Misery Makes For Bad Company

The following is excerpted from Thought-Forms by Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater:

[QUOTING]

Thought-forms directed towards individuals produce definitely marked effects, these effects being either partially reproduced in the aura of the recipient and so increasing the total result, or repelled from it. A thought of love and of desire to protect, directed strongly towards some beloved object, creates a form which goes to the person thought of, and remains in his aura as a shielding and protecting agent; it will seek all opportunities to serve, and all opportunities to defend, not by a conscious and deliberate action, but by a blind following out of the impulse impressed upon it, and it will strengthen friendly forces that impinge on the aura and weaken unfriendly ones. Thus may we create and maintain veritable guardian angels round those we love, and many a mother's prayer for a distant child thus circles round him, though she knows not the method by which her "prayer is answered."

In cases in which good or evil thoughts are projected at individuals, those thoughts, if they are to directly fulfil their mission, must find, in the aura of the object to whom they are sent, materials capable of responding sympathetically to their vibrations. Any combination of matter can only vibrate within certain definite limits, and if the thought-form be outside all the limits within which the aura is capable of vibrating, it cannot affect that aura at all. It consequently rebounds from it, and that with a force proportionate to the energy with which it impinged upon it. This is why it is said that a pure heart and mind are the best protectors against any inimical assaults, for such a pure heart and mind will construct an astral and a mental body of fine and subtle materials, and these bodies cannot respond to vibrations that demand coarse and dense matter.

If an evil thought, projected with malefic intent, strikes such a body, it can only rebound from it, and it is flung back with all its own energy; it then flies backward along the magnetic line of least resistance, that which it has just traversed, and strikes its projector; he, having matter in his astral and mental bodies similar to that of the thought-form he generated, is thrown into respondent vibrations, and suffers the destructive effects he had intended to cause to another. Thus "curses [and blessings] come home to roost."

From this arise also the very serious effects of hating or suspecting a good and highly-advanced man; the thought-forms sent against him cannot injure him, and they rebound against their projectors, shattering them mentally, morally, or physically. Several such instances are well known to members of the Theosophical Society, having come under their direct observation. So long as any of the coarser kinds of matter connected with evil and selfish thoughts remain in a person's body, he is open to attack from those who wish him evil, but when he has perfectly eliminated these by self-purification his haters cannot injure him, and he goes on calmly and peacefully amid all the darts of their malice. But it is bad for those who shoot out such darts.

From "The Three Classes of Thought" Thought-Forms, A. Besant, C.W. Leadbeater

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The best protection one has against negative thoughts and negative speech is to eliminate sympathetic vibrations within one's own aura. Like attracts like. If something said by someone strikes a chord with you, it is because there is something within you that vibrates in agreement with what the speaker has said. This is not an indictment, but a statement of fact. There is no need to feel some way about this, there is only the need to act.

To repel the onslaughts of negativity that attack us each day, we must work to purify the thought-life. When we purify the thought-life, the astral body will follow. What then radiates from us, will vibrate at a frequency too high for coarse thoughts or low speech to penetrate. As noted in the excerpt above, these energies will bounce off of us.

If we cannot get away from people who radiate negativity, then we should exhibit an indifference to what is being said. We cannot allow ourselves to form an opinion one way or the other. Remain neutral and do not allow what is being said to affect you in any way. If you must respond, then make sure that the response is of a positive nature. Maintain your own cheerful demeanor and do not allow it to be over-powered by negativity. In short:

Be Objective In All Matters Terrestrial
Remain Neutral in All Things
Practice Non-Attachment
Choose Your Thoughts Consciously
Do Not Indulge In Criticism or Gossip
Focus Your Thought On the One Goal, The Path of Return
Study the Literature of the Spiritual School, To Obtain Much-needed Insight
Live Cheerfully and Unselfishly

You can protect yourself against the sludge of dark energy out there, but it will take some work. You will have to change the way you think, permanently. The solution lies within you.

