form of life which we call the personality, so the mind aspect, as part of the purpose working out through the Universal Mind, in its form produces that manifestation which we call a Manasaputra, the great Son of Mind on the mental plane. Hence it is the mind principle in humanity which brings into [362] manifestation the egoic body, the causal vehicle, the karana sarira, the twelve-petalled lotus. We are of course talking entirely in terms of the form aspect here. The reason for this lies back on the cosmic planes, whereon the planetary Logos has His life. From the cosmic astral plane comes the impulse which produces form existence and concrete expression—for all form-taking is the result of desire. From the cosmic mental plane comes the will-to-be in time and space, which produces the seven groups of egoic lives and the third outpouring.
It will be seen then inferentially, how the right use of energy by the initiate puts him en rapport not only with the higher planes of the solar system but also with those cosmic planes whereon our Logos has His Personality aspect, using these words in symbolic fashion. The right use of physical energy by the initiate gives him the 'freedom' of the cosmic physical plane. The right use of astral energy gives him power on the cosmic astral, and the correct use of mental energy gives him entrance on to the cosmic mental. Inferentially then, the three higher centres in man when functioning perfectly play their part in this work of carrying energies from these exalted spheres into the field of activity of the initiate and of being doorways into realms hitherto closed to him.
Each centre or chakra is composed of three concentric interblending whorls or wheels which in the spiritual man upon the probationary path move slowly in one direction, but gradually quicken their activity as he nears the portal of the Path of Initiation. On initiation, the centre of the chakra (a point of latent fire) is touched, and the rotation becomes intensified, and the activity, fourth dimensional. It is difficult to express these ideas in words that can be comprehended by the uninitiated, but the effect could be described as a changing from a measured turn to one of a scintillating radiation, a ‘wheel [363] turning upon itself’, as the ancient Scriptures express it. Hence, when by purification, conformity to rule, and an aspiration that brooks no hindrance and that ceases not for pain, the aspirant has caused his centres to pulsate and to rotate, then—and only then—can the Master lead him into the Presence of the Hierophant. The Initiator then, with full knowledge of the disciple’s ray and of his sub-ray, both egoic and personal, and recognising any karma that still may cling, touches the centre or centres which are in line for vivification, and the hidden fire will then rush up and become focalised. Remember always that in the vivification of a centre there is always a corresponding vitalisation of the analogous head centre, till eventually the seven centres in the body and the seven centres in the head rotate in unison. Remember also that just as the four minor rays pass into the three major rays, so the four minor centres carry on the correspondence and pass into pralaya, finding their focal point in the throat centre. Thus you will have the three centres—head, heart and throat—carrying the inner fire, with the three major head centres vibrating in unison also.
I realise that this is all intricate and technical. It has its place and value however, and much that here is communicated will find its usefulness when you are all passed over to the other side and a fresh band of aspirants will follow in your footsteps. The training of the mental body has a value, and many evade such technicalities, hiding behind an emphasis upon the life side of truth, all due to an inherent mental laziness. This that you now receive is but the A. B. C. of esotericism. Waste not time however in too detailed deduction. All that is now possible is a broad general outline, patient reserve, a willingness to recognise physical brain limitations and the accepting of an hypothesis. Believe these hypotheses possible unless your intuition revolts or they are contradicted [364] by past teaching given by other of the Lodge’s Messengers. I do not dogmatise to you. I only in these instructions give you certain information,—the correctness of which I leave the future to demonstrate. I simply ask that you make record and in the coming years much that may now seem peculiar or mayhap even contradictory will be elucidated, slowly unravelled, and more easily comprehended. A little knowledge leads to much confusion unless laid aside for future use when the years of instruction have increased the store.
To return to our theme:—The heart centre in man opens the door into what is called “the heart of the Sun.” The throat centre opens the way into full understanding of the path of the physical Sun and all true astrologers must eventually have that centre functioning. The head centre opens the way to the central spiritual Sun, each passing, via the planetary correspondence, to one of the cosmic planes.
Thus we have a summation of technicalities, and of facts, which are (under the Law of Analogy) of purely academic interest and no more. Even those of us who are initiate know practically nothing of the cosmic planes beyond the cosmic physical. Our consciousness is only beginning to be solar, and we are labouring in our small measure to overcome those planetary limitations which hold us back from solar knowledge and life. For aspirants who have not even a knowledge of what planetary consciousness signifies, the above information has only one value and that is, that it emphasises the synthetic nature of the great plan and the fact that the smallest unit is an integral part of the whole. It enforces the idea that energy is a life fluid circulating throughout the entire body of the Logos, and vivifying therefore even the tiniest atom in that whole. It is valuable to endeavour to grasp the picture and to vision the wonder of what is transpiring. It is waste of time, nevertheless, to [365] ponder upon the cosmic astral plane, for instance, when even the plane of the ego (the fifth subplane of the cosmic physical plane, counting from above downwards) is as yet inaccessible to the average man and is the goal for all his aspiration and meditation.
For man, therefore, the Universal Mind can best be grasped as it expresses itself through what we call the concrete mind, the abstract mind, and the intuition or pure reason.
The concrete mind is the form building faculty. Thoughts are things. The abstract mind is the pattern building faculty, or the mind which works with the blue prints upon which the forms are modelled. The intuition or pure reason is the faculty which enables man to enter into contact with the Universal Mind and grasp the plan synthetically, to seize upon divine Ideas or isolate some fundamental and pure truth.
The goal of all the work of an aspirant is to understand those aspects of the mind with which he has to learn to work. His work therefore might be summed up as follows:
1. He has to learn to think; to discover that he has an apparatus which is called the mind and to uncover its faculties and powers. These have been well analysed for us in the first two books of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.
2. He has to learn next to get back of his thought processes and form building propensities and discover the ideas which underlie the divine thought-form, the world process, and so learn to work in collaboration with the plan and subordinate his own thought-form building to these ideas. He has to learn to penetrate into the world of these divine ideas and to study the “pattern of things in the Heavens” as it is called in the Bible. He [366] must begin to work with the blue prints upon which all that is, is modelled and moulded. He becomes then a student-symbolist, and from being an idolater he becomes a divine idealist. I use these words in their true sense and connotation.
3. From that developed idealism, he must progress even deeper still, until he enters the realm of pure intuition. He can then tap truth at its source. He enters into the mind of God Himself. He intuits as well as idealises and is sensitive to divine thoughts. They fertilise his mind. He calls these intuitions later, as he works them out, ideas or ideals, and bases all his work and conduct of affairs upon them.
4. Then follows the work of conscious thought-form building, based upon these divine ideas, emanating as intuitions from the Universal Mind. This goes forward through meditation.
Every true student knows that this involves concentration in order to focus or orient the lower mind to the higher. Temporarily the normal thought-form building tendencies are inhibited. Through meditation which is the mind’s power to hold itself in the light, and in that light become aware of the plan, he learns to “bring through” the needed ideas. Through contemplation he finds himself able to enter into that silence which will enable him to tap the divine mind, wrest God’s thought out of the divine consciousness and to know . This is the work before each aspirant and hence the necessity of his understanding the nature of his mental problem, the tools with which he must perforce work, and the use he must make of what he learns and gains through right use of the mental apparatus.
How is this to be done? How bring through and how build afterwards?
[367] No matter how small or unimportant an individual thinker may be, yet in cooperation with his brethren, he wields a mighty force. Only through the steady strong right thinking of the people and the understanding of the correct use of mental energy can progressive evolution go forward along the desired lines. Right thinking depends upon many things, and it might be useful to state some of them very simply:
1. An ability to sense the vision. That involves a capacity in a faint measure to realise the archetype on which the Lodge is endeavouring to fashion the race. It involves cooperation in the work of the Manu, and the development of abstract as well as synthetic thought, the flashing forth of the intuition. The intuition wrests from the high places a touch of the ideal plan as it lies latent in the mind of the Logos. As men develop this capacity, they will touch sources of power that are not on mental levels at all but which constitute those from which the mental plane itself draws sustenance.
2. Then, having sensed the vision and glimpsed a fraction of the beauty (how little men see is astounding!) in your hands lies the opportunity to bring down to the mental plane as much of the plan as you possibly can. Nebulous and faint at first is your grasp after it, yet it will begin to materialise. Seldom at first will you find that you can contact it, for the vision comes through the medium of the causal body and few can hold that high consciousness for a long time. But the struggle to apprehend will lead to results, and little by little the idea will seep through to the concrete levels of the mental plane. Then it becomes a concrete thought, something that can be definitely visualised and appropriated as a basis for thought.
3. This accomplished, what comes next? A period of gestation, a period wherein you build your thought-form of as much of the vision as you can bring through into [368] your consciousness. Slowly must this be done, for a stable vibration and a well built form is desired. Hurried work leads nowhere. As you build there will gradually be sensed a longing, a desire to see this vision brought to earth, and see it becoming known to others among the sons of men. Then you vitalise the thoughtform with the power of your will, you seek to make it be ; the rhythm becomes heavier and slower, the material built into your form is necessarily coarser, and you find that your thought-form of the vision is clothed in matter of the mental and astral planes.
4. Happy the disciple who can bring the vision nearer still to humanity, and work it into existence on the physical plane. Remember this, that the materialisation of any aspect of the vision on the physical plane is never the work of one man. Only when it has been sensed by the many, only when they have worked at its material form can their united efforts draw it into outer manifestation. Thus you see the value of educating public opinion; it brings the many helpers to the aid of the few visionaries. Always the Law holds good;—in descent, differentiation. The two or three sense the plan intuitively; then the rhythm they set up with their thought sweeps the mental plane matter into activity; thinkers seize hold of the idea. This is a hard thing to learn and difficult to do but the reward is great.
To those who wrestle, strive, and hold on, the joy is doubled when the materialisation comes. The joy of contrast will be yours, for knowing the past of darkness you will revel in the light of fruition; the joy of tried and tested companionship will be yours, for years will have proved to you who are your chosen associates, and in community of suffering will come the strengthened link; the joy of peace after victory will be yours, for to the tired warrior the fruits of achievement and rest are doubly sweet; the joy of participation in the Masters’ [369] plan will be yours, and all is well that associates you closely with Them; the joy of having helped to solace a needy world, of having brought light to darkened souls, of having healed in some measure the open sore of the world’s distress, will be yours, and in the consciousness of days well spent, and in the gratitude of salvaged souls, comes the deepest joy of all,—the joy a Master knows when He is instrumental in lifting a brother up a little higher on the ladder. This is the joy that is set before you all—and not so very far ahead it lies. So work, not for joy but towards it; not for reward, but from the inner need to help; not for gratitude, but from the urge that comes from having seen the vision and realisation of the part you have to play in bringing that vision down to earth.
It is helpful to differentiate between happiness, joy and bliss:
First, happiness , which has its seat in the emotions, and is a personality reaction.
Second, joy , which is a quality of the soul and is realised in the mind, when alignment takes place.
Third, bliss , which is the nature of the Spirit and about which speculation is fruitless until the soul realises its oneness with the Father. This realisation follows upon an earlier stage wherein the personal self is at-oned with the soul. Therefore speculation and analysis as to the nature of bliss is profitless to the average man whose metaphors and terminologies must perforce be personal and related to the world of the senses. Does the aspirant refer to his happiness or joy? If he refers to the latter it must come as the effect of group consciousness, of group solidarity, of oneness with all beings, and may not be interpreted in terms of happiness after all. Happiness comes when the personality is meeting with those conditions which satisfy it in one part or other of its lower nature; it comes when there is a sense of physical [370] well being, of contentment with one’s environment or surrounding personalities, or of satisfaction with one’s mental opportunities and contacts. Happiness is the goal of the separated self.
When however we seek to live as souls, the contentment of the lower man is discounted and we find joy in our group relationships and in bringing about those conditions which lead to the better expression of the souls of those we contact. This bringing of joy to others in order to produce conditions in which they may better express themselves may have a physical effect as we seek to better their material conditions, or an emotional effect as our presence brings to them peace and uplift, or an intellectual result as we stimulate them to clarity of thought and understanding. But the effect upon ourselves is joy, for our action has been selfless and non-acquisitive, and not dependent upon the aspirant’s circumstance or worldly state. Much happiness is necessarily foregone when ill-health makes its pressure felt, as the environment is difficult and the “accumulated karma of many births” presses down, or as the troubles of the family, nation or race weigh upon the sensitive personality. The happiness of youth or the self-centred contentment of the selfish insulated person (hiding himself behind the shield of his protective desires) must not be confounded with joy.
It is a platitude as well as an occult paradox to say that in the midst of profound personality distress and unhappiness, the joy of the soul may be known and felt. Such however is the case, and it is for this the student must aim. Some people are happy because they shut their eyes to truth, or are self-hypnotised, hiding themselves within a shell of illusion. But the aspirant has frequently reached the stage wherein his eyes are wide open; he has learnt to speak truth to himself, and has built up no separating wall between himself and [371] others. He is awake and alive; he is sensitive and frequently suffering. He wonders why apparently what the world calls happiness and peace have left him, and asks what is to be the outcome.
We who watch and guide on the inner side, watch with loving care all of you who struggle in the thick of the fray. We are like the General Headquarters Staff who follow the course of the battle from a secure eminence. In our security lies your ultimate success, for we hold in our hands the solution of many problems, and apply that solution when the battle goes contrary. One thing always would I have you remember. It is of vital importance. It is this statement, that in the destruction of the form lies hid the secret of all evolution. Think not this is truism. You will see it in constant application and need to be prepared for its demonstration. The Masters utilize the form to the uttermost; They seek to work through it, imprisoning the life in confining walls for just as long as the purpose is served and the race instructed through that form. Then the time comes that the form no longer serves the purpose intended, when the structure atrophies, crystallises and becomes easily destructible. Its destruction then becomes the matter of greatest concern and usefulness, and it goes, whilst a new form takes its place. Watch and see if this be not so. Always the building of the form, always its utilisation for as long as possible, always the destruction of the form when it hinders and cramps the expanding light, always then the rapid reconstruction of a new form. Such has been the method since the commencement of the aeon.
