Three things the worker with the law must now accomplish. First, ascertain the formula which will confine the lives within the ensphering wall; next, pronounce the words which will tell them what to do and where to carry that which has been made; and finally, utter forth the mystic phrase which will save him from their work.
[447] This rule is, as you know, the last of those governing work on the astral plane and the magical task of motivating those thought-forms which are to be the expression of some type of energy. We have considered the various energies with which men work and the power a man can wield through building thought-forms. We have seen also how a man can manipulate the various grades of matter until the embodied idea has clothed itself with mental matter and with astral matter. It is therefore a vital entity, on the verge of materialising upon the physical plane. Nothing, it should be noted, can now stop its emergence into objectivity except the expressed act of the will of its creator, for the form, being vitalised by that creator, is subject always to his will, until he has severed his connection with it by the utterance of the “mystic phrase”. We will assume that emergence into effective existence is the decision and that the creative work is carried forward.
It will here be noted that this work is either conscious or unconscious. In the unconscious building of thought-forms such as is the case with the average human being, many never produce the desired physical plane effects, and fail in their intended purpose. As long however, as man is animated by selfishness and by hatred, this is a beneficent thing. Fortunately for the human race, few people as yet work in mental matter. Most of them work with astral or desire matter and these forms are fluidic and changeable, and are powerful only through the faculty of persistence. There is an occult basis for [448] the statement that if one desires a thing for a sufficiently long period of time one will possess it. Such is the law governing the return to incarnation of the average human being. Lacking the one-pointedness of the mental plane matter as it is influenced by a concentrated mind, these desire forms fail to do the damage they otherwise might. Their effect is felt largely by the creator of these kama-manasic forms and not by his environing associates. The moment that the mind factor enters in and becomes dominant, that moment a man becomes dangerous or useful as the case may be—dangerous not only to himself but to those around him, or useful in the working out of the plan of evolution. He can then create thought-forms, capable of producing outward manifesting results and tangible effects. Given aspiration, however, and spiritual impulse, a man can become a true occultist, and produce organised results, and functioning organisms upon the physical plane. I use the word “organism” deliberately, for it will serve to convey the idea that any thought-form is regarded by us as a subjective and existing entity, clothed in subtle matter, and capable of manifestation. This is called popularly sometimes “the working out of an idea”, or the “carrying through of a project”; it is termed at other times a “discovery”, or an “ invention”, or something of that nature. All the time, quite unrealising it, man is talking in occult terms and evidencing an inner appreciation of the methods whereby all that has been thought (by God or man) comes into existence.
The embodied idea or thought (the former being potentially far more potent than the latter) has worked its way through to the verge of physical manifestation. Its creator who, in the case of a “white magician” is not an emotionally centred person, is consciously bringing it to the stage when its inner purpose and plan can be demonstrated. He holds the thought-form in his consciousness [449] and gives it shape and energy through the power of his own one-pointed mental focus.
We are told in the rule under consideration that the aspirant has three things to do:
1. Ascertain the formula which will crystallise the form he has built, much in the same way that we find architects and bridge builders reducing the desired form to a mathematical formula.
2. Pronounce certain words which will give the form vitality and so carry it forth on to the physical plane.
3. Utter the phrase which will detach the thought-form from his aura and so save the drain upon his energies.
It will be noted that the formula has relation to the thought-form, the words of power to the objective for which the form has been constructed, and the mystic phrase concerns the severing of the magnetic link which binds together the creator and his creation. One therefore concerns the form, another the soul embodied in the form (whose lowest characteristic is desire, the reflection of love) and the last the life aspect with which the creator has endowed the creation. We are consequently face to face again with the eternal triplicities of spirit, soul and body. It should be remembered that the Rules for Magic, as understood by the true esotericist, are as true of a created universe, solar system or planet as they are true of the tiny thought creations of a chela or aspirant.
The first reaction of the average student on reading the above is to think immediately of the body nature as it expresses some type of energy. Thus duality is the thing noted and that which employs the thing is present in his mind. Yet one of the main necessities before occult aspirants at this time is to endeavour to think in [450] terms of the one Reality which is Energy itself and nothing else. Therefore it is of value to emphasize in our discussions of this abstruse subject the fact that spirit and energy are synonymous terms and are interchangeable. Only in the realisation of this can we arrive at the reconciliation of science and religion and at a true understanding of the world of active phenomena by which we are surrounded and in which we move.
The terms organic and inorganic are largely responsible for much of the confusion, and the sharp differentiation existing in the minds of many people between body and spirit, between life and form, have led to a refusal to admit the essential identity in nature of these two. The world in which we live is regarded by the majority as really solid and tangible, yet possessing some mysterious power lying concealed within it which produces movement, activity and change. This is of course putting it crudely but it suffices to sum up the unintelligent attitude.
The orthodox scientist is largely occupied with structures, relationships, with the composition of form and with the activity produced by the component form parts and their interrelations and dependencies. The chemicals and elements and the functions and parts they play, and their mutual interactions as they compose all forms in all the kingdoms of nature are the subject of their investigation. The nature of the atom, of the molecule and the cell, their functions, the qualities of their force manifestations and the varying types of activity, the solving of the problem as to the character and nature of the energies—focalised or localised in the differing forms of the natural or material world—demand the consideration of the ablest minds in the world of thought. Yet the questions—What is Life? What is Energy? or What is the process of Becoming and the nature of Being? remain unanswered. The problem as to the why and the [451] wherefore is regarded as fruitless and speculative, almost insoluble.
Nevertheless, to the pure reason and through the correct functioning of the intuition, these problems can be solved and these questions answered. Their solution is one of the ordinary revelations and attainments of initiation. The only true biologists are the initiates of the mysteries, for they have an understanding of life and its purpose and are so identified with the life principle that they think and speak in terms of energy and its effects, and all their activities, in connection with the work of the planetary Hierarchy, are based on a few fundamental formulas which concern life as it makes itself felt through its three differentiations or aspects:—energy, force, matter.
It should be noted here that only as a man understands himself can he arrive at an understanding of that which is the sum total that we call God. This is a truism and an occult platitude, but when acted upon leads to a revelation which makes the present “Unknown God” a recognised Reality. Let me illustrate:
Man knows himself to be a living being and calls death that mysterious process wherein that something, which he commonly designates as the breath of life, is withdrawn. On its withdrawal, the form disintegrates. The cohesive vitalising force is gone, and this produces that falling apart into its essential elements of that which has hitherto been regarded as the body.
This life principle, this basic essential of being and this mysterious elusive factor is the correspondence in man of that which we call spirit or life in the macrocosm. Just as the life in man holds together, animates, vitalises and drives into activity the form and so makes of him a living being, so the life of God—as the Christian calls it—performs the same purpose in the universe and produces [452] that coherent, living, vital ensemble which we call a solar system.
This life principle in man manifests in a triple manner:
1. As the directional will, purpose, basic incentive. This is the dynamic energy which sets the being functioning, brings him into existence, sets the term of his life, carries him through the years, long or short, and abstracts itself at the close of his life cycle. This is the spirit in man, manifesting as the will to live, to be, to act, to pursue, to evolve. In its lowest aspect this works through the mental body or nature, and in connection with the dense physical makes itself felt through the brain.
2. As the coherent force. It is that significant essential quality which makes each man different, which produces that complex manifestation of moods, desires, qualities, complexes, inhibitions, feelings and characteristics which produce a man’s peculiar psychology. This is the result of the interplay between the spirit or energy aspect, and the matter or body nature. This is the distinctive subjective man, his colouring, or individual note; this it is which sets the rate of vibratory activity of his body, produces his particular type of form, is responsible for the condition and nature of his organs, his glands, and his outer aspect. This is the soul and—in its lowest aspect—it works through the emotional or astral nature and in connection with the dense physical, through the heart.
3. As the activity of the atoms and cells of which the physical body is composed. It is the sum total of those little lives of which the human organs, comprising the entire man are composed. These have a life of their own and a consciousness which is strictly individual and identified. This aspect of the life principle works through [453] the etheric or vital body and in connection with the solid mechanism of the tangible form through the spleen.
It is not, of course, possible to give the mantric words and phrases which are mentioned in Rule XI. They would be profoundly incomprehensible to all but the initiate, and therefore need not engross our attention. It should be noted that much in these Instructions is in advance of modern thought and both these Instructions and the Treatise on Cosmic Fire will only be fully understood towards the end of this century.
Let us consider this rule sentence by sentence, and arrive at that one of the interpretations which is the easiest for the average aspirant. All these rules can be read from the standpoint of intelligent man, and will mean but little; they can be read from the standpoint of the aspirant, and will then convey certain practical ideas which are susceptible of daily application and can be wrought out in the crucible of life experience. They will achieve meaning as the aspirant learns to handle energies, to work in mental matter and to cooperate creatively with the Purpose underlying the evolutionary plan. From the angle of vision of the disciple, these Rules carry certain potent instructions and will lead him to an understanding of the process of the creative work in nature, which is necessarily sealed to the mind of the aspirant. As to the comprehension of the initiate, these words convey definite commands which only his illumined intuition can rightly interpret. With the higher grades of intelligences we need not concern ourselves. We will consider this Rule therefore solely from the angle of vision of the average aspirant, leaving other interpretations to those individuals who have the internal equipment which will enable them to understand.
I. Ascertain the formula which will confine the lives within the ensphering wall.
All forms in nature, as we well know, are made up of [454] myriads of tiny lives, holding a certain measure of awareness, of rhythm, and of coherency according to the force of the Law of Attraction, utilized by the builder of the form. This is true both of the Macrocosm and of the infinite world of microcosmic lives, which are contained within the greater whole. Embryo solar systems, coming into being under the impulse of divine thought, are at first fluidic and nebulous, are shifting in outline and are held together loosely by the central nucleus of energy—another way of expressing the embodied idea. As time progresses, they pass on to other conditions, they take more definite form, they enter into peculiar relations with allied and neighbouring forms, and adjust themselves to varying relations of an internal nature with those forms, which in the earlier stage was not possible. Eventually we find a solar system such as ours and myriads of others—a solar system functioning as a sun with its revolving and rotating planets, preserving their differing orbits, holding their stated and relative positions, active as independent and inter-dependent organisms, and yet presenting, to the eye of the astronomer, a coherence, a unity and a structure that is unique in each case and yet which functions under cosmic law. It measures up to some vast purpose, conceived and held steadily in the Universal Mind, which is in its turn an aspect of that group-conscious and self-conscious entity who is the author of its being and the creator of its form.
