The Two Human Types

[QUOTING]

You may have already realized that if anyone who studies mankind's past wishes to reach the right conclusions, he will have to view everything in a much wider context than superficial literalism would allow.

The earth is inhabited by various human races, each with a differing past and also, in many respects, with a very divergent future. There are elements present that combine these races into one community; but there are undeniably also elements that separate them. Among all these races with very divergent dispositions we find the ancient Spirit-born Ones, the Children of the Fire. In the broadest possible sense it is a group of those whose microcosms still possess elements which make possible a direct link with, and a life in, the Spirit.

All holy language, in its original, unsullied state, is directed solely towards this exceptional class of humanity, to the Spirit-born Ones of the Beginning. And from a certain point of view, these Universal Teachings are to be considered dangerous for other human types.

Why dangerous? To understand this you will need to realize that the Children of God and the children of nature have widely divergent interests. The Children of God, insofar as they are in a state of imprisonment, want to flee the word. The children of nature seek and desire to maintain the world. So their efforts are diametrically opposed. In this context, we are using the word 'world' in its narrow sense, to mean the nature-born life-field.

If the Children of God were to take the lead on earth, this would be accompanied by a complete alteration of the astral conditions of our life-field. The astral field of the nature-of-death would become like the gnostic Astral Field, a field full of serenity and the highest purity. The reflection-sphere would be emptied. All those self-maintaining reflection-sphere processes would become impossible. All the conditions of existence in our life-field would change. The earthly field of genesis would no longer provide life-spark entities with any possibility of existence. The millions of life-spark entities that populate the earth would simply not be able to exist any longer, and so it would be as if they had been murdered. The classic fratricide, the ancient drama of Cain and Abel, would be repeated.

Another possibility is that the life-spark entities could, through reconstruction of their microcosms, be restored to the Childship of God. If an entity did not possess the classic, Primordial Atom of the Spirit in his microcosm, it would be possible, by reconstructing the microcosmic field, by bringing the Spirit into it, to introduce into the microcosm what was not previously present within it.

Creatures always come forth from the Fundamental Nature. The Original Nucleus of every creature unfolds on the basis of the creative idea underlying it. If this idea and the nucleus of the creature are not from the Spirit, then a Child of God will not develop. However, if this idea is of God, then a Child of God will develop.

So the Child of God is a creature who has to behave in accordance with the Fundamental Idea underlying his being. If he deviates from that Idea, then he will have to undergo all kinds of difficulties and consuming processes until finally he has to return to the Original Idea. If the idea originates from a different cosmocracy, then a different kind of being will arise, a different orientation, a different starting point, a different aim.

However, we repeat that it is possible for entities who have an aeonic origin to be restored to, and by, the Idea of the Universal Spirit. The first prerequisite is to preach, throughout the world, a Universal Doctrine of the Spirit. The second is to realize and establish a genuine Church of the Spirit. The third is to adapt the life-field, mankind's field of genesis, to the requirements of the Spirit, as a result of which the creature will submit to the Spirit.

In this way, an entity that was not originally a Child of God from the Beginning can become one through the re-creation of the microcosm. The Tri-Unity of the Light - Rosycross, Cathar and Grail, is preparing for such a mighty effort to re-create aeonic, life-spark entities. The Universal Doctrine is resounding through the mouth of the Rosycross. The new Church of the Spirit , the aspect of the Brotherhood of the Cathars, has been founded. The great alteration of the life-field, beginning with the astral field and following the requirements of the Spirit, is underway once more; and the Brotherhood of the Holy Grail has been manifested anew.

All this forms part of the mighty activity of the Sons of the Fire. It is for this reason that the liberated Sons of the Fire came and have always come to earth. It is for this that their disciples and servants came, and have always come, for the unfolding of an intense activity, with the aim of forging all Abel-entities into Children of the Fire. And to raise up all fallen and imprisoned Cain-entities and install them in the community of God. All true holy language, all Universal Doctrine, bears witness to this mighty and glorious attempt, which has been repeated time and time again throughout history.

In many periods of man's history the necessary conditions were created to bring about this grand and glorious work of the Spirit. The true Church, the Church of the Spirit, has appeared many times on earth. Take, for instance, the Church of the Cathars mentioned just now. Think also of Appolonius of Tyana and of the gnostic churches around the Mediterranean, in Asia Minor, Greece, the Balkans, Egypt and other parts of North Africa. One can affirm with great joy that in all those periods, large numbers of entities entered the Liberating Life. There is, indeed, a multitude no one can count, gathered from all peoples, all races of the earth.

From "The Classic Betrayal (1) - There Is No Empty Space - Jan van Rijckenborgh

[END QUOTING]

There are two human types: one group is born of this nature-order and lives in relative harmony with it. The other group hails from the Sons of the Fire. This group, which has fallen into matter, lives in torment and seeks to escape the nature-of-death. If you can hear and obey the Call of the Gnosis then you are most likely a fallen Child of the Fire. It is for us and those of our kind that the Divine Plan of Salvation was put into motion. We are not the first to embark upon this Path of Return, and we will not be the last.

"He was the True Light, which lighted every man who came into the world. He came to His own, but His own did not receive Him. But to those who received Him, He gave the power to become Sons of God." John 1:9, 11-12

~ g
.

The Three Pillars

 

 

[QUOTING]

The ancient Universal Teachings being offered in our time are, living and in unveiled words, transmitted to true Seekers by the modern Rosycross. These ancient teachings rest upon three fundamental insights, upon Three Pillars. They are:

• knowledge of the two nature-orders; a Divine one and a degenerated one;
• knowledge of the two natures of man as a perishable personality in an imperishable microcosm
• knowledge of the liberation of man from the cycle of reincarnation, via Transfiguration

The Two Nature-Orders

When Jesus speaks about the Kingdom of Heaven, and the Buddha about Nirvana, or Lao Tzu about Tao, they are not referring to the reflection-sphere 'hereafter' where the so-called dead sojourn. Earthly life and the hereafter are the two inseparable halves of this fallen nature-order, of dialectical nature. In this un-divine nature, instability and continuously alternating pairs of opposites rule. Whatever originates on earth, its opposite is simultaneously generated. By being, non-being is invoked.

Everything created is perishable. Nirvana is the non-being of this world of opposites; of earthly-being and non-being. Eternity simply is. Whoever exists in this Divine field is not subject to perishability, decay and death. He lives in harmony with Creation, in freedom, as a creative fellow worker. All messengers, all great Sons of God and all Holy Scriptures, like the Bible, in which the words of these messengers are recorded and passed on, testify to this Divine Kingdom. People usually do not believe the Divine message because they cannot see the Divine Kingdom with their natural senses. They turn away from, or even against, the redeeming Word as long as their distress does not give them ears to 'hear' and as long as the state of their own inner being is not a testimony to the Truth of this message, contrary to all external manifestations of willfulness.

The Small Human World

The human-being is a part of the earthly un-divine nature-order, for he has been created from it. His biological body has been built with the atoms of the nature-order of death; his astral and etheric bodies have been shaped from the more tenuous substances of this nature-order. Nothing of this natural baggage has eternal value. The second pillar of the Universal Teachings concerns the teachings of human nature and explains them.

All Messengers of the Light reveal to us that the human-being carries a spark of the eternal Light within him. Jesus called it the Kingdom of God within you; oriental philosophy speaks of the Jewel in the Lotus; the Rosicrucians speak of the Spirit-spark atom or the Rose of the Heart. The theosophists characteristically call it the Last Remnant of the Divine Human-Being.

The Microcosm Tumbles Through Space Out Of Control

The Original Fatherland of the human-being is not the dialectical nature-order, but the Kingdom of Heaven. There, he was created as one of the Sons of God, meant for a life in the eternal Divine Order. He was a shining microcosm, the expression of all powers and possibilities of the Divine Microcosm. The Universal Teachings state that I-centrality caused his fall. The lights of the microcosm were extinguished; the Divine Nucleus withdrew from the fallen being; the Divine Soul sunk into a deep sleep and the out-of-control microcosm tumbled aimlessly through chaos.