In the infancy of the race the forms endured for a long time. Evolution moved more slowly, but now on the upward trend of all things, the form has but short duration. It lives vitally for a brief period; it moves with rapidity and then is succeeded by another form. This [372] rapidity will increase not decrease as the consciousness or inner expansion of the life of the race vibrates ever to a faster and lighter rate of rhythm.
It is necessary likewise that you arrive at the realization that one of the principal objects of endeavor at the present time on the part of those whom you call the Elder Brothers of the race, is to stimulate, purify and coordinate the etheric body. This etheric body is not only the transmitter of prana but is the medium for all the energies which we are considering. Its importance also lies in other directions:
a. Being of physical plane matter, literally, etheric consciousness is the next step ahead for the race. This will demonstrate at first as the ability to see etherically and to cognize etheric matter.
b. It is the field of exploration immediately ahead of the modern scientist. In ten years time, many medical practitioners will be recognizing it as a fact of nature.
c. Most of the diseases that the physical body suffers from at present have their roots in the etheric body. There are few, if any, purely physical diseases. Disease has its source in astral and etheric conditions.
d. The secret of safe and sane clairvoyance and clairaudience depends upon the purification of the etheric vehicle.
e. The etheric emanations of people can be great contaminators. In the purification, therefore, of this body lies the secret of a sweeter and saner humanity.
Hence, the importance of the etheric. There are many other reasons which will later be emphasized. In beginning to form your ideas on the subject, however, it is the part of wisdom to adhere to wide generalities until the whole matter has taken clear shape in your mind.
Work on the etheric body, however, from the standpoint of the Hierarchy is not confined only to the bodies of men. It is a planetary process. The etheric body of [373] the earth itself is being subjected to a definite stimulation. The spirit of the earth, that mysterious entity—not the planetary Logos—is being vivified in a new sense and in his vivification many interesting developments eventuate. In three ways this is being attempted:
1. By an increased rate of vibration of the etheric atoms, caused by the coming in of the ceremonial ray. This must not be pictured as a sudden and violent change. From the standpoint of the human student the rate of increase is apparently so slow and gradual as to be inappreciable. Nevertheless, the stimulation exists, and in the course of centuries will be recognized.
2. By the play of certain astral forces on the etheric body that leads to slow but definite changes in the internal structure of the atom, the coming into consciousness of another of the spirillae and a general tightening up of the whole cosmos of the atom.
3. By the use on the inner planes by the Mahachohan of one of the powerful talismans of the seventh ray.
The spirit of the earth, it might be noted, is of slow and gradual arousing. He is on the involutionary arc and passes on to the evolutionary in some dim and distant future. Therefore, he will not carry us with him. He but serves our purpose now, offering us a home within his body, yet remaining dissociated from us. The devas of the ethers from this very stimulation are consequently hastening forward in evolution and approximating also nearer to their ideal.
In all I have said anent the etheric body of men, anent the planet, anent the spirit of the earth, the crux of the whole situation lies in the fact that the five rays at this time have the seventh ray as their predominating ray. The seventh ray is the ray that controls the etheric and the devas of the ethers. It controls the seventh sub-plane of all planes but it dominates at this time the seventh sub-plane of the physical plane. Being in the fourth [374] round also, when a ray comes into definite incarnation, it not only controls on planes of the same number but has a special influence on the fourth sub-plane. Note how this works at this time in the three worlds:
1. The fourth ether, the lowest of the ethers, is to be the next physical plane of consciousness. Etheric matter is even now becoming visible to some, and will be entirely visible at the end of this century to many.
2. The fourth sub-plane of the astral holds the majority of men when they pass over and consequently much work on the greatest number can therefore be accomplished.
3. The fourth mental sub-plane is the plane of devachan.
The various energies which play upon the human being and produce his unfoldment constitute his field of experience. Those two words—unfoldment and experience—should ever be linked, for each produces the other. As one is subjected to experience in the form world, a paralleling unfoldment of consciousness is carried forward. As that unfoldment produces constant changes in realisation and a consequent constant reorientation to a new state of awareness, it necessarily leads to new experience—experience of fresh phenomena, of new states of being, and of dimensional conditions hitherto unknown. Hence the frequent reaction of the disciple to the fact that for him, as yet, there is no point of peace. Peace was the objective of the Atlantean aspirant. Realisation is that of the Aryan disciple. He can never be static; he can never rest; he is constantly adjusting himself to new conditions; constantly learning to function therein, and then subsequently finding them pass away to give place, in their turn, to new. This goes on until the consciousness is stabilised in the Self, in the One. Then the initiate [375] knows himself to be the onlooking Unity watching the phenomenal phantasmagoria of life in form.
He passes from one sense of unity to a sense of duality, and from thence again into a higher unity. First, the Self identifies itself with the form aspect to such an extent that all duality disappears in the illusion that the Self is the form. We have then the form constituting apparently all that there is. This is followed by the stage wherein the indwelling Self begins to be aware of Itself as well as of the form, and we talk then in terms of the higher and the lower self; we speak of the self and its sheaths, and of the self and the not-self. This dualistic stage is that of the aspirant and of the disciple, up to the time of his training for the third initiation. He begins with a knowledge that he is a spiritual entity confined in a form. His consciousness for a long period of time remains predominantly that of the form. Gradually this changes,—so gradually that the aspirant learns the lesson of endurance (even to the point of enduring the not-self!) until there comes a life of balance, wherein neither preponderates. This produces in the man a state of apparent negativity and inertia which may last for one life or two, and he seems to accomplish little in either direction. This is, for workers, a valuable hint in their dealings with people. Then the point of balance changes, and the soul appears to dominate from the standpoint of influence, and the entire consciousness aspect begins to shift into the higher of the two aspects. Duality however, still persists, for the man is sometimes identified with his soul and sometimes with his form nature; this is the stage wherein so many most earnest disciples are at this time to be found. Little by little however he becomes “absorbed” in the soul, and thus comes en rapport with all aspects of the soul in all forms until the day dawns when he realises that there is nothing but soul and then the higher state of unity supervenes.
[376] These points need consideration and are valuable, for there are schools of thought (such as the Vedanta and other mystical groups of thinkers) which emphasise the life aspect and appear to negate duality. Other schools (such as the Theosophical, in spite of denial) teach the fact of the self and the not-self, and hence can be interpreted in terms of duality. Both are right and both need each other. It should be remembered that in the process of manifestation we work from a relative unity, through duality, to another unity, in the following way:
1. The unity of form, wherein the self is identified apparently with the form, and is absorbed in form life.
2. Duality, with a fluctuating shift backward and forward between the self and the form, the focus of consciousness being sometimes in one and sometimes in the other.
3. The unity of the soul, wherein naught but soul is seen to exist, and only being is registered in consciousness.
Thus it will be found that both schools are right, and that the dualistic concept is a step upon the way to essential union with the One Life.
It should be remembered that just as the battle ground (the kurukshetra) for the aspirant or probationer is the astral plane, so the battle ground for the disciple is the mental plane. There is his kurukshetra. The aspirant has to learn to control his emotional psychic nature through right control of the mind, and this Krishna seeks to emphasise as he trains Arjuna to take the next step towards right vision. The disciple has to carry forward this mental attention, and, through right use of the mind, achieve a higher realisation, and bring into active use a still higher factor,—that of the intuition.
In himself, the aspirant repeats the racial unfoldment, [377] and re-enacts the racial drama; and to comprehend this certain facts about that drama and the work of the Hierarchy should be grasped and I here enumerate them:
1. The movement for the spreading of the Secret Doctrine is eighteen million years old.
2. Only four of the original Instigators still remain with us. The work (impulsive and controlling) lies now in the hands of three groups of lives, if it may be so expressed:
a. In the hands of those of our Earth Humanity who have equipped themselves so as to serve.
b. In the hands of certain Existences who have come into our earth scheme of evolution from other planetary schemes.
c. In the hands of a large number of devas of superhuman evolution.
These in their aggregate, form the occult Hierarchy of the planet, working in three main divisions, and in seven groups as outlined in many Theosophical books and summarized in Initiation, Human and Solar.
3. In the very early stages, this Hierarchy was called by various names; among others it was called the Temple of Ibez.
4. Let us consider the founding of the Temple of Ibez. To do this it will be necessary to consider the period of the coming of the White Brotherhood to earth and the immediate problem before Them; this will involve the recognition of certain facts that have never been adequately considered. It is an acknowledged fact in occultism that for our earth humanity the advent of the occult Hierarchy was epochal; it brought about two things:
The definite crystallization of that group soul which is now called thefourth or human kingdom. [378]
The arousing of manas or mind in animal man in a triple way.
a. By the direct incarnation of certain members of the White Brotherhood, in which way They brought in the new and necessary factors by transmission to their children.
b. By the definite implantation of what is called in the occult Scriptures “the spark of mind” in animal man. This is simply a pictorial way of picturing the creation, by a direct act, of the necessary mental unit or mental apparatus of thought, within the causal or spiritual body.
c. By the gradual stimulation of the mental faculty in animal man, and the steady vitalisation of the latent germ of mind until it flowered forth as manifested mind.
This covered a vast period of time, and though the Brotherhood made its headquarters at Shamballa and directed its activities from there, it was found necessary during the first sub-race of the Atlantean Root Race to make certain efforts, if the evolution of the race was to proceed according to plan. Students of these mysteries need to remember that though Shamballa is spoken of as existing in physical matter and as occupying a definite location in space, the physical matter referred to is etheric, the Lord of the World and His assistants of the higher degrees occupying bodies formed of etheric matter.
5. It was decided about seventeen million years ago (the coming of the Hierarchy and the founding of Shamballa being about eighteen and a half million years ago) to have on the dense physical plane an organization and a headquarters for the mysteries, and to have a band of Adepts, and Chohans who would function in dense physical bodies and thus meet the need of the rapidly awakening humanity. [379]
6. The first outpost for the Shamballa Fraternity was the original temple of Ibez and it was located in the centre of South America, and one of its branches at a much later period was to be found in the ancient Maya institutions, and the basic worship of the Sun as the source of life in the hearts of all men. A second branch was later established in Asia, and of this branch the Himalayan and southern Indian adepts are the representatives, though the work is materially changed. At a later date than the present, discoveries will be made, revealing the reality of the old form of hierarchical work; ancient records and monuments will be revealed, some above ground and many in subterranean fastnesses. As the mysteries of Central Asia in the land stretching from Chaldea and Babylon through Turkestan to Manchuria, including the Gobi desert, are opened up, it is planned that much of the early history of the Ibezhan workers will be revealed.
We might here note the fact that the word Ibez is literally in the nature of an acrostic veiling the true name of the planetary Logos of the earth, one of Whose principles is working in Sanat Kumara, making Him thus a direct incarnation of the planetary Logos and an expression of His divine consciousness. These four letters are the first letters of the real names of the four Avatars on the four globes of our earth chain who have embodied four of the divine principles. The letters I B E Z are not the true Sensar letters, if such an inaccurate expression can be used of an ideographic language, but are simply a Europeanized distortion. The true meaning is only conveyed at the fourth initiation when the nature of the planetary Logos is revealed and His four Avatars are definitely contacted through the direct mediatory work of Sanat Kumara.
7. A word now as regards the work of the Ibezhan adepts and Their mysteries; it is necessary here to point [380] out that the whole trend of Their work was in a way different and necessarily so, to that of the adepts at this time. Their objective was to stimulate mysticism and the stimulating of the kingdom of God within the human atom. The nature of Their work is most difficult for the average man of this time to comprehend, owing to the different state of his consciousness. The Ibezhan adepts had to deal with a humanity which was in its infancy, whose polarization was most unstable, and whose coordination was very imperfect. There was very little mentality to be found and men were practically altogether astral; they functioned even more consciously on the astral plane than on the physical, and it was part of the work of these early adepts, working under instruction from Shamballa to develop the energy centres of the human unit, stimulate the brain and make him fully self-conscious on the physical plane. Their objective was to bring about a realization of the kingdom of God within, and little attention was paid (in Their training of Their disciples) to the bringing about of the realization of God in nature or in other units. It was necessary in those days to employ methods more definitely physical than are permissible now, and these methods of physical stimulation were employed and the laws of energy as they work through the various centres were taught until the time came when another big change was made in the hierarchical methods, and the door from the animal kingdom into the human was closed and the door of initiation was opened. It was felt at that time that man was then self-centered enough and individualized enough to permit of a drastic change in method and practice. All this took a vast period of time and it is the remnants of the earlier Temple practices which have come down to us in degraded phallic teaching, in Tantrik magic and the practices of Hatha Yogis. The infant humanity of Lemurian and early Atlantean days had to be taught what they [381] were by means of symbols and methods which to us would be crude, impossible and of a nature which the race should have transcended for many millions of years.
8. At the time the door of initiation was opened, many millions of years ago the Lodge came to two decisions:
That individualisation must cease until man had not only coordinated the physical and astral bodies and could think self-consciously but until he had also transcended the physical and the astral. When he is becoming group-conscious, then the door into the kingdom of self-consciousness will again be opened.
That the path of mysticism must lead eventually to the occult path, and that plans must be made to impart teaching, and mysteries must be organized which would reveal the nature of God in all that is seen, and not only in man. Man must be taught that though an individual, he is but part of a greater whole and that his interests must be made subservient to those of the group. Gradually the teaching was re-organized, and the curriculum increased; little by little the mysteries were developed as the people became ready for them until we have the marvelous Schools of the Mysteries of Chaldea, Egypt, Greece and many others.