This one intelligent Life may be posited as creating in his meditation (or its, if you prefer, for what do words matter when all is futile to express reality as it is!) and consequently in his reflective mind, that which we call a thought-form. This thought-form has four main characteristics:
1. It is brought into being through the conscious use of the Law of Attraction. [455]
2. It is formed of an infinite number of living entities who are attracted by the mind of the divine Creator and thus enter into relation with each other.
3. The form is the externalization of something that its Creator has:
a. Visualized.
b. Built intelligently and “coloured” or “qualified”, so as to meet the purpose for which it was intended.
c. Vitalized by the potency of his desire and the strength of his living thought.
d. Held in shape as long as it is needed in order to perform its specific work.
e. Connected to himself by a magnetic thread—the thread of his living purpose and the strength of his dominant will.
4. This interior purpose, which has clothed itself in mental, astral and vital substance, is potent on the physical plane just as long as:
a. It remains consciously in its Creator’s thought.
b. It “keeps its distance” occultly from its Creator. Many thought-forms remain futile as they are “too close” to their Creator.
c. It can be directed in any desired direction, and under the law of least resistance, can find its own place, thus performing its desired function and carrying out the purpose for which it was created.
The “formula” therefore might be regarded as the idea emanating from the divine Thinker; it might be defined as the dynamic purpose, the "thing" as the Thinker sees it and externalizes it in his mind, and visualizes it as the carrier of his intent. The mathematics which underlie the construction of a bridge, such as any of the great spans which signalize human achievement, convey [456] naught to the uninitiated, but to those who know and understand, they are the bridge itself, reduced to its essential terms. They are the bridge in latency, and in these mathematical formulas lie hid the purpose, the quality and the form of the completed structure and its eventual usefulness. So it is with the concepts and the ideas which give birth to a thought-form. These occult formulas exist on the archetypal plane which (for the aspirant) is the plane of the intuition, though in reality it is a state of consciousness far higher still. These formulas underlie a world of forms and must be contacted by those who are duly equipped to work under the Great Architect of the Universe. There are, symbolically speaking, three great books of formulas. Note the words “symbolically speaking”, and forget them not. There is first the Book of Life, read and eventually mastered by initiates of all degrees. There is the Book of Divine Wisdom, read by aspirants of all degrees, sometimes called the Book of Knowing Experience, and there is the Book of Forms which is compulsory reading for all in whom the intelligence is awakening to functioning activity. It is with the Book of Forms that we are now concerned.
Patanjali speaks in one place of the “rain-cloud of knowable things” of which the soul is consciously aware. The aspirant, weary of the eternal round of his own futile and unimportant thoughts, seeks to tap the resources of this “rain cloud” and so precipitate upon the earth some of the thoughts of God. He seeks to work so that he can further the manifestation of the ideas of the Creator. To do this he has to fulfill certain initial requirements, which might be briefly stated as follows:
1. Know the true meaning of meditation.
2. Align with facility the soul, the mind and the brain.
3. Contemplate, or function as the soul on its own plane. It then becomes possible for the soul to act [457] as the intermediary between the plane of divine ideas and the mental plane. You see how this matter of participation in the divine creative process works out as the objective of all true meditation work?
4. Register the idea, received by the soul intuitively, and recognize the form which it should take. These last seven words are of vital importance.
5. Reduce the vague and misty idea to its essentials, discarding all vain imaginings and the formulations of the lower mind, so equipping oneself to leap readily into activity, and, through steadfastness in contemplation, receive accurately the vision of the inner structure, or of the subjective skeleton, if I may so term it, of the form which is to be.
6. This, as recorded consciously by the soul upon the mind, is as consciously registered by the mind, held steady in the light, and might be regarded as the reduction of the formula to the blue print. It is not the formula itself, but the secondary process. According to the strength, the simplicity and the clarity of the embodiment of the formula in a simple outlined structure, so will be the finally furnished building and the consequent form, which will confine within the periphery of the outer form itself the lives used in its construction.
This, in reality, resembles the stage of conception. Latent within the germ (the result of male-female interrelation) lie all the potencies and capacities of the finished product. Latent within the idea which has been materially conceived, but which has been inspired by the Spirit aspect, lie hid the potencies of the finished thoughtforms. The matter aspect, represented by the mind, has been fecundated by the Spirit aspect, and the triplicity [458] will eventually be completed by the created form. But in the early stages there is as yet only the “formula”—the conceived idea, the latent yet dynamic concept. It is potent enough to draw to itself the essentials for growth and form, yet who shall say whether it will prove an abortion, a mediocre and feeble product, or a creation of real beauty and value?
Every externalized idea is, therefore, possessed of form, animated by desire, and created by the power of the mind. The desire plane is the one upon which the mind imposes its conceptions in order to produce the “idea incarnate”, to clothe the idea in form. It is therefore the gestation ground. The mind previously has been the recipient of the archetypal idea, as grasped and visualized by the soul. In its turn the soul is the recipient of the formula as presented to it in the world of ideas. You have thus the “presented-idea”, the “perceived-idea” and the “formulated-idea”, and the idea working out into manifestation.
It is well to bear in mind that the following factors govern the emergence of the idea out of the Universal Mind into the world of tangible forms. These are:
1. The energies emanating from the archetypal plane. This plane is the focus of the attention of the highest group of Intelligences on our planet. Their consciousness can respond and be inclusive to this sphere of activity whereon the Mind of God expresses itself, free from the limitations of what we understand as form. They are the custodians of the formula; they are the mathematicians who prepare the blue prints of the great Plan; they calculate the effects of the forces with which the work is carried forward, and the energies which must be manipulated; they allow for the strains and stresses to which the forms must be subjected under the impact of the life force, they deal with the cyclic impulses to which the evolutionary process must respond; they concern [459] themselves with the relation between the form aspect and the life urge.
2. The intuitional state of awareness. On this level of consciousness, we find the Masters of the Wisdom carrying on Their work, and it is in this sphere of influence that They work with the greatest ease and facility, as much so as does normally intelligent man work on the physical plane. Their minds are constantly in touch with the archetypal minds, who are the custodians of the formulas, and They—taking the blue prints (I speak again in symbolic fashion), deal with the specifications, look for those suitable for the control of the work, and assemble the needed personnel. Among Their disciples They search until They find the one most suited to be the focal point of information on the physical plane, or the group most eligible to carry into manifestation the desired part of the Plan. They work with those so chosen, impressing upon their minds that eternal triplicity of idea-quality-form until the details begin to emerge, and the work of what is literally a “precipitation” can go forward.
3. The activity of the mental state of consciousness. It is on the mental plane that much of this work is necessarily done, and here is reason sufficient for the development, on the part of the aspirant, of a trained intellect. The “rain cloud of knowable things” precipitates first of all on the mental plane, and a further precipitation goes forward when disciples and aspirants are the recipients. These latter, in their turn, seek to impress and guide the lesser workers and aspirants, who, karmically or by choice, lie within their radius of influence. Thus the “idea” presented is seized upon by many minds and the formula aspect of the great work has played its part.
It will be seen how this work is consequently and essentially group work, and is therefore only truly possible for those who have somewhat mastered the meditation [460] process, and can “hold the mind steady in the light”. This light in reality streams forth from the Universal Mind and is of varying kinds and was (esoterically speaking) generated in a previous solar system and must be used and developed in this one.
In the words “the light of the intuition” we have conveyed to our minds that type of energy which embodies the purpose, the will of God, the Plan, as we regard it. In the words “the light of the soul”, we have an expression which sums up the purpose, the plan, the will of those entities, who, incarnated in human form, and at times functioning out of the body, have the responsibility of materializing the divine concepts in the four kingdoms in nature. The human kingdom is, par excellence, the medium of expression for the Universal Mind, and when the sons of God in human form are perfected, the problems of the natural world will be solved in a large measure. The fully conscious sons of God, aware of themselves whilst in the human form (and they are few as yet), constitute literally the brain of the planetary life.
There is a truly occult significance to the words “to throw the light” upon a problem, a condition, or a situation. In its essential meaning it connotes the revelation of the presented idea, of the principle which underlies the outer manifestation. It is the recognition of the inner and spiritual reality which produces the outer and visible form. This is the keynote of all work in symbolism. The work of ascertaining the formulas, of drawing up the subjective charts or plans of intuitive impression and of intense activity on the mental plane is the sole work of the organized planetary hierarchy. The second phase of the work is carried on by those workers, who, co-operating consciously with the hierarchy, demonstrate the reality of that work in the three worlds of human evolution. They bring the germ of the idea, and the embryonic concept into outer and completed existence, [461] through the process of right thought, the awakening of desire, and the nurturing of right public opinion. They thus bring about the needed physical activity.
Aspirants, group leaders and thinkers in all parts of the globe can be available for this work, provided their minds are open and focussed. According to the simplicity of their approach to truth, according to the clarity of their thought, according to their group influence and state of inclusive awareness, and according also to their power for long sustained effort will be the approximation of the outer form to the inner idea and the spiritual subjective reality.
The point I seek to make is that the average reader of these Instructions has nothing to do with the formulas. They are grasped and understood by the great Knowers Who stand back of the evolutionary process and are responsible for its functional activity. The hierarchy of Masters, of the senior initiates, and disciples is proceeding steadily with that work but is dependent, under the Law, upon those on the physical plane who are to produce the outer forms. If they fail to respond, there will be delay or incorrect building; if they make mistakes, there will be lost time and energy, and again delay; if they lose interest and cease to work, or are primarily interested in their own affairs and personalities, the Plan will have to wait, and energy which would otherwise be made available for the solving of human problems and the guidance of humanity will have to find its outlet in other directions. There is never anything static in the creative process; energy which is flowing forth in the pulsation of the one Life, and its rhythmic and cyclic activity—never ending and never resting—must be somewhere utilized, and must find its way in some direction, often (when man fails in his duty) with catastrophic results. The problem of cataclysms, the cause, for instance, of the steadily increasing insect peril, will be [462] found to be related to the inflow of unused and unrecognized energy which is capable of right direction and right purpose and for the furthering of the Plan, if the aspirants and disciples of the world will shoulder their group responsibilities, submerge their personalities, and achieve true realization. Humanity must be more diligent and more intelligent in the working out of its true destiny and karmic obligations. When men are universally en rapport with the custodians of the plan and their minds and brains are illumined by the light of the intuition, of the soul and of the universal mind, when they can train themselves to respond intelligently to the timely impulses which cyclically emanate from the inner side of life, then there will be a steady adjustment between life and form and a rapid amelioration of world conditions. It is an interesting point to bear in mind that the first effect of the response of the more advanced of the sons of men to the formulas as translated and transmitted by the Knowers will be the establishing of right relations between the four kingdoms in nature, and right relations between units and groups in the human family. A step in this direction is being made. Relations between the four spheres of activity which we call human, animal, vegetable and mineral are now badly adjusted because the energy of matter is primarily the governing factor. In the human kingdom, the working of this energy demonstrates in what we call selfishness. In the animal kingdom, it demonstrates in what we call cruelty, though, where the sense of responsibility is nonexistent and only instinctual and temporary parental responsibility is found, there is no criticism to be given. In the vegetable kingdom this maladjustment expresses itself during this planetary period of misuse as disease.