~ g
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Guard Thy Ears And Thy Tongue

"A Soul-man is a person who speaks little and does not lend his ear to much talk. He who spends time in arguing and listening to arguments fights against shadows. For God, the Father, The Good, cannot be verbalized, nor understood by the sense of hearing" - Twelfth Book of the Corpus Hermeticum, verses 28-29

[QUOTING]

The head sanctuary of the human being is one powerful organ of creativity, in a negative as well as a positive sense, in a receptive as well as a creative sense. This is still not sufficiently understood. Our intellectual considerations arise in the head sanctuary. They are rendered dynamic by the will and then expressed by the larynx, or written down by the hand. All our manual activities, all our hand movements are, as you know, related to the functions of the head sanctuary. In this way, our deeds of higher creativity are rendered visible and clearly demonstrable.

Now let us consider the second aspect of these things: someone speaks to you and you listen. In other words, you open your sensory faculty, the receptive aspect of your organ of higher creativity, for the other person, and that is not without results as far as you are concerned. For something along the lines of a coupling, a binding, can occur, because the other person discharges his creative energy over you, and you lap it up, you receive it. And this is in most cases extremely destructive and dangerous indeed, it may often prove lethal to Soul development.

For what is it that makes a person chatter away day and night like a machine gun? Aren't there people who are absolutely bristling with problems and tensions, and who seek to discharge them by chattering endlessly with their fellow human beings? Children, whose lower procreative organs have not yet developed, and older people, whose procreative organs no longer function as such, are often full of chatter.

Young people, as we know, are highly talkative. Words babble out of them in an almost endless stream. This, however, is generally not at all harmful, because what they say is in many respects still unsullied, although of course it is often rather tiresome for their audience!

Old people, on the other hand, have much of their lives behind them. Their karma is fully active, nature is manifested in them to the full extent, and the results of their existence have taken root in the blood. And when their procreative functions begin to decline, everything that stirs and boils in the blood, all those fiery results of the retrograde movement, always seek a way out via the head sanctuary, via the larynx. That is why the Bible says "It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles the man, but what comes out of it". What comes out of the mouth is often a deadly danger.

That is why Tat, who represents the sincere, liberation-seeking individual, is told by Hermes that a virtuous Soul is: a person who speaks little and does not lend his ear to much talk.

Note what is said here:..a person who speaks little and does not lend his ear to much talk... So you should not carry these things to extremes. We have been given the power of speech as an aid. We have, for instance, our social conventions, and a variety of words with which we can express everything required by ordinary life in society. Hermes certainly did not have in mind a community of people who remained absolutely silent at all times.

But when all the pressure, the tension, the divideness, the complexity and the hopelessness under which a person lives come out in the spoken word, then please be careful. If someone has messed up his life and is filled to the brain with tensions, then be careful.

From "The Soul-Man" - The Egyptian Arch-Gnosis, Vol. III - Jan van Rijckenborgh

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The above is in keeping with the theme of recent posts. Speech is a sonic representation of one's thoughts. What others say to us, or what we allow ourselves to hear, can be harmful to the Soul on a deeper level than just words. The speaker is sharing his or her astral state with us. If that state is one of darkness and negativity, we are going to be exposed to those vibrations. If we are not careful, our own astral state will be negatively affected, thus impeding the work we are trying to accomplish on the Path: the purification of the mental and astral vehicles.

The next post will try to offer a solution to this problem.

~ g
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Speaking and Listening

[QUOTING]

What, then, is speech? It is the production and radiation of creative energy, the energy a nature-born human being needs to perform The One Work to which he is called. That is why the Seeker of God will only speak if it is necessary.

And what, then, is listening? It is receiving sensorially that same energy which the other person is discharging by speaking.