9. Three things might be mentioned:
a. The relatively low point of evolution of many men and their naturally physical polarization.
b. The work of the black adepts and the followers of the left hand path. When the Ibezhan adepts (again under instructions from the Masters at Shamballa) began to withdraw into the Temples, to make the mysteries more difficult of attainment and to work against abuses and distortions, a number of Their erstwhile followers, many of great power and knowledge, fought Them and thus we have one of the causes of the appearing of [382] black and white magic, and one of the reasons of the purifying waters of the flood being deemed necessary.
c. The powerful thought-forms built up in the early Ibezhan mysteries and which (particularly in America) are as yet undestroyed. This gigantic “Dweller on the Threshold” of all the true Mysteries has to be slaughtered before the aspirant can pass on.
10. The work of the Ibezhan adepts and the mysteries of the Temple of Ibez are still persisting and are being carried on by the masters and adepts in physical incarnation throughout the world. They teach the meaning of the psyche, the ego or the soul and of the human unit, so that the man may indeed be what he is, a God walking on earth, his lower nature (physical, astral and mental) completely controlled by the soul or the love aspect, and this not in theory but in deed and truth.
When this is the case, the physical body will have no lure for the real man, the emotional nature and desire body will no longer lead astray nor will the mind shut out that which is true and spiritual, but the God will use the three bodies as vehicles of service to the race. Then will the human kingdom be transcended and man pass into the spiritual kingdom, there to have further lessons just as infant humanity when passing out of the animal kingdom was trained and taught its functions and work by the Ibezhan teachers.
In Atlantean days, the goal that the Hierarchy of Teachers set before Themselves was the awakening in man of the love nature, as a step towards the awakening of the heart centre. To do this, the Teachers at that time were Themselves focussed (deliberately and of intent) in the heart centre, and chose to work entirely through that centre, subordinating Their mental equipment and [383] the mental energy They could use to the need of the time, They kept Their mental force in abeyance when training the initiates until the time the third initiation was reached. In our race, the condition is reversed. The Hierarchy is working now entirely on mental levels, though basing all endeavour upon past achievements in connection with the heart centre. Up to the third initiation therefore, disciples have to endeavour to work entirely with mental energy in an effort to control, master and use it. Their attempt is concentrated then upon transmitting (from egoic levels) the will aspect of the soul. That will has to be imposed upon the personality until it has become the automaton of the soul. Then the intuition takes control, and energies from the intuitional or buddhic plane begin to make their impact upon the form nature, the personality. Prior to this period of intuitional control, there are many lives wherein the intuition may begin to play its part, and the student learns the meaning of illumination. Until after the third initiation, however, it is the iilumined mind which is the dominant factor, and not the pure intuitive perception, or pure reason. After this great initiation, which marks a definite transition out of the form consciousness, the initiate can function at will on the plane of the intuition, and the mind is steadily relegated into the background till it becomes a part of the instinctual apparatus—as much a part of the subconscious instinctual nature as is the instinctual nature which the materialistic psychologist so much stresses. Intuitive perception, pure vision, direct knowledge, and an ability to utilise the undifferentiated energies of the Universal Mind are the main characteristics of the Aryan adepts. I use the word ‘undifferentiated’ in the sense of freedom from multiplicity; certain main distinctions will still be found to exist. The will of the soul, regarding that soul as having [384] its place on one of the seven Rays, is superseded by the will of the Whole.
These are words meaning but little, or having at best only a theoretical significance to students in this group. When I say to you that the will which is transmitted through the medium of the controlled mind is embodied in seven types of energy, and to these seven types, there are corresponding types of humanity, you say doubtless that that is clear and not so difficult to grasp. Yet do you indeed understand? Seven types of energy, and seven types of responsive mentalities, dependent upon the seven ray types! In this statement, we note the differentiations of the soul aspect as grasped by the mind. These are the seven differentiations which take the place of the multiplicity of differences into which the form aspect falls. They are, nevertheless, distinctions and differentiations, and persist in their hold over man until the third initiation. By them he is swept into certain major activities and life tendencies, according to his particular ray. These are mental distinctions. All souls on the mental plane take the forms of the solar Angels, of the divine Sons of mind. Hence we have these groupings, and hence the focussing of the energies through which the Plan of the Ages works out through seven main departments.
At a later stage, when certain great transitions in consciousness have taken place and the form has lost its hold, even these divisions disappear, and the plan is seen as a whole, the Life is known in its essential oneness, and the term, monad, begins to have some real significance.
Students must always remember that all distinctions and categories are mental productions, and are due to the modifications of the thinking principle, and to the control of form by mental energy. As the central Thinker of the Universe works through the power of [385] thought, the problem of surmounting these distinctions and differences is well nigh insuperable until such time as the aspirant comes under complete control of the second aspect of divinity, and passes out of the domination of the third or matter aspect. But up to the third initiation even the second aspect (the aspect of love) implies duality, for it is inherent in love itself. Ever there is the Lover and the loved, the Desirer and the desired, the Seeker and the sought. It is only as the first aspect, that of energising unifying Life (which sweeps all forms and all dualities into one great synthesis) is sensed at the third initiation, that the words I have here dictated convey any practical meaning or realisation.
Let us simplify matters, if we can, by three clear statements; in them we will sum up the work the disciple accomplishes, as he struggles with and masters the energies of the mental world.
1. Work on the mental plane produces realisation of duality. The disciple seeks to blend and merge the soul with its vehicle and to do this consciously. He seeks to fuse them into a unity. He aims at the realisation that, here and now, they are ONE. The unification of the self and of the not-self is his objective. The first step in this direction is taken when he begins to cease identifying himself with the form, and recognises (during this transitional period) that he is a duality.
2. The mind, rightly used, becomes therefore a recorder of two types of energy or of two aspects of the manifestation of the One Life. It records and interprets the world of phenomena. It records and interprets the world of souls. It is sensitive to the three worlds of human evolution. It becomes equally sensitive to the kingdom of the soul. It is the great mediating principle, in this interim of dual recognition.
3. Later, the soul and its instrument become so unified and at-one that duality disappears, and the soul knows [386] itself to be all that is, all that has been and all that will be.
There is a curious and ancient Atlantean chant which is no longer used but in those far off times was chanted by the initiate who took the third initiation—the consummating initiation of that period. It goes as follows. The translation of the symbols in which it was written necessitates the loss of rhythm and potency.
“I stand between the Heavens and Earth! I vision God; I see the forms God took. I hate them both. Naught do they mean to me, for one I cannot reach, and for the lower of the two I have no longer any love.
“Torn I am. Space and its Life I cannot know, and so I want it not. Time and its myriad forms I know too well. Pendant I hang betwixt the two, desiring neither.
“God from high Heaven speaks. There is a change. I hear with ear attentive, and, listening, turn my head. That which is visioned, yet visioning could not reach, is nearer to my heart. Old longings come again, yet die. Old chains with clamour snap. Forward I rush.
“Myriads of voices speak and halt me in my tracks. The thunder of the sounds of earth shuts out the voice of God. I turn me on my forward path, and vision once again the long held joys of earth, and flesh and kin. I lose the vision of eternal things. The voice of God dies out.
“Torn again am I, but only for a little time. Backward and forward shifts my little self, e’en as a bird soars into heaven and settles back again upon the tree. Yet God, in His high place, outlasts the little bird. Thus do I know that God will victor be and later hold my mind and me in thrall.
***
“Hark to the joyous paean that I chant; the work is done. My ear is deaf to all the calls of earth, except to that small voice of all the hidden souls within the outer forms, for they are as myself; with them I am at-one.
“God’s voice rings clear and in its tones and overtones the little voices of the little forms dim and fade out. I dwell within a world of unity. I know all souls are one.
“Swept am I by the universal Life and as I sweep upon [387] my onward way—the way of God—I see all lesser energies die out. I am the One; I, God. I am the form in which all forms are merged. I am the soul in which all souls are fused. I am the Life, and in that Life, all little lives remain.”
These words, chanted in the ancient formulas on peculiar and selected notes, were most potent and brought definite results in certain ancient ceremonies that have long since died out.
To the three concise statements above made we might add a fourth as follows:
4. When the chitta, or mind stuff, is swept into activity by abstract ideas (the embodied thoughts of the divine mind, carrying the energy of their creator and consequently the cause of phenomenal effects in the three worlds) and when to this is added divine understanding and synthetic apprehension of the will and purpose of God, then the three aspects of mind are unified. These we touched upon earlier, and called them:
1. Mind stuff, or chitta.
2. Abstract mind.
3. Intuition or pure reason.
These have to be unified in the consciousness of the aspirant. When this has happened, the disciple has built the bridge (the antaskarana) which links:
1. The spiritual triad.
2. The causal body.
3. The personality.
When this is done the egoic body has served its purpose, the solar Angel has done its work, and the form side of existence is no longer needed, as we understand and utilise it, as a medium of experience. The man enters into the consciousness of the Monad, the ONE. The causal body [388] disintegrates; the personality fades out, and illusion is ended. This is the consummation of the Great Work, and another Son of God has entered into the Father’s home. That he may go out from there into the world of phenomena in order to work with the Plan is probable, but he will not need to undergo the processes of manifestation as humanity does. He can then construct, for the work, his body of expression. He can work through and with energy as the Plan dictates. Note these last words, for they hold the key to manifestation.
Our study of the energies which have been brought to our attention as we studied Rule X has brought us to a consideration of:
Personality Energy : emanating from:
a. Coordinated man.
b. Dominant human beings.
c. Groups: such as
1. The Hierarchy of Adepts.
2. The integrating Group of Mystics of the New Age.
This will be an important consideration, for this group of mystics is gaining each year in potency.
Planetary Energies : emanating from:
a. The seven planets.
b. The Earth.
c. The Moon.
Only a few things can be noted about this section of energies and about the next, for this is a series of Instructions for the aspirant and not a treatise on energy.
Solar Energies : emanating from:
a. The physical sun.
b. Cosmic sources.
In all thoughts concerning these energies it should be remembered that they are passed to us through, or rather [389] constitute the bodies of, certain lives whom we call the devas, in their greater and lesser groups, and that therefore we are all the time working in the bodies of lives and hence influencing them. Some of you therefore who have made a study of A Treatise on Cosmic Fire may find it of value to note the following items of information:
1. The lowest types of devas or builders on the evolutionary Path are violet devas; next come the green, and, last of all, the white devas. These are all dominated by a fourth and special group. These control the exoteric processes of physical plane existence.
2. It must not be forgotten, however, that, on a lower scale of the evolutionary ladder, are other groups of lives, wrongly entitled devas, which work in obedience to the law, and are controlled by the higher entities. There are, for instance, the denser forms of gaseous life, termed often salamanders, the elementals of the fire. These are directly under the control of the Lord Agni, Lord of the mental plane, and, in this mental age, we have the element of fire entering into the mechanics of living as never before. Eliminate the products which are controlled by heat and you will bring our civilisation to a stop; you will bring all means of transportation to an end and all modes of lighting; you would throw all manufactories into the discard. Basically again, these fiery lives, are found in all that burns, and in the warmth that holds all life formation on earth and causes the flourishing of all living things.
3. Under the Law of Correspondences the mental plane has an analogy in the third subplane of the physical plane, the plane into which science is now entering. Mind has, for its main expression in the material world what we call our scientific civilisation.
4. Agni rules on the mental plane, and has domination likewise on the third subplane of the etheric planes. He [390] is the Lord of the fifth or mental plane, counting from above downwards, if one must employ these terms for the sake of symbolism. For this world cycle, Agni is the dominating influence, though Indra, Lord of the buddhic or intuitional level has a subtle control which is steadily waxing stronger. All humanity is striving towards the fourth plane of union between the three higher and the three lower, but, at this present moment, the plane of mind or of fire is the most important.
5. We need to remember that just as in particular incarnations, men are focussed or polarised in various bodies—sometimes the astral and sometimes the mental—so at this time one might infer that our planetary Logos Himself is focussed in His mental body. He, it has been said, is striving towards the fourth cosmic initiation, which makes possible our attainment of the fourth Initiation, for He carries us forward with Him, and, on our particular level, we achieve as cells in His Body.
6. As time progresses, Indra will swing into control and the age of air will be ushered in. More and more as the buddhic principle manifests and at-one-ment is achieved shall we see this age of air coming into being. A corroboration of this can be seen in the gradual control by men of the air. In an esoteric sense, all in the future will become lighter, more rarefied and more etherealized. I am choosing my words with care.
7. “Our God is a consuming Fire” refers primarily to Agni, the controlling factor in this age. The devas of the fire will play an increasingly important part in all earth processes. To them is given the work of inaugurating the New Age, the new world and civilisation and the new continent. The last great transition was governed by Varuna.
8. Agni controls not only the fires of the earth and rules the mental plane but he is definitely associated with [391] the work of arousing the sacred fire, the kundalini. Note how the correspondence works out. A great part of the fifth root-race, three-fifths perhaps, stand close to the Probationary Path, and with the coming in of the new age and the advent of the Christ in due time and in His own place (note the care with which I express this; dogmatic assertions in terms of men’s concrete minds are inadvisable) many will find it possible to make the adequate extra effort, entailed in the taking of the first major Initiation. They will begin to pass from the fifth to the fourth plane. The Lord of Fire will achieve his peculiar work for this cycle by arousing the fire of kundalini in the large numbers of those who are ready. This will be begun in this century, and carried forward actively for the next one thousand years.
In your work you may later be shown—all depends upon your aptitude—methods of approach to these dominating forces, but this will come subjectively and not through magical work and formulas. The attainment of a right vibration will work automatically in the production of right conditions and right rapports.