This surprises you? Disease has its roots primarily in maladjustments and misdirected force in the vegetable kingdom; this affects the animal and mineral kingdoms [463] and subsequently the human. It is too far ahead for this to be demonstrated, but when this condition is understood, it will be in that kingdom in nature that the attention of the investigators must be focussed, and the eradication of disease will eventually find its solution.
II. Pronounce the words which will tell them what to do and where to carry that which has been made.
Let us remember in connection with this Rule that it is only potent in so far as the “worker with the Law” is en rapport with the inner reality within himself, with the soul. It is essential that through him, in full waking consciousness, the soul should be functioning. It is the soul who pronounces the words. It is the soul who utters forth the mystic phrase, but it is the soul as controller or ruler of the mechanism, of the form-apparatus. This control is only possible where there is alignment of the brain and mind and soul. Again, it is necessary to remember that this Rule, being an expression of the creative work, applies to all creative process, whether macrocosmic or microcosmic, whether we are dealing with God as the creator of the solar system, with the soul as the creator of the human mechanism, or with the man as he attempts to master the technique of the magical work and so become a creator of forms in his own little sphere. All have to work out the true significance of the Rule, for God works under the law of His Being, and this Law demonstrates to us as the laws of nature.
The ideas of ordered activity and of a conscious and purposeful goal are bound up in the phrase we are considering. The builder of any form is first of all a controller of lives and the arbiter of the destinies of certain entities. In this thought we have light thrown upon the subject of free will and upon the Law of Cause and Effect. It must not be forgotten however that the mystery of causes lies hid in past universes—all, in their day, the “forms indwelt by God”. For us there can be no such [464] thing as pure cause, but only the working out of major effects. Just as for us such a reality as pure reason is totally incomprehensible and unattainable, so with pure cause. These factors antedate our solar system and therefore speculation about them remains unrewarded, except in so far as it tends to develop the mental apparatus. This solar system is a system of effects, which in their turn generate causes. Only in the human family and only among those human beings who are consciously using mind power are any causes of any kind being generated. All causes, being initiated by a mind of some kind, functioning consciously and thinking clearly, posit a Thinker, and this is profoundly the position of the occult sciences. Our solar system is a thought-form but one having real existence just as long as thought persists. All that is forms part of the current of ideas emanating from the divine Thinker. All thoughts are part of a divine stream. The mass of people think not, and so do not generate causes that must in due time produce their effect.
You ask, where then the truth of the statement made in many occult modern books that the trend of life or cycle of lives indicates necessarily the future, and that the causes initiated in one life work out as effects in another? Where lives are predominantly emotional and are physically oriented, it is not a particular life that sets the pace but the group of lives, simultaneously interacting with each other, predisposes the future along certain lines. This is eternally true of all human beings at a certain level of conscious development where they are swayed by mass ideas, moulded unthinkingly by tradition and public opinion, are frankly immersed in selfish interests, and are not “taking hold” of conditions themselves but are being carried forward on the tide of evolution. It is a form of group activity (groups governed by the vibration of physical and astral forms) which produces the [465] characteristics and tendencies which cause the situation and environing circumstances. In this realization lies hid the secret of racial and national karma and conditions. In these groups, the ordinary feeling, active man is immersed, and out of this immersion he must find his way by discovering and using his mind. Instinct must give place to intellect. For cycles of lives, groups of souls incarnate through the pull of the material forms towards which they are attracted. These attractive energies have earlier been utilized by the soul—finally being discarded and disintegrated. It is the potency of form which in the first case draws the soul into incarnation, for in the first half of the evolutionary process matter—highly organized in a previous solar system—is the dominant factor. Later, we know, spirit mounts on the shoulder of matter. The mass interplay of spirit and matter is now so potent that one of the major experiences that a soul undergoes is the achieving of the stage wherein the pull of matter begins to wane and the soul learns to detach itself. This is the experience through which humanity is now passing—again a group activity on a higher turn of the spiral.
Large generalizations are indeed safer than the detailed and oft erroneous information anent the rules governing the taking and relinquishing of form, found in much of our puerile literature, but e’en these generalizations should be regarded with much distrust. All that can be posited is that, under the Law of Cause and Effect, spirit and matter coalesced and the worlds were made. Governed by the same law, forms were created and became material expressions of the life urge. They were swept in and out of manifestation according to a rhythmic cyclic beat, initiated in still earlier solar systems, than the one immediately preceding ours. Groups of forms appeared and disappeared, and were governed [466] almost entirely by their group coherence and vibration. So the life progressed through the elemental or involutionary kingdoms, through the three lower kingdoms in nature and on into the human kingdom.
In the lower human stages and in the stage of animal man, the same group activity reigns, only (as in the involutionary kingdoms) becoming smaller and smaller groups as the individual units achieve—one by one—the status of truly self-conscious individuals, and begin to work as souls. Then they not only become creators, with the power of standing alone, with the faculty of clear thinking and accurate visualization, but demonstrate also that they are the possessors of the creative art or faculty of creative imagination. They pass through life after life of self-sufficiency in which the personality is developed and used; then they begin to find their subjective group which will eventually take the place of the outer material groups in their consciousness. Thus they regain again group existence, only this time in full awareness and control.
In the group with which they find themselves subjectively affiliated, will be found those who have worked with them in the earlier mass state, so that they work in close association with those who have been nearest to them and who have been linked with them in the great life cycle.
There are certain names given to these stages in the occult archives which are suggestive and illuminating; they are of course symbolic. It might be of interest if I gave some of these ancient cryptic utterances which convey three items of information, namely, the name of the stage, its esoteric colour, and its symbol. I would like to point out, however, that these intriguing pieces of information which I at times convey and which some of the students seem to regard as of vital importance are of [467] far less importance than the injunction to live kindly, speak words of gentleness and of wisdom, and practice self-forgetfulness. The occult data is read and noted, the familiar instructions are skipped and overlooked. We, who work with aspirants, smile oft at the foolishness and lack of judgment evinced by those we teach. Say to a student: Practice with steadfastness the law of loving-kindness, and he will say that indeed he will attempt to do, but within himself the very familiarity of the injunction palls and is deemed, at best, a needed platitude. Say to the student: I will give you some occult phrases or some items of information anent the Great Ones, and with keenness, with excitement, and with smug self-satisfaction and with a pleased curiosity, he prepares for the important revelation. Yet the earlier injunction is the conveyer of occult information and indicates a law which—if rightly followed—leads to release and liberation. The latter concerns phenomena and the knowledge of it leads not the weary pilgrim to the gates of heaven. Some of you need this reminder.
Those stages which precede the human are omitted as none who will read these words possess the equipment to comprehend their inner sense. We will begin therefore with the stages in the human kingdom.
Stage I
The life has climbed the stairway long through daily use of form. Through the lesser three, with progress slow, the long path has been travelled. Another door stands open now. The words sound forth: “Enter upon the way of real desire.”
The life, that only knows itself as form, enshrouds itself in vivid red, the red of known desire, and through the red all longed-for forms approach, are grasped and held, used and discarded, until the red changes to rose [468] and rose to palest pink, and pink to white. Forth flowers then the pure white rose of life.
The tiny rose of living life is seen in bud; not yet the full blown flower.
Stage II
The picture changes form. Another voice, coming from close at hand utters another phrase. The life continues on its way. “Enter the field where children play and join their game.” Awakened to the game of life, the soul passes the gate.
The field is green and on its broad expanse the many forms of the one moving Life disport themselves; they weave the dance of life, the many patterned forms God takes. The soul enters “the playground of the Lord” and plays thereon until he sees the star with five bright points, and says: “My Star.”
The star is but a point of light, not yet a radiant sun.
Stage III
The way of red desire fails. It loses its allure. The playground of the sons of God no longer holds appeal. The voice which has twice sounded from out the world of form sounds now within the heart. The challenge comes: “Prove thine own worth. Take to thyself the orange ball of thy one-pointed purpose.” Responsive to the sounded word, the living soul, immersed in form, emerges from the many forms and hews its onward way. The way of the destroyer comes, the builder and again the tearer down of forms. The broken forms hold not the power to satisfy. The soul’s own form is now the great desire, and thus there comes the entering of the playground of the mind.
But in these dreams and fantasies, at times a vision comes—a vision of a folded lotus flower, close petalled, [469] tightly sealed, lacking aroma yet, but bathed in cold blue light.
Orange and blue in some more distant time will blended be, but far off yet the date. Their blending bathes the bud in light and causes future opening. Let the light shine.
Stage IV
Into the dark the life proceeds. A different voice seems to sound forth. “Enter the cave and find your own; walk in the dark and on your head carry a lighted lamp.” The cave is dark and lonely; cold is it and a place of many sounds and voices. The voice of the many sons of God, left playing on the playground of the Lord, make their appeal for light. The cave is long and narrow. The air is full of fog. The sound of running water meets the rushing sound of wind, and frequent roll of thunder.
Far off, dim and most vaguely seen, appears an oval opening, its color blue. Stretched athwart this space of blue, a rosy cross is seen, and at the centre of the cross, where four arms meet, a rose. Upon the upper limb, a vibrant diamond shines, within a star five-pointed.
The living soul drives forward towards the cross which bars his way to life, revealed and known.
Not yet the cross is mounted and therefore left behind. But onward goes the living soul, eyes fixed upon the cross, ears open to the wailing cries of all his brother souls.