When you speak and someone else listens, the listener will absorb into himself all the energy you are pouring out by speaking, a process which, generally speaking, is highly suspect. So speaking and listening are extremely delicate matters about which the pupil must be very careful indeed. If one pursues ones pupilship seriously, speaking and listening will be made subordinate to a Holy Law, which operates only on the plane of the liberated Soul-being. Any speaking and listening which falls below a certain level will harm and bind one to the lower nature.

Man And The Path - The Egyptian Arch-Gnosis Vol. III - Jan van Rijckenborgh

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Remember: thoughts are things; they go somewhere. When one speaks, one is essentially verbalizing thought-energy. These sonic vibrations, in the form of what we call words, interpenetrate the aura of the listener and mingle with the vibration of the listener, raising or lowering the  overall vibration of the listener depending on the frequency embedded in the words of the speaker.

You can perhaps see the danger inherent in this for a pupil on the Path, especially if someone who is depressed, angry, gossipy, criticizing, etc. gets a hold of your ear. It's akin to having a garbage truck dump its entire contents at your front doorstep.

When someone speaks to you, their thoughts temporarily become your thoughts, as you have to consider and understand what the speaker is saying in order to formulate a response or opinion. We risk allowing ourselves to be infected by the astral negativity of others when we allow ourselves to listen to certain kinds of speech. Conversely, we can also do harm to others when we engage in lower forms of conversation. Therefore we who are on the Path are urged to "speak little, and to not lend our ear to much talk".

~ g
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"He Who Speaks Little..."

"He who speaks little is spontaneous and natural" Tao Te Ching - Chapter 23

[QUOTING]

We would like to devote more than superficial attention to the first verse of Chapter 23. If we want to try to fathom the full depth of what Lao Tzu means here, we will need to unveil the mystery of speech and sound.

The first thing you need to bear in mind is that human speech is always closely connected with two processes: the process of breathing and the process of thinking. Unless you breathe, you cannot speak. Without a properly functioning mind you cannot express any language in sound. The larynx -- the organ with which you bring forth articulated sound -- is of relatively minor significance compared to the respiration and the thought process.

When various authors state that the human being can speak and is distinguished from other animals because he has a perpendicular larynx, this is only a partial truth. For all the organs of the material body are necessary if we are to function properly in nature.

In both animal and human heads and hearts are several minute organs which connect them directly with the astral spheres. With many species of animals and human types it is not so much the heart as the solar plexus which plays a large part in that process. This fundamental connection between the living, material body and the astral sphere determines the quality, the whole nature of the creature concerned.

The astral plane is not uniform throughout. It is made up of countless domains, each one qualitatively different from all the others, and in each one of these astral domains, countless possibilities and situations are manifested. So it is easy to understand that every human being possesses an individual astral type, a personal astral key. This key is expressed in every aspect of his being, and is present not only within him, but also around him (or her). On this factor rests the whole nature and quality of a person's breathing.

By this we mean to say that each of us possesses a highly individual, personal respiration-field, which is formed and prepared by our personal astral condition.

So with every breath we take, both the head and the heart will function in a way determined by our astral condition at that moment. In this way, life really does arise from breath, in more than one sense. From our breath arise not only our mental activities, but also our desires. There is an inner, astral basis which arises via the chakras, and there is an outer astral activity, which connects with the inner, astral basis via the breath.

From "He Who Speaks Little Is Spontaneous And Natural" - The Chinese Gnosis - Catharose de Petri, Jan van Rijckenborgh

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You live and breathe inside of an invisible bubble that we call your microcosm. Whatever you think and feel is deposited in that invisible bubble and available to you always. What you see when you look out into the world will be colored by what surrounds you in your bubble. In other words, what you are within is reflected back to you.

It is important that you do not pollute your respiration-field. Purification of the mental and astral bodies is of great importance to those attempting to walk The Path. Make it a daily objective to cleanse your respiration field of all negativity and lower vibration thoughts and emotions. Detachment, non-attachment, objectivity and divine indifference. These are the qualities that will bring peace to the astral body. Speak little.