I would again point out that we shall not waste time in planetary intricacies and the interplay of solar energies, but will concern ourselves with the laws of practical spiritual living. I seek but to give a few thoughts which have relation to the coming age, and which will enable man to go forward to that glorious heritage which is his and into which he must inevitably enter under the good Law and through the experience of rebirth. Through rebirth he learns to dominate and utilise form correctly.
All forms, in themselves, are not expressions of a personality. To warrant the term, three types of energy must be present, three types, fused, blended and coordinated into one functioning organism. A personality is therefore a blend of mental energy, of emotional energy and of vital force, and these three are masked, hidden [392] or revealed (note this terminology) by an outer shell or form of dense physical matter. This outer crust is in itself a form of negative energy. The result of this union of three energies in an objective form is self-consciousness. Their fusion produces that sense of individuality, which justifies the use of the word ‘I’, and which relates all occurrences to a self. Where this central conscious entity exists, utilising the mind, reacting sensuously through the emotional body and energising the dense physical (via the vital body) then one has a personality. It is self-conscious existence in form. It is awareness of identity in relation to other identities, and this is equally true of God or man. It is a sense of identity, however, which persists only during the creative process, and for as long as the matter aspect and the consciousness aspect present the eternal duality of nature. In our evolutionary development it is not realised in the sub-human forms; it is realised in the human kingdom, and is realised but merged into and negated by the greater forms and consciousness which we call the superhuman.
Personality is that state of awareness which has its conditioning factor in the mind stuff, but this can be transcended when that mind stuff no longer controls. As the individual mind stuff is an integral part of the Universal Mind, and as the principle of mind is inherent in all forms, the sense of individuality and of self-awareness is always eternally possible. In the higher states of consciousness, it is however, eventually relegated to a subordinate position. God, for instance, can always and eternally be aware of that reality which constitutes the self, and which governs the integrity of the solar system, and of the solar interplay with other systems, but the consciousness of divinity and the awareness of the solar Deity is not primarily occupied with selfhood. That—as a result of past world periods and experience—lies below the threshold of the divine consciousness, and has [393] become as much a part of the cosmic instinctual nature as are any of the human instinctual attributes. The focus of the Eternal Attention (if I may use so unusual a phrase where words are necessarily almost worthless!) lies in realms of awareness beyond our comprehension. They lie as far beyond our ken as the awareness of a Master of the Wisdom lies beyond the ken of an ant or a mouse. It is therefore fruitless for us to dwell upon it. For us, there is the achieving of personality, or of a full registration or awareness of the indwelling self; there lies then the utilisation of that personality, and its sacrifice eventually to group good, with a consequent merging of the self in the one Self and the fusion of the individual soul (consciously and willingly) in the Oversoul.
‘I am’—the cry of every human being; ‘I am That’,—the cry of every personality, who realises his selfhood and uses his personality in order to express the will of the indwelling entity, the true person. ‘I am that I am’—the cry of the individual soul as it is lost in the whole and realises its oneness with the soul or self of all.
The characteristics of the individual who is beginning to function as a personality might be briefly enumerated as follows. They are simple and clear and preeminently selfish. Let it not be forgotten that the primitive step on the way to selfhood of necessity is selfishness. Let it be equally well remembered that the prime hindrance to the advanced and highly evolved personality is selfhood, or the prolongation of the selfish attitude. The characteristics therefore are in their sequential development as follows:
1. The ability to say I am, I wish, I desire, I will.
2. The consciousness of being in the centre of one’s tiny universe. “Around me the Heavens move and the stars in their courses revolve” is the motto of this stage. [394]
3. The sense of drama and the capacity to visualise oneself as the centre of one’s environment.
4. The sense of responsibility and the aptitude to regard the surrounding members of the human family as dependent upon one.
5. The sense of importance—the outgrowth of the above. This demonstrates in power and influence where there is a real and steadily awakening entity behind the 'persona', and in braggadocio and bombast where a small selfish creature functions.
6. The power to use the entire equipment so that the mind and brain function synchronously and the emotional nature is thereby subordinated, inhibited or controlled. This involves the steady growth of the power to use thought.
7. Capacity to live a coordinated life so that the entire man functions and is guided by purpose (expressing the energy of will), by desire (expressing the energy of the emotional or psychic nature), and by vitality which swings the physical vehicle into line with purpose and desire.
8. Power to influence, sway, guide and hold others within the range of individual purpose and desire.
When this stage has been reached the three energies which constitute a personality have been successfully fused and merged and the mechanism or instrument of the indwelling self is a usable and valuable asset. The man is a potent personality and becomes the centre of a group; he finds himself to be a focal point for other lives, and is an influential magnetic individual, swaying others, coordinating human units into groups, and organisms. He becomes the head of organizations and of parties, of religious and political bodies and of nations in some cases. Thus do the dominant personalities come into being and find themselves; they discover thus the distinction [395] between the centre of power, the self, and the equipment; they finally become conscious of vocation in the true sense of the term.
It should be noted that this sequential development is paralleled by an inner growth of soul awareness, though the mode of expression of that inner growth is largely dependent upon the ray upon which the spiritual Entity is found.
One point should be here noted and upon this point aspirants should exercise care. The usual connotation of the words 'spiritual growth' is largely that of religious growth in understanding. A man is deemed spiritual if he is interested in the world Scriptures, if he is a Church member and if he lives a saintly life. But this is no true definition for it is not sufficiently comprehensive. It has grown out of the impress set upon human thought and terminologies by the Piscean Age, and through the influence of the sixth ray, and the work of the Christian Church—all most necessary and all inherent in the great plan, but which (divorced from their eternal context) lead to the over-emphasis of certain divine expressions, and the overlooking of other as vital manifestations of the divine consciousness.
The true significance of the words ‘spiritual growth’ is far wider and more inclusive than their manifestation through the medium of religious and mystical literature and organisations for the imparting of metaphysical truth. Power, purpose and will are divine qualities and expressions, and show themselves with equal clarity through a Mussolini or through a Pope. In both cases the mechanism of expression modifies and steps down the qualities and serves as a handicap. A potent personality may function in any field of human expression and his work will warrant the word spiritual just in so far as it is based on high idealism, the greatest good of the largest number, and self-sacrificing endeavour. [396] these three—idealism, group service and sacrifice—are characteristics of those personalities who are becoming increasingly sensitive to the soul aspect, the qualities of that soul being knowledge, love and sacrifice.
This is why the emphasis in all schools of true esotericism is laid on motive. People who are strongly individual and are developing a group consciousness inevitably, in some life, find their way into esoteric schools and have to be guided in such a manner that the soul nature enfolds, overpowers and uses the personality.
The outstanding characteristics of those personalities who are not as yet soul-centered or controlled, are dominance, ambition, pride and a lack of love to the whole, though they frequently possess love for those who are necessary to them or to their comfort.
You have therefore in the sequential development of humanity the following stages:
1. That of the animal consciousness.
2. The emotionally polarised individual, selfish and governed by desire.
3. The two above stages, plus a growing intellectual grasp of environing conditions.
4. The stage of responsibility to family or friends.
5. The stage of ambition and of longing for influence and power in some field of human expression. This leads to fresh endeavor.
6. The coordinating of the personality equipment under the above stimulus.
7. The stage of influence, selfishly used and frequently destructive, because the higher issues are not registered as yet.
8. The stage of a steadily growing group awareness. This is viewed:
a. As a field of opportunity
b. As a sphere of service. [397]
c. As a place wherein sacrifice for the good of all becomes gloriously possible.
This latter stage puts a man upon the path of discipleship, which includes, needless to say, that of the earlier phase, probation or testing.
The problem consists in ascertaining upon which step of the ladder and in which phase one finds oneself at any particular time. Behind each human being stretches a long series of lives and some are now headed towards the stage of dominant selfish personality expression and are making themselves individuals in full conscious awareness. This is, for them, as much a step forward as is discipleship for all of you. Others are already personalities and are beginning to experiment with the energy flowing through them and to gather around themselves those people who vibrate to their note and for whom they definitely have a message. Hence the myriads of small groups all over the world, working in every known field of human expression. Others have passed beyond that stage and are becoming decentralised from the personality expression in the three worlds of human life and are motivated by an energy which is the higher aspect of the personality energy. No longer do they work and plan and struggle to express their personalities and to make their individual impact upon the world or to gather magnetically around themselves a group of people who look up to them and thus feed the springs of their pride and ambition and who make them both influential and important. They are beginning to see things in a newer and truer perspective. In the light of the Whole, the light of the little self fades out, just as the light that is inherent in every atom of the body is gathered together and obliterated in the light of the soul when that blazes forth in all its glory.
When this stage of selflessness, of service, of subordination [398] to the One Self, and of sacrifice to the group becomes the objective, a man has reached the point where he can be received into that group of world mystics and knowers and group workers which is the physical plane reflection of the planetary Hierarchy.
We have spoken often of the integrating group of knowers who are beginning to function upon the earth, gathered together in loose formation and held by the inner spiritual tie and not by any outer organisation. The planetary Hierarchy has always existed and from time immemorial and right down the ages those sons of men who have fitted themselves for work and who have measured up to the requirements, have found their way into the ranks of those who stand behind the world evolution and guide the destinies of the little ones.
Their grades and works are theoretically known, and names of some have been given out to the masses,—at what cost and personal sacrifice those masses will never know. With the Hierarchy of adepts I do not propose to deal. The books upon the subject are easily available and should be read with the needed reservations as to symbolical interpretations and the limiting effects of words.
An event is however transpiring upon earth which is, in its way, as momentous and as important as that crisis in Atlantean times when the physical, vital and astral bodies were coordinated and formed a functioning unit. Then the 'yoga of devotion' or bhakti yoga was initiated for the training of the aspirants at that time. A physical plane replica (as far as such a replica was then possible) was organised of those who could work devotedly and who could learn, through the use of ceremonial and pictures, some mode of activity which would carry on the hierarchical work on earth and thus constitute a training [399] school for those who later would be admitted into the ranks of the Hierarchy. The remnants of this Atlantean group remain with us in the modern Masonic movements, and the work of the Hierarchy was thus perpetuated in sign and symbol. There has thus been preserved in the consciousness of the race a pictorial representation of a momentous planetary condition which worked out in the human family in this threefold coordination. But it was primarily objective. Form and symbol, tool and furniture, temple and tone, office and externalities were the prominent factors; they veiled the truth and therefore preserved the ‘outer and visible form of an inner and spiritual’ reality. Only those were, in those days, allowed to participate in these mysteries and work who felt within themselves the longing and desire for the mystical vision, and who loved deeply and were devoted to the spiritual ideal. They were not required to possess active mentalities, and their intellectual powers were practically nil. They liked and needed authority: they learnt through ceremonial; they were devoted to the Great Ones Whose names and forms stood behind the office holders in the esoteric lodges. Mind entered not in. This must be remembered. There were no personalities.
Today, in the world, another great moment of crisis has arrived. I refer not to the present world condition, but to the state of the human consciousness. Mind has arrived at a functioning power, personalities are coordinated. The three aspects of man are being blended; another formation or precipitation from the Hierarchy of adepts has become possible. On the physical plane, without any exoteric organisation, ceremonials, or outer form, there is integrating—silently, steadily and powerfully—a group of men and women who will supersede eventually the previous hierarchical effort. They will supersede all churches, all groups, and all organisations and will [400] eventually constitute that oligarchy of elect souls who will govern and guide the world.
They are being gathered out of every nation, but are gathered and chosen, not by the watching Hierarchy or by any Master, but by the power of their response to the spiritual opportunity, tide and note. They are emerging out of every group and church and party, and will therefore be truly representative. This they do, not from the pull of their own ambition and prideful schemes, but through the very selflessness of their service. They are finding their way to the top in every department of human knowledge, not because of the clamour they make about their own ideas, discoveries and theories, but because they are so inclusive in their outlook and so wide in their interpretation of truth that they see the hand of God in all happenings, His imprint upon all forms and His note sounding forth through every channel of communication between the subjective reality and the objective outer form. They are of all races; they speak all languages; they embrace all religions, all sciences and all philosophies. Their characteristics are synthesis, inclusiveness, intellectuality and fine mental development. They own to no creed, save the creed of Brotherhood, based on the one Life. They recognise no authority, save that of their own souls, and no Master save the group they seek to serve, and humanity whom they deeply love. They have no barriers set up around themselves, but are governed by a wide tolerance, and a sane mentality and sense of proportion. They look with open eyes upon the world of men and recognise those whom they can lift and to whom they can stand as the Great Ones stand,—lifting, teaching and helping. They recognize their peers and equals, and know each other when they meet and stand shoulder to shoulder with their fellow workers in the work of salvaging humanity. It does not matter if their terminologies differ, their interpretations of symbols [401] and scriptures vary, or their words are few or many. They see their group members in all fields—political, scientific, religious, and economic—and give to them the sign of recognition and the hand of a brother. They recognise likewise Those who have passed ahead of them upon the ladder of evolution and hail Them Teacher, and seek to learn from Them that which They are so eager to impart.
This group is a product of the past and upon that past I will touch; I will also indicate the present situation and forecast somewhat the general lines along which their association and future work will run. That such a group is forming is true and holds a good augury for the coming decades. In quiet and subtle ways they are already making their presence felt but theirs is as yet primarily a subjective influence.
Let us begin with the past. About the year 1400, the Hierarchy of Masters was faced with a difficult situation. As far as the work of the second ray was concerned (which had to do with the impartation of spiritual truth) there had come to be what I might call a complete exteriorisation of that truth. The activity of the first ray had also brought about an intense differentiation and crystallisation among the nations and governments of the world. These two conditions of concrete orthodoxy and political differences persisted for many generations and are still manifesting. Today we have a similar condition both in the world of religion and in that of politics. This is true whether one is considering India or America, China or Germany, or whether one is studying the history of Buddhism with its many sects, Protestantism with its myriads of warring groups, or the many schools of philosophy in the orient or the occident. The condition is widespread, and the public consciousness tremendously diversified, but this state of affairs marks the summation [402] of the period of separativeness and the end, before so many centuries, of this intense distinctiveness of thought.