Stage V
Out into radiant life and light! The cave is left behind; the cross is overturned; the way stands clear. The word sounds clear within the head and not within the heart. “Enter again the playground of the Lord and this time lead the games.” The way upon the second [470] tier of stairs stands barred, this by the soul’s own act. No longer red desire governs all the life, but now the clear blue flame burns strong. Upon the bottom step of the barred Way he turns back and passes down the stairs on to the playground, meeting dead shells built in an earlier stage, stepping upon forms discarded and destroyed, and holding forth the hands of helpfulness. Upon his shoulder sits the bird of peace; upon his feet the sandals of the messenger.
Not yet the utter glory of the radiant life! Not yet the entering into everlasting peace! But still the work, and still the lifting of the little ones.
Here in symbolic form we have pictures of human life and progress, of life in form and growing through the building process which marks the creative work. It is only a bald translation of some mantric phrases, and of some basic symbols, and must in no way be considered to be anything except indicative of a process, veiled and couched so that only those who know can understand. Esotericists will understand that these five stages cover the life period of every form, no matter whether the creator is cosmic, planetary or human.
Every form is built by an impulsive spark of life, emanated by a creator, and growing stage by stage under the law of accretion—an aspect of the law of attraction, which is the law of life. This law cooperates with the Law of Cause and Effect, which, as we know, is the law governing matter. Cause, attraction or desire, accretion and effect—these four words govern the construction of any thought-form. When the latter is a completed entity, it is an effect built by accretion under the power of an organized cause.
The race has evolved now to a point where we think of effects primarily in terms of quality rather than in terms of matter. A thought-form exists for us in order [471] to produce an effect. The raison d’être of all forms we have come to feel is to express some subjective quality which will give us the key to its creator’s purpose. Ponder on these words. Hence, we find in this Rule XI that the purpose of the word pronounced is to tell the lives which constitute the form “what to do and where to carry that which has been made.” Thus we find the idea of purpose, activity and goal.
There is no need for me to add to the vast amount of literature which has been put forth or to emphasize the significance of purpose in connection with such a thoughtform as a solar system, a planet, a kingdom in nature or a human being. In some respects this subjective triplicity of purpose, activity and goal is well known and in others it is of too high and too inscrutable a nature for us to deal with in these Instructions and wander into the realms of speculation. With the goal, religion has long sought to deal; with the activity aspect, the scientist is now attempting to deal; and with the Will of God the most advanced thinkers and philosophers are constantly speculating. Only when man submits himself to the discipline of his own spiritual will and controls the activity of the lives within his form nature and so orients himself to the goal as it progressively makes its appeal to his vision, will he arrive at a true understanding of the plan, which constitutes the will of God as far as human beings can grasp it.
But with the thought-forms which he is beginning to create as he daily learns to think, we can concern ourselves for it is the first lesson soon to be learnt in the magical work. The creator in mental matter has:
a. To learn to build intelligently.
b. To give the impulse, through right speech which will animate that which he has built, and so enable the thought-form to convey the intended idea. [472]
c. To send out his thought-form correctly oriented to his goal, and so truly directed that it will reach the objective and accomplish its sender’s purpose.
The necessity for clear thinking and the elimination of idle, destructive and negative thoughts becomes increasingly apparent as the aspirant progresses upon his way. As the power of the mind increases and as the human being differentiates his thought increasingly from mass thought, he inevitably builds thought substance into form. It is at first automatic and unconscious. He cannot help so doing, and fortunately, for the race, the forms constructed are so feeble that they are largely innocuous, or so in line with mass thought that they are negligible in their effect. But as man evolves his power and his capacity to harm or to help increases, and unless he learns to build rightly and correctly to motivate that which he has built he will become a destructive agency and a centre of harmful force—destroying and harming not only himself, as we shall see shortly, but equally hurting and harming those who vibrate to his note.
Granted all this you might appositely inquire: Are there some simple rules which the earnest and sincere beginner could apply to this science of building and which are so clear and concise that they will produce the needed effect? There are, and I will state them simply so that the beginner will, if he follows them, escape the dangers of black magic, and learn to build in line with the plan. He will, if he follows the rules I give, avoid the intricate problem which he has himself blindly constructed and which will indeed shut out the light of day, darken his world, and imprison him in a wall of forms which will embody for him his own peculiar great illusion.
These rules may sound too simple for the learned aspirant but for those who are willing to become as little children they will be found to be a safe guide into truth [473] and will eventually make them able to pass the tests for adeptship. Some are couched in terms symbolic, others are necessarily blinds, still others express the truth just as it is.
1. View the world of thought, and separate the false out of the true.
2. Learn the meaning of illusion, and in its midst locate the golden thread of truth.
3. Control the body of emotion for the waves that rise upon the stormy seas of life engulf the swimmer, shut out the sun and render all plans futile.
4. Discover that thou hast a mind and learn its dual use.
5. Concentrate the thinking principle, and be the master of thy mental world.
6. Learn that the thinker and his thought and that which is the means of thought are diverse in their nature, yet one in ultimate reality.
7. Act as the thinker, and learn it is not right to prostitute thy thought to the base use of separative desire.
8. The energy of thought is for the good of all and for the furtherance of the Plan of God. Use it not therefore for thy selfish ends.
9. Before a thought-form is by thee constructed, vision its purpose, ascertain its goal, and verify the motive.
10. For thee, the aspirant on the way of life, the way of conscious building is not yet the goal. The work of cleaning out the atmosphere of thought, of barring fast the doors of thought to hate and pain, to fear, and jealousy and low desire, must first precede the conscious work of building. See to thy aura, oh traveler on the way.
11. Watch close the gates of thought. Sentinel desire. [474] Cast out all fear, all hate, all greed. Look out and up.
12. Because the life is mostly centered on the plane of concrete life, thy words and speech will indicate thy thought. To these pay close attention.
13. Speech is of triple kind. The idle words will each produce effect. If good and kind, naught need be done. If otherwise, the paying of the price cannot be long delayed.
The selfish words , sent forth with strong intent, build up a wall of separation. Long time it takes to break that wall and so release the stored-up, selfish purpose. See to thy motive, and seek to use those words which blend the little life with the large purpose of the will of God.
The word of hate , the cruel speech which ruins those who feel its spell, the poisonous gossip, passed along because it gives a thrill—these words kill the flickering impulses of the soul, cut at the roots of life, and so bring death.
If spoken in the light of day, just retribution will they bring; when spoken and then registered as lies, they strengthen that illusory world in which the speaker lives and holds him back from liberation.
If uttered with intent to hurt, to bruise and kill, they wander back to him who sent them forth and him they bruise and kill.
14. The idle thought, time selfish thought, the cruel hateful thought if rendered into word produce a prison, poison all the springs of life, lead to disease, and cause disaster and delay. Therefore, be sweet and kind and good as far as in thee lies. Keep silence and the light will enter in.
15. Speak not of self. Pity not thy fate. The thoughts of self and of thy lower destiny prevent the inner [475] voice of thine own soul from striking upon thine ear. Speak of the soul; enlarge upon the plan; forget thyself in building for the world. Thus is the law of form offset. Thus can the rule of love enter upon that world.
These simple rules will lay right foundations for the carrying forward of the magical work, and will render the mental body so clear and so powerful that right motive will control and true work in building will be possible.
Much of the significance of this rule must remain theoretical, and be considered as holding a challenge until such time as the real magical work of thought-form building becomes universally possible. The formula , as we have seen, will remain unknown to all save the members of the Hierarchy of Adepts for long ages to come. The directional words are capable of ascertainment, but only to those who are working consciously under the guidance of their own souls, and who, through mind control merging into deep meditation, can manipulate the matter of thought and become “knowing creators.” These can, and do, speak the impulsive words which bring into being those new forms and organisms, those expressions of ideas and those organisations which live their life cycle and serve their purpose, and so come, duly, to their timely and appointed end. These creators are the leaders and organisers, the teachers and the guides in all phases of human living. Their sound does go forth into all lands and their note is internationally recognised. Hundreds of such names are easily remembered and spring unhidden to the mind. They live in the memory of the multitude and that which lives is the sound of their accomplishment, be that good or bad.
But in the sentence which we must consider we find portrayed a universal function, even though it is as yet [476] carried forward for the most part unconsciously. The words to be dealt with are as follows:
III. Finally, to utter forth the mystic phrase which will save him from their work.
Therefore it appears that at the close of the magical work of creation, a phrase must be enunciated which effects a salvation and produces a liberation of a dual kind,—a liberation of the creating agent from the form which he has created, and the emancipation of that form from the control of the one who has brought it into being.
It is obvious that already the nature of speech in relation to embodied ideas is being somewhat understood. Study the method of talk which is now the main factor employed to “launch an idea.” Note how all inventions (which are neither more nor less than embodied concepts) come into exoteric being on the physical plane through the power of the spoken word, and consider also with care the occult significance underlying all conferences, all meetings, all consultations, and all discussions which concern themselves with the launching of some idea or set of ideas upon the sea of public necessity. May it not be possible that under the modes of activity employed by the advertising agencies and the constant training given to salesmen in the use of the spoken word as a means of approach to the public in order to sell an idea, we shall find the first distorted indications of the emanations of those mystic phrases which will bring into being the creation of the soul in all fields of creative enterprise?
The training of public opinion, the utilisation of catch words and slogans, the tendency to embody the concepts of campaigners in trite and apposite phrases are part of the growing realisation as to the magical work. All these means are employed blindly and without true realisation; they constitute a part of the emerging activities of a humanity which is on the verge of real creative work, [477] the principles of which are not yet understood nor scientifically applied. But they do point the way, and under the simplification which marks the return to synthesis, we shall have the cessation of speech and the utilisation of simpler forms. Under the evolutionary urge, we have had the creative Sound, the Word, Speech. The latter, in its turn, has been differentiated into words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, books, until we now have the era wherein this differentiation is at its height, and we have speeches at all hours of the day and night; we have the utilisation of the public platform to reach the public ear, and of the radio to reach all classes and races of humanity in an effort to mould public opinion and bring certain ideas and concepts into the public consciousness. We have the publication of books literally in their millions, and all playing their part in the same great work, and we have as yet both methods of communication being prostituted to the selfish ends and ambitious purposes of those who speak and write. Yet there are a few true creators who are endeavouring to make their sound heard, to speak those mystical words which will enable humanity to see the vision. Thus will be dispersed eventually the clouds of thought-forms which at this time shut out the clear light of God.