In order to save the fallen Children of God, the earthly human-being was built from the forces of nature and implanted into the microcosm as a living, ensouled and conscious being. With the help of this implanted, mortal human-being, the microcosm was able to acquire a certain form of life and consciousness and gain experience. In this unbalanced pairing of microcosm and earthly human-being, only the Lotus or Rose, the sleeping primordial principle, is still Divine. Due to the Rose, the earthly human-being is gifted and plagued. It torments him, it disturbs his peace in the world, but it also grants him the possibility to understand the Divine Word.

After an endless chain of incarnations, the microcosm becomes tired of its journey far from home. The Soul-Nucleus wakes up, and through the Original Atom's longing for its Divine Fatherland, the human-being is disturbed and driven on until he answers its Call, begins to Seek, and one day will be standing before the gate of the New Life asking to be admitted. The whole dialectical nature-order was developed to help people, to enable them to listen to the awakening Soul and, by obeying this Inner Voice, purify their microcosm.

Breaking Through The Cycle Of Life And Death

The teaching of the transformation of what is mortal into what is Immortal is the third pillar of the Universal Teachings: the knowledge of the Liberation of the human-being from the cycle of birth and death, the gospel of the resurrection of what is Eternal in a human-being. The earthly, physical human-being has been entrusted with the great task of liberating the microcosm he inhabits. Without his insight and cooperation, this Liberation is not possible. But when a human-being surrenders, and thus becomes a servant of the process of Salvation, he is taken up into what is Immortal through the process of Transformation: Death is swallowed up in Victory, Paul says.

The process of transformation, Transfiguration, means the destruction of the old temple and the construction of a new one in three days, as Jesus promises. Through this process, the whole microcosm with its Spiritual form, its Soul form and it Bodily form is renewed and becomes Immortal. He becomes an inhabitant of the Kingdom of Heaven again and a brother of the Children of God. This tremendous process can only be accomplished in the power-field of a Spiritual School, because this power-field makes available the forces and possibilities for the birth of a New Human-Being.

He who decides to walk this Path and devotes himself to it with all his strength , will withdraw his attention and longing from the earthly world and will focus ever better on the New Genesis. His longing for the New Life will give him the strength to neutralize his old being and, in this way, the New Soul will be awakened out of the dormant Divine Spark. Through the neutralization of the "I", the microcosm is purified and withdraws from the influence of the rulers of the dialectical world order (the archons and the aeons). The previously extinguished lights of the Original Microcosm will shine again as in a new firmament. The Spirit can again link itself to this renewed system. When the alchemical wedding has been celebrated, and the Spirit has been reunited with the renewed Soul, the microcosm has been saved and has returned Home. He who enables this Homecoming has sacrificed his mortal, un-divine soul in this process. He is taken up in the New Soul and at death he discards his physical body as a dead leaf.

From "The Three Pillars of the Eternal Truth" - Rosicrucians Through The Ages - K. Dietzfelbinger

[END QUOTING]

That's basically it, in a nutshell.

~ g
.

Circle, Triangle, Square and Dot

[QUOTING]

The classical hierophants depicted this field of fire, sung about by Akhenaton, with the power of the sun, which they depicted as a Circle with a Dot in its center, the point, the nucleus-principle, a field of genesis manifesting itself.

This sphere does not stand by itself, but creates something. The point generates a line and from the line, all mathematical figures like the Circle, the Triangle and the Square originate. The first number - 1 - and all subsequent numbers up to nine originate from the nucleus. This sequence ends with zero and with the 1 of a new beginning (the number '10').

Cube Placed Within The Circle

Hence, the circle points to an enclosed space in which a process develops. We know that systematic changes occur in every space: fission, divisions and multiplications. This is why the ancient philosophers placed a cube within a circle to demonstrate there is Life. This refers to a content that can be re-vivified; a field of genesis that can be found within the power-field of the Fiery Beginning, and can be described as 'Life'.

In itself, this Life is not complete if there is no possibility of achieving regeneration and fulfillment, in addition to manifestation. The ancients depicted this process with a Triangle or a Pyramid.

From this classical description of the power-field, we receive a clear image of the symbol of the Circle, Triangle and Square , the symbol of the Spiritual School of the Golden Rosycross. With this symbol, the Spiritual School of the Golden Rosycross indicates that it confronts its pupils with three aspects and that these three aspects form a perfect unity within its power-field. In this way, the Circle, Triangle and Square represent the entire power-field, including its nucleus-principle (the Dot) from which the plan of manifestation develops. A Square of Construction is realized, and the fiery triangle of the New Field of Life arises from it.

 

The symbol of the power-field testifies to the Divine power, manifesting as a sevenfold cosmic field, descending into unholy dialectics. In this way, the depraved dialectical world is affected by the Light; the twelvefold zodiac is pierced and a new magnetic firmament, a new heaven and a new earth, take shape. The classical Rosicrucians said that this power-field is manifested every seven hundred years in order to lead Seekers into the Field of the Light.

 

From "The Threefold Mystery of the Power-field" - Rosicrucians Through The Ages - K. Dietzfelbinger

[END QUOTING]

May the foregoing shine additional light on the meaning embedded within the symbol of the Spiritual School.

~ g
.

He Is Risen

[QUOTING]

Let us pose the obvious question, the one logical problem:

'How can the fallen human-being become a god again? How can the prodigal son Thotmes return home?'

This problem and its solution is given in every Universal Philosophy: we are humans who are to become gods. The Great Messengers of humanity were gods who became human in order to show humans how to become gods.

If this problem stands clearly before you, you will know it was born 'in conflict', and that the road to it was toil and trouble. Like Prince Thotmes, you have to excavate your Sphinx, which will pose a great problem to you personally. If you neglect your Work for one moment, you will sink back into the bottomless depths of this nature. Then you will feel at one with this world, and you will become accustomed to it again. You must understand that for the defeated soul the question: 'How does the fallen human become a god again?' will develop enough motivation to be able to go the Path as a pilgrim to seek an answer the that question.

Hence we can say: Whoever has seen the Sphinx will enter the Pyramid.

The Pyramid is a temple of resurrection and not of worship. It is a temple not for symbolic acts but for instruction. It is a sepulchre. People can create a lot of mystification about it, but as the Pyramid is hewn in stone its essential language cannot be destroyed.

In our opinion everyone who has seen the Sphinx from within and everyone to whom the Sphinx has spoken, like Prince Thotmes, will be able to understand the stone language of the Pyramid. We say that the Sphinx makes the Call and that the Pyramid points out the Path.

From "The Mystery of the Sphinx and the Pyramid" - The Living Word - Catharose de Petri

[END QUOTING]

The ancients speak to us in symbols. Once you have the gnostic Key in hand, it is like reading an open book.

The Great Pyramid is a four-sided triangle, with a square base. Around the base one can draw a perfect circle. Triangle, Square, Circle.

These shapes have symbolic meaning:

Circle = the Eternal Spirit
Triangle = the Threefold Soul
Square = the fourfold Body

Thus the Pyramid itself represents the reunification of Spirit, Soul and Body, which is the ultimate aim of the transfiguristic Path of Return.

The interior of the Pyramid is constructed in such a way as to outline the steps of this Path using specific measurements, angles, different types of stone and sacred numerology (gematria). The exalted beings who constructed the Great Pyramid did so using a silent, common language that could speak to all human-beings, no matter what the time period. Of course, those human-beings would have to have the gnostic Key in hand.

During the time of the ancients, there were very, very few who were motivated to walk the Path of Return. Around the ancient world, those who showed that they were sincere about doing so were brought to secret places of initiation. This was the purpose of the Mayan and Aztec temples in the West. This was the purpose of the extensive system of caves in the Sabarthes region of southern France. This was the purpose of the Great Pyramid.

The Pyramid is not a tomb, as present-day bumbling archaeology chooses to define it. No physical human-being was ever buried there. It was a tomb for the I-being. It was where a true pupil was taken to complete the endura. It was where the old human-being died as to this nature and the New Man rose in its place.

That is why the "tomb" in the King's Chamber is empty. In silence, it expresses what was written regarding the Christed One on the day of His resurrection as a Divine Human Being:

"Why do you look for the Living among the dead? He is not here, He is risen". Luke 24:5-6

~ g
.