After noting and watching this trend of affairs for another one hundred years, the Elder Brothers of the race called a conclave of all departments about the year 1500 A.D. Their object was to determine how the urge to integration, which is essentially the keynote of our universal order, could be hastened, and what steps could be taken to produce that synthesis and unification in the world of thought which would make possible the manifestation of the purpose of the divine Life which had brought all into being. When the world of thought is unified, then the outer world will fall into a synthetic order. It should be remembered here that the Masters think in large terms and work in the wider cycles of evolutionary endeavour. The tiny and temporary cycles, the small ebb and flow of the cosmic processes do not engage Their attention in the first instance.
At this conclave They had three things to do:
1. To view the divine plan on as large a scale as possible, and refresh Their minds with the vision.
2. To note what influences or energies were available for use in the large endeavour to which They were pledged.
3. To train the men and women who were then probationers, chelas and initiates so that in due time They could have a satisfactory band of assistants on whom They could in future centuries rely.
They had, in connection with these aspirants, two problems:
1. They had to deal with the failure on the part of even the most advanced disciples to preserve continuity of consciousness, a failure even now manifested by even initiates. [403]
2. The Masters found the minds and brains of chelas curiously insensitive to the higher contacts, and this again is a condition which still prevails. The chelas, then as now, possessed aspiration, a desire to serve humanity, devotion and occasionally a fair mental equipment, but that telepathic sensitivity, that instinctive response to hierarchical vibration, and that freedom from the lower psychism which are the needed prerequisites to intensive intelligent work were singularly lacking. For that matter, they are still distressingly so. Telepathic sensitivity is decidedly on the increase as a result of world conditions and the evolutionary trend, and this is (for the workers on the inner plane) a most encouraging sign, but love of psychic phenomena and failure to differentiate between the vibrations of the various grades of hierarchical workers still greatly hinder the work.
You might here ask and rightly so: What is this plan? When I speak of the plan I do not mean such a general one as the plan of evolution or the plan for humanity which we call by the somewhat unmeaning term of soul unfoldment. These two aspects of the scheme for our planet are taken for granted, and are but modes, processes and means to a specific end. The plan as at present sensed, and for which the Masters are steadily working, might be defined as follows:—It is the production of a subjective synthesis in humanity and of a telepathic interplay which will eventually annihilate time. It will make available to every man all past achievements and knowledges, it will reveal to man the true significance of his mind and brain and make him the master of that equipment and will make him therefore omnipresent and eventually open the door to omniscience. This next development of the plan will produce in man an understanding [404] —intelligent and cooperative—of the divine purpose for which the One in Whom we live and move and have our being has deemed it wise to submit to incarnation. Think not that I can tell of the plan as it truly is. It is not possible for any man, below the grade of initiate of the third degree, to glimpse it and far less understand it. The development of the mechanism whereby a disciple may be en rapport with Those responsible for the working out of the plans, and the capacity to know (and not just dimly sense) that tiny aspect of the whole which is the immediate step ahead and with which cooperation is possible, that can be achieved by all disciples and should be held as the goal before all aspirants. With the exception of probationary disciples who are not as yet sufficiently stable in their endeavour, all can therefore strive towards achieving continuity of consciousness and at awakening that inner light which, when seen and intelligently used, will serve to reveal other aspects of the Plan and specially that one to which the illumined knower can respond and usefully serve.
To bring this about has been the objective of all training given during the past 400 years, and from this fact you can vision the utter patience of the Knowers of the race. They work slowly and with deliberation, free from any sense of speed, towards Their objective, but—and herein lies the immediate interest of what I have to communicate—They do have a time limit. This is based upon the Law of Cycles. It concerns the operation of certain periods of opportunity which necessarily have their term. During these times of opportunity, forces, influences, and energies are temporarily at work, and of these the Masters seek to make use.
Looking ahead, during the conclave to which I have made reference, the assembled Servers of the race noted the future coming in of the Aquarian age, with its distinctive energies and its amazing opportunities. These [405] They noted and They sought to prepare man for that period which would approximate 2500 years, and which could if duly utilised, bring about the unification, consciously and intelligently, of mankind, and so produce the manifestation of what I prefer to call “scientific brotherhood” in contradistinction to the sentimental connotation of the term now so prevalent.
It appeared to Them at that time that it would be necessary to do two things before the coming potencies of the Aquarian age could profitably be employed. First of all, humanity must have its consciousness elevated to the mental plane; it must be expanded so that it included not only the world of emotion and of feeling but also that of the intellect. The minds of men must be made widely and generally active, and the entire level of human intelligence must be raised. It was necessary, secondly, that something should be done to break down the barriers of separateness, of isolation and of prejudice which were keeping men apart from each other and which They foresaw would increasingly do so. Cycle by cycle, men were becoming more and more wrapped up in their own selves—satisfaction and exclusiveness, and racial pride. The result of this would lead inevitably to wide cleavages and the erection of world barriers between nation and nation, and between race and race.
This determination of the members of the Hierarchy to train the minds of men more rapidly and to build towards a more synthetic unity brought them to a decision which involved the formation of group units, and brought about the emergence of those groups of workers and thinkers who, through their activities, have so largely governed and moulded our world for the past three or four centuries. We have therefore, dating from this conclave, the inauguration of definite and specific group work along clearly defined lines, with each group standing [406] for some peculiar presentation of truth and for some aspect of the knowledge of reality.
These groups fall generally into four major divisions; cultural, political, religious, and scientific. In more modern times three other groups have definitely emerged; they are the philosophical, the psychological, and the financial groups. Philosophers have, of course, always been with us, but they have been for the most part isolated units who have founded schools characterised by partisanship and separativeness. Now there are no outstanding figures as in the past, but groups who represent certain ideas. It is of profound importance that the work of these seven groups of thinkers be recognised as part of the hierarchical programme, designed to produce a certain situation, to bring about certain preparatory conditions, and as playing a definite part in the work of world evolution as far as humanity is concerned.
Under the influence of the different rays as they cycled in and out of activity, little groups of men emerged, played their part in group formation, and disappeared, often unaware of their inherent synthesis and of their co-workers. As can be seen in any intelligent historical retrospect, the work that they did for the race and their contribution to the pageant of the progress of mankind stands out with clarity. I have not the time to take this procession of groups, each custodian of a special contribution, and trace for you the work they did or the subjective impulses under which they worked. I can but indicate the trend of their endeavour, and leave to some illumined student of history the delineation of the golden thread of their spiritual work as they raised the mental standard of the race and put man en rapport with the world in which he lived, opening his eyes not only to the nature of matter and of form but also to the hidden depths of his own being. Through their activities we [407] now have a humanity in close relation, though not at-one, and a humanity characterised by three things:
1. An amazing interrelation and intercommunication, of which the radio, the press, modern transportation, and the telephone and telegraph are the servants.
2. A wide-spread philanthropic enterprise, and the growth of the sense of responsibility for one’s brother, which was totally unknown in the year 1500. Movements such as the Red Cross, educational foundations, hospitals, and the present economic relief measures to be found in every country are its exoteric manifestations.
3. A division of the entire human family, consciously or unconsciously, into two basic groups: first, those who stand for the old order of things, who are reactionary, and separative. They represent separative nationalism, boundaries, servitude, and servile obedience; they exemplify religious sectarianism and dependence upon authority. They are against all modern innovations and progress. Secondly, those who vision a unified world wherein love of God means love of one’s neighbour, and where the motives underlying all religious, political and educational activities are characterised by a world consciousness and the welfare of the entire body and not of the part.
The unification to which the forward looking people aspire does not involve the neglect of any part, but it does involve the care and nurture of each part in order that it may contribute to the well being of the entire organism. It involves, for instance, the right government and proper development of every national unit so that it can adequately perform its international duties, and thus form part of a world brotherhood of nations. [408] This concept does not even involve the formation of a world state, but it does involve the development of a universal public consciousness which realises the unity of the whole, and thus produces the determination that each must be for all and all for each as it has been said. Only in this way can there be brought about an international synthesis which will be characterised by political and national unselfishness. This universal state of mind will not again inevitably involve the founding of a world or universal religion. It requires simply the recognition that all formulations of truth and of relief are only partial in time and space, and are temporarily suited to the temperaments and conditions of the age and race. Those who favour some particular approach to the truth will nevertheless achieve the realisation that other approaches and other modes of expression and terminologies, and other ways of defining deity can be equally correct and in themselves constitute aspects of a truth which is greater and vaster than man’s present equipment can grasp and express. Even the Great Ones Themselves but dimly sense reality and though They are aware of deeper underlying purposes than are Their chelas, yet even They see not the ultimate goal. They too are forced to use such unmeaning terms in Their teaching as Absolute Reality, and Ultimate Realisation.
Hence, during the past three centuries, group after group has appeared and played its part, and we today reap the benefit of their accomplishment. Under the cultural group for instance we find emerging the poets of the Elizabethan age, and the musicians of Germany and of the Victorian era. Groups of artists are likewise to be found, giving us the famous schools which are the glory of Europe. Two famous groups, one cultural and the other political, also played their parts, the one producing the Renaissance and the other bringing about the French Revolution. The effects of their work are still [409] to be felt, for the modern humanistic movement with its emphasis upon the past which is completed in the present, and its search for the roots of man’s equipment in the earlier trends, harks back to the Renaissance. Revolution and the determination to fight for the divine rights of man find their prime inaugurating influence and impetus in the revolution in France. Revolt, the formation of political parties, the class warfare which is so rampant today and the splitting of every country into warring political groups, though sporadic always, have become universal during the past two hundred years, and are all the results of the group activity started by the Masters. Men have grown thereby and have learnt how to think, and even though they may think wrongly and may initiate disastrous experiments, the ultimate good is inevitable and unavoidable. Temporary discomforts, passing depressions, war and bloodshed, penury and vice may lead the unthinking into the depths of pessimism. But those who know and who sense the inner guiding hand of the Hierarchy are aware that the heart of humanity is sound and that out of the present chaos and perhaps largely because of it, there will emerge those competent to deal with the situation and adequate to the task of unification and synthesis. This period has been occultly called the “age of restoration of what has been broken by the fall”. The time has come when the separate parts can be reunited and the whole stand together again in its earlier perfection.
The religious groups have likewise been many,—so many that their enumeration is hopeless. We have the groups of Catholic mystics who are the glory of the occident, there are also the protesting Lutherans, Calvinists and Methodists, the Pilgrim Fathers—those sour and earnest men—the Huguenot and Moravian martyrs, and the thousands of modern sects in every group. These have all served their purpose and have led man to the [410] point of revolt and away from acquiescence in authority. They have driven man to the stage of thinking for himself by the force of their unique example. They stood for freedom and the personal right to know.
These latter groups have acted largely under the influence of the sixth and second rays. The cultural emerged under that of the fourth ray, whilst the first ray has impelled the political activities which have brought such changes in the nations. Under the fifth and third ray impulses, groups of scientific investigators have arisen, working with the forces and energies that constitute the divine Life, dealing with the outer garment of God, searching from without towards the within, and demonstrating to man his essential unity with all creation and his relationship, intrinsic and vital, with all forms of life. The names of the individuals in any group are legion and of relatively no importance. It is the group and its interrelated work that counts. It is interesting to note that in the scientific group the underlying unity is particularly noticeable, for its members are singularly free from sectarianism and selfish competition. This cannot be said of the religious and political groups.
In relation to the many nations and the myriads of men on earth, these moulding groups under the various divisions are few in number. Their personnel, their contribution to the growth of human expression, and their place in the plan can quite easily be traced. The point to be emphasised is that these have all been motivated from the inner subjective side of life; they have come forth under a divine urge and with a specific work to accomplish; they have all been composed in the primary stage of disciples and initiates of the lesser degrees; they have all been subjectively guided step by step by their own souls, which have, in their turn, been cooperating consciously with the Hierarchy of Knowers. This has [411] been the case even when the individual man has been totally unaware himself or his place in the group and that group’s divine mission. Let it be remembered also that there has not been a single failure, though again and again the individual has not been cognisant of success. The mark of these workers is that they build for posterity. That those who have followed them have failed, and that those who have responded to this work have not been true to the ideal is disastrously true, but the initial group has uniformly achieved. This surely negates pessimism and demonstrates the exceeding potency of the subjective activity.
The three groups to which I earlier referred require a word of comment. Their work is curiously different to that of the other groups and their ranks are recruited from all the ray groups, though the members of the third group (that of the financiers) are found primarily upon the seventh ray, that of ceremonial organisation. In the order of their emergence, they are the groups of philosophers, psychologists and business men.
The group of philosophers of more modern date are already powerfully moulding thought, whilst the ancient schools of Asiatic philosophers are just beginning to influence western ideas. Through analysis, correlation and synthesis, the thought power of man is developed and the abstract mind can be unified with the concrete. Through their work therefore that interesting sensitivity of man, with its three outstanding characteristics of instinct, intellect and intuition is brought to a condition of intelligent coordination. Instinct relates man to the animal world, intellect unites him to his fellow men, whilst the intuition reveals to him the life of divinity. All these three are the subject matter of philosophical investigation, for the theme of the philosophers is the nature of reality and the means of knowledge.
