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Psycho-synthesis, the healthy integration of individuals and societies giving expression to their best potentialities, can only be achieved through the effective deployment of the total assets, not merely the economic assets, of the individual or society in question.
PHILOSOPHICAL RADICALISM
“When the sun progresses into the mansion of the serving man, the way of life takes the place of the way of work. Then the tree of life grows until its branches shelter all the sons of men. The building of the Temple and the carrying of the stones cease. The growing trees are seen; the buildings disappear. Let the sun pass into its appointed place, and in this day and generation attend ye to the roots of growth.”*
The significance of these lines is that man cannot succeed in the great work of life without going to the roots of his own nature. Only thus can he become potent, creative and successful in his endeavors. Attending to “the roots of growth” implies: 1) emphasis on the power of thought to determine destiny; 2) understanding and communication of the essential pattern and direction of healthy growth; and 3) recognition that the sowing will inevitably produce results through a gathering momentum. The very depth and scope of what is sought and envisioned precludes haste or the naive expectation that all that we seek can be brought forth quickly or even, in some cases, in our own lifetimes. This is the true philosophical radicalism. The “building of the Temple” refers to the external way of work, which often seems to be little more than slavery. This is the way of work for man in an alienated state, unaware of his true nature as a divine being, and unable to grasp the source of his empowerment.
He is not empowered by building his muscles at the gym but by building the power of his mind in touch with his soul. Through the illumined mind he can acquire an irresistible will rooted in pure purpose.
This is not the “will” of the egocentric man who confuses his petty personal desires with the purpose of his soul. That is something else entirely, quite common.
Intelligent, creative empowerment is achieved through an abstraction from the superficial and self-defeating behavior of the external man, acting without illumination or real focus. Centered in the soul and cognizant of true purpose, one can act effectively.
What is true individually is true socially. Societies and nations may be governed by an external pattern, based on the alienation of the individuals who compose them, and who therefore contribute diminished qualities and forces to the whole; or they may be based on a more ideal pattern, if those who constitute them attend to “the roots of growth.”
__________
* A Treatise on White Magic, 426, A. A. Bailey.
INTROVERSION AND EXTROVERSION
The introverted cycle begins typically with a vision quest or search for transcendent values; the extroverted cycle begins typically with acceptance of pre-established values.
Ideally, these are cycles of experience and not fixed modes of being. As modes of being, both introversion and extroversion suggest rigidity and fundamental limitation.
The introvert manifests the attraction of higher values, which may be weakening, at least temporarily, from the perspective of external performance. The extrovert, beginning with what is already established, has the opportunity to build on it, as seen in the current cycle of intense economic emphasis, concrete science and technological organization. These defining characteristics of mainstream society are also evidence of its half-brain character, since the devaluation of the inner search is the sign of a closed "mind" and of a cycle of decadence.
The instrumentality of science is based on a prior purpose. The realization of an adequate purpose is the proper theme of the subjective, introverted cycle. When this inner realization is deficient, the result is an extroverted cycle that empowers the essential ignorance of the destitute materialist. The ideal of the whole man is the rhythmic life in which the inward or mystic search is succeeded by the creative life of participatory expression. Both sides of the brain must be employed to avoid the extremes of one-sidedness.
THE CONTEMPORARY BATTLEGROUND
If we follow exclusively the mystic or introverted path, we develop a counter-culture philosophy based on the elimination of the unnecessary and self-defeating formulas that arise out of the materialistic paradigm.
Consider, for example, the contemporary health care system and the military industrial complex. In the mind of the mystic both appear as symptoms of a diseased condition. If people lived more simply and normally and cultivated a more spiritual fortitude, sicknesses would disappear and become increasingly infrequent. There would be no need for a vast expensive health care system. If people cultivated spiritual virtues, they would eventually be able to do without the vast expensive apparatus of "defense" and warfare. They would be civilized and free.
Although it is possible to imagine such a culture operative and effective for a minority, it is not possible to conceive of such a world-wide change at this time. It is too far-reaching or utopian. At best one can consider the possible amelioration of the present situation and the long term prospect that with better education humanity as a whole can move toward greater freedom and a more wholesome life style.
On the other hand, there are already many signs that the lower manasic path is being continually re-enforced. These include the growth of the business ideology, the proliferation of arms, and the use of new technologies and police-state methods for the reduction and control of humanity.
The battleground between progress and retrogression is between the two extremes. The mystics cannot have a separate paradise, for there is no longer any place sufficiently isolated to serve as a new Shangri-La; they have to participate in the social world with the rest of the human race. The materialists have to wise up, or be woken up, before they destroy the world with their excesses.
EQUILIBRIUM
Equilibrium is the quality most needed for the present, but the balances sway heavily to one side.
If we consider the ways in which economic and military power, scientific research, technology and bureaucracy form a single nexus, it will explain the feeling of disenfranchisement of the average voter. Many of the research projects are covert and are pointed toward warfare of one kind or another. We say warfare and not defense, for the aggressive bias of these projects in seen in the willingness to use the general population as guinea pigs for non-consensual human experimentation, and in the aggressive use of some of the newer technologies, such as RNM (Remote Neural Monitoring) for criminal purposes domestically.
If researchers want funding dollars, they have to submit to the protocols and secrecy required for "defense" contracts, making them whores, essentially. In the absence of transparency, there is a growing "truth" problem and loss of public confidence. At the root is the "intelligence" problem, which consists in a bias toward power and aggrandizement, and away from candor and justice.
Anyone who seeks to discover the quality of life is forced to separate from the mainstream world. There are no dollars for a Department of Peace. Finally, if one perseveres and realizes success on this mystic or subjective path (through an individual illumination), one is confronted with the larger problem of global disorder. Is there sufficient public receptivity to begin to tip the balance back toward sanity?
TWO PATHS
Given the current trends, two major possibilities exist. One is for the elaboration of the systems already in place for minority control of the global world order. This path leads toward the police state. This is not likely to be a global order run by the UN, as some fear, but rather a system which preserves minority privilege within each of the major powers (which today are more and more alike), with minor powers subject to the usual subordination. The key to such a system is the suppression of the aspirations of the majority, through the various developed and developing control mechanisms, which include deception and lack of transparency in government, facilitated by the latest covert electromagnetic technologies. Since tensions between individual nations provide camouflage for the basic systematic inequality, they have their use from the point of view of those who would rule in such a world.
The other path is for democratization and reduction of the gross disparity between Haves and Have-nots. This path will require increasing transparency in government and a great reduction in the sphere of covert operations. The political object would be the development of the economic and social life in such a way as to benefit the vast majority, while protecting human rights and the normal rights of minorities. Capitalist incentives would be mixed with socialistic concerns in a manner conducive to the fostering of a healthy society.
THE CRISIS OF LEADERSHIP
The charm exercised by past events is largely a function of the contemplative experience and has little to do with the original remembered events and experiences. We are above and beyond the happenings and can view them with perspective and enjoyment. Similarly, when we look forward and imagine the bright future that we would work toward, although we are apt to imagine that our happiness lies in these future attainments, in fact it belongs more to the power of creative projection in the present.
These are the time-related expressions of the contemplative freedom. In them there is often an element of illusion, what we call nostalgia when looking at the past, and what, in relation to the future, resembles the meretricious aspect of advertisement. We deceive ourselves that if we get A, we will be happy, and so we have an incentive that gets us going.
Up to a point these illusions are useful, since we are able to learn more through intentional activity and the experiences resulting therefrom than we would from just sitting around and sucking our thumbs. But at a certain point we become more skeptical and we begin to ask questions that would penetrate more deeply the mystery of life.
Thus the stage of worldly activity and ambition is naturally succeeded by an intellectual stage. One becomes an artist or a thinker, a scientist or a teacher, or a yogi. Perhaps the jnana yogi or philosopher epitomizes this stage with its subjective emphasis, over and above the external worldly involvement.
But the withdrawal from the world, in the manner of the mystic or the professor on sabbatical, is itself just another limited stage on the evolutionary journey. The quality of inner freedom may be realized in varying degrees. The ultimate expression may be Buddhahood. But at whatever degree this freedom is realized, it only acquires significance as it leads one from the individual life, with its inherently separative emphasis, to the social life or life of participation in the world creative process.
All the stages of experience of individual life are also expressed by humanity as a whole, by nations and by groups of people, families and communities. One who has gone further has the responsibility to take on some of the burden for these larger social bodies. In its simplest and most natural expression, this is the role played by every parent in relation to the family. But the same principle is not limited to this natural and virtually instinctive expression.
The thinker who has gone beyond the merely deconstructive aspect of the intellect to understand his own soul, can also understand the soul of the world and begin to participate in the creative process as it relates to the evolution of the world. This is the natural role for mankind as it enters the state of maturity. As it was expressed by Christ, “I and my Father are one.” The yogi is no longer identified merely with himself, or even with his own spirit (Atman), he is identified with the larger whole within which that spirit has its context. If we can imagine a growing number of human beings following this evolutionary trajectory, we can anticipate a bright future for the world. From a tiny group of enlightened Masters to an ever growing body at the heart of humanity, this group represents the hope of the world.
It is obvious that Mankind today is experiencing a crisis of leadership. The leaders who represent the status quo are under fire. Their inadequacy is apparent. But the alternative is not yet clear.
The need is for a whole new paradigm, a better and simpler approach to life that answers the basic needs of the race, while stimulating those higher developments that are latent within all. While this implies a fairly radical change, it is not the radicalism of politics so much as it is the radicalism of a spiritual change of life, a new way of thinking and a shifting of values.
CAPITALISM
The appeal of capitalism has been its association with individual freedom and the maximum development and utilization of resources.
The problem is that the capitalist idea is limited by the materialism of those who apply it. As a purely economic idea, capitalism is the means of building an ever-widening disparity, leading to the inevitable explosions of war and terrorism. This process begins with the war against the poor: the exploitation of the weaker and more disadvantaged players in the economic game by those with the more advantageous position. Fair competition does not exist and has never existed.
This is why the rich get richer. The game is rigged to insure that this is the case. Their increasing prosperity in recent decades has nothing to do with their hard work or their contribution to society. If it did, and if the lot of the poor were simultaneously improving, few would begrudge the wealthy their luxuries. But it does not.
There are three great cosmic laws, of which the Law of Economy is the least important of the three, intrinsically. That it is commonly treated as if it were the most important reflects on the mental state and low level of consciousness of the average thinker. The two higher laws, the Law of Attraction and the Law of Synthesis, must play a greater role in the thinking that is at the root of our man-made laws, institutions and social formulas, if we are to avoid the destructive consequences toward which our blind addiction to market forces is leading us.
The Law of Attraction, in particular, can play a healing role at the present time, by inviting us to give greater emphasis to those apparently “non-economic” activities which can ameliorate the worst of our world problems, none of which can be solved by that headless horseman, the “free” Market.
A spiritual capitalism would not be limited by the Law of Economy. Spiritual capitalism is the maximum development and utilization of the innate resources of the individual, the group and of humanity as a whole. These resources are not only the material resources commonly recognized and convertible into dollars. They include all the assets which human beings employ in their efforts to improve their own lives, the lives of those attached to them, and the state of the world as they find it.
If we expand our thinking to accommodate this premise, we will begin to find solutions to problems that have seemed intractable so long as they were approached from within the faulty paradigm of a materialistic capitalism.
Sharing and group progress are the keynotes of the future. Sharing does not impede the highest expression of individuality and individualism, but it is found that the individual finds his consummation in the service of the group, and that the group, which is but a macro-individual, finds its consummation likewise in the service of the greater Whole.
UPWARD MOBILITY
Upward mobility, the result of aspiration, can be expressed in many different spheres. It can lead to the acquisition of virtue or knowledge or money. But always the basis is negative; a sense of what is lacking. A man who feels the limitation of poverty strives to acquire wealth. A man who feels the limitation of ignorance strives to acquire knowledge. A man who feels weak, either physically or morally, endeavors to overcome this basic weakness. All seek to emerge out of the matrix of privation or limitation. This matrix is related to the fundamental human experience, the existential basis of our aspirations. An aspiration is defined dualistically according to the various interpretations of the basic limitation, and thus a path begins to emerge, as one follows a self-defined discipline in pursuit of one's object.
If evolution is a never-ending story, we will always be aware of limitations, no matter how much virtue, knowledge or wealth we acquire. If it were to define ourselves exclusively in these terms, we would find ourselves on a never-ending treadmill. In fact, after one acquires knowledge, one has an opportunity to put it to use, to share it or apply it. Virtues are demonstrated in life. Wealth, too, has greater value when it is put to use. This is true whether one thinks capitalistically or philanthropically. I may not have all the knowledge in the world, but if I have more than the majority of people, I may realize the possibility of being a teacher. I may not have all the gold in the world, but if I have abundance relative to my fellow human beings, I may become one of the providers of life and opportunity for those who are not so prosperous.
This factor of utilization, as distinct from acquisition, is realized because we are social beings. It is an expression of relationship. As we belong to human society, we feel the need to contribute something to the larger good.
MAN THE MACHINE
We can respond to an event with the active creative intelligence, or we can react as a billiards ball reacts to a collision. Reaction brings nothing new into play; automatic action and reaction define man the machine; man, when he is functioning in a subhuman manner.
Automatic actions are the outcome of a programming done in the past, in past lives, in the past of this life, or by past generations and transmitted through culture and education. These actions express the past but not the future.
The active creative intelligence expresses the future because that is our intent. When we have this intent we have the opportunity to “pass over” the futility of automatism. We can permit or arrest automatic behavior, according to what seems desirable in the present.
SHARING
Dynamic energy is always related to a form of duality. A man becomes wealthy becomes he values wealth and works for it. He dedicates himself to its acquisition. This means holding in mind at all times the contrast between wealth and poverty, or between the means of acquiring wealth and the means of wasting time.
This framework may be useful up to a point, but beyond that point it becomes obsessive. What is the point? What does the acquisition tend toward? What is being built? Questions must be answered other than the basic one: How do I get my hands on the gold? As long as one remains limited by such a thought pattern, he is not truly wealthy. For he has the consciousness of a man who is poor in spirit.
The poor think about the acquisition of wealth. The wealthy think about distribution. This is more liberal. The meaning of the word “liberal” is related to the word “liberty”. It implies that one has achieved at least a relative freedom from the control of poverty and small-mindedness, and that, consequently, one can think in terms of facilitating the liberation of others from these same limitations.
If the poor stand to benefit by a more liberal attitude on the part of the wealthy, the wealthy also stand to benefit, through a release from the poverty consciousness of the miser. This is synergy and the good of the whole planet.
The term “wealth” here refers to all forms of wealth, not merely financial wealth. If the wealthy do not make adequate use of their wealth, if they hoard it or squander it on trifles and vanities, their wealth loses its value. As it becomes less, so do they, the possessors, become less. This is evolution backwards, the decline of the spirit, in contrast to the more abundant life.
Synergy makes it possible for everyone to be a winner, in place of the competition in which everyone is a loser, the poor first of all and obviously, but the rich no less so. For the sake of the realization of this synergy and more abundant life, the exponents of the culture of freedom are active to remove the obstacles. As the dispelling radiance of the healer removes the conditions that manifest as disease, the education or illumination of mankind frees the race from the burden of the darkness which gives rise to the rat race of the competitive ethos. The wealth of the race can be easily enhanced through cooperation, and without overburdening any one group. But until the shift in values and the illumination of minds and hearts makes possible a healthy circulation, we must expect, as the consequence of diseased conditions and their persisting causes, the continuation of the calamities that mark the march of ignorance. These will include terrorism, even as terrorism is built into the way of life that is under attack.
Most evident in the fact of corporate alienation is the absence of true values or heart quality. “Convenience” is substituted for the quality of life, even as the advertisement is substituted for the truth. We are “efficient” in the pursuit of purposes which are not well thought out. This is our national and global intelligence problem.
We are not philosophical. This does not mean, however, that we are practical. Practicality has meaning only in relation to a true purpose.
One can hardly expect the corporations to lead the way when it comes to the culture of freedom. This can only come from those who are free. But it is not about blaming the corporations. People themselves have accepted the values of death over life, of competition for possessions over a more healthy lifestyle, and they have to unlearn their bad habits if they would reduce the power of the corporations and increase the power of human beings.
SPIRITUAL CAPITALISM
The sharing of energy has primarily a spiritual significance, but this encompasses the entire material reality of our planet. The spiritual life is not something aloof from “reality” as some people seem to think. This view has been fostered by the erroneous doctrines of certain religious sects, as well as by frank atheists and materialists, but they merely express the “split personality” view of life. It is therefore appropriate to consider the economic implications of these ideas and relationships, especially today when “the Economy” is the theme of universal consideration. We are not, after all, interested in creating split personalities but whole people.
The economic expression of the split personality, viewing this phenomenon in its planetary aspect, and in relation to humanity as a whole, is the presence of great wealth and poverty side by side. Some accumulate and hoard the material necessities of life, focusing their attention on luxuries; others are left homeless and on the brink of starvation; an appalling situation and an offense against common sense, among other things.
There is little justification for this state of affairs, apart from the rationalizations of the spiritually destitute. It is based on the working out of the values that have been commonly held for many generations and is the crystallization of those values. The situation is not therefore the exclusive fault of a small group. Rather, it is the universal responsible of all right thinking people to rectify.
The solution to the problem is simple, fundamentally. It is to promote a new ethos and new values, giving a greater emphasis to the sharing of the existing wealth in all its forms. There are many ways in which this may be approached, giving full scope to the freedom of an evolving humankind.
When all human beings have adequate food and access to the basic necessities of life, things taken for granted by the affluent, this will be the success and happiness of all, and for the affluent above all, for they will have therefore demonstrated their right to possess and administer the distribution of these goods. That right is today in doubt; the blindness of the ruling classes and of the possessors that is the main source of both the revulsion directed against the affluent, and of the will to overthrow the existing order of things.
From the angle of the creative process, possession of resources is akin to the existence of a potentiality. As a potentiality must be realized, so must the possessor learn to make the best use of the resources at his disposal. This involves a spiritual approach to the Law of Economy. By “possessions” we refer not only to money or obvious material wealth, we mean also the knowledge, qualities or capacities that one may have. Even good health or good genes may be considered possessions. To take pride in these things is vanity, but to put them to use is to enhance their value. This may be termed spiritual capitalism. The sharing or correct distribution of resources makes wealth a universal boon, while miserly hoarding turns it into source of friction and planetary disease.
THE MATRIX
Progress and attainment are always defined relative to a given matrix. The matrix itself may be eventually transcended. In the light of this relativity we cannot recognize any permanent or absolute goals.
A transcendent power brought into relation with a matrix of limitation demonstrates itself by first experiencing and then overcoming all limitations. The realization of this power is at the heart of the human drama. The power itself is ultimately more important than the transient enterprises through which it is realized. But even this realization is essentially temporal, for it is is possible only within a given matrix of experience (human life on planet Earth during a particular time cycle).
Not only identification with any particular limitation, but also identification with any particular attainment is diminishing, even if natural. Each attainment is connected by an invisible thread to the experience of limitation that provides the goad that leads to the overcoming of the limitation. The need for a goad is itself a limitation, suitable for the natural man, but not for the spiritual man.
LIBERATION FROM THE MATRIX
As human life begins, the preoccupation is with the physical world and not with the perceiver. There is no initial realization of the fact that “the world” is always and only a sum of our perceptions.
We are “in the world” and aware of ourselves as being in the world, but “we” are identified with the physical body. Even the mind we tend to locate “in” the body, believing it to be identical with the brain.
Our concerns are related to survival. The type of intelligence that is conducive to physical survival is valued, while any other type is viewed with suspicion as something useless or perhaps even dangerously distracting.
Only much later on in the game do the basic facts of perception and consciousness attract our attention, and when this occurs, we realize that this inner consciousness is actually our greatest treasure.
If we have taken the trouble to survive and perpetuate ourselves, it is only to make possible this “secondary” realization. The secondary is the sphere of quality. The primary realization is only the rind, the framework, the material foundation, like the launching pad for a rocket. The launching pad is essential, but once the rocket has taken off, all eyes are on the rocket. Only the clean-up crew is concerned with the sad state of the launching pad.
THE SPIRAL OF PROGRESSIVE REALIZATION
The familiar “wheel of re-birth” with its duality of the soul incarnate and discarnate emphasizes the great cycle as it relates to incarnating souls. The image of the wheel emphasizes repetition; in the earlier stages of this cyclic manifestation, the degree of consciousness of humanity is too slight to make evident the spiral of progressive realization. The image of the spiral implies that there is a new direction, perpendicular to the plane of the circle.
The goal of human life becomes increasingly clear, and the purpose of incarnation begins to bear fruit. We speak here of the soul's purpose and not the illusory objectives and values of the transient personalities, which are washed away like houses of sand on the beach.
The duality is defined by the two poles: the discarnate soul and the body. The body introduces us to the principle of limitation, the soul to the principle of expansion, and a rhythm begins to develop which expresses the principle of periodic manifestation. This is not simply a repetition but the gradual introduction of the quality of the soul to the world through the vehicle of the human person.
As an individual becomes soul infused he has a positive influence on the group with which he is associated. The effects of this influence accumulate over time, and increasing numbers of human beings, like the dormant brain cells of the planetary brain, gradually awaken. This awakening of the human race as a whole has secondary effects on all the kingdoms of nature.
The goal of the planetary Logos, which is to make the Earth a sacred planet, draws closer to fruition.
Because we are in the midst of the larger goals, we can understand them only dimly. Not the ultimate goals, but the intermediate goals, become clear.
This sense of intermediacy is related to our lives being defined by the two poles, the soul and the body.
As long as we have an objective, we are poised between “attainment” and “non-attainment” or between limitation and that which signifies, for the time being, expansion or liberation. The nature of our experience is defined by the rhythm that develops as we struggle against limitation or move toward our idea of fulfillment. Temporarily, the negative pole may loom larger in consciousness, or it may be that the attractive, positive pole looms larger. They are two sides of one coin.
Once we have achieved a goal or overcome some limitation, both the goal and the limitation cease to preoccupy us. In effect, they lose their significance and become as nothing. We are then ready for a new goal, or, in the manner of “the mega-gripe” of psychologist Abraham Maslow, we become aware of a new limitation or problem. It can thus be seen that the true nature of the evolving being is not to be defined statically according to a temporary matrix (as defined by a temporary goal or perceived limitation). The weakness of the materialistic ambition is that it corresponds to the temporary matrix or condition, and not to the spiritual essence of the soul.
PATTERNS OF PROGRESSIVE REALIZATION
Energy, time and wealth have a close synchrony. Everyone who lives has a degree of access to the cosmic energy, the greatest wealth and source of wealth. In time the degree of this access can be intensified. As the energy is tapped, it is employed for various purposes, and in this way a man learns to become a creator.
He learns to achieve his ends as he learns to pursue the most useful ends. This is a dual learning, subjective and objective. The first learning leads to the kindling of the inner flame, the essential man. The second is the objective correlation of works, the full manifestation of mastery, so far as this is cyclically achievable. These two types of learning correspond to cycles of introversion and extroversion and their fusion in the rhythmic life of the whole man.
We speak of “man” as mind, the major agency of the true being, the spirit, soul or “life” within the organic physical body.
In this work the terms “man” and “mankind” refer to both men and women, in the old way of formal English. When issues of sex are referred to, we can speak of men and women or males and females. Otherwise it is simply too awkward to be continually reminding the reader that there are two sexes. The etymology of “man” is manas or mind, and the etymology of “woman” allows her to be endowed with a womb as well as a mind.
MEMORY AND TRANSFIGURATION
Memory can be compulsive and negative, a helpless reliving of experiences, without profit. But it can also be constructive. A negative experience can be informative if it is considered dispassionately and with detachment. While an event may be long past, the root values, motives and identifications underlying it may persist. Considering these things, the will is clarified in such a way as to expedite progress. The remembered past and the visioned future are set side by side like a painting with two panels.
There is power in this dual realization if it can be held steadily. Duality as commonly experienced is of a different order: it is a story of self-undoing, broken promises, reversed expectations, and disillusionment. This is because soul and body (personality), or essence and appearance, are mutually contradictory.
Eventually the soul must impose its will on the body. But as long as one is identified with the body and not the soul, one is inclined to rebel. The soul is then like an “other.” This is a reversal of the true perspective.
Through the positive use of memory, the worst experience can become a stimulus for the realization of the most positive will. Thus there is nothing to regret, and no shame to carry like a long, heavy tail. This is made possible through identification with the soul (which is for giving) and a corresponding detachment from the body (personality).
Attaining this positivity and pure will denotes emergence from the matrix of limitation and suffering. This is the essence of mastery; however, from the angle of the appearance or extroverted manifestation, it is only the seed of the complete realization, and the beginning of a secondary sequence that leads through an extensive period of trial and probation, to the fully manifested mastery (so far as this is attainable in any given cycle).
The attainment of the positive will is bliss. This is the success of the mystic. From the angle of feeling, this is the ultimate realization, and many who come to it believe they have reached the end of the path. They mistake the seed for the fruit. Nevertheless, it is an important milestone.
THE ANIMAL REALM
In the relation between humanity and the animal kingdom there is first of all the human need to achieve a detachment from the animal nature; detachment and control are the story; plus, in the undertow, regret and nostalgia for the original, natural life, and the rebellious desire of the horse to unseat the rider and run wild.
While humanity has to yet to deal adequately with the animal side of human nature, the relation to the animal kingdom is correspondingly troubled. Either man is the prey of animal, or the animal is the prey of man. There is cruelty and danger; or, on the other hand, and in relation to the domestic animals; absurd sentimentality.
Later, when the spiritual side of human nature is stronger, and the mind is better developed, the role of humanity in relation to the animal kingdom becomes increasingly purposeful, and humanity (the fourth kingdom) becomes initiator of the third, the animal kingdom.
MAN, THE INITIATOR
Humanity has its material root in the animal kingdom, the 3rd kingdom; while it is spiritually allied with the 5th. The 4th kingdom is a bridging kingdom between the 3rd and the 5th. During the earlier stage of human evolution, the material kinship is stronger. During the later period, the spiritual kinship with the higher 5th kingdom waxes in power and ultimately dominates. The 3rd, 4th and 5th initiations mark this solar or spiritual domination, this emergence from the cradle of material life.
Just as parenthood changes one's perspective, so for humanity in its maturity, the relation to the animal kingdom must assume a more positive and initiatory character. The animals that draw close to mankind are the humanity of a distant tomorrow. The positive relation of man to animal is a step toward the next phase of individualization, in which the present humanity will play a positive role. The assumption of this positive role creates a complete circle, between the dawn and the consummation of humanity.
We recognize the characteristics, high and low, of humanity; of the higher man, as well as the basic or primitive man. We find that man begins his career in self-seeking struggle and finishes with serene service. This service is extended first to humanity itself, but secondly, inevitably, to the kingdom next in order. The 3rd, 4th and 5th kingdoms are inter-related. This leads to the universal life of a pan-humanity, extending forward into the superhuman and and backward into the subhuman kingdoms, until the entire planetary life stands revealed.
What increasingly attracts and holds the interest is the sacred Earth toward which the planet is evolving. The will and expertise of the liberated soul is freely given and incorporated in this ongoing or perpetual service of life. By increments, and according to a definite plan, all life on Earth is carried toward perfection.
One aspect of this plan is the future individualization of the 3rd kingdom, which will be facilitated by the intelligent participation of humanity, the 4th kingdom, even as the 4th kingdom prepares for transference to the 5th. From the planetary perspective, it is a fulfillment of all three spheres, for the 5th will also advance, and demonstrate thereby the continuity of the divine adventure. The perfected relation between the three kingdoms has its individual correspondence in the synthesis of instinct, intellect and intuition which we call Illumination.
The problem of instinct and intellect has been long considered. It is the theme of Freud's famous work Civilization and Its Discontents. The problem of intellect and intuition is receiving attention today, so that tomorrow, it may be hoped, the meaning of Illumination will become clear. Then the fanatical upward mobility of striving humanity, expressive of the underlying dissatisfaction of the limited nature, will be superseded by the serene service of the ruling soul.
This will enable mankind to put an end to the cruder errors and lay the foundation for better things to come. A more adequate and wholesome understanding of the evolutionary process will supersede the current cycle of intense individualism, with its material, economic emphasis.
Problems will be solved more simply and easily because there will be a willingness to make use of the available light for their solution. Mankind will be coming into its true heritage.
Upward mobility, as we understand it today, is an advance over and above the inert character of the ignorant, but it is based on a self-centered and myopic interpretation of advantages to be gained (for oneself or one's own small group, usually). This perspective, which is rooted in illusion, does not foster either the fulfillment of the individual or the desired social harmony; it manifests as destructive competition. As ideology it is a fuel for rampant selfishness.
The great stability of the Masters is based on the fact that they are concerned with the evolution of the Whole. They see the picture whole and respond to life without illusions; and they are not preoccupied with individual evolution or advantages. They emphasize the service of life through which the soul manifests an innate mastery that expands into identification with the divine purpose. The 5th kingdom presents the 4th with the image of its own positive future. The Masters present the teaching that offers humanity the best path forward. It is not only the teaching for the elite of the race; it is for the best (the elite) in everyone.
The same divine life that finds expression in the Masters of Wisdom is latent and hidden in humanity; the same, too, is in the animal kingdom, still more deeply latent, and awaiting the touch from above.
DISCIPLINE
When we entertain the highest goals, we inevitably place a strain upon ourselves. We are, as it were, dividing ourselves by an act of fission, and the chosen goal, as the measure of the desired future, brings to light all of the antithetical characteristics within our own nature. These have been accumulated in the course of many lifetimes, and are not, therefore, easily set aside.
This dualism is the framework of any discipline. Although we would be, we are not yet. Such a discipline may be more or less appropriate or healthy. An appropriate discipline implies that the goal is well chosen, and that the discipline imposed upon the nature is reasonable. Such a discipline is also self-imposed. If it is imposed from without, it is called slavery; or, more benignly, it is parental.
The discipline imposed upon a child or an animal is not to be compared to the self-discipline of a mature human being. The discipline of the workplace is a mixture of mature self-discipline and external types of discipline. Work is often akin to slavery; the worker may likewise be treated like an animal or a child. Only in the best circumstances do we find the flourishing of mature self-discipline, without which the higher achievements are not possible.
The pressures of life exist to make man more than what he already is. He is not finished. He cannot rest or find satisfaction in the half-baked and incomplete forms of life that are common today. He is pushed, prodded, forced to become more and better than this. His complaints are useless.
In this situation there are many pointing fingers. Few are satisfied with their neighbors. When the fingers point within, then something may be achieved.
Nietzsche said it: “Man is a bridge to the superman.”
Many dream of an earthly paradise. But this dream scarcely differs from a longing for death. In the earthly paradise all troubles have been vanquished. But the mastery entailed in the learning whereby all troubles are vanquished is a thousand times more important than the goal achieved. The goal itself, the paradise, when we have it in hand, is nothing. We will kick it over like a sand castle.
What is wrong in man today is first of all his psychology. Even his aspirations are oft putrid evidence of the decay of his mind. As materialism destroys his spirit, he complains that life is not as he would wish it. His neighbors are not fit to occupy the same world with him. But who is this prince, so quick to find fault around him?
Discipline begins with a ray of light, of self-exposure. It is a hard first lesson, but grasped truly, the beginning of great things. For this exposure is not for condemnation but replacement of the outworn with that which is new; it initiates transformation, and heralds the fresh flower of real life.
COMPETITION VS. PERSONAL BEST
Competition is rooted in the primitive world of survival and privation. In relation to the higher man it has no positive value. The positive essence of competitiveness is transmuted into the personal best effort. This concept of a personal best naturally implies duality; it therefore emphasizes the battle with oneself.
External competitiveness expresses the primitive nature. The battle with oneself uplifts the primitive nature and brings it into the sphere of the soul.
SOUL LOVE
Often when a person goes out of our life in the external or existential sense, we acquire the ability to see that person as a star, that is, inwardly and essentially. No longer pre-occupied with the foreground detail of life, with transient desires and complaints, we can appreciate the essential being of the person who has gone, but who yet remains with us, and even more firmly, it would seem, since the connection does not depend so completely on contingencies.
The love of the soul affirms the eternal underlying the transient, the patterns of stability resilient amidst the buffeting of the winds of change. This wisdom is the seed of mastery since it informs us with respect to the essential qualities of life. The manifestation of those qualities in the outer world is our main business.
When the transient and petty issues become tiresome or burdensome, we take refuge in the soul and find joy in the simplicity of a mystic affirmation. Here too is the fountainhead of that generosity, goodwill or shining benevolence, without which it would be impossible to build anything of the slightest significance.
IN THE WORLD BUT NOT OF IT
Latent power is infinite. Active power is the response to this infinite potential within the finite; it is the keynote of evolution.
The evolution of the finite takes place in measured increments. A bright future may be built step by step, but always a necessary sequence is followed. The goal is related to the starting point. The path to achievement may entail diverse processes, all involving the investment of energy, the continuity of the requisite effort, and the specialized learning relating to different stages or aspects of the realization.
The one who is wholly given to the latent power is the mystic. The mystic absorption is a useful realization for those who have been lost in the world, but it is only a step toward a higher goal. When the mystical liberation is mistaken for the highest goal, this is an illusion. It may also be an indication of mental inertia, and the shirking of an active participation in the divine creative process, having its roots in a spiritual immaturity.
It is not altogether healthy for a human being to be either an extrovert or an introvert. If he is living rhythmically, he will be now the one and now the other, as he lives cyclically, and he will be free of the limitations characteristic of more static, one-sided people. A mystic is simply an extreme introvert.
The extrovert, on the other hand, becomes lost in precisely the immediate circumstance, and loses perspective through a lack of detachment.
The rhythm of the creative process develops through acceptance of a fundamental bi-polarity. We are in the world but not of it. We accept the world problem as our own, but at the same time we are free. Because we are outside the problem, we can work with it, bring a light to bear upon it; because we don't shirk or avoid the problem, and because we make it our own (take it on), we can find solutions.
MASTERY
We can speak of mastery only as a potentiality in relation to humanity. No human being can be called a Master. Not even the great figures of history merit such a name. Plato, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Lincoln, Churchill—none of them were Masters, only humans who achieved a relative elevation and produced works corresponding to their status.
This is not to despise these relative attainments; far from it. It is simply to set the idea of mastery, in the spiritual sense, at the proper level, above the relative attainments, and to recognize, nevertheless, that the attainment of this more complete mastery is a universal human destiny.
We do not say this end is immanent, only that the trajectory of human evolution, over the course of centuries and lifetimes, may be defined in terms of this ultimate goal. This larger purpose is not irrelevant to our present existence, for it is like a vortex of pure energy uplifting the whole gamut of progressive works, however relative or limited.
REALITY
We say that one is a realist, or that one is in touch with reality, if he or she is well-adjusted to the basic context of life on Earth. But this definition is insufficient.
Reality is a problem and a question, because the Great Illusion is the predominant factor in conventional human life. The concept of reality as applied by crude people is itself an illusion, since it neglects the human essence. Only when the soul is realized as being essentially free and distinct from the personality apparatus can one begin to have true ideas about reality.
For humanity, subject to illusion (both the Great Illusion and the many individual illusions human beings are prone to embrace), reality is both a question and a teacher. The first four initiations are concerned with achieving liberation from illusion and demonstrating that freedom in the life lived.
These initiations are closely related to the basic moral concept of the Warrior psychology. One sacrifices the lesser for the greater. Although this principle can be twisted, the habit of sacrificing illusion for the sake of reality, pleasure for duty, and the lesser value for the greater, is the hallmark of human greatness, and it is the foundation upon which the higher mastery rests.
UNIVERSALITY
The man who is separative in his thinking and who regards mastery in the light of an exaggerated individualism is far from realizing a true mastery. There is no master race. There is only one human race evolving slowly toward mastery.
The primary characteristic of Those who have taken the 5th initiation is their absorption in the good of the whole world of which They are a part. Their individuality, fully developed, is consecrated to the greater good. The duality of the individual and the universal, over which many lesser minds agonize, has been resolved at the higher level.
Astrologically, the three constellations transmitting the 5th ray are Leo, Sagittarius and Aquarius. While the little king (Leo) must ultimately find his field of service, the one who would serve (Aquarius) will have little to offer if he has not developed his individual faculties to the fullest extent. A single lifetime may emphasize one or the other end of the polarity, but in the end the coin is seen to have two sides.
Here the western concept of professionalism is pertinent, as is the concept of the synthesis of the sciences. The west has emphasized the concrete science of the 5th ray, but is hampered by the materialism that perverts its optimal development and application. When the welfare of humanity and the planet, rather than vanity and selfish acquisition, become the motivating factor, science will usher in a golden age.
SOUL AND PERSONALITY
The realization of one's own soul/personality duality is the basic self-knowledge. When one has this knowledge of oneself, it is easy to find the correspondence in other people, without false projections or one-sidedness. If I am soul and person, I do not insist that another be only soul, or only person.
The person appears before us. The soul is hidden, although it is what we essentially are. To manifest the soul through the outer personality requires a perfect alignment and agreement that is lifetimes in the making. During this time the physical body is gradually upgraded, but this is only a subordinate effect of the realization of the soul. At first the awakening of the soul seems to be an individual concern. Ultimately the universal significance becomes evident. Between the individual and the universal is the group. Through the group we expand toward the universal.
Mastery is evident when the soul is expressed without distortion through the perfectly adapted personality. The will-to-good then finds an effective agency and exponent, and the resulting benefit to the world and to the advancing world plan is apparent to those who can see. Mastery implies a perfect integrity. For the beginner duality is the obvious basic fact. Through his sexuality and basic instincts he is one with the animal kingdom. Through his contemplative soul he can appreciate the life of the spiritual kingdom.
Humanity is a bridge between kingdoms, at once connective and combative. Man's hatred of the mediocrity of his position spurs him to cross the bridge.
ILLUMINATION
How we define our goals depends on who we are and on how we see ourselves and the world in which we live. At first this is determined instinctively. Later the intellect is increasingly a factor. Eventually, to the instinct and intellect there is joined the intuition, and man functions in touch with three different spheres: one earthly and physical, to which he finds accord through animal instinct; one of a subtle character which forms the natural habitat for his human intellect; and one still more ethereal, the environment of his spiritual nature.
Humanity is awakened to its higher destiny by the spiritual kingdom (the 5th kingdom) even as it must ultimately act as the initiator of the lower animal kingdom (the 3rd kingdom). The intermediate position of humanity in the planetary context relates to the cosmic perspective, while the description of man as “the crown of creation” refers exclusively to the lower order of life.
The animal will some day cross “the bridge of sighs” into the human world. The human being crosses “the rainbow bridge” into the spiritual world. This evolutionary potentiality is “the final solution” because it ends man's status as a separated and stunted entity who inspires more pity than admiration, and brings into manifestation his god nature.
Underlying the triple manifestation of both macrocosm and microcosm is the One Life, giving context to the evolutionary process on all levels.
Aquarius is the sign of the new age, offering the promise of more abundant life, once mankind has understood somewhat the meaning of the word universality. It is the universal life of the Logos which is increasing in intensity, and within that context, and as integral participants in that greater life, our lives are increasing as well.
Aquarius and Aries are the leading signs at this time for our planet, inhabited by a human race at a point in evolution when the mental energies of the race need to be re-organized for the sake of a new global civilization.
The new world order cannot be imposed from without; it can only be created with the full participation of humanity.
SUFFERING
The basic existential experience of mankind has suffering or dukkha as a major characteristic or keynote.
“While suffering is the conventional translation for the Buddha's word dukkha, it does not really do the word justice. A more specific translation would be something on the order of 'pervasive unsatisfactoriness.'—Thoughts without a Thinker, Mark Epstein, M.D., 46
The essence of this suffering lies in the basic potentiality of mankind to be and do more; this potentiality is reflected negatively in the misery he suffers as the result of limitations of perception and understanding, of circumstance and character. The very honesty with which a man confronts these initially unpleasant facts makes it possible for him to enter the positive stream of creative evolution. When we feel keenly the problems and inadequacy of the world, of life, we are stirred to take some action and to assume some responsibility. This is a proprietary feeling. It is our world. If things are in a bad way, we should do something. This feeling, therefore, has a positive interpretation. It is the first inkling of the spiritual destiny of mankind, and the goad that leads man to become a conscious creator and to realize that he is, indeed, “made in the image of God.”
He realizes he is “the light of the world.” By using the light which is in him, he can claim access to greater light. This is important to recognize. Man has the power to invoke the light. By doing so he asserts his essential divinity.
GROUP MASTERY
The soul is naturally group conscious. As one becomes conscious as a soul (the entity within the body), one becomes conscious of the group or groups with which one is identified. This group consciousness, in its earliest manifestations, may show itself as a sense of responsibility; or as a vicarious consciousness; or simply as a strong allegiance to one's family, community or nation.
Mastery as a separative achievement is the goal of those with a limited vision. The idea of competition as a valuable spur to the development of mastery operates only at the lowest evolutionary levels. As the race grows in vision and understanding there will be less of competition and more of synthesis.
The notion of a master race is simply the extension of the limited understanding of mastery to its group significance. Likewise, extreme nationalism is ultimately an illusory ideal.
The mastery of the whole as this is realized through each is the synthetic objective. We approach this through group affiliations, but these affiliations must be of a wholesome character and are ultimately subsumed within the larger universal issues. Just as there are criminal and anti-social individuals, so there are also criminal and anti-social groups.
ASPECTS OF DUALITY
There are many aspects of duality. Some are primary, others are secondary. The cycle of the soul as it re-incarnates creates a major duality: the incarnated soul and the soul discarnate (life and death, as we say, erroneously, since “death” itself is simply an illusion related to the limitations of the mechanism of the physical brain). This basic duality is reflected in the meditation cycle. When we enter into the consciousness of the soul (in meditation), we are akin to the discarnate soul. When we return to the consciousness within the body, we resume expression as the soul incarnate.
We speak of the duality of the soul and the personality and understand by these terms an energy (carrying the purpose and perspective of the great cycle) and a force (embodying the perspective of the person). As the latter perspective is often distorted by illusion, we are faced not only with the problems of control and discipline, but with the more basic problems of perception and understanding.
The task for the would-be yogi is to free himself from the control of the lesser perspective so as to manifest the greater in fullness, through the fusion of soul and personality. The solar radiance is then unobstructed, because the personality is aligned and subordinated. This fusion begins to be evident as the second initiation is approached, and the “genius” of the individual makes its appearance. However, for a long time this remains an aspiration and a goal, and the reality of experience is the fluctuation between two conflicting perspectives.
The stage of dualistic experience, related astrologically to the sign Gemini, is often the subject of comedy since the high ideals of the man are typically juxtaposed with a lack of control and consistency that makes him, seemingly, his own worst enemy.
The purpose underlying this juxtaposition of perspectives is to clarify the dual nature. We have to “see” clearly before we can “do” intelligently. But the nature of the soul and personality are not yet well understood, even by most psychologists. Moreover, everyone must experience the problem of this passage in an individual and existential manner. Help may be available, but in the last analysis the individual has to be self-reliant, solve his own problems and govern his own life.
He learns to be a keen observer of both his inner life and the outer world within which he works. Mistakes become evident. Basic faults are discovered. Gross illusions become apparent. He has to overcome many negative tendencies before the riches hidden within the soul can be manifested.
This "human, all-too-human" exposure is called the “the lesser revelation” preceding the greater (the revelation of the soul and of divinity). These are two sides of one coin. We could hardly endure the apparent negativity of this “lesser revelation” if we did not sense, glowing behind it, the greater possibilities of the next stage. At the same time this awareness may aggravate the suffering of the beginner on the Path, since he is constantly reminded of what he is “not yet.”
MYSTICISM
Meditation can be creative or mystical. The mystical meditation bestows a taste of resurrection and yields to the yogi an experience of the “god realm” of the soul on its own plane. This is inherently blissful. From the angle of feeling and pure subjectivity, it is the apotheosis.
The mystic meditation gives emphasis to the higher mind through a temporary negation of the lower, concrete mind. It is the realization of the spiritual soul through abstraction from the the external person or body.
The withdrawal from active physical life of the dreamer is a lower correspondence of the same experience. It is, in either case, an experience of maximum subjectivity. This can be exceedingly positive; nevertheless, there are also dangers and unhealthy manifestations that must be considered in connection with this type of subjective emphasis.
The mystic's identification with the divine soul, accompanied by a withdrawal from “the body of death,” may be conceived as fulfillment, as the goal achieved. But it may also be conceived of as simply the prelude to the creative meditation of the yogi who works in the world for fulfillment of the divine purpose in its larger universal aspect.
In Buddhism there is the distinction between “the lesser vehicle” and “the greater vehicle” or Mahayana, with its emphasis on the universality of salvation, in anticipation of Christ.
The “lesser vehicle” corresponds to the approach to the mystic realization from the ground of personal limitation, suffering and illusion. The “greater vehicle” corresponds to the radiation of one who has realized a degree of personal liberation and who has become, consequently, a benefactor.
The human realm, a world of suffering or dukkha, according to the Buddha, is juxtaposed with the god realm, the world of the soul, or “heaven”, which we may be fortunate enough to experience while incarnate in a physical body. Such an inner experience is typically enjoyed by the yogi when in a state of tortoise-like withdrawal from worldly affairs. The subjective treasure to be found “within” the human being is the reward of those who have suffered.
ROMANTIC LOVE
The human duality is nowhere more clearly expressed than in the romantic love relationship. Both the positive and negative aspects of the duality are clearly expressed. The positive aspect shows itself as a desire to be one's own best self, for the sake of some special person, or to be worthy of the love of that special person. This is a form of alignment, through which the soul comes to life in the material world. The emphasis is on giving.
The negative aspect is equally clear. It is expressed through the desire that “the other” be more giving, or that “the other” act in some way more pleasing to the one who has become essentially passive and demanding. It is expressed through the fear that this will not happen, or that it will stop happening.
In the best relationships both individuals are giving emphasis to the positive aspect. If one or the other falls into the negative mode, it is recognized for what it is and the tendency to malinger is not indulged or encouraged. One does not condemn “the other” for falling into negativity, but with compassion, humor and patience, the lovers encourage one another to return to the positive mode.
A SINGLE LIFETIME
We work out our values in the crucible of life, through conflict. These conflicts are both internal and external. The external conflicts are experienced in our social and political life. Their temporary resolution finds expression in the forms taken by societies and nations. The inner conflicts are experienced in the midst of these external conflicts. Their resolution determines, at least for the time being, who and what we are as individual human beings.
Values and desires go together. What we value we desire. What we desire we are moved to achieve. In the process we acquire experience and the nature of our values changes.
Acquisition is both material and spiritual. As we acquire things, we can also acquire virtues, qualities, wisdom, understanding. There are definite stages in the evolution from animal man to spiritual man. The variations are infinite, but the underlying pattern is simple. A single lifetime does not encompass it. A single lifetime involves a specific learning which contributes a few pieces to the puzzle. But the whole story remains elusive as long as the personality perspective is dominant, and the vision of the soul is unknown.
INDIVIDUALITY AND SEPARATENESS
The healthy expression of individuality is not a problem; the problem arises from the separative emphasis of the personality alienated in some measure from the soul. All of the Avatars and Masters throughout history have appeared as individuals. All have been free from the taint of separateness. The positive individuality is the soul manifesting through the personality. Separateness is the tendency of the personality in the state of alienation, apart from the soul. Hence the emphasis on alignment of the personality with the soul: the pre-requisite for meditation. Through meditation the thoughts of the soul become the thoughts of the person. As the thoughts of the soul come to life in and through the person, the positive individuality appears. This is the soul-infused personality. The separate personality is a house filled with the old ideas and emotions that were generated during the earlier stages of human evolution. These, having no longer any creative value, must be transcended, to make room for the living thoughts of the higher man. The transcendence of these obsolete tendencies proceeds in tandem with the coming to life of the new and needed ideas. The entire personality is raised through alignment and fusion with the soul. Hence this is the key of all progress in all departments of human expression.
Those who have achieved mastery in the previous cycle are on hand to foster the growth of mastery within the human race as a whole. This is a cyclic effort, realistically measured according to the available energies and the possibilities of the time. It is worth remembering that the Masters of our day are the forerunners of a universal human destiny, and not the prize winners in a petty competition.
KNOWLEDGE
The pre-eminence of knowledge is affirmed generally after the shocks of existence have shown the unhappy consequences of its absence. If the diagnosis of the patient is incorrect, the treatment according to prescription will be useless at best, and may be harmful. Negative experiences can produce a disposition to value and acquire exact knowledge, with a view to its application to the demands of life. This is the positive outcome.
Negative experiences can also produce a negative response, more tragic. The experiencer may be grief-stricken or buried by the experience.
The ultimate knowledge or jnana yoga is the most practical because knowledge has a root or master key.
Subtle knowledge is concerned with motives, values, identity and the formation of purpose, the province of the inner man.
The outer events are simply the laboratory for the crystallizing of the inner realizations.
Since the inner events are largely unknown to us when we experience life in its phenomenal aspect, we may say that they are veiled. What we see normally is not the inner truth but the rind of life, appearance, deceptive gestures and posturing.
With the growth of inner knowledge, we can become practical in a new way. We can produce a better relation between the inner and the outer.
THE KING AND THE LAND ARE ONE
The positive realization is naturally extended. Emerging from an individual point, it becomes the impetus of a group realization. The 5th ray is transmitted by both Leo, the sign of the individual, and its polar opposite, Aquarius. As “the king and the land are one,” an empowered individual serves the universal good. This is a formula for synthesis. The growth of mastery throughout the human race is predicated upon the potential of humanity to share in the divine purpose and nature.
This cannot be induced, obviously, through any technology or form of social indoctrination, or through the quick fix of an election and political re-shuffling. As a spiritual realization, it may be a concern of religion, if it is purified, or philosophy, if it is lifted above intellectual hair-splitting and rationalization.
“More abundant life” is the promise of Aquarius: the emergence of the 5th kingdom into the light of day.
The realism of the apparently visionary goal is based on the recognition that it is accomplished through many cycles of effort. This involves re-incarnation, the succession of the generations, and the appearance of historical cycles, each colored by a definite theme or themes.
THE PROGRESSIVE MIND
Duality is the obvious fact of life. We experience pain and pleasure. We try to achieve something and we feel good as we succeed or believe that we are succeeding. We feel bad as we feel that our goal is un-achievable. The meaning we ascribe to the past or the future is determined in the present. If we imagine that the future will be beautiful, we are filled with happiness. If we think of the future with dread, we shrink from life. Since the realization of betterment is relative, rich and comfortable people generally require more and more for their happiness, until eventually the negativity or materialism of their underlying psychic state is revealed.
In the progressive mind “the past” is associated with what we want to leave behind, as “the future” is the sum of betterment. In the nostalgic mind these values of “past” and “future” are inverted. Our versions of the “past” and the “future” are an expression of our relation to the creative, evolutionary process as this relates to humanity on the planet Earth during a specific period, the present. Someone who has a vision and follows it faithfully never fails to impress us. There is a power and a reality in the life of such a person that many recognize with envy. At the same time vision and the pursuit of a goal may be selfish or unselfish. The recognition of the higher values and possibilities brings to light another and higher type of duality: between the Bull of Illumination and the Bull of self-interest. The waning of “the other self” leads to the growth of the radiance of the soul. This makes possible a more intimate participation in the creative process, and the realization of truly progressive goals.
THE LAW OF FIXATION
While evolution is endless, one who has achieved a relative eminence can make use of that fact. No one is a master of the road ahead, but anyone can be the master of the road already traversed. It is this latter fact that is significant when it comes to the social contribution an individual can make.
A characteristic of specialization is that we settle down in one place and we learn everything there is to know about that place. The restless seeker who is never satisfied may have much knowledge and many qualities, without being able to employ either so as to maximize their social usefulness. Thus a person of lesser endowment can often achieve more than the apparent genius. In the good society an individual learns to be useful to the social body. He may develop a special skill, which he then makes available to others. Because he makes an honest effort to be helpful and to make a positive contribution, others appreciate and reward him.
Almost anyone who follows this pattern can achieve a degree of social success. The debate over capitalism and socialism usually deals with the extreme characteristics of the two conventional ways of thinking. In fact capitalism becomes destructive when it ceases to incorporate genuine “social” values, and socialism can only be successful if it fosters an ethos of spiritual capitalism, in which individuals are happy to give their best to the larger society. The “larger society” cannot be bounded by class, religion or nationality; these limitations are the seeds of conflict: class wars, religious wars, and wars between nations.
The universal pattern embraces individualism, so long as it is not taken to an unhealthy extreme. Diversity is a characteristic of the “One Life” reverenced by all the major religions. But diverse groups and individuals must acknowledge a common ground if they are to live together in harmony on an increasingly small planet.
THE SPEED OF BUSINESS
Because today there is such an extraordinary emphasis on business and marketing, one can find textbooks analyzing in minute detail every factor relating to the operation of a fast food restaurant or a car rental business. The object of the analysis of course is to promote the efficiency and profitability of an operation. This follows from the basic premises of our economic society: capitalism, competitive edge and market share (supply), consumerism (demand), and the love of speed and convenience, which suits both management and consumers (even if, at times, the workers, caught in the middle, may be oppressed or overly stressed).
The fact that analysis is employed so thoroughly in business is an expression of our more fundamental values and motives. We have made business important in the first place, and the way in which businesses operate is a reflection of what the sustaining population (not only the leaders of industry and government, but also the the voters and consumers) want or at least are willing to tolerate.
Analysis can also be employed for other purposes, and the same tool that today is used primarily to make business efficient can be used to foster the growth of the human personality, or to promote world peace or the abolition of human trafficking, to mention only a few possibilities. The point here is that there is an underlying motivation or evaluation which leads us to direct energy along this or that channel. When we do so, we obtain results that correspond to the effort made.
SHARING AND IDENTIFICATION
Sharing is essentially a sharing in the divinity of the divine, a shared identification; and consequently a shared responsibility for the welfare of the world and for the working out of the divine Plan. Shared responsibility demonstrates as service and provides the objective correlate to the intense subjectivity of a shared identification realized through meditation and the initiatory process.
The reduction of sharing to an economic formula is purely exoteric. This is only a reflection or a shadow of the essence. Without the essential realization, it becomes parody or shadow because there is not the adequate motivation to produce objective change.
Divine identification is not a special attainment but a universal destiny. God is All. I am That. You are That. So are we All. In awakening to this we become responsible for the world. The vision of group mastery links us with a future life of apotheosis. It carries us, therefore, beyond death. It is an arrow through the heart of future lifetimes to the bullseye of perfect mastery; not the dream of personality happiness, but a transcendent dream. The ultimate forward-looking anticipation is not the expectation of a Person who will save us, but a faith in our own inevitable realization, and our readiness to move in the wake of this vision. Saturation with the beautiful energy and purpose is inevitably followed by some type of shadow experience, inviting us to overcome the obstacles to the complete realization of that vision with which we have identified.
THE RECESSION OF THE GOAL
The “recession of the goal” is perhaps one of the most difficult ideas to embrace with one's heart. This is the opposite of the temptation of having the easy way, but when the attractive illusion of the easier way vanishes one has little choice but to embrace the harder.
The solution of a problem does not entitle one to a problem-free existence. It entitles one to face a bigger, more “grown-up” problem. This is a fruit of “success” which few anticipate or seek, but it is simply the logical expansion of possibilities. It appears negatively only because the new possibilities have not yet been appreciated and embraced with the heart.
To take on more responsibility, or to “take over” more of the burden of the world, is a sign of maturity. At the same time it releases one from the irritability that is based, in the last analysis, on immaturity and irresponsibility.
This idea is simple and yet profound. It is hard to apply because it takes energy to jump to the next level; it requires a will to overcome the apparent limitation, which has probably acquired all of the naturalness of inertia.
The Saturn revelation, as it may be called, looks very different before and after the fact of realization. In the first place it appears as a barrier that one cannot get over. Why one cannot get over it is rooted in the very things one needs to transcend yet remains attached to.
The beginning of the revelation is a thread of light that only seems to reveal the surrounding darkness. One needs to work with this light, understanding its ramifications and implications; one needs to develop its inherent logic, in order eventually to bring forth complete illumination.
This is the true inner work. It is not the magic feather of intention or wishful thinking. It is hard work.
It requires one to go against the grain of established habit. This includes of course the habits of thought, or the habit of not thinking.
When we start out on a journey, we may not realize in the beginning everything that our journey entails. It may be much harder to achieve our goals that we anticipated. With this experience of “the recession of the goal” comes the tendency to droop in despair.
At this point one either gives up or finds the strength to go ahead. But one can never go back to the starting point, because one will never have again the innocence with which one began. One either goes ahead, or one's life is poisoned by a failure that one must thereafter live with. This poisoning might be regarded as a constant reminder of the original purpose, which doesn't allow one to give up; at least, it doesn't allow one to be at peace with one's own apostasy. The redeeming value of the suffering of failure is that it serves as a prod to success. It is the harsh teacher who brings one through to the end, in contrast to the easy teacher who pats one on the back and tells one it is okay to be a useless, half-hearted slob.
There is radicalism in the insistence upon dealing with the root issue. One cannot be satisfied dealing with symptoms or secondary issues.
A man has only two things of value: the light that is in him, and the capacity to generate greater light.
The light that is present is known. It is useful but limited. The light that he can generate is the great unknown. It is his link with the unlimited.
The solution to the insoluble problem lies in this capacity to generate light. The known light is not enough. We have to stretch ourselves beyond the known. This is the meaning of faith. Faith is not simply a belief in this or that dogma or assertion. Such “faith” might only be gullibility or complacency. Faith is an active power that permits one to go ahead even when there is no path.
Growing up, the son becomes the father. It is hard to give up being the son. The son must die so that the father can be born in the man.
Here we consider our capacity to participate in the purpose of the greater Being “within Whom we live and move and have our being.” This is a daunting prospect that requires us to enlarge and deepen our thinking beyond what is customary for the man who thinks of himself as merely a higher type of animal.
SLAVERY
The abolition of slavery in its overt form was a significant step in the right direction, but we can hardly say that mankind today is “free.” Human bondage, as Spinoza points out in his Ethics, has primarily a psychological character, and even when man is free to act as he wishes, his very wishes may be the source of his bondage.
This may seem paradoxical to some, but one has only to consider life in “the land of the free,” where the external free will has had its way for some time. This external freedom does indeed make America the land of opportunity, but the opportunity cuts both ways, and Americans have been as free to create misery both for themselves and others, as they have been free to create paradise on Earth.
Unless the external free will (which is only a potential freedom) is actually moved toward the attainment of real or philosophical freedom, its potential benefits are readily transformed into those self-made disasters that have become a commonplace in American life. This has created an interesting phenomenon. The newer Americans, the immigrants, are often those most zealous about the charms of liberty as this is known (or imagined to exist) in America. The older Americans, on the other hand, frequently wonder what has become of the American dream. For many it has turned into a nightmare.
EDUCATION FOR SLAVERY
Since the distinction between the positive synergy and the negative synergy (or chaos) is based on the realization of freedom (actual, philosophical freedom and not merely potential freedom or free will), all comes back to the spiritualization of motive.
According to Ralph Waldo Emerson: “The things which are dear to men at this hour are so on account of the ideas which have emerged on their mental horizon, and which cause the present order of things, as a tree bears its apples. A new degree of culture would instantly revolutionize the entire system of human pursuits.”—“Circles”
Sadly, this is what some seem to fear most, judging from the contemporary battle to control the educational process. Some would liberate the human potential. Others wish to keep it in check. For some, actual education appears as a threat to their power, which is based precisely on the ignorance of those who are to be manipulated for subservience. One must acknowledge an education for slavery as well as an education for freedom.
Many seeming paradoxes are only so in the half-light of confusion. Also, it must be borne in mind that things are not always called by their true names.
GROWTH THROUGH SHARING
The concept of a discrete individualistic progress is truly a great illusion, like the conception of atoms as miniature particles of solid matter. Modern physics has delivered us from the latter misconception, and social psychology will gradually catch up to the discoveries of physics, making “Group Progress” the norm of life in the New Age.
The realization of mastery involves synchronization with the spiritual Hierarchy (the world group of illumined Masters). For humanity as a whole this essentially spiritual discovery will alter the thinking about every aspect of life, from education to economics. To guide this process, the Master of the Masters has come forth at this time. His work as World Teacher will become increasingly evident, through the groups that acknowledge His presence, and through the response of humanity to the energies poured forth by the Great Lord and His disciples everywhere and on all planes.
The Aquarian Age is only at its beginning, and the transitional period is still with us, marked by the disruption and decay of the old and familiar forms of life. This is a difficult time for many; nevertheless, it promises great things through the re-alignment of energies on a planetary scale. We enter a cycle of “Growth through Sharing” and this has a dual meaning. On the one hand is the exoteric aspect of the idea, made familiar through the ideas of charity and socialism, with their emphasis on economics, and on the plight of the poor and the neediest generally. This is the “demand” side of the equation.
On the other hand is the esoteric aspect of the same idea and the “supply” side of the equation. This has to do with the unfolding divinity in each and all, and of the increasing capacity of man, through initiation, to become a responsible participant in the world work.
“Wealth” is not only, or even principally, financial, although it certainly includes the financial aspect. The “wealth” of a man, essentially, is inseparable from his capacity to serve.
THE GREAT CONTEXT
The theme “Growth through Sharing” with its implication of a common participation in the life of the world and of humanity, does not imply specific forms of belief or behavior; it simply brings into focus the essential facts of life and the keynote of “progress,” both racial and individual. How or what people share will be the expression of the free will of humanity, as it always has been.
Yet all human beings live on the same planet. All breathe the same air. If the air is polluted, all must suffer the consequences. If there is a major war between two nations, you can be sure that the people of both nations will suffer, no matter who “wins.” These negative manifestations of sharing are a consequence of ignorance. Positive manifestations of sharing are a consequence of illumination. In the latter case there is win-win synergy, since giver and recipient are alike beneficiaries of the enlightened action.
For some people the mere word “sharing” is enough to provoke their contempt or outrage. They imagine, perhaps, that the piece of dirt they stand on is not part of the planet; that the air they pollute is theirs and theirs alone; that a war can be “won” like a football game; and that the evil that falls upon their neighbors has nothing to do with them.
THE SOUL AS SURGEON
When our souls are in the driver's seat, the ideas of “Group Progress” and “Growth through Sharing” will be as natural to us as breathing. It is because this is not the case that we find ourselves so often at odds with our own best interest, asserting (out of habit) an individualism that has become like a cancer in the virulence of its stubborn self-insistence. We are not yet truly socialized because we are not yet truly human. Much of our behavior is automatic, not thoughtful; as such we are akin to higher animals, and the notion of a divine destiny seems little more than a figment of the imagination.
We can only grow into the higher nature as we leave behind the lower. To leave it behind we must see it as it is. When we ourselves are repelled by it, we will repel it. This is not impossible, but it is difficult. It involves refusing to identify with rhythms of life that have become second nature over vast stretches of time and through many incarnations.
The technique of the “Observer” may be usefully employed. Identification with the contemplative nature fosters detachment and clear vision. But in the last analysis it is the will that must be evoked if one is actually to cut loose, almost by an act of surgery, the malignant growth.
Such severity in relation to oneself permits a gentler, kinder nature to emerge socially, whereas self-indulgence has precisely the opposite effect.
CYCLES
Cycles can be small or great; and many cycles overlap. Where the life cycle of a human being is concerned, the distinction between the soul and the personality is all too clear. The cycle of the human personality ends in crystallization, old age and death. The soul, after a period of withdrawal and discarnate life, is moved to re-incarnate. The conquest of death, from the angle of initiation, depends on the power of the immortal soul to stand free from biology and time. The fear of death belongs to the Great Illusion. It is intensified through identification with the mortal body, producing a matrix of suffering that has less to do with the experience of death than with the anticipation of physical decline and pain, and with the psychologically induced fear of extinction, a “figment of the imagination.”
Whether we are concerned with the life cycle of an individual personality or with a greater or lesser creative cycle, the life in the divine seed becomes the basis of new projections. Nothing essential is lost, for everything of value from the previous cycles of experience is retained in the soul. Relationships, too, are retained in essence and may be renewed in the course of time. When we can “bring through” the knowledge achieved through former cycles, we can begin the new cycle at the highest possible level and without the lengthy recapitulation that reduces life to mere repetition. This is a step towards the transcendence of the wheel that binds one to the three worlds of dense materiality, subject to the rhythm that operates at those levels. (From the cosmic level, the three worlds are considered mere refuse. The dung beetle was employed by the Egyptians as a symbol of immortality.)
Everyone has noted those remarkable people who seem to be born with an understanding of their destiny and who proceed like an arrow in flight to discharge it. This is usually attributed to “good genes,” an attribution—arising from the materialistic bias—that merely begs the question. Where did the good genes come from? This boils down to “luck” or “accident” or the supposition that one had good ancestors, a family tree to be proud of, giving rise to an absurd pre-occupation with pedigree, as if genius could be inherited. But it has been written, “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.”
A further development from the line of thinking based upon the materialistic bias is the high hope invested in the science of genetic manipulation. We would not say that such experiments are without value or that they are sinful; but we do assert that anything that would deprive man of the necessity of evolving through his own efforts will not succeed. We have seen both the uses and misuses, the value and the limitation of technologies. Man places his faith in the technology in proportion as he shirks his own responsibility to life. He forgets that he is, or ought to be, the master, not the helpless victim (or the hopeless dependent) of his inventions. The fact is that a man can re-build his own body, refining it and raising his vibration in the course of a few years of disciplined effort. This is done the old-fashioned way, without pills or surgery, or high-speed computers; it is achieved by working from the level of the soul, through the mind, and at the instigation of a pure aspiration. Those who are born with a special endowment have done this work in past lives. It is therefore no accident, nor is it luck, nor yet another indication of the injustice of life. What they have done, anyone can do.
DAILY LIFE
If we consider time as progress, then the greater the passing of time, the greater the potentiality of achievement. There is an aspect of realism in this consideration, yet it is distinctly unsatisfying—for the passage of time is also related to death or the cyclic “passing away”—unless we realize the balancing thought that brings us back to the present.
Our thought of potentiality is like the maximum expansion of the pupil of the eye; if the eye is healthy, the pupil will also be capable of contraction, and so do we need the focus of the present as the stage in which we are tested and drawn out to the maximum of our capacity, even if we are sometimes overtaxed and led to the realization of what we are not yet capable. Since it would be “a waste of time” to think excessively about far off goals, the attention is better focused on that which is close at hand. This is the aspect of time most commonly understood. It is pointed out by the daily round of the sun, as it is by the rhythm of the breath, and by the rhythm of digestion and elimination. While the seasons of the year and the greater astronomical cycles can teach us to look ahead, the lesser cycles keep us anchored firmly in the present.
If it is acknowledged that evolution is never ending, then it follows that there is no “ultimate” goal. Transcendence is a continuous realization that makes every experience of limitation equivalent, just as any finite number placed next to infinity is essentially the same as any other finite number. The implications of this realization are far reaching. It is the great equalizer.
It makes us aware of the absurdity of ambition and the vanity of class consciousness. These things are trumped by the solidarity of all living beings. All are involved in a vast progressive movement. We are turned away from any sense of haste in pursuit of “higher” goals. What matters is the thoroughness with which we attend to our daily business, our duty or dharma, our current experience.
AS ABOVE, SO BELOW
Our life within time consists of cycles within cycles, the lesser and greater cycles overlapping in ways that are often bewildering. In addition to the known cycles there are unknown cycles which are nevertheless effective in determining aspects of our experience.
The key to understanding is the correspondence between the microcosm and the Macrocosm. Hence the study of the universe begins with the study of man.
CEREMONIAL ORDER
Great things are not achieved in a single day, and yet the spirit of achievement must find its correspondence in the daily labor. The “day” is related to the 7th ray of Ceremonial Order. Ceremony implies control and the assertion of a purpose or meaning in the face of contradictory possibilities. Chaos does not finally reign because we have invested ourselves mightily to see that it is not so. We have established a type of order that reflects our cardinal values. It is not an order imposed by an external authority. It is the concrete manifestation of what we essentially are.
The daily ritual of life becomes such a profound ceremony when our hours are continuously given to the fulfillment of the tasks we have taken on as our share of the world's work. The everyday life is then full of meaning. The outer and the inner are blended into an apparently indissoluble unity. The fulfillment of one's duty and the completion of those projects one has initiated or undertaken, are sufficient to fill the hours of every day with significance. Life, work and pleasure become one when the work itself is alive and joyous, the outer shape taken by our best ideas and wisdom.
To begin with the constructive power of vision is to see and pursue the goal with energy. We are then carried through the limitations of the day to what lies beyond. Evolution and progress are inevitable results, when one is completely aligned with the creative purpose of life itself. The selfish aspect of this “capitalism” fades away, leaving the spiritual essence, the capacity of the creative individual to express the will-to-good in the service of the whole.
CLEAR-SEEING AND FREEDOM
Clear-seeing is closely related to detachment. Attached, we are enwrapped in the things we need to understand; we lose perspective; often we lose the capacity to admit the truth even when it is handed to us on a silver platter. We deny it simply because we do not want it to be true; we want something else to be true. This is the nature of attachment.
Truth is fundamental to decision and action. Without truth there can be no diagnosis of what action needs to be taken. Our actions then have no meaningful basis, and the results are simply what might be expected from such a situation.
Attachment and detachment revolve around identification, the theme of jnana yoga. When we have self-knowledge, we identify with what we are in reality. Lacking self-knowledge, we identify with what we are not. This basic confusion is the root of all our problems.
We approach truth by allowing the light of the soul to reveal what is, simply, without preference. Then we can recognize and dismantle our prejudices, free ourselves from our compulsions, and loosen the hold of our attachments.
Attachment epitomizes a lack of freedom, when freedom is understood philosophically. When freedom is understood in the shallow, non-philosophical sense, then attachment may seem to be a “free” choice, even if it is simply the expression of an unrecognized compulsion.
The knowledge of the truth makes us free to act according to the truth. Our decisions are then based on a true reading of what is required. Such decisions forge our progress and the progress of the world.
The theme of liberation underlies the entire initiatory process. True, freedom can have an illusory aspect, but no one is more likely to realize this than the jnana yogi, whose specialty is discernment.
GLAMOUR
Glamour is the appeal of false attractions. Glamour disappears in the light, but illumination is impossible without the detachment of the observer or seer. Conversely, if we are strongly attached to specious attractions, then the resistance to the light appears, along with the knots of personality difficulties. It is the poor investment of the heart that holds one back.
The higher revelation of jnana yoga (of the spiritual soul) is made possible through the acceptance of the lesser revelation of personality limitations and through an unambiguous withdrawal from recognized limitations (a dis-investment, essentially).
As we accept the light (and this acceptance is an issue for our dense nature), then the nature becomes full of light, and the conflict between the soul and the personality begins to fade out, the two aspects are increasingly in harmony, and their essential unity is realized as goal and reality.
THE BURDEN OF LIGHT
The “burden of light” has two meanings. The first is ironic, as the one who accepts the light is released from the burden of personality attachments, with their inherent heaviness. The true “burden of light” is the responsibility of the light-bearer to become a revealer and facilitate the un-burdening of those who are still heavy-laden.
The liberation an individual achieves may seem like a small, private affair. But if one multiplies this liberation by thousands or millions, the true significance becomes apparent. Our social matrix is made up of people at all stages. Inevitably people bring everything that they are into the mix: their liberation and their lack of liberation. The lines between private and public are not so hard and fast.
The structures that we create are a function of our freedom and our lack of freedom. The global economy, for example, expresses a sum total. It is the sum of what we are willing to accept and what we are unwilling to accept, what we consider important and what we consider unimportant, the measure of our light and darkness. Social and economic relations take a different course as people are more or less enlightened.
EMPOWERMENT
The realization of divinity is not so far removed from the popular idea of empowerment. But at its root is the dissolution of any trace of separateness. From this root perspective we can readily see that the empowerment of one does not dis-empower another; that, as with the musketeers, the success of one is the success of all, and vice-versa. Empowerment, then, is essentially synergetic.
By contrast, the competitive ethos is based on and fosters disempowerment. If ten people were stranded on a desert island on which there were enough food for ten, neither more nor less, and one were to attempt to monopolize the food supply he would be clearly regarded as insane. But he if he were able to induce two others, perhaps the two strongest, to go along with him, to support him, the category of “insanity” would disappear; instead, we have the emergence of a new “philosophy.” War and slavery would then make their appearance. If the three were to emerge triumphant (perhaps by enlisting the support of one or two or three more—a third tier in the newly emerging social organization), it would then result in the stabilization of the new order, and the possibility of the leaders conferring favors, perhaps by offering food to the foodless in exchange for faithful service (that is work for the benefit of the leaders, who do no work, since they have promoted themselves to the status of owners, managers and police force).
Note that the leaders of this society have created nothing except an artificial scarcity. They may subsequently “give” jobs to the foodless, but no thanks are merited for such a “gift.”
If we fall into a negative or inverted world of values, our ideas of power and power arrangements are likewise perverted. The “elite” are then understood to be those who are without illumination and who, indeed, are afraid of illumination and who take steps to prevent said illumination.
The empowerment that interests us is one that works toward a universal liberation. This can only be based on a positive or synergetic purpose, including positive values and positive techniques. It cannot be based on reaction or resentment, as if the inverted mode were the primary thing. It is not. The inverted mode only comes into being in the first place through ignorance (an absence of light); subsequently, this negative condition is systematically crystallized.
The elite, then, in the true sense of the word, are those who promote this universal liberation. They do not attack the upholders of the status quo as if they were evil incarnate. To err is human. The existence of ignorance and the confusion of values are fostered by the power of evil, but those who are imprisoned within their own ignorance and confusion are not evil.
The power of the elite group (if the term “elite” is understood in its true meaning as “enlightened”) and the growing power of the mass of humanity are in no sense antagonistic. The “class war” is created by the pseudo-elite, or in reaction to the pseudo-elite. Our thinking is not limited by the competitive ethos or the supremacy of material values, from which are derived an imaginary or artificially created scarcity.
All groups, if they are at all progressive, are growing and learning. This is the most universal value, following from the revelation of goodwill; goodwill or desire to bring about good requires growth of understanding if it is to prove actually successful in manifesting the good.
The old religious idea of humanity as a fallen race with a divine origin is based on an interpretation is backward-looking. The positive and forward-looking take on this is to recognize the inherent if latent divinity of man and to bring this out of latency through self-control together with an intelligently conceived educational process. But it is not only man who is divine. Our whole concept of life (including the nature of the planet on which we live) requires revision. All powers converge and have their ultimate validation in so far as they move toward a sacred planet, the totality that expresses the sacred value of life itself.
The universal illumination may be clarified by the hierarchical concept in its positive or spiritual-progressive expression, and through an understanding of the three signs which transmit the 5th Ray. For the mass of humanity the emergence of individuality is the next step and cannot be denied. This emergence is governed by the sign Leo. It is related to the evolution whereby intellect begins to supersede instinct. For the aspirants in whom the intellect is already an active factor, the governing sign is Sagittarius. It is related to the period in which intuition begins to supersede intellect as the leading factor. For those in the third group the governing sign is Aquarius. These are characterized by the illumination which synthesizes intuition, intellect and instinct. They are, therefore, oriented toward the service of the one life, and governed by the law of group progress.
Progress and change are different concepts. Change may be insignificant, circular or retrogressive. Circularity is a form of repetition that evades awareness as long as we are too caught up in the immediacy and apparent novelty of our experience to observe the larger truth or pattern.
The concept of the wheel of life or samsara is the concept of a repetitious form of life based on the fact that humanity either does not evolve at all or else evolves so slowly that the results are actually imperceptible. Thus we are bound to the wheel.
Progress implies either getting off this wheel altogether or at least elevating our awareness in a relative manner so that we do not simply repeat ad nauseum the same experiences. The latter, relative liberation is symbolized by the spiral form, which, unlike the circle, has a vertical as well as a horizontal dimension.
This implies that our experience will deepen through our progressive cycling, so that we do not merely repeat the same errors over and over.
The idea of a world progress is simply the application of this same understanding to the Macrocosm.
The main thing to grasp is that such a world progress cannot be a progress in one dimension, or a progress for one group, as if any one aspect of life (the economic, for example), or any one group, could be separated from the whole. Such artificialities of thought are utterly unreal and indicate little more than an “intelligence” problem.
REGENERATION
We are used to the idea of the “upgrade” in relationship to new technologies, but it seldom occurs to us that there may be an upgrade in human motives and understanding, that “all things” may become new, including those that concern us most intimately. We have gotten use to change in the outer aspect of things, while we ourselves resist change and obstinately cleave to the old worn out patterns of behavior that have failed time and time again.
The theme of regeneration, cosmic and all-encompassing, is seen in the re-cycling that we call birth and death. It is in the very breath, the inhalation and exhalation. In its highest expression it concerns the renewal of our understanding of the purpose of life. When we speak of empowerment we immediately become aware of a duality, a distinction between those things which we would like to see play a greater role in life, and those things that we wish would fade away. We have no desire to see terrorists empowered by possession of more powerful weapons; neither should we desire the empowerment of our own bad habits and outworn tendencies. Indeed, when we doubt ourselves, when we are not sure of our own motives, we do not feel empowered.
This is related to the internalization of justice. Reason suggests to us the desirability of uniting empowerment with those purposes that are worthy of it. The most worthy purpose, then, is the one most worthy of empowerment. Around this thought the consensus of the wise is built. Power is based on will, which follows purpose. Therefore the attainment of right purpose is the beginning.
We have known all along that energy follows thought, but the experience of the truth of this, and the implications that follow from it, require of us this more precise understanding.
Regeneration implies a process of elimination and substitution that goes to the roots of life, and to “the heart of the matter.”
Through the eliminations that occur as one treads the Path, and through the paralleling substitution or “upgrade” of substance, it becomes possible to work with the creative energy that establishes the pattern of the future—a future that includes the direct relation between humanity and “the center where the Will of God is known.”
A most practical example of the desirable process of elimination and substitution is offered by Mark Epstein in Thoughts without a Thinker (Chapter 7, “The Psychodynamics of Meditation”) in the replacement of the appetite-based self by the breath-based self.
Appetite or hunger is the experience in the body that expresses most keenly the sense of separate existence, together with anxiety. Appetite binds us to the rat race and to the perpetuation of that diminished concept of man, the consumer. The breath invites the healthy sense of participation in the larger framework of life.
JACOB'S LADDER
The figure 8 may be considered in the light of the image of Jacob's Ladder and the hierarchical consciousness. The three aspects of the Trinity are then readily understood in relation to a universal relativity. One can look up and find that which currently lies beyond one, the relative transcendent and the new. This is the experience of Brahma, the 3rd aspect. One can look down and find that which one has already mastered. This is the experience of Shiva, the 1st aspect. One can find one's place in the middle, able to look both forward and back, enjoying the perspective of intermediacy. This is Vishnu, the 2nd aspect.
One can also know all three. It is easy to be the eternal beginner, or to collapse into mediocrity, or to be the “Boss” ruling over a small pond, but these separated expressions are of little value. It is the blended expression of the three that has significance, whether we are considering the consciousness of an individual, of a group or of the Macrocosm. On the planetary level we speak of the three major centers: Shamballa, Hierarchy and Humanity. Humanity is Brahma, the beginner (so far as the spiritual path is concerned). Hierarchy is Vishnu, the intermediate center; and Shamballa is Shiva, the center of supreme mastery, so far as the life of our planet is concerned. The blending of these three centers in the microcosm is manifest in the mature relativist, in the leader who is not an egomaniac, and in the teacher who is still a student; it is still more evident in the humility of the Master, and in the compassion of the Bodhisattva, Who descends the greatest distance, but Who yet seems to be one of us. What is mastered by one generation is new for the next. In the passing of the torch, we become one.
PSYCHOLOGY AND ECONOMICS
It is increasingly impossible to separate the fields of psychology and economics. A “psychology” that gives inadequate attention to material circumstances is unreal. An “economics” that takes no note of the psychological underpinning of our economic system is likewise useless; it is worse than useless, if our thinking is handicapped by acceptance of a false paradigm.
The law of economy enables one to find the shortest path to the goal. However, if the goal itself is misconceived, efficiency may be only the quick path to extinction. This is the plight of modern man, operating under the materialistic bias. The economic system, a patchwork of myth, faulty arithmetic and shell game, has become so strained that its inadequacies are fast becoming apparent not only to astute economists but also to people in every walk of life. It is relatively easy to devise a more rational system. The difficulty lies in inducing mankind to adopt it.
An eating disorder is not a physical but a psychological problem. A girl starves herself to death because she believes she is too fat. Another becomes actually fat because she is constantly trying to fill the emptiness inside. Likewise, the mass starvation that has apparently objective material causes (e.g., war or drought), is in fact more often caused by the moral atrophy and indifference of on-lookers who choose to do nothing or very little and, in many cases, prefer not to be informed of such things or to acknowledge any responsibility in their connection. Starvation occurs in such cases because those who could prevent it place a higher value on a host of other activities. In short, preventing starvation is not a priority.
The negative psychological factor gives to the physical problem a dimension of intractability which does not inhere in material circumstances alone. Raise the psychology of the race, and the psychological component of the "economic" problem will disappear. What was difficult or impossible will become easy, just as it became possible to go to the moon, once the necessary science was known, and the commitment to the goal was sufficient to evoke the investment of resources requisite to the fulfillment of the mission. This implies a growing response to the law of attraction, the law which enables one to find the path of Light. It is the law which has ever guided man toward the higher path. This is the true function of psychology, as opposed to what passes for psychology today. To unleash the liberating power of psychology to the fullest degree, it will be necessary to release psychology itself from the materialistic bias. This bias is evident in five grotesque trends: monopoly capitalism, the continuing expansion and lack of control of the military-industrial complex; the advertisement and over-reliance on prescription drugs, manipulative hypnosis for the marketing of goods and ideas, and the use of the latest electromagnetic technologies for intrusive surveillance, torture and the control of populations.
The psychological age is still in its infancy. Its crude beginnings are all around us. Today everything is spun. There is, it seems, no longer any such thing as truth. It has been replaced by public relations, focusing on the perceived image. We have today no history, only many versions of history. In the relativistic chaos that spins around the truth-vacuum, it is easy to believe that one story is as good as another. This is good for liars and bad for honest men; lacking standards, we must treat both with equal respect or lack of respect.
This is the down-side of making business the master of life. From this we have proceeded naturally to education for business and psychology for business. Indeed, business has become the state religion. Science, too, is subordinate; technologies are developed or not developed according to the needs and fears of business. The unwholesome character of the present situation is both obvious and ubiquitous, but the search for solutions is hampered by the tendency to seek them from within the paradigm which is itself the source of the problem. Underlying material injustice and folly are the psychological inadequacies which created them in the first place.
The new psychologists must foster human liberation by stepping outside the limiting paradigm and encouraging others to do likewise. For the health and sanity of individuals and of society, a divine humanism must be unfolded, revealing new models of relationship, released from the idolatry of the marketplace. What we need more of, if we would enjoy a more abundant life, is the expression of a benevolent interest in the common good, a thing as yet too rarely seen. Liberation from the lower psychic nature is the most basic requirement for lifting the values, relationships and goals of human society toward sanity, wisdom, justice and general prosperity. This implies temperance on the part of the consumer, and the re-designing of economics to meet real needs. By contrast, the manufacture of pseudo-needs for the sake of the economy is a disease symptom. Temperance (that is, freedom in the philosophical sense) allows the growth of the cooperative spirit and of "growth through sharing," essential to the sanity, security and happiness of the human family.
THE ETERNAL PROCESS
The idea of fulfillment is invariably associated with death or with the termination of a cycle. If we desire and attain wealth, we have no more need for wealth, and the original motivation disappears. If we then continue amassing wealth, we do so only through mechanical habit and not through any intrinsic or heartfelt necessity; this ignores the essential fact, that there has been a death, so far as the original motivation is concerned. We require then a new motivation, a re-birth; ignoring this, we can only carry on in a dead-alive fashion. This death in life is the psychological penalty for ignoring the essence of life itself within ourselves.
Is it necessary to consider also that the dead-alive state is a seed ground for a multitude of putrid births? Out of the corrupt soil comes corruption. If there is an “original sin” it is this sin against the holy spirit, the spirit of life and motion, which, in a human being manifests as the growth of consciousness or spiritual maturation. Mere busy-ness, without substance, is rind without fruit. Instead of manifesting the positive creativity of spiritual maturation, we are then manifesting the negative creativity that derives from this corrupt soil of denial (of our divinity).
Thus when we speak of elimination and substitution, it has a dual significance, for we can evolve backwards and well as forwards. Thus the life of the Creator in us imposes on us the highest obligations.
We either ascend or we descend.
One's station or position on the ladder of life (point of evolution) may be relative, but the possibility of ascent or descent and the responsibility relating to this dual possibility are universal. This is therefore a shared responsibility even though it may seem to be the most individual thing of all. It is something universally human, unlike wealth, political or religious affiliation, skin color, age, sex, or one's favorite television program.
As an individual can ascend or descend, so with groups, nations and humanity as a whole. The concept of synergy is related to a collective or universal ascent. A negative synergy will be evident in any collective decline.
Since a collective or group manifestation is something less than universal, the synergy of a group is akin to the integration of an individual, and must be considered in the light of a group individualism. Its actual worth must be evaluated in relation to the universal context. The universal synergy in ascent thus appears as the supreme good, so far as we can conceive it. This must of necessity take into account the various emerging forms of group individualism, including the “group” of those who resist all groups, the die-hard individuals. The Aquarian idea of a universal progress or of a “more abundant life” is not a progress in one dimension, but a various and inclusive progress that manifests the free response of diverse individuals and groups to the all-encompassing purpose of the Logos.
If one can imagine the gradual saturation of the mind-belt with such thoughts, then it is easy to foresee that the next step will be the precipitation onto the physical plane of new approaches to life that reflect the new thinking.
According to the level of illumination (the potency and quality of the thought of humanity), so will be the nature of that which is precipitated.
The projection of an optimal future pre-supposes an optimal realization of the positive synergy. Realistically, one must allow for the fact that human decision will be positive and negative; forward-moving and retrogressive. The sum total will shape the immediate and more distant future.
Since the confrontation with the results of choices fosters the awareness of responsibility, justice and creative significance, even the “bad” experiences are good, in the sense that they offer the possibility of learning.
THE GROUND FLOOR
If we extend our horizons into the distant future and intensify our efforts to the maximum, it is easy to imagine that we can overcome all obstacles and achieve all conceivable goals. Yet against this optimism there is ever the reminder of physical limits and of the relative slowness with which the body adjusts to the higher frequency. The nadir of the rhythm, like the weights worn by a runner in training, reminds us that it is the depth of life that must be lifted up, that we go nowhere by thought alone. So we return to the beginning of the new cycle, and to the ground floor of the building under construction.
“THERE SHALL BE NO MORE SEA”
Since the natural habitat of humanity today is the astral plane, with its power to delude, the most useful perspective is that of the second initiation, with its theme of mastery of the astral plane, or baptism (by fire). The systemic astral plane is the plane of water, and a lower correspondence to the cosmic astral plane. As the cosmic plane is the goal of higher endeavor, the lower (systemic) plane is negated. This is accomplished through the action of fire (mind) on water, resulting in evaporation and the “dry light” of the mature mind, permitting also the flowering of the innate sensitivity as intuitive perception. Of this the creative imagination is the seed and precursor.
So far as ordinary humanity is concerned the astral nature is accepted blithely as if it were the soul itself. Thus its delusive power is a rich source of human error. Disciples become aware of this and seek to battle it in their own lives and in the world at large. They must learn to see the problem with complete clarity, achieve their own detachment from it and realize a power of transmutation through the fusion of light and will.
Astral glamor has the same effect as weeds in a garden, hindering the flowering of real beauty. The higher faculties, potential in mankind, find little nourishment; if they appear at all, they do so in a distorted and unwholesome fashion. Such are the effects of astral delusion, the excesses of the watery nature swamping the buds of life.
ADVERTISING
One major expression of astral glamor in the modern world is the power of advertising and mass marketing, which together constitute the principal educational medium. No one may have intended this, but this is what has emerged, as an unintended consequence, a side-effect, of our way of life.
Who would give his child to an unscrupulous “educator” who is himself without enlightenment, responsibility or even an interest in educating the child—an “educator” whose only interest is to exploit the child?
Yet this is what we have done, owing to an astoundingly obtuse interpretation of “freedom” and to a misplaced conviction of the inherent virtue of “free” enterprise.
THE PROBLEM OF FREEDOM
True freedom is an achievement. It is something that we win by dint of our efforts to overcome a state of bondage which man shares with the animal kingdom. The difference between a man and an animal is that the animal can do nothing about its own bondage. It cannot free itself. For man freedom is a problem, because his freedom is only a potentiality; he is not born free. As long as men think of freedom as a right rather than as a responsibility, men will quarrel interminably over their various respective (and often imaginary) rights, and the possibility of freedom from conflict will remain unrealized. He will be free to fight endless wars—at least until he succeeds in destroying himself.
Thus it is essential to distinguish between an external freedom of action (the freedom to do whatever one wishes, within the limitation imposed by nature) and the inner freedom that is based on the identification of the spiritual being not with the physical body but with its own source.
It will be evident that one version of freedom is light years from the other, and it is incumbent on the human being to have some understanding of this, since it is the crux of being human. A man without at least an instinctive understanding of this issue verges on being subhuman.
RESURRECTION
The realization of the higher freedom is a resurrection of the spirit, liberation, and a casting off of the fetters of human bondage, escape from the “all-too-human” into an apprehension of the theme of HUMANITY and of humaneness. This spirit of humaneness is extended also to the animal kingdom. Thus the true nature of the resurrection appears. This is not the resurrection of the body but of the spirit, not the resurrection of an individual but the universal resurrection or ascent of all life, through the human kingdom and into the kingdoms beyond: the 5th, 6th and 7th kingdoms.
The evocation of the spiritual will, and the power to stand free from the disturbing and distorting fogs and mists of the astral plane, and consequently to bring about their disappearance, is a constructive form of destruction, since it permits the emergence of reality into the clear light of day.
Ironically, the appearance of objective reality is commonly taken for granted, whereas the truth of humanity is the subjectivity which intrudes into even the simplest of experiences.
Imagine, for example, a just man, an unjust man and third man, who must judge their relative worth. Since the judge in this case has no access to the inner truth but must judge according to appearances and testimony (hearsay), he applies the standard of the mean, and he treats the just and the unjust man (and the testimony of each) to an equal respect. If there is suspicion then, it falls equally on the just and the unjust. If there is honor, it is dispensed equally to the just and the unjust.
Acting in this manner, the judge may be convinced of his own fairness, but in truth he is guilty of injustice, since the standard of the mean, together with the evidence of the senses, is not, in this instance, sufficient to render a just verdict.
It is hardly unusual for men to pretend to be something that they are not, or to imagine themselves capable of doing what they are incapable of doing. Yet the disposition to settle for play-acting, for the appearance of a thing in place of the reality, is hardly commendable, unless one happens to be a monkey.
Thus the theme of discrimination and of discernment appears as indispensable in relation to the acquisition of a higher quality. This does not negate the quality of basic wisdom and common humanity, but adds to it a refinement, a precision and a higher usefulness. This is, in fact, the idealism of science.
In addition to the basic work of humanity, one may imagine a pyramid of the higher realizations, not merely as something to which humanity in general may look forward, but as something existing and as constituting the manifestation of a spiritual Hierarchy.
While Jacob’s ladder extends upwards through the clouds, if we focus on the more accessible dimension offered by the two lower of the cosmic etheric planes, plus the three planes of the familiar “three worlds,” we find ourselves within a comprehensible matrix that embraces five planes, and is fully manifested in the 5th or spiritual kingdom.
BASIC PHILOSOPHY
Foundational questions are related to the 4th and 2nd rays, and thus to Mercury, the Messenger, close to Jupiter, the ruler of Olympus. The 4th ray is related to the school of Logic, which has as its main issue the question of right perception and standards of thought. Philosophically speaking, this is basic. In the fullness of time man will develop the intuition, and this problem will disappear. The foundation of his understanding will then be secure.
At present “the intelligence problem” must be taken as the basic human problem, for that which is built atop a shaky foundation is vain. Man's attempts to go “beyond” philosophy when he has not answered even the most basic questions merely provide lessons in vanity. This may be humiliating, but humiliation is the soil from which grows a needed humility.
It is perhaps significant that the American version of “the intelligence problem” was not solved by the vast expenditures on technology and “intelligence” agencies. One might infer from this that intelligence agencies do not supply real intelligence or that, at any rate, they are not worth the money that goes into them. Yet in the aftermath of the debacle following from the 2003 invasion of Iraq the commitment to the same fundamental approach was actually consolidated by the tinkering changes made during the post-mortem. This suggests a commitment to grief. Often the lesson that might be inferred from calamity remains unlearned, for we prefer to remain unbowed. This is not precisely the noble thing we make it out to be, if others are paying the price.
All the philosophical schools are essentially related to the 2nd ray of Love-Wisdom. They are the colors of the rainbow or the light fractured by the prism. The keyword is Wisdom.
THE CAUSAL CONSCIOUSNESS
“Occult students have not sufficiently grasped the fact that objectivity is an inevitable result of an inner conscious subjective life. When this is better apprehended, bodies on the physical plane, for instance, will be purified, developed and beautified through a scientific attention paid to the development of the psyche, to the unfoldment of the Ego, and to the stimulation of the egoic vibration. The cause will be dealt with and not the effect, and hence the growing appreciation by the human family of the study of psychology, even though as yet they are but studying the kama-manasic body, and have not reached back to the egoic consciousness. The lunar Lords have had their day; now Agni, as the solar Lord of life and energy, will assume due importance in human life.”—A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, 606.
Men are typically preoccupied with the externals of existence, and their attempts to answer questions and to find solutions to problems are governed by haste and expediency. The answers are half-baked and the solutions are as often the source of new problems, worse than those that were “solved.” All of this is of the lunar nature and indicates the failure to live deeply from causal levels. Man lives on the surface of his own life, or tries to, and is merely tormented by the awareness of his inadequacy.
Such is more or less the perspective and the realization of the man or woman who approaches meditation for the first time, and who seeks in a serious way to employ the powers of the mind; first, for the understanding of life; and second, for the management of life.
We cannot manage what we do not understand, and we cannot succeed when we have failed to ascertain the sources of our own empowerment. It is only the monkey nature that glibly asserts a non-existent competence, but the haste and superficiality of modern life is scarcely conducive to a deeper search. We worship image and appearance and must in the end reap the fruit of an ill-conceived investment.
Our educational system has been reduced to vocational training, its objectives defined by the needs of “the Economy.” The latter is fueled by consumption, and consumption is driven by the lunatic nature of the undeveloped man. Thus contemporary life resembles the story in which the inmates have taken over the asylum.
The point to grasp is that this relatively imperfect showing on the outer plane of life is simply a mirror of the inner state of the human consciousness. Man as an evolving creator cannot help refashioning the world in his own image. If he is unclear about his own identity, values and needs, this will be reflected in his world.
Of course he does not set out to create a world of misery. This is simply a consequence of the fact that he is not yet a master of his art.
THE MARRIAGE IDEAL
Consider the marriage ideal. There may be few ideal marriages, but this does not stop each new generation from exploring the possibility. Every new couple is hopeful of realizing success even if their parents failed miserably in their own attempt. The attraction is irresistible, and the reason, in part, is that marriage is the symbol of the union of the inner and outer nature, the solar and lunar aspects in perfect fusion. When we dream of a perfect love, we are seeing in our opposite the vehicle of our own perfect realization. This is a large burden to place upon another human being; and a large burden for another to place upon us; but it is inevitably an aspect of romantic love.
If we analyze the components of this universal story, we find in it a mixture of essential, evolutionary values and confusion. The mix may be intensely personal or merely typical of the time and place. But—whatever else it might be, success or failure—it is a creative experiment, schooling in the realization of values.
When we look for the perfect devotion of the “other,” this is but the projection of the soul's desire for the perfected response of the lunar nature to the purpose of the soul, the sun of the life. We hear, but we do not understand, and so instead of heeding more closely this word of the soul, we impose an outrageous demand on the “other” who must make up for our own limitation. This is similar to the phenomenon of projection in psychotherapy. The therapist is made into a god because the patient is unwilling or temporarily unable to recognize his own divinity.
In general, the greatest source of human unhappiness is the uncontrolled astral nature. This is that aspect of the threefold personality that is, by most, considered “inner” or subjective. This itself is a sign of confusion and signifies a lack of true self consciousness, for the astral nature is simply the middle aspect of the lunar personality, the body of “water.” Ideally, it is in a state of calm stillness, like a perfect mirror, and able therefore to reflect the light of the sun. More typically, it is in a state of turbulent instability, able to reflect nothing.
Hence the first major achievement of yoga is the control of this body. This results in “the peace that surpasses understanding,” and creates the possibility of using the mind as an instrument of the soul. Apart from this basic achievement, the creativity of the mind is a mixed blessing, for the products of thought merely externalize an alienated state of being.
THE POSITIVE CENTRAL LIFE
The mystic approaches the center of life from the periphery. The orientation is centripetal. When the center has been realized, a different perspective supervenes.
Discovering the center is an experience of a great revelatory significance from the angle of the individual personality. It is the prodigal son returning home. It is indeed a matter of rejoicing. “I once was lost, but now I'm found.” But this is a vision of the soul and the world of the soul that is person-centered. It is a different thing to have a vision of the person and the world of personalities that is centered in the soul and in the capacity to identify with the soul and not with the personality. This outward looking perspective is related to radiance. It brings in its wake an awareness of the souls in prison.
The keynote of jnana yoga has to do with this fundamental question of identification. Who are we, in fact? Acting simply in accordance with instinct and the working of the lower concrete mind, a man feels no need to answer this question. It seems to him that he is his body, that his thinking is simply an epiphenomenon. When he dies (that is, when his body dies), he will be nothing at all. This thinking follows naturally from the fact that one is completely enwrapped in the Great Illusion. It is only when the hold of the Great Illusion begins to weaken that a man begins to ask fundamental questions. This often leads to a period of confusion and uncertainty, for the man no longer knows who he is; nor can he rest in the simplicity that things are what they seem to be.
But as the great Lord said, “Seek and ye shall find.” The seeker does eventually find answers to his questions, assuming only that he is sincere and persistent, and that he is asking the right questions.
It is not a question of belief. Belief, at best, affords a useful map for the journey. Belief for the seeker is like the hypothesis of the scientist. If the seeker's beliefs are based on the testimony of the wise, they may prove a useful guide to the discovery of truth.
Most people are pre-occupied with the business of saving themselves or of improving their position. This is basically the attitude of “the negative electron.” It leads to a lifestyle based on acquisition or seeking; at its root is the sense that something is missing. This is essentially a poverty consciousness, or of a way of life that is appetite-based. One may have a hundred million in the bank and still feel poor. This is the sadness of success, the realization that the fulfillment of one's ambitions does not bring fulfillment.
When a measure of freedom has been achieved, through a realization of “the positive central life,” then it becomes possible to adopt a larger and more generous perspective. This is the hope of the world.
THE WAY OF ACTION
The dynamic aspect of purpose is basically time-oriented. It is the repulsive magnetism that pushes away what is undesirable, including non-achievement. It is not enough then to know that one will achieve someday, that one is on the path. The intensity which makes sooner preferable to later and faster preferable to slower also makes the limitation of the immediate present more intolerable. This is the heat of friction, the goal and that which opposes the goal in abrasive contact.
There is nothing inherently ethical in the above formulation and the same method can be applied for good or evil, or for the merely foolish.
It is, however, the way of action; and the severance of the way of action and the way of higher purposes is one of the basic human psychological problems. Too often people pay only lip service to their higher aims, while zealously pursuing the small change of life.
It is necessary to bring all of the elements of success together. If even one is left out, the results are as in cooking, when an essential ingredient in a recipe is omitted.
The intensity of pure purpose involves the manifestation of the will-to-good, the sacrifice of the impeding factors, and the outgoing embrace of a material world of problems. This latter will be a particular group context or work-related situation which provides opportunity to bring order out of the chaos of life.
THE POINT AT THE CENTER
If one is the teacher or initiator of a group, the problem is to bring that particular group to the level of relative mastery that is practically within reach. This involves an alignment between the teacher (the Point at the center of the circle, or the embodiment of a relative mastery), the group (which has its own relative value, its potential and limitations) and the larger context of humanity (the greater circle in relation to which the students, through their maturation, will become the Points of future outgoing waves).
The realization of mastery by humanity (a distant goal) is fostered by progressive groups which in turn are initiated or set in motion by those who play this central role. This triple alignment and integration reproduces within the microcosm and practically the great planetary and spiritual trinity, so that the whole spiritual, creative process acquires an increasing and accelerating momentum.
One must grasp that “the Point at the Center” need not be a fully realized Master of the Wisdom (a 5th degree initiate). The central Point need not be even close to this achievement. What is at issue is a question of relativity and progressive relationships. The one who knows more can teach. The one who has more can give. Anyone who has achieved any type of pre-eminence, even if it is only very relative, possesses wealth and is called upon by life to become a philanthropist. Wealth is not only or even primarily monetary. It consists in all that makes life worth living, and possession is simply the threshold of giving.
GROUP INDIVIDUALISM
It is one thing to consider “group progress” in a general way and another to consider “group progress” as it relates to an actual group. Each individual group is defined by a specific purpose and consists of a definite group of embodied souls at a certain evolutionary point and endowed with various qualities, potentialities and limitations. Relative to the vastness of the great evolutionary themes, the actual group may seem to be a small enterprise.
This is invariably the case. But if it were not so, we would not be able to master it. For the small is what falls within our ken. The great is, by definition, that which remains, as yet, elusive and beyond our control.
Any emphasis on the form side of life brings to light the theme of limitation, of the tomb. Resurrection, the other side of the coin, is what we achieve by working through the limitations that we find in front of us.
EXPANSIVE RESPONSE
As a result of persistent meditation there is an opening up of the inner world, and a growing sense of the reality that is normally veiled by the dense physical plane existence. This includes a growing sensitivity to:
the discarnate lives;
the life we all live when we “sleep” at night; and
the “inner” or subjective life as it is a factor in conditioning our outer life.
The opening up of the inner world has, finally, a fourth expression: the growing sensitivity of the meditator to “the higher impression.” This term is used to designate the capacity to register and respond to a variety of higher contacts. These contacts are essentially telepathic, but what is more important—for telepathy in itself is commonplace—they originate in the higher regions of the spiritual, mental and psychic world accessible to humanity. Capacity to penetrate into this higher world is fostered by meditation; when, to this power of penetration, there is added the faculty of the interpreter, using the mind to formulate what has been seen and understood, there may emerge revelatory material, expanding the domain of humanity.
The practitioner of meditation can become a forerunner or scout, bringing back information that will be of value to the army, which follows more slowly.
THE SLAYER OF THE REAL
When we consider the creative use of the mind from the point of view of one who has not achieved the 5th initiation, we have to bear “in mind” that we are in the midst of a process of realization. We are not at the final stage. This brings a necessary humility and caution. This is good, as long as it does not becomes so extreme as to place us on the sideline of life, believing ourselves impotent. Above all, it is balance which preserves us from the forms of degenerative mentality.
Excessive confidence makes us dogmatic and certain, even when uncertainty is unwarranted. A lack of confidence, on the other hand, can paralyze us. The latter is associated with the view of the world as a hostile place from which we must withdraw out of self-protection. Unwarranted confidence and dogmatism were integral to the “intelligence problem” of those who instigated and planned the 2003 invasion of Iraq. A similar one-sidedness is apparent in those who over-rate the achievements of the West and so-called “American” values. An unbalanced mind is a dangerous thing, a blind leader of the blind, whether it veers towards a mechanical materialism or an impractical mysticism. Any bias is ultimately fatal. An uncritical acceptance of “channeled information,” whether from “spirits” or television personalities, the conclusion of “experts” or a voice in one's head, is the mind of mindlessness, the worst of all.
SENSITIVITY TO THE HIGHER IMPRESSION
Sensitivity to the higher impression and inspired interpretation follow from the invocative tension of the one who seeks the center of life and inspiration. This is the ascending current. Just as a ball thrown upwards eventually reaches the apex of its journey and begins to fall, so we eventually have the initial manifestation of the descending stream of energy. That which is evoked, and the nature of the understanding that develops, will vary according to the capacity and type of mind of the one who has sought to penetrate into the higher levels of the mind-belt. The approach is successful if it yields, at any level, the conditioned purpose of the individual mind in contact with the universal Mind. At this stage the objective emphasis begins to supersede the subjective. The nascent objective is developed towards concreteness, coherence and group significance.
The sensitivity that is at the heart of this type of revelatory creativity is an outgrowth of the basic human sensitivity that is a factor in our suffering. Sensitivity is an evolutionary lever, a prod and a stimulus to new discoveries. Trained and used with increasing skill, sensitivity produces those works of art that reflect the creative imagination. It brings us into touch with the world of higher energy, and through experience we acquire a taste for that which of higher quality.
FREE MENTAL PERCEPTION
“Where the disciple is concerned, release from the constant consideration of personal circumstances and problems leads inevitably to a clear mental release; this then provides those areas of free mental perception which make the higher sensitivity possible. Gradually, as the disciple acquires true freedom of thought and the power to be receptive to the impression of the abstract mind, he creates for himself a reservoir of thought which becomes available at need for the helping of other people and for the necessities of his growing world service. Later, he becomes sensitive to impression from the Hierarchy. This is at first purely ashramic, but is later transformed into total hierarchical impression by the time the disciple is a Master; the Plan is then the dynamic substance providing the content of the reservoir of thought upon which he can draw. This is a statement of unique and unusual importance. Later still, he becomes sensitive to impression from Shamballa, and the quality of the Will which implements planetary Purpose is added to the content of his available knowledge. The point which I seek to make here, however, is the fact of the existence of a growing reservoir of thought which the disciple has created in response to the many varying impressions to which he is becoming increasingly sensitive; the ideas, concepts and spiritual objectives of which he is becoming aware are steadily being formulated by him into thoughts with their appropriated thoughtforms, and upon these he learns to draw as he seeks to serve his fellowmen. He finds himself in possession of a reservoir or pool of thought-substance which is the result of his own mental activity, of his innate receptivity, and which provides the material for teaching and the 'fount of knowledge' upon which he can draw when he seeks to aid other people.
“The essential point to be grasped is that sensitivity to impression is a normal and natural unfoldment, paralleling spiritual development. I gave you a clue to the entire process when I said that
'Sensitivity to impression involves the engendering of a magnetic aura upon which the highest impressions can play.'
“I would have you give the deepest consideration to these words. As the disciple begins to demonstrate soul quality, and the second divine aspect takes possession of him and controls and colours his entire life, automatically the higher sensitivity is developed; he becomes a magnet for spiritual ideas and concepts; he attracts into his field of consciousness the outline, and later the details, of the hierarchical Plan; he becomes aware eventually of the planetary Purpose; all these impressions are not things which he must seek out and learn laboriously to ascertain, to hold and seize upon. They drop into his field of consciousness because he has created a magnetic aura which invokes them and brings them 'into his mind'. This magnetic aura begins to form itself from the first moment he makes a contact with his soul; it deepens and grows as these contacts increase in frequency and become eventually an habitual state of consciousness; then, at will and at all times, he is en rapport with his soul, the second divine aspect.”—Telepathy and the Etheric Vehicle, 94-96.
THE PATH TO MASTERY
It is of course only in the light of a genuine understanding of the constitution of man that we can begin to formulate a path of realization or mastery. Lacking such an understanding, our efforts will be hampered at the outset by “the intelligence problem.”
The path itself has its inception in the recognition of the goal to be achieved, the means to the goal, and the obstacles that stand in the way of realization. A clarity in relation to these things is itself no small achievement since many blunders or false starts are typically the result of ignorant zeal. We believe we can fly before we can walk.
At first the path appears as an individual path. The goal appears as an individual goal, and the problem of the path appears as an individual problem. But this merely indicates the separated or alienated consciousness which views all life through the filter of identification with the lower nature.
Later, one will consider the problems of realization in the light of the universality of the path and of the goal to be achieved. One's “own” problems will either disappear or find their context within the larger picture. As the consciousness expands, and as experience is acquired through conscious experiment, capacities are naturally enlarged, and the power to be useful to others develops accordingly. Growth along the path of the soul ray towards the ashramic consciousness is succeeded by a growing sensitivity to the Hierarchy as a whole. This sensitivity—it must be emphasized—extends both upwards and downwards.
The approach to this mediatory capacity imposes an appearance of dominion, even if one is only the ruler of a pond. Both the fact of an actual, relative power, and the illusion imposed by that fact, are enshrined in the designation “the Boss” applied to the type EIGHT personality in the Enneagram teaching.
Since this mediatory capacity is subject to unlimited expansion, it must be viewed finally in its universal aspect. This brings us, within the planetary context, to the growth of a world group, composed of all progressive groups, and oriented towards the consciousness of the 5th kingdom. In this progressive universality we see the Aquarian prospect of “more abundant life” and of a world reorganized for the fulfillment of divine purpose through a humanity awakening to its inherent divinity. Of significance is not the individual realization of mastery, but the universal realization; not a competition for bread-crumbs, as if humanity were a race of cockroaches, but a shared responsibility for the renewal of the world, and for the renewal of our very idea of Man.
THE WILL TO DESTROY LIMITATION
The 4th ray will is “the will to destroy limitation.”—Esoteric Astrology, 598.
Before limitation can be destroyed, it has to be recognized as such. This type of recognition is therefore an aspect of revelation.
When considering the path of discipleship this is called the “lesser revelation,” bringing to light the characteristic faults of “the chela in the light.” The revelation of divinity is the other side of the coin, related to the 2nd ray.
What matters to us are those limitations that are standing in the way of our current will—not our enemies out there, the imagined conspiracy to prevent us from being happy, but the limitations we discover within our own nature. This may be extended of course to their group correspondence: the structural limitations in society that reflect the collective human nature that created them in the first place.
The discovery of limitation is not the same thing as failure, even if failure has been the stimulus to the discovery. Discovery of limitation is a necessary stage of the creative process. If this discovery can be greeted with detachment and serenity, all is well. More common, however, is the lack of detachment, based on our previous investments. We cannot become perfect because we prefer to pretend we already are perfect. We are defensive about a position, without any regard for its worth, simply because it is ours. Such basic impediments in the way of progress are limitations that humanity will destroy as it evolves, as the will-to-evolve becomes stronger.
TWO HANDS
When we speak of the “lesser revelation” and the revelation of divinity as two sides of one coin, we emphasis the fact that there is no inherent separation between the Human Realm and the God Realm.
The first two limbs of the raja yoga of Patanjali are the five niyamas (observances) and the five yamas (restraints). They are five and five, as “two hands.” The ethical code described in the first two limbs of the raja yoga appears in various forms throughout the world. It is essentially a universal code, a manifestation of the 2nd and 4th rays as they condition the spiritual life of humanity. When the “two hands” function as one we have the soul and the personality coordinated, the first step taken towards the fusion of the two, and the realization of the liberated soul.
This foundational realization makes possible “the steady growth of the Building Mystics, for when a man has found his soul and recognises its relationship to its mechanism of expression, the threefold lower man, he automatically passes into the consciousness of the subjective life, begins to work with cause and is no longer lost in the world of effects.”—A Treatise on White Magic, 331.
First the cup is filled, then it overflows. First the essential, inner Man is given due recognition; then comes increased power to bring about due change in the world of effects. These changes are carried forward to fruition through meditation and right emphasis on the illumined mind.
ALCHEMY: THE SOLVENT STAGE
Confusion is ended when we can untangle the elements of which it is composed. This produces a relaxation of non-productive tensions, a clarification of options, and the possibility of bringing the will to bear based on clear vision. This type of analytical illumination is part of the learning that takes place in relation to jnana yoga. Learned, it becomes second nature, and can be then employed as a reliable objective tool. While the solvent stage of the alchemical process produces “a clarification of options, and the possibility of bringing the will to bear based on clear vision” it does not follow automatically that these possibilities will be actualized. For this to occur there must be a shift of gears, and the engagement of a process completely different from the “liberating” process that brought us to this point: a “creative” process.
The faculty of 5th ray analysis facilitates the de-construction of complexes and fosters liberation. Liberation achieved makes possible an outgoing activity that is not based merely on compulsions. This free activity is the service of life.
This possibility is actualized by allowing that gravity is not all bad; that there is value in the depth as in the height; and by following the rhythm of the breath. After the inhalation, we exhale.
SPIRITUAL OXYGEN
In the figure 8, taken as a pictorial indication or sign of Jacob's Ladder, the upper circle corresponds to our capacity to come into contact with higher energy. The lower circle refers to our capacity to become in turn the representatives or transmitters of higher energy on a lower turn of the spiral. This number, then, is related to the growth of hierarchical sensitivity; it is related to the science of invocation and evocation, and to the meditation process in its dual aspect of silencing the mind and achieving a poised receptivity; and of building thoughtforms in response to impression.
The figure 8 is related to respiration, to rhythmic living, and to the capacity to become inspired and ultimately to inspire others. On the periodic table of the elements, oxygen has the number eight.
The mediatory theme has equalizing significance, since every rung of the ladder is equally intermediate between that which is higher and that which is lower. It has evolutionary significance since the whole tendency of relationship in either direction is progressive. Thus the universality of the evolutionary theme, or its expression through an entire planet or solar system, becomes apparent. In the light of this universality, the theme of the evolving unit is overshadowed. It is not negated, but it acquires its meaning and significance solely in the context of the evolving whole.
THE TRIADS
The Law of Fixation, governing the 5th plane, is related to a fixed place within the larger context, or a fixed period within the flux of time. Time and place have a characterizing significance. The systemic Law of Fixation expresses the static aspect of love and the constructive aspect of stability.
If everyone were on an ungodly hurry to get beyond, to move on to the next step or to some other place, no one would pay attention to the necessity of the here-and-now. Indeed, efficiency and competence are characteristic of the abiding nature, of one who has the patience to stay with a given task and bring it to an adequate conclusion.
Nevertheless, however much we may love a given context, we are eventually torn away from it. It is a destiny that cannot be avoided in the end. The Law of Fixation, which governs the 5th plane, the mental, is trumped by the Law of Disintegration, which governs the 3rd plane, the atmic or spiritual plane.
If we remain attached to a fixed time and place, death seems to us an enemy, a feared nemesis. The healing factor in death is that it returns us to our pure essence, to our divinity, which we have forgotten about. There is more to come forth than fits within the small world to which we have become accustomed. The capacity to regain or retain this essential awareness can be fostered even in life. Then death need not be so frightening. We may speak then about the “death” of our illusions and fears and realize that this “death” has a liberating virtue. It bestows new and enlarged capacities, which become visible in the paradox of leadership.
At the heart there is a disappearance of egoism, a vanishing of attachment and chest-thumping self-reference, and this makes possible the enlarged identification with the group, with the nation, with the world.
There is no question then of competing interests, but of a confluence and drawing together, of a mutual and collective empowerment. Where this is not understood, one finds the cult of personality. At the root then is the inability to distinguish between the rind and the fruit, the mask and the essence.
We can grasp then that evolution moves along three distinct but parallel channels. There is a “death” process which is useful and which has a constructive value at the most essential level of being. There is the more obvious value of the “love” which is related to the Law of Fixation. There is also an intermediate factor which serves to regulate and harmonize these apparently irreconcilable opposites. All three evolutionary streams are ultimately cohesive because they are rooted in a unitary or monadic life purpose.
First we acquire vocabulary. Subsequently we learn to speak and make sense. First we become acquainted with the three streams of energy. Then and only then can we realize the One behind the Three.
The three aspects of the mind are analogous, as are the terms subconscious, conscious and superconscious, suggesting the necessity for a threefold integration.
EROS AND THANATOS
It is not at all easy to realize the synthesis of the three energies; there may therefore be a long period of experimental work, involving a relatively exclusive emphasis on one or another aspect of the whole. Although temporary from the long-term view of the soul, such an exclusive focus may easily involve a whole lifetime.
Consider the career of one of our finer novelists, Philip Roth, who gives an example of the creative or “erotic” emphasis, which, through its very intensity or exclusivity, serves to highlight anxiety or death-fear. Even at an advanced age the creative fervor and productivity of this amazing writer was evident in a series of excellent short novels, including Everyman (2006), which has as its theme the end that waits for all, Indignation (2008), the story of a youth whose brief life-career is ended by the Korean War, and Nemesis (2010), a Job-like kick at the Deity for permitting such an atrocity as a polio epidemic that strikes at children.
For a long, long time we have the vices of our virtues, and this is even more obvious—it is writ large—in the case of the best and the brightest. If this is recognized (and it will be obvious to any student of history), then it is easy to understand why the perfect realization of the Master can only be the capstone of many lifetimes of arduous labor.
TRUTH AND MORALITY
If there is an “original” sin, it is the turning away from truth to create a world of lies. The battle of Socrates against the sophists in Plato’s Gorgias and the allegory of the Cave in The Republic display the connection between morality and truth. Led astray by misinformation or hypnotized by illusion, we are incapable of right action.
Each of the seven rays displays characteristic virtues and vices. Of the 4th Ray of Harmony through Conflict, the basic ray of humanity, it is well said that when it comes to war, “truth is the first casualty.” This refers to the conscious manipulation of facts (and non-facts) in propaganda and misinformation; and also to the state of mind pre-disposed towards conflict. Both aspects of this problem were in evidence on the eve of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The “intelligence” problem was of a fundamental and not merely technical character.
In relation to the 1st Ray of Will or Power, the vice of irritation or impatience appears. One may recognize that such a problem is rooted in a “false” perspective (substituting the self-will for true purpose) and nevertheless have to deal with what appears to be an instinctive reaction. The momentum of action must be arrested or reversed. “Patience” then signifies both a practice and an achieved virtue.
In relation to the 2nd Ray of Love-Wisdom, duality is evident in the distinction between real benevolence and the many forms of pseudo-generosity generated by a desire to be loved, by timidity and by other limiting motivations.
LIEBESTOD
The desire to give and receive love is universal. The problem is that unless the giving is without strings, an element of perversion creeps into the gift. We cannot make “love” into a contractual arrangement, nor can we bargain over it and keep a close accounting what has been given and what received. Thus the strongest of all human desires actually moves us toward a purity of realization that involves the discernment between the attached “love” of the lower nature and the free love of the liberated soul. The association of love and death therefore has two meanings. In the attached “love” an inherent poison is at work which must in the end produce that reaping and weeping which is so often the theme of tragic romance. On the other hand, by embracing the higher truth of the jnana yogi, one discovers both freedom and pure love, along with immortality.
All the perversions stem from non-realization of the perfections. They express ignorance colored by the ray energy, grasped in an imperfect or distorted manner. In Christianity the doctrine of vicarious atonement, by encouraging ignorance and superstition, fosters the prolongation of suffering. The doctrine that asserts that Jesus is the one and only “Son of God” is correlated with the image of man as a hopeless sinner promulgated by a corrupt church. Again, this fosters ignorance and places a roadblock in the path of humanity, whose advance involves the realization that man is (that all men—and women—are) essentially divine. The antidote for this poison is the full realization of the jnanashakti, and the relegation of corrupt doctrines to the waste basket.
Duality is the university through which we evolve and realize the perfections. First we realize the contrast between higher and the lower, between better and the worse, and between good and evil; then and only then can we realize the good.
Light reveals; love endeavors to live according to the revelation; finally the actual embodiment of the light demonstrates power or achievement.
In relation to the 4th ray we have the formative stage of this realization, and “moral discipline” is the manifestation of the inner effort made by the prodigal son to cast off the habits of the fallen nature and to become re-acquainted with his innate divinity or original self. The “generosity” of the 2nd ray may be expressed in random deeds but as a fundamental quality it signifies a basic orientation to be giving, a disposition that asks what we can do for others, for the world, for the greater good. This question is not seriously asked until there is an alignment with the soul and a corresponding measure of freedom from the lower nature. When the lower nature is very active, thought is circumscribed by that which moves one, and by the goals that are set forth as a consequence. Philosophically, this is called human bondage.
When there is a degree of freedom and one is therefore able to grasp the spiritual purpose of life, this in turn determines those themes that are appropriate for “meditative concentration.” From an existential pre-occupation with individual freedom, we develop an interest in group liberation or group progress. From the subjective emphasis that unfolds the flower of “generosity” and good will, we proceed to develop the practical ways and means of expressing good will and making it effective.
The essential realization of the soul, flowering as “generosity,” is further developed through the gradual fusion of the soul and body, or the control of the body-nature by the soul, which automatically brings the former into an optimal harmony. This is, in effect, healing, even if it is done without specific intent to heal. “Meditative concentration” in relation to this theme will definitely further the healing science. Moreover, “meditative concentration” along any chosen line will tend to unleash powers for the furtherance of life on Earth, in accordance with the path of the thought, if it is motivated by “generosity.”
The perfection of wisdom brings to light the universality of this flowering, extending like a beanstalk into a world of giants. When a Master works with and through a group, there is a blending and sharing of energy which fosters and expedites the realization of that group. This process is repeated through the whole chain of Hierarchy and is potentially carried through humanity into the three subhuman kingdoms of nature. Since this initiatic sharing is continually increasing, the realization of mastery is continually on the increase, and the speed with which this realization is being accomplished is subject to an enormous acceleration. Through a collective sharing in the perfection of wisdom—a spiritual correspondence to the more familiar sympathetic magic—the nature of human endeavor will be completely transformed and—to use a word which has become popular—upgraded. The perfection of endeavor joined with the perfection of wisdom on a universal scale will involve the entire human race and affect all life on the planet. This alignment will signify at once the externalization of the Hierarchy, the scientific recognition of the 5th kingdom in nature, and the initiation of humanity.
GEMINI
The energy of liberation reaches us through Gemini. It is symbolized in the ballet by the male dancer who plays a “silent” role as the pivot for the female, who is highlighted. The relation between humanity and Hierarchy is similar. It is a relation between those who are striving for liberation and Those who have already achieved it.
This makes possible a clear conception of the goal on the part of those who are striving. They are given a clear example. They are given encouragement and aid, within the limits of the situation. (An excess of “help” may paralyze the one who is “helped.”) Thus the achievement of those who avail themselves of this aid is enormously accelerated.
Such an achievement is not a merely individual accomplishment. It is a group realization in which the players assume different roles at different times just as, in the material life, one may be successively a child, a youth, an adult, a parent, a grandparent, a revered ancestor.
The key to the use of this energy is the clear identification and relation of the two poles, the positive pole of achieved liberation and the negative pole of aspiration. Astrologically, this is Gemini and Sagittarius. When the relation is established, it leads to the Path or link between the two, and this leads to liberation. The one who is liberated can then play the positive role. The relation is essentially blissful, since its whole tendency is to obliterate non-achievement, foster the mastery of the new generation, and unite all in a shared realization of divinity.
One must put away the idea that “the perfect Master” is someone special, “God's only Son,” or the correlative idea that that the aspirant is frozen in the image of sinner, devotee or student. These are moments in time, roles.
The whole tendency of realization is to destroy the “inferior” status of the seeker. The exalted status of the Master in the eye of the seeker is simply a mirror image of this abasement.
The desire of the Masters is to make us Their co-workers.
The universality of Aquarius is pointing us towards a larger vision, towards a mastering which is simply the normal business of life. In this context it will be everyone's business if there are human beings anywhere on earth who are starving to death, sold as slaves, or otherwise left outside the ramparts of a civilized world order.
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
The relation between Knowledge-Wisdom and the empowerment or the actual expressive capacity that Knowledge-Wisdom “makes possible” is the theme that Bacon introduced in the early seventeenth century, at the dawn of the 7th ray cycle. Our decisions are informed by the measure of our understanding. Our capacities are increased as our understanding is increased. The West has risen on the acceptance of this premise and its actualization. Although it has reached a cul-de-sac, this does not invalidate the premise. It does, however, call for the realization of a higher type of understanding than that which has so far been implemented.
If the “intelligence” problem were more honestly faced, and the problem grappled with in a sincere way, it would yield this higher understanding. So far this has not occurred. The “reasons” for this reluctance all lie in the reluctance to change and adapt, in the inertia and vice of psychological resistance.
The change, were it to occur, would signify, in fact, an initiation, and another stage in the Renaissance. Once this is more clearly understood, people will be happy to “lose” everything that impedes the new realization and the entrance to a new life. For they are weary to death of the old, hampering restrictions.
SAGITTARIUS
In order to foster a group realization of mastery, one must be a master oneself. But this may be understood relatively, and the perfection of individual realization need not precede efforts on behalf of a group.
Those who pass through the fire and who emerge, in advance of the racial realization, equipped with a new understanding and aligned with the creative future, must lead. They cannot help doing so, if they have truly come through the confusions and uncertainties of the transition. They lead by example. They lead by sharing what they know. They lead simply by being, and by virtue of the fact of relationship to the larger world, which is in need of what they know.
The new leadership must be distinguished from the old, for there is a negative or reactionary form of leadership that is associated with the very problems that today require solution.
The new leadership can only grow out of the new consciousness, which is unfolded through the liberation (mental, psychic and spiritual) that yields a comprehension of the oneness of life, and creates consequently a structure of life that reflects a radically altered sense of relationship.
Polar opposites Sagittarius and Gemini suggest the realization of a basic spiritual and progressive alignment. From this alignment the Path is created through an advancing aspiration together with the renunciation of everything which is, at any time, seen to impede or retard the realization.
This must be accomplished individually, it must be accomplished by groups, and eventually it must be accomplished by humanity as a whole.
In connection with the group form of this alignment and realization, the leader provides example, encouragement and stimulus to the group.
In the ideal form of this realization, the Master working through an Ashram, the power of the Master to work with and through the group is entirely dependent on the reciprocal response and readiness of the group. The group is not raised like a dead weight by the Master. Neither does the group realization depend solely on the group initiative. There is a sharing and blending of energy.
The degree to which this sharing is possible is determined from “below,” because it is a function of the readiness to advance on the part of those who are not Masters. The response from “above” is commensurate to the demonstrated readiness or the “invocative potency” of the group. This is not simply a vocalized call for aid, but is rather the realization of a complete mental, spiritual and physical ripeness for the next step.
The Master does not force a realization for which the group is not prepared.
Success is therefore dependent on the degree of convergence or synergy attained by the group. If this is only minimal, then the weakness of the group is apparent. A greater convergence of aims and energy produces a stronger group.
It is relatively easy to produce such a convergence when the purpose is merely one of material self-aggrandizement. It is more difficult in relation to the Path, for so much more is involved. It is easier to build a bicycle than an airplane.
If people are told that the Path is liberation, bliss and glory, they are ready. But if they are told that it is sacrifice, hard work and loneliness, they find other things to do. They fade away when the difficulties become evident. When the cup of bliss does not seem so easy to acquire as they had hoped, they disappear. Thus the sheep are separated from the goats.
The foundational work is necessarily very slow. It is amazing how many misconceptions there are. A complete understanding of the goal itself is difficult to develop, for people want to emphasize one or another aspect to the exclusion of all else. Everyone has a pet theory or idea, and inertia makes it difficult to overcome old habits. Without sincerity and patience not much is possible.
THE FIRE OF THE WILL
The realization of the objective with such intensity that there arises a desire to sweep away all obstacles, and to experience immediately the fulfillment of that which is intended, is a characteristic of the dynamic purpose of the 1st ray. It is also the reason for the impatience and irritability of the unevolved 1st ray type, or of the “perfectionist” personality. A parallel to this is seen at that stage in the development of an infant when the infantile omnipotence is challenged by an unpleasant reality.
If there is no will, there is no way. Therefore, at the first stage of the creative process, energy is gathered at a central point, leading to the initial movement outward: the formation of a clear intention.
This intention will not in itself magically produce the desired results without further effort, but it is in a sense the magic wand, for it creates the subjective attitude that leads to achievement. This is especially the case when one realizes the necessity for a gradual or staged realization, along with the importance of patience and forbearance.
First the fire of the will creates the burning ground, the Hell of non-achievement. Next, the fire must be brought under control and direction and become useful, as a fire for cooking. The path of one who suffers from “impatience” and “irritability” owing to a thwarted will-to-power or a “perfectionist” personality that is inadequately related to the constructive creative process (the steps required to produce actual perfection), is clear.
The fire has to be controlled and directed. The desire is not to achieve “patience” or “tranquility” by lobotomizing the patient; rather, the realization of patience is incidental to the discovery of those constructive paths that provide adequate outlet for the nascent creative energies that are bottled up. Thus we do not make serenity a goal in itself. “Freedom from” must be realized in correlation with “freedom for.”
This involves clarification of the duality, the YES and the NO, so that the destroyer energy has something specific to work on and becomes a constructive factor and not merely an amorphous reaction to a state of frustration.
Imagine the liberated man and stand him next to the unliberated man, until the two images are clear and concise. This will involve a thorough analytical understanding of the two, tracing the apparent limitation of the unliberated man to its root. The object is to transfer the consciousness from the unliberated man to the liberated man. See, for example, the final scene of the Hesse novel The Journey to the East.
Underlying such a shift is the factor of identification, and the transference of the identification from A to B. As one achieves a measure of success and an achieved liberation, the delight factor kicks in. This is an empowerment that automatically propels one to the next stage, as one who has experienced liberation wishes to share the wealth. One is faced with an enlarged field of activity which will provide full scope both for the lower and higher tendencies; with the higher waxing, as long as the fundamental issue of liberation is kept in mind. This is a dangerous stage, since the achievement is only relative; hubris may appear.
As soon as a measure of illumination and empowerment has been achieved, the lower nature attempts to appropriate it for it own purposes. Thus the self-control which enabled us to achieve a relative success must now be realized at a still higher level if we are not to become examples of the adage that “Nothing fails like success.”
At this stage the group context of our actions is apparent. If we fall, others will fall with us. If we ascend, other will ascend with us. This awareness is both an encouragement and a warning. The stakes are raised. It will be apparent that this implies a sensitivity which is just the opposite of that expressed in the idea that “I am so small, what could it matter what I do?” These words express the irresponsibility of an imagined impotence.
We know that we are not impotent, but we are also aware of the double-edged nature of our power, which can hurt or heal. We are aware also of the rhythmic nature of life. We rise and we fall, like the breath. To foster a genuine and lasting ascent, therefore, we must raise the entire rhythm of life and realize thoroughly that which we may have only sensed or tasted. This requires persistence and endurance.
Persistence on the true Path leads one inevitably closer and closer to the heart of the Master and of the 5th kingdom, the Hierarchy. This too may be experienced relatively. Even at the minimal level of recognition, one becomes aware of the embracing universality of the whole progressive theme. Mastery may be achieved, at first, by only a few, but ultimately it is the destiny of the entire human race; and even the evolution of humanity is only a portion of the whole picture, for evolution is not limited to the 4th kingdom.
The work of wisdom becomes increasingly focused and effective through a growing responsiveness to the Universal Mind and a willing, practical incorporation into the purpose of world transformation and maintenance. This includes but is not limited to the uplift of humanity.
The more surely we know, the more clear and certain it is what we must do. This involves the implementation of an individual understanding of dharma or duty. This idea of dharma or duty, or adherence to the law of life, is the finishing touch or the final substantial embodiment of all our efforts. When we shirk it, we leave our ideals unembodied, and our works unfinished or inadequately performed. This type of failure leads to the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts, for we are haunted by that which we have left undone. He sleeps well, with a clear conscience, who has given his all to the daily task of life.
One who has good will naturally wishes to serve, to do good; but to actually achieve what is most useful, wisdom is required. Hence meditation is emphasized. One may plunge directly into action, but in this case one simply provides food for meditation (for one will inevitably be forced to ponder the reasons for the failure of action to achieve the results desired).
Industry in the service of lesser goals is familiar. Industry without self-interest may even seem paradoxical to some. As a transcendental virtue, the interpretation of virya-paramita as “energy” or “heroism” suggests the power of the third eye (of the divine executive), which holds the worker to the established task and produces results that may even seem “heroic.”
RESURRECTION THROUGH SACRIFICE
“Resurrection through sacrifice” is at the heart of this increase in energy. Without the capacity for sacrifice, one remains tied to the forms and formulae that hold one down and retard the evolution. When the sacrifice is of a limited nature, it permits a correspondingly limited ascent. When the sacrifice is unlimited, it permits unlimited ascent.
The capacity for giving is not based on a large store of possessions but on a freedom from the “poverty” consciousness that is inherent in attachment and possessiveness generally. The axe of renunciation strikes at this basic impoverishment and liberates the riches of the spirit.
After learning the art of transforming failure into success, one must beware of transforming success into failure. This occurs usually because the fundamentals are neglected in the belief that one has momentum or “divine favor” (hubris) and no longer has the need to remember what enabled one to achieve a relative eminence.
One may observe in the course of a single conversation the exact point at which one of the speakers “descends” into a lower tone. Perhaps the conversation has begun with a good intent and the initial exchange has been cordial. Perhaps the “descent” is not even conscious; it may be the self-defeating intrusion of a subconscious animosity at an unguarded moment. Such small failures, which express a lack of self-control, can have a critical significance. They reveal what remains to be accomplished in the way of self-discipline and liberation.
Mastery is an ultimate attainment that does not come easily or quickly; it is built up slowly over the course of lifetimes; and it requires of those who would achieve it everything. The price can only be everything because that which is purchased is of infinite value. It is in this light that we must understand the concept of “recession of the goal.”
RECESSION OF THE GOAL
“Recession of the goal” can be considered from two opposing perspectives: the perspective of “the dying animal” and the perspective of the empowered soul. The first is the perspective of loss: the perspective of the adolescent who finds in adulthood the puncturing of the balloon of childish fantasies. In the half light of a partial maturity he might then conceive himself condemned, like Sisyphus, to a futile labor.
The alternative, positive perspective is based on the quickening awareness of what is gained and growing through this “death” and disillusionment.
Consider, for example, the word “omniscience,” which, when applied to a human being, is generally pejorative and mocking. One may be a “know-it-all,” quick to judge and criticize, quick to affirm an opinion; but this has nothing to do with wisdom and may not even have to do with actual knowledge. It has more to do with a desire of the personality, the ape or shadow of the soul, to appear knowing. As such it is merely a personality limitation, and the effect of this particular limitation is to retard or inhibit the learning process, for one cannot learn when one already “knows.”
The attitude truly conducive to learning and which therefore builds inevitably the store of knowledge and wisdom is “the empty cup” which invites filling. One who “sacrifices” an imaginary omniscience and acquires the attitude that advances true learning has in reality lost nothing and gained something tremendously valuable.
The “loss” is merely apparent; it is felt to be real because of the rootedness of the adolescent being in natural life and the distortion or swamping of the mental process by emotions.
Thus, slowly but surely, the consciousness of the 5th kingdom grows within the 4th and will eventually supersede it.