The Mystery of the Sphinx and the Pyramid

[QUOTING]

We should not see the Sphinx as being unconnected to the Pyramid and its mystery. In ancient Egypt, the classical kings received the epithet: 'living sphinx, image of the Lord of the Universe'. That is a Sun God, descended into matter.

Perhaps you understand this symbol. The human-being is a fallen angel in a state of cleavage: one part of the microcosm imprisoned in the Original Life Field, totally incapable of any activity; the other, cast down into the nature-born urge for survival. The human-being is the Sphinx!

The knowledge of this has repeatedly been lost and not a word of this is mentioned in the Holy Scriptures. It has been lost, just as the Sphinx has repeatedly been totally covered by the desert sands. This sign, hewn out of rock and spanning the ages, is gaped at by tourists. It is said that they feel respect but they do not understand.

Perhaps many will begin to understand when their illusions of existence are torn to shreds in the impending world development. Then they may well remember the column that stands between the front paws of the Sphinx. The story on the column is, briefly:

Prince Thotmes, the son of an Egyptian king, had ordered the Sphinx to be excavated from the desert sand. He was used to riding around the desert and hunting for wild animals. On one of those hunts the prince went to rest in the shadow of the Sphinx in the afternoon. He fell asleep and dreamt that the Sphinx began to talk to him. He said:

"Look at me, my son, Thotmes. I am your Father. My face and my heart are turned towards you, for you belong to me. Behold my state of suffocation. I am in danger of being buried by the sand of this desert on which I am lying.

I have waited until you will do what was in my heart, for I knew that you were my son, my protector!

As a pupil of the Spiritual School of the Golden Rosycross you will understand the language of the Sphinx. You, too, have excavated the Sphinx and it is speaking to you ever more clearly.

The old, lost knowledge of Transfigurism has been excavated again in this century, not by studying or reading books, but by pilgrimage, by the process of life, by really going the Path, by real exertion, by the radiations of the Magnetic Power Field.

You, too, can clearly see the situation of the nature-born human-being as that of someone who is held in a suffocating grasp. The grip of this nature is constantly on the point of burying you. The human-being is a god who has become human according to this nature.

From "The Mystery of the Sphinx and the Pyramid" - The Living Word - Catharose de Petri

[END QUOTING]

Surprise! The Sphinx represents the dual aspect of the present human-being. The body of the Sphinx represents the lower nature, the physical human-being rooted to the earth, mired in this nature-order. The top portion, the royal visage high above the earth, stares at the eastern horizon, awaiting the New Dawn. As we have moved (or will soon move, depending upon who does the calculations) into the zodiacal Age of Aquarius, the Sun rises (or will rise) in this constellation. On the western horizon, behind the Sphinx and 180 degrees opposite of Aquarius, is the constellation of Leo. The cosmic symbolism is inescapable. The Sphinx now faces the constellation that is represented as a Man pouring a pitcher of water. Behind it is the constellation that is represented as a Lion, the so-called "king of beasts".

There are no coincidences. The Sphinx is a symbolic image in limestone of what the candidate on the Path is striving to become again: a god-man. The Great Pyramid that it guards also contains a profound message -- about the Path itself.

~ g
.

"The Strong Will Stand For The Weak" -- More On The Living Body

Over long ages of time, millions of nature-born human-beings have managed to successfully liberate themselves from the pull of matter. Each time a soul (or microcosm), is liberated, another 'cell' is added to the group-body of beings who have already obtained the Good End in past harvests. At the end of every Age there always surfaces true gnostic brotherhoods whose job it is to lend assistance to those souls who are ready to climb out of the Pit of Despair. These millions of liberated beings, incarnate and discarnate, form a chain of such brotherhoods, This chain of gnostic brotherhoods we call the Universal Brotherhood, or Living Body of the Gnosis.

Liberation means that via the rebirth of the Soul, one is reunited with the Divine Spirit and so re-establishes a link with will of The All. The microcosm is transfigured and Immortality is regained. Such a one is thus linked with the pure astral forces of the Sixth Cosmic Domain, aka the Divine Kingdom. Being linked in group unity, the Living Body is able to pull Divine forces from the Sixth Cosmic Domain down into the Seventh Cosmic Domain (the physical realm). Here, this Divine power can be made available for all Seekers who are truly looking to walk the Path of Return.

Time, space, geography and distance do not separate the members of this Living Body. If you are sincerely walking the fivefold gnostic Path, you will be taken up by the Living Body, which gives to each pupil what he or she needs, when it is needed. Nothing more will be asked of or provided for the candidate than can be safely handled. Each step taken will be taken at the candidate's own pace. Through it all, the Living Body will be there to provide the pure astral forces that the pupil will need in his or her efforts to overcome the lower nature.

When it comes to the Living Body of the Gnosis there is a saying that goes, "The strong will stand for the weak". These are not idle words. While we are here striving to effect our final detachment from this nature-order, those who have gone before us remain united in focusing and sending forth the pure astral radiations that we will need to be successful in our endeavors. If we can persevere until the Good End then someday, we too, will become a permanent part of the Living Body, from where, in Wisdom and Divine Love, we will reach back into the Pit to aid our fallen brothers and sisters.

May it be so for us all.

~ g
.

Answers On The Living Body, The Endura

The below are answers to questions posed by Brian in the Comments section of the post "Million-Year Journey".

Q: What is union and what is a living body or group body?

A: The gnostic Living Body is defined as follows:

"A gnostic Living Body is the 'Ark' referred to in the Book of Genesis. It is a Body that is built in co-operation with the forces of the Universal Gnostic Chain of Brotherhoods, in the service of the Harvest that must be gathered in at the end of a Cosmic Day and carried safely into the New Life-Field".

A gnostic Living Body manifests itself on all planes and sub-planes. It carries the pure astral forces of the Divine Kingdom and makes these forces available to all those who are walking the Path of Return. Those who choose to live out of these pure astral forces will be able to transmute and ultimately transfigure their microcosms, if they can remain steadfast in surrendering the 'I' and maintaining their focus on a new attitude of life.  The LRC represents the terrestrial aspect of this gnostic Living Body, which always reappears when humanity reaches the end of a minor or major world-cycle in order to gather up those souls who are ready to be liberated from the nature-of-death.

Q: When we go the Path do we give up our personality to become part of a something bigger(the brotherhood?) or re-union with the Light Force of God?

A: When we resolve to walk the Path, we are resolving to transfer control of our microcosm from the nature-born self, or I-being, to 'the Other One' that is awakening within us as a result of the effect that the Divine Touch of the Gnosis has had upon our Divine Spark. We refer to this transfer of control as 'self-surrender'. The medieval Cathars called this process the 'endura', which can be defined as follows:

"Endura is the path of I-demolition, the path of the final death, through the surrender of the 'I' to the Other One, the Immortal Man, the Christ within us. It is the path of John , who 'makes straight the paths for his Lord'. It means putting into practice the words: "He -- the heavenly Other One, must increase, and I must decrease. I must perish so that the heavenly Other One may live within me".

The path of the endura is the ancient path along which the fallen human-being rises toward his True, Immortal Self. The gnostic fire of purification brings about a complete and fundamental reversal in his life and he then returns to the Father.

Life in dialectics (duality) is a life leading to death (dissolution); the path of the endura means a voluntary death leading to True Life. It is the path of the true, God-seeking human-being: 'He who will lose his life for My sake, will find the Life".

Many are tripped up at this stage of the journey, because the thought of erasing the self will elicit fear in the new pupil. It is the I-being that creates this fear, because the 'I' is habituated to preserving itself. It knows what you are contemplating and reacts accordingly. The new pupil begins to believe that if he or she walks this Path, he or she will 'cease to exist'. That is far from the case! On the contrary, the pupil will live as never before! As the Other One increases in its influence and strength, the current personality will not be erased, but will be subsumed, absorbed into the glorious, multi-dimensional Personality that will arise, like a Phoenix, from the ashes of the old nature-born I-being.

Q: Is being an extreme individualist a hindrance to the Path? But do you have to be a bit of an extreme individualist to go on the Path to walk away from the family, cultural, religious, politic, nature born norms?