The two most modern groups are the psychologists [412] who work under the Delphic injunction “Man, know thyself”, and the financiers who are the custodians of the means whereby man can live upon the physical plane. These two groups necessarily, and in spite of apparent divergences and differences are more synthetic in their foundational aspects, than any of the others. One group concerns itself with mankind, with the varying types of humanity the mechanism employed, and man’s urges, characteristics, and with the purpose—apparent or hidden—of his being. The other group controls and orders the means whereby he exists, controlling all that can be converted into energy and constituting a dictatorship over all modes of intercourse, commerce and exchange. They control the multiplicity of form-objects which modern man regards as essential to his mode of life. Money, as I have before said, is only crystallised energy or vitality,—what the oriental student calls pranic energy. It is a concretisation of etheric force. It is therefore vital energy externalised, and this form of energy is under the direction of the financial group. They are the latest group in point of date, and their work (it should be borne in mind) is most definitely planned by the Hierarchy. They are bringing about effects upon the earth which are most far reaching.
Now that centuries have elapsed since the conclave in the sixteenth century, these external groups have played their part and performed most notable service. The results achieved have reached a stage where they are internationally effective, and their influence is not confined to one nation or race. The Hierarchy is now faced with another situation which requires careful handling. They must gather up and weld together the various threads of influencing energy and the differing trends of thought power which the work of the groups since the year 1500 has produced. They have also now to offset some of the effects which are tending towards a further differentiation. [413] This must inevitably be so when force is brought into contact with the material world. Initial impulses have in them potency both for good and for evil. As long as the form remains of secondary importance and relatively negligible, we call it good. Then the idea and not its expression controls. As time elapses and the energy of the thought makes its impact upon matter and lesser minds seize upon the particular type of energy or are vitalised by it, then evil begins to make its presence felt. This finally demonstrates as selfishness, separateness, pride and those characteristics which have produced so much harm in the world.
About seventeen years ago the Masters met and came to a momentous decision. Just as it had been decided at the earlier conclave to gather out of the inchoate masses of men, groups of workers along various lines, and set them the task of elevating humanity and expanding the human consciousness, so now it was felt wise to gather out of the many groups, a group which should contain (as does the Hierarchy itself) men of all races, of all types and tendencies. This group has a specific mission, and some of the facts about it might be stated as follows:
It is first of all an attempt at an externalisation of the Hierarchy upon the physical plane, or a small working replica of this essentially subjective body. Its members are all in physical bodies but must work entirely subjectively, thus utilising the inner subjective apparatus and the intuition. It is to be composed of men and women of all nations and ages, but each one must be spiritually oriented, all must be conscious servers, all must be mentally polarised and alert, and all must be inclusive.
One of the essential conditions imposed upon the personnel of the group is that they must be willing to work without recognition, on the subjective levels. They must work behind the scenes as do the Great Ones. Its members [414] therefore must be free from all taint of ambition, and from all pride of race and of accomplishment. They must be also sensitively aware of their fellowmen and of their thoughts and conditioning environment.
It is a group that has no exoteric organisation of any kind, no headquarters, no publicity, no group name. It is a band of obedient workers and servers of the WORD—obedient to their own souls and to group need. All true servers everywhere therefore belong to this group, whether their line of service is cultural, political, scientific, religious, philosophical, psychological or financial. They constitute part of the inner group of workers for humanity, and of the world mystics, whether they know it or not. They will be thus recognised by their fellow group members when contacted in the casual ways of world intercourse.
This group gives to the word “spiritual” a wide significance; they believe it to mean an inclusive endeavour towards human betterment, uplift and understanding; they give it the connotation of tolerance, international synthetic communion, religious inclusiveness, and all trends of thought which concern the esoteric development of the human being.
It is a group therefore without a terminology or Bible of any kind; it has no creed nor any dogmatic formulations of truth. The motivating impulse of each and all is love of God as it works out in love for one’s fellow man. They know the true meaning of brotherhood, without distinction of race. Their lives are lives of willing service, rendered with utter selflessness and without any reservations.
The personnel of the group is known only to the Elder Brothers of the race, and no register of names is kept, and there are only three main requirements:
1. A certain amount of at-one-ment between the soul and its mechanism is essential, and that inner triplicity, [415] usually dormant in the majority, of soul-mind-brain must be in alignment and active.
2. The brain has to be telepathically sensitive in two directions and at will. It must be aware of the world of souls and also of the world of men.
3. There must also exist a capacity for abstract or synthetic thought. This will enable a man to leap over racial and religious barriers. When this is present also there is an assured belief in the continuity of life and its correlation to the life after death.
To sum up the situation, it must be noted that the groups in the past have stood for certain aspects of truth and have demonstrated certain ray characteristics. The new group will express all the aspects and have in it members on all the rays. The majority of the workers in the many groups have carried forward certain details of the plan, and added their quota of energy to the forward urge of humanity, but they have for the most part done this without any true understanding of what they were accomplishing, and without any real comprehension of that body-soul relationship which leads to really intelligent work, unless we except a few prominent mystics such as Meister Eckhart. They have been primarily groups of personalities, with that added touch of genius which indicates a certain contact with the soul. The group that is now in process of formation is composed of those who are aware of the fact of the soul, and have established a soul intercourse that is real and lasting; they look upon the mind, emotions and body nature as simply an equipment whereby human contacts can be established, and their work, as they see it, is to be carried forward through the medium of this equipment, acting under the direction of the soul. They are therefore living souls, working through personalities, and not personalities actuated by occasional soul impulses. The members of the many groups were all somewhat one-sided [416] and their talents ran along some specific line. They demonstrated a capacity to write as Shakespeare, to paint like a da Vinci, to produce musical masterpieces like a Beethoven, or to bring about world changes like a Napoleon. But the new type of group worker is a rounded out individual, with a capacity to do almost anything to which he sets his hand, but with a basic impulse to work on thought levels more than on the physical plane. He is therefore of use to the Hierarchy as he can be used in a variety of ways, for his flexibility and experience, and his stability of contact can be all subordinated to the group requirements.
The true exponent of this new group type will of course not appear for many decades. He will be a true Aquarian with a universal touch, an intense sensitivity, a highly organised mental apparatus, an astral equipment which is primarily responsive to the higher spiritual vibrations, a powerful and controlled energy body, and a sound physical body, though not robust in the ordinary use of the term.
What then is the present situation in connection with the integrating group of mystics? Let me be somewhat explicit.
In every European country, in the United States of America, and in parts of Asia and South Africa are to be found certain disciples, usually unrecognised in the world at large, who are thinking truth . Let me call your attention to that phrase. The most important workers in this new group and those who are closest to the Great Ones are those whose daily thought life is oriented by the new ideal. That this thought life of theirs may work out in definite esoteric activities may be true, but they are first of all and always those who live in and work from the “high and secret place”. Their influence is wielded silently and quietly and they lay no emphasis upon their personalities, upon their own views and ideas, [417] or upon their methods of carrying forward the work. These possess a full realisation of their own limitations, but are not handicapped thereby, but proceed to think through into objective manifestation that aspect of the vision which it is their mission to vivify into form. They are necessarily cultured and widely read, for in these difficult transitional times they have to cultivate a world grasp of conditions and possess a general idea of what is going on in the different countries. They possess in truth no nationality in the sense that they regard their country and their political affiliations as of paramount importance. They are equipped to organise, slowly and steadily, that public opinion which will eventually divorce man from religious sectarianism, national exclusiveness, and racial biases.
One by one, here and there they are being gathered out and are gathering to them those who are free from the limitations of past political, religious and cultural theories. They, the members of the one group, are organising these forward looking souls into groups which are destined to bring in the new era of peace and of good will. These latter who are being influenced by the group members are as yet only a few thousands among the millions of men, and out of the four hundred accepted disciples working in the world at this time, only about 156 are equipped by their thought activity to form part of this slowly forming group. These constitute the nucleus of what will be some day a dominant force. During the next twenty-five years their influence will become potent enough to attract political attention, provided those of you who have seen the vision of a powerful subjective body of thinking Souls can speak the needed words, and outline those concepts which will hasten the work of integration, and put the units in this group in touch with one another. Do your utmost to see that this is done and [418] make this the message and keynote of the work you all do wherever you are.
What should therefore be the work of the immediate present? Let me outline the programme as far as I can.
The first thing to be done is to strengthen the ties and establish firmly the link between yourselves and all those whom you recognise as possible working disciples in the new group. To do this, acquaint yourselves with the work of the leaders of groups in the various countries of the world—such as Switzerland, the United States, Holland, Germany and Great Britain. From their reaction to the vision of this new age type of work you can then make a temporary decision. Watch them at their work. Note the emphasis laid by them upon personalities. If personal ambition seems to govern their activities, if their position is one of a determination to work in the group of mystics because of its novelty or because it gives them a certain standing or because it intrigues their imagination or gives them scope for gathering people around them, then proceed no further, but—preserving silence—leave time and the law to correct their attitude.
Secondly, be receptive towards those who seek you out and seem to vibrate to the same note. When I say you, I mean the group to which you all subjectively belong. They will come if you work with decision and sound out the note of unity so clearly that they are in no doubt as to your motives and your disinterested activity. Some of the 156 who form the present nucleus will be known to you and will work in unison with you, though maybe not in your peculiar field of action.
The picture to be held before your eyes is that of a vast network of groups, working along the many possible lines, but having at their heart or behind them—working silently and persistently influencing through soul contact—one or more members of the new slowly emerging [419] group. These focal points through which the Hierarchy is now seeking to work stand together telepathically and exoterically they must work in the completest understanding, preserving always an attitude of non-interference, and leaving each worker free to teach his own group as he sees fit. The terms used, the methods employed, the types reached, the truths taught, the discipline of life demonstrated concern no one but the working disciple.
The members of this group of new age workers will, however, possess certain general characteristics. They will impose no enforced dogmas of any kind, and will lay no emphasis upon any doctrine or authorities. They are not interested in having any personal authority nor do they rest back upon traditional authority, whether religious, scientific, cultural or any other form of imposed truth. Modes of approach to reality will be recognised and each will be free to choose his own. No discipline will be imposed by these workers upon those who seek to cooperate with them. The ideas of any one person or leader as to how the units in his particular sphere of activity should live and work, should meditate and eat, will be regarded as of no special value. The members of this new group work esoterically with souls, and deal not with the details of the personality lives of the aspirants they seek to inspire.
This is a basic rule and will serve to eliminate many worthy aspirants from this group of world servers now in process of forming. The tendency to impose one’s own point of view indicates a lack of understanding and it will rule many out.
Again, the young and promising aspirants must be sought out and carefully inculcated with the trend of the new ideals. They must be taught to look for the divine and the good in all—both people and circumstances. Breadth of vision must be developed and that [420] wide horizon pointed out which will enable the aspirants to live through this transitional period which is now with us, so that when they reach middle life they will stand as pillars of strength in the new world. Do not narrow them down to the ancient disciplines and teach them not to lay emphasis upon diet, celibacy, times and seasons, and so distract their attention away from the newer and sacred art of being and the wonder of living as a soul.
Forget not that when a man is living as a soul and his entire personality is therefore subordinated to that soul, unselfish purpose, purity of life, conformity to law and the setting of a true example of spiritual living will normally and automatically follow. Food, for instance, is frequently a matter of climatic expediency and of taste, and that food is desirable which keeps the physical body in condition to serve the race. Again, a divine son of God can surely function as freely and as effectively when in the married state as in the celibate; he will however brook no prostitution of the powers of the body to the grosser satisfactions, nor will he offend against established custom, nor lower the standard which the world has set for its highest and best. The issues have been confused and the emphasis has been too often laid upon the physical acts and not upon the life of the actor. When the attention is fixed upon the soul, the physical plane life will be rightly handled. It will be realised that there is greater hindrance to the growth of the man in spiritual being through a critical attitude or a state of self satisfaction than by the eating of meat.
Two rules of life activity must be taught the young aspirant:
He must be taught to focus on constructive activity and to refrain from pulling down the old order of living. He must be set to building for the future, and to thinking along the new lines. He must be warned not to waste time in attacking that which is undesirable, but must instead [421] bend all his energies to creating the new temple of the Lord through which the glory may be manifested. In this way public attention will gradually be focussed upon the new and beautiful, and the old established creations will fall into decay for lack of attention and so disappear.
He must be taught also that partisanship is in no way a sign of spiritual development. He will not therefore use the words anti this or pro that. Such terms automatically breed hatred and attack, and effort to resist change. They put the user on the defensive. Every class of human beings is a group of brothers. Catholics, Jews, Gentiles, occidentals and orientals are all the sons of God.
As regards the future of this world group of which we have been speaking much depends upon two things.
First, it is necessary for all those isolated disciples working in every country in the world, to become aware of one another and then to enter into telepathic rapport. This may seem to you to be a wonderful but impractical vision. I assure you that this is not so. The work of establishing this rapport may indeed be slow, but it is an inevitable effect of the growing sensitivity of all the souls who are working in the field of the world. The first indication of it is that instinctive recognition of those who constitute part of this group when they meet and contact each other in the ways of world intercourse. There comes to them an immediate flashing forth of the light, an instantaneous electrical interplay, a sudden sensing of a similarity of vision and of objective, or a vital opportunity to aid in and to cooperate with each other in the work in which it is realized that all are interested.
Working disciples everywhere when they meet each other will know at once that their work is identical, and will advise with each other as to where cooperation and [422] supplementary endeavour may be possible. In about thirty years the interrelation between the units in this group (scattered as they may be all over the world) will be so close that daily they will meet each other at a set time and in the secret place. This only becomes possible when the triplicity of soul-mind-brain are all aligned in the individual and when each aspect of it can be simultaneously in touch with members of the group. At present all the souls of the group of mystics do work in unison; a number have succeeded in bringing the soul and the mind also into a close and established relation, but as yet the lowest aspect of this aligned and linking triangle, the physical brain, remains totally unresponsive to the waves of force emanating from the higher aspects of the disciples engaged thus in laying the foundations of the new age civilisation.
