THE DEVIL MYTH

The Devil is the patron genius of theological Christianity. This dogma of the Devil and redemption seems to be based upon two passages on the New Testament: “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the Devil” [1 John 3.5]. “And there was war in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the Dragon; and the Dragon fought, and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great Dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the Devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world” [Revelation 12.7-9]. Let us, then, explore the ancient theogonies, in order to ascertain what was meant by these remarkable expressions.

The first inquiry is whether the term Devil, as here used, actually represents the malignant [evil] deity of the Christians, or an antagonistic, blind force—the dark side of nature. By the latter we are not to understand the manifestation of any evil principle that is malum in se, but only the shadow of the Light, so to say. The theories of the kabbalists treat of it as a force which is antagonistic, but at the same time essential to the vitality, evolution, and vigor of the good principle. Plants would perish in their first state of existence if they were kept exposed to a constant sunlight; the night alternating with the day is essential to their healthy growth and development. Goodness, likewise, would speedily cease to be such, were it not alternated by its opposite. In human nature, evil denotes the antagonism of matter to the spiritual, and each is accordingly purified thereby. In the cosmos, the equilibrium must be preserved; the operation of the two contraries produces harmony, like the centripetal and centrifugal forces, which are necessary to each other, if one is arrested, the action of the other will immediately become destructive.

[Everything that helps your evolution or helps you on in life is good or spiritual to you and everything that obstructs you evolution, or prevents you from going forward in life, is evil to you….Also, “everything is relative” and something that is evil to you might be spiritual to your younger brother because he has to experience something to be able to learn the lesson which you do not want to repeat. When you have learned everything a certain religion can teach you and the time has come for you to learn more of the truth than it will be evil for you to stay trapped in that religion and highly spiritual to move on, but not so for your younger brother. ..E.B.] 

This personification, denominated Satan, is to be contemplated from three different planes: the Old Testament, the Christian Fathers, and the ancient gentile attitude. He is supposed to have been represented by the Serpent in the Garden of Eden; nevertheless, in the Hebrew sacred writings the epithet [description or nickname] of Satan in nowhere applied to that or any other variety of snake.

The temptation, or probation, of Jesus is the most dramatic occasion in which Satan appears. As if to prove the designation of Apollo, Aesculapius, and Bacchus, Diobolos, or son of Zeus, he is also styled Diabolos, or accuser. The scene of the probation was the wilderness. In the desert around the Jordan and Dead Sea were the abodes of the “sons of the prophets” and the Essenes [Pliny, Nat. Hist. 5.16]. These ascetics used to subject their neophytes to probation, [an initiation], analogous to the tortures of the Mithraic rites, and the temptation of Jesus was evidently a scene of this character. But the Diabolos, accuser Devil, is in this instance evidently no malignant principle, but one exercising discipline. In this sense the terms Devil and Satan are repeatedly employed [see 1 corinthians 5.5; 2 corithians 11.14; 1 Timothy 1. 20]. 

The story of Satan in the Book of Job is of a Similar character. He is introduced among the “Sons of God,” presenting themselves before the Lord as in a mystic initiation. The Lord counsels with Satan and gives him carte blanche to test the fidelity of Job. The latter is stripped of his wealth and family and smitten with a loathsome disease. In his extremity, his wife doubts his integrity, and exhorts him to worship God, as he is about to die. His friends all beset him with accusations, and finally the Lord, the chief hierophant Himself, taxes him with the uttering of words in which there is no wisdom and with contending with the Almighty. In all these scenes there is no such malignant diabolism as is supposed to characterize ‘the adversary of souls.”

The allegory of Job, if correctly understood, will give the key to this whole matter of the Devil, his nature and his office and will substantiate our declarations. Let no pious individual take exception to this designation of allegory. Myth was the favourite and universal method of teaching in archaic times. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, [Corinthians 10.11.] declared that the entire story of Moses and the Israelites was Typical, and in his Epistle to the Galatians asserted that the whole story of Abraham, his two wives, and their sons was an allegory. [Galatians 4.22, 24] Indeed, it is a theory amounting to certitude that the historical books of the Old Testament were of the same character. We take no extraordinary liberty with the Book of Job when we give it the same designation which Paul gave the stories of Abraham and Moses.