A: This is a good question and an interesting paradox. Yes, the individualization of human souls has resulted in fiercely I-centered entities whose first, third, and last thought is always that of preservation of the self, i.e., "What is best for ME?" This rigid, constant and ruthlessly self-focused thinking has resulted in all of mankind's past and current problems and is responsible for the world that we see around us today. Individualism, the idea of a separated self, in and of itself is not a 'bad' thing. It is the I-focused thinking that accompanies this sense of 'I am' that is the problem.

When one undergoes the fundamental reversal mentioned in the previous answer, the first thing that has to happen is that the pupil must no longer think of the self first ("the 'I' must decrease..."). This is why unselfish service-to-others is stressed so heavily for those who are undertaking to walk the Path of Return.

On the other hand, one does have to be more than a bit of an individualist to forge an attraction to the Gnosis, to the Christ-radiation that is not-of-this-earth. Such thinking represents a tearing-away from the aeonic forces that control the masses of humanity in the natural world. It is the height of individual thought and indicates that the current personality is inhabiting a mature microcosm that is ready to move away from the glamour of the natural world in order to pursue its true destiny, the One Goal of Humanity.

Please note that although as candidates on the Path we recognize that we must leave the things of the natural world behind, this is accomplished not by retreating to a cave in the woods to eat locusts and berries for the rest of one's life. It is impossible to physically withdraw from the world in today's age and time. Besides, there are hardly any pristine wildernesses left anywhere for one to hide in!

Therefore, we must effect our withdrawal by cultivating an attitude of life characterized by non-attachment. We must no longer become attached to the things of this world. Yes, we need to eat, but we don't need to eat to excess, or slaughter our younger brothers in the animal kingdom for their flesh, or eat things that are detrimental to the physical body simply because they look 'good' or taste 'good'.  Yes, we need clothing, but we do not need to dress to impress others, or spend enormous sums on designer clothing, or slaughter animals for their hide or fur. Yes, we may need to work for a living, but we do not need to identify with our job, or chase high salaries and positions, or hurt others in the pursuit of same.

The world is what it is. We have to live in it because it is the field of development that has been created for this life-wave to experience in. The true pupil on the Path realizes that although we are still in the world, we can no longer be of the world. Therefore, render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's (the material I-being). Render unto God, that which is God's (the reborn Soul, or microcosm).

Above all, we should not abandon our spouses or children. Our families are karmic responsibilities that we do not have the right to walk away from. Do your duty in life. Do not shirk your responsibilities. Care for those you love and for all men and women, but always with a sense of detachment. Detachment does not mean 'not caring'. It means to not become attached to outcomes, expectations, etc.  We, as pupils, must carry within us the knowledge that we are undergoing a process of surrender that requires the walking of a fine line. We are engaged in a moment-by-moment endeavor to help the Divine Man within to re-assume control over the microcosm and ultimately, to transfigure it. In order to achieve this Good End, the 'I' must steadily decrease in influence, until nothing is left of the old nature-born 'I' that can mislead or deceive us. Only then will we be on our way to becoming the pioneers of the New Race that is now being born.

~ g
.

Million-Year Journey

 

The human-being reincarnates every 700 to 1,000 years, alternating between male and female with each incarnation. This means that in a single sidereal year* of 25,920 years, one can live between 25 and 36 lives.

*a sidereal year is the amount of time it takes for the earth to pass through all twelve signs of the zodiac. It takes 2,160 years to pass through one aeon, or 'age' of the zodiac.

Spiritually-advanced souls will incarnate at approximately 700-year intervals, as they require less time between incarnations to assimilate the life experience. Common souls need the extra time in the reflection-sphere to distill the benefits of the life lived and thus incarnate at the higher, 1,000-year interval.

Because each zodiacal age spans 2,160 years, we can see that a new personality is born twice under every sign, once as a male and once as a female. Sometimes there are exceptions, but that is the general rule.

So, how many lives have we lived? Let it be known that all of us have lived through the Atlantean Age and the Lemurian Age prior to that. The time of Atlantis spanned at least a 1,000,000 years of time in humanity's immediate past and was probably in existence for much longer than that. Applying the foregoing timelines, this means that in just the last one million years alone, all of us have lived at least nine hundred lives. Nine hundred.

That's hundreds of lives, countless personalities inhabiting our microcosm partaking in countless experiences. So many families, spouses, sons, daughters and siblings. Occupations as priest or priestess, black or white magician, warrior, politician, farmer, thief or murderer. An untold number of self-focused lives, resulting in selfish choices leading inevitably to dissolution and yet more turns on the Wheel of Death and Rebirth.

Through all of these lives runs a single thread, that of the seeking human-being. The human personality is forever searching for something, even though it knows not what that 'something' is. So it tries to find it in all sorts of nature-born activity. Predictably, because of the peculiar laws of duality, nothing that the human-being finds on the horizontal plane is lasting, or permanently fulfilling. Everything is evanescent, fleeting, temporal. Life is a constant rising, shining and fading.  Hundreds of lives, over and over, new personalities pursue the same futile dead-ends.

At some point during this long, long process of evolution, a personality in our microcosm may come in contact with the Gnosis. We learn of the Path of the True Way, the Path of Return. However, for whatever reason, we turn away from the Gnosis. We choose not to walk the Path in self-surrender, or we begin the Walk and then abort the effort. Although such incarnations are classified as failures, they are not completely so. For every life lived, nothing is lost. All is retained in the lipika of the microcosm, which accumulates and stores the karma and the soul-growth of the microcosm. Thus, the touch of the Gnosis experienced by a personality remains a permanent part of the microcosm.

Now we reach the present personality -- you. Within you, there is a spark of remembrance, due to your exposure to the Gnosis in a previous life or lives. You are drawn to the Universal Teachings, there is a resonance. You do not know why, but it 'feels right' to you. It is remembrance that is responsible for this. You as a personality once again face a critical choice: either act upon this pre-condition and finally take up the Path or turn away yet again and fail once more to achieve the One Goal of Humanity.

It has taken much effort, many failures and countless lives for your microcosm to develop a personality that has been able to get to this point. You now stand on the precipice of Liberation. Do not waste this opportunity. Gain insight. Direct your thinking, willing and feeling to the Transfiguristic process. Go the Path. Complete the journey that has been a million years in the making.

This is the life. You are the personality. Now is the time.

~ g
.

Broken Vase

There was once a beautiful crystal Vase of Truth. It was renowned the world over and its Light shone brightly, its facets sparkled. One day, the Vase fell and shattered into countless pieces. The Light was no more.

People would walk by the scattered shards and, intrigued by the light that was reflected by them, would pick one up in awe.

"What a beautiful piece of Truth! I will keep it with me and show the world!". And off they would go with their piece of the Truth.

More and more people would stop and pick up a shard - after all, there were so many pieces to choose from. Soon there were shards all over the world, of different sizes and shapes. All of them glittered with their own reflected light, all were shaped differently. The people who held the shards believed that they held the whole Truth. Sadly, they did not realize that they only held a very tiny portion of the Truth.

Such is the state of man's religions in this nature-order. A sad state-of-affairs, yes. Thankfully, this is about to end as Divine Truth is in the process of being restored to mankind. The Vase is being repaired. Soon, Truth will once again be Whole. The Light will shine for all.

~ g
.

The Machinations of Stupefaction

[QUOTING]

We live in times of great turmoil. Because of the chaos prevailing everywhere, the world has come very close to an explosion. Humanity is experiencing world events, just like watching and 'living' a film as shown in some cinema.

And so we want to lead you in your imagination to the biggest cinema in the world. This is a cinema in which people readily pay for the right to wait in the queue of the insatiable, after which they are admitted to the Temple of Moving Images.

There you see one great glittering illusion, one great imitation of everything that perhaps once was considered real or true. What you see there is the delusion of which the human-being, with his clouded vision, is proud, because the image shown him in the bewitching darkness seizes him like an hypnotic trance. It is all ostentation and pretentious display produced by soulless machines for an audience that appears to be soul-forsaken.

Like cattle being led to the slaughter, the crowds are pushed into the queues inside the guide ropes. When, after an overwhelming burst of music and darkness, a sufficient number of stupefied people has left the cinema, those waiting make room for an ever-swelling stream of new people, so that everyone gets the opportunity of being swallowed up into the monster's gullet.