More on 'speech' coming up.

~ g
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Choose Another Thought

"Energy follows Thought; what is focused upon, grows".

Whenever you find yourself with a thought that is not entirely pure (and by pure we mean free of selfish desire or intent) either cease to give that thought any attention or...

...choose another thought.

The former action will result in the thought fading away, dying of starvation, as it were. Because you have withdrawn your focus from that thought, it dissolves due to a lack of attention.

The latter action will obtain the same result, that is, if one chooses a thought of a higher and purer vibration. This requires a significant act of will, as one endeavors to literally evict an unwanted thought out of the head sanctuary.

Both actions are examples of conscious thinking and should be practiced every moment of every day. If we want to succeed in purifying the mental body and benefitting from what that purification can provide, we must gain control over our thinking. This should not be forced. It has to come naturally, which is why it takes practice. We must train ourselves to allow only the thoughts that will benefit our journey on the Path, and dismiss those myriads of distracting, negative thoughts that careen through our minds on a moment-to-moment basis.

On the flip side, when we consistently focus our thinking in the direction of the Gnosis, of ultimate Liberation, we will attract energies that are in-line with those thoughts. These we need not banish from our mental body, but should allow them to multiply and to grow. The beneficent effects of such thinking will be felt throughout the personality of one so directed (see The Retrograde Movement).

"Energy follows Thought; what is focused upon, grows".

~ g
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Catch Yourself

[QUOTING]

Remember that we have said, that all Thought, Word and Deed is Creative.

You get back Exactly what you send out.

So, when you send out the thought, "Why is she so hard to live with? Why is he always behaving like this?"

Ask yourself, what exactly are you doing?

Now focus here, as this is so obvious, you could miss it. And, in fact, most do.

Take away the "question" from your sentence, and essentially, you are saying:

"She is so hard to live with". "He is always behaving like this".

Do you see what you are doing?

Remember, all thought is creative...

You have just created the very behavior in that person, that you wish to change. Simply because you do not understand the Law of Radiation and Attraction.

Now, try an experiment:

Take someone in your life, that you love, but sometimes have trouble getting along with.

Think, about the thoughts you have projected about that person. The Negative thoughts. Ask yourself, does the behavior that you do not like in that person, in any way correspond to the thoughts you have been having about them? If you're honest with yourself, it's a strong bet that it does.

Sure they may have behaved that way in the first place, to make you notice that you didn't like it, but we all have off-days sometimes. The more you focus on that behavior, the more you are going to see of it. It's just Life doing what it does, and conforming to your expectations about the way it will be for you.

Now, having recognized this, what will you do about it?

Simply notice your Negative thoughts as they arise, literally "catch yourself" as you are having them. And then, simply change your perspective. Focus instead, about the things you like about this person, how you love their smile, the sound of their happy laughter; the way they do such-and-such nice thing, how helpful and loving they can be. Keep putting those positive thought out. Persevere, as you my have a bit of negative work to undo first, but just keep catching yourself, and focusing on the positive.

Then prepare yourself for an "almost magical" transformation of your circumstances.

Always monitor your thoughts, and pay attention to their Quality; because what you think about is directly related to what you will see around you, and what Life will show you. It is the difference be conscious and subconscious Creation.

HH - 2008

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You Are What You Think, And So Is The World Around You

Man is a creative being. He creates via two centers of activity: the lower and the higher. The lower creative center lies in the area of the genitals and, via cooperation between the sexes, results in the generation of a physical human shell that will unite with a returning microcosm to introduce a new personality into the physical world.

The higher creative center lies in the head sanctuary. Here the Mind creates via thought. The offspring of our thoughts are manifested in the words that we speak and in our actions.

We are going to discuss the latter creative activity - thought - which man has not learned to properly utilize. Because man does not understand the power of his thoughts, he creates in ignorance and gives birth to horrible 'creatures'.