But perhaps we ought to explain the ancient use of allegory and symbolism. The symbol expressed some abstract quality of Deity which the Laity could easily apprehend. Its higher sense terminated there, and it was employed by the multitude thenceforth as an image in idolatrous rites. But the allegory was reserved for the inner sanctuary, when only the elect were admitted. Hence the rejoinder of Jesus when his disciples interrogated him because he spoke to the multitude in parables. “To you,” said he, “it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance; but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath” [Matthew 13.11-12].

The whole allegory of Job is an open book to him who understands the picture language of Egipt as it is recorded in the Book of the Dead…. Initiation into the Mysteries, as every intelligent person knows, was a dramatic representation of scenes in the underworld. [spiritual world] such was the allegory of Job….which is a complete representation of ancient initiation and the trails which generally precede this grandest of all ceremonies…..

It will be perceived from these extended illustrations that the Satan of the Old Testament, the Diabolos or Devil of the Gospels and Apostolic Epistles, were but the antagonistic principle matter, necessarily incident to it, [materialism] and not wicked in the moral sense of the term. The Jews, coming from the Persian country, brought with them the doctrine of two principles. They could not bring the Avesta, for it was not written. But they—we mean the Asidians [Chasidium] and Pharsi—invented Ormazd with the secret name of Jehovah, and Ahriman with the name of the gods of the land, Satan of the Hittites and Diabolos, or rather Diobolos, of the Greeks. The early Church—at least the Pauline part of it—the Gnostics, and their successors further refined their ideas; and the Catholic Church adopted and adapted them, meanwhile putting their promulgators to the sword.
ISIS UNVEILED by Helena p. Blavatsky, pp221-230.

In the last analysis, and from the standpoint of the Hierarchy, the present conflict between the personality of humanity (expressing the material values as the dominating factor in life experience) and the soul of humanity (expressing the spiritual values as the dominating factor in human affairs) is identical with the conflict which takes place within a human being's consciousness when he has reached the stage of discipleship and is faced with the problem of the pairs of opposites. This conflict is expressed in many ways according to the point of view and the background of thought. It can be called the conflict between Christ and anti-Christ but not as those who usually employ those phrases understand them. No one nation is expressive of the spirit of anti-Christ, just as no one nation expresses the spirit of Christ. Christ and anti-Christ are the dualities of spirituality and materialism, both in the individual and in humanity as a whole. Or you can speak of God and the Devil with the same basic implications. For what is man himself but an expression of divinity (God) in a material form (the Devil), and what is matter but the medium through which divinity must eventually manifest in all its glory? But when that takes place, matter will no longer be a controlling factor but simply a medium of expression. [THE EXTERNALISATION OF THE HIERARCHY, P137]

Read more at:  http://edgeba.webs.com/thedevilmyth.htm

THE OCCULT HIERARCHY AND THE TEMPLE OF IBEZ

In himself, the aspirant repeats the racial unfoldment, and re-enacts the racial drama; and to comprehend this certain facts about that drama and the work of the Hierarchy should be grasped and I here enumerate them:

1. The movement for the spreading of the Secret Doctrine is eighteen million years old.

2. Only four of the original Instigators still remain with us.  The work (impulsive and controlling) lies now in the hands of three groups of lives, if it may be so expressed:

a)      In the hands of those of our Earth Humanity who have equipped themselves so as to serve.

b)      In the hands of certain Existences who have come into our earth scheme of evolution from other planetary schemes.

c)       In the hands of a large number of devas of superhuman evolution.

These in their aggregate, form the occult Hierarchy of the planet, working in three main divisions, and in seven groups as outlined in many Theosophical books and summarized in Initiation, Human and Solar.

3. In the very early stages, this Hierarchy was called by various names; among others it was called the Temple of Ibez.

4. Let us consider the founding of the Temple of Ibez.  To do this it will be necessary to consider the period of the coming of the White Brotherhood to earth and the immediate problem before Them; this will involve the recognition of certain facts that have never been adequately considered.  It is an acknowledged fact in occultism that for our earth humanity the advent of the occult Hierarchy was epochal; it brought about two things:

The definite crystallization of that group soul which is now called the fourth or human kingdom.