The people are watched painstakingly lest anyone escape the Abyss of Oblivion. The whole show is just one great draught of Oblivion as the images rapidly follow one another and a stream of false gratification flows continuously on, for no one is allowed to get bored. No one may wake up from his doze which is like that of cattle chewing the cud. Nor is anyone allowed to think, and so the events have to succeed one another without allowing a spare second.

He cannot be allowed to wake up, let alone realize that all this is totally alien to the One True Soul Life that emanates from God.

He must not realize that this poisoned food is served to the human race to prevent any spark of Light from flaring up.

This is why events must succeed one another with frenetic speed, so that people don't have time to see what they are being served.

These ingenious machinations, composed of intelligence without any conception of deeper values, these machinations of stupefaction and decomposition, are controlled by the powers and forces of this world.

No matter how tragic this may sound, humanity is experiencing without any essential depth the emotions of this existence in a world that is meant to be a house of transition to the Eternal Reality. The majority of people are constantly waiting for new sensations. A human race totally imprisoned in the inebriated atmosphere of inferior astral turmoil in the universe: that is the state of present-day humanity.

From "Kundalini: The Power Of Eternity" - The Living Word - Catharose de Petri

[END QUOTING]

This writer has stated repeatedly that all world events are staged for the purposes of manipulating, terrorizing and ultimately confusing humanity. Especially today, one atrocity follows another as we are constantly bombarded with examples of man's inhumanity to fellow man. These events are constant and unceasing. They serve to paralyze the common human-being of this nature, and to possibly demoralize the human-being of humanistic goodwill.

Nature-born man lives entire his earth-life in a daze. He then transitions without having gained any insight, or made any strides towards locating the Path of the True Way. Wave after wave of reincarnated souls follow to view "The Show", doomed to walk the same road of spiritual failure.

Those who have gained insight into the workings of the archons and aeons (the "powers and forces of this world") understand that what we are seeing on a daily basis is a vast manipulation designed to distract humanity from its true goal and purpose. As troubling as world events may appear, we must move forward without wavering, with eyes firmly set on the Prize. Success depends upon our being able to make it through the storm together, in group unity.

~ g
.

Let Go, Or Suffer The Consequences

[QUOTING]

When a person decides to follow the Light wherever It leads him, he has to accept the Way of the Cross. Whoever begins to do this in the power of the Fire of the Christ is a Rosicrucian from that moment on. For them the Father Fire, the root fire, breaks open the Rose resulting in the well-known inner unease. Whoever dedicates this Rose to the Way of the Cross is a Rosicrucian: a human-being who attaches the Rose to the Cross.

You know that the Mystery Fire is the most important and most sublime symbol of God, of the Spirit, of the Gnosis, of the Circle of Eternity. The Rose within you is the potential of the God in you.  As soon as this Holy Fire begins to burn, a fiery process begins. God Himself enters into you. God Himself raises His voice.

The ancient Manichaeans had the idea that in the Children of the Fire, the Light was mixed with darkness. We know that this is completely true. Due to his birth in nature, a human-being has many dark elements. These are mixed with the elements of the Light.

However, when you begin to walk the Liberating Path, the newly-lit Fire attacks the darkness in you. A fire process begins. God Himself enters into your being. This is why Paul says to such a pupil: "Do you not know that you are God? Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?" And he adds: "If anyone harms God's temple, God will harm him. For God's temple is holy, and that temple you are" (1 Corinthians 2:16-17).

What does Paul mean by this? He is not referring to being harmed by others, because others cannot harm a pupil on the Path. When the Father's Fire burns in you, no mortal is able to extinguish that Fire. No, you are the only one who can harm yourself. As soon as you go the Path in the flaming triangle, you are obliged to go and stand on the Square of Construction in a totally new way. A completely new mode of life is essential. Without this, you will harm your own temple, the temple which is God's.

No doubt you will understand that if a pupil of the Spiritual School puts the emphasis on numerous incidents and on all kinds of dialectical* values , he would build up an enormous resistance to himself. If you kindle the Holy Fire and at the same time clutch to the things of ordinary nature with both hands, the Fire that has come to consume all that is old and unworthy to God, will  meet its greater resistance in you.

*Dialectics: duality, earthly, of the earth

This is the reason why many pupils of the Spiritual School of the Golden Rosycross sometimes despair at all the difficulties in their lives. In their ignorance, they put up resistance against the Fire of Liberation they themselves have invoked! So...let go of what must be given up.

If anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay and stubble -- each person's work will become manifest. The day will prove it, because it will be revealed by the Fire that you yourself have lit. The Fire will test your construction.

From 'The Three Fires of Grace" - The Living Word - Catharose de Petri

[END QUOTING]

The Path of Return cannot be walked half-heartedly. Once we begin the process, the Light of the Gnosis is attracted and begins Its work within our astral, mental and etheric vehicles. A breaking-up takes place, a breaking up of what is earthly. If we try to hold on to those earthly habits and desires while simultaneously trying to walk the Path to a New Life, we will only interfere with the process. The results of such indecision will be painfully disastrous.

Therefore, all are advised to count the cost before beginning this Journey. One must be ready to leave everything that is of the earth behind, knowing that what lies ahead is more beautiful and glorious than anything ever imagined on earth.

We are the Children of the Fire, and it is time for us to return Home.

~ g
.

The Doctrine Of The Resurrection Of The Dead

 

 1. ALL things in Heaven and in Earth are of God; both the Invisible and the Visible.

2. Such as is the Invisible is the Visible also; for there is no impassable bound between Spirit and Matter.

3. Matter is spirit made exteriorly cognizable by the force of the Divine Word.

4. And when God shall resume all things by Love, the Material shall be resolved into the Spiritual; and there shall be a new Heaven and a new Earth.

5. Not that Matter shall be destroyed; for it came forth from God and is of God, indestructible and eternal.

6. But it shall be indrawn, and resolved into its true Self.

7. It shall put off corruption, and remain incorruptible.

8. It shall put off mortality, and remain immortal.

9. So that nothing be lost of the Divine Substance.

10. It was material Entity; it shall be Spiritual Entity.

11. For there is nothing that can go out from the Presence of God.

12. This is the doctrine of the Resurrection of the Dead; that is, the Transfiguration of the Body.

13. For the Body, which is Matter, is but the Manifestation of Spirit; and the Word of God shall transmute it into its inner being.

14. The Will of God is the Alchemic Crucible; and the Dross which is cast therein is Matter.

15. And the Dross shall become pure Gold, seven times refined, even perfect Spirit.

16. It shall leave behind it nothing, but shall be transformed into the Divine Image.

17. For it is not a new Substance; but it’s Alchemic polarity is changed, and it is converted.

18. But except it were Gold in its true Nature, it could not be resumed into the aspect of Gold.

19. And except Matter were Spirit, it could not revert to Spirit.

20. To make Gold the Alchemist must have Gold.

21. But he knows that to be Gold which others take to be Dross.

22. Cast thyself into the Will of God, and thou shalt become as God.

23. For thou art God if thy will be the Divine Will.

24. This is the Great Secret; it is the Mystery of Redemption.

From "The Higher Alchemy" - The Perfect Way - Anna B. Kingsford and Edward Maitland

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Study the foregoing until Understanding dawns, for it accurately summarizes the Mystery of Transfiguration.

"For thou art God if thy will be the Divine Will". Those who have ears to hear, let them hear.

~ g
.

The Use And Power Of Thought (conclusion)

[QUOTING]

From this consideration it follows that the habit of gossip and scandal, in which many people thoughtlessly indulge themselves, is in reality a horrible wickedness, in condemning which no expression can be too strong. When people are guilty of the impertinence of discussing others, it is not usually upon the good qualities that they most insist. We have therefore a number of people fixing their thought upon some alleged evil in another, calling to that evil the attention of others who might perhaps not have observed it; and in this way, if that bad quality really exists in the person whom they are so improperly criticizing, they distinctly increase it by strengthening the vibration which is its expression. If, as is usually the case, the depravity exists only in their own prurient imagination, and is not present in the person about whom they are gossiping, then they are doing the utmost in their power to create that evil quality in that person, and if there be any latent germ of it existing in their victim, their nefarious effort is only too likely to be successful.