The subject is too large for me to elaborate in this Treatise . I but seek to make suggestions which will carry to the intelligent reader some idea of the enormous progress which has been made in the magical work. In this way he will be enabled to go forward with optimism knowing that hitherto all has been good inasmuch as man has progressed in knowledge. Out of the present welter of speech and of words, of lectures and of books, a few clear concepts will surely emerge which will find an echo in the hearts of men. Thus also will men be led on into the new age, wherein “talk will die out and books come to naught” for the lines of subjective communication [478] will lie open. Men will recognise that noise acts as a deterrent to telepathic intercourse. The written word will not be needed either, for men will use symbols of light and colour to supplement through the eye what the subjective hearing has recorded. But that day is not yet, even though the radio and television are the first steps in the right direction.
Putting the truth as simply as possible we might state that through the complexity of much speech-making and book-writing, ideas are now enabled to take form and so run through their cycle of activity. But this method is as unsatisfactory in the field of knowledge as is the ancient tallow dip in the field of illumination. Electric light has superseded it, and some day the true telepathic communication and vision will take the place of speech and of writings.
Carrying the same concepts into the field of real esoteric work we have the worker in thought-matter building his thought-form and “confining the lives” which express and respond to his idea within a “ring-pass-not”. This latter persists for as long as his mind attention and hence his ensouling energy is directed upon it. We have him pronouncing the words which will enable his thought-form to do its work, fulfill the mission for which it has been constructed, and carry out the purpose for which it was created. All that has been given out hitherto in connection with the words used in the creative work is the sevenfold sacred Word, AUM. This, when rightly used by the soul on the mental plane vitalises and expedites all thought-forms, and so produces successful enterprise. It is interesting to note that in Atlantean days, the word used was TAU, enunciated explosively and so forcefully, that the thought-forms thus energised and expedited acted inevitably like a boomerang, and returned to the one who sent them forth. This word TAU is likewise, in its symbolic form, the [479] symbol of reincarnation. It is desire for form which produces the use of form and causes cyclic and constant rebirth in form. It was the constant use of the TAU likewise, which brought about the final overwhelming with water, which swept away the ancient Atlantean civilisation; the few who used the AUM in those days were not potent enough to offset the force of desire. The mind bodies of the race could not respond to that newer creative sound. Humanity was still swept entirely by longing and desire to such an extent that the united desire for possessions and for the enjoyment of form drove men esoterically “into the waters”. Desire for form still forces upon humanity the constant process of rebirth until such time as the TAU influence is exhausted and the AUM sound can dominate. The former influence is however weakening, and the AUM is increasing in potency until it will be the dominating factor. To this latter sound, the word of the Soul must eventually succeed, until AUM in its turn is entirely superseded.
The sound of many waters (which is the symbolic way of expressing the TAU influence) will cease, and the time will come, as we are assured in the Christian Bible, when there “will be no more sea”. Then the sound of the AUM which is symbolically spoken of as the “roaring of a blazing fire”, and which is the sound of the mental plane will take its place. The word of the soul cannot be given except in the secret place of initiation. It has its own peculiar vibration and note, but this cannot be conveyed until such time as the AUM is used with correctness. Just as the TAU, carrying the note of desire and of the urge to have and to be, was misused and carried its civilisations to disaster, so AUM can also be misused and can carry its civilisations into the fire. This is the truth which really underlies the misunderstood Christian teaching anent hell-fire and the lake of fire. They portray symbolically the end of the age [480] when the mental plane civilisations will come to a cataclysmic end, as far as the form aspect is concerned just as the earlier civilisations came to a watery consummation.
One hint here I will give, and one that is oft overlooked. On the mental plane, time is not; therefore the time equation enters not into the idea of a final ending by fire. There is no setting of a time for a disaster or a catastrophe. The full effect will take place in the realm of the mind, and may it not be said that even now the fire of anxiety, of foreboding, of worry, and of fear is burning up our thoughts and engrossing our mental attention? Its work is to purify and cleanse, so, let the AUM do its work and let all of you who can, employ it with frequency and with right thought so that the world purification may proceed apace. Much must be burned and consumed which bars the way for the emergence of the new ideas, the new archetypal forms. These will eventually dominate the new age and make it possible for the word of the soul to sound forth and be heard exoterically.
I realize that that which I have imparted here is difficult of comprehension, but the paragraphs above dictated hold warning for the careless and much instruction for the earnest seeker after light.
There are two aspects of this phrase which we are considering with which I seek briefly to deal. There are many which I might take up, but two will suffice to carry practical suggestion, and to indicate ideas which aspirants everywhere would do well to grasp. The thought of salvation from the effect of form-embodied ideas must be considered, and I would like also to cover the idea of “a saving-from” under two headings. The aspirant has to be saved from the thought-forms built daily during his mental life, and a soul in incarnation has also to be saved from the form attachments which during the ages have [481] grown and strengthened, and from which he has to be released through the process we call death. We will therefore divide our subject as follows:
I. Salvation from the power exerted by the thought-forms we have ourselves created.
II. Salvation from the power of the threefold body which the soul has built, through the magical release called death.
It is with the latter that I wish primarily to deal, but certain things must be said concerning the power of thought-forms, and concerning their danger, and the mode whereby they can be rendered innocuous.
I speak now for aspirants, who, through concentration and meditation, are gaining power in thought. I speak for the thinkers of the world, who, through their one-pointed application and devotion to business, to science, to religion or to the varying modes of human activity have oriented the mind (not the emotions but the mentality) to some line of constant action which is necessarily a part of the divine activity in the large sense.
It is right here, in the use of thought, that the difference between black and white magic can be seen. Selfishness, ruthlessness, hatred, and cruelty characterise the worker in mental substance whose motives are, for many lives, centred around his own aggrandisement, focussed on his personal acquisition of possessions, and directed entirely to the attainment of his own pleasure and satisfaction, no matter what the cost to others. Such men are happily few, but the way to such a point of view is easy to achieve, and many need to guard themselves lest they tread unthinkingly the way towards materiality.
A gradual and steady growth in group consciousness and responsibility, a submergence of the wishes of the [482] personal self and the manifestation of a loving spirit characterise those who are oriented towards the life side of the divine whole. It might be said that human beings fall into three main groups:
1. The vast majority, who are neither good nor bad, but simply unthinking and entirely submerged in the evolutionary tide, and in the work of developing a true self consciousness, and the needed equipment.
2. A small, a very small number, who are definitely and consciously working on the side of materiality or (if you prefer so to express it) on the side of evil. Potent are they on the physical plane, but their power is temporal and not eternal. The law of the universe, which is the law of love, is eternally against them, and out of the seeming evil good will come.
3. A goodly number who are the pioneers into the kingdom of the soul, who are the exponents of the new age ideas, and the custodians of that aspect of the Ageless Wisdom which is next to be revealed to mankind. This group is constituted of the unselfish and intelligent men and women in every field of human endeavour, of the aspirants and disciples, of the initiates who sound the note for the various groups and types, and of the Occult Hierarchy itself. The influence of this band of mystics and knowers is exceedingly great and the opportunity to work in cooperation with it at this time is easier of attainment than at any other time in racial history.
The first group is unthinking; the two other groups are beginning to think and to employ the laws of thought. It is with the use of thought by the aspirant that I seek to deal. Much about thought will be found in A Treatise on Cosmic Fire [483] , but I intend to give some practical ideas and suggestions which will help the average aspirant to work as he should.
Let us remember first of all that no aspirant, no matter how sincere and devoted, is free from faults. Were he free, he would be an adept. All aspirants are still selfish, still prone to temper and to irritability, still subject to depression and even at times to hatred. Oft that temper and hatred may be aroused by what we call just causes. Injustice on the part of others, cruelty to human beings and to animals, and the hatreds and viciousness of their fellow men do arouse in them corresponding reactions, and cause them much suffering and delay. One thing must ever be remembered. If an aspirant evokes hatred in an associate, if he arouses him to temper, and if he meets with dislike and antagonism, it is because he himself is not entirely harmless; there are still in him the seeds of trouble, for it is a law in nature that we get what we give, and produce reactions in line with our activity be it physical, emotional or mental.
There are certain types of men who do not come under this category. When a man has reached a stage of high initiation, the case is different. The seed ideas he seeks to convey, the work he is empowered to do, the pioneering enterprise he is endeavouring to carry forward, may—and often do—call forth from those who sense not the beauty of his cause and the rightness of the truth he enunciates, a hatred and a fury which causes him much trouble and for which he is not personally responsible. This antagonism comes from the reactionaries and the devotees of the race and it should be remembered that it is largely impersonal even though focussed on him as the representative of an idea. But with these high souls I deal not, but with students of the Ageless Wisdom who are learning not only that they seldom think, but that when they do they are oft thinking [484] wrongly, for they are forced into a thought activity by reactions which have their seat in their lower nature, and are based on selfishness and lack of love.
There are three lessons which every aspirant needs to learn:
First , that every thought-form which he builds is built under the impulse of some emotion or of some desire; in rarer cases it may be built in the light of illumination and embody, therefore, some intuition. But with the majority, the motivating impulse which sweeps the mind-stuff into activity is an emotional one, or a potent desire, either good or bad, either selfish or unselfish.
Secondly , it should be borne in mind that the thoughtform so constructed will either remain in his own aura, or will find its way to a sensed objective. In the first case, it will form part of a dense wall of such thoughtforms which entirely surround him or constitute his mental aura, and will grow in strength as he pays it attention until it is so large that it will shut out reality from him, or it will be so dynamic and potent that he will become the victim of that which he built. The thought-form will be more powerful than its creator, so that he becomes obsessed by his own ideas, and driven by his own creation. In the second case, his thought-form will find its way into the mental aura of another human being, or into some group. You have here the seeds of evil magical work and the imposition of a powerful mind upon a weaker. If it finds its way into some group, analogous impulsive forms (found within the group aura) will coalesce with it, having the same vibratory rate or measure. Then the same thing will take place in the group aura as has taken place within the individual ring-pass-not,—the group will have around it an inhibiting wall of thought-forms, or it will be obsessed by some idea. Here we have the clue to all sectarianism, to all fanaticism, and to some forms of insanity, both group and individual. [485]
Thirdly, the creator of the thought-form (in this case an aspirant) remains responsible. The form remains linked to him by his living purpose and therefore the karma of the results, and the ultimate work of destroying that which he has built must be his. This is true of every embodied idea, the good as well as the bad. The creator of all of them is responsible for the work of his creation. The Master Jesus, for instance, has still to deal with the thought-forms which we call the Christian Church, and has much to do. The Christ and the Buddha have still some consummating work to carry through, though not so much with the forms which embody Their enunciated principles, as with the souls who have evolved through the application of those principles.