The arousing of manas or mind in animal man in a triple way.

a)      By the direct incarnation of certain members of the White Brotherhood, in which way They brought in the new and necessary factors by transmission to their children.

b)      By the definite implantation of what is called in the occult Scriptures "the spark of mind" in animal man.  This is simply a pictorial way of picturing the creation, by a direct act, of the necessary mental unit or mental apparatus of thought, within the causal or spiritual body.

c)       By the gradual stimulation of the mental faculty in animal man, and the steady vitalisation of the latent germ of mind until it flowered forth as manifested mind.

This covered a vast period of time, and though the Brotherhood made its headquarters at Shamballa and directed its activities from there, it was found necessary during the first sub-race of the Atlantean Root Race to make certain efforts, if the evolution of the race was to proceed according to plan.  Students of these mysteries need to remember that though Shamballa is spoken of as existing in physical matter and as occupying a definite location in space, the physical matter referred to is etheric, the Lord of the World and His assistants of the higher degrees occupying bodies formed of etheric matter.

5. It was decided about seventeen million years ago (the coming of the Hierarchy and the founding of Shamballa being about eighteen and a half million years ago) to have on the dense physical plane an organization and a headquarters for the mysteries, and to have a band of Adepts, and Chohans who would function in dense physical bodies and thus meet the need of the rapidly awakening humanity.

6. The first outpost for the Shamballa Fraternity was the original temple of Ibez and it was located in the centre of South America, and one of its branches at a much later period was to be found in the ancient Maya institutions, and the basic worship of the sun as the source of life in the hearts of all men.  A second branch was later established in Asia, and of this branch the Himalayan and southern Indian adepts are the representatives, though the work is materially changed.  At a later date than the present, discoveries will be made, revealing the reality of the old form of hierarchical work; ancient records and monuments will be revealed, some above ground and many in subterranean fastnesses.  As the mysteries of central Asia in the land stretching from Chaldea and Babylon through Turkestan to Manchuria, including the Gobi desert, are opened up, it is planned that much of the early history of the Ibezhan workers will be revealed.

We might here note the fact that the word Ibez is literally in the nature of an acrostic veiling the true name of the planetary Logos of the earth, one of Whose principles is working in Sanat Kumara, making Him thus a direct incarnation of the planetary Logos and an expression of His divine consciousness.   These four letters are the first letters of the real names of the four Avatars on the four globes of our earth chain who have embodied four of the divine principles.   The letters I B E Z are not the true Sensar letters, if such an inaccurate expression can be used of an ideographic language, but are simply a Europeanized distortion.  The true meaning is only conveyed at the fourth initiation when the nature of the planetary Logos is revealed and His four Avatars are definitely contacted through the direct mediatory work of Sanat Kumara.

7. A word now as regards the work of the Ibezhan adepts and Their mysteries; it is necessary here to point  out that the whole trend of Their work was in a way different and necessarily so, to that of the adepts at this time.  Their objective was to stimulate mysticism and the stimulating of the kingdom of God within the human atom.  The nature of Their work is most difficult for the average man of this time to comprehend, owing to the different state of his consciousness.  The Ibezhan adepts had to deal with a humanity which was in its infancy, whose polarization was most unstable, and whose coordination was very imperfect.  There was very little mentality to be found and men were practically altogether astral; they functioned even more consciously on the astral plane than on the physical, and it was part of the work of these early adepts, working under instruction from Shamballa to develop the energy centres of the human unit, stimulate the brain and make him fully self-conscious on the physical plane.  Their objective was to bring about a realization of the kingdom of God within, and little attention was paid (in Their training of Their disciples) to the bringing about of the realization of God in nature or in other units.  It was necessary in those days to employ methods more definitely physical than are permissible now, and these methods of physical stimulation were employed and the laws of energy as they work through the various centres were taught until the time came when another big change was made in the hierarchical methods, and the door from the animal kingdom into the human was closed and the door of initiation was opened.  It was felt at that time that man was then self-centered enough and individualized enough to permit of a drastic change in method and practice.  All this took a vast period of time and it is the remnants of the earlier Temple practices which have come down to us in degraded phallic teaching, in Tantrik magic and the practices of Hatha Yogis.  The infant humanity of Lemurian and early Atlantean days had to be taught what they were by means of symbols and methods which to us would be crude, impossible and of a nature which the race should have transcended for many millions of years.
[From the works of AAB and DK.]