Assuredly we may think helpfully of those whom we love; we may hold before them in thought a high ideal of themselves, and wish strongly that they may presently be enabled to attain it. If we know of certain defects or vices in a man's character we should never under any circumstances let our thoughts dwell upon them and intensify them; on the contrary we should formulate a strong thought of the contrary virtues, and then send out waves of that thought to the man who needs our help. The ordinary method is for one to say to another: "O my dear, what a terrible thing it is that Mrs. So-and-So is so ill-tempered! Why, do you know, only yesterday she did this and that, and I have heard that she constantly, etc., etc.. Isn't it a terrible thing?"

And this is repeated by each person to her thirty or forty dearest friends, and in a few hours several hundred people are pouring converging streams  of thought, all about anger and irritability, upon the unfortunate victim. Is it any wonder that she presently justifies their expectations, and gives them yet another example of ill-temper over which they can gloat?

A man wishing to help in such a case will be especially careful to avoid the idea of anger, but will think with all his force: " I wish Mrs. So-and-So were calm and serene; she has the possibility of such self-control within her; let me try frequently to send her a strong calm soothing influence, such as will help her to realize the Divine possibility within her". In the one case the thought is of anger, and in the other case it is of serenity; in both alike it will inevitably find its goal, and tend to reproduce itself in the mental and astral bodies of the person of whom the thought is made. By all means let us think frequently and lovingly of our friends, but let us think of their good points, and try by concentrating our attention upon those to strengthen them and to help our friends by their means; let our criticism be of that happy kind which grasps at a pearl as eagerly as the criticism of the average man pounces upon an imaginary flaw.

A man will often say that he cannot control his thought or his passion, that he has often tried to do so, but has constantly failed, and has therefore come to the conclusion that such effort is useless. This idea is wholly un-scientific. If an evil quality or habit possesses a certain amount of strength within us, it is because in previous lives we have allowed that strength to accumulate — because we have not resisted it in the beginning, when it could easily have been repressed, but have permitted it to gather the momentum which makes it difficult now to deal with it.

We have in fact, made it very easy for ourselves to move along a certain line, and correspondingly difficult to move along another line — difficult, but not impossible. The amount of momentum or energy accumulated is necessarily a finite amount; even if we have devoted several lives entirely to storing up such energy (an unlikely supposition), still the time so occupied has been a limited time, and the results are necessarily finite. If we have now realized the mistake we made, and are setting ourselves to control that habit and to counteract that impetus, we shall find it necessary to put forth exactly as much strength in the opposite direction as we originally spent in setting up that momentum. Naturally we cannot instantly produce sufficient force entirely to counteract the work of many years, but every effort which we make will reduce the amount of force stored up. We ourselves as living souls can go on generating force indefinitely; we have an infinite store of strength upon which to draw, and therefore it is absolutely certain that if we persevere we must eventually succeed. However often we may fail, each time something is withdrawn from that finite store of force, and it will be exhausted before we shall, so that our eventual success is simply a matter of mechanics.

You may have seen a railway porter, by steady and continuous pushing, set a big wagon or carriage in motion. Having brought it where he wishes, how does he stop it? It is quite impossible for him, even by the exertion of his utmost strength, to check it instantaneously; so he puts himself in front of it and pushes vigorously against it, walking backwards as its advance forces him along, but never ceasing to exert his force against that advance. Thus, by degrees, he counterbalances the momentum which he has himself produced in it, and so at last wins his victory and brings it to rest. A good object-lesson in the neutralization of previous karma!

The knowledge of the use of these thought-currents makes it possible for us always to give assistance when we know of some case of sorrow or suffering. It very often happens that we are unable to do anything for the sufferer in the physical world; our physical presence may not be helpful to him; his physical brain may be closed to our suggestions by prejudice or by religious bigotry. But his astral and mental bodies are far more easily impressible than the physical, and it is always open to us to approach these by a wave of helpful thought or of affection and soothing feeling.

We must not forget that the law of cause and effect holds good just as certainly in finer matter as in denser, and that consequently the energy which we pour forth must reach its goal and must produce its effect. There can be no question that the image or the idea which we wish to put before a man for his comfort or his help will reach him; whether it will present itself clearly to his mind when it arrives, depends first upon the definiteness of outline which we have been able to give to it, and secondly upon his mental condition at the time. He may be so fully occupied with thoughts of his own trials and sufferings that there is little room for our idea to insert itself; but in that case our thought-form simply bides its time, and when at last his attention is diverted, or exhaustion forces him to suspend the activity of his own train of thought, assuredly ours will slip in and will do its errand of mercy. There are so many cases where the best will in the world can do nothing physically for a sufferer; but there is no conceivable case in which in either the mental or the astral world some relief cannot be given by steady, concentrated, loving thought.

The phenomena of mind-cure show how powerful thought may be even in the physical world, and since it acts so much more easily in astral and mental matter we may realize vividly how tremendous the power really is, if we will but exercise it. We should watch for an opportunity of being thus helpful; there is little doubt that plenty of cases will offer themselves. As we walk along the street, as we ride in a tram-car or a railway train, we may often see someone who is obviously suffering from depression or sadness; there is our opportunity, and we may immediately take advantage of it by trying to arouse and to help him. Let us try to send him strongly the feeling that in spite of his personal sorrows and troubles the sun still shines above all, and there is still much for which to be thankful, much that is good and beautiful in the world.

Sometimes we may see the instant effect of our effort — we may actually watch the man brighten up under the influence of the thought which we have sent to him. We cannot always expect such immediate physical result; but if we understand the laws of nature we shall in every case be equally sure that some result is being produced.

It is often difficult for the man who is unaccustomed to these studies to believe that he is really affecting those at whom his thought is aimed; but experience in a great number of cases has shown us that anyone who makes a practice of such efforts will in time find evidence of his success accumulating until it is no longer possible for him to doubt. Each man should make it part of his life thus to try to help all whom he knows and loves, whether they be what is commonly called living or what is commonly called dead; for naturally the possession or the absence of the physical body makes no difference whatever to the action of forces which are leveled at the mental and astral bodies. By steady regular practice great good will be done, for we gain strength by using it, and so while we are developing our own powers and ensuring our progress the world will be helped by our kindly efforts. I remember seeing in an American book on mind-cure a passage which illustrates exceedingly well what should be the attitude with regard to the duties and associations of daily life: "Knead love into the bread you bake", it ran; "wrap strength and courage in the parcel which you tie for the woman with the weary face; hand trust and candor with the coin that you pay
to the man with the suspicious eyes".

Quaint in expression, but lovely in its thought, truly the concept that every connection is an opportunity, and that everyone whom we meet even casually is a person to be helped. Thus the student of the Good Law goes through life distributing blessings on all about him, doing good unobtrusively everywhere, though often the recipients of the blessing and the help may have no idea whence it comes. Never forget that in such benefactions every man can take his share, and every man ought to take his share; all who can think can send out kindly helpful thoughts, and no such thought has ever failed, or can ever fail while the laws of the universe hold. We may not always see the result, but the result is there, and we know not what fruit may spring from the tiny seed which we sow in passing along our path of Peace and Love.

From "The Use And Power Of Thought" C. W. Leadbeater

[END QUOTING]

Thank you for your time. May you apply your new-found knowledge with wisdom, care and love for all others.

~ g
.

The Use And Power Of Thought (continued some more)

Almost done ~ g

[QUOTING]

Now that we understand to some extent the action of Thought, let us see what use it is possible to make of this knowledge, and what practical considerations emerge from it. Knowing these things, what can we do to forward our own evolution, and what can we do to help others ? Obviously, a scientific consideration of the way in which thought works exhibits it as a matter of far greater importance for evolution than we ordinarily suppose. Since every thought or emotion produces a permanent effect by strengthening or weakening a tendency, and since, furthermore, every thought-vibration and thought-form must inevitably react upon the thinker, the greatest care must be exercised as to the thought or emotion which the man permits within himself. The ordinary man rarely thinks of attempting to check an emotion; when he feels it surging within him he yields himself to it and considers it merely natural. One who studies scientifically the action of these forces realizes that it is his interest as well as his duty to check every such upwelling, and consider before he allows it to sway him whether it is or is not prejudicial to his evolution.