With the aspirant, however, who is still learning to think, the problem is different. He is still prone to use thought matter to embody his mistaken apprehension of the real ideas; he is still apt to express his likes and dislikes through the power of thought; he is still inclined to use the mind stuff to make possible his personality desires. To this every sincere aspirant will bear witness.
Much concern is being felt among many of you as to the guarding of thoughts and the protection of formulated ideas. Some thoughts are ideas, clothed in mental matter and keep their habitat on the plane of thought matter. Such are the abstract conceptions and the scarcely sensed facts of the inner occult or mystic life that pass through the mind of the thinker. They are not so difficult to guard, for their vibrations are so high and light that few people have the power to clothe them adequately in mental matter, and those few are so very scarce that the risk of such statements being unwisely promulgated is not very great.
Then there are the communications involved in occult teaching. The circle of those who apprehend them is widening somewhat and these thought-forms frequently [486] take to themselves astral matter from the desire in the heart of the student to verify, corroborate, and share with the group whose knowledge is as vital as his. Sometimes this is possible, and sometimes not. If prohibited what is the method of protection then? Largely a refusing to allow the matter of the astral plane to adhere to the mental thought-form. Fight the matter out on the desire level, and inhibit that type of matter from formulating. Where no desire to speak exists, and where the striving is to prevent the gathering of the material around the nucleus, another thought-form is built up, one that intervenes and protects.
Still another type of thought-form comes forth,—the most prevalent and the one that causes the most trouble. These are the facts of information, the detailed material, the news (if so you like to call it), the basis of what may degenerate into gossip, that concerns either your work, administrative or otherwise, and that which concerns other people. How shall you prevent your mind from transmitting to another facts such as these? These are facts that have their origination in physical plane occurrence, and therein lies the difficulty. The inner facts of the occult life, and those that originate on the mental plane are not so difficult to hide. They do not come your way till your vibrations are keyed high enough for them, and as a rule, when that is so, character of sufficient stability and wisdom goes alongside. But it is not thus with a physical plane fact. What must be done? The other thoughts descend from above; these latter work upwards from the physical plane and are increased in vitality by the knowledge of the many, often of the many unwise. One kind starts nebulously on the mental plane, and only the higher type of mind can formulate it, and clothe it with matter in geometrical precision, and such a mind usually has the wisdom that refuses to clothe it in astral plane matter. Not so with the physical plane fact. It [487] is a vital entity, robed in material of the astral plane and the mental plane when first you meet and contact it. Will you vitalise it, or will you arrest it? Arrest it by a rush and wave of love for the party implicated, that envelops the thought-form and sends it back to the originator, borne on the wings of a surge of astral plane matter, strong enough to sweep through and around, mayhap disintegrating, but most certainly returning it harmlessly to the sender. Perhaps it is an evil piece of information, a lie or item of gossip. Devitalise it by love, break it in pieces by the power of a counter thought-form of peace and harmony.
Or again, it may be true, some sad or evil occurrence or deed of some mistaken brother. What then is there to do? Truth cannot be devitalised or disintegrated. The Law of Absorption will aid you here. Into your heart you absorb the thought-form you encounter and there transmute it by the alchemy of love. Let me be practical and illustrate, for the matter is of importance.
Some brother comes to you and tells to you a fact about another brother—a fact involving what the world would call wrongdoing on that brother’s part. You who know so much more than the average man of the street, will realise that that so called wrongdoing may be but the working out of karma, or have its basis in a good motive wrongly construed. You add not to the talk, you do not hand on the information, as far as you are concerned the thought-form, built around the fact, has wandered into what you call a cul-de-sac.
What do you then? You build a counter stream of thoughts which (on a wave of love) you send your apparently erring brother: thoughts of kindly assistance, of courage and aspiration, and of a wise application of the lessons to be learnt from the deed he has accomplished. Use not force, for strong thinkers must not unduly influence other minds, but a gentle stream of [488] wise transmuting love. We have here three methods, none strictly occult, for those later shall be imparted, but methods available for the many.
1. The thought form kept to the mental levels, i.e. the inhibiting of astral plane matter.
2. The thought-form broken up and disintegrated by a stream of love-force well-directed.
3. The absorbing of the thought-form, and the formulation of a counter-thought of loving wisdom.
Inhibition—Disintegration—Absorption
There are three main penalties which attach to the wrong use of thought substance, and from these the aspirant must learn to save himself, and to avoid those activities; eventually this will make the process of salvation unnecessary.
1. A potent thought-form can act like a boomerang. It can return, charged with increased velocity, to the one who sent it on its mission. A strong hatred, clothed in mental matter, can return to its creator charged with the energy of the hated person, and can hence work havoc in the life of the aspirant. Hate not, for hatred returns ever from whence it came. There is a depth of truth in the ancient aphorism: “Curses, like chickens, come home to roost.”
A potent desire for material acquisition will eventually return bringing inevitably that which has been desired, only to find in the majority of cases that the aspirant no longer aches for possession, but regards it as an incubus, or, in the meantime, already possesses more than he needs and is satiated and knows not what to do with all that he has gained.
A potent thought-form embodying an aspiration for spiritual illumination or for recognition by the Master may bring such a flood of light as to blind the aspirant, and make him consequently the possessor of a wealth of spiritual energy for which he is unready, and which he [489] cannot use. Again, it may attract to the aspirant a thought-form of one of the Great Ones, and thus swing him deeper into the world of illusion and of astralism. Hence the need for humility, for a longing to serve and a resulting self-forgetfulness if one is to build truly and correctly. Such is the law.
2. A thought-form can also act as a poisoning agent, and poison all the springs of life. It may not be potent enough to swing out of its creator’s aura (very few thought-forms are), and find its goal in another aura there to gather strength and so return from whence it came, but it may have a vitality of its own which can devastate the life of the aspirant. A violent dislike, a gnawing worry, a jealousy, a constant anxiety and a longing for something or someone may act so potently as an irritant or poison that the entire life is spoilt, and service is rendered futile. The entire life is embittered and devitalised by the embodied worry, hatred or desire. All relationships with other people are rendered equally futile or even definitely harmful, for the worried or suspicious aspirant spoils the home circle or his group of friends by his inner poisonous attitude, governed by an idea. His relation to his own soul and the strength of the contact with the world of spiritual ideas is at a standstill, for he cannot progress onward and is held back by the poison in his mental system. His vision becomes distorted, his nature corroded, and all his relationships impeded by the wearing, nagging thoughts which he has himself embodied in form and which have a life so powerful that they can poison him. He cannot rid himself of them no matter how hard he tries or how clearly he sees (theoretically) the cause of his trouble. This is one of the commonest forms of difficulty, for it has its seat in the selfish personal life, and is ofttimes so fluidic that it seems to defy direct action.
3. The third danger against which the aspirant must [490] guard himself is becoming obsessed by his own embodied ideas, be they temporarily right or basically wrong. Forget not that all right ideas are temporary in nature and must eventually take their place as partial rights and give place to the greater truth. The fact of the day is seen later as part of a greater fact. A man can have grasped some of the lesser principles of the Ageless Wisdom so clearly and be so convinced of their correctness that the bigger whole is forgotten and he builds a thought-form about the partial truth which he has seen which can prove a limitation and keep him a prisoner and hold him back from progress. He is so sure of his possession of truth that he can see the truth of no one else. He can be so convinced of the reality of His own embodied concept of what the truth may be that he forgets his own brain limitations and that the truth has come to him via his own soul and is consequently coloured by his ray, being subsequently built into form by his personal separative mind. He lives but for that little truth; he can see no other; he forces his thought-form on other people; he becomes the obsessed fanatic and so mentally unbalanced, even if the world regards him as sane.
How shall a man guard himself from these dangers? How shall he rightly build? How shall he preserve that balance which will enable him to see truth, judge rightly, and so preserve his mental contact with his soul and with the souls of his fellow men?
First and foremost, by the constant practice of Harmlessness. This involves harmlessness in speech and also in thought and consequently in action. It is a positive harmlessness, involving constant activity and watchfulness; it is not a negative and fluidic tolerance.
Secondly, by a daily guarding of the doors of thought, and a supervision of the thought life. Certain lines of thought will not be permitted; certain old thought habits will be offset by the institution of constructive creative [491] thinking; certain preconceived ideas (note the esoteric value of that phrase), will be relegated to the background so that the new horizons will be visioned and the new ideas can enter. This will entail a daily, hourly watchfulness, but only until ancient habits have been overcome and the new rhythm established. Then the aspirant will discover that the mind is so focussed on the new spiritual ideas that the old thought-forms will fail to arrest the attention; they will die of inanition. There is encouragement in this thought. The first three years’ work will be the hardest. After that the mind will be engrossed by the ideas and not by the thought-form.
Thirdly, by refusing to live in one’s own thought world and by entering the world of ideas and the stream of human thought currents. The world of ideas is the world of the soul, and of the higher mind. The stream of human thoughts and of opinions is that of the public consciousness and of the lower mind. The aspirant must function free in both worlds. Note this with care. The thought is not that he must function freely, which involves more the idea of facility but that he must function as a free agent in both worlds. Through constant daily meditation he does the first. Through wide reading and sympathetic interest and understanding he accomplishes the second.
Fourthly, he must learn to detach himself from his own thought creations, and leave them free to accomplish the purpose for which he intelligently sent them forth. This fourth process falls into two parts:
1. By the use of a mystic phrase he severs the link which holds an embodied idea in his thought-aura.
2. By detaching his mind from the idea, once he has sent it on its mission, he learns the lesson of the Bhagavad Gita and “works without attachment”.
These two points will vary according to the growth and status of the aspirant. Each has, for himself, to formulate [492] his own “severing phrase”, and each has for himself, alone and unaided, to learn to look away from the three worlds wherein he works in his effort to push his idea of the work to be done. He has to teach himself to withdraw his attention from the thought-form he has built, wherein that idea is embodied, knowing that as he lives as a soul, and as spiritual energy pours through him so his thought-form will express the spiritual idea and accomplish its work. It is held together by the life of the soul, and not by personality desire. The tangible results are ever dependent upon the strength of the spiritual impulse animating his idea, which is embodied in his thought-form. His work lies in the world of ideas and not in physical effects. Automatically the physical aspects will respond to the spiritual impulse.