Read More at: http://edgeba.webs.com/theocculthierarchy.htm

SOUL AND ITS VEHICLE OR MECHANISM

Integration

It helps us to find the light that will illuminate our path through our daily attainment of integration and to help fill the gap between theory and practice, between mental knowledge and integrated soul-infused living. I can see that the major task is to intensify the mental life and let the mind principle control the emotional nature and the physical activities. No man becomes an accepted disciple until his whole lower nature is controlled by his illumined mind. I can see the three stages in the integration process”

1.       The integration of the personality and the close co-ordination of the three instruments of the soul.

2.       The integration later brought about between the integrated personality and the soul.

3.       A higher integration in which the soul contact is superseded and the integration is directly between the soul-infused personality and the Spiritual Triad.

The three lower vehicles are appropriated by the soul for service in the three worlds:

1.       To gain control in the three worlds.

2.       To give opportunity to the substance of the forms…. To reach a higher point of perfection through the impact upon it of life, via the soul.

Intelligent grasp is one thing. The application of the knowledge by the mind in the lower nature is another. The latter involves the emphasis of the essentials and the elimination of the non-essentials. Until this is somewhat accomplished, the deeper aspects of esoteric training are neither safe nor possible. The soul is the true esotericist, and until the mental link between the soul and the integrated personality is strong and continuously utilised, the esoteric aspect of the training for discipleship will escape the personality. The mind is the integrating factor.

ORIGIN   

To understand the bolts and nuts of the soul better we have to study it on its own plane as far as it is possible for the mind to grasp this matter; after all it is still the mental plane. Where did it all start?

Egoic manifestation is produced through the medium of two fires.

 In all manifestation, as we well know, we have duality producing triplicty. Spirit meets and contacts matter; the result of that contact is the birth of the Son, or the Ego, the consciousness aspect. The egoic manifestation is therefore the middle aspect, [neither bad nor good] the place of at-one-ment, and [after due evolutionary cycles] the place of balance, or equilibrium. It is the point of central emphasis in man’s threefold manifestation. It is the division of his nature which concerns the process of making him the perfect six-pointed star during the preliminary stage [the threefold personality and the threefold Triad merged and blended and perfectly produced through the intermediate point the causal body] and which, when the physical body is eliminated, makes him the five-pointed star or perfected manasaputra.

The egoic manifestation is produced at individualisation.

The causal body is that sheath of mental substance which is formed at the moment of individualisation by the contact of the two fires. The force or energy that pours through from the higher planes [the breath of the Monad] produces a vacuum, and the sheath of the causal body – the ring-pass-not of the central Life is formed. Within this sheath are to be found three atoms, which have been termed the mental unit or atom, the astral permanent atom and the physical permanent atom; a reflection of the three Persons of the logoic Trinity.

Read more at: http://edgeba.webs.com/soulanditsvehicle.htm

SOUL

THE ‘WORD “SOUL” 

The first thing for me that comes to mind when I think of the soul is the part of me that lives somewhere in the spiritual world that I cannot see, hear or touch. It is me, but then it is not me. It is me on a higher plain, where I come from. It is me when I am back home. The me, that collects all my knowledge when my school-term here on earth is over, until the next term begins with my next life.

I have this intensive feeling that I came from somewhere to which I shall return after death, and that there is an afterlife. If it was not for that intuitive knowledge and my believe in spirit, then to me, the soul might not have been a thing of reality.

Through my studies, I have learned that the soul is half way between my spirit and myself, the personality that is writing this. Through the help of the Solar Angel [who was a human being once] and my spirit my soul was created to enable my spirit to take possession of a body on the physical plane. A chain reaction was started long ago that I am only now becoming aware off. A chain reaction between the evolution of the spirits up high and the evolution of the animal bodies down below that came about because of the invocation of both sides, leading to the evocation of the individualisation of the human body through the establishing of the Soul through the help of the Solar Angel. The chain reaction was as follows:

Spirit—soul in the Causal body—mental body, higher and lower—astral body—etheric body—physical body.

Sometimes the word soul can mean or imply the following:

·         Me, my personality.

·         My mental body…..higher and lower mind…..intuition.

