A Key To The Path

[QUOTING]

The New Faculty

We said that our being and its activities -- initially the mentality -- are imprisoned in the nature-of-death via the astral sphere. How then is it possible that our desires and thoughts go out to the Gnosis? Do you realize that this is a vital question? It is vital too, to consider the gnostic life. Hence, the emphasis by which we draw your attention to it.

A keen interest in the Gnosis is not to be explained from ordinary consciousness, for our dualistic state is guided by the nature-of-death. How then, do these other, non-dualistic thoughts and feelings arise in us? They can only have come to us from outside by breaking into the system and propelling the mentality into another direction. If you recognize this situation as your own, you are engaged in drawing the consciousness up from the liver-spleen system into the heart; only such a consciousness is able to assimilate gnostic influences. The heart becomes open for the Gnostic Radiations; they mix with the blood, penetrate via the blood circulation into the head sanctuary and have a remarkable influence on the mentality, causing thoughts to arise which do not correspond with the horizontal line of ordinary life. In this way, the Gnosis breaks into the system and renders it a New Faculty. At first, perhaps, only as a thought-flash, after which an impulse of the will and the desire goes out, wanting to seize the Salvation hidden in the Gnosis.

When the Gnosis awakens thoughts in you which are neither born out of karma, the lipika, the astral sphere, nor out of the blood of nature, but of God, then, from that moment on, you can listen to the voice of the Soul, or mystically stated, the voice of God. Then you are connected with the New Astral Field., with the Gnosis, with the Universal Gnostic Chain.

Now you can prove for yourself whether you possess something of all this. If so, rejoice with us, for you have the Key to the Path in your hands, in your system. Indeed, with the New Faculty, you can stop thoughts which emanate from the natural self and give them a different direction, in accordance with the demands of the Path.

If you are unable to do this, you may absorb intellectually what we tell you and perhaps be able to repeat it literally, but it is of no use to you; nothing will change in you. You need to use this New Faculty immediately, even if you possess only the first aspect of it, to take hold of your thoughts and give them another direction. If you succeed, you may rest assured of getting will and desire under control. In other words, you are able to control your activities according to the demand of the glorious New Influence in your life.

Self-sanctification, self-liberation, the Path of Healing begins with your thought-life. Whoever is not able to begin with this has to wait until the consciousness has been drawn up from the liver-spleen system into the heart.

However, if you possess the New Faculty and do not make use of it, you will ruin the process of your pupilship. Therefore, keep in mind the warning of the Great Ones: five minutes of ill-advised thinking -- uncharitable thoughts full of criticism, envy, hate, etc., can undo the work of your pupilship.

This is why a practical re-direction of thought is urgently necessary for all those who want to go the Path. This is the intellectual education to which you need to submit in the Spiritual School. The way to self-liberation is purification of the thought-life; to think truly. Do see the significance of this, as your self-revolution should begin in this way. Whoever begins the purification of his thoughts begins to break the ties between the personality-system and the lipika and, accordingly, the astral sphere. These ties make us into harlequins, as it were, because they induce us to act in accordance with the impulses emanating from the astral sphere. When one begins to change the mentality in the power of the Gnosis, then one is gradually freed from this fatal influence.

In the meantime, the heart opens increasingly, you become alienated from the nature-of-death and its astral sphere and the gnostic forces enter your system in great waves. Your New Faculty becomes more vigorous and through this self-sacrifice you transfigure your astral body quickly. Thus, you are placed before a completely new beginning.

Now ask yourself once more: does the profound longing to approach the Gnosis, to enter the New Life, really exist in me? Is this longing genuine? If your reply is a firm 'yes', then you have already entered the New Beginning and received the New Faculty. Only then can we speak successfully and with good reason of the Soul-life in the New Astral Field.

Finally, consider this: Do not worry about dreams of a dualistic nature, which could make you think that you have had no participation in the New Astral Field during the night. Disregard this uneasiness; a great many dreams, if not all, are due to the unloading of the brain-cells, especially those of the memory-center. For instance, if you have a strong imagination and have been thinking about banalities, letting yourself go, then the brain-cells charge themselves with many forces. During the sleep of the body the brain-cells discharge and cause dreams which to high degree are confused and fragmentary, having affinity with your day-dreams.

Another example is that, possibly, you have been very busy with your social responsibilities, so that you fall asleep dead tired. Then the brain-cells are over-charged and when they discharge at night they produce several dreams . Therefore, don't worry about it, don't pay attention to your dreams, even if they seem to be important. Just enclose them in the silence of your being and soon you will know what to think and expect of them.

From "The Practical Education of Thought" - The Egyptin Arch-Gnosis, Vol. 1 - Jan van Rijckenborgh

[END QUOTING]

Thought ... the ox that draws the cart. As a man thinketh...

It is thought that conditions the astral ethers permeating the microcosmic respiration-field. The astral ethers are extruded to build the etheric double and the etheric double vitalizes the dense physical body. Following this movement of energy, it should be obvious that what we are begins with our thought-life. Our personality-system -- specifically the physical body -- is in essence, crystallized thought. We are what we are because of our thinking.

You might want to think about that. Pun intended.

The above is exceedingly simplistic, but based on Universal Law and as such, authentic and true. It is why the candidate who wishes to make significant progress along the Path of Return must recognize the relationship between thought and the astral body, astral body and the vital body, vital body and the physical body. Using the Key given -- re-direction of thought and the purification of thought-life -- one can begin to successfully remove many of the heavy stones that block the way of all who walk the Path.

~ g
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