Instead of allowing his emotions to run away with him he must have them absolutely under control; and since the stage of evolution at which we have arrived is the development of the mental body, he must take this matter also seriously in hand and see what can be done to assist that development. Instead of allowing the mind to indulge in its vagaries he should endeavor to assert control over it, recognizing that the mind is not the man, but is an instrument which the man must learn to use. It must not be left to lie fallow; it must not be allowed to remain idle, so that any passing thought-form can drift in upon it and impress it. The worthy Dr. Watts long ago remarked that " Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do," and certainly there is truth in the saying when it is applied to these higher levels, for the mind which is left unoccupied is far more likely to take up evil impressions than good ones. The first step towards control of the mind is to learn to keep it usefully occupied — to have some definite good and useful set of thoughts as a background to the mind's operation — something upon which it shall always fall back when there is no immediate need for its activity in connection with duty to be done.

Another most necessary point in its training is that it shall be taught to do thoroughly that which it has to do — in other words, that the power of concentration shall be acquired. This is no light task, as any unpracticed person will find who endeavors to keep his mind absolutely upon one point even for five minutes. He will find that there is an active tendency to wander — that all kinds of other thoughts thrust themselves in; the first effort to fix the mind on one subject, for five minutes is likely to resolve itself into spending five minutes in bringing the mind back again and again from various side-issues which it has followed. Fortunately, though concentration itself is no easy thing, there are plenty of opportunities for attempting it, and the acquisition of it will be of great use in our daily life. We should learn then, whatever we are doing, to focus our attention upon it, and to do it with all our might and as well as it can be done; if we write a letter, let that letter be well and accurately written, and let no carelessness in detail delay it or mar its effect; if we are reading a book, even though it be only a novel, let us read it with attention, trying to grasp the author's meaning, and to gain from it all that there is to be gained. The endeavor to be constantly learning something, to let no day pass without some definite exercise of the mind, is a most salutary one; for it is only by exercise that strength comes, and thus disuse means always weakness and eventual atrophy.

Another point of great importance is that we should learn to husband our energy. Each man possesses only a certain amount of energy, and he is responsible for its utilization to the best advantage. The ordinary man wastes his force in the most foolish manner; but it is especially necessary for the student to learn to avoid this. The average man is simply a center of agitated vibration; he is constantly in a condition of worry, of trouble about something, or in a condition of deep depression, or else he is unduly excited in the endeavor to grasp something. For one reason or another he is always in a state of unnecessary agitation, usually about the merest trifle. Although he never thinks about it, he is all the while influencing other people around him by this condition of his astral and mental bodies; he is constantly communicating these vibrations and this agitation to those unfortunate people who are near him. It is just because millions of people are thus unnecessarily agitated by all sorts of foolish desires and feelings that it is difficult for a sensitive person to live in a large city, or to go into a great crowd of his fellow-men.

Another way in which the average man wastes a great deal of force is by unnecessary argument. It appears to be impossible for him to hold any opinion, whether it be religious or political, or relating to some matter in ordinary life, without becoming a prey to an overmastering desire to force this opinion upon everyone else. He seems quite incapable of grasping the rudimentary fact that what another man chooses to believe is no business of his, and that he is not commissioned by the authorities in charge of the world to go round and secure uniformity in thought and practice. The wise man realizes that truth is a many-sided thing, not commonly held in its entirety by any one man, or by any one set of men; he knows that there is room for diversity of opinion upon almost any conceivable subject, and that therefore a man whose point of view is opposite to his own may nevertheless have something of reason and truth in his belief, He knows that most of the subjects over which men argue are not in the least worth the trouble of discussion, and that those who speak most loudly and most confidently about them are usually those who know least. The student will therefore decline to waste his time in argument; if he is asked for information he is quite willing to give it, but not to waste his time and strength in unprofitable wrangling.

Another painfully common method of wasting strength is in worry. Many men are constantly forecasting evil for themselves and for those whom they love — troubling themselves with the fear of death and of what comes after it, with the fear of financial ruin or loss of social position. A vast amount of strength is frittered away along these unprofitable and unpleasant lines; but all such foolishness is swept aside for the man who realizes that the world is governed by a law of absolute justice, that progress towards the highest is the Divine Will for him, that he cannot escape from that progress, that whatever comes in his way and whatever happens to him is meant to help him along that line, and that he himself is the only person who can delay that advance. He no longer troubles and fears about himself and about others; he simply goes on and does the duty that comes nearest in the best way that, he can, confident that if he does that, all will be well for him. He knows that worry never yet helped anyone, nor has it ever been of the slightest use, but that it has been responsible for an immense amount of evil and waste of force.

The wise man declines to spend his strength in ill-directed emotion. For example, he will utterly decline to take offence at what is said or done by someone else. If another man says something which is untrue or offensive, it is certain that in nine cases out of ten there was no evil intention behind the remark, so that it is not only foolish but unjust to be disturbed about it. Even in the rare case where the remark is intentionally wicked and spiteful — where the man said something purposely to wound another — it is still utterly foolish for that other to allow himself to feel hurt. The irritating word does not in any way injure him, except in so far as he may choose to take it up and injure himself by brooding over it or allowing himself to be wounded in his feelings. What are the words of another, that he should let his serenity be disturbed by them? If he permits himself to care about what another, has said, then it is he himself who is responsible for the disturbance created in his mental body, and not the other man. The other has done and can do nothing that can harm him, and if the student feels hurt and injured, and thereby makes a great deal of trouble for himself, he has only himself to thank for it. If he suffers a disturbance to arise within his mental body or his astral body in reference to something that another has said, that is merely because he has not yet perfect control over his vehicles; he has not yet developed the common-sense which enables him to look down as a soul upon all this, and to go on his way and attend to his own work without taking the slightest notice of foolish or spiteful remarks made by others.

But this is after all only one side of the matter, and that the least important. It is certainly necessary for his own evolution that man should keep mind and emotion under control, and not foolishly waste his force; but it is assuredly still more necessary from another point of view, because it is only by such care that he can enable himself to be of use to his fellow-men, that he can avoid doing harm to them and can learn how to do good. If, for example, he lets himself feel angry, he naturally produces a serious effect upon himself, because he sets up an evil habit and makes it more difficult to resist the evil impulse next time it assails him. But he also acts seriously upon others around him, for inevitably the vibration which radiates from him must affect them also. If he is making an effort to control his irritability, so perhaps are they, and his action will help or hinder them, even though he is not in the least thinking of them. Every time that he allows himself to send out a wave of anger, that tends to arouse a similar vibration in the mind or astral body of another — to arouse it if it has not previously existed, and to intensify it if it is already present; and thus he makes his brother's work of self-development harder for him, and places a heavier burden upon his shoulders. On the other hand, if he controls and represses that wave of anger, lie radiates instead calming and soothing influences which are distinctly helpful to all those near him who are engaged in the same struggle.

Inevitably and without any effort of ours any thought which arises within our minds must be influencing the minds of others about us. Consider then the responsibility if a thought be impure or evil, for we are then spreading moral contagion among our fellow-men. Hundreds and thousands of people possess within them latent germs of evil — germs which may never blossom and bear fruit unless some force from without plays upon them and stirs them into activity. If we yield ourselves to an impure or unholy thought, the wave of force which we thus produce may be the very factor which awakens the germ and causes it to begin to grow, and so we may start some soul upon a downward career. The impulse so given may blossom out later into thoughts and words and deeds of evil, and these in their turn may injuriously affect thousands of other men even in the far distant future. We see then how terrible is the responsibility of a single impure or evil thought. Happily all this is true of good thought as well as of evil, and the man who realizes this may set himself to work to be a veritable sun, constantly radiating upon all his neighbors thoughts of love and calm and peace. This is a truly magnificent power, yet it is within the reach of every human being, of the poorest as well as the wealthiest, of the little child as well as the great sage.

Possessing this tremendous power, we must be careful how we exercise it. We must remember to think of a person as we wish him to be, for the image that we thus make of him will naturally act powerfully upon him and tend to draw him gradually into harmony with itself. Let us fix our thoughts upon the good qualities of our friends, because in thinking of any quality we tend to strengthen its vibration, and therefore to intensify it.

From "The Use And Power Of Thought" C. W. Leadbeater

[END QUOTING]
.