·         My astral body

·         My etheric body

·         My physical body

·         All four, or just the first three. These are the bodies in which the soul are incorporated and  which he use to gain experience to liberate himself as well as the little lifes that make out  these bodies.

·         Ego or Higher-self.

·         Solar Angel.

·         Human soul.

·         Spiritual soul.

·         The Christ in me.

·         The Holy Grail.

·         Son of God.

·         The Egoic Lotus.

·         The Causal Body.

:




Read more http://edgeba.webs.com/soulrelations.htm

BALANCING OF THE OPPOSITES

Each moment of every day I stand at the midway point and each moment must I choose between the Left Hand and the Right Hand path – it never ends. It is so easy to lose concentration and to stumble and fall that we cannot let our guard down for a moment. The path between the two opposites is very difficult to sustain and we have this constant movement from one to the other. As the initiate Paul have said “I die daily.” Every time we fall to the left hand path we die, and when we get back on tract we get born again.

Patanjali said: “When thoughts which are contrary to yoga are present there should be the cultivation of their opposite.”

The science of the balancing of the opposites can be tabulated as follows:

1)      As a man thinketh so is he. That which works out into physical objectivity is always a thought, and according to that thought or idea so will be the form and life-purpose.

2)      Thoughts are of two kinds; those tending to form-building, to limitation, to physical plane expression; those tending away from the lower three planes and therefore from the form aspect as we know it in the three worlds, and leading to union [yoga or at-one-ment] with the soul, the Christ aspect.

3)      When it is found that the thoughts habitually cultivated are productive of astral and physical reactions and results it must be realised that they are inimical to yoga; they hinder the at-one-ing process.

4)      Contrary thoughts to these must then be cultivated; these can be easily ascertained for they will be the direct opposite of the inhibiting thoughts.

5)      The cultivation of the thoughts which will tend to yoga and lead a man to a knowledge of his real self and consequent union with that self, involves a triple process.

a)      The new thought concept, definitely formulated and found to be contrary to the old thought  current, must be ascertained and considered.

b)      The use of the imagination comes next in order to bring the thought into manifestation. This brings in the realm of desire and consequently the astral or emotional body is affected.

c)       Then follows definite visualization of the effect of that which has been thought and imagined, as it will manifest in the physical plane life.

 This will be found to generate energy. This means consequently that the etheric body becomes vitalized or energized by the new thought current and certain transformations and re-organizations take place which eventually cause a complete change in the activities of the physical plane man. The constant cultivation of this effects an entire transformation in the threefold lower man.

From the works of AAB and DK.

Read More at: http://edgeba.webs.com/thoughtforms.htm

ENLIGHTENMENT

THE THREE ASPECTS OF THE MIND

[1] Upper brain: the centre of energy through which the soul works is in the upper brain. During meditation, if effective, energy from the soul pours into the brain, and has a definite effect upon the nervous system. If, however, the mind is not controlled and the emotional nature dominates [as in the case of the pure Mystic] the effect makes itself felt primarily in the feeling apparatus, the emotional states of being. When the mind is the dominating factor, then the thought apparatus, in the higher brain, is swung into an organised activity. The man acquires a new capacity to think clearly, synthetically and potently as he discovers new realms of knowledge.

[2] Pituitary body: in the region of the pituitary body, we have the seat of the lower faculties, when co-ordinated in the higher type of human being. Here they are co-ordinated and synthesised, and… here are to be found the emotions and the more concrete aspects of the mind [growing out of racial habits and inherited instincts, and, hence, calling for no exercise of the creative or higher mind]. When the personality – the sum-total of physical, emotional and mental states  - is of a high order, then the pituitary body functions with increased efficiency, and the vibration of the centre of energy in its neighbourhood becomes very powerful. When the personality is of a low order, when the reactions are mainly instinctual and the mind is practically non-functioning, then the centre of energy is in the neighbourhood of the solar plexus, and the man is more animal in nature.