It is therefore largely a matter of perfecting the mechanism of the brain so that it can rightly register and correctly transmit the soul impressions and the group purposes and recognitions. This involves:
1. The awakening into conscious activity of the centre between the eyebrows, called by the oriental student, the ajna centre.
2. The subordinating then of the activity of this centre to that of the head centre, so that the two vibrate in unison. This produces the establishment of three things:
a. Direct conscious alignment between soul-mind-brain.
b. The appearance of a magnetic field which embraces both the head centres and so definitely affects the pineal gland and the pituitary body.
c. The recognition of this field of dual activity in two ways: as of a light in the head, an interior radiant sun, or as a dynamic centre of energy [423] through which the will or purpose aspect of the soul can make itself felt.
3. The development of a facility which will enable a man to:
a. Use the mind in any direction he chooses, turning it externally towards the world of phenomena, or internally towards the world of spiritual being.
b. Produce consciously and at will a corresponding responsiveness in the physical brain, so that it can register accurately any information coming from the physical world, and the emotional or astral world.
c. Discriminate intelligently between all these spheres of sentient activity.
This will all be eventually covered by a new psychological approach which will emerge out of the old and be a blend of the mechanical schools, the introspective and the more purely oriental position, plus the conclusions of two new schools which will shortly arise but which are as yet too small to warrant a name. They are in the embryo stage. One school will deal with the energy aspects of the individual and his responsiveness to the energy of the universe in which he is immersed; the other will consider man as a unit of electricity. Both will be quite one-sided but the contributions of the various schools will some day be unified into one synthetic presentation.
The second requirement which will establish relation between the working disciples in this group is the capacity to preserve a constant and sequential recollection of both the inner and the outer life. We call it continuity of consciousness, and by this we mean the power to be fully aware of all happenings in all spheres and departments of man’s being during the entire twenty-four hours of the day. As yet this is far from being the [424] case. There is no real awareness of existence during the hours of sleep. The dream life as related is as full of illusion as any of the more definitely lower psychic experiences. The slowly growing interest in dreams from the standpoint of psychology and the investigation of their probable source are the first weak attempts towards establishing the awareness on a really scientific basis. There is as yet no conscious registering of mental activity during such times, for instance, as when the emotional body holds the centre of the stage. With what is the mind occupied during a long period of emotional upset? It has, we know, its own life and its laws. Again, what are the activities of the soul when the personality is occupied exclusively with its own affairs? Is it impossible for you to vision a time when the development of consciousness will have reached the stage where there will be a sentient reaction in all the departments of man’s nature and all of it recorded by the brain? Already men are aware both of physical plane activity and emotional aliveness simultaneously. That is for the majority a common and ordinary condition. Where two activities can be registered at once, why not three or even four? Such is the future ahead for the race, and the disciples, actively employed, will be the first to express and demonstrate this extended consciousness.
Thus telepathic interplay and extended sentiency must be developed and are closely interlinked with each other.
I have therefore pointed out the immediate future development of the individual disciple. What lies ahead in the immediate future for the group?
First of all, a preliminary period of emergence into the public consciousness, and thus of making its presence felt. This will be done through the steady communication of the new ideals and the constant emphasis laid upon the essential oneness of all humanity. It will [425] be the result of the uniformity and inclusiveness of the note sounded by one here and another there. During this stage there must be no hurried work and no precipitate action of any kind. The growth of the group and of its ideas will be slow and sure. The group exists already. It has not to be formed and organised, and there is therefore for none of you the assuming of any sense of responsibility nor the organising of any activity desired to lure these disciples, who have chosen thus to work subjectively, into publicity. Such are not the methods approved by the Elder Brothers of the race, nor is it the way that They Themselves work.
Know each of you for yourselves whether you stand for the new position, the new attitude towards work, and for the subjective method. Decide once and for all whether you prefer to work in the old exoteric ambitious manner, building and vitalising an organisation, and so producing all the mechanism which goes with such a method of work. Remember that such groups are still greatly needed and are useful. It is not yet the new age and the little ones must not be left exposed to the new forces, nor turned out bereft of the nursery to which they naturally belong.
Should the new mode of work appeal to you, see to it that the personality is subordinated, that the life of meditation is kept paramount in importance, that sensitivity to the subjective realm is cultivated, and any necessary outer activities are handled from within outwards. Avoid a purely mystical introspection or its opposite extreme, an over-emphasised organising spirit, remembering that a life of truly occult meditation must inevitably produce outer happenings, but that these objective results are produced by an inner growth and not by an outer activity. An ancient Scripture teaches this truth in the following terms: [426]
“When the sun progresses into the mansion of the serving man, the way of life takes the place of the way of work. Then the tree of life grows until its branches shelter all the sons of men. The building of the Temple and the carrying of the stones cease. The growing trees are seen; the buildings disappear. Let the sun pass into its appointed place, and in this day and generation attend ye to the roots of growth.”
Little groups will spring up here and there whose members respond to the new note and whose growth into the world group will be watched over by one or more working disciples. But these latter do not organise the groups; they grow as a man in this place and another in that place awakens to the new vision or comes into incarnation in order to take his place in the work and bring in the new era. These groups will demonstrate no sense of separateness; they will be unaware of personal or of group ambition; they will recognise their unity with all that exists, and will stand before the world as examples of pure living, constructive building, creative activity subordinated to the general purpose, beauty and inclusiveness. Perhaps in the early stages of integration, the words friendliness and cooperativeness best describe them. They are not interested in dogmas or doctrines and have no shibboleths. Their outstanding characteristic will be an individual and group freedom from a critical spirit. This non-criticism will not grow out of an inability to see error, or failure to measure up to an idea; falsity, impurity and weakness will be recognised for what they are, but when noted will only serve to evoke a loving helpfulness.
Little by little these groups will come to know each other and to meet with one another at set times and places. They will come to these mutual conferences with no desire to impress one another and with no thought of relative numerical strength; they will demonstrate no ambition to increase their ranks. How should they when [427] they know themselves all to be members of the one world Group? They have no teaching to give of a doctrinal nature and will not seek to demonstrate learning. They will meet solely to discuss modes of world helpfulness, the formation of a platform so universal and composed of such basic truths that it can be presented under all the varying methods and utilise the many terminologies. They will endeavour to employ each other’s terms, and to familiarise themselves with each other’s approach to reality and symbology.
Little by little also the special contribution and note of each group will be recognised and where a need exists for just that special approach and the particular note or method of interpretation in any part of the world, there will be an immediate and united impulse to facilitate the work that that special group could do in that place.
These groups, with the one subjective group of conscious living souls behind them, will be too busy with world service and interests to waste time on trifling non-essentials. They will not have the time to play around with group names and insignia and badges and the technicalities of fraternities when they meet together. World needs, world opportunities, and the rapid development of the consciousness of mankind and the initiation of humanity into the spiritual realities will so engross their attention that they will have no interest in purely physical plane arrangements, nor in laying the emphasis upon their own personal growth. They will be well aware that response to world need in service and the life of focussed meditation will promote their growth. Their eyes are not upon themselves, upon their own good characters, or upon their individual accomplishments.
Later as a result of their telepathic relationship and their united conferences, there may emerge certain esoteric groups and schools for development in order more rapidly to equip them for world service. In these schools [428] modes of meditation, the intensification of vibration and the laws of the universe will be taught, and the right use of colour and of sound. But all will be subordinated to the idea of service and the uplift of humanity. Also the schools referred to in Letters on Occult Meditation will gradually come into being.
But what use is it for me to forecast the future in more explicit terms and hold out a picture of an intriguing quality when at the present time the integration of the group of world mystics and its close welding is not an accomplished fact?
World unity, brotherhood in its true sense, the growth of telepathic interplay, the elimination of the non-essentials which serve to separate the thoughts of men and bring about separateness on the physical plane, and the laying of a true emphasis upon the fundamentals of the Ageless Wisdom, the manifestation of a true understanding, the bringing about of at-one-ment with the soul, the recognition of those who belong to the group of world Saviours—this is the immediate work to be done and this must engross your attention.
This and this alone warrants the expenditure of all that any of you have to give—love and life, time and money.
This and this alone justifies your existence and calls forth from all of you who respond to the vision that utter self-sacrifice which is so rare and so far-reaching in its effects. The casting of all that one has at the feet of the Lord of Life in order that the work of world salvage may go forward, the elimination out of one’s life of all that can possibly hinder, the giving of all that one has until it hurts to give, the ruling of one’s life on the basis of surrender, asking oneself all the time: What can I relinquish in order that I may help more adequately?—that and more than that lies ahead of all of you who hear the call and respond to the need and opportunity. [429]
Let me tell you this—this group now in process of forming, will in time develop its own “yoga” and school of training which will gradually supersede that of the raja yoga and bhakti yoga schools. The method of training will only be given to those who have trained the mind and learnt to control the emotions. Hence the key to what is now going on. The mode of training will be no easy short cut to the goal. Only the intelligent can attain it and only coordinated personalities will be eligible to the teaching. The keynote of the new yoga will be synthesis; its objective will be conscious development of the intuitive faculty. This development will fall into two categories: first, the development of the intuition and of true spiritual perception, and secondly, the trained utilisation of the mind as an interpreting agent.
In the book Agni Yoga, some of the teaching to be given has filtered through but only from the angle of the will aspect. No book has as yet made its appearance which gives in any form whatsoever the “yoga of synthesis”. We have had “bhakti yoga” or union through devotion. Raja Yoga is now receiving emphasis, which is union through the mind. It sounds like a redundancy to speak of union through synthesis, but it is not so. It is union through identification with the whole—not union through realisation or through vision. Mark well this distinction, for it holds the secret of the next step for the personalities of the race. The Bhagavad Gita gives us primarily the key to the yoga of devotion. Patanjali teaches us the yoga of the mind. In the Gospel story we have the portrayal of realisation, but the key or the secret of identification is still withheld. It lies in the custody of a few in this integrating group of mystics and knowers and will be wrought out into manifestation in the furnace of their individual experience and thus given to the world. But the time is not yet. The group must grow in strength and knowledge and in intuitive perception. [430]
You ask me: What keeps a man from becoming a member of such a group? I tell you with emphasis that four things only keep a man from affiliation.
First: an uncoordinated personality. This involves necessarily an untrained mind and a feeble intellect.
Second: a sense of separateness, of distinction, and of being set apart or different from one’s fellow men.
Third: the possession of a creed. No matter how good a formula of beliefs it may be, it inevitably produces exclusiveness. It bars some out.
Fourth: pride and ambition.
You ask again: How shall one qualify? The rules are simple, and are three in number. First, learn to practice harmlessness; then desire nothing for the separated self, and thirdly look for the sign of divinity in all. Three simple rules, but very hard to accomplish.
Behind this group of mystics, which includes thinkers in every department of human thought (let me reiterate the word thinkers) and of human knowledge stands the Hierarchy of Masters and in between these two groups stand also a band of teachers, of whom I am one. These act as intermediaries and as transmitters of energy. May I repeat and beg you to attend, that this group which is slowly forming is gathered out of every imaginable group of thinking and intelligent men. As yet, and this may surprise a few, there are not very many occultists (so-called) among them. This is due to the fact that the occultists are numerically few in relation to the masses of humanity, and also to their tendency to be sectarian, exclusive and self-righteous. Selfless humanitarian workers are there; political leaders and economists and scientific workers in the world’s laboratories are also there; churchmen and religious adherents from all the [431] world religions are there and the practical mystics and a few occultists. The true occultist is rare.
The group is and will be kept entirely subjective. Its members are linked telepathically, or they recognise each other through the quality of the work they are doing in the outer world and the inclusiveness of the note they sound. It is inspired from above by the souls of its members and the Great Ones, and is energised into activity by the need of humanity itself. It is composed of living conscious souls, working through coordinated personalities. Its symbol is a golden triangle enclosing an even-armed cross with one diamond at the apex of the triangle. This symbol is never reproduced in form at all. It shines above the heads of all who are in the group and cannot be seen by anyone (not even a clairvoyant) except a group member, and then only if—for purposes of work—his recognition needs stimulation. The motto of the group is The Glory Of The One.
More I may not tell you now, but this will give you some idea of the reality of the work that is going on. It may serve as an incentive to fresh effort on the part of all working to equip themselves for selfless service.
We are to take up now a very brief consideration of two types of energy of a major kind, which are, in themselves, composed and blended of coordinating energies. The subject matter is therefore of so advanced a nature that it is useless for the aspirant to give much time to its study. Volumes would be necessitated likewise if all that could be said were written, and it will only be possible in this book to outline some broad generalisations, and to indicate certain facts of interest. The main reason that it profits us not to study these energies too closely is because the planetary Spirit or Logos and the planetary Entity are the two forms in active manifestation which respond most forcibly to the impact of these energies. The human being responds, and that only subconsciously, [432] because (in his form nature) he constitutes a part of the planetary expression.
The planetary Spirit is a Being Who, ages ago, passed through the state of consciousness which we call the human state and has left it far behind. He (using the personal pronoun simple for the sake of terminological clarity) has an origin which lies outside the solar system altogether; his life is focussed in the planet; his consciousness lies in realms beyond the concept of the highest adept in our planetary Hierarchy. The planetary Entity is the sum total of the forms which constitute the form through which the planetary Spirit is manifesting, and therefore is the synthesis of the planetary physical, astral and mental elementals. For the purposes of our consideration, this Entity is the sum total of all physical, mental, astral and mental forms, which, blended and fused, constitute our planet. Each is the embodiment of energy, and these two major streams which produce the form and the consciousness aspects of our planetary existence make their impact on the human being. The life of the planetary Spirit makes its impact via the soul; and the life of the planetary Entity is registered through the medium of the personality mechanism.