We come now to the second phase of our study of the final words of Rule XI. We have dealt with salvation from the dangers incident to the creation of thoughtforms by a human being who has learnt, or is learning, to create on the mental plane. Much could have been said from the standpoint of the inability of the majority of students to think with clarity. Clear thinking involves capacity to dissociate oneself, temporarily at least, from all reactions and activities of an emotional nature. As long as the astral body is in a state of restless movement, and its moods and feelings, its desires and emotions are powerful enough to attract attention, positive pure thought processes are not possible. Until the time comes when there is a more general appreciation of the value of concentration and of meditation, and until the nature of the mind and its modifications are more universally understood, any further teaching on the subject would be futile.
In these Instructions I have sought to give an indication [493] of the first steps in esoteric psychology, and have dealt primarily with the nature and mode of training of the astral body. Later on in this century, the psychology of the mind, its nature and modifications may be handled in more detail. But the time is not yet.
Our subject now is salvation from the body nature through the process of death.
Two things must be borne in mind as we seek to study the means of this salvation:
First, by the body nature I mean the integrated personality, or the human equipment of physical body, vital or etheric vehicle, the matter (or mode of being) of the desire nature, and the mind stuff. These constitute the sheaths or outer forms of the incarnated soul. The consciousness aspect is sometimes focussed in one and sometimes in another, or is identified with the form or with the soul. The average man works with facility and self-consciousness in the physical and astral bodies. The intelligent and highly evolved man has added to these two the conscious control of his mental apparatus, though only in certain of its aspects, such as the memorising or analysing faculties. He has also, in some cases, succeeded in unifying these three into a consciously functioning personality. The aspirant is beginning to understand something of the principle of life which is animating the personality, whilst the disciple is utilising all three, because he has coordinated or aligned the soul, the mind, and the brain and is therefore beginning to work with his subjective apparatus or energy aspects.
Secondly, this salvation is brought about through a right understanding of the mystical experience we call death. This is to be our theme, and the subject is so immense that I can only indicate certain lines along which the aspirant may think, and posit certain premises which he can later elaborate. We shall confine ourselves also primarily to the death of the physical body. [494]
Let us first of all define this mysterious process to which all forms are subject and which is frequently only the dreaded end—dreaded because it is not understood. The mind of man is so little developed that fear of the unknown, terror of the unfamiliar, and attachment to form have brought about a situation where one of the most beneficent occurrences in the life cycle of an incarnating Son of God is looked upon as something to be avoided and postponed for as long a time as possible.
Death, if we could but realise it, is one of our most practised activities. We have died many times and shall die again and again. Death is essentially a matter of consciousness. We are conscious one moment on the physical plane, and a moment later we have withdrawn onto another plane and are actively conscious there. Just as long as our consciousness is identified with the form aspect, death will hold for us its ancient terror. Just as soon as we know ourselves to be souls, and find that we are capable of focussing our consciousness or sense of awareness in any form or on any plane at will, or in any direction within the form of God, we shall no longer know death.
Death for the average man is the cataclysmic end, involving the termination of all human relations, the cessation of all physical activity, the severing of all signs of love and of affection, and the passage (unwilling and protesting) into the unknown and the dreaded. It is analogous to leaving a lighted and a warmed room, friendly and familiar, where our loved ones are assembled, and going out into the cold and dark night, alone and terror stricken, hoping for the best and sure of nothing.
But people are apt to forget that every night, in the hours of sleep, we die to the physical plane and are alive and functioning elsewhere. They forget that they have already achieved facility in leaving the physical body; [495] because they cannot as yet bring back into the physical brain consciousness the recollection of that passing out, and of the subsequent interval of active living, they fail to relate death and sleep. Death, after all, is only a longer interval in the life of physical plane functioning; one has only “gone abroad” for a longer period. But the process of daily sleep and the process of occasional dying are identical, with the one difference that in sleep the magnetic thread or current of energy along which the life force streams is preserved intact, and constitutes the path of return to the body. In death, this life thread is broken or snapped. When this has happened, the conscious entity cannot return to the dense physical body and that body lacking the principle of coherence, then disintegrates.
It should be remembered that the purpose and will of the soul, the spiritual determination to be and to do, utilises the thread soul, the sutratma, the life current, as its means of expression in form. This life current differentiates into two currents or two threads when it reaches the body, and is “anchored”, if I might so express it, in two locations in that body. This is symbolic of the differentiations of Atma, or Spirit, into its two reflections, soul and body. The soul, or consciousness aspect, that which makes a human being a rational, thinking entity, is “anchored” by one aspect of this thread soul to a “seat” in the brain, found in the region of the pineal gland. The other aspect of the life which animates every atom of the body and which constitutes the principle of coherence or of integration, finds its way to the heart and is focussed or “anchored” there. From these two points, the spiritual man seeks to control the mechanism. Thus functioning on the physical plane becomes possible, and objective existence becomes a temporary mode of expression. The soul, seated in the brain, makes man an intelligent rational entity, self-conscious and self-directing; [496] he is aware in varying degree of the world in which he lives, according to the point in evolution and the consequent development of the mechanism. That mechanism is triple in expression. There are first of all the nadis and the seven centres of force; then the nervous system in its three divisions: cerebro-spinal, sympathetic, and peripheral; and then there is the endocrine system, which might be regarded as the densest aspect or externalisation of the other two.
The soul, seated in the heart, is the life principle, the principle of self-determination, the central nucleus of positive energy by means of which all the atoms of the body are held in their right place and subordinated to the “will-to-be” of the soul. This principle of life utilises the blood stream as its mode of expression and as its controlling agency, and through the close relation of the endocrine system to the blood stream, we have the two aspects of soul activity brought together in order to make man a living, conscious, functioning entity, governed by the soul, and expressing the purpose of the soul in all the activities of daily living.
Death, therefore, is literally the withdrawal from the heart and from the head of these two streams of energy, producing consequently, complete loss of consciousness and disintegration of the body. Death differs from sleep in that both streams of energy are withdrawn. In sleep only the thread of energy, which is anchored in the brain is withdrawn, and when this happens the man becomes unconscious. By this we mean that his consciousness or sense of awareness is focussed elsewhere. His attention is no longer directed towards things tangible and physical but is turned upon another world of being and becomes centred in another apparatus or mechanism. In death, both the threads are withdrawn or unified in the life thread. Vitality ceases to penetrate through the medium of the blood stream and the heart fails to function [497] just as the brain fails to record, and thus silence settles down. The house is empty. Activity ceases except that amazing and immediate activity which is the prerogative of matter itself and which expresses itself in the process of decomposition. From certain aspects, therefore, that process indicates man’s unity with everything that is material; it demonstrates that he is part of nature itself and by nature we mean the body of the one life in whom “we live and move and have our being”. In those three words—living, moving and being—we have the entire story. Being is awareness, self consciousness and self-expression and of this man’s head and brain are the exoteric symbols. Living is energy, desire in form, coherence and adhesion to an idea and of this the heart and the blood are the exoteric symbols. Moving indicates the integration and response of the existing, aware, living entity into the universal activity, and of this the stomach, pancreas and liver are the symbols.
It is interesting, though incidental to our subject, to bear in mind that in cases of imbecility and idiocy and in that stage of old age which we call senile decay, the thread which is anchored in the brain is withdrawn, whilst that which conveys the life impulse or urge remains still anchored in the heart. There is life but no intelligent awareness; there is movement but no intelligent direction; in the case of senile decay, when there has been a high grade apparatus utilized in life, there may be the appearance of intelligent functioning but that is an illusion due to old habit and to old established rhythm but not to coordinated coherent purpose.
It must be noted also that death is, therefore, undertaken at the direction of the ego, no matter how unaware a human being may be of that direction. The process works automatically with the majority, for when the soul withdraws its attention the inevitable reaction on the physical plane is death, either by the abstraction of the [498] dual threads of life and reason energy, or by the abstraction of the thread of energy which is qualified by mentality, leaving the life stream still functioning through the heart but no intelligent awareness. The soul is engaged elsewhere and occupied on its own plane with its own affairs.
In the case of highly developed human beings we often find a sense of pre-vision as to the death period; this is incident upon egoic contact and awareness of the wishes of the ego. It involves sometimes a knowledge of the very day of death, coupled to a preservation of self-determination up to the final moment of withdrawal. In the case of initiates there is much more than this. There is an intelligent understanding of the laws of abstraction and this enables the one who is making the transition to withdraw consciously and in full waking awareness out of the physical body and so to function on the astral plane. This involves the preservation of continuity of consciousness so that no hiatus occurs between the sense of awareness on the physical plane and that of the after death state. The man knows himself to be as he was before, though without an apparatus whereby he can contact the physical plane. He remains aware of the states of feeling and of the thoughts of those he loves, though he cannot perceive or contact the dense physical vehicle. He can communicate with them on the astral plane or telepathically through the mind if they and he are en rapport, but communication that involves the use of the five physical senses of perception lies necessarily out of his reach. It is useful to remember, however, that astrally and mentally the interplay can be closer and more sensitive than ever before for he is freed of the handicap of the physical body. Two things, however, militate against this interplay: one is the grief and violent emotional upset of those left behind and, in the case of the average human being, the other is the man’s own ignorance [499] and bewilderment as he stands faced by what are to him new conditions, though they are really old conditions, if he could but realize it. Once men have lost the fear of death and have established an understanding of the after-death world which is not based on hallucination and hysteria or on the conclusions (oft unintelligent) of the average medium, who speaks under the control of his own thought-form (built by himself and the circle of sitters), we shall have the process of death properly controlled. The condition of those left behind will be carefully handled so that there is no loss of relationship and no false expenditure of energy.