[3]Pineal gland: the centre in the region of the Pineal gland, and the higher brain, are brought into activity through learning to focus the attentive consciousness in the head. The withdrawal of the consciousness into the region of the pineal gland, so that man’s point of realisation is centralised in the region between the middle of the forehead and the pineal gland. This means the development of the capacity to subjugate the outward-going tendencies of the five senses. So the aspirant is taught the right withdrawal of the consciousness which is outgoing towards the world of phenomena, and must learn to centre his consciousness in the great central station in the head from whence energy can be consciously distributed as he participates in the great work, from whence he can make a contact with the realm of soul, and in which he can receive the messages and impressions which emanate from that realm. This is a definite stage of achievement and is not simply a symbolic way of expressing one-pointed interest.

ALIGHNMENT

 This prose of enlightenment is brought about:

1. Through the subjugation of the lower nature which transfers the activity of all the life below the solar plexus  and including the solar plexus, into the three centres above the diaphragm, the head, heart and throat. This is done through life, love and service.
2. Through the practice of love, the focussing of the attention upon the heart life of service.

3. Through a knowledge of meditation, which is the exemplification of the basic yoga aphorism “energy follows thought,” all the enfoldments and developments which the aspirant desires are brought about.    

THE LIGHT IN THE HEAD

The high grade intellectual personality, with its focus of attention in the region of the pituitary body, begins to vibrate in unison with the higher centre in the region of the pineal gland. Then a magnetic field is set up between the positive soul aspect and the waiting personality which is rendered receptive by the process of focused attention. Then, the light, we are told, breaks forth and we have enlightenment, and the appearance of the phenomenal light in the head……all this is the result of a disciplined life, and the focusing of the consciousness in the head. This is, in its turn, brought about through the attempt to be concentrated in the daily life, and also through definite concentration exercise. These are followed by the effort to meditate, and later, much later, the power to contemplate makes itself felt.

Patanjali said: “when the means to Yoga have been steadily practised and when impurity has been overcome, enlightenment takes place leading up to full illumination.”

 The light in the head, which is at first but a spark, is fanned to a flame which illumines all things and is fed constantly from above. This is progressive and is dependent upon steadfast practise, meditation and earnest service.

The gradually increasing downpour of fiery energy increases steadily the “light in the head,” or the effulgence found in the brain in the neighbourhood of the pineal gland. This is to the little system of the threefold man in physical manifestation what the physical sun is to the solar system.  This light becomes eventually a blaze of glory and the man becomes a “son of light” or a Sun of righteousness”. Such were the Buddha, the Christ, and all the great ones who have attained full illumination.

From the works of AAB and DK.

THOUGHT FORMS

Fancy rests upon images which have no real existence.

This means that these images have no real existence in so far as they are conjured up by men themselves, constructed by their will or desire and are consequently dissipated when attention is directed elsewhere.

“Energy follows thought” is a basic tenant of the Raja Yoga system and is true even where these images of fancy are concerned. These fancied images fall primarily into three groups, which the student would do well to consider.

[1] Those thought, forms which he constructs himself, which have an evanescent life and which are dependent upon the quality of his desires; being therefore neither good nor evil, low nor high, can be vitalized by low tendencies or idealistic aspirations, with all the intermediate stages to be found between these extremes. The aspirant has to guard himself in order that he may not mistake these for reality. An illustration might well be given here, in respect to the facility with which people judge they have seen one of the Brothers [or Masters of the Wisdom], whereas all they have perceived is a thought form of one of Them; the wish being father to the thought, they are the victim of that form of incorrect perception called by Patanjaly, fancy.

[2] Those thought forms which are created by the race, the nation, the group or the organization. Group thought forms of any kind [from the planetary form to that constructed by any band of thinkers] form the sum total of the “great illusion”. Herein lies a hint to the earnest aspirant.

[3] That thought forms created by a man since his first appearance in physical forms, and called the “Dweller on the Threshold.” Being created by the lower personal self and not by the soul, it is impermanent and is simply held together by the man’s lower energy. When the man begins to function as the soul this “image” he has created, through his “fancy” or his reaction to delusion, is dissipated by a supreme exertion. It has no real existence once there is nothing in the aspirant to feed it, and the realization of this enables him to free himself from its thraldom.

This is one of the sutras which, though apparently short and simple, is of the most profound significance; it is studied by high initiates who are learning the nature of the creative process of the planet, and who are concerned with the dissipation of planetary maya or illusion. [Sutra 9, The Light of the soul]  

Mental perception

Through the use of the mind the onlooker becomes aware of another grade of phenomena and is put en rapport with the thought world, or with that condition of substance in which is registered the thought impulses of our planet and its inhabitants, and with forms created by those vibratory impulses which express certain ideas and desires,--primarily at present the latter.  Owing to the erroneous perception brought about through the use of the senses and the wrong interpretation of the things sensed, these thought forms are in themselves distortions of the reality, and express only those lower impulses and reactions which emanate from the lower kingdoms in nature. Students should remember that it is only when man is really beginning to use his mental body [and is not used by it] that he contacts the thought forms created by the guides of the race and justly perceives them. 

Read more at: http://edgeba.webs.com/thoughtforms.htm

MENTAL AND ASTRAL DEVELOPMENT

CARE AND CONTROL OF THE EMOTIONAL BODY:

 This is the most difficult of the vehicles to tend, as is well known. No excessive emotion is permitted, though strong currents of love for all that breath are allowed to sweep through. Love, being the law of the system, is constructive and stabilising, and carries all on in line with the law. No fear or worry or care, shake the emotional body of the aspiring servant of all. He cultivates serenity, stability, and a sense of secure dependence on God’s law. A joyous confidence characterises his habitual attitude. He harbours no jealousy, no cloudy grey depression, and no greed or self-pity, but – realising that all men are brothers and that all that is exist for all – he proceeds calmly on his way.

In the control of the emotional body the server takes the attitude of elimination. His aim is so to train the emotional body that it becomes devoid of colour, has a still vibration, and is clear and white, limpid as a pool on a still summer’s day. This negative stillness of the emotional body makes it receptive to impression from above.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MENTAL VEHICLE:

 In fitting the mental body for service the worker strives at the opposite of elimination; he seeks to build in information, to supply knowledge and facts, to train it intellectually and scientifically so that it may prove as time goes on a stable foundation for the divine wisdom. Wisdom supersedes knowledge, yet requires knowledge as a preliminary step. You must remember that the server passes through the Hall of Learning prior to entering the Hall of Wisdom. In training the mind body he seeks therefore orderly acquisition of knowledge, a supply of that which may be lacking, a sequential grasp of the innate mental faculty accumulated in previous   lives, and lastly, a steadying of the lower mind so that the higher may dominate and the creative faculty of thought may be projected through the stillness.

From the Silence of the Absolute was projected the Universe. From darkness issued light, from the subjective emanated the objective. The positive stillness of the mental body leads to the higher inspiration.

This will lead to an attitude of utter dispassion, utter self-forgetfulness, and utter occupation with the next step to be taken on the path of service.

To the above, I would like to add the following in connection of the stilling of the mind and the emotional body:

One of the basic laws in occult development and in spiritual unfoldment is given in the words “As a man thinketh, so is he,” and to it one can link the oriental truism “Energy follows thought” as an explanation. As a man changes his desires, so he changes himself; as he shifts his consciousness from one objective to another, so he alters himself, and this is true in all realms and states, higher or lower.

The effect of the transference of our conscious thinking state from a low objective to a high one produces a flow of energy of a vibratory quality to the higher objective. This produces a change or a mutation in the vestures of the thinking entity, and they become transmuted and brought to a condition where they are adequate to the thought or desire of the man. Carried to their conclusion, a transformation is produced, and the words of St. Paul becomes therefore clear: “Be ye therefore transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Change your line of thought and you will change your nature. Desire that which is true and right, pure and holy, and your consciousness of these things will create out of the old a new vehicle or new man, an “instrument ment for use”.
Read more at: http://edgeba.webs.com/mentalandastraldevelo.htm

EIGHT MEANS OF YOGA – THAT LEADS TO ENLIGHTENMENT

Patanjali tells us that: “When the means to Yoga have been steadily practiced and when impurity has been overcome, enlightenment takes place leading up to full illumination.”

When we study the “eight means of Yoga” and the “five Rules”, we can see the requirements and stages of the spiritual life on the Way of Integration. Here [adapted from sutra 28] are given instruction as to the method to pursue if full yoga, union, or at-one-ment is to be achieved. The work might be described as twofold:

1.       The practice of the right means whereby union is brought about,

2.       The discipline of the lower threefold man so that impurity in any of the three bodies is eradicated.

This steadfast application to the twofold work produces two corresponding results, each dependent upon its cause:

1.       Discrimination becomes possible. The practice of the means, leads the aspirant to a scientific understanding of the distinction existing between the self and the not-self, between spirit and matter. This knowledge is no longer theoretical and that to which the man aspires, but is a fact in the experience of the disciple and one upon which he bases all his subsequent activities.

2.       Discernment takes place. As the purificatory process is carried on, the sheaths or bodies which veil the reality become attenuated and no longer act as thick veils, hiding the soul, and the world wherein the soul normally moves. The aspirant becomes aware of a part of himself, hitherto hidden and unknown. He approaches the heart of the mystery of himself and draws closer to the “Angel of the Presence” which can only be truly seen at initiation. He discerns a new factor and a new world and seeks to make them his own in conscious experience upon the physical plane.

It should be noted here that the two causes of revelation, the practice of the eight means to yoga and the purification of the life in the three worlds, deal with the man from the standpoint of the three worlds and bring about [in the man’s physical brain] the power to discriminate between the real and the unreal and to discern the things of the spirit. They cause also certain changes of conditions within the head, reorganize the vital airs and act directly upon the pineal gland and the pituitary body. When these four:

1.       Practise,

2.       Purification,

3.       Discrimination,

4.       Discernment,

Are part of the life of the physical plane man, then the spiritual man, the ego or thinker on his own plane attends to his part of the liberating process and the final two stages are brought about from above downwards. This six-fold process is the correspondence upon the Path of Discipleship, of the individualizing process, wherein animal man, the lower quaternary [physical, etheric, astral and lower mental] received that twofold expression of spirit, atma-buddhi, spiritual will and spiritual love, which completed him and made him truly man. The two stages of development which are brought about by the ego within the purified and earnest aspirant are:

[1] Enlightenment. The light in the head, which is at first but a spark, is fanned to a flame which illumines all things and fed constantly from above. This is progressive, and is dependent upon steadfast practise, meditation and earnest service.

[2] Illumination. The gradually increasing downpour of fiery energy increases steadily the “light in the head”, or the effulgence found in the brain in the neighbourhood of the pineal gland. This is to the little system of the threefold man in physical manifestation what the physical sun is to the solar system. This light becomes eventually a blaze of glory and the man becomes a “son of light” or a “son of righteousness.” Such were the Buddha, the Christ, and all the great Ones who have attained.

THE EIGHT MEANS OF YOGA ARE:

[1] THE FIVE COMMANDMENTS:

1.       Harmlessness—Physical acts—He hurts no one and injures nobody.

2.       Truth—Physical nature—Use of speech and of the organs of sound in the formation of a man’s belief regarding God, people, things and forms.—Before the voice can speak in the presence of a Master it must have lost the power to wound.

3.       Abstention from theft—Physical acts—The Disciple is precise and accurate in all his affairs and appropriates nothing which is not rightly his.

4.       Desirelessness—Astral Nature—Any impulse which concerns the forms and the real man and which tends to link him to a form and to the physical plane is regarded as the satisfaction of a form of incontinence or a desire [like sex].

5.       Abstention from avarice—Desirelessness on the mental plane—Contentment of the mind has to be attained before the mind can be so quieted that the things of the soul can find entrance.  

[2] THE FIVE RULES

1.       Internal and external purity—every sheath has its densest and most tangible form and this must be kept clean.

2.       Contentment—here the mind is set at rest in a state of mind wherein all conditions are regarded as correct and just, and as those in which the aspirant can best work out his problem and achieve the goal for any specific life.

3.       Fiery aspiration—this quality of “going forth” towards the ideal or of straining towards the objective must be so profound in the aspirant to Yoga that no difficulties can turn him back.

4.       Spiritual reading—through study to arrive at the thoughts that words convey—this is of an astral and mental nature.

5.       Devotion to God—to bring the lower personal self into a life of obedience and service to the Master within the heart.

[3] RIGHT POSTURE

[4] RIGHT CONTROL OF LIFE-FORCE

[5] ABSTRACTION

[6] ATTENTION

[7] MEDITATION

[8] CONTEMPLATION

If you follow the Eight Means in this order they will eventually lead to full enlightenment.
Read more at: http://edgeba.webs.com/eightmeansofyoga.htm