The Use And Power Of Thought (continued)

[QUOTING]

Let us consider separately the action of these two manifestations of thought-power. The vibration may be simple or it may be complex, according to the character of the thought; but its strength is poured out chiefly upon some one of the four levels of mental matter — the four subdivisions which constitute the lower part of the mental world. Most of the thoughts of the ordinary man center round himself, his desires, and his emotions, and they are therefore vibrations of the lowest subdivision of mental matter; indeed, the corresponding part of the mental body is the only one which is as yet fully developed and active in the great majority of mankind. It must not be forgotten that in this respect the condition of the mental body is very different from that of the astral vehicle. In the ordinary cultured man of our race the astral body is, as fully developed as the physical, and the man is perfectly capable of using it as a vehicle of consciousness. He is not yet much in the habit of so using it, and is consequently shy about it and distrustful of his powers; but the astral powers are all there, and it is simply a question of becoming accustomed to their use. When he finds himself functioning in the astral world either during sleep or after death, he is fully capable of sight and hearing, and can move about whithersoever he will.

In the heaven-world, however, he finds himself under very different conditions, for the mental body is as yet by no means fully developed, that being the part of its evolution upon which the human race is at the present moment engaged. The mental body can be employed as a vehicle only by those who have been specially trained in its use under Teachers belonging to the Great Brotherhood of Initiates; in the average man it is only partially developed, and cannot in the least be employed as a separate vehicle of consciousness. In the majority of men the higher portions of the mental body are as yet quite dormant, even when, the lower portions are in vigorous activity. This necessarily implies that while the whole mental atmosphere is surging with vibrations belonging to the lowest subdivision, there is as yet comparatively little activity on the higher subdivisions — a fact which we shall need to have clearly in mind when we come to consider presently the practical possibility of the use of thought-power. It has also an important bearing upon the distance to which a thought-wave may penetrate.

The distance covered by such a wave, and the strength and persistence with which it can impinge upon the mental bodies of others, depend upon the strength and clearness of the original thought. In this respect it resembles the voice of a speaker, setting in motion waves of sound in the air, which radiate from him in all directions, and convey his words to all those who are (as we say) within hearing; and the distance to which his voice can penetrate depends upon its strength and the clearness of his enunciation. In exactly the same way a strong thought will carry much farther than one which is weak and undecided; but clearness and distinctness are of even greater importance than strength. Again, just as the speaker's voice may fall upon heedless ears where men are already engaged in business or in pleasure, so may a strong wave of thought sweep past without affecting the mind of a man if he is already wholly engrossed in some other line of thought. Many men, however, do not think definitely or strongly except when in the immediate prosecution of some business that demands their whole attention, so that there are always within reach many minds that are liable to be considerably affected by the thoughts which impinge upon them.

The action of this vibration is eminently adaptable. It may exactly reproduce itself, if it finds a mental body which readily responds to it in every particular; but when this is not the case, it may nevertheless produce a decided effect along lines broadly similar to its own. Suppose for example, that a Catholic kneels in devotion before an image of the Blessed Virgin. He sends rippling out from him in all directions strong devotional vibrations; if they strike upon the mental or astral body of another Catholic, they will arouse in him a thought and feeling identical with the original. But if they should strike upon a Christian of some other sect, to whom the image of the Blessed Virgin is unfamiliar, they will still awaken in him the sentiment of devotion, but that will follow along its accustomed channel, and be directed towards the Christ.

In the same way, if they should touch a Muhammadan they would arouse in him devotion to Allah, while in the case of a Hindû the object might be Krshna, and in the case of a Pãrsî, Ahuramazda. But they would excite devotion of some sort wherever there was a possibility of response to that idea. If, however, they should touch the mental body of a materialist, to whom the very idea of devotion in any form is unknown, they would still produce an elevating effect. They could not at once create a type of vibration to which the man was wholly unaccustomed, but their tendency would be to stir a higher part of his mental body into some sort of activity; and the effect, though less permanent than in the case of the sympathetic recipient, could not fail to be good. The action of an evil or impure thought is governed by the same laws. A man who is so foolish as to allow himself to think of another with hatred or envy radiates a wave tending to provoke similar passions in others; and though his feeling of hatred be for someone quite unknown to these others, and so it is impossible that they should share it, yet the radiation will stir in them an emotion of the same nature towards a totally different person.

The work of the thought-form is more limited, but much more precise than that of the vibration. It cannot reach so many persons — indeed we may say that it cannot act upon a person at all unless he has in him something which is harmonious with the vibrant energy which ensouls it. The powers and possibilities of these thought-forms will perhaps be clearer to us if we attempt to classify them. Let us consider first the thought which is definitely directed towards another person — as when a man sends forth from himself a thought of affection or of gratitude (or unfortunately it may be sometimes of envy or jealousy) towards someone else. Such a thought will produce radiating waves precisely as would any other, and will therefore tend to reproduce itself in the minds of those within the sphere of its influence. But the thought-form which it creates is imbued with definite intention, as it were; and as soon as it breaks away from the mental and astral bodies of the thinkers it goes straight towards the person to whom it is directed, and fastens itself upon him.

It may be compared not inaptly to a Leyden jar with its charge of electricity — the matter of the mental and astral worlds forming the body, which is symbolized by the jar, and the vibrant energy of the thought which ensouls it corresponding to the charge of electricity. If the man towards whom it is directed is at the moment in a passive condition, or if he has within him active oscillations of a character harmonious with its own, it will at once discharge itself upon him. Its effect will naturally be to provoke a vibration similar to its own if none such previously existed, and to intensify it if it is already to be found there. If the man's mind is for the time so strongly occupied along some other lines that it is impossible for the vibration to find an entrance, the thought-form hovers about him waiting for an opportunity to discharge itself.

In the case of a thought which is not directed to some other person, but is connected chiefly with the thinker himself (as indeed are the majority of man's thoughts), the vibration spreads in all directions as usual, but the thought-form floats in the immediate neighborhood of its creator, and its tendency is constantly to react upon him. As long as his mind is fully occupied with business, or with a thought of some other type, the floating form simply bides its time; but when his train of thought is exhausted, or his mind for a moment lies fallow, it has an opportunity to react upon him, and immediately it begins to repeat itself — to stir up in his mind a repetition of the thought to which he has previously yielded himself. Many a man may be seen surrounded by a shell of such thought-forms, and he will frequently feel their pressure upon him — a constant suggestion from without of certain thoughts; and if the thought be evil, he very likely believes himself to be tempted by the devil: whereas the truth is that he is his own tempter, and that the evil thoughts are entirely his own creation.

Thirdly, there is the class of thought which is neither centered round the thinker nor aimed specially at any person. The thought-form generated in this case does not hang about the thinker, nor has it any special attraction towards another man, so it simply remains idly floating where it was called into existence. Each man as he moves through life is thus producing three classes of thought-forms — those which shoot straight out away from him, aiming at a definite objective; those which hover round him and follow him wherever he goes; and those which he leaves behind him as a sort of trail which marks his route.

The whole atmosphere is filled with thought of this third type, vague and indeterminate; so that as we walk along we are, as it were, picking our way through vast masses of them; and if our minds are not already definitely occupied, these vague wandering fragments of other people's thought will seriously affect us. They, sweep through the mind which is lying idle, and probably the majority of them do not arouse in it any especial interest; but now and then comes one which attracts attention, and the mind fastens upon it, entertains it for a moment or two, and dismisses it a little stronger than it was on arrival.

Naturally this mixture of thought from many sources has no definite coherence — though it must be remembered that any one of these may start a line of associated ideas, and so set the mind thinking on its own account. If a man pulls himself up suddenly as he walks along the street, and asks himself: "What am I thinking about, and why? How did I reach this particular point in my train of thought?" and if he tries to follow back the line of his thoughts for the last ten minutes, he will probably be quite surprised to discover how many idle and useless thoughts have passed through his mind in that space of time. They are not one-fourth of them his own thoughts; they are simply those fragments which he has picked up as he passed along. In most cases they are quite valueless, and their general tendency is distinctly more likely to be evil than good.

From "The Use And Power Of Thought" C. W. Leadbeater

[END QUOTING]
.