The duality of these energies is primarily astral-buddhic, and the bias of the life forces and the general trend of the impulses influencing humanity in this great cycle are the attractive energy of the intuitional nature of the planetary Logos, and the potent force of the astral (desire) body. In other words, the astral elemental, which embodies the desire nature of the planetary Logos is exceedingly potent, particularly in this present cycle, but the strength of the spiritual and intuitional nature of the One in Whom we live and move and have our being is steadily increasing. On the one hand, you have the devastating expression of the wild hunt for pleasure, of sex and of the crime incident to the satisfying of desire. [433] This characterises our present civilisation and is now at its height; it may be said that it is even on the decline, little as you may sense it. At the same time, there is found the open door of initiation. Both these opportunities (if I might so term them) are found simultaneously present, but the strength of the one is weakening, and the trend towards the other is growing. Thus the way out can be seen.
In the above paragraph, the dominant planetary urges present in evolution are summed up and man’s reaction to them noted.
Solar energies have also a dual effect. First, there is what we might call the pranic effect, which is the result of the impact of solar force, emanating from the physical sun. This produces definite results upon the objective forms, and these are termed physical or vital. These enter the human body via the spleen and also via a centre found between the shoulder blades; this centre is between the throat centre and the heart centre in the spinal column, but nearer the heart than the throat. Secondly, there are energies which emanate from what is esoterically called “the heart of the sun”; these sweep through one or other of the planets in seven great streams and pour into the soul of man and produce that sensitivity which we call awareness. These seven types of energy produce the seven types of souls or rays, and in this thought you find the secret of soul unity. During manifestation, owing to the seven types of energy impacts, playing upon the matter of space, one finds the seven types of soul, the seven fields of expression, and the seven grades of consciousness and of ray characteristics. These differentiations as you well know are like the colouring that the prism takes when subjected to the rays of the sun, or to the tracery of pattern found in reflection upon a limpid pool. [434]
To these two energies, a third group of energies must be added, and these are the basis of much of our astrological research. They emanate from the twelve constellations which form our solar zodiac. Their effect is infinite and the permutations of these three groups of energies lead to the infinite complication which we find in nature. The claims of the astrologers as to the reality of the energies playing upon the human organism can be seen to be true; their claims as to their capacity to interpret are for the most part unfounded. So little is really known by the highest intelligence on the planet; for, forget not, that the adepts utilise primarily the intuition. These energies leave their mark upon every form in every kingdom in nature, acting as a retrograding or a stimulating force. They carry one type of energy on to a fuller expression of the quality of any form, or hold another back from a developed manifestation.
It is not opportune here to outline the nature of true astrology. That astrology is a science, and a coming science, is true. That astrology in its highest aspect and its true interpretation will enable man eventually to focus his understanding and to function rightly is equally true. That in the revelations that astrology will make in time to come will be found the secret of the true coordination between soul and form is also correct. But that astrology is not yet to be found. Too much is overlooked and too little known to make astrology the exact science that many claim it is. The claim will be fulfilled at some future date, but the time is not yet.
Certain factors which astrologers should bear in mind, and certain conditions they are only too apt to forget, may however be briefly noted. For the sake of clear understanding we will simply tabulate a number of statements which should be studied with care by the [435] average investigator in this field. I cannot here write a treatise on the energies with which astrology should deal, sorely as such a treatise is needed.
Astrologers concern themselves primarily with three types of energy:
a. The energy of the constellation in which the Sun is posited at the time of birth.
b. The rising sign to which the man should respond.
c. The moon which governs his form aspect, and particularly the physical form.
The energy of the particular constellation or sign in which a man is born is more deeply significant than has ever yet been suggested. It embodies or indicates his present problem, sets the pace or tempo of his life, and is related to the quality of his personality. It governs, if I may so express it, the rajasic or activity aspect of his life during incarnation.
The ascendant or rising sign indicates the line along which his energy as a whole can flow if he is to fulfill the purpose of any incarnation. This, of course, if rightly handled. It holds the secret of his future, and in its symbolism and understanding he can find the clue to his life problem and an indication of what he can be and achieve. It presents to him the type of force which will enable him to succeed. This, when duly consummated, might be regarded as producing the sattvic, or harmony aspect of his life, for when it plays its part and is utilised, it produces harmony with the will of the soul during any particular incarnation.
In the moon influence, we have indicated the native’s past . It summarises the limitations and handicaps under which he must work, and therefore might be regarded as embodying the tamasic aspect of matter, or that which “holds back” and which—if permitted to influence unduly—will produce inertia. In the body with which man [436] is equipped lies hid the secret of past experience, and every lunar form through which we have to arrive at due expression is in itself the product or synthesis of all the past. Let me see if I can put the present truth about astrology in such simple guise that they who know naught of this intricate science may understand.
The birth month indicates the day of opportunity. The door stands open. The particular month in which a soul comes into incarnation is indicated to that soul by the month in which it passed out of incarnation in a previous life cycle. If it, for instance, died in the month governed by the sign Leo, it will return into incarnation in the same sign, picking up the thread of experience where it left it, and starting with the same type of energy and the peculiar equipment with which it passed away from earth life, plus the gain of thought and conscious onlooking. The quality of the energy and the nature of the forces to be manipulated during life are indicated to the soul in this way.
The rising sign, embodying another type of energy, should wax in strength during the incarnation, for it indicates the nature of the soul force that the incarnated son of God is seeking to wield through the medium of a particular personality, possessing certain characteristics.
The influence of the moon is primarily physical. The prison of the soul is thus indicated. The handicaps to be met are thus secured; the type of body or of bodies through which the force of the native’s sign and the quality of the energy which will bring him to his goal are thus defined. Through the medium of the lunar lords and what they have given him as the result of past experience down the ages must he express himself upon the physical plane.
Owing to the precession of the equinoxes, a situation is brought about in which a fourth type of force makes itself felt. The sun is, in reality, many degrees [437] away in the great round of the heavens from where it is stated to be, as far as the greater zodiac is concerned. This is, of course, from the standpoint of time. As the sweep of the sun through a constellation covers a period of approximately two thousand two hundred years, the shift in the course of the centuries is very slight, so slight that little difference would be noted in the casting of the planetary horoscope. In the casting of the horoscope of a solar system it would be of vital importance, but this is so far beyond the capacity of the wisest astrologer on our planet that discussion is immaterial.
In casting the horoscope of a human being who is born in a particular month, however, it should be borne in mind (which it seldom is) that now the month and the sign do not coincide at all. The sun is really not in Leo, for instance, during the month of August. The correct interpretation therefore of a chart is largely psychometrical and dependent upon the thought-form of the constellation which has been built up for ages by the astrologers. Energy follows thought. For thousands of years certain types of energy and their consequent qualifying effects on substance and form have been considered to be thus and so. Therefore, thus they are, except in the case of the highly evolved, of the true aspirant who has oriented himself, and is thus escaping from the wheel of existence and beginning to govern his stars, and so is no longer under their rule and domination.
Astrology now deals primarily with the personality for whom the horoscope may be cast and with the events of the personality life. When, through meditation and service, plus the discipline of the lunar bodies, a man comes consciously and definitely under his soul ray, then he comes as definitely under the influence of one or other of the seven solar systems, as they focus their energy through one or other of the constellations and [438] subsequently one or other of the seven sacred planets. Eventually, there will be twelve sacred planets, corresponding to the twelve constellations, but the time is not yet. Our solar system, as you know, is one of seven. When a man has arrived at this point in evolution, birth months, mundane astrology, and the influences which play upon the form aspect become of less and less importance. This circle of solar systems affects paramountly the soul and it becomes the focal point of spiritual energies. This is the problem of the soul on its own plane,—responsiveness to these types of energy, and, of them, the personality is totally unaware.
The signs which fall therefore into the four categories of earth, water, fire and air, concern primarily the man who lives below the diaphragm, and who utilises the lower four centres:—the centre at the base of the spine, the sacral centre, the solar plexus and the spleen. The inner group of seven major or systemic energies produce their effect upon the man who is living above the diaphragm, and work through the seven representative centres in the head. Four of them focus through the throat centre, the heart centre, the ajna and head centres. Three are held latent in the region of the head centres (the thousand petalled lotus) and only enter into functioning activity after the third initiation. It will be evident therefore how complicated from the standpoint of the horoscope (as well as of the individual problem) is this meeting of the energies of two types of constellations in the case of the man who is neither purely human nor purely spiritual. The ordinary horoscope is negated. The horoscope is not possible as yet of delineation. The only horoscope, which is basically and almost infallibly correct is that of the entirely low grade human being who lives entirely below the diaphragm and is governed by his animal nature alone.
Astrologers must remember also that there are several [439] undiscovered planets which are producing pulls and shifts and focussing streams of energy upon our earth which tend to complicate the problem still further. Pluto is one of them, and having now emerged into manifestation (or rather into recognition) to it will be assigned all the unexplained conditions. Pluto will be made the scapegoat for faulty astrology for a long time to come. This chart failed to work and be true because Pluto must be influential in it and we know little about Pluto. So the story will run. Yet Pluto has always been revolving around our sun and producing its effects. It governs however the death or cessation of old ideas and emotions, and its influence is therefore largely cerebral and in that you have the clue to its late discovery. Mankind is only on the verge of becoming mental. Its effects are felt first in the mental body. The names of the planets are not the result of arbitrary choice but the planets name themselves.
Astrologers will eventually find it necessary to cast three horoscopes or three charts:—one purely physical dealing with the body of nature; one primarily emotional, and dealing with the quality of the personality and with its sensitivity, or state of awareness; the third will be the chart of the mental impulses and conditions. It will be found that these three charts will take certain geometrical lines, the lines of energies will form patterns. These three charts, superimposed one upon the other, will give the personality diagram, the individual life pattern. Amazing symbolic charts and lineal forms will be found to emerge when this is done, and the “geometry of the individual” will grow out of this, for it will be found that each line will function in relation to another line, and the trends of the life energies will become apparent. Eventually, even in this department of knowledge, “the star will shine forth” This will constitute a new branch of psychology and its true exponent for [440] our age will duly be found. I but indicate the lines of the future astrology in order to safeguard the present.
One thing astrologers need at this time to do and that is to make due allowance for this transition period out of Pisces into Aquarius. This is seldom done, but it is evident that the tremendous turmoil incident to these transitions affects the individual chart, and frequently offsets individual destiny or karma. People are submerged in planetary and racial destinies, and their own tiny affairs are offset almost entirely and sometimes completely negated. It is not possible to cast the horoscope of the planet, and those who propose to do so are deceiving themselves and others. The horoscope of the fourth kingdom in nature, of humanity, will eventually be cast, but it will be done by initiates, and there are no initiate astrologers working on the physical plane at this time. One hint here I give.
The Sun was in Sagittarius when the first human tendencies struggled to the fore. The stage of animal man was completed and when Sagittarius was dominant (from our planetary standpoint—I am using words with care) the great event of individualisation took place. But the brain of the then human being failed to register what had happened. In the words of the Old Commentary:
“The sons of God shot forth like arrows from the bow. The forms received the impulse and lo! a God was born. The tiny babe knew not the great event.”
This took place twenty-one million years ago. Cycles passed and when at a later date the sun was in Leo (approximately eighteen million years ago) the first instances of coordination between brain and mind took place and the human being was definitely self-conscious. He registered his individuality. The figures for the first [441] date (though exactness is not possible in a system of mutation such as ours) are 21,688,345 years ago. These figures are useless at this time for they can neither be proved correct nor incorrect. Later investigation will prove their usefulness, when the nature of time is better understood. Sagittarius governs human evolution, for it symbolises progress towards a conscious goal. Leo governs the human consciousness in the human kingdom for the energy pouring through it enables man to say “I am”.
It might be of value if I here attempted a translation necessarily inadequate, of the key word of each sign. These fall into two categories as far as humanity is concerned. There is the key word for the form aspect and the keyword for the soul aspect. In the first case, the word is expressed; in the second it is consciously spoken by the soul. Translated into modern terms much is lost, but the underlying thought which directs the work of the emanating energies is of value. For our world period they are as follows:
For the aspirant who progresses from Aries to Pisces and has therefore re-oriented himself we have:
Aries......I come forth, and from the plane of mind I rule.
Taurus......I see, and when the eye is opened, all is illumined.
Gemini......I recognise my other self and in the waning of that self I grow and glow.
Cancer......I build a lighted house and therein dwell.
Leo......I am That and That am I.
Virgo.......I am the Mother and the Child, I God, I matter am.
Libra......I choose the Way that leads between the two great lines of force. [442]
Scorpio.......Warrior I am, and from the battle I emerge triumphant.
Sagittarius......I see the goal. I reach the goal and see another.
Capricorn......Lost am I in light supernal and on that light I turn my back.
Aquarius......Water of life am I, poured forth for thirsty men.
Pisces......I leave the Father’s home and turning back, I save.
From the standpoint of the form, the life proceeds in a reverse direction, and the work of nature is seen under the following words:
Pisces.......And the Word said: Go forth into matter.
Aquarius......And the Word said: Let desire in form be ruler.
Capricorn......And the Word said: Let ambition rule and the door stand wide.
Sagittarius......And the Word said: Let food be sought.
Scorpio......And the Word said: Let Maya flourish and deception rule.
Libra......And the Word said: Let choice be made.
Virgo......And the Word said: Let matter reign.
Leo......And the Word said: Let other forms exist, I rule.
Cancer......And the Word said: Let isolation be the rule and yet the crowd exists.
Gemini......And the Word said: Let instability do its work.
Taurus......And the Word said: Let struggle be undismayed. [443]
Aries......And the Word said: Let form again be sought.
It will be noted that all these ideas concern the work of energy in some form or another and in the last grouping with the work of the so-called unregenerate selfish individual, full of desire for satisfaction. The group of mantric words used by the aspirant in the power of his own soul, are positive.
It seems needless to deal further with the various types of force and we shall now turn our attention to Rule XI.