As you may know there are several grades, or planes, of astral matter that form the universe. This Primordial astral matter is divided into seven major Cosmic Planes. Those seven Cosmic Planes are further sub-divided into seven divisions, which are, in turn, sub-sub-divided into seven more divisions and so on. In this manner, a nearly infinite number of astral sub-divisions exist in this Dualistic universe.

We will restrict this post to the 7th Cosmic Plane, the 3rd-density, physical-etheric plane that we experience in. Within this physical plane, man has bodies corresponding to all seven astral sub-divisions but is only conscious of one, the physical body. He has very little knowledge of his etheric double (the vital body), almost no knowledge of his astral body (the desire body) and is completely unaware of his mental body. Man must learn to recognize and understand these "invisible" bodies if he is ever to recognize his True Purpose or to understand the forces that are arrayed against him.

All matter is astral matter. What distinguishes the different types of astral matter is the level of vibration. Higher, Spiritual matter vibrates at an incredibly high rate. As this astral substance drops in vibration, it becomes a little less subtle. At each step-down in vibration, a slightly coarser, slightly less-spiritual plane of astral matter is extruded. This cascade effect continues until it finally reaches a nadir, a place where the vibration of astral matter is so slow that this matter almost crystallizes. This crystallization results in what we call physical atoms.

As above, so below. Just as the astral matter of the individual planes and sub-planes changes as it drops in vibration, so does the astral matter in the human-being. When a man has a thought, that thought is a living thing. The thought projects into mental matter a vibration in line with the nature of the thought. This thought-vibration is instantly transferred to the astral material of the human and thus the desire body is conditioned in a manner that is compatible with the nature of the thought. There, man has his 'feeling' about the thought.

If the desire body contains any material that resonates with the vibration of the thought, comparable etheric material is extruded from the astral body and passed to the etheric body. Here, the hormones and the nervous system cooperate to put in motion the action or actions that will correspond with the original thought-feeling. Because the etheric body is the matrix that vitalizes the physical shell, the physical body is infused with the etheric distillation of the original thought-vibration created in the astral matter of the mental body.

So we have thought initiating desire, desire initiating activity, activity manifesting in the material of the physical body. This all happens in the space of a microsecond. You should understand that it is via this pathway that Thought moves and conditions the Physical Body.

The above is the most rudimentary and simplified outline of what is actually a vast subject. However, it is enough to give those with discernment something to pause and consider.

All physical illness is the direct result of consistent and habitual poor thinking. From the smallest pimple to the most devastating cancer, it is our Thinking that constitutes the root cause of all disease. From the least of our actions to the most significant, it is Thought that conceives and gives birth to the Act.

Abuse of the lower creative function manifesting as sexual indiscretion and promiscuity has led to disastrous results for mankind. Broken homes, dysfunctional childhoods and rampant sexually-transmitted diseases plague mankind. Abuse of the higher creative function via selfish and corrupt thinking has resulted in a world where control by The Few perpetuates war, poverty, famine and disease.

Thought is the horse that draws the cart. Everything within us and around us is a direct result of both our individual and collective thought processes. In order to change things we must break the habit of mechanically acting upon the thoughts that "pop into our heads", and learn to think consciously. We must re-direct our thoughts away from the selfish and the vengeful, to thoughts of unselfishness and Love for all, no matter who they may be. It is not the outer personality of an entity that matters, but the Soul-spark within that we must honor.

Think before you allow your thoughts to give birth to any act in this world. Do not continue to contribute to mankind's misery with your poor thinking. Purify your thinking and you will purify your mental body, your emotional body, your etheric body and the physical body. You will radiate a more purified aura and thereby benefit your fellow man and the earth. Oh, and one's personal health will benefit as well, for the low-vibrating viruses that cause disease cannot survive in an aura of high vibration. This all begins with the vigilant policing of our thoughts.

Learn to Think, truly.

~ g
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