There is a big difference now between the scientific method of bringing people into incarnation and the perfectly blind and oft frightened and surely ignorant way in which we usher them out of incarnation. I seek today to open the door in the occident to a newer and more scientific method of handling the process of dying, and let me make myself perfectly clear. What I have to say in no way abrogates modern medical science with its palliatives and skill. All I plead for is a sane approach to death; all I seek to make is a suggestion that when pain has worn itself out and weakness has supervened, the dying person be permitted to prepare himself, even if apparently unconscious, for the great transition. Forget not that it takes strength and a strong hold on the nervous apparatus to produce pain. Is it impossible to conceive of a time when the act of dying will be a triumphant finale of life? Is it impossible to vision the time when the hours spent on the death bed may be but a glorious prelude to a conscious exit? When the fact that the man is to discard the handicap of the physical sheath may be for him and those around him the long waited for and joyous consummation? Can you not visualize the time when instead of tears and fear and the refusal to recognize the inevitable, the dying person and [500] his friends would mutually agree on the hour and that nothing but happiness would characterize the passing? That in the minds of those left behind the thought of sorrow will not enter and death beds will be regarded as happier occasions than births and marriages? I tell you, that before so very long this will be deeply so for the intelligent of the race, and little by little for all.
You say there are as yet only beliefs as to immortality and no sure evidences. In the accumulation of testimony, in the inner assurances of the human heart, in the fact of belief in eternal persistence as an idea in the minds of men lies sure indication. But indication will give place to conviction and knowledge before another hundred years has elapsed, for an event will take place and a revelation be given to the race which will turn hope into certainty and belief into knowledge. In the meantime, let a new attitude to death be cultivated and a new science of death be inaugurated. Let it cease to be the one thing we cannot control and which inevitably defeats us and let us begin to control our passing over to the other side, and to understand somewhat the technique of transition.
Before I take up this subject in greater detail I would like to make reference to the “web in the brain”, which is intact for the majority but is non-existent for the illumined seer.
In the human body, as you know, we have an underlying, interpenetrating vital body which is the counterpart of the physical, which is larger than the physical and which we call the etheric body or double. It is an energy body and is composed of force centres and nadis or force threads. These underlie or are the counterparts of the nervous apparatus—the nerves and the nerve ganglia. In two places in the human vital body there are orifices of exit for the life force. One opening is in the solar plexus and the other is in the brain at the top of the head. Protecting [501] both is a closely woven web of etheric matter, composed of interlacing strands of life energy.
During the process of death, the pressure of the life energy beating against the web produces eventually a puncturing or opening. Out of this the life force pours as the potency of the abstracting influence of the soul increases. In the case of animals, of infants and of men and women who are polarized entirely in the physical and astral bodies, the door of exit is the solar plexus and it is that web which is punctured, thus permitting the passing out. In the case of mental types, of the more highly evolved human units, it is the web at the top of the head in the region of the fontanelle which is ruptured, thus again permitting the exit of the thinking rational being.
In psychics and in the case of mediums and lower seers (clairvoyant and clairaudient people) the solar plexus web is permanently ruptured early in life and easily therefore they pass in or out of the body, going into trance, as it is called, and functioning on the astral plane. But for these types there is no continuity of consciousness and there seems no relation between their physical plane existence and the happenings which they relate whilst in trance and of which they usually remain totally unaware in the waking consciousness. The whole performance is below the diaphragm and is related primarily to animal sentient life. In the case of conscious clairvoyance and in the work of the higher psychics and seers there is no trance, obsession or mediumship. It is the web in the brain which is punctured and the opening in that region permits the inflow of light, information and inspiration; it confers also the power to pass into the state of Samadhi which is the spiritual correspondence to the trance condition of the animal nature.
In the process of death these are, therefore, the two main exits: the solar plexus for the astrally polarized, [502] physically biased human being and therefore of the vast majority, and the head centre for the mentally polarized and spiritually oriented human being. This is the first and most important fact to remember and it will easily be seen how the trend of a life tendency and the focus of the life attention determine the mode of exit at death. It can be seen also that an effort to control the astral life and the emotional nature and to orient one’s self to the mental world and to spiritual things has a momentous effect upon the phenomenal aspects of the death process.
If the student is thinking clearly, it will be apparent to him that one exit concerns the spiritual and highly evolved man, whilst the other concerns the low grade human being who has scarcely advanced beyond the animal stage. What then of the average man? A third exit is now in temporary use; just below the apex of the heart another etheric web is found covering an orifice of exit. We have, therefore, the following situation:
1. The exit in the head, used by the intellectual type, by the disciples and initiates of the world.
2. The exit in the heart, used by the kindly, well-meaning man or woman who is a good citizen, an intelligent friend and a philanthropic worker.
3. The exit in the region of the solar plexus, used by the emotional, unintelligent, unthinking man and by those whose animal nature is strong.
This is the first point in the new information which will slowly become common knowledge in the West during the next century. Much of it is already known by thinkers in the East and is in the nature of a first step towards a rational understanding of the death process.
The second point to be grasped is that there can be a technique of dying and a training given during life which will lead up to the utilization of that technique.
As regards the training to which a man can submit himself I will give a few hints which will be found to [503] convey a new meaning to much work now being done by all aspirants. The Elder Brothers of the race who have guided humanity through long centuries, are now busy preparing people for the next great step to be taken. This step will bring in a continuity of consciousness which will do away with all fear of death and link the physical and astral planes in such a close relation that they will in reality constitute one plane. Just as an at-one-ment has to be brought about between the various aspects of man, so a similar unification has to take place in connection with the various aspects of the planetary life. The planes have to be at-one-ed as well as soul and body. This has already been largely accomplished between the etheric plane and the dense physical plane. Now it is being rapidly carried forward between the physical and the astral.
In the work being done by seekers in all departments of human thought and life, this unification is proceeding and in the training now suggested to earnest and sincere aspirants, there are other objectives than just the one of producing soul and body at-one-ment. No emphasis, however, is laid upon them, owing to the ability of man unduly to emphasize the wrong objectives. It might well be asked if it is possible to give a simple set of rules that would be followed now by all who seek to establish such a rhythm that life itself is not only organized and constructive, but when the moment for vacating the outer sheath arrives, there will be no problem nor difficulty. I will, therefore, give you four simple rules that link up with much that all students are now doing:
1. Learn to keep focussed in the head through visualization and meditation and through the steady practice of concentration; develop the capacity to live increasingly as the king seated on the throne between the eyebrows. This is a rule that can be applied to the every day affairs of life. [504]
2. Learn to render heart service and not an emotional insistence on activity directed towards handling the affairs of others. This involves, prior to all such activity, the answering of two questions:—Am I rendering this service to an individual as an individual, or am I rendering it as a member of a group to a group? Is my motive an egoic impulse, or am I prompted by emotion, ambition to shine and love of being loved or admired? These two activities will result in the focussing of the life energies above the diaphragm and so negate the attractive power of the solar plexus. Hence, that centre will become increasingly inactive and there will not be so much danger of puncturing the web in that locality.
3. Learn, as you go to sleep, to withdraw the consciousness to the head. This should be practiced as a definite exercise as one falls to sleep. One should not permit oneself to drift off to sleep, but should endeavor to preserve the consciousness intact until there is a conscious passing out onto the astral plane. Relaxation, close attention, and a steady drawing upwards to the center in the head should be attempted, for until the aspirant has learned to be steadily aware of all processes in going to sleep and to preserve at the same time his positivity, there is danger in this work. The first steps must be taken with intelligence and followed for many years until facility in the work of abstraction is achieved.
4. Record and watch all phenomena connected with the withdrawing process, whether followed in the meditation work or in going to sleep. It will be found, for instance, that many people wake with an almost painful start just as they have dropped asleep. This is due to the slipping out of the consciousness through a web which is not adequately clear and through an orifice which is partially closed. Others may hear an intensely loud snap in the region of the head. This is caused by the vital airs in the head of which we are not usually aware and is produced [505] by an inner aural sensitivity which causes awareness of sounds always present but not usually registered. Others will see light as they fall asleep, or clouds of colour, or banners and streamers of violet, all of which are etheric phenomena. These phenomena which are of no real moment, are all related to the vital body, to pranic emanations, and to the web of light.
The carrying on of this practice and the following of these four rules over a period of years will do much to facilitate the technique of the death bed, for the man who has learned to handle his body as he falls asleep, has an advantage over the man who never pays any attention to the process.
In relation to the technique of dying it is only possible for me at this time to make one or two suggestions. I deal not here with the attitude of the attendant watchers, I deal only with those points which will make for an easier passing over of the transient soul.
First, let there be silence in the chamber. This is, of course, frequently the case. It must be remembered that the dying person may usually be unconscious. This unconsciousness is apparent but not real. In nine hundred cases out of a thousand the brain awareness is there, with a full consciousness of happenings, but there is a complete paralysis of the will to express and complete inability to generate the energy which will indicate aliveness. When silence and understanding rule the sick room, the departing soul can hold possession of its instrument with clarity until the last minute and can make due preparation.
Later, when more anent colour is known, only orange lights will be permitted in the sick room of a dying person, and these will only be installed with due ceremony when there is assuredly no possibility of recovery. Orange aids the focussing in the head, just as red stimulates [506] the solar plexus and green has a definite effect upon the heart and life streams.
Certain types of music will be used when more in connection with sound is understood, but there is no music as yet which will facilitate the work of the soul in abstracting itself from the body, though certain notes on the organ will be found effective. At the exact moment of death, if a person’s own note is sounded, it will coordinate the two streams of energy and eventually rupture the life thread, but the knowledge of this is too dangerous to transmit yet and can only later be given. I would indicate the future and the lines along which future occult study will run.
It will be found also that pressure on certain nerve centers and on certain arteries will facilitate the work. (This science of dying is held in custody, as many students know, in Tibet.) Pressure on the jugular vein and on certain big nerves in the region of the head and on a particular spot in the medulla oblongata will be found helpful and effective. A definite science of death will inevitably later be elaborated, but only when the fact of the soul is recognized and its relation to the body has been scientifically demonstrated.
Mantric phrases will also be employed and definitely built into the consciousness of the dying person by those around him, or employed deliberately and mentally by himself. The Christ demonstrated their use when he cried aloud, “Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.” And we have another instance in the words, “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace.” The steady use of the Sacred Word chanted in an undertone or on a particular key (to which the dying man will be found to respond) may later constitute also a part of the ritual of transition accompanied by the anointing with oil, as preserved in the Catholic Church. Extreme unction has an occult, scientific basis. The top of the [507] head of the dying man should also symbolically point towards the East and the feet and the hands should be crossed. Sandalwood only should be burned in the room and no incense of any other kind permitted, for sandalwood is the incense of the first or destroyer ray and the soul is in process of destroying its habitation.
This is all I can at this time communicate on the subject of death for the consideration of the general public. But I conjure all of you to push the study of death and its technique as far as possible and to carry forward occult investigation of this matter.