A Stranger On Earth

[QUOTING]

What will happen then, when what was said of Jesus the Lord becomes a reality for you, too:

"...there was no place on Earth where He could lay His head".

Do you realize what a delightful indication this is? The ignorant religious man experiences this as something terrible. Jesus the Lord who had no place where He could lay His head.

However, what is meant here is an incomprehensible blessing. When your astral self can no longer enter the astral sphere of the nature-of-death; when a splitting of the personality is no longer possible and the condition of sleep, normal to dualistic life, can no longer take place, what is going to happen then?

Then something else opens to you. The young Gnosis possesses a group body, a New Field of Life, a new, Pure Astral Sphere which the group keeps drawn around it. This becomes your resting-place, which is in equilibrium with the necessities of your upward course of development; a delightful, pure place where you can spend your nocturnal life, completely safe in the Living Body of the Gnosis.

We need to clarify yet another aspect. Until now we have viewed the sidereal birth only in connection with the individual course of development. However, the one who goes the way of soul-development will not stop at this, but will increasingly demonstrate the typical characteristics of the Soul-man, for instance, by an unceasingly impersonal force of love, completely disregarding his own interests in a spontaneous and absolute serving attitude of life.

Whoever gives priority to the soul's life-course will adjust all the ever-recurring duties and responsibilities harmoniously. When you live out of the soul, when you are renewed in the astral self and your deepest and highest longings are directed towards the School and its exalted aims, it not only becomes still within you, but this Silence, this Harmony also radiates into your immediate surroundings. Then something new is manifested around you. Here also, Silence, Rest and Harmony develop. Everything that excited you previously and caused tensions, disappears. It will become as the tripping of a bird on your roof, or the buzzing of a fly against the window. For everything that is relegated to a secondary place will no longer hinder you. It will no longer cause difficulties, no longer create conflicts, for you will have entered into the grand and glorious life of the Soul. You will look at each other with the glance of the Soul and you will understand the struggle of those who perhaps worry or are in a tight spot because of one or another tension and, consequently, act wrongly, or differently from what you are used to.

Whoever begins to live out of the Soul, contributes to the establishment of true harmony in all the circles of life in which he moves. Service to humanity, emanating from the Soul, keeps all aspects of life enclosed within the Soul. Whoever is absorbed in all this has become a complete stranger on earth. He who is transfigured in the astral self does not feel like a stranger on earth, but he is one. No longer does a place of rest exist on earth for his Inner Being; he is as one ostracized.

For him the Home of the Soul opens, the Golden Head of the Living Body, the new gnostic astral field. For him the sleep of the body becomes the soberness of the Soul, the closing of the eyes, the real seeing; the Silence becomes as a pregnancy of the Good for him and the proclaiming of the Word will result in fruitful works of salvation.

From "The Way to Alienation" The Egyptian Arch-Gnosis, Vol. 1 - Jan van Rijckenborgh

[END QUOTING]

Those who walk the Path in humility and self-surrender -- evidenced not by speech, but by deeds -- will undergo a change in the astral body, a change in vibration. As the astral self is drawn up into the heart, this change in vibration can manifest itself in sleeplessness, insomnia. Why does this occur?

When the nature-born person goes to sleep, there takes place what is known as a "splitting of the personality". The lower two ethers of the etheric body (chemical, life) remain with the physical body while the two higher ethers (light, reflecting) and the astral body head off to the astral plane of the reflection-sphere.

What's important to note is that one's astral vehicle heads off to the region of the astral plane that is in harmony with one's astral vibration. This means that whatever condition one finds oneself in astrally upon falling asleep will determine where the astral body will travel during sleep. Whatever one's desires were focused during the waking-state will charge the astral body with a certain level of vibration. Because like attracts like, the astral body spends the hours of sleep in the region of the reflection-sphere which best matches its vibration.

But when one has shifted his or her focus away from the mundane cares of the natural-world there is a different effect on the astral body. If the day-life is focused upon walking the Path not only in theory but in fact, desiring nothing for the self and living only to selflessly serve others, the astral body is charged with a different, much higher vibration. When sleep comes for such a one, it is difficult to obtain, because the ordinary astral-sphere of this nature does not vibrate at such a high level, and must, therefore, reject the intruder. This sometimes makes it very difficult for those who have begun to walk the Path to fall asleep as easily as they once used to.

This is what is meant by being a "stranger on earth", or "having no place to rest one's head". For those who are in the process of rejecting the natural world, the once hospitable regions of the reflection-sphere are no longer so. They are outcasts, invaders. The candidate on the Path must now find somewhere else to reside during the hours of rest. But where?